Though it's a bit premature, I cannot curb my unstoppable desire to nest, nest, nest. For the past few weeks, I've been going to our storage unit and bringing home (I have a home!) boxes of the things that remained after our numerous Great Purges, including the Purges of 2008, 2009, and 2012. Things we haven't touched since we stayed up all night in a delirious packing marathon in Jodi's kitchen, right on the verge heading east for this great homesteading adventure.

Each package is like a Christmas present. What marvelous surprises will I find inside?! And, while some things I pick up and say "why in the world did we save that?!" adding it to a box of things to get rid of, most items I take out lovingly, saying "I completely forgot about this! I'm so glad I kept this!" And then I dust it off, and put it on a shelf (because I have shelves now!), and feel immensely grateful for it.

The kitchen is getting so beautiful that I could just sit and stare at it for hours. And sometimes, when I'm done working on it for the day, I do just that.