Being grateful for my hubby Who loves me even when I’m chubby. Sometimes I don’t feel like cooking But then I get another way of looking: Feeling thankful that I have food to cook, Sensing appreciative that he is the one in my nook, I read his taste like an open book.   There are Fridays when I don’t feel like cleaning, But there I go and add another meaning: I experience gratitude for the place we live in Where our destiny is more than giving. It gave as a place to stay, A flat which sanitize I may, A home which for ever keep I pray.   A heart full of thankfulness …   Take...

Every Friday I clean the bathroom and the floor in our little one-room-apartment. It takes a while to remove everything from the floor, vacuum-clean and wipe it. I also clean shoes before vacuuming the flat. After that I clean the bath-tub, the toilet and the sink. In addition to that I wipe all door-knobs and the handles on the bathroom cabinet and on the kitchen cupboards. Being a bit obsessive-compulsive about the cleaning process it takes me two hours to do all that. There are also pauses included in these two hours, for I have to rest in between due to low blood-pressure. Yet, there is an...

My husband and I live in a small apartment. A so called one-room-apartment. It is so small, we had to close the balcony with walls and windows in order to gain space for my writing corner. That way we cannot sit back and relax on the balcony at summer evenings watching the stars. We also cannot dry washed clothes outside, which would be very practical. Our bathroom is so small, an obese visitor could not enter it. There is also no way stretching your legs, if you sit in the bathtub. The kitchen is so tiny, we could not fit in a standard dish-washer, but bought a narrower one. Luckily I have never felt...

In the old days people used to be afraid in winter that plants will not sprout in spring, so they put up various evergreen plants like spruce, fir or holly in hope they can preserve plant life like that. I am talking about ancient pagan rituals which through Christianity developed to Christmas festivities the way we know them today. Nowadays we do not have fears like that. We take spring for granted. We do not see it as a miracle anymore. Science provides reasonable explanations for the spring phenomenon. And yet, when I saw the first leaves in the forest this spring, when I touched the tender light...

I am sure you have come across the Tibetan Buddhist tradition called Sand Mandala. Buddhist monks spend several weeks to build mandalas from colored sand. Usually a team of monks work on the same mandala, for the picture entails great detail. And when they are finished, they sweep their work away. The sand is collected in a jar which is then wrapped in silk and transported to a river. This symbolizes the ephemerality of life and the world. I am also positive that you will share with me the feeling, when right after having vacuum-cleaned and wiped the floor in the whole flat you notice a brand new...