Simple Joys - A Simple Dinning Room Makeover

So often in life we forget to slow down and observe and appreciate the Simple Joys that come to us.  It might be a child's smile, some flowers on the dining room table, a walk in nature, or whatever little simple thing that brings you joy.  My goal is to acknowledge and document one of my Simple Joys each Friday and share it with you.  I hope you will add a your blog link to the simple little things that have brought joy to your life this week.

Recently, our family dinning room has been really getting to me.  We eat dinner in the dining room each evening and sometimes eat breakfast or lunch there too, though more often those meals are easier for us to eat in the kitchen.  Our dining room table often also seems to have become a catchall for whatever anyone wants to set down during the day.  Cleaning it off and setting the table was becoming quite a big job.  So, yesterday I decided a change is in order.  I fished this tray off of the top of the refrigerator where it was collecting dust. I lined it with a place mat, got a vase out and bought some inexpensive flowers and put our meal candle, salt and pepper shaker and my teapot on it.

I put some clean place mats on the table and the room perked up considerably.  I have set a goal that things are not to just collect on the table anymore.  It's fine if each person would like to leave a glass of water or a cup of tea, but nothing else is to be left sitting on the dining room table except the items on the tray.

I'm looking forward to keeping this going and keeping some fresh flowers on the table.

Simple Joys: A Very Special Place

George Washington's home Mount Vernon is a very special place for our family.

When DH and I lived in Maryland pre-child we visited it several times a year and we had our wedding reception at the Mount Vernon Inn.  We have have had lunch there on our wedding anniversary every year since then.  W has developed his own special attachment to Mount Vernon as well.  It is where we go to visit the animals and experience a more rural atmosphere in the middle of the DC suburbs.

One big positive from our recent move is that we are close enough to Mount Vernon now to visit frequently. Daddy and I each got an annual pass from the Easter Bunny and it is free for W.  The house is lovely, but we rarely go inside unless we are taking company to visit.  Instead, we head straight for the animals.

And then take a little walk down to the Pioneer Farm.  Yesterday, was a beautiful warm, but not hot day and the farm was the most active we have ever seen it.

This tree is on the way to the farm and we always have to stop and explore.

 This was the scene we saw as we entered the farm.  Could it be anymore  beautiful?  

It really felt like stepping back into the 18th century!

 My suburban kid turns into quite the country boy here exploring the gardens and fields and pastures.  It is his favorite place!

 

 

W was very excited to finally find his lamb friends again.  

They had not been out for public viewing the last few visits before this.

They are really growing but still so, so sweet!

This haystack was a cause for much excitement yesterday.  

W recited Little Boy Blue over and over. I think he really wanted to go sleep under it himself 

until they started loading it into the ox cart! 

We also got lessons yesterday on the 18th century methods of cultivating wheat.  

I can't imagine hoeing wheat fields like this all day by hand.  Such hard, hard labor.

 The threshing barn which was designed by George Washington is such a neat thing.  Wheat harvested from the fields is place on the floor and horses run over it in a circle.  The kernels of wheat fall through the floor the a chamber below where they can be gathered and taken to the mill.  They tell me they will be threshing later in the summer. 

Of course all of the back breaking labor on a farm like this would have been done by slaves.  

There is a slave cabin, garden and chicken coop at the farm as well to show what their living conditions would have been.  It is easy to think of this place as this ideal country setting, but it is important to remember that there was a real human cost involved as well.

W loves that this is a places where he can ramble and explore.  It is a place where he is learning on his own from what he experiences and sees; where the wool we felt and knit with comes from and how our food from vegetables to wheat is grown and processed.  Our current living situation is such that we do not have the space to do these things ourselves (though we try to do what we can by growing a little garden on our balcony and grinding our own wheat etc.)  I am so grateful to have a place like this nearby.  It connects us to our history, our cultural heritage and to the traditional processes needed to support life.