Another cold start to the day, but at least the wind has died down. It is nice getting to have a fire in the woodstove, though. There's nothing quite like a cozy shanty. :) Here are a couple of pictures of Joe's recent handiwork. It is so nice to come home from work and find wonderful new additions to our universe while I've been gone. The other day he built another set of steps from our porch leading straight into the garden. No more going the long way around! I guess the deer could end up in our garden if they were willing to walk up and over our porch to get into it, and the day that ever happens.....

We have been revisiting our future house plans lately in the hopes that we can reinvigorate ourselves on the project and make it a not-so-future reality. After having lived in a little-bity place for a year now, we have changed some of our ideas of what we want in a house. We LOVE living in a little house, and so we've been redesigning our plans to be even smaller and simpler. I have been getting books at the library for ideas, but all of the small house plans books are for houses that are 1,200-2,000 square feet. Even that seems huge now. I have been really inspired by Tumble Weed Houses, and while we're not aiming for that small (which is smaller than we even have now), it is really fun to think about. The smaller the house, the less intimidating a project it is to tackle.