Cleaning House

 It's been a busy January so far at The Garden Gate and the Coop de Grace, but I always enjoy the fresh start of a new year and the motivation that comes with it to organize and indulge my organizational OCD. (The rest of the year I am in recovery, as anyone who takes a really close look at my house will tell you.) And although packing away the Christmas stuff was easy this year, I am still reminded of the woeful lack of storage in this house. With my newly found love of canning, I had to do some serious reallocation of closet space this summer, but it still isn't enough. For example, I would love to have a pantry that looks like this:

Pinterest

As for other "house" cleaning, we are taking advantage of all of our winter greens to try to mitigate the excess of holiday eating. Right now the lettuces are tender and flavorful, and we have been eating a lot of salads. This year I planted some new varieties of heirloom greens, including Little Gem Romaine, Red Romaine, Buttercrunch, Tom Thumb Butterhead, Bronze Mignonette, and arugula. The cilantro I used in a citrus vinaigrette in which I also used our blood oranges. Remarkably, we are still getting grape tomatoes from one of our plants, and they are very good. The girls are also benefiting from the greens in our garden and it is fun to mix up a good salad for them, too.

Green goodness

Coop de Grace special

Stitching has been at a minimum these past two weeks, as there really has been too much to be done both indoors and out, but I shan't leave you without a house-related stitching photo.

"By wisdom a house is built,
and by understanding it is established;
 and by knowledge the rooms are filled
 with all precious and pleasant riches." ~ Proverbs 24:3,4

Have a great week, everyone!