[text_box class=”green”] Let the beauty of what you love be what you do. Rumi [/text_box]

I am lucky that I really get to do what I love. I love keeping house! I also love setting the stage for my guests’ arrival, especially repeat guests. I anticipate catching up with them and sharing time together. Planning breakfast menus, tending to my garden and decorating my house fill me with enormous amounts of joy.
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One recent group of guests have been coming for 10 years. They have been friends for years and travel together to the Berkshires every June. They are the nicest people you will ever meet. They arrive anticipating catching up with their friends and seeing performances at Jacob’s Pillow and local theatre. They also love to go to tag-sales and thrift/antique shops. By starting their Saturday morning on the tag-sale mission they get to know a lot of back roads and unique areas of the Berkshires. One is a jewelry designer and she crafts beautiful pieces out of reused mechanical parts, odds and ends and creates the most artful pieces I have ever seen. Another couple loves the idea of reusable objects also because of the environmental impact . The other couple goes along for the ride and the company. They love learning about our town and The Berkshires.
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We share our family news and stories. This group even visited our daughter Julia’s show at the Former Gallery in West Stockbridge the day it was ending. Their support of her budding career as an artist touches us deeply.
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This group is very inspiring to me. Authors, Doctors of Philosophy, Professors, Social Workers, a Hospital Administrator and an artist/author. All of these friends are leaders and members of the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island. I respect and admire each one of them and now I feel I am one of their friends! I feel very fortunate that year after year they choose my little cottage as their home base. Did I mention they all love my dogs? Yes, all of them are animal lovers too! What is not to love ~ fun-loving people who I look forward to as a group and then individually on other occasions.
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[text_box class=”green”] Sing like the birds sing not worryng about who hears or what they think. Rumi [/text_box]
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[text_box class=”green”] Set your life on fire ~ seek those who fan your flames. Rumi [/text_box]
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~ Here are some of the breakfast courses we have been serving lately ~
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~ Last but not least are some shots of The Crabtree Cottage Garden! (courtesy of Julia Keenan) ~
[text_box class=”green”] Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking a garden to know it . Rumi [/text_box]
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[text_box class=”green”] Why should I be unhappy? Every parcel of my being is in full bloom. Rumi [/text_box]
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I have been enjoying Rumi this summer and wanted to share the wisdom of this 13th-century Persian master with as much relevance today as then. Thank you for coming by my blog today.