What Are "The Beautiful Extras?"

When I decided to move my blog from my music website to a dedicated blogging site, I struggled long and hard with a name. I knew I wanted something that had to do with purposeful, artistic living so that I could talk about the artistry in the everyday. I didn't want to focus on just music or just fashion or just the creative process -- I wanted to talk about all of it -- with pictures of cats thrown in the mix, too. I didn't want to have to justify these seemingly "frivolous" topics or the more serious ones. They are all part of my life, so they all have a place. Still, it's important to focus when writing a blog, so I needed a title that encapsulated all these random bits of beauty from everyday life.

Then I remembered this blog entry about Sherlock Holmes that my husband wrote a while back, as well as this one, that remembers a dear family cat. Both of them discuss a quote from Sherlock Holmes in which he praises the beauty of flowers as a proof of the goodness of God:

"There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers our desires,our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life,not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers." (from The Adventure of the Naval Treaty)

All these various beautiful pieces of life seemed frivolous, like I needed to justify them when I wrote about them, because they were "extras" -- and therefore not "necessary." But Holmes shows just how crucial these "extras" are: they point us, as does all Beauty, toward the Truly Beautiful, that is, toward God. (I have since discovered that this belief is called "apologetics of Beauty," and it is, by far, my favorite apologetic.)

This blog will, therefore, focus on the "beautiful extras" -- those lovely pieces of everyday life that have practically no other purpose but beauty or pleasure. What you can expect:

Molly: A "Beautiful Extra" if there ever was one.
Also, she's kind of enormous, so there's a lot of "extra" in Molly.

• Posts about the creative process (since making beautiful things matters, too.)
• Posts about music, books, art, and other beautiful things that I love
• Desmond and Molly Jones, my cats (I'm an incurable cat mom)
• Random lifestyle posts involving occasional DIYs, food posts, or home decor
• Fashion/Style posts. Specifically, this year I am undertaking a project of not buying any new clothes for 2014 (with some exceptions and guidelines). Every week this year, I'll write about the process of fulfilling wardrobe and style "needs" in creative ways, using only what I already own.
• Posts about any other "extras."

I hope you will come with me on this blogging journey. 

Until next time, enjoy the extras!