Day 20: Our Bedroom

Today I'm thankful for our bedroom.  I love this room and I hang out here a lot.  I know they say you should really only use your bed for sleeping and sex, but I just am not one of those people.  I write most of my blog posts here, I paint my nails here, I eat dinner with my hubby and watch tv here, it's basically like my living room... 

That "LOVE" sign is the extent of our decorating in here.  I have realized through these posts this week that I am a very slow decorator, but I am ok with that.  It gives me time to really decide what I like and makes me feel less guilty about buying those rare but perfect "have to have them" pieces when I stumble across them.  :)  

Part of the reason I hang out here so much is we don't have central air and this room is a lot easier to cool down/heat up than the rest of the house. It's also just calm and soothing to me, I find this room peaceful so I like to be in it a lot. 

When we were looking for a new house, finding one with a nice master bedroom was a big deal to us. We have a huge bed set that I LOVE.  (I may or may not have cried when we found it. (Wedding stress makes you do crazy things.)) Its a fabulous bed, but it is enormous and our last bedroom only fit the bed and a chest of drawers with about two feet of space to squeeze around it. It was literally like a closet with a bed in it.  I'm serious, you could get in bed with your hand on the doorknob. It was cozy and we loved it but we definitely wanted to upgrade in our next bedroom. 

This house definitely surpassed our expectations and I'm so thankful for such a lovely bedroom to rest and relax in.  :)

Day 19: Our Garden

Today I'm thankful for our garden. We are still learning the ropes of gardening but I think we're improving with each year. Last year was our first time trying to grow some of our own food. We ended up with more squash and beans than I knew what to do with.

This year, I did much better at meal planning, but we still had a few veggies go to waste because we just couldn't eat everything or give it away soon enough. I made several jars of tomatoes, but still ended up with extras.  My goal for next year is to do some more planning and freeze or can (and give away) our produce so that we don't have any waste.

I really enjoy being able to grow our own food and hope that our skills continue to improve.  It is a very satisfying feeling to sit down to a meal with a plate full of food that you helped to produce right in your own backyard. Someday, maybe our whole meal will all be from our backyard! :)

Day 18: Porch Swing

Today I'm thankful for my porch swing. This is one more piece of furniture that my sweet husband has built for me and it is one of my favorite places to hang out.  I especially love it in the spring mornings on my days off. I love to eat breakfast and get my daily dose of sunshine on the swing while having my quiet time with God. I also love to cuddle up in it with my honey on fall afternoons while we talk about our week and watch the dog play in the yard. It's my happy place and I'm so very thankful for it. :)

Day 17: The Kitchen

Today I'm thankful for our kitchen. I have mentioned once or twice that this house is much bigger than the first house we lived in and the kitchen is no exception. I love how much bigger our kitchen is now! Especially because I'm in it so much more now than I was before. I enjoy cooking and making healthy food for my family and I love having the space to do that easily.

Our pantry is gradually holding less and less boxes and mixes and more and more individual ingredients and homemade items.  It makes me happy to look in there and see my shelf of herbs and my raw honey and gelatin! lol #dork

Here is where I make our kombucha and where our stash of glass jars is taking over. They will eventually be stored in the pantry when I get around to cleaning it out.  ;)

I really love all the counter space! :)

Even though I love the size of the kitchen, I do feel that it gets a little dark in here with the way the windows are angled.  I love the natural light in the morning, but it gets very little sunlight the rest of the day. The walls are already a light yellow, but I'm wondering if painting the walls white will brighten up the room a little more. 

We are also trying to figure out what type of table to put in here. Our first table was really tiny which was actually nice because it gave us lots of open space in the kitchen.  We ended up never eating at it though, because it started to get treated like a coffee table and got cluttered so quickly. There also wasn't enough seating for guests.  Then someone gave us this table which is beautiful and has plenty of room for guests, but it takes up so much space and looks kind of awkward here.  We have it pushed up against the wall for everyday use and pull it out when people come over, but I just don't love it as a permanent solution.

We don't have a dining room, just a tiny, tiny living room and a super large mud room... So if anyone has some great ideas/solutions for our table dilemma, please share! :)

It's a quirky house, but we love it. :)

Day 16: My Bathroom Vanity

Today I am thankful for my bathroom vanity. This feels like an odd thing to be thankful for so I'll explain. Growing up, I almost always shared a bathroom with at least one other person. There was often cramped mirror space for applying makeup and not enough bathroom storage for each girls' accessories.

Then I got married and Doad and I rented a cute little house. But for some reason our one tiny bathroom was on the other side of the house from the master bedroom. You had to walk thru the kitchen to get to it and there were no counters and very little space to store anything. I did my make up in a "spare room" (read: glorified hallway) where I kept my dresser, makeup stuff, and a mirror. (The rooms were really small and our dresser didn't fit in the master bedroom.)

So when we moved in to this house, it was a really exciting thing to have such a cute, little vanity section dedicated just for primping and beautifying in the mornings. I've got space, storage, natural lighting... it's heavenly! ;)

I have more ideas for organizing this space, but haven't settled on anything yet as I trade out my beauty products for less toxic options and change the types of things I store in here. 

So now you've seen where I get ready every morning.  :)  And where I started my day off with thankfulness this morning. :)