all of this warm weather is making me think of spring. i know, it happens every year. really, i’d love more snow, but it is nice to have a break. we’ve been cleaning, organizing, and rearranging. the fruits of these endavors?? a reading nook! loved by everyone in our house!

personally, i am loving my shelf of clean, empty jars. it reminds me of the joy i feel filling each of them through the summer. as we use up last year’s bounty, i clean them out and place them here, ready to be sterelized and reused as the garden dictates.

cris totally finished our closet and this afternoon i hung up our clothes. we have a small linen closet that we use for belle’s clothes so we don’t have to put another dresser in the kids’ room. and this is our only other closet. niether of them is deep enough for a hanger to go in properly, so they fit in at an angle. when cris and my father put the double chimney in (yes, now we can use oil to heat the water and use our wood stove to heat the house at the same time) we lost another 14″ of closet space. which means we have 20″ left. well, my clever husband put two dowels in so we each have our own clothes rack. and since cris doesn’t have 20″ worth of “dress” shirts, i can tuck our miniature purple vacuum into the closet as well. hurray! it feels like a victory to me!

and last, but in no way least, the onions. my sweet, sweet grandfather (we share a large garden together in the summer) braided all of our onions. i keep a braid or two in the cellar and every time i pass them on my way up or down the stairs, they make me smile. i love putting things up for winter. and i love my pop-pop!