Cookies :)

'cookies' Abigail decorated for me and emailed to me via an app on my iphone this afternoon :) 

For today......

Outside My Window... it is snowing lightly....only lightly...it is breezy...but I think it is warm and have my window WIDE open....

I am thinking...that my Daughter is very strange...she has added an app to my iphone that lets her shave beards...and she can cut the men she shaves and you can change their hair colour and skin colour and they can have lice that you can tap to kill ????? And the sound effects are HORRIBLE!!!  You cover them in shaving foam and then shave away and are supposed to try not to cut them....who on earth creates these????

I am thankful for...a relaxing day as I did not go to sleep until after 4am - I felt sooooo ill last night.  Today I needed to be gentle with myself as I had a migraine from lack of sleep.  And was feeling dreadful.  Felt better by lunchtime so soaked in the bath and the children were happy to snuggle and watch movies, chat and just relax together.  Sam did some finger knitting, I read, it was a day we all needed after a busy day yesterday.


From the kitchen...Susannah is obsessed with baked potatoes lately, so we have had a lot of those.. luckily we almost all like those!!  Laurence is baking a lot of cakes so he can decorate them - I took him to Bulk Barn last week and he was able to get a few things he needed from their Wilton supply aisle.  Abigail baked a wonderful banana bread loaf last week.  I have been adding garlic to as much as possible to try and fight off this flu we all have.

I am wearing...jeans and my black bra...no top because I'm really hot.  Think I have a temperature again.

I am creating...art journals, canvases, and a beautiful home on a VERY tight budget!!

I am going...to celebrate the start of Spring by having lunch/ coffee with a good friend at a local garden centre as soon as I am healthy :)  
I am reading...The Gift of Imperfection.  and  'How to be single' by Liz Tuccillo.

I am hoping...that Wednesday goes ok.....

I am hearing... Sam and Abby fighting over who gets to cuddle Rosie the most....who gets to use her as a foot rest...who gets to have her head end and who gets her tail end.....lol...

Around the house...so much painting to be finished when I have the time and energy ....

One of my favorite things...hunting Goodwill for bargains and finding furniture to refinish for my home.

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week...get healthy, get the children healthy.  I have a Doctors appointment on Wednesday and I'm really hoping it goes well.  Head to the newspaper office to fill in Susies bio.  Watch Susie in the talent show at the mall!!  Get my application in for another job posting!!  Hopefully be well enough to see some friends!!

Good intentions.....

I have been looking for the right push to get me back in to blogging for a while now.  I've really missed writing our family news, and having a record of our daily happenings to look back on, but I just haven't felt inspired to get back to it.  Each time I've come to my blog it just hasn't felt like the right moment.  

A couple of weeks ago Shimelle wrote to say she was repeating her 'Blogging for Scrapbookers'  class that ran a couple of years ago, and I knew this was just what I needed to get me started again!!

And so I have good intentions of getting back in to writing here regularly!!  Adding pictures on an almost daily basis, posting Friday Fill-ins and other me-me's!!  

Watch this space ;)

The mudroom....

I've run out of blue paint and haven't had a chance to go and get more yet because the children have been sick...hopefully tomorrow.....but here is the progress on the mudroom.  It has gone from nasty dirty white walls and a VERY old fashioned pink heart border, to a gorgeous Wedgwood blue....with white touches in the shelves, trim and cupboards so that the blue does not feel overpowering or dark.  

I want to collect all unusual hooks and have them going along the walls.  So far I have found the butterflies and I also have a dragonfly, a bee and also a row of garden spades to go up :)  I found all the hooks in the clearance aisle at Winners.  The white cupboard near the steps is the one Abby painted ($10. at Goodwill) and the valet was a Fathers Day gift to Lloyd from the kids a few years ago but he decided he didn't want it, so I sprayed it white and I think it looks fab in the mudroom!!  He always liked dark wood and I went along with him, so we have a lot of dark wood in the house.  Since he left I've sprayed a lot of it white or turquoise or whatever....dark wood shows the dust terribly so you have to dust almost daily!!  With 4 kids a dog and 2 cats in the house thats a nightmare!!  I have better things to do with my time than spend it dusting daily!!

The stickers on the wall are from Dollarama.  A coat/ hat stand and also wall words :)  

The heart shelf on the wall was $2. from Goodwill.  The chair was an old one we had that I just sprayed white.  

The mirror on the wall was on clearance at Winners because the frame (which was cream) was split in one corner.  I painted it white and knew that the paint would cover the crack anyway.  

I'm now looking for a HUGE ugly old picture in a HUGE ugly gold/ gilt frame.  I want to remove the picture and spray the frame white.  I want to pain the wall with magnetic/ blackboard paint and then hang the frame over that, so it looks like a framed blackboard :)  I think it will be great to have somewhere to write notes to each other and somewhere magnetic etc in the mudroom....a 'don't forget...' place!!  :)

Home renovations continue...

I've been busy in the house over the last year....well, mainly over winter really!  

inspired by one of my favourite blogs 'All Things Thrifty', I have started buying old furniture at yard sales and thrift stores etc and refinishing it.  I LOVE the end result :)  I have altered things as simple as little wooden shelves, mirror and picture frames, towel rails......and then a couple of weeks ago I found this cupboard at Goodwill for $19.  It was reduced from $40.  It was really UGLY but (again, inspired from All Things Thrifty) I could see the potential....

I snapped up the cupboard, drove round to the back of the store and got the guys to load it up for me, and brought it home :)  

We won't mention the truck getting stuck in the snow when I tried to reverse into the garage...sigh....never mind....

Within an hour or so the cupboard had been cleaned up inside and out, sprayed and resprayed, it dried in the very warm garage, and then I gave it a couple of coats of lacquer before Laurence and I carried it up to my bedroom :)  

I LOVE it :)  

Abigail loves it too and just a few days later found her own cupboard at Goodwill for $10.  brought it home and refinished it.  I love hers so much that I'm 'borrowing' it in my mudroom at the moment ;)  She doesn't mind too much - but when she gets it back she wants to do hand prints all over it in different colours and put it in her bedroom :)  At the moment it's just white.  

I can't wait until yard sale season :)  

The other pictures show some wall words I've put up in my bedroom, my new bed (still haven't been to get the base....sigh....) and some picnic baskets I sprayed to match the room.  Oh and I painted the floor white.  I need to do another coat though....it's just time......so many jobs to do and so little time....

Oh and yes the rug on the floor - it's horribly tacky but for some reason I just love it!!  It looks like a dead golden retriever....feels like it a bit - except it's warm and soft!!  Sam wants one for his room now in a different colour :)  they are sooooo soft those rugs....and have rubber dots on the back to stop them slipping!