Now here is a sewing room I'd feel very comfortable in.  It's packed with interesting fabrics and threads and it's organised well to enable some fine sewing sessions.  This is Leila's working space in the USA.

Leila writes:

"I have a big house and yard and I work all over them both, of course. I am currently doing a couple of posts about my pantry/sewing room, because it's the room that energizes me and sparks my creativity!

For many years I've been raising my seven kids, homeschooling, and being wife to my wonderful husband. I've always been interested in sewing and then quilting, but I've never been happy about my crafting space until about two years ago when I figured out how to get everything into this little room (well, not everything!).

I would love to see anyone over at my blog, Like Mother, Like Daughter (www.ourmothersdaughters.blogspot.com), which I write with my 4 daughters and mother. We try to show that home is all-important to family life, to loving, and to learning."

Thank you all for the great advice and recipes for elder flowers and berries.  I'll print them out soon and add them to my Homemakers Journal so I have them on hand when the time is right.  Thanks also to Sue who suggested taking cuttings.  Should they be tip cuttings or harder wood, do you know, Sue?

I've had a few emails lately about working to a routine so I thought I'd write about that today . If you get it right, a routine will help you enormously. BTW, I have many emails there that I haven't answered and never seem to have the time for.  I try to stay off the computer as much as I can and if I did everything I should be doing here, at the forum and answering emails, I'd spend most of the day on the computer and none of it living.  I apologise if you're waiting for a reply.

.........................................................................................

I think of my routine as a free ranging routine, not a restrictive one.  Of course there will be readers here who need a much tighter routine than what I'm about to suggest so maybe you can start off with this and modify it.  As with everything I suggest to you, it's what works for me, I expect you to modify; it needs to fit YOU like a glove, so feel free to soften or harden every step of the way.

There are certain household tasks that are constant.  For me, and possibly for many of us, they are making the bed, baking bread, cleaning the kitchen, washing up, sweeping the floors and cooking.  I do most of, or all of, those tasks almost every day.  There are other tasks that are done weekly, like the changing the bed linen, washing, vacuuming and deeper cleaning.  Others still, like gardening, organising, sewing, knitting, soap, laundry powder and cleanser making, preserving and shopping are occasional past-times that I do either when I feel like doing them or when they're needed.  Not everything you do is a constant chore, you'll need to think about your working priorities.

I want the work I do in my home to reward me and enrich my spirit.  I don't expect to be drained and depleted by housework.  I try to organise my day so I'm doing work I don't like along with the work I love doing.  So if I have to clean the toilets or iron, I'll reward myself afterwards with morning tea on the front verandah or an hour's knitting.  This works well for me.  I'm like a mule with a carrot on a stick in front of me. ; - ) Give me a good enough reward and I'm there.  I know many of you with small children and babies, won't have the time to take an hour out of your day for a reward, but here is where the modifying comes in.  Work out a reward that will fit well within your framework - one that really rewards you and fits into your day.  And don't be afraid to give the family something really easy for dinner any night when you've had a tough day.  If you have something like a casserole of soup in the freezer, that would do just fine, but it could well be baked beans or eggs on toast. They will survive and it's better for them to have a sane and happy mum than a perfect house, everything put away and spic and span, and with the perfect meal on the table.

Perfection is overrated and unnecessary in most homes.

On a normal day I do my must do chores.  I make the bed, get bread on to rise, clean the kitchen, wash up and sweep the floors.  Usually that is done by 9am.  Then I do any of my weekly or occasional chores - washing, organising or deep cleaning fit in here, it's whatever needs doing.  After lunch I do gentler work - knitting or sewing, writing or reading, and late in the afternoon, I'll harvest vegetables or garden and then prepare the evening meal.  After I wash up at night, I don't do any other work.  That is my down time, but again, if you have a family still at home, you'll be organising baths and bags for the morning., checking on homework or what your children are doing and reading story books.  Again, modify this time to suit your routine, not mine.

I want to say a little about crafts within the context of homemaking.  I know many women feel slight guilt when they knit or sew because it gives them such joy and satisfaction.  They shouldn't.  The crafts of the average homemaker are part of your housework.  Making curtains, napkins, tote bags, dresses, aprons, quilts etc., soap making and knitting for your family, if that is what you choose to do, are all part of your daily work.  They're not separate.  They're not done for your pleasure, although that is a wonderful and appreciated side affect, they're contributing to your family and home and they are helping you reduce your cost of living and your carbon footprint.  When I grew up, all these craft-type tasks where part of the everyday life of the homemaker, they were not separate or seen as a hobby.  They contributed to the home and were valued as such.  Women were praised for their fine needlework, knitting and dressmaking skills, men were valued for their cobbler's abilities and keeping the families shoes in tip top order, or for their wood work.  Most men could knock up a small chair or table with no problems.  Those days are long gone but you can still work like that and give homemade quality goods to your family.  The choice is yours.

So if you want to work to a routine, I suggest you work out what are your daily must do tasks, and organise them so that you do the heavy work in the morning and the lighter work in the afternoon and evening.  Pepper tasks you don't like with those you do.  And reward yourself.  You're in charge of your home, give yourself a break and make it as easy and pleasurable as you can.  Housework is dreaded by a lot of people, but if you have the right mindset it is its own reward.  There is a lot of satisfaction to be gained from sitting down to dinner at night with everything done you wanted done.  You feel proud of yourself for doing it, your family will love you for it, although don't wait for a thank you every day.  Your thanks will be that you worked that day to the best of your ability and you made your home the way you wanted it.   And that is a powerful motivator.   

Tell me about your routine, or lack of, either here or leave a link to your blog and write at length there about your routine and how you organise your own work.  This is a subject that interests many of us.

I planted an elder tree about six months ago and it's growing nicely.  Elders are not native to Australia and I don't know anyone who is growing it.  I bought my plant at our local organic co-op.  If you're growing elders can you give me a few tips on what the plant likes and doesn't like?  I planted the tree after I watched the delightful Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall's Spring program where he made elderberry champagne.  His recipe is here. I have thoughts of making champagne for Christmas every year but I have no idea how long it will take our tree to flower to the extent I need for an abundant harvest of flowers.  Any thoughts?

Making your own drinks at home is a wonderful extension to your from scratch meals.  It cuts out preservatives and artificial flavourings and you control the amount of sugar you use.  My favourite homemade drinks are lemon cordial and ginger beer and if you click on those links you will see the recipes I use to make them.  However, there are a lot of other drinks you can make, either hot or cold, that will be more delicious than anything you can buy.  They range from the wide variety of fruit cordials, to the fizzy ginger beer, milk drinks, including smoothies, to kefir, a yoghurt drink.  All are easily made at home.

To keep it really simple, make up a sugar syrup of half water to half sugar, to the amount you need.  For example, to make one litre/quart of sugar syrup, combine 2 cups of water to 2 cups of sugar in a saucepan and stir over heat until the sugar is completely dissolved.  It will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks in a sealed bottle.  Then just juice whatever fruit you have and combine it with the sugar syrup.  This will make a cordial concentrate that you would dilute with water when you drink it.  Making something like this is a matter of following your own taste.  You add more or less water, fruit or sugar according to how you like your drinks.  Once you make up a bottle of cordial, store it in the fridge.  It will last a month or so, depending on how such sugar is added to the liquids.

Just one way to use the information in the paragraph above is to grab yourself a seedless watermelon when the season comes around again - I'm guessing you're right in the middle of it in the northern hemisphere.  Cut all the red centre out and place it in a blender, add sugar syrup to taste, a couple of sprigs of mint and blitz it.  Dilute with a small amount of cold water or mineral water if you want a fizzy drink, according to how strong you like it, add ice cubes and enjoy.  This bright pink drink is a real hit with kids but adults love it too.  What are your favourite made-at-home drink recipes?

The weekend came and went with housework being done, a few phone calls and only one visitor. My housework always just rolls along and curves around everything else that happens here. They say a picture tells a thousand words, so I'll let theses pictures tell my tale. Starting with the sad story of Saturday's bread.

Lecithin granules and polenta look the same in their identical glass jars. I sprinkled on what I thought was polenta. Wrong! It was sticky, I knew I'd sprinkled on lecithin but thought it would be okay to leave in the bread. I have never baked lecithin before, we usually have it in our muesli. Those black runny bits are the melted lecithin. I should have scraped it off. We ate the bread, it only affected small bits on the top. Yet another lesson learned.

Chook highway when they mistook my camera for food.

I cleaned the laundry benches, put away the soap I made last week, soaked some curtain linings and did a load of washing.



We had homemade pizza for dinner on Saturday night, with egg custard and apricots for dessert. Last night we had poor man's roast - meatloaf with baked potato, pumpkin, turnips, carrots, peas and gravy, and the rest of the egg custard and fruit. I call it poor man's roast because it is just a meatloaf, although you get the impression of roasting meat cooking in the late afternoon. And the added bonus is that we have enough meatloaf leftover for sandwiches during the week.

And finally, shhhhh, he didn't know I was lurking inside with my camera while he was working in the afternoon sun. We saved up and bought three timber blinds to replace our very old curtains. Hanno put them up on the weekend and had to adjust the strip tops. I'll take photos of the new look lounge room later in the week.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Happy 4th to all my American friends. ♥

I have been thinking a lot about my life recently, particularly about why I am happy to live as I do while to others it seems like hardship and sacrifice.  I thought that by deconstructing the elements that make up the bulk of what I do, I might get a handle on what IT is but separating the inside from the outside work, the baking from the cooking, the mending from the sewing, the knitting from the gardening, just gave me a handful of actions that didn't seem to make sense out of their normal context.

When you think about it, working at home and the pottering around that goes along with it, should be the one thing we all, women and men, want.  We work at our own pace, we have no one telling us what needs to be done next, it gives us a meaningful way to fill our daylight hours, it rewards us with the comfort of a safe and warm home and if we have children, we see them growing within the safe confines of a loving family.  But there have been times in my past that when my ambition could not be contained within the walls of my home, it needed a wider range.  Maybe that ambition of the past has manifested itself in this blog; maybe this is my wider range now.  I have no doubt that many of you reading this would be nurturing ambitions of success, either at paid employment or in growing a small business, at home or in a small store. And of course, there is always the money aspect.  How much is enough?  Am I living my life well?  Am I living to my full potential?

Another element of this life of mine is the satisfaction I get, and I'm sure many of us feel this, from knowing that each and every day I am living outside the mainstream. I do not go to the shops much, I have removed that need within me to spend and I see a lot of the products eagerly sought by my peers as irrelevant.  Instead of wanting the shiny and new, I prefer old things with history, I want to recycle, an old jar suits my life now more than any fine glass.

And what about the name of it - simple living. Is it really simple?.  I get so many emails about this with readers pointing out to me that my life is far from simple.  Really? All I know is that compared to the corporatisation of bread, the plastic bag containers, the preseravtives that allow it to sit on shelves, the artificial flavourings, the oil and transport chains that have it delivered to supermarkets so I can drive there to buy it every day, the bread I bake at home is simple.  I buy my flour in bulk bags made of paper, and the yeast in large aluminium bags that last me six months.  Is it simple?  I don't know but it is simpler than the alternative. Is making cotton tote bags to take shopping simple?  Maybe not, but it's simpler than plastic bags that kill marine life and clog up our oceans like the dumps we've created onland. Is knitting a jumper simple?  It's a simple process of repetition that after buying the wool feels simple, although it is compromised if the wool is from China.  But compared to the alternative of buying a ready made jumper it is simpler. A pure wool jumper would cost a lot more than I paid for my balls of wool, and a cheaper acrylic jumper, or even a wool blend, would come from a factory in China and would clock up more miles in the delivery than anything I'd care to own.   Simple? maybe not, but simpler.

"Simple" tends to describe the processes of this kind of life, not that there will be less work.  It's generally more work and I firmly believe that is a good thing.  Yes, sometimes I curse and carry on about things I don't want to do but most of the time this work is enriching and satisfying and it makes my life what it is.  I am sure Hanno feels the same way. How else are we to spend our time if not working?  I don't want to be off travelling indefinitely like many of my contemporaries.  It is the dream of many people my age in Australia to retire, buy a campervan and take off on a long trip around our great land.  I did that in my 20s, travelled right around the perimeter of Australia, taking over a year to do it.  I can't imagine living to my 60s without knowing what my own country is really like; and I can't imagine living away from my home now.  Home is where I want to be now. I want to spend my time living quietly, giving to my community when I feel I have something to offer, and working in my home so I can live in the fine style I have come to know.  It may not suit everyone, it may seem like a lot of hard work and sacrifice to some, but I love it, even if I don't understand that love at times or why it resonates so deeply within me.

Thank you for your visits and comments this week.  It's been another busy and interesting week with far too many things to spend time on and have fun with.  I was interviewed by Radio National again yesterday for a program on Future Tense.  It should be aired in August but I'll let you know in time for you to listen.  I'm about to go to the forum now to see what's happening there.  There is always something on the go, some new project or interesting posts to read.  If you want to join us, simply click here.  It's free to join.

We love eating curry in Winter and I have been making a very tasty chicken curry lately that is easy  to prepare and suitable for the slow cooker.  If you don't have one, simple cook it on the stove.  Served with boiled rice or some crusty bread on the side, you have a delicious warming meal for a cold night.  I added baby bok choy from our garden but you could add anything you have growing or whatever you bought at the market.

If you're cooking this on the stove, add the oil and curry to your pan and let it cook on medium for one minute.  Stir to avoid it burning. 

When the curry has cooked for a minute, add the other ingredients, mix, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and let it cook slowly for one hour.

METHOD FOR SLOW COOKER  (CROCKPOT) ...

If you're cooking it in a slow cooker, don't use the oil, but add everything to the cooker and turn on to slow for an all day cook.

There is no doubt about it, when most of us think of living a simple life, we think of the country.  Hanno and I live on the edge of a rural town, an hour's drive from our State capital.  We have lived in Hamburg, Sydney, various regional towns and cities and, for 13 years, in an isolated mining town; this way of life is suited to all those places, it is not just for country folk.  I received an email from a young city girl the other day.  She is 27 years old, newly married and longing to move to the country.  She and her husband both work in the city and travel in from the suburbs each day on the train.  She hates it and wants to start a family, be a SAHM and create a home in the country.  She wrote saying she's delaying all her dreams so they can save for a house deposit but it's making her miserable.  She wants to be making soap, knitting and cooking healthy meals instead.  I told her I would answer her email here in this post today.  I am sure many readers will also have friendly advice for her and maybe even be in the same position. If so, please take the time to share your experience.

The phrase "I live in the country" has a powerful and utopian feeling attached to it.  It makes us think of long walks down quiet  lanes, ducks on ponds, apron-clad grandmas taking scones from the oven and family dinners around a big kitchen table.  Of course, country living can include all those things, but so can city living. 

Start living the life you want right now where you are.  You don't have to be in a country location to do any of the things that Hanno and I do.  You are probably in a better place to shop frugally in a city, you have more supermarkets, butchers, green grocers and organic stores to choose from.  If one doesn't suit, you choose another.  You often don't have that choice in the country.  If you learn how to shop wisely and use that saved money for your deposit, you'll be able to move sooner.  You can learn how to cook from scratch in any kitchen.  You can make soap anywhere.   You can dispose of disposables, kick harmful chemicals out of your life, stop using plastic and start a natural beauty program right here, right now.  You can learn how to knit and sew and as you have a long train ride to the city for work, that time could be put to good use by knitting on the train.  All of those activities can help you slow down and live more simply, they will also help you save money so you can move sooner.  See this as a period of preparation when you can build your skills, not a time when you just want it over and done with.  All stages of life have good as well as bad bits, hopefully you'll learn equally from them both.

I often write about how important it is to provide a safe and comfortable home.  I think that is more important in the city because outside your front door can be so uninviting. and chaotic  Spending some time making your home the way you want it to be, within the limits of your tight budget, could be both a challenge and a blessing.  I know this to be as true today as it was when I first married: working side by side with your husband towards shared goals, especially if they require hard work and commitment, has the potential to bind you closer together and make you a solid unit.  Don't see this as hardship, although it might feel like it at times, this is just one stage of your life that will lead on to something better.  Going through these hard times makes the good times better, you appreciate what you work towards and you understand the value of a good days work.  Work is not an enemy, it can be the making of you.

See if you can work out a system where you live on one wage and save the other, or most of it.  If you can do that, you'll be in the driver's seat and you'll be making the most of your situation.  Talk to your husband about all this because you'll both need to be working towards the same goal.  Make plans for the future you want together so that you both have the rewards clearly in your minds.  You might need that when things don't go according to plan, and there will be those times.  If you are lucky, living simply will make you more generous, tender, kinder, happier and more content but it will also make you strong, capable and a fighter.  It is very rare indeed to have anything of value handled to you on a silver plate.  Most things of value need to be worked for.  Never forget that.

I think you're in a wonderful position.  You're young and living with the person you've chosen to be with forever.  That alone should help you climb most mountains you come across.  But if you two can combine forces, decide what you value, come up with a plan on how to achieve what you both want and then work side by side for it, you'll get there.  Simple living is a slow, small steps process.  Having things instantly is a modern ideal what will bring you undone.  Take your time, understand your strengths, work according to them and in time you'll get your dream.  When you look back in 20 years, you'll realise that this time brought many significant rewards that make you the person you want to be.

I send you my best and hope the coming months will bring you the kind of life you're longing for.    You might not be in the location you hope to be but you should be able to clearly see a way of getting there.  Remember, you're not just building a simple life, you're also building a life with your husband, respect and trust for each other and a marriage. And that takes time.

From an allotment in London to a small apartment in Sydney, today we see where Samantha works. I can't tell you how how much I love it when I find that young women, like Samantha, enjoy my blog and relate to what I write about.

Samantha writes"

"I am a 25 year old who lives in a small apartment in Sydney, Australia. I share my 2 bedroom flat with my husband and our cat. I have set our spare bedroom up as a sewing studio, and in it I create all sorts of crafty wonders! I enjoying making patchwork quilts, clothes, and childrens toys. Just recently, I have begun working with fabric from clothes purchased at thrift stores (often much cheaper than buying the fabric new in fabric stores, and better quality). 

 

 

I love country-style living and yearn for the day when I will have a real backyard. Currently I make-do with a small balcony, and tiny plot of land three stories below it. I have managed to grow herbs, lettuce, capsicums and snow peas in pots on my balcony, and get a real 'kick' out of growing my own food. I have been raising seedlings on my balcony ready to plant in a tiny plot of dirt I have dug in the apartment garden down stairs. I love to record all my quilting, crafting, and gardening adventures: http://hand-quilter.blogspot.com"

 

Well done, Samantha.

If there is one true thing I can count on, one thing that reconnects me with what is important and tells me, with certainty, that I am where I should be, it's gardening and pottering around outside.  The sky was bright blue, the temperature was about 20C and with two jumpers on I walked outside on Saturday to follow the call: "I'm digging potatoes!".  It gets to me every time; potato digging is always exciting.  You never know what will be there; it could be rotting seed potatoes or half eaten spuds attacked by insects and rodents, so when I walk away with good potatoes, I'm happy.  From one spot just two square metres, Hanno dug up a bucket full of spuds.  Nice work!  We'll leave the rest of the bed for another time.

There are quite a few vegetables that taste much better straight from the garden - potatoes are in that select group.  Any trouble you might have growing and tending them for three months is forgotten when you bite into that first new season potato.  They just need a little salt and pepper, a pat of butter and a sprinkling of fresh chopped parsley and you have a king's feast.  If you've been thinking about growing a few spuds, but hesitating, dive into it.  Your first good harvest will be your significant reward.

Just before I was called  into the garden I was working in my sewing room, tearing my sister Tricia's old linen dress into tomato ties.  I didn't know then that I would be using them within the hour but when I looked at the tomatoes, they had tangled themselves into a mess so I spent a few minutes untangling them and tying them to their stakes.

The tomatoes above are an unknown (to me) variety that grew out of the lawn just near our back verandah.  They're a cherry-type tomatoes but larger than our the Tommy Toes we usually grow so I'm thinking they might be Gardener's Delight that I had some seeds of a while back.  Whatever they are, the rogue seeds grew where it suited them and have grown into the healthiest tomatoes we've had in a long time.  There are so many trusses like the one pictured above, we'll be drowning in tomatoes soon.  We also have two large varieties growing in the garden and another batch I grew from seed planted yesterday.  If they all deliver on their promise, we'll have an abundance of tomatoes in jars for later in the year.  Bliss!

When you think about it, apart from touching the skin and hair of our loved ones and the food we eat, there are few other natural things that pass over our fingers.  Most of what we touch these days is man-made - furniture, cars, door handles, appliances, vacuum cleaners, irons, the kitchen sink and bench, shopping bags, and the rest of it.  Reconnecting with the natural world brings me back to a more gentle and forgiving place where the soil feels right, the herbs smell divine and picking a snow pea and eating it straight from the bush assures me that even if I work inside amidst the artificial, the natural world waits patiently for me outside and always, always, welcomes me back again.

Eventually, when I came back inside, I had my little harvest basket full of produce.  It was full of green tomatoes that will ripen on the bench, a couple of fat cucumbers and some green beans.  A nice addition to our kitchen supplies.

Back yard food production not only gives you fresh, healthy, organic food, it also demonstrates the self confidence of knowing how to grow, of being a worthy custodian of the land you live upon and the wisdom of backing yourself by believing that a small seed, if tended and encouraged, will sustain you and your family.  So many of our traditional skills have been lost to us, but food gardening is still here, available to all who wish to plan their garden and work to achieve that dream.  If you're not gardening yet, I encourage you to start, even if it's in pots or containers.  And if you're already out there with Hanno and I, breathing in the fresh air, getting your hands dirty and feeling good because of it, well you would know what I'm talking about.  What's that saying about preaching to the choir?

Dee writes:

"Hello My Name is Dee and I'm from London UK I have an allotment that I work on almost daily, basically its a piece of land I rent from my local council to grow fruit and vegetables. My plot measures approximately 1/16 of an acre.

Living in a flat with no garden this is my only means of growing my own for my family and I'm so grateful for this opportunity as land here in London as you can imagine is scarce with waiting lists for council plots between 10 to 20 years. I was lucky, or as some might say, "not so lucky" to get my plot 4 years ago after nobody was prepared to take it on. It had been lying derelict for ten years and was covered in bramble, ivy and plum tree seedlings. I still have around a third to clear with the remainder in full production. Its been hard work at times but well worth it and yes I would do it all again. I cant explain the joy and satisfaction I get from feeding my family with fresh produce that I've nurtured from seed."

You can visit Dee's blog here.  <--  I fixed the link.

I love orange cake and am always on the lookout for a new recipe that improves on my current one.  This is it.  I made this cake last week after thinking about the recipe for about a month.  Yes, I know, over thinking, but I was trying to work out why this recipe would work and if it did, would it be bitter.  It isn't.  Orange cake is a great standby if you have an orange tree in the backyard but even  if you buy citrus, try this cake, it's a real delight.  You will need a food processor to make it.  I found the recipe here.

On the first day we had this cake hot from the oven with our morning tea.  Mmmmmm. The following day I iced the cake with lemon icing and sprinkled it with walnuts.  I think we should call the iced cake - with oranges and lemons - St Clement's Cake

INGREDIENTS

1 whole orange

3 eggs

180 g melted butter (6.3 oz)

1 cup white sugar

1½ cups self raising flour OR 1½ plain  (all purpose) flour with 1½ teaspoons baking powder sifted in

METHOD

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F.

Grease your cake tin - I used a bar tin

Wash the orange thoroughly - this is particularly important if the orange is not organic or from your backyard

Cut the orange into quarters, put the whole washed orange into the food processor and process it until it's completely broken down and no large pieces remain.  Add the rest of the ingredients and process again until everything is mixed together, about 30 seconds.

Scrape the batter into the cake tin and cook for around 40 minutes.

This will give you a deliciously moist cake with a full orange flavour.  And the best is there is no zesting, juicing, peeling or cutting.  Simple!

Thank you for your visits and for the love and support showered upon me during this very tough week.  I hope you have a beautiful weekend.

This post is another in the series, This is Where I Work.  Today's workspace comes to us from Mel who lives in Canada.  Mel is also one of the moderators on the Down to Earth forum, so it's lovely for me to get to know her a little better.

Mel writes:
"Life for me here in Canada is never dull. One husband + two kids + 3 dogs = chaos. While I don't work outside the home, I work very hard inside of it and decided that I needed my own space. So, when we purchased our home last summer and started renovating it, this was at the top of my list. I couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out. The table is so large and gives me lots of room to work. The wall above it is a bulletin board that we covered in fabric and framed in. I am always tearing recipes and such out of magazines and now have somewhere to put them. The shelves to the left of the table hold a lot of different supplies. It is nice to have everything within reach.

While it started out as my 'creative space', it has turned into more of a 'work space" for me. I never realized just how much time I spend here working on various things - menu planning, budgeting, scrapbooking and card making just to name a few. I have spent many hours sitting here this spring pouring over seed catalogs and planning our first garden. In fact, it was here that I decided I wasn't too old to learn how to knit. I find this space to be very inspiring and it is my favorite part of the house."

 

Thanks Mel!