Months ago I felt the need to re-establish a clear, designated space in our home for yoga practice. I've always maintained a corner here or there for this, but it's been ages since I've truly set aside space in our home for yoga alone.

I feel very fortunate to have a family that understands the benefits to be gained from giving up a little square footage (this was previously our den and it was cute and cozy) in our home, to set it aside as a sacred place of wellness and self-discovery.  

There's really nothing to it. Less is more when it comes to putting together this kind of space. There is a shelf for my yoga texts, poetry, and journals. There is an alter that has a rotating display of a few special treasures, a docking station for my ipod, and of course, sparkly lighting. Most importantly, there is room for three mats should any family members care to join me... which i think they will both start doing more and more.

I've been using this room for a little while now, but this weekend the final curtain was sewn (I used two matching 70's tapestries - I'm such a sucker for those) and it finally feels complete and perfect in every way. It is such a calm and beautiful space to be in.

Birthright

Danna Faulds

Despite illness of body or mind, in spite of blinding despair or habitual belief, who you are is whole.

Let nothing keep you separate from the truth. The soul, illumined from within, longs to be known for what it is.

Undying, untouched by fire or the storms of life, there is a place inside where stillness and abiding peace reside.You can ride the breath to go there.

Despite doubt or hopeless turns of mind, you are not broken. Spirit surrounds, embraces, fills you from the inside out.  Release everything that isn't your true nature.  What's left, the fullness, light and shadow, claim all that as your birthright.

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Thanks for stopping by our little yoga room, I hope you're having a great week!

Mama chosen snacks attractively and irresistibly arranged in a muffin tin, genius. I am so in love with this idea. I wish I could pay tribute to the blog that I learned it from, but I can't for the life of me remember where I saw it! But isn't this so good?

We tend to be a two meal a day family on the weekends, much of the time. Often we'll have a pretty big breakfast on the late side of morning, then we'll sit down to a second big meal around 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon. In between there is the activity of the day and plenty of grazing. Before anyone even starts looking for the ice cream or reaching for a handful of cookies... have this at the ready. Just set it up and place it on the kitchen, picnic, or coffee table and step back. Kiddos (and spouses) who are looking for a little something will be thankful for your effort, amused by the presentation, and most importantly, they will be well fed and happy!

I specifically have been keeping my thrifty eye open for  a six muffin pan because I didn't think I could easily come up with twelve snacks, so glad I found one! Of course, if you have a larger family just use a twelve muffin pan and double up on six choices.

Wasn't that fun? I am so easily amused.

Earlier today we headed over to visit with friends for a season opener summer barbeque. My friend asked me to bring the hamburger rolls (I use our everyday bread recipe and just shape into rolls). I was happy to, this recipe really does make great rolls... and how fun to have freshly made burger buns. It seems like such a special treat, but once you get into the habit of bread baking it's a very easy task.

I was so inspired when Amanda shared her bread bags a while back, especially how they made beautiful and practical use of vintage tea towels - which I have so many of. I knew those hamburger rolls needed a drawstring bread bag of their own. And what a perfect little gift for the hostess!

There are quite a few months ahead of picnics and parties. If my little family is on the guest list to your backyard bash, make sure you ask me to bring the buns... I will see to it that you get a cute little bread bag as well. ;)

Lately I have felt drawn to near mundane practicality with the things I am designing and making, it is quite a good thing. With the Farmers Market starting in just a few short weeks, I've been busy planning new designs and getting very busy with the making end of things.

This season I've been encouraging my creativity to look at the everyday items we use. To work those items into my offerings and make them as beautiful and special as a hand-embroidered tote or a mantra quilt, both are wonderful to have but can feel like such an indulgence. I am trying to go into these next few months showing awareness and compassion with regards to where people are at with their spending.

One of the things we've been trying to express to our girl here in our home is that difficult economic times are not necessarily about people being out of money (because even if you are, that is too scary for kids to think about), it also has to do with how people choose to spend the money they do have (ah, empowering!). What is really worth parting with your hard (and sometimes too few) earned dollars?

So my focus this year is to become extremely practical in my designs and therefore my offerings. I am especially interested in items that could better protect the health of our natural world... trees, animals and children alike. There are several ideas in the works... many fresh, new, and simple things will be shared here over the next few weeks!

The time I spend making lunch for my family each morning is quite special to me. As I type this I'm thinking that I'm not really sure if they know this or not... hmm. Preparing the food that will be sent off with my family into the world each day is not something I try to rush through just to check it off the busy mama list and move on to the next item. I try to have a variety of fresh and homemade things on hand, and my hope is to make lunch a little different and equally interesting each day. I usually do this on the early side of the morning, before Emily is even awake, I'm happiest when I give myself about a 1/2 - 3/4 of an hour of time to make it all happen. It's not always perfectly graceful (please don't get the impression that it is) and there are certainly mornings where Adam pitches in and takes over when I have other things to take care of. But mostly, it is a very sweet and sacred part of my day.

Recently I watched the movie How to Cook Your Life. There was a point in the movie where a woman (I believe she was a nurse) said that cooking/preparing food for others is the most holy thing we can do each day. I can't even begin to express how perfectly that makes sense to me.

So, a lunchbag is one of the designs I've been brewing. The lunchbag that we send our children and partners off with each day carries so much more than a sandwich and an apple...

I'm not ready to call this my final draft, I still have some function and design elements to tweak a bit. But part of the fun of being in a family where crafty things are made for 'work', is that you get to keep and enjoy the cast-offs!  Emily was pretty happy to tote her new bag to school today. ;)

And not to feel left out...

Mama got herself a little cast-off too!

Last evening, after a game or two of marbles,  when a certain young one should have been getting ready for bed... we were instead watching and being totally entertained by a few science experiments that she just had to do right now... then we had the idea to capture a couple on video so we could look back on them. We also thought maybe your kids would get a kick out of them.

This sort of learning has me thinking about when we were homeschooling, as well as the upcoming summer, when there will be plenty of extra moments in the day for unlimited discovery. And that got me thinking about Eren's Summer Unschool project that is open to anyone who would like to join... it promises to be such and interesting and inspiring online community of sharing this summer! Have you signed up yet? ;) Read her overview and explanation of the project here. So much to look forward to!

So now, Emily and I bring to you (and your kiddos) a couple of quick videos of the science variety. She had a moment of great hesitation about using the plastic bag, but in the end we were okay (but not thrilled) with the sacrifice. Enjoy the clips... (Ever since you tube went to wide screen, which I love, videos have been transferring kind of funky. Hope it works for you)

Thanks for stopping by, I hope your week is rolling along nicely!

This morning I gathered the first bouquet of the season from our garden. The salvia is always the first to flower, and it looks like the sage and chive blossoms will be next. Soon there will be feverfew, cornflower, bee balm, lavender, phlox and so much more. Our perennial garden is six years old this summer and all grown up. I have a feeling it plans to show off a bit. Things are looking pretty beautiful and bountiful out there...

I like to fill out and extend our little bouquets with lots of fresh herbs. Today was lemon balm and peppermint, so fragrant. All was tucked inside a sweet little vase Emily gave to me on Mother's Day. The whole thing just makes me smile.

Sunday is such a good day.

For the most part I keep a healthy perspective when it comes to thrifting. I'm not really a collector of anything, I don't have shelves of bric-a-brac that need to be dusted weekly. I'm happy to discover and rescue beautiful pieces that represent a snapshot in history, clean them up a bit, and send them off for a new life. I do set up my own home with mostly thrifted and second hand items... I just don't hang on to more than I can use. But lately I've developed an unusual attachment to things. I find certain things hanging around with me for a while before I can list them... if I ever list them.

Like this candy tin. It's beautiful (and turquoise!) and I just want to look at it for a really long time. I guess there isn't anything wrong with that, I just have a little fear of becoming one of those people who can't move through their house because of the mountains of beautiful and special and too important to get rid of things! (Though it would make for some comical blog photography.) I feel confident however, that my minimalist family would intervene should that start happening. ;)

So here are some lovelies that I am ready and able to part with. This afternoon they will be listed in the shop!

Maybe you'll stop back later to take a closer look... have a great day!

Every Sunday morning our family heads out thrifting. We all sort of have our own agenda - usually Adam is on the search for tools, fly rods, books... Emily will be searching for the right pair of dress-up shoes, books, or, um, swords.

I have my own list of course (which is waaaaay longer than theirs). At the top of mine is turquoise, yellow and red pyrex/fire king, scored this weekend! Also I'm looking for flat lidded glass storage dishes to store leftovers and such in the refrigerator. Refrigerator dishes are quite collectable and popular these days (I think we are all trying to rid every bit of plastic from our kitchens) so they are hard to come buy. I found two last year, they are this style which I think is the very best and cutest of them all. Anyway, we were walking along and Emily asked me to take a look at what she had found. Just like any good thrifter, she was looking down and found the good stuff... "Mom, what do you think of these?"

What do I think? I think I've got myself a new assistant! These are technically considered covered casserole dishes and not true refrigerator dishes. But their flat lids (meaning they are stack-able) make them work for me. When I asked how much they were the guy responded, "two bucks for all of them." It was so hard to contain my excitement!

So after all this time of carefully training my cohorts to look down, under the tables, deep in the boxes... it is a pleasure to see this important life skill developing so nicely. 

on the outside::

on the inside::

I will always treasure the intention and love that went into planning this special day for me. He wanted to drive into the country, not the city. He wanted to offer our family a locally grown, roasted, traded, harvested or hunted meal. He wanted it to be memorable. It was all of those things.

If you are near northeastern Connecticut, you might visit Still River Cafe. Two former (husband and wife) trial lawyers traded it all to follow their dream of opening a little place out in the country where they could feed others food they grew, cooked, and trusted. It is quite beautiful to bare witness to a dream realized. Very inspiring.

There hasn't really been a whole lot of sewing going on the last couple of months. I'm just starting to get into the making and preparing for the Farrmers' Market (it's getting nerve-wrackingly close!). The lack of sewing mostly has to do with much of my fabric still being in boxes from when some major room swapping went on... I can't even remember what I have!

But with the addition of the little library nook in our new Everything Room (borrowing the perfect and exact term from Ducky House, she talks about her everything room here), a few soft and cozy additions were in order.

No, this is not what I made! Read on...

We all have our couch stories right? Several years ago we bought living room furniture. The couch was okay, I've never really loved it, I'm more of a futon girl (not the cheapy dorm room kind, but a really nice solid frame with an 8 inch thick cotton mattress... the seat is deep enough for two happy cuddlers to rest on together). Anyway, we bought this couch, it's fine, but not very exciting. It did however come with two unbelievable awful pillows that had everything ugly going for them... heavy, scratchy, upholstery fabric, gerber daises that were not nearly as cute as the real thing... and the not so welcome addition of colors like mauve, peach and powder blue. They never made it onto the couch which is kind of a shame because they were very comfortable once you got past the texture of the fabric and the mauve. And the powder blue. For six years they have lived in storage, until I decided to give them a makeover last weekend.

I headed down to the basement and searched for my box of vintage tablecloths and found the perfect one. Next I chose a vintage sheet to back it with, I don't think there could be another that would coordinate more perfectly! I didn't photograph the back but they close with a simple "envelope" style so they are nicely covered yet are easily removable for laundering which is great because my dog has declared them her new favorite dog bed.

The large size is perfect for sitting or leaning against the bookshelves to read.

I've been hanging out in this little corner (shown here poorly photographed on a dark, rainy day) a lot the last few days as I prepare for the Gathering of Nourishment here at my home this weekend. I do believe this is my new favorite corner in our house. Not bad considering it was made possible by a couple of scratchy, mauve, peach and powder blue pillows... work with what you have, right?