How much elbow space do we need?

Dark Mirror comes home on Saturday.

Hs bed is freshly made, and I'm working on clearing out the stuff that has seeped into his room while he was staying with his father. Mainly books. We have too many books. His room is half teen hideaway and half library. We won't really be changing that, but I thought the books I reach for most often should come out of his space.

Dark Mirror's room is in the basement (he likes that, what teen doesn't like their own space!) so all week I've been hauling books back upstairs.

It has had a really profound affect on the energy here.

I've been really busy with the books the last while - deciding on things to do with the waldorf coop, crafting books, books on dyslexia....and because they were shelved in the basement I was in the basement. It makes a HUGE difference to be upstairs reading! All of us on one level - me aware of the weather and light at all times. Ah settled.

There's another reason I'm doing this too...

We've found a really amazing property with good neighbours, a pond, a forest full of trails, garden space and tons of fruit trees and bushes, a woodworking studio for me...and a house the size of a teacup. We're so enamoured with the property we're trying to get our heads wrapped around the house. It has a wonderful feel, it does, but just how will it feel come February when slush falls from the sky and everyone is crowded inside?

Feeling it out for me involves spiralling into as small a space as I can manage in this house and so...the basement is being abandoned in favour of the 1200 sq ft of main floor we have here. That feels cavernous next to the square footage we're looking at though in this little craftsman cottage.

The little kids would share a lovely light filled bedroom in the teacup. Papa Pan and I would have a loft space with no walls, my studio would consist of a long tabletop under a window built into the forward eaves. Dark Mirror would have his own room on the main floor. Papa Pan's guitars would need to live under all our beds. We'd fully winterize the screened porch on the front of the house for the kid's to use as a playroom and then there is an open concept kitchen/living/diningroom. There's a mudroom too, and a wonderful multi platform deck that is bigger than the house itself. There's one bathroom and a dubious basement.

How much house space do you need? I NEED outdoor spaces I feel totally at home in, inside...I can live almost entirely in my diningroom and kitchen...but when the noise levels gets too high I want to send kids outside, not away from me in the house.

I once decided my perfect house was a ger or yurt. But then came the inevitable stumbling block... where will we fit all the books?

I used to be a juice hard-ass

I limited its consumption. I insisted that if they had it, it be organic. I squeezed my own. Then my kids started attending school and the juice box entered our lives. I HATE juice boxes - the packaging, the spills, the juice. My kids on the other hand, love the juice box. Papa Pan is a big fan of the juice box too, and keeps them in the car for instant child pacification purposes.

I found a way out of this sticky situation.

First, I noticed that we pay a 5 cent deposit on every single juice box here in Nova Scotia! Papa Pan is not a fan of juice boxes anymore.

Next, we found an organic juice seller at the Wolfville Farmer's Market who sells the best blended apple juice and everyone likes it, even watered down A LOT.

Then we got our new refrigerator. We needed a two door model because of the tight squeeze between the fridge and stove. I asked for a filtered water dispenser (city water after 3 years of deep sweet well water - blech!) and an icemaker (the only good thing about a hospital birth is the never ending supply of ice cubes they provide you with). The kids have been won over by ice cubes too.

My next project (and how handy, they're in Wakefield, where we're spending Christmas) is to get each kid their own aluminum sippy canteen from http://www.lifewithoutplastic.com/. So I can forever ban the juice box from our house.