I've come to the realization that I really love owning a house. Yup, it's a ton of hard work, and after a month of shovelling snow off my yard and now adding to the garden and weeding, my hands are blistered and my heart is happy.

It's the pride of what we've done to the house and it's the joy of who I get to share it with that make me happy. I'm so lucky to get to share my house with the most amazing people and to occasionally share it with visiting family and friends. Our house would not be a home if it wasn't for those inside it!

This is the view from our living room window. Adam shoveled off the roof so that the guys installing the fireplace could get to the chimney. 

Now this is my view. And a flashback to a summer view. That picture on the left is why our fireplace needs to get installed. But it is also why it didn't get installed. Highways are closed. So even though I really want to book a flight out of here, I can't.

I guess we have to wait until next week to show you the big fireplace reveal! 

Another thing I feel good about doing? Not throwing out a weeks worth of diapers every garbage day. I admit, I use disposable diapers sometimes, but I do my best to use the clothe diapers as much as possible. And when they are cute like these ones, it's easy to do! 
Don't love it til you try it! 

After enough broken resolutions, I decided a couple of years ago to embark on my yearly journey of life a little differently. Rather than making concrete resolutions, I reflect on the last year and come up with the idea of how I could do this year better. Last year was pretty good, so not too much is probably going to change. 
In other words... I just didn't get around to making 
any resolutions for the past few years! 

Our closets were this bright orange wood. Not exactly lovely, but not exactly high on my priority list either, as they were out of sight. But when we decided to move the guest room to downstairs, the babies room into the guest room, and the office into the babies room, I figured I might as well fix up the closet before I put all of his clothes back in. A quick couple coats of paint on the shelf and a shower curtain rod cover on the closet rod, and that was that.

Does a perfect job exist? I've asked myself this many times, and I think there are some pretty sweet jobs out there... But it's a matter of finding the perfect one for you. As with garage sales, good jobs are tricky to find. What's one person's junk is another person's treasure.

One of the main reasons we settle on a less than ideal job is out of desperation. Maybe that is too strong of a word. 
Necessity. That's a better word.

But if we are not happy at our jobs, we're not very productive for the company or for ourselves. Maybe the money is too good or it's an easy job, but we just stay with the status quo, 
regardless of our happiness at work. 

I've had the wonderful advantage of having a lot of time off with my son, and I really thought that I wouldn't be going back to a "real" job. However, as life would have it, I got not one, but three phone calls in the last month asking for my résumé. 

Yes. I'm flattered. Very much so. With the weight off my shoulders of needing a job, I decided I could get creative with my new freedom of "employer hiring".

My resume did include the standard parts of a résumé:

Cover Letter- a nice introduction of yourself.
Objectives- what do you want to gain from a new job?
Education- what training do you have?
Skill Strengths- what are you good at?
Work History- where did you work that gives
 you experience for this job?
References- were you a good employee before? 

I like to keep it fairly simple; honestly, an employer might appreciate a five page resume if they were VERY serious about who they hire, but chances are, they need an employee who doesn't suck. 

I made it so simple, in fact, that I tied my cover letter into my resume with the addition of a simple column. I also added a picture of myself. People do judge a book by the cover, and a résumé where you can put a face to the name can't be a bad thing.

 By making these minor changes, I created a less than standard resume, which is a good thing when your résumé is in a stack of 500 other résumés.