On Saturday I had the rare chance to spend all day with a friend tooling around Frederick, Maryland, a town near here known for its antiques.

The danger of rare opportunities is that they sometimes make me rush into spending money — because who knows when I’ll be able to get back? As if the universe had sensed my need, just before my outing I came across a few maxims in the May issue of House Beautiful magazine that sank to the bottom of me and acted as anchors.

Before I share them with you, I wanted to touch upon why I think creating beautiful interiors is a worthwhile pursuit. I am not good at drawing, or painting, or making movies, but I think I create art through the everyday meals that we cook, the little parties we throw, and the way we decorate our house.

Of course functionality and comfort are important, but beauty is too. Beauty brings peace, it inspires creativity, and it tells everyone who encounters it: we care.

1. “Have fewer things, but better things.” — Suzanne Rheinstein

House Beautiful, May 2012

When I saw the Manhattan apartment in House Beautiful that Suzanne Rheinstein had designed, I felt a sense of calm. And I don’t think it was just because of the restrained use of color — it was the choice of furniture. Furniture that Rheinstein said would see the young homeowners “through their lives.”

“Obviously, it’s a long process. It’s not 10-minute decorating,” concedes Rheinstein. “If you buy one good thing a year, in five years, you’ll have five really good things.”

Finding furniture that is not only well-made but that has a timeless style is a challenge. Each piece would require the thought and money of an ‘investment.’ That’s the way our grandparents used to think of furniture: yes, it’s expensive but you only have to buy it once. These days we expect lower and lower prices on everything, so we can buy more and more. Furniture-makers and fashion designers keep the trends changing so we are almost forced to keep tossing out and buying new.

But maybe furniture should be elevated to the level of real estate: you trade more of your life for it because you plan to love it and use it for a long time. You don’t always have to pay with your money; you could pay with time, like I did this weekend.

My trip to the country winding through room after dizzying room of antiques yielded one great find: this 1850s chest from a farmhouse in Maryland’s Middletown Valley on sale for $315:

It was exactly the piece we thought would look great in our new foyer, but we never imagined we’d ever find it, much less at this price.

Having better things is possible but it demands a lot of us: patience, time, and conviction.

2. “Live with what you love.” — Austin Varner

My grandmother’s candelabra below pottery from Mexico and Italy

Just because something is in style or everyone else is doing it (think stainless steel appliances), doesn’t mean it’s right for us.

For one, we all have different budget constraints, we all have different lifestyles, and different priorities. If you’ve ever renovated a kitchen (I haven’t), you probably will identify with this post by one of my favorite writers, Meagan Francis: In defense of the over-the-range microwave, or why I need to worry less about what other people think.

The edict of “buy what you love” is complicated. I’ve often had to ask myself: do I love this because I’m seeing it in all the magazines, or because deep-down I really like it?

One thing we need in our newly-renovated foyer is a light fixture to cover the naked bulb that has been dangling from the ceiling for a couple of months. I love chandeliers. I’ve always been attracted to glittery things, but I have restrained myself (most of the time) over the past couple of decades when it seems like everything from address books to change purses to candle sticks are encrusted with jewels. Now I have a real need (not just a want), and I would love to be able to marry form with function.

Here’s the tricky part: I am drawn to houses that are decorated with a mix of old and new and rough and fine: what they are calling “transitional.” Because most of the other elements of the foyer are traditional, I feel like the ceiling light needs to be modern to shake things up a bit. On my shopping day, I saw a bunch of pendant lamps that would technically fit the bill — funky and modern, or industrial and raw — but I couldn’t bring myself to buy them because I didn’t feel the love. Which means we will probably go another few months with a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. To which — if I want to follow my new golden rules — I must say, “Oh well!”

(The flip side of the “live with what you love” coin is that not everything in the room can be fantabulous; too many movie stars in one room is overwhelming. I need to remember, as my mom has been telling me, that silk curtains need to be balanced with something like a plain Jane natural rug, which is also something I love — just not something I would dream about.)

3. “Authenticity rules!” — Annie Brahler

A mirror my mom stored in the barn now leans against our new chest

When I heard designer and owner of Euro Trash, Annie Brahler, say in an interview with House Beautiful, “I have an aversion to anything reproduction,” it was like I was wiping the steam off my own reflection in the mirror. I have to admit, this realization also kind of made me want to give that glass a good crack, because it explained quite a few furniture-purchasing mistakes I have made over the years.

When I buy something that is trying to be something that it is not — a chair that is made to look old with fake distressing, a particle-board bookshelf masked by a thin wood veneer, or a bench that is made with “pleather” — I fall out of love pretty quickly. This short-term infatuation makes me feel good at the moment — “Great, I’ve found something in my price range that looks great!” But in the long-run, all I want to do is leave him and find Mr. Right.

“Authenticity rules” does not mean “something has to be a rare antique,” explains Brahler. “It could be a tin can with rust on it — that’s real patina.” (Brahler, by the way, has crystal chandeliers in every single room of her Jacksonville, Illinois house, claiming, “Overdoing it with one thing is kind of not overdoing it.”)

This real-materials idea helped me keep walking when I came across bins of what looked like antique hooks (something else on my list). Even though they kind-of fooled me, and I had to look really close to determine that they were objects made to look old, I knew that deep down inside they would not be satisfying to me.

The handmade lace that I had been saving finally found a home in our attic guest room

If the “realness” of stuff matters to you too, but you can’t find a real vintage piece, one option is to go unabashedly modern. A Lucite chair, for example, is not trying to be an antique; however a traditional chandelier made with plastic crystals is trying to be a chandelier with glass crystals. I was presented with this exact issue when I saw the globe chandelier I have been lusting over at a third of the cost. Even though it was affordable, I remembered that it’s not just the idea of the thing — it’s the texture and feel and the way the light is refracted through the glass onto the rest of your house.

The result of all this is that, yes, I now have a handsome entry chest for our foyer, but — that’s about it. Besides the claw-foot table that once belonged to my grandparents, we have no lighting, no rugs, no curtains, chair, or window cushions. (And don’t get me started on the living room — we literally have to apologize every time we have people over, it’s so bad.)

Unlike the young homeowners in the magazine who apparently filled their apartment with fine furniture in one fell swoop, we will have to be the one-by-one people. No more decorating in a flash (as we did when we were moving around a lot) and then getting on with life.

The upside is that we won’t have to try to simulate the “collected over time” look; we’ll be doing just that.

As promised, here is the image of one of my mother’s paintings, which she customized for you to use on Mother’s Day.

It is free for you to download, and print or send electronically.

My mom, Lynn Carden, whom you met in her post about decorating tips, is a working artist represented by B. Deemer Gallery in Louisville, Kentucky, and Park View Gallery in Chillicothe, Ohio, where she and my dad live.

My parents’ mothers have passed away, as has my husband’s mamma and some of my friends’ moms. This small gift from my mother — who has warm feelings to all the readers who have been a part of my life over the last few years — is for you too.

So please take one — and know that we are thinking of you this week, and on Sunday, when mothers all over the country are appreciated an extra bit more.

A child as young as three can make this project (I know because I did it with my son’s preschool class) with supplies lying around the house. (We used lollipops left over from Valentine’s Day, as you can tell by the “Hubba Bubba” message.)

The craft makes a great little card and gift for almost any occasion — just change the paper colors and lollipop to suit the season.

Simple Supplies

• Colored tissue paper
• Construction paper
• Lollipops
• Rubber bands

Easy Assembly

1.  For each flower’s leaf, cut out a construction paper circle (we used green) that measures about 5 inches across.

2.  Using the construction paper circle as a guide, cut a stack of multi-colored tissue paper in the same shape. We used seven different colors.

4.  Poke the lollipop stick through the center of each layer of tissue paper, starting with the color you want closest the lollipop center and ending with the color you want next to the leaf.  Virginia, who is eight years old, chose light pink for the center and light blue for the layer closest to the green leaf.

5.  Crimp each tissue paper layer by squeezing it around the lollipop bulb.

6.  Write a message on the back of the construction paper circle, and poke it through the lollipop stick, with the writing-side showing.

I love it when kids write something really specific that could only apply to the recipient. (Virginia wrote, “Dear Mama, I love your Feddechini Alfredo.”)

7.  To hold the petals on the stick, wrap a rubber band around the lollipop stem as many times as you can, and then push it up as far as it will go.

Give it to someone you love.

Tiny fuzzy globes are plumping up on the Reliance peach tree we planted in our front yard a few weeks ago. And the Honeycrisp apple tree and its cross-pollinating friend, a Golden Grimes apple, are starting to lose their shell-pink flowers and grow little balls of future goodness. According to the fruit tree expert in the local nursery who advised us on our 8-foot-tall trees, we could get fruit this summer.

Fruit and vegetable plants can be as beautiful as the bushes and flowers that you normally see in front yards. In fact, some people create abundant landscapes with climbing tomatoes, artichokes, and purple basil. You may have read about the edible yards of gardening experts like Rosalind Creasy (author of Edible Landscaping) or “food not lawns” advocates like Ivette Soler (who wrote The Edible Front Yard).

When we were trying figure out how to relandscape our new house’s outdoor area to be more kid- and mom-friendly, I thought about food.

My kids and I have longed to grow food in all the various places we have lived and rented. But when we finally settled down into a house in Washington, D.C, we didn’t have the ideal set-up.

Fruit and vegetables need six to eight hours of sun to grow, but our tiny back yard was deeply shaded. Our small front yard space was brighter, but we had to cut down an ailing mulberry tree to really have enough light.

Kale growing near the sidewalk in our front yard

Last week, we planted arugula and kale seeds because my kids actually love kale chips, Sungold cherry tomatoes, and basil. Since it’s our first time growing, we mainly started with small plants — including sage, rosemary, flat-leaf parsley, and — to sprinkle on our favorite pizza — oregano. Since we love eating fried pumpkin flowers (and Halloween), we planted some jack-o-lantern pumpkin seeds too.

The important thing with front yard gardens is to keep them pretty, since the front is the face we present to the world and our neighbors (with property values to keep up). We edged our veggie beds with miniature boxwood bushes and antique bricks (which we found at a salvage yard), and we’ll be careful to keep them tidy, even during winter.

We also tried to choose plants that are both edible and ornamental, like the eight blueberry bushes that we planted behind the fruit trees. Instead of looking scraggly and brown by fall, blueberry bush leaves turn a beautiful red color.

Creating an activity that would draw me and my children out of doors was the objective, and so far our edible front yard is doing just that.

Everyone loves to eat, so it makes sense that growing food makes gardening and its chores more palatable for both me and the kids.  We already put a lot of work in our yards, so why not reap both beauty and taste?

We all love stories. And a lot of people love old houses, including me. That must be why I was intrigued by an article last week in the Washington Post: History in the house: How to discover your home’s past. Even if your house isn’t in a historic district (mine is not), your place may still have a fascinating story.

Our house was featured in House Beautiful in 1998. Former owner, Robert Lautman, was an architectural photographer who took pictures for magazines like this one.

Stories Add Wealth Without Clutter

What’s in a house story? Knowing that a father built your house for his daughter or that your neighborhood was once the largest working farm in the county can add richness to your abode, without spending money on even one antique.

A history could make you fall more in love with your house (helping you appreciate the sagging floorboards or the porch that needs repair). A history could even increase the value of your home, “although it’s hard to put a price tag on knowing that a renowned artist once painted in the master bedroom or that a president was a guest,” according to the Post article.

Robert C. Lautman, the architectural photographer who lived in our house for the past 45 years.

Architecturally there is nothing remarkable about our house. Folk is probably the most flattering way to describe its style. But I loved how it seemed out of place and time — a farmhouse in the middle of the city.

For me, knowing that a respected architectural photographer, Robert Lautman, and his wife lived in the house from 1967 until he died in 2009 added to its charm.  It also helped explain all the skylights, and — after reading Lautman’s obituary which the selling agent sent us when we were looking at the house — the industrial-style chef’s kitchen (he loved to cook and entertain) and the contemporary additions (his love was post-modern architecture.)

Because I knew I wouldn’t meet his family at the closing (the estate had been handed over to a conservator), I wrote a letter, telling them how thrilled we were and that their loved house would be in good hands. I still think it’s so cool to see small evidences of the photographer’s mark: the darkroom in the basement, the scribbled phone numbers on the walls, the landscaping inspired by his travels.

Writing that letter helped me get in touch with his niece, who owns an antique store nearby, and who has been a valuable resource and an emotional connection to the house. Given that she had Sunday dinner here every week for decades, she knows everything about the structure (even coordinating the latest kitchen renovation while her uncle was in Paris).  To help with our renovations, she has recommended trusted people who were here way before we were.

How to Begin Searching Your House’s History

“Like discovering your family’s roots,” the Post article explains, “researching your house’s past can give you a sense of connection to history.” You might learn that part of your house burned down during the Civil Rights protests of the ’60s, or that your street used to be on the trolley line that took people to the summer fair.

If you’d like to tackle the project yourself, one way is to start with the previous owner and work backward, just as you would if you were researching your family’s genealogy. Or you could look for the house’s original building permit. Check with your public library on where to start — sometimes libraries even hold workshops on researching house histories. Then there are historical societies — and neighbors. People who have lived in the neighborhood for a while might know about street name changes or may have discovered telling documents in their attics.

My neighbor, for example, found the plans to his house rolled up in his basement, which explained the fact that he lived in a row of 1912 Sears Roebuck kit houses. (Kit houses were often assembled in groups near railway stations, because they were shipped in boxcars: the old Tenallytown train station was located just up the street from us.)

If you find all this as interesting as I do (I spent way too much time this afternoon trying to find the exact model of the Sears houses on my side street), you might want to check out more research tips and resources at The New England House Historian.

Hiring a Professional Architectural Historian

Wouldn’t a house history be a wonderful anniversary or milestone birthday gift (or a way to spend your tax refund)? To find a professional in your area, do a Web search for house historian or architectural historian. You might get some leads from your city’s historical society.

To see what a house history might look like, check out some beautifully thorough histories at Kelsey & Associates, a Washington, D.C. firm specializing in researching homes and businesses.

I’m thinking that if I ever get mine done, it might cost less than the $500 to $800 that this firm typically charges for histories, considering it’s already half done. Since our house was built in 1911 (and we know who was there since 1967), we don’t have that much more to dig up. But then that’s part of the fun: maybe there is a lot more to discover.

As you can see from these photos, the previous owners of our house had personality to sell. As we slowly make changes to the house to fit the way we live, I hope we can honor their spirit as well as add a healthy dollop of our own.

The living room, which unfortunately no longer has that wonderful wood-burning stove.

Love the warmth and quirkiness of their style.

This sunroom was the latest addition and our favorite room in the house.

Yup, this is our kitchen: industrial meets country.

Pegboard over windows helped create more wall space for displaying their collections.

These photos came from the April 1998 issue of House Beautiful. Thank you to Barbara Lautman for these clues to the history and collective personality of the place we now call home.

Home is so important to me, and so are people. To that list, I might add history.

When my husband took clothes-shopping into his own hands last weekend, I was forced to ask myself:  how much is a get-out-of-ironing card worth? Forty-five dollars? Because that’s how much more he paid for a Brooks Brothers non-iron shirt than I pay for a regular dress shirt.

Let me explain how this happened.  We usually go shopping together, and when I say together, I mean the whole family takes a field trip to TJ Maxx or Marshall’s. There are kids hanging out of shopping carts, hiding under racks of viscose blouses, rolling around the floor of the lingerie section, and sometimes, there are kids plied with toys to make it worth their while (now you know who is really in control around here).

We can usually find nice dress shirts for about $20 a piece in these kinds of stores. However, now that we have a toddler with a penchant for knocking merchandise off shelves with a velocity that only increases when he is told not to, we try to whip in and out of stores as fast as a greased skateboard.

So this is why hubby was forced to go to Nordstrom Rack on his own, and how he returned with an armload of no-iron shirts (and some work pants) and a bill for almost $500. Believe me, I was touched that he was thinking of me when building his wardrobe. I do all the ironing in the house (although my 10-year-old sometimes chips in because she thinks it’s fun), so the shirts were just as much a gift to me as they were to his closet.

However, it is difficult to find a true iron-less shirt unless you spend a lot of money. And I would not have allowed myself to spend $65 for a shirt, even if it did shorten my Sunday chore list. Scoring brand-name dress shirts for $1 to $2 at thrift stores is more my style, and the huge savings make up for the fact that the oxfords have to be ironed the old-fashioned way.

So let’s go through some of the reasons why and why not to buy wrinkle-free dress shirts.

1.  The Obvious: They Save Labor

As my new accountant says: it’s either your time or your money. Spending on high-quality non-iron shirts, like Brooks Brothers or Charles Tyrwhitt, did pay off in the labor department. Most wrinkle-free shirts we’ve had in the past either have to be ironed anyway (what’s the point?) or they look cheap and polyestery.

I was shocked, however, to see how crisp and smooth these luxury-brand shirts looked when I pulled them out of the dryer. It was kind-of weird: there was virtually no sign they had been through the wringer. Yes, I admit that on some of the shirts (not all) there is a very subtle waviness in the fabric. But my wrinkle-tolerance threshold is pretty low, and they definitely passed my muster.

So by spending more on the shirts, we saved time and gained quality.

2.  They Stay Wrinkle-Less All Day Long

Even though the shirts cost an arm and a leg (Brooks Brothers full-price retail is as high as $80, while Charles Tyrwhitt can go for as low as $39), they have so far lived up to their crease-free promise. Another plus of higher-quality no-iron shirts is that they are still crisp at the end of the day.

For certain jobs, looking pulled-together is important. Shabby chic is unfortunately no longer the in-look, and while a 5 ‘o’clock shadow might be acceptable, a wrinkly shirt looks sloppy. And since we are talking about economics, I might as well say that something as simple as appearance can lead to more sales or a better salary.

3.  They Could be Cost-Effective, Depending on Your Lifestyle

But what if $65 per shirt was actually a good deal too?

It takes me about five minutes to iron a shirt. I do it for free, but if I paid someone $20 per hour to iron, he or she would probably do a better job and take longer. Let’s say, 10 minutes per shirt, which is about $3 per shirt.  If we take shirts to the dry cleaner for ironing, it costs about $2 per shirt (plus the hassle of dropping off and picking up and the waste of hangers and other packaging).

So the extra cost of a high-end wrinkle-free shirt would pay itself off in three to five months, if it gets washed and worn once a week. Since shirts go about two to three years before getting frayed at the collar, I think it’s a winning proposition.

If you iron your own shirts, the savings is less quantifiable. If it frees up time to make money or save money in other ways, it might even make economic sense. Or if you’re like me, and just want to use the extra time to flop on the couch and watch your kids play, or take an evening walk to the park, then maybe it’s just a quality-of-life decision that you decide to make.

However, They’re Not 100% Natural

In Slate’s hilarious but disparaging post on no-iron shirts, writer Daniel Akst rails on the new-fangled fabric for being stiff, scratchy, hot, and made with the same chemical as plywood: formaldehyde. But many commenters on that article disagree (at least on the feel of the fabric) pointing out that Brooks Brothers’ no-iron shirts are both soft and breathable. I would agree: the cotton feels like a freshly ironed and starched shirt, and my husband says they don’t feel any different to wear than any of his regular shirts.

However, chemical processes were used to make the cotton molecules line up like that. According to another other edu-taining article on no-iron shirts in Scientific American called The Wrinkle in No-Iron Shirts, the federal government says that the quantities of formaldehyde are not great enough to cause anything more than a mild allergic reaction (in some people in rare cases). Whether you want to believe that and go for the convenience is a personal decision.

We do a lot of things in our household in the name of saving time and money that are of questionable healthiness, including using microwave ovens, drinking tap water, eating non-organic foods, and occasionally driving over the speed limit. So even though the truth about the wrinkle-free technology gives me pause, it’s not screaming “Danger!” loud enough to make me stop.

The Bottom Line

Given that you are OK with the way the fabric is manufactured, no-iron shirts are worth extra money if:

1.  You invest in the kind that really do save you ironing and that still look good.  Brooks Brothers and Charles Tyrwhitt are recommended, but try to find them at a discount.

2.  You normally have your shirts professionally pressed. You’ll probably pay off the extra expense of the no-iron shirt in three to five months and then you’ll start seeing real money (and time) savings.

3.  You detest ironing.  If it would make you happier to skip a couple of dinners out so you could invest in good wrinkle-free technology, then I say go for it.

So now I’m curious. Do you iron shirts? If you outsource this chore, how did you get to that point?

Wishing you a flourishing spring and a happy holiday. Thank you for reading Frugal Mama. I can’t wait to connect more with you over the next year and beyond.

Here are a few photographic hellos from us to you.

I hope this season brings you something new, something beautiful, and something peaceful.

We love to give away edible party favors.

Besides the fact that consumable treats don’t fill our homes with disposable plastic doo-dads, it’s fun to make something together with children to give away. Sometime we make the treats before the party — like these chocolate lollipops — and sometimes we let our party guests make them at the party and then bring them home — like our favorite bon-bon cookies.

My son, Mark, has an Easter birthday, so for the past few years, we’ve made these jellybean carrots. That’s a lot of sugar, so I borrowed event planner Lorelee Lewis‘s idea and have been making them with also-fun cheese balls.

Jellybean Carrot Party Favors

• 1 cup of orange jellybeans (about 7.5 oz.) per carrot, or other orange snack
• 12-inch disposable icing bags
• 2 feet of green ribbon per carrot

Fill the icing bags with orange snacks or candies. (It takes about one cup of treats to fill a 12-inch decorating bag.)

Cut ribbon into 24-inch lengths and tie up the bags of treats.

We used apple green 3/8-inch grosgrain ribbon with Swiss dots, but you could also use green ric-rac ribbon (as shown in the Goldfish cracker example), or any other green ribbon you have lying around the house.

Our house when we first met, almost one year ago

Goal-setting really works. As you know, I’ve seen it work with my career, and now I am seeing it work with our house.

Back in January, I said we wanted to make our new house into a home and create an edible front yard.  The exciting part is that we’re really doing it. But I admit that it has been a huge challenge to take this on, do it well and on-budget, and take care of my family, myself, and my career.

I told some friends recently that owning a house was like having another child, and renovating a house was like adding twins. Even though our flesh-and-blood children are bathed and loved, urgent emails are answered (most of the time), and meals are cooked (albeit uninspired), I feel as if I’m barely holding it all together.

Some days it seems I can’t do anything right. On Saturday, for example, a welder came to our house to install some iron railing and alter a window guard. One problem after another came up, and what was supposed to take 25 minutes turned into over four hours. When it came time for the moment of truth — installing the railing on the difficult attic stairs — I had to pick up Sofia from a ballet conference. Not only was I the last mom to show up (an excruciating half-hour late), by the time we got back, the welder was gone and the job that we had been planning for months looked like dog doo-doo.

Despite those difficult moments, I keep getting up in the morning, and tackling one project after another. Enough goes right that I don’t get entirely discouraged, and at the heart, I am determined to make a fun and relaxing home.

A “Done” House, or a House “To Do”?

Beaded oval doorknobs on our 1911 doors

When we bought this house, it didn’t really dawn on me how much of it we would be changing. We fell in love with its quirky cottage look, and we could afford it. I laugh now when I realize that we didn’t discover some hidden gem. We could afford it, because it needed work!

Even if we could have bought a house that was “done,” is that what we really would have wanted? As overwhelming as renovating can be, creating something that we think is both beautiful and functional is rewarding. And despite the house’s problems, it has great bones, lots of personality, and a walkable neighborhood location.

Progress Report:  House-into-Home

So now that you know the bumpy backstory, let me tell you what we have managed to do since I wrote about our goal of starting a renovation project.  We have renovated our front room from a library to a foyer by removing the floor-to-ceiling built-in shelves, trimming the windows, revamping the powder room, and adding two coat closets.

BEFORE: The front room held all our books and toys, but we had no closets.

DURING: We removed all the shelving, the radiator cover, and the recessed can lights.

SEMI-FINISHED: The rug and window seat cushion are stand-ins, but at least we are construction-free.

DURING: We also moved the door to the powder room from the entry hall to the new foyer.

SEMI-FINISHED: We still need furniture and curtains, but — phew! — the hard part is over.

We also decided to finish our attic to make a guest room and an office. We installed heating and cooling, added electrical outlets, and fixed the scary hole-in-the-floor stairwell. We painted the floors (Elephant’s Breath, a light gray by Farrow & Ball), we moved furniture (some hoisted through the window), bought twin beds, and we built out the chimney wall to create a nook.

BEFORE: A home inspector checks out the bare attic before we bought the house.

SEMI-FINISHED: A little guest room on one side, an office on the other (not pictured).

Progress Report:  Edible Landscaping

Then we turned our attention outdoors. Instead of trying to work with the 1985 deck with no stairs, we decided to tear it down.

BEFORE: An outdoor dining room built onto our house in 1985 has no stairs to the small back yard.

DURING: The deck was old and rotting, and we needed more play space for the kids.

AFTER: Without the old deck, we have lots of possibilities.

Now we have double the yard space, plus the chance to do something really fun:  a long slide from the back door to the yard. While a neighborhood architect works on those plans, we are gearing up for our edible front yard. We cut down a dying mulberry tree to free up precious sunlight, and we transplanted some prairie grasses to make room for a mini-orchard and vegetable garden.

Cutting down a dying mulberry tree freed up sunlight for the fruit and vegetables we will grow up front.

BEFORE: With limited outdoor space, our front yard has to work harder for us than just looking pretty.

MIDDLE: Grasses were transplanted behind the house, and the earth is ready for fruits and veggies.

This weekend I bought two apple trees and a peach, plus eight blueberry bushes, as well as kale, arugula, and Italian herbs. The kids and I planted our first strawberry jar and bought a Meyer lemon tree for the sunroom.

Progress Report:  Future Nest Egg

The problem with renovating our house is no longer getting started. It’s being able to stop. Besides discovering problems with the chimney, the fence, and the kitchen skylight, we are now turning our focus to our shabby living-room furniture and rickety front porch. But because one of our other goals was to focus on retirement, we will have to take a rest mid-year and start thinking of our long-term future home. Since we are contributing the maximum possible to our work and personal retirement funds, we will need to talk to an adviser and start figuring other smart ways to beef up our old-age fund.

Once the intensity of the first phase of home renovations die down, and we take a much-needed rest, I want to focus my attention on my personal and family life:  finding a better system for storing, organizing, and sending digital photos; journaling more consistently about my kids and the cute things they say and do; and spending more downtime with my husband, kids, and friends. Because if you don’t set goals for these things too, they’ll get squeezed out by the ones you did set goals for.

On the topic of organizing, you might like this round-up I created for Parentables:  10 Must-Read Home Organizing Websites.

If you’re more just into browsing some pretty pictures, head over to Pinterest where you can see stuff on edible landscaping, building a backyard slide, and my favorites ideas for decorating.

How are you all doing with the goals you shared with me back in January? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!