Hey friends

How are you? I hope the week has been kind to you.

I started a new job half way through this week and the nervous excitement building up to it has left me a little on the weary side this weekend. Leaving a job I really loved, I thought I was going to be sad but in the end I left happy ready for this new challenge knowing I’d given it all I had to give.  Still learning my new role, still scary, but early days and wonderful to have some good people cheering me on.

As always friends I hope these few words and reads will be fresh air and kind company as you head into your weekend and  if you enjoy The Friday Recliner would you be so kind as to forward it to a friend you think would enjoy it too? 

A Good Word

A Good Look

“Nothing beats the atmosphere of your own garden. The wonderful spring sun we’ve had made me dream of summer. I love this season maybe precisely because everything is still ahead. Right now the first flowers rising from the ground are waiting under a thick snow cover. Here is the time to be and wonder, plan for the next growing season, open the seed bags and start pre-growing 🌿💞 In this world situation, we just have to try to enjoy every little thing we have” Keltainen Kahvipannu.

See more of Keltainen’s beautiful home and garden on her blog   YELLOW COFFEE POT

A Good Idea

by Hope Lyda

What Do You Need Today?

Could your need be so simple you’re missing it?

Perhaps it is so basic, you’re talking over it.

Looking past it. Deleting it. Rushing by it.

Waiting for it to grow into an obstacle or crisis.

Waving it on. Dressing it in ill-fitting expectations. Telling it “in a minute”.

Belittling it by tending to everything and everyone else.

Familiar?
(What I needed today) was a book and a nook. And some twinkle lights.

It can be that simple.

Your turn. Don’t overthink it, friend.

Avoid an all or nothing mindset. Watch for the basic need beneath the bigger need and start there.

Remembering that your needs matter is remembering that you matter…that you are seen, loved, held, and known by Beloved Creator.

And sometimes a book and a nook with twinkle lights forges a path away from crazy land, martyrdom, depletion, meltdowns and toward hope and wholeness.

A Few Good Reads

20 Small Garden Ideas to Steal for Your Own Space

Sprawling gardens are beautiful to behold, but they certainly are a lot of work. In some ways, a smaller footprint for a garden is a helpful thing, because it forces you to be creative with the space you have, and the payoff is even bigger when you’re able to transform it into your dream outdoor space.

Look to the walls, the fence, and any little scrap of yard to maximize your small garden space—be it a tiny city balcony, a quaint suburban backyard, or just a small side yard in need of some greenery.

Below, we’ve rounded up 20 of our favorite small garden ideas to make the most of your outdoor space—no matter how tiny – – – keep reading

A beautiful read from Suzanne M. Wolfe 

This Is My Body

I have a black-and-white photograph taken in 1967 that I found among my grandmother’s things after she died. In the foreground, my grandmother sits on a blanket, smiling self-consciously for the camera. To her left my brother stands in a seven-year-old boy’s macho pose with hands on hips, his smooth, hairless chest thrust out, with a half-grin, half-grimace on his face because he is looking directly into the sun. I cannot specifically remember this day but I recall Sunday afternoons like it—those rare, warm days in August when we piled into my mother’s second-hand Morris Minor and drove up from the crowded suburbs of Manchester into the hills of Derbyshire.

Behind my brother and grandmother, set back a little way and sitting on the brow of a hill overlooking a body of water, are my grandfather and me. We are both facing away from the camera. He is leaning on one arm, semi-reclining; I sit close up against his chest, the top of my head appearing just above his shoulder. We are looking at the lake beneath us as it stretches away into the distance, a sheet of shimmering metal overtopped by the cloudless, endless sky of childhood. I hear skylarks swooping and twittering among the grasses and the indolent basso-continuo of bees nuzzling clover. The heather flowers purple and white at my feet as the daisies modestly offer their pink-tipped centers to the sun. My fingers are yellowed with buttercup pollen, fingernails greened with their juicy stems as I fashion a Lord Mayor’s chain of gold to hang around my grandfather’s neck. In the pockets of my shorts are the stones I have collected, mica-veined granite, blue-green slate, and snail shells—humble, exquisite, and infinitely fragile, a hoard of happiness to be set out on my windowsill before I go to bed that night.

I am resting now in my grandfather’s embrace, lulled by the tremor of his heart, unaware that a more lasting record is being taken, a thumbnail of celluloid that will survive for forty years, a perfect snapshot of my childhood after my treasures have long been broken, lost, or discarded – – – keep reading

COVID-19 turned me into a regular urban cyclist. In the first months of the pandemic — when vaccines weren’t available, and we weren’t totally sure how transmissible the coronavirus was — I didn’t want to get on the subway here in NYC, nor take rideshares. So I started cycling all over the place. Any destination, any errand, I’d hop on my bike.

After a few months of that, I got positively addicted. Officially, I told myself that cycling was great because it was i) a handy way to navigate NYC, ii) awfully fast, iii) super low-polluting, and — best of all — iv) amazing exercise for an otherwise sedentary writer who spends his days planted in front of his laptop like bracket fungi. If you asked me why I cycled, I gave you practical reasons.

But the truth is, what kept me cycling was something much more intangible. It lifted my spirits.

If I were worried? A brisk ride would part the clouds. If I felt pissy, it’d expel the yellow bile. If I were blocked or stuck on a piece of work — or uncertain about a decision? A ride brought blessed clarity. I’d return home knowing exactly what to do.

So: What is it about cycling that did such amazing things for my peace of mind?

I’ve been thinking about it, and thus I have thoughts. – – – – keep reading

That’s all for now friends. Have a beautiful weekend. Rest up. Do something you love xx