A Lighter House

The day began with blowing and drifting, and quickly turned to sun and 32 degrees.  

Taking advantage of the much needed vitamin D we have spent some necessary time outside.

**The snow has been blown.

**The outside Christmas lights have been taken down.

**The porch been completely cleared and re-organized.

**The bird feeders all replenished.

**The kids have begun building a snow igloo.

It feels so good to be active outside.  Even once inside the breaks of bright sun through the windows makes my heart skip a beat.  It is hard to believe how very little sunshine we have had this winter! We are taking every advantage today since the deep freeze returns to us tomorrow.

We haven't neglected our inside tasks this weekend either.  Beginning after soccer yesterday we purged three truck loads of both ours and the previous owners junk from our basement. Some to recycle, some to trash, much to donate.  Everything remaining is now finding a new home in labeled buckets on shelves.  Old work benches and built in shelving are now emerging as our wine, honey and charcuterie supply center.  A work in progress, but oh so close.  Best of all?  We seem to have found a nice balance of work and rest with our tasks.  Work some, read or knit some, play some, then work some more.  

The house feels lighter, and is giving off a new energy.  A great start to 2014, and hopefully a force that will propel us into our ever growing farm to do list.

Purge Without Binging

A big push for 2013 is to minimize the junk.  Living on a property with a 120 year old barn means that there are a lot of discarded junk mementos from families past.  Last week we had a dumpster delivered in order to do a major purge.  We have accomplished quite a bit for a few short days, but I found that the process so far has been much more complex and led to some discarding, but quite a bit of pile making.  We have the donation pile, mostly old bikes and yard toys, but we are also taking this opportunity to clear the attic and basement, so all of the toddler toys are making a long overdue departure.  Then there is the burn pile, bits of old broken wood planks, etc.  There is the recycle pile which is in the back of the truck and making sporadic runs to the recycling dumpster at the office.  Finally, there is the scrap metal pile....we could actually make a few pennies on this one.  Everything else is trash-able, and we have four weeks to complete the job. 

The trick to clearing, organizing and restructuring our stuff, is not to make room just to go on a shopping spree and add more to a bottomless pit of storage.  No, it is to allow us to utilize what we have so that we can move forward with the farm projects that we have planned.  **We have allowed one binge though, ironic it also came this week.  When B was out riding his bike, he passed an old farm that was throwing out 23 matched storm windows.  He talked to the owners and then loaded them up and we put them in the greenhouse staging area of the barn.  So you see, it is only a very temporary and useful binge.

By the way, a 10 minute walk with camera in hand to take in a few moments of broken sun, is well worth the frigid gale.   It clears the mind (a purge of sorts) and allows you to refocus, just enough to see things in new and interesting ways.  I highly recommend it! 

Happy Weekend!