Hospitality and Friday Reading

It's felt like a long week, and I keep on thinking it's Friday! I saw two whales for the first time. Rephrase: I saw whales for the first time. There were two. We also saw many, many dolphins outside my window for three days. Eli is fat and thinking of rolling.

I feel progress in the sense that we are comfortable in our house, and also feel that we are in a good place with the amount of stuff we have: a few things we don't need and will get rid of, a few things we need but don't have, but otherwise equilibrium.

In the next weeks, I want to explore with you what hospitality looks like when our homes are far from perfect. I like the idea of allowing people to enter into the mess, and being relaxed enough that mess or cleanliness is not the focal point of having people in our home. It seems like we can get carried away and hospitality can look a lot like consumerism in better clothes. Your thoughts are welcome, as always.

As I've not been posting full posts recently, I wanted to keep pointing you to inspiration elsewhere:

• We're still keeping a pretty small wardrobe, less than 30 items including underwear and shoes, I think. I gain time by not having to consider what I will wear or where I will store it. I thought of the One Dress Protest, where Kristy describes her experiences of wearing one dress for a year. If you haven't heard her story, check it out!
• I've added another blog to the blog role: Ginger and Cocoa. Sarah and I were in the KZN youth orchestra together for many years, and like me she grew up in Durban. She went to the UK to study and is back in sunny Durbs, and is sharing her journey of living in Durban again. Particularly if you're in South Africa, check out her blog! 

I'd love Concrete Gardener to be a place of community. I'm still figuring out what that might mean. At minimum, perhaps it can be a place where you can come to get away from cynicism and move towards something new and hopeful. Suitably vague, because I have no idea what's possible.

Have a wonderful weekend, whether it's summer or winter where you are!

[as a sidenote: I've been having a problem with GoDaddy and Russian trolls, which has led to the blog being labeled as a adult site. I thought it was just in Italy but it's flagged in the U.S. also. Yes. Anyway, I'm sorry if you're getting blocked from work. There's not much sex here, as you know. It's just those Russian bots.]