short barn, tiny happy, under the willow, and a little blog award

I love this barn. It's on one of my weekly drives for work, and it looked so beautiful in the snow with the ominous sky when I drove by last week, that I had to stop and take a picture. I need to remember to take my camera with me more often, and consider tossing a pair of boots in the trunk along with my pruners. (That makes me sound like an eccentric oddball who would also be likely to have several cats and really strange things in her grocery cart, doesn't it? But I could have avoided those branchy things in the foreground if I'd had boots!)
I love Tiny Happy. Melissa's blog is lovely, as is all of her work. I especially love all of the nature reflected in her projects. I've followed her blog for a long time, and was excited to order this sweet little pouch before Christmas from her Etsy shop. I took this picture a few weeks ago, and I haven't brought myself to take the little tag off of the zipper yet, or to separate the card from the pouch. Maybe I'm just waiting for the perfect purpose for it.

Photo from here.

Carrie over at Under the Willow was generous enough to send me some samples of her amazing handmade laundry soaps to try! They arrived in the mail on Christmas Eve, so this post is long, long overdue. Just about everything I would write about the soap was already written by Joanna over here. I only used the laundry soap on towels, since P seems to be sensitive to scents in laundry detergent (we usually use Down East, available at Sobeys). The scents are lovely, (I especially loved 'Home for the Holidays', and 'Lavender Grace' is really nice, too) and just subtle enough when the towels came out of the dryer. The whole bathroom doesn't smell like the soap, but you get a lovely whiff as you're using the towel. Mmmm. It's just good stuff, and the price is great! (Oh, and the towels were nice and clean, too.) So go have a peek at Joanna's review, and give it a try! Thanks so much, Carrie!

And Teresa, over here at Homesteading, kindly awarded me a little blog award. I must admit, I'm not really much for these 'chain-mail' things, so if you want to jump in and pass it along, please do! I'm flattered - thanks so much, Teresa! (By the way, Teresa is so sweet, is always up to something interesting, and her garden completely astounds me, so have a peek at her blog.)

Phew! I hope that you have a great weekend - today was a welcome snow day, so I took full advantage and during naptime I whipped up four lovely-looking batches of soap and overdid it a bit this morning setting up Son #2's room. I can't wait until everything's complete and presentable - when it's all together, there will be pictures!