Welcome to the MOATBLOG’s fresh-new look. There might be a few minor tweaks to be done here and there – but I love it. There’s something about a fresh-new look that feels special and refreshing as we melt here in the staggering Dallas heat.
A fresh-new look can go a long way – be it a blog, a haircut, paint on walls or even a closet.
Last week, Barton decided to re-fresh her space. One of her friends calls Barton’s room the tree-house. Covered with windows, it’s serenely nestled between trees making you feel like you’re a part of nature – but in air-conditioning! The tiny spot may not have been meant to be a bedroom, but technically qualifies since it has a closet. A tiny closet, so small you can can barely walk in and close the door behind you.
For us, closets have never been a determining factor as to whether a space can be a bedroom or not. We’ve used every inch of each house we’ve owned – including the closets. In fact in the last house, our closet was Jack’s bedroom until he was four and decided that everything in the closet was his. We had never had a walk-in closet before that house. So I stuffed everything in it – our clothes, shoes, all the kids’ winter-wear, Christmas decorations and gift finds. I tend to gather gifts through the year, especially at a good sale. And with five kids and loads of friends’ birthday parties, I loved being able to send a kid upstairs to “shop” for a friend.
I miss those days – the simple joy of picking out a gift for their friends. It never mattered that I had pre-purchased or that the “store” was the closet. As my crew has gotten older, they head to the stores and pay for their friends’ gifts themselves. I get that and love how thoughtful they are. But I guess I loved being part of the process. I still have a few of my gift-purchases, patiently waiting (now in our laundry room) to be given to someone. I’m saving them for my grandchildren. It might be awhile.
Barton’s tiny closet has rods for hanging clothes, but not many spots for folded clothes. And she needs the spots since her room itself has little space for a dresser. So she decided to purge, to hang and to move items so she could have space to build two shelves to hold her t-shirts, shorts and jeans. The task turned into a great project for her and her dad, who jumps on any opportunity for a hardware-store run.
She’s so happy. The closet is exactly what she wanted. And the fresh-new look brought excitement and inspiration – and brings joy any time she opens the door. Fresh-new looks do things that.
- Fresh-new look lifts a mood, puts a kick in your step. Maybe because fresh-new feels like fresh-start.
- Fresh-new streamlines.
- Fresh-new de-clutters, which takes work, honest assessment and getting rid – but offers streamlined (physical as well as mental) space.
- Fresh-new looks take us down memory lane – a terrific time to fondly remember the good and to sink into perspective that we survived, possibly thrived in, the bad.
- Sally’s fresh-new look involved her dad. I needed help too – which might be another part of fresh-new that makes it magical – the opportunity to ask for and to give help, walk life together, alongside.
- Fresh-new look doesn’t always replace the old, it can spruce up and reveal beauty that often gets overlooked or hidden through the years. Barton and I both stood back and admired her new, plain shelves while appreciating the beautiful molding on the closet’s existing 6″-deep shelves. It’s hard put too many things on those old shallow shelves, but they sure are beautiful – a product of a day gone by when lovely molding found it’s place on a shelf, behind a door, in a tiny closet.
- A fresh-new look brings with it an unencumbered lightness of being. I don’t know why, but it does and it’s real.
- Fresh-new inspires, promising those same feelings of excitement for another project.
Fresh-new looks need to be enjoyed and savored and remembered – then employed and put to task the next time things in life invite stress or discontent. It invites Truth to inform our situations. A fresh-new look can be easily tapped anywhere (even a car console) any time (even in the drive-through) and do what it does, make regular special – since regular already has so much special woven throughout, just easy to miss.
So, thanks for checking out the moatblog’s fresh-new look. And THANKS for walking the road with me.
– Kay
A fun little sidebar: Good Reads is doing a give-away for my new book – that talks about putting life’s often-overwhelming stress, pressures, expectations and circumstances in their place by being overwhelmed by Truth – woven through everything, especially a fresh-new look.
