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baby steps :: making soup

September 1, 2010 in at home, baby steps, farms + food, getting organized by eringoodman | 4 comments

I’m taking a little time off to help my daughter settle in to her first week of kindergarten (which I’m happy to report is going very smoothly!!) and am enjoying a little trip down memory lane by visiting my blog archives. This post was originally published in September, 2008. I have included a few notes from today at the end.

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As our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) pick-ups are quickly coming to an end (just three more weeks!), I’m continuing to look for ways to preserve all the delicious, organic produce we pick up each week.

I thought I would try my hand at making homemade jam this year (and even bought myself a little canning kit that was half price at the grocery store) but strawberries slid into blueberries and raspberries and now apples and I have yet to attempt any canning. Next year!

In the meantime, something that I did start doing this year that is working very well is making “soup starter” bags!

In the past making soup has often felt overwhelming to me – especially buying all the ingredients and chopping everything up. It seems silly as I write it out but it often does just feel like too much effort to squeeze into our busy days.

So this year I have been chopping celery, carrots, onions and potatoes in bulk and storing them in little Ziploc bags in the freezer.

When I want to make soup, I just pull out a bag and saute the veggies in butter or oil and my soup is well under way!

Following the lead of Amanda Soule, whose beautiful book The Creative Family, I have been reading (and re-reading!), I set Quinn up with a big bowl and let him make his own “soup” with the vegetables I discarded. When we were all finished we carried the scraps out to our chickens and they had a nice little feast!

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September, 2010: I completely forgot about making soup starter bags but have recently been doing so again (all it takes is one turning leaf on a tree and I start thinking about baking bread and making soup!!).  I have to say, they really do make cooking soup “from scratch” a whole lot faster and easier!! :-)

In other related news…I have not done any canning this year. Nothin’. Not even one jar of jelly. (Yet!!! I still have time to make applesauce, right?) I did make a fresh pasta sauce last week however and it was fantastic. And tomorrow I will be trying my hand at rendering lard! Baby steps, my friends.

the rainy day closet

July 14, 2010 in at home, family fun, getting organized by eringoodman | 17 comments

This post was originally published on my old blog in July of 2008. I’ve added a few notes from today at the end.

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Somewhere in the last four years (it’s really all very much a blur) I discovered Sarah Ban Breathnach’s delightful book, Mrs. Sharp’s Traditions, which gives readers a peek into the world of Victorian house-holding, holidays and family traditions.

Among the many helpful and creative suggestions for enjoying family life is the “rainy day closet” — a collection of books, toys, art supplies etc. that are ONLY enjoyed on rainy days.

While reading the book, I noted which closet I would use to create our own rainy day closet, and began collecting various items to tuck inside, with the hopes of someday organizing them into a fun collection.

But major organizational projects, especially ones that involve toys, are not exactly toddler-friendly activities and once kids are sleeping I usually have little energy and even less creativity to tackle a project like this.

So this morning, while my kids were visiting my parents’ house, before I even looked at my to-do list, I decided today is that someday.

Here is the closet before:

And after:

And here are some of the things I’ve included in our Rainy Day Closet:

Mama’s Mystery Box: Various odds and ends, little battery-operated toys, bubble wrap, an inflatable beach ball etc.

Art Supplies: Pipe cleaners, pom-poms, googly eyes, stick-on foam pieces, and Color Wonder-type painting kits (the mystery chemicals involved in this “mess free” painting scare me a bit for regular use, but occasionally on a rainy day, they are a lot of fun).

Sewing & Lacing: Wooden beads, animal shaped lacing cards etc.

Rainy Day Books and Friends: A small, but growing, collection of books about rainy days and stuffed friends and puppets to enjoy them with!

Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head: Lots of open-ended, creative fun, but the tiny plastic pieces are more than I can handle on a daily basis, which makes the Potatoes perfect for a rainy day!

Farm Friends: A Leap Pad refrigerator toy. Requires batteries, sings two songs over-and-over and has little pieces that spend more time on the floor than on the fridge — a shoe-in for the Rainy Day Closet.

Elmo: A hand-me-down giggling, plastic Elmo that I almost culled before my children saw it. I’m glad I didn’t. He’s PERFECT for a rainy day!

And lastly, Harvey the Bunny – our Rainy Day mascot who plays “Singing in the Rain” and dances. Harvey (no idea how we came up with that name) was a $2 consignment store score!

Yay! I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to rainy days as much as I am now!

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July, 2010: Now that the kids are older and our school and work schedules have us out of the house a lot more, we no longer have an official Rainy Day Closet. (It has been taken over by board games and puzzles and sewing supplies.) We do however have a Market Bag, which is basically the same concept as the Rainy Day Closet except this bag comes with us when we work together at the Farmers’ Market.

I have found that limiting access to battery-operated toys — but not banning them altogether as I originally set out to do – works really well for our family. Generally, I prefer to have the kids playing with toys made from natural materials or simply outside enjoying nature and inventing their own fun. But sometimes — on rainy days or long, hot days at the market – this mama absolutely bows to the power of beeping, plastic, battery-operated toys. 

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wip wednesday

March 31, 2010 in getting organized, handmade + homemade, nurturing creativity by eringoodman | 11 comments

Edited to add: I wrote this light-hearted post earlier this week before the intense flooding here in the North East began. We are safe and dry at home and right now it appears that all of our friends, family, and neighbors are also safe — though many are (at least) knee-deep in water in their basements. I hope that today’s post finds you and yours safe as well.

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The week before we left for our trip I was overwhelmed by a wave of nesting energy. Forget about packing and making sure we had sunscreen, all I wanted to do was move furniture, organize my sewing projects, go thrifting and set up new little nooks in our house.

(Does this happen to you too? I’ve recently come to realize this is a pretty typical pre-travel pattern for me and I’ve started allowing myself to ‘go with the flow’ – even though it sometimes makes for some last-minute, late-night packing!)

The first thing that I had to do before we could leave was to make our art supplies more user-friendly. We have had a number of different set-ups over the years, always with the intention of making our creative supplies as accessible as is appropriate for the ages of our kids (and Mama’s sanity level). Permanent markers, paints, and glitter, for example, are not self-service supplies. Crayons, colored pencils, paper and stickers are.

We also have to factor in that we live in a relatively small home where all spaces are shared spaces. In other words, there is no art studio, yoga studio, sewing room or woodshop where projects can be left untouched for days at a time. All of our creating, of which there is no shortage happening, takes place on our kitchen table or in our living room.

One thing that has helped tremendously in our closet-lacking country house are the shelves my cousin Dan has been building for us. Simple wooden boards mounted above window and door sills are allowing us to “stow our gear” — out of the way but still readily accessible.

I also dragged some child-level shelves in from the barn right before we left to create some more storage space in our kitchen – specifically in the dinette that until very recently was our “play room.” As I dusted off the shelves I noticed some wire around the back rungs and remembered the first time I dragged these shelves out of the barn.

Lily was a newly-crawling baby and I wanted to create a safe place for her to play and explore with her “creative supplies.” So I filled the shelves with baskets of board books, stuffed animals, play silks, wooden blocks and a few plastic, battery-operated, beeping things that I mostly detested (ahem…except when I was on deadline for a writing project) and secured the shelves to the wall with wire.

{ april 2005 }

Today these same shelves are filled with blank paper, stamping supplies,  homemade play dough, crayons, a basket of beeswax, a few preschool workbooks (which both of my kids are absolutely loving) and a little makeshift “listening station” – something I have dreamed of creating for my children since my (very brief) tenure as an elementary school teacher many years ago.

(I got all of these books – new Barefoot Books with CDs – at a thrift store in Florida for $2.50 each!)

I also recently brought our wooden kitchen back up from the basement. And although for years this beautiful hand-me-down stove was once THE center of activity, the kids have largely ignored it as of late. Lily did mention the other day that it would be nice to have some more play food – not the plastic kind but the soft wooly kind that you make Mama – since we can’t seem to find the food we used to play with.

So that’s what I’m working on this week — nesting, making nooks, felting food for my little ones — and savoring how wonderful it feels to be home.

How about you? What’s in progress in your world?

life in progress

March 10, 2010 in getting organized, handmade + homemade, nurturing creativity by eringoodman | 15 comments

Still plenty of time to enter the Hip Mountain Mama Giveaway! Thanks for all your help getting the word out about the giveaway! I am really enjoying your comments and hearing about your favorite products!

Repairing my favorite skirt. Photo by Lily.

For quite some time now I have enjoyed visiting various blogs (Frontier Dreams being one of my favorites) on Wednesdays to see what people have “in progress” but I never really felt inspired to join in…until now.

A while back the always-inspiring Sara at Farmama mentioned that she was not able to sit and knit while they were renovating their house due to the chaos around her. Her words really resonated with me – except for me it wasn’t a temporary renovation that prevented me from feeling relaxed and settled and capable of crafting and creating, it’s the way we have lived for so many years.

John and I rented our house — a cozy cape with just a few rooms and even fewer closets — before we purchased it and inherited a barn and basement full of our landlord’s and former housemates’ stuff in the process. (That’s not to say we don’t have our own clutter issues…ahem, you may recall this little confession…but we definitely have some extra challenges we’ve had to work our way through. ;-) We’ve pretty much been de-cluttering and attempting to organize our house in fits and starts ever since. 

Over the holidays, John reached his saturation level and right around that time, I heard my son casually report to my mom that he always wipes his hands on his pants because “We can’t really find towels in our house.”

Ouch.

Immediately after the holidays, we got to work purging, creating storage spaces, and getting our stuff under control as our first step in the One Small Change project. 

The results have been absolutely amazing.

Our house – all 1,200 square feet of it — is far from perfect. As I write this the kitchen is a disaster and I can barely see the living room couch, but it now feels more like the normal ebb and flow of life with small children.

For the most part, thanks to some serious purging and constant re-evaluation of what we need to have, we have gotten out from underneath the gigantic masses of clutter that have swamped us for so long.

And as the tide of clutter has receded, I have been absolutely amazed (and delighted!) at how quickly my energy and creativity have increased.

I first realized how wonderful living in a more organized home is one school day morning when Quinn asked me to sew a button on his new (thrifted) shirt. I started to have my auto-pilot reaction…We don’t have time…I have to make breakfast…I’ll fix it later…but then took a breath and realized:

Wait a minute. I know just where my sewing kit is and I know just where the jar of buttons is. And sewing a button only takes a minute or two.

“Sure, Sweetie,” I said. “I can do that for you.”

My boy was thrilled and happily watched as I whipped the needle and thread in and out a dozen times. An hour later, when we arrived at school he proudly showed all his friends his new shirt, complete with the button his Mama sewed for him.

That first button got me excited about finally mending and repairing some of the clothes I have been collecting in a basket for as long as I can remember, which is what I was doing in the photo above – mending my favorite (also thrifted) skirt!

I’ve also started working on Lily’s Knitted Farmyard – except that inspired by Kendra and her beautiful etsy shop, I’ve decided to make ours out of recycled, felted sweaters.

As I was going through my collection of wool sweaters, the boxes on this argyle sweater caught my attention. So I did a little chopping. And a little piecing. And a little stitching. And the first hay bale for the farm was created!

While I was stitching, I realized that I don’t do too well with patterns and directions that require precision. I’m much more of a wing it kind of crafter. So I’m going to go with that and use the book for inspiration but let the farm and the fiber talk to me and guide my hands.

I’m also probably not going to post weekly updates on my work in progress (I don’t do too well with posting schedules either ;-) but from time to time, I look forward to sharing my post-de-cluttering creative endeavors with you!

 How about you? What do you have “in progress”?

one small change: our january re-cap

February 8, 2010 in getting organized by eringoodman | 14 comments

I’m a little late in sharing my One Small Change January re-cap (one very important change I made this past month is that I am spending much less time online, which makes keeping up with e-mails and blogging a little tricky) but I am happy to report that January was an amazingly transformative month in our home.

(For anyone who is new here, you can read about the One Small Change project and why we chose “clearing our clutter” as our family’s first step here.)

As I scroll through the photos I’ve downloaded from the month, I have to pinch myself to believe that these photos were taken in our house.

Recycled wooden clementine boxes, painted with chalkboard paint, now sit on the shelves my cousin Dan built for us. Project supplies are grouped and ready for us to dive in when inspiration strikes. Then when it is time to eat a meal on our table, supplies get tucked back into their box and returned to the shelf.

I have been cooking SO much more — and really enjoying it! A clean sink + a well-stocked pantry + clear kitchen counters = joyful, creative, healthy culinary expression.

Pizza dough rising on our wood stove.

This kids have been pitching in to help and we’re working together to create a weekly chore chart. Lily especially “gets it” about how much better it feels to live in a home where we can find things and enjoy our space.

We have not yet solved the issue of where to store all of the materials I use for my workshops and John and I both use for various volunteer jobs we hold, but this quick fix (an old batik that has been everything from curtains to a beach blanket to a table cloth), hung minutes before friends arrived for a potluck, is actually working quite nicely for the time being.

In our cleaning we also did some shifting and re-focusing. Our couch no longer faces our TV. (Hooray!) It now lives in the middle of our living room, flanked by cozy chairs, facing our woodstove, inviting us to gather — as a family and with our friends and neighbors.

And that is just what we are doing in February for our contribution to the One Small Change project.

We are gathering.

We’re hosting potlucks. (Something we were not able to do when our house was in a constant state of cluttered chaos.) And enjoying homegrown, casual music. And looking forward to gathering and sampling local food and drink at the 2nd Annual Evening of Refreshment on February 27.

I will be sharing photos and snippets of our gatherings here, along with my thoughts on why I believe gathering in community is one of the most important steps we can take towards living a simple, mindful, eco-conscious lifestyle.

Want to join in by making One Small Change in your home this month? It’s not too late! Check out Hip Mountain Mama’s blog for all the details.

one small change

January 22, 2010 in getting organized by eringoodman | 17 comments

When Suzy from Hip Mountain Mama introduced the One Small Change project back in December, I knew I wanted to participate and immediately started thinking about what we could do in our family.

As the holidays came and went, and we moved into the New Year, I was inspired by all the changes others were making, but still wasn’t sure what we would do.

Right around that time, we embarked on yet another major house clearing and decluttering, this one initiated by my husband. (Umm…yeah. Let’s just say that when things get above John’s threshold for clutter, it’s safe to assume it’s a pretty scary scene at the Goodmans.)

CSA event stuff, Birth Network materials, teapots and other supplies for my retreats and mothers’ circles, and magazines being collected for my next Treasure-Mapping funshop mingle with cleaning supplies (a.k.a. white vinegar), bulk dried herbs and clothes waiting to be mended — all in our tiny downstairs bathroom.

As John did load after load of laundry and together we dug through closets, the floors of which have not seen the light of day in years, it hit me.

We need to clear the clutter and lessen the chaos.

Not just for ourselves and our sanity and peace of mind, but for our world.

Did I lose you on that one?

Let me explain.

As we were cleaning closets and emptying drawers we started finding things. Hammers, pieces to toys, flashlights, missing flip-flops. Things that we have lost, and in many cases replaced (sometimes multiple times).

Wasting our money, time and energy chasing down lost items detracts from our ability to live a simple, purposeful life and wastes world resources.

The contents of one of our many junk drawers and the sorted container of hardware and tools on their way to our new tool cabinet (yay!) in the basement.

We frequently have to repurchase items that are lost in our own home – things that could otherwise be reused for years. And many of the items we repurchase are done in a panic, leading us to shop at the most convenient places, which are often not in alignment with our eco-conscious values.

I also started thinking about how I feel in my home when the clutter level peaks and how much more likely I am to throw everyone in the car and go out to eat, at times even opting for food that is purchased by me shouting into a speaker and then grabbing a bag through a window, because I am just too overwhelmed by the state of our kitchen to attempt to cook anything.

Clutter and chaos get in the way of me making the kind of nutrient-dense, locally-sourced, whole food meals that I believe in.

I also thought about about all the trips to Pier One Imports ( TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Michael’s, my favorite thrift store…) to buy baskets and bins and other storage containers in hopes of creating the illusion of calmness and peace.

Or the trips near-weekly trips to the thrift store I *have* to take because I have nothing to wear — or more accurately I can’t find the clothes I want to wear because they are mixed in with piles of clothes I no longer like or don’t fit into and it’s all rolled together in a heap in the bottom of our closet or buried in the mountain of Are these clean or dirty? clothes that permenantly live in a laundry basket on the floor of our our room.

Clutter and chaos often lead me to seek out retail therapy, which only serves to add more clutter and chaos to our small house.

So what are we doing? What One Small Change(s) have we been making this month?

~ We’re noticing and talking about how we treat our belongings and creating storage places for things we value.

Favorite family games, our soft globe and my dancing kit now live on top of one of three new storage shelves built by my cousin, Dan.

~ We’re being more conscious of stopping “future clutter” before it comes in the door.

~ We’re making regular trips to the thrift store, not to shop, but to purge no-longer-needed stuff.

~ We’re “doing a sweep of the house” every night and making sure that the kitchen is ready for cooking healthy meals the next day.

~ I’m creating an inventory sheet of our most used items so I can quickly scan our pantry and see what supplies we need before I go shopping and can group my errands accordingly. (Saves time and eliminates extra driving.) 

~ And on the recommendation of a friend, this book is on its way to me. I think the title perfectly sums up our family’s first step in the One Small Change project.

 

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{ Happy weekend, friends. } 

confession # 9 :: the laundry basket lie

December 10, 2009 in at home, confessions, getting organized by eringoodman | 23 comments

I will be back tomorrow to announce the winner of the special double sponsor giveaway (still time to enter if you haven’t already), but in the meantime, I have a little confession to share…

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I lied to you all.

 

Back in February I posted about how I love to clean up using a laundry basket.

 

I wrote:

 

When clutter overwhelms, I grab an empty laundry basket and fill it up with whatever random things are overtaking our space. Then later, once the calm has returned, I slowly sort through the basket and put things away, recycle or throw things out. Right now I have a basket stashed out of sight between our TV and the wall, and I have no idea what it currently contains. At some point, when I am watching TV, I will begin to sort through it. But for now, I am very grateful that all horizontal surfaces in our living room are clutter-free!

 

Ummm…yeah. This is NOT what I do. This is what I have read in a number of cleaning and organizing books that I am supposed to do.

 

What I really do is this:

 

Get overwhelmed by the state of clutter in our house. Run around like a crazy person picking everything up (often cursing anyone and anything that crosses my path while I’m doing it). Attempt to sort through the pile I’ve collected. Realize that I don’t know where collected items go. Tell myself I should throw them away. Cringe at the thought of throwing “perfectly good stuff” away. Put the box aside to go through it later.

 

Feel really good about how clean our space looks. Promise myself that I’m not going to let it get so cluttered again.

 

Get sick of looking at the box of miscellaneous clutter, which I never find time to sort through. Move it somewhere out of sight – the back room, the basement, the tiny space between our TV and the wall.

 

Rinse and repeat.

 

 

This photo is from October. See that little basket next to the TV cabinet. Yup. That’s the one I put there in FEBRUARY!!!

 

I’m happy to say that as of this week it is no longer there. And waiting six months to go through it sure made things go quickly. Expired coupons – recycle. Paperwork from daycare – kids don’t go there anymore, recycle. Shoes that Lily doesn’t wear but I really wished she would – not her size anymore, pass on to a friend.

 

Once this basket was empty, I began to notice other ”clutter time capsules” most of which reside in our basement. I was down there the other day sorting (again) and trying to figure out how a basement that was nearly entirely purged this summer is once again starting to look and feel cluttered.

 

What I’ve learned is this: I’m really good at clearing space and making things “look nice” but not so good at efficiently and effectively dealing with the miscellaneous stuff that I collect.

 

I’m working on it though. Noticing the clutter building, gently redirecting myself to the recycle bin when I attempt to save things just in case, turning things away at the door before they become clutter I have to deal with, creating new homes for things I do want to save. 

 

And coming clean, both to you and myself, about my little white laundry basket lie.  

ahhhh…much better!

November 9, 2009 in at home, getting organized, shared work by eringoodman | 8 comments

What a difference a weekend (and an amazing village of family and friends) makes!

Our dishwasher is not quite fixed but it is well on its way. And I am learning a heck of a lot about dishwasher maintenance thanks to my dad, a.k.a. Grandpa the Fix-it Man!

While he was here assessing our dishwasher, I mentioned that our dryer wasn’t really working either. Turns out we had basically the same problem there too - lack of maintenance.

My dad took it apart and together we cleared a grocery bag’s worth of lint out of the door and various pockets around the drum. (According to my dad the dryer also has some major design flaws, so it wasn’t just “operator error” as is often the case when our appliances fail.) 

I’m still hanging as many loads of clothes as I can out on the line, but as the days steadily shorten, it’s so nice to know we have a dryer that can now safely and efficiently dry our clothes!

Thank you Dad!

In the meantime, while all of this was happening my wonderful cousin, who is also our good friend, the kids’ favorite babysitter, Quinn’s Godfather and the talented craftsman behind Queen’s River Flutes, began building custom tea shelves for my kitchen.

I’ve been wanting for so long to be able to display the beautiful paintings created by my dear friend Jen Lashua (did you know that was her art on the Love & Tea packages?) and now, thanks to Dan, I can!

Big, big shifts are happening in and around our kitchen (and in our world!!!). I’m grateful for all of your kind words about my mountain of dishes and my altar, and for my wonderful family (including my husband who did the lion’s share of kitchen clean up this weekend ;-) for helping me to get organized and move forward.

Speaking of moving forward, after some major challenges, many deep breaths, and a collective decision to change direction, next week’s Fall Forum is shaping up very nicely. I hope to share more about it later in the week. And for those who are local, I’d love to see you there.

what’s working :: snacking camp-style

October 20, 2009 in at home, getting organized, what's working! by eringoodman | 14 comments

There are so many beautiful lessons that our family brought home from our week-long family camp experience last month.

One thing that I really appreciated at camp was having three healthy meals and two healthy snacks laid out for us by the amazing kitchen staff at regular times during the day.

I tend to lose track of eating when we are having fun, which has resulted in far too many low blood sugar meltdowns (ahem…and I’m not just talking about my kids).

Since returning from camp, I am doing more meal-planning and crockpot cooking and we are also enjoying a new mid-morning, free-choice snack tray.  

Hummus and carrots, peanut butter and rice cakes and apple slices and cheese laid out on a wooden serving tray invite us all to take a break and nourish our bodies mid-morning, but do not require us to clear the table of our activities and stop what we are doing to eat.

I absolutely love and greatly appreciate the meal rituals that my children partake in at school (table setting, candle-lighting, singing a blessing etc.) and we include many of these elements in our breakfast and dinner meals.

But our days tend to be more relaxed and free-flowing (much like our camp experience) and our new casual, free-choice snack tray, which is often served under the playroom table, is really working for us!

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I’m submitting this piece for Jamie’s new 30-minute Blog challenge over at Steady Mom. Jamie’s blogging resolutions really touched my heart and encouraged me to re-examine why I am blogging and how well it is working with my life. You may have noticed that one change I have made this week is that I am now publishing in the morning. Even though I schedule my posts in advance, I still find myself wanting to tweak and change at the last minute and before this week, that “last minute” was oh…5:30-6:00 p.m….while I’m trying to get dinner ready, clear off the table, feed the dog and while my little ones are most in need of my calm, loving attention. In other words, it just wasn’t working. 

I am so grateful for Jamie who continually inspires me to find my own steady rhythm – in writing, blogging, parenting and in life!

taming the trucks

October 7, 2009 in at home, getting organized by eringoodman | 9 comments

Our busy little Quinn likes trucks…and tractors…and cars…and trains…and airplanes…but most of all he loves monster trucks. And since they are relatively inexpensive and readily availbale, he has amassed quite a collection.

The problem with these trucks and other vehicles is that they are very small, and sharp, and they have wheels, which makes them a slight hazard to have lying around the house.

I used to store them in plastic tubs under our train table but due to limited space we have to rotate not only our toys but also some of our furniture and right now the train table is on break in the basement while lily’s veterinarian farm takes center stage in the playroom.

So the collection of trucks – in a big willow basket i found for a dollar at the thrift store — moved to the living room and every night before dinner we would do a sweep of the floors and pick up all the little vehicles and toss them in the basket. 

{Our living room – you may recognize the half-painted wall.} 

This kind of worked. I mean we weren’t stepping or sliding on cars, which is good thing, but the basket is big and it was hard for Quinn to find what he wanted without dumping the whole thing, which just wasn’t working for Mama.

So one day last week, while the kids were outside cleaning the barn (seriously…this is their new favorite activity), I dumped the basket and culled some of the trucks Quinn no longer plays with (though I’m sure if he saw me attempting to give away any of them, they would have instantly become his current favorites).

I laid all the cars, trucks, tractors – and a few dinosaurs - out in rows and sorted them into new smaller baskets.

I moved the rug, grabbed a little Ikea table and chair that we had in the basement (I’m not kidding about rotating furniture – we just don’t have enough floor space for all the cool things that come our way) and set this up for my boy to find when he came in from playing.

He was quite pleased.

I still have a little more work to do (like finding a new home for the rocking chair I moved to make room for this new play space) but Quinn is really enjoying being able to find and play with all his vehicles.

And I’m happy to not be tripping over trucks!  

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Time for me to sign off for a few days. I’m getting ready for another camping trip this weekend. (Didn’t you just get back from camping, Erin? Um. Yes. And I have the mounds of laundry I still haven’t caught up on to proove it.) But I just couldn’t pass up an opportunity to tour and dance and camp with the Ladies! This will be my first time camping without John (luckily there will be many other experienced campers there with me) and Lily’s first non-backyard tent camping experience. Wish us luck…

Hope you have a great weekend!

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