Ok, so maybe I am being a little melodramatic, but after living in our basement suite for almost a year, the wood paneling was graining on me (ha- graining). So, I painted the walls. Well, we are in the midst of painting the walls. What I am trying to say is, I bought white paint. So, technically, we never said anything about not buying paint, but it wasn’t a necessity. I am happy to report that I bought used outlet covers though- now, that is something to be proud of.

I will show you the before picture now of the living room area of our basement home, and you can decide for yourself if it was an emergency or not:

There you have it. I will upload the new improved pics when we are finished.

I find that this year I have a deep pull inside myself to take something and renew it. I am very happy where we live, but it is not super trendy and beautiful to look at. It looks like a reject from 1972. We have made a decision to be content with less, not strive for more and more. But at the same time, I don’t think that means that you can’t take something that you already have and renew it. I find a lot of joy in that process. I think that Christ has that same kind of joy when he can take our out of date, delapitated life, and make it beautiful and new.

I have been making some bread lately. Some friends of ours heard what we were doing and thought they would give us some of their stuff they don’t use anymore(smile). One awesome thing in the pile was a bread maker. I thought at first it was too huge to keep (b/c I have all of two cupboards in my kitchen) but once I used it I was hooked. It is so easy and wonderful to use and the results are fabulous. Even though I don’t eat bread, the boys really enjoy it and the smell is enough for me. I also feel a lot better giving my family food that I know exactly what is in it, because I put everything in it!

Here is the bounty from our garden today:

Man I love living in the country!

In other news, I have been cleaning and purging like nobody’s business. We have this area in our living space that is all of our storage covered by a curtain. I loath that area. I hate not having storage. But, it got me to thinking today, what is the point of having a whole bunch of stuff piled up in a corner that you just don’t use? I mean, there are some things that I use occasionally, but most was just sitting there collecting dust. It drives me nutters. So, I purged. Tom hates it when I do this, but he has become used to it in the five years that we have been married! So, not only am I buying nothing, I am also giving stuff away! Happy day.