My new website

Please visit my fabulous new website: www.birdsnestinteriors.com

Thanks for your interest!

That's all for now!

Thank you so much for following along on my blog! I've really enjoyed posting new updates and giving friends a place to find recipes I've tested, organizing tips I live by and general ideas about making a house a home. I think I'm going to focus on other things now, but will keep this site up for people to go back and review. Thanks again for the support!

Taking a Little Break

Hi Friends! I wanted to let you know I've decided to take a little break from blogging. I'm getting the kids geared up for school and am searching for a job. I figure it's a nice time to take a week or two off and recollect. Thank you for supporting me and I'll see you soon!

The Second Home/ The Weekend Home

A couple of years ago, one of my dear friends gave me a specialty magazine called "Weekend Homes" that has turned into my favorite publication. It's filled with over-the-top beach houses (mostly at the Cape and the Islands). It's the sort of magazine that I pick up and flip through to wake up my *muse*. As I'm looking through it, I daydream and ask myself, "how can our house have this sort of feel? (note, my house is a lovely small cape, no massive 6,000 square foot Martha's Vineyard mansion, no worries!) One day I was in the car talking to my husband and I went off on a very long tangent about wanting our house to have a "second house" feel. Let me explain what I mean by this.

When I think "second house" I think a house that has the following characteristics: uncluttered, comfortable, a place for reading, piles of magazines, puzzles, easy meals, nothing in it you don't like, a radio playing (rather than flat screen tvs), a small manageable garden, the home you go to get away-from-it-all.....I could go on and on. You know the feeling - you go on vacation and you sit in the beach house thinking "ahhhhh". THIS is what I'm going for in my own home. THIS is why I love paring things down, keeping everything in the house simple and streamlined. Not because I'm some drill seargent organizer who must have everything in it's perfect place (whatever that is?), but wanting to have our house feel like we're on vacation, while in it.

Does that make sense to anyone? My husband thinks I should write a book called "first house as second house", or something along those lines.

Where oh where do YOU live?

Good morning, dear readers. I was just sitting here thinking "I wonder who reads this blog, anyway??" and thought it would be fun to ask you to leave a comment letting me know where you live. Just click on "comment" and leave your first name and your town. I've heard rumors of people as far as Germany and as close as Boston. Some of you are Penn State alumn, right? Go ahead, reveal yourself!

Ziplock BIG BAGS!

I love using Ziplock big bags to store seasonal things around the house: beach toys, winter bedding, guest room pillows...endless uses. Have you seen them? Used them? Let us know how you use yours! What's particularly great is how inexpensive they are. You can find them at Target or most grocery stores.

If you go to their website, http://www.ziploc.com/, you can sign up to receive a coupon to buy one, get one free. That way, you can try one of their 3 large sizes.

Happy storage! Go clean out those closets!

THOUGHTS OF THE DAY

"We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry." E. B. White

"Teach us delight in simple things..." R. Kipling

This is what this blog is ALL about!!