DIY

I have never really been a Do It Yourself kind of gal. I do enjoy cooking and baking along with other "domestic" type activities but I would never consider making a cake for my kids birthday parties or decorating the house myself with my own homemade creations- only because I prefer professionally decorated cakes (and mine always look like a 2 year old did it) and I don't have a crafty bone in my body for making things that look nice enough to display in my home. BUT I have recently decided that although I'm not crafty I can still do some things around my home myself. So recently I decided that I would change the burnt out headlight in my car myself. I just looked up a Youtube video on how to change it and viola it took me less than 10 minutes to change both sides! Another attempt I made at doing something that looked hard myself went really well. I wanted to butterfly a whole chicken for the BBQ. I had been buying them pre-butterflied myself but they cost considerably more to buy them pre-cut. Again with the help of youtube I was able to find perfect instructions for butterflying a chicken- which significantly reduces the time needed to BBQ! My next attempt at a DIY project is going to be restoring our old bicycles. We bought 2 old bikes at a garage sale several years ago but we hardly ever use them because they are really rusty. They look terrible! I just looked up several websites on how to paint/restore rusty bikes. The process looks fairly straight forward but quite time consuming. I am doing to re-read how to do it several more times before attempting the process.I hope that I don't completely mess up but honestly I don't have much to lose in trying!

continuing the journey

I have committed to getting my house in somewhat liveable order. Last night I battled the linen closet. It was such a mess, towels just shoved in , sheets bunched up and not folded properly, no order or reason for item placement... after emptying out the entire closet I sorted every towel, sheet and pillow case etc.. I also came across crib sheets, receiving blankets and baby towels that we have not used in years! All those items went into the donation bag- no need for nostalgia here! I have files and files of pictures for that! Now my linen closet is something to be proud of! Everything is organized so nicely! I hope that I can keep it up!!!

Spring Clean Day 2

First day of project spring clean went well. I decluttered the space on top of the fridge and threw away a tonne of stuff. Don't tell my kids... a bunch of their drawings and "artwork" went buh-bye... I keep so much of it but now only keep the really noteworthy pieces. (quite hard with two budding artists in the house!!) Did find a form to renew my licence plate... well that is only 6 weeks overdue... i will take my car for that emmission test one of these days! Today I am going to attempt to clean the space under the stairs in the basement. We emptied it out a few years ago when we had our basement finished but just piled the stuff back in... i plan on installing shelves in there so that the space can be used more effectively. This may take longer than the one hour I give myself to declutter each spot.. much luck needed for this one!

Spring Cleaning

As spring is supposedly here I thought I'd think about giving the house a big clean. I've never really done one before and am scared about what gems I might find. We do clean the house weekly but I really want to get into the nooks and crannies, declutter and organize every cupboard, closet and drawer... only thing I can think to say to that is "good luck with that" Today I'm going to start with the space on top of the fridge. I'm not sure why that space constantly gets littered with "stuff". All the things I plan on getting to later end up piled on top of my fridge. I have cleaned it before and been shocked to find things I was supposed to do weeks months earlier. Like send in the kids immunization records so they don't get expelled from school! Or a hydro bill etc.. Anyway hopefully today is the first day of my "big spring clean project" Crossing my fingers it goes ok!!!

a little late but better than never

I'm a bit late for a "resolutions" post but I am still working on making permanent and positive changes in my life as a whole. First thing I wanted to change and have been successful at it so far, is ridding myself of negative people in my life. As I had mention in my previous post I was dealing with a negative person who not only had a negative attitude but was a bad influence in my life altogether- that person is now out of my life completely. Next thing I am working on is a more steady and manageable work-out plan. I started with barre before the New year and have been sticking with it. I love the barre classes and have tried both spin and yoga too. I like both but can honestly take them or leave them. If the schedule had more evening barre classes I would make a sincere effort to attend them. Unfortunately most of the classes I love are in the day or weekends. Last night due to circumstances beyond my control I had to miss the yoga class I had planned to attend- due to the need to take a detour and drop something off in Markham on my way home I got stuck in hwy 7 traffic and would have been rudely late for the class. I chose to just stop and the super market and pick up much needed fruit instead. sigh... will try to go Thursday ! I am also trying to eat better, healthier and just more mindfully. This takes a lot of effort. For some reason I have been having a hard time with this one more than the others. I followed Weight Watchers for years and have kept off the 25 pounds I lost 4 years ago but now I feel that it's time to lost the last 5 pounds but just can't get there. My goal is to be at 133 pounds and to stay there (with the 1-2 pound fluctuations of course) Since we are going on a beach vacation I want to be at my goal for that time... will have to find a way to motivate myself to get there! am going to start now... going to track my food intake for today so far.