Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Kitchen sink perspective

When we moved into our house nearly two years ago, I was blown away with the beautiful perennial beds the prior owner had cultivated and created. We have an amazing garden, for which I can claim no credit yet am very thankful.

This spring our lily of valley and lilac have been been particularly fragrant (or perhaps last year I was just still too deep in the newborn haze to fully appreciate the smell), wrapping our yard with the sweetest of perfumes. Since R recently developed seasonal allergies we have had to keep our windows closed and I have missed those spring smells wafting through our home.

So two weeks ago I began to bring the flowers inside and place them throughout the house. One time I had a few extra flower stems and decided to place them in a small vase on our window sill immediately above the kitchen sink:
With as much time as I spend at the kitchen sink endlessly (it seems) doing dishes and cleaning up after meal after meal after meal after meal I can't tell you how this little vase of flowers has brightened my days at times.

Really, the whole window-over-the-sink has brightened my perspective. How easy it is at this stage in my life to lament the kiddie chores and often mind numbing repetitiveness of it all. When I find myself sinking into a sea of sighs, these flowers, the view from the window and the beauty of the outside world often help me shift from a small insular view of life to the outside world and why I spend my days the way I do.

In our prior house we had a wall above the sink. No contest. I will take a window view of life over a wall any day.

Life is sweet,
SPC

3 comments:

JerseyBaby said...

This is our first home with a kitchen sink too, and I do love it with the exception of the intense winter afternoon sun. Once it got so bad that I taped tinfoil to the window to block it. Hopefully by next winter I'll have finally decided on window treatments!

Side note - does your kitchen have an exposed brick wall? Very cool!

Sweet Pea Chef said...

JB--We have the same issue with our window! The wood blinds help a lot, I keep them up 99.5% of the time though, so sometimes I actually forget they are there!

As for the brick, we aren't 100% what the story is with it. Our house is nearly 80 years old, and it has an addition, but we aren't sure if the brick is real or veneer. Mysteries of an older home...

The Mrs. said...

I love your post. Sea of sighs I understand!