Lisa Zahn

For the sake of my health, and as a Valentine's gift to myself, I'm taking a "media fast" until March 1. I may or may not miss blogging, but I'll miss all of you! See you in March (maybe).

I love coffee shops, and the tea and treats you can find at them. I love the atmosphere and the relaxation I feel when I'm able to visit one. Of course, we have several in our town including one just down the block. For $1.50 I can have a cup of tea and an hour or two or relaxed reading or visiting with a friend. George and I used to think little of driving 100 miles to this pretty river town of Taylors Falls, Minnesota , just to go to their coffee shop, Coffee Talk , on a Sunday afternoon. We'd also take the kids and hike a bit around the rocks of Interstate State Park there. It was our idea of a fun day, and like I said we thought little of the gasoline we used up going there. But that was then. This is now. Now we do "coffee shop" at home. Four dollar a gallon gas got us rethinking a lot of things last year, as it did for most Americans. That, and concern for the environment, put the kabosh on regular "Sunday drives" and even going to our local coffee sho...

Here are the long-promised photos of the basement space we've been working on. As you can see the first thing we did was paint the ugly gray walls white. We'd started that process on some of the walls before we moved in 4.5 years ago, but it was never finished. Before (when a space is ugly, it just collects crap, doesn't it?): During (it took 3 coats of this white, dirt-fighting paint): After (more shelves for pantry space, since my kitchen is small): Before (the shelving unit that was the "pantry", which will now be only for seed starting--you can see the light fixture which we used for seed growing last year): During (construction of the new laundry lines, with thanks for the inspiration to Heather at Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op ): After: George actually hung the two-by-four supports from the floor joists, giving the unit stability. It also meant the line could only be 13 inches wide. That's okay, the room is pretty small anyway. There are holes drilled int...