House for all seasons

Wow, everything looks so glistening in these pictures. It doesn't feel like that most days, but I hope we never stop being thankful for this house. We painted the living room yellow because we spend the most time in it in the long drear winter, and wanted the cheeriest color possible for wintertime. As it turns out (we moved in and painted in the summer) the living room gets the most beautiful sunshine in the winter because the sun is so much lower, and the trees which shade the front of the house in summer are bare.
It's odd to me how open-plan houses are all the rage because people supposedly never use their dining rooms, because one of my favorite things about our house is having a nice ample dining room. It is such a joy and privilege to have a big crowd of people over for a meal, and that's just what dining rooms are for! or course that big table is also for drawing, and cutting and pasting, and play dough, and judging by this week, storing mail and newspapers, catalogs and laundry and stacks of library books. Or--this one's new for me--nothing at all except (hopefully, as the garden gets going here) a vase of flowers.

I'm learning about myself that though it used to feel like we couldn't possibly handle having lots of people over, having people over regularly helps our life be more sane. It helps us clean up. It helps us remember what we have. And it helps us remember what's important-- friends and neighbors, not the house.