Birth of Nesting and Treasures Found

Left to right - Dill, Rosemary, Parsley, Tarragon, Spearmint, Lemon Balm, Basil and Chives

I am so excited today, I can hardly contain myself.  I posted in a previous blog that my nesting instinct is still broken.  I had a wonderful talk with my dear sister, Kim, (http://fieldofmydreams.blogspot.com) and she wisely said that my nesting instinct is not broken, it is on hold because I am living in my Mom's home with all of her stuff and not my stuff.  She also said that since Will and I are engaged and we are building a new home that my nesting instincts will kick in when I am working on my new home.  An epiphany for me for certain.  She gave me lots of amazing advice during that one conversation.  It's wonderful to have an OLDER wise, godly sister.  I am sometimes ashamed that I am 49 years old and am so far behind women my age in terms of their "womanhood", housekeeping and decorating.  I really do get overwhelmed by the thought of playing catch-up at my age.  I will play catch-up though and I have received great help from two sources this week.  The first being my sister and the second being a blog I found this week called Christian HomeKeeper Network.

On her blog, Sylvia has some blogs called Fast and Furious Fall Cleaning.  They break your house down room by room, day by day and help you know how to do a thorough cleaning and organizing.  I have discovered that it has seemed so overwhelming to clean and organize my Mom's stuff because I had no clue about where to get started.  Breaking it down to room by room, closet by closet, drawer by drawer is easy for me to wrap my brain around and so I am starting with the closets that are not in rooms first.  Start small Tracy, start small.

Well my goodness me, God let me discover a treasure that Mom had not ever shown me or even spoken about in the hall linen closet.  I never use the hall linen closet because it is where she stored her unused fabric and suitcases.  I NEVER sew and so it was a painful reminder that I am sewing and craft challenged to look in that closet so I never looked.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Well, I started taking fabric out of the closet and stacking in according to colors, it was neat to see all the variety and envision a table cloth or something made out of them (I can sew napkins or tablecloths haha).  I cleared enough out that I could see into the closet to my total and complete glee I found this collection of herb bottles. It has sparked my utter creativity in thinking about the kitchen for our home.  God can use the simplest things to inspire us to move forward.  Thank you Kim and thank you Sylvia. They are all herbs that I enjoy growing.  They are also all herbs that I love to cook with although, I have not ever heard of or used Lemon Balm, any suggestions?  Each bottle has the name and a picture of the herb on the front and on the back it gives the uses of each herb.  I intend to make herb infused olive oils and/or vinegars.

Spearmint, which I have growing in abundance