Hello everyone, I hope this new year is off to a good start for you!  I am so happy to be sitting here writing to you with a hot cup of tea nearby.  This handcrafted cup and saucer was a Christmas present. Our 'green' Christmas was a very good one, and with three grandchildren aged 3 and under there was never a dull moment.  In those quiet days between Christmas and New Year's I was able to get a few pictures to share.

Before Christmas, was filled with the usual rush to bake, clean, buy and make presents and decorate, besides babysitting the grandchildren.  I sewed a leather tote bag and crocheted dishcloths to gift.  

My hopes for the new year, as always, are to complete many of the projects I have in progress...a sweater and scarf to finish knitting, my embroidered tablecloth to catch up on, a needlepoint project, a blouse and skirt to finish sewing, and several zipper pouches and tote bags I have all cut out and ready to sew.  There are actually more works in progress I am afraid to say....

As always, I am looking forward to a new year in the garden.  Last year I was able to can and freeze the most food yet, since we've been in our new home here.  We were able to harvest some peaches off one of our trees, and hope for apples and cherries to start producing soon. 
Last summer, we also put in a stone patio ~ my husband, I should say ~ and it was a lot of back breaking work for him.  It wasn't completed until late summer, so we look forward to using it more this year.  There are also steps from the house to be built and some trellis/arbors to be added. 
And, what I am most excited about is our plan to build a small greenhouse using recycled windows.  It will be so good to have a warm place to get plants off to an early start! 

Recently I have been overhauling the living room...some deep cleaning, moving furniture around and hanging pictures.  It seems that time of year to purge the excess and get organized.  In the kitchen I hung a small pot rail to hold my thrifted copper cookware.

In the background below, is a thrifted wicker bottle that I finally made into a lamp...

I hope you are all well, and thank you for stopping by to visit.  I would love to hear from you in the comments. 
Take care,

Deb

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Before the warm weather arrived, I did some work on the demi-lune table that I found at an antique shop.  It is now painted and holding plants in our entry.    The table's original wood finish and veneer were not in great shape, so I gave it a good sand and a couple coats of paint.  This area gets a lot of sunlight through the front door, so hopefully the plants will like it here.

It's so good to get outside on a warm spring day for a hike.  Long before anything else greens up, the moss and ferns and lichens are bright spots in the gray and brown woods.

It looked much neater here before the snow melted and revealed the mess.  Lots of weeding and winter clean up to do in our gardens.

It's so good to be able to hang the laundry out on the clothesline again.

I hope you had a wonderful Easter.  The night before, I was up until 10 catching up on the embroidery on this table cloth ~ why do I leave things until the last minute?!  We had a warm sunny day, some traditional Polish Easter foods, and an Easter egg hunt for the two-year old grandsons.  The joy on their faces was the highlight of my day.