Dharma

"Our personal attempts to live humanely in this world are never wasted. Choosing to cultivate love rather than anger just might be what it takes to save the planet from extinction." -Pema Chödrön

madhouse

This is what my kitchen looked like on Monday morning:

Unfortunately, I didn't have the forethought to take a photo of the kitchen before remodeling began. You can see the blank spots where the refrigerator,stove and oven used to be.

Below is a picture of my kitchen as it looked when I got home from work on Monday night.

No more cabinets or counter tops. While it doesn't appear that much work was accomplished, the picture doesn't show that there used to be more counters and a sink off to the right, which are now piled up in our garage.

Finally, this is the most recent photo of our kitchen. When I left for work this morning, there was a wall still separating our current kitchen from the addition. Upon arriving home this afternoon, I was greeted by this cavernous space:

The cats are enjoying their new play space. I'm still in shock from all of the changes. I've lived in this house for twenty years and, while many things have changed, nothing has ever been altered to such a drastic scale. I am looking forward to a much bigger, easier to navigate kitchen, though.

A peek at the coming season

Despite the fact that it's not even mid-August, many stores have already started advertising various kinds of Autumn merchandise. Two of my favorite stores, Bath & Body Works and Yankee Candle, began selling their Fall products over a week ago and I had to get my hands on some of those deliciously scented items.

Much like the first glimpse of red and orange blazing through the green Maple leaves, the smell of creamy pumpkin candles and apple cider soap give me a much-needed taste of the beautiful season to come.

"It does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

Life has been uneventful lately and I'm not doing well in regards to making it more interesting. I'm reminiscing about the beautiful Spring we had (during which I took the above photo) and wishing Autumn would hurry up and get here already! Most people feel more depressed as the weather turns cooler and the days grow shorter, but I come alive as all of the trees turn from monochromatic to red, purple, orange, yellow and every shade and hue in between.

In the meantime, I've decided to re-read the Harry Potter series, as it's been approximately eleven years since I first began the series. It's like reuniting with an old best friend after a long, long while and rediscovering all of the reasons why we became close, sharing in our old memories. Reading the series again gives me the ability to see events in a new light and I notice foreshadowing and hints I didn't pick up on before. The only problem with picking up the series again is that I'll miss it all the more when I've finished book seven!