I’m not always successful at it, but I do try to find pleasure and beauty in everything, even the day-to-day chores.

It’s not necessarily easy. The laundry doesn’t present a perfect rainbow every day.

But knowing that it can…well, that goes a long way.

In the garden, there is a weed (okay, there are many hundreds of weeds, but there’s one in particular…). I know I need to pull it—it will soon set seed and cause me grief. But it is a lovely English daisy—a perfect mound of spoon-shaped leaves with dainty white and yellow flowers dancing above it. I smile as I carefully weed around it. I will get rid of it…eventually.

The drag of getting up at 5am to milk is a small payment for the peace and silence of a sunrise.

The ache in my back in the morning reminds me that I did something yesterday.

The brown film I scrub off the bathtub means we all spent the week outdoors.

The failed project teaches me.

I still grumble sometimes.

I still sometimes wish for a day off.

But it helps, to look for the good. It’s usually there, if only I look.