Real life, savored

My living room is cluttered. There's a collection of books and magazines, a keyboard, and my camera on the coffee table. There's a stool upside-down on one of the chairs to keep Casey from climbing up on it. Sitting here, I can see my kitchen, which isn't in much better shape. Stuff is strewn about the counters, including a birthday card and gift for our nephew I still need to wrap. Mail that needs to be filed sits on the kitchen table. The box for our first Ikea purchase is still propped in the foyer, yet to be taken out to the trash can. I can see our new pet gate we got to keep Casey off our new-ish carpet at night. I really like the hands-free swing-open gate. Hopefully it's tall enough he won't try to jump it- he hasn't yet.

The bed in our bedroom is unmade. Clean clothes are sitting on the floor and need to be put away. The office-turned-hobby-room is storing stuff we've been meaning to put on craigslist. The game/toy room is actually in pretty good shape, but hasn't been used much lately. I was glad to have the spare bed in there a couple weekends ago, though, when we had an out-of-town friend stay with us. Luckily, no guests are planned to come over, because I don't think I could get the place straightened up before they were ringing the door chimes.

This is my life. It's not always orderly or neat or anywhere close to perfect, but I love it. Today, between mowing the yard and heading to straighten the church library, I stood outside and reflected on the glory of spring-turning-summer. I watched the birds hop between branches, and even caught a glimpse of a hummingbird enjoying our bush full of pink flowers. Our yard is solid greenery, punctuated by bright flowers- pink peonies, a red poppy, large purple alliums. As overgrown as everything feels, the sheer life of it makes me love all of it.

In the midst of all the to-dos, I got a long nap today. I hung out with my husband. I got fresh air. Josh is baking cookies right now, and the house is full of yummy smells. All of this is terribly ordinary, I know. Life isn't exciting, exactly, and my list of things I ought to get done is longer than I like, but I can't let these days pass by, where everything is growing and changing and there's so much to savor.