Last October we stocked the pantry ready for the winter ahead. Then, we rented out our house for a few months and everything I had in the pantry was packed, moved up to the studio and forgotten about. Our clothes went up there as well as all of my books and quilting supplies etc.

With, what seems like a wink of an eye, it is one year later and we are bringing the boxes down from the studio and unpacking them. I can only empty a few at a time as I have to find a place to put everything. Our house is after all still unfinished and not really that much bigger… Although we have higher ceilings and walls covered in windows, those features don’t translate into a lot of additional cupboard space.

Most of the wine has come down. The pantry items, books and crafting supplies were found this morning. With such a dismal production from my vegetable garden this summer I was more than pleased to open up a bin full of canned tomatoes, chutney, pear jam and green tomato relish… Our kitchen cupboards are stocked!

When we packed up our belongings last fall we thought it would be for two months. We kept out a few shirts, a couple of pairs of jeans.. a sweater or two.. Everything else went into garbage bags up in the studio. Over the summer I have been buying clothes as I need them. Honestly, most of what I have left is either stained, faded or shredded. Alison commented that my work jeans look like the expensive fancy jeans they are selling in the stores. You know the ones that have worn through knee caps.. Why anyone would buy a pair of jeans with the tears already in them absolutely defeats me but there you go… we are all different…

E put ceilings in the closets yesterday and today hung the shelves and clothes rod.. (clothes rod? is that the word????) .. He came into the kitchen and pronounced “there you go… start hanging… ” Well, I would if I had anything to hang.. We haven’t found the garbage bags of clothes yet…. More importantly, we haven’t yet

found the stach of Scotch

Squirrel stole my tissue paper but can’t get it into his nest…