creative lighting

What a beautiful creation out of broken bits of glass, ceramic and metal household items!  Amazing what some might consider as junk or in the German sense, recycling an art form.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this takes a functional item and gives it a dose of creative imagination.  We dined under this at Stanton  Restaurant in Cologne, Germany.  It is attached to a the beautiful Antoniterkirche which sustained damage during the war and was rebuilt.  Perhaps symbolic.
Delicious lunch, slow food (both local and duration), but lovely experience!

down with the decorations

When is it time it take down your exterior holiday decorations?  Here in the Midwest the "polar vortex" has forced many to keep up the outside wreaths, lights, etc. longer than usual.  We keep ours very simple and slightly un-Christmasy to get more time out of them.  With one warmer day last weekend my husband retrieved all the wreaths and lights to be stowed away until next year.
When do you feel is the right time to take down the decorations?

100 things: 86'd

Happy New Year!  Like many others I am welcoming 2014 by saying goodbye to clutter and hello to order.  One of my favorite blogs that I follow, The Gardener's Cottage posted this powerful yet simple activity of purging your home quickly of 100 random and no longer useful items here.

It took my son and I less than five minutes to go through some items in a basket in the basement rec room.  He can be a bit of a packrat, but once the first junk item went in he was quick to fill the bag. In no time at all we collected over 100 items for recycling, garbage and donating!

Next was my teenager daughter's desk drawer and then my kitchen junk drawer.

What a release!  Try this and you will feel lighter and happier immediately.