Joy in the small things

Writing yesterday's post made me very sad for several hours afterwards. So today I want to tell you about some joy I had yesterday. 

I don't like housework and spend as little time on it as possible. However, I've found over the years that if I vacuum and clean toilets regularly, I expend less emotional energy in the long run and actually get a reasonable amount of satisfaction at having those two things under control. I've also discovered that routine is also something that also reduces energy spent, so I've developed the routine of doing these two mundane, yet important jobs on Wednesday mornings. It is the morning that school has a slow start for the students. They start at 9.30 instead of 8.30, so the morning is a bit different anyway, with them here later.

Routine is something that was almost completely missing from our six months in Australia. It's a big thing we missed. And, try as I might, I never established a routine for vacuuming and cleaning toilets.

So yesterday morning it was with strange delight that I got reacquainted with my cute Japanese vacuum cleaner. I have yet to meet a vacuum cleaner in Australia that I like as much as this little machine. I even took a selfie with it to show you how tiny it is. Oh, and I cleaned the toilets too. Which, despite most of my house being around 6˚C, wasn't a hardship as I was warm anyway from vacuuming, and then used warm water to clean.

And then I sat down with coffee that I made with my Baccarat stovetop expresso maker (another item that I missed in Australia). A little piece of routine reclaimed and with it, joy. I savoured the moment.