I am playing catch-up on all the things that I have shoved to the back burner for the last couple of weeks.  My desk, which is organized, though only in a way that I can see, is piled with, well, piles.

One stack has offered respite from the rush of practices and projects.  It’s spring book season and I’ve been the happy recipient of quite a selection.

A particularly lovely choice, one that offers an escape from the sometimes all to unpleasant real world, is The Welcoming House.

If you are delighted by pretty spaces you will find loads of inspiration here.  Beyond that, the book is chocked full of practical advice for houses that hold children and dogs.  You know, houses that are really lived in.

You can find The Welcoming House here and tour information here.

All images Laura Resen.

I had a stomach ache-faker on Wednesday and Kansas City received a foot of snow on Thursday so I have had boys home for five days.  Based on the contents of my pantry and refrigerator you might think we had a swarm of locust as well, except locust would surely wipe their feet when coming in from sledding.

The up-side of my work, which the boys refer to as “Find the Difference” as they catch me studying images on the computer so often, is that I can read a magazine or a design book and, waving them off, pronounce, “I’m working,” and it works.

Curled up with Veranda on Day Two I had a thought as clear and sharp as the icicles hanging from the eaves.  I love to read magazines. This is why:

“All houses have a soul.  They speak to you.  They say, Do this, do that.  It’s a sensibility I feel when I walk into a new space.  I hear with my eyes.  The day I moved into the lodge I had an enveloping, welcoming feeling.  It’s the sort of house that as you put something in, it says thank you.  Nothing seems to annoy it.  It’s a combination of taste and memory and a capsule of everything I’ve ever done: my parents’ house, things I’ve picked up on holiday.  It all flows together in my mind and becomes a blur.”

Designer Nicky Haslam has captured the very essence of it here for me.  So, I thank him and encourage you to not just look at the pictures, but read the articles.

Image, above, swiped from Mr. Halsam’s site.  His home in the March/April issue of Veranda is delightful, but I am much too lazy to scan.

I’m not sure why I did not pick up Jeffrey Bilhuber’s book when it was published last year.  Could’ve been timing, I suppose, distracted by some thing or other that is now long forgotten.  But I came back to him a couple of months ago and we’ve been happily co-habitating since.  He’s always near at hand and never fails to put a smile on my face.  As much as I admire clean and serene, I can’t resist color and in this Mr. Bilhuber never disappoints.  There’s one project in particular that is chocked with vintage needlepoint and every time I turn from page 61 to 63 I think, “Yes. More.  I do.  I want more.”  So I spend my day hoping Jeffrey will forgive me for my initial oversight and my evenings stitch, stitch, stitching.

If you days are either hectic and hurried or gray and gloomy, consider Jeffrey Bilhuber’s The Way Home as an easy antidote.  You can find it here.  Needlepoint was something I had all but given up in the hey day of blogging; it’s good to be back at it.