We live in such a beautiful place, and I am constantly inspired by the things that I am surrounded by. ​

Sometimes you just have to look at what you've got.

​It's incredibly easy to be inspired by nature. It's just so pretty...

And yes, I have a thing for driftwood. Who doesn't?
We've certainly used driftwood more than once in our decor,

​Adam made me a lovely driftwood bench once, surrounded by two perfectly arched driftwood pieces... Except for the one arched piece that randomly straightens out occasionally in the heat of summer, only to curve back around. It's good for a laugh, if nothing else.

We even found another arched piece to replace it, and within days (OK, maybe weeks- we are busy!),
it started arching back into place.
​
It must have known it was precariously close to turning into firewood.

Sometimes, procrastination does win! 

Regardless of our minor issues with driftwood, I can't help but collecting it when I see a cool piece. ​

In all honesty, I was inspired out of necessity, as my jewelry holder had broken, and I was in desperate need of a new one. I had searched high and low for something I loved and nothing was standing out to me, so I started looking at what I already had.

​This literally cost me nothing, other than time, as I had all the materials.

• Driftwood
• Rope
• Hooks and hardware
• Hot glue gun
• 20 minutes of time

I just read an article on admitting to your child when you are wrong. It included some frustrations of being woken up by their child who had wet the bed. While we can't always keep our cool in every single situation,
​the part that stood out to me was this.

"But it's also easy to apologize."

See the whole article here (Angie Warren)

This pulled at my heart strings because we all know it's sometimes tough as parents to admit to our children that we messed up. We want to be that example of perfection because we really do want what's best for them,
​and that happens to include being a perfect parent.

Rather than just pretending it never happened, admitting our imperfections to our children shows them we are not perfect and in a way, it takes pressure off of them to be perfect. I certainly am not perfect, and I will admit it. This brought up a few questions for myself. 

You know those laundry bags for delicates? I have this huge over sized one, which clearly was my answer when I asked myself how am I going to keep all these toys clean for the day home.

I loaded up a huge pile of toys, added some soap and a bit of bleach and hit the go button. Done and done!

Oh, it is too easy to bend over backwards for others, but really the trick is to really treat yourself well. If only for the sole reason that you can have the bloody energy to get all the stuff you've gotta get done for everyone else. The analogy I like to use is this: the air line stewards tell you to put the oxygen mask on yourself should the plane ever be going down, so you aren't dead or passed out and might just be able to help the person beside you who needs some extra help. In other words, bring on the pedicures and massages!

This goes hand in hand with the above and below. If there is something you like to do, do it as much as you possibly can. Well, with limits, I suppose. But we are all gonna end up dead someday, so might as well enjoy the life we have! 

Call it crazy, but the last time I checked, I'm in control of my life, and I will do what I want. And I won't do what I don't want to do! 

I just need to drink more water. Enough said. We have wood heat, and I get parched. It's not overly pleasant, and there is a pretty simple solution. Drink. More. Water. 

I've started a daily work out routine thanks to Bree Hunter, and am 26 days in today. I figured the best time to start a typical New Years resolution was before Christmas so it really isn't a New Years resolution and I don't have to break it. But really, doing some regular excersize and eating healthy has always been important to me, and having a check list has really worked for me. Because again, I love crossing it off my list. 

Enough said! Our high energy, loving, crazy wolf-like dog could walk all day every day. So once a day doesn't even seem like nearly enough, but with the craziness of life in general, once, at the very minimum, will have to do....

No more of this passive aggressive crap I've tried my whole life. If I have something to say, I will do my darnedest to say it nicely, but truthfully without pretending it's all good when it's not all good. And if it's all good, then I should probably communicate with some nice encouraging words and high fives. 

Now, I see the irony in sitting behind a screen and telling you I need less screen. So be it TV or phones, I'm trying to not waste my life away sitting behind a screen. But I really do like writing, so refer back to #3.

I am always testing out new recipes to see how they turn out, and to see if their claims are true. ...Is that REALLY the best ever chocolate chip cookie? Sometimes they are great, sometimes not so much. But it's not always limited to food recipes.

Today, it's play dough. 

This is a really easy recipe, consisting of only two {surprising} ingredients. 
Conditioner and baby powder.

We always seem to run out of shampoo before we run out of conditioner, so we had a surplus of conditioner, and I never used baby powder on my baby's butt, so we had lots of that lying around too.

• I made a use for stuff that I had no use for (conventionally).

• It is a really easy and fast recipe, and you don't have to cook it.

• It is really soft.

• Play dough is always fun, in a calming way.

• It provided hours of entertainment, meaning I had time to write about it and clean my kitchen after making it! 

• It was really dusty to make. Yuck.

• It is definitely not edible or non-toxic. Not for younger kids who put stuff in their mouth.

• It's really smelly and leaves my hands feeling a little too conditioned. For me, that was a con.

• It is really dense. My son had issues when he was playing with his play dough press because it was too thick and crumbly to go through the holes.
  

The best way to prevent a fight is to have a great game plan. Hands down. 

If you are starting a renovation in one room, and plan on moving to the next, think about how all the changes will affect the rest of the house. For example, we replaced a door in our kitchen, but when we went to plan out our kitchen renovation, we ended up moving the door, and the swing was the wrong direction. Had we planned it out, we could have prevented ourselves from buying two doors instead of just one. 

Obviously, there will always be curve balls and changes, but to have a really good idea of what the "big picture" is going to be can definitely help with redundant projects- like replacing a door twice! Or ripping down drywall because you decided you needed some ducting or electrical. 

Knowing what you and your spouse really want in the end is going to save you some grey hairs. I see this all the time between designers and contractors, not just between spouses. To have a bad design costs tons of money, and to make {sometimes} silly changes, can cost tons of money. If the toilet doesn't fit in the room because you forgot to account for the door swing, you are going to have to change it! Depends on what point you are at in construction, but it is not exactly easy to rip out a toilet and just move it. It can mean ripping out your flooring, in-floor heating, plumbing, drywall, everything! So know what you want, and have a good design. If you need to make changes, make sure you make them at appropriate times- like before they cut the marble counter tops. 

Need advice? Feel free to ask! 

Obviously, during a renovation you want it done ASAP. However, they can draw out for months. Take time away from the project- go for a date, eat dinner OUT (rather than ordering in- pretty typical move for during a 
kitchen reno) Besides, what's one extra day on a renovation? 

Taking breaks actually leaves you feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the world, anyways. Maybe with a few extra breaks, you'd actually be more productive and get it done sooner! Why else do you think employers give you coffee breaks? So, while it may seem counterproductive to take a day away from the renovation, just do it. 
You'll save your sanity, if nothing else. 

I am one of those "lucky ones" to have colitis. Thankfully it's not too bad, and usually I am not limited by it, but I still suffer from time to time. And yesterday, I was lucky enough to have my routine colonoscopy. 
Woop woop.  

Needless to say, I need something gentle on the tummy today! 

So... Soup is on the menu tonight.

I chopped everything up in large, rough chunks before hand, so it would all be easy to throw into the pot of soup. 

I threw everything else in (potatoes, celery root, butternut squash) and just covered with water and bouillon mixture. 

Then let it boil until everything is soft. Blend with a hand held mixer or blender.

This time, I decided on going with a ginger for the seasoning, but sometimes I leave out the seasoning altogether, and when I feel like having soup, I just heat it up and then add my extra flavours. 

A few variations of flavours you can add to the base soup might be:

• Ginger and Siracha with some Sesame Oil
  
• Nutmeg and Maple Syrup
  
• Honey Mustard and Dill
  
• Cilantro and Curry with Lime
  
• Olive oil and Herbs Du Provence

A little trick I've come to use so I always have fresh ginger on hand is to freeze it. It makes it easy to scrape the skin off, and then I use a small grater to shave the ginger. Voila!  Fresh/ frozen ginger is always better than powdered! 

Welcome to the first post of 2015! It is so hard to believe another year has flown by. I hope everyone's year is off to a great start. 
I know mine is! 

This post should have been written last year, but I finally got around to hanging the shelves, so again, I didn't get around to showing off this project until now. Maybe this should be a New Years Resolution- just get it done! 

After fixing things like the crack in the foundation, and tsome plumbing issues, we got the bathroom done. 
Not just half done. Really done. 

Even though it is a small bathroom, I really wanted to experiment with painting it black. To add some juxtaposition to it, I added white wainscoting to create balance. You just can't go wrong with black and white! I even painted the ceiling black, and I love how the room feels. 

Because there are still a few little things that have yet to be completed, 
I kept putting off posting the "Big Kitchen Reveal". 

Most are little things, like kick plates, trim around the window, and the moulding at the top of the cabinets, while the flooring patch, and the backsplash are bigger jobs. Those things are to be continued... 

I could hold off posting until every little job is complete, but I can't wait any longer. So here it is!

Reality is, I have a new, wonderful, functioning kitchen that I love!

I don't think I could even tell you what my favourite part is about the new kitchen. It is so much lighter and open. Removing the closet opened the kitchen up to the living room so much. And to think, there once was a door separating the kitchen from the rest of the house!  I'm glad those days are behind us. I feel like we have started living again. I missed having people over for dinner parties and other types of parties. 

But as it is with life, regardless of being ready or not, we are living in and loving our kitchen.