Thankful Thought 3

1. My Cuba book arrived. Wonderful.
2. I've ordered 2 canvases: Photos #1 and 3 - I'll switch them out of the grouping for some variety. I'll post a photo once they arrive.
3. June is Bike Month.

I only chose professions for the first 5 months this year, but when I cycled passed a sign that read "June is bike month" I found my focus for this sixth month. My sister has organized a 'cycling relatives' group: my mom, dad, sister-in-law, her and I. We try to cycle in the river valley twice a week. I have it the easiest because I'm not a senior citizen, nor do I have to drag a child along behind me. I know that gives me an unfair advantage butt I still quite enjoy waiting for them to catch up to speedy me. Haha. Cycling reminded me that getting out to enjoy nature makes me happy. And it's been super fun visiting with my family more regularly.

On June 10th, for our 17th anniversary, my husband and I packed up our bikes, picked up a picnic supper at one of our favorite restaurants, and headed to our city's gorgeous river valley. We rode our bikes to a spot with a gorgeous view of said river, enjoyed our picnic (complete with sticky toffee pudding. Drool.) and then went for a bike ride with that super awesome evening sun reminding us of how good life is.

On June 13th, my friend organized a morning for the Kayaking Kraycees at a lovely little pond that is about a 20 minute car ride from my house. I figured that I could get there faster by bike. I checked out the route with the helpful satellite map and rode my bike BY MYSELF on a route that I'd never been on before. THAT is as adventurous as I get, people. And it felt so gooooooooood!

My 3rd thankful thought is that I was able to so thoroughly enjoy this morning:

• physically - how blessed am I to be able to pedal a bike, and to feel the sun on my skin?!?
• visually - one of the reasons that I love winter is because it helps me to enjoy the beauty of summer
• socially - so thankful for a friend who organized an awesome morning around sharing her kayaks
• emotionally - my body was so full of positive energy that there was no room for anything else
• auditorily - I arrived before the others and just sat by the still water enjoying the call of those red-wing blackbirds!
• mentally - it is so rewarding to accomplish something challenging! 

Photo courtesy of Jeanette, featuring Julie.

Cuba to print

Kay, a 50%-off-12x12-photobook coupon came from Shutterfly, so I ordered my book this morning. Yippee!!! Shutterfly has finally improved their books: you can now make the text and titles look much more professional, and change the size of the photos and location of such, which will also make the books look so much more polished. They made the change the week AFTER I spent an entire scrapbooking retreat assembling this book, so I'm looking forward to enjoying the improvements with my NEXT book. Sadly, they have discontinued their Creating Keepsakes designer books. I'm just SO glad that I did up a CK book for my mother-in-law's 70th birthday before they were gone! Here's the final version of the Cuba book:

Click here to view this photo book larger

And here are the top 9 contenders for a 16x20" canvas to go in my living room. I was enamored with the soft pinks and greens until I ran a cross-processing action on "photo 1" and fell in love with that one; it looks watery in the background.

Photo 1

Photo2

Photo 3

Photo 4

Photo 5

Photo 6

Photo 7

Photo 8

Photo 9

Feel free to post your vote.

An Albertan gardener escapes!

Every year we plant our garden in April. Lois Hole has an excellent book that encourages me to risk planting when there is still snow on the ground and frost on the windshields in the morning. Butt I took my family and fled from her advice just ahead of a snow storm on April 14. We fled all the way to hot, hot Cuba! It was loverly.

Now it is April 27, our skin is peeling from the sunburns.,, and there is still snow out there... butt not on OUR property! Doug and I were wise to produce 4 little field workers (pictured above) to help us in our yard. They have shovelled the snow off of our north facing deck, prepared the soil in the garden, chopped down the old growth from last season and planted the beans, beets, sweet peas, sugar snap peas, carrots and lettuce (The potatoes and cucumbers need the weather to warm up a little more.). The raspberries are tidied, staked and watered. The evergreens and bulbs are fertilized. The Death Star has been assembled and lies in wait at our back door for scraps from our kitchen (my husband just took up composting but I know that it was the composting unit's resemblance to the Death Star that drew him in).

Now I will sit and wait for the daffodils to bloom. Dear Spring; I love you no matter how long you take to arrive.

Thankful Thought 2

I thought I'd start April by posting my second thankful thought in honor of my dad's 66th birthday yesterday. At his party he asked everyone to say three nice things about him but it immediately turned into a roast so I quickly banned the choking-on-the-rice-bolus story. My sister-in-law was out of the room at the time and when she returned, she chose to tell about the first time she went out with my dad and my brother and how they went to the Rice Bowl (do you see how close she got to "rice bowl-us"??) and thought to herself that she had never seen anyone eat rice so fast (that wasn't the time he choked, BTW). SO, here is a thankful thought dedicated to my dad. Back in the spring of 2010, my dad purchased a table saw and was looking for a project. I mentioned that I had been looking for a captains bed... a CALIFORNIA KING sized captains bed. They don't exist. He insisted on making us one. YAY! After many afternoons of labouring in my garage, he happily brought in this massive bed. I figure I've got about a decade before I'll have to resort to a step ladder to get into bed. But now I essentially sleep on top of 2 enormous dressers: 6 drawers on both sides with a cubby at the foot of the bed for bags and the such.

 I love it!! Thanks, Dad! You're super!

And a quick April Fool's prank. DH's April Fool's joke was to generously sprinkle yellow-food-dyed-water around both bathrooms: basically it looked like someone was standing to pee when they got electrocuted. Daughter got up and said "Daaaaaaaad, you made a mess in the bathroom!" and then spent 10 minutes wiping it up with toilet paper (just like she does every morning, likely. Hahahaha. Just jokin'). Son1 saw it and was so grossed out that he decided to wait to use the bathroom at the day camp he was going to. Son2 saw it, assumed it was soap and just went about his business. When we asked Son3 what he thought about the pee all over the bathroom he looked at us, blinked and said, "...wha?"

Finally, I have a link to the blog of a fellow professional SAHM!!! Check out her talents here.

Super Thankful Thought

So my favorite, Ali Edwards, uses rounded corner frames that I love (and use) and she has come up with a great idea that I love (and now use) of periodically framing a photo with a Thankful Thought frame. Click here to visit her blog and download her Thankful Thought frame. I just downloaded mine today and immediately had a super chance to use it. Keep reading.

It was above freezing, the sun was shining and we had new snow yesterday: time to toboggan! I invited a friend and we took our children, and I thought to bring my zoom lens. Well, my daughter loves to go over the jump and it freaks me out. I normally forbid it but today I thought it would be fun to catch some photos of her going over the jump; I'm too overprotective, right?

So my thankful thought today is that we have never had to make a trip to the emergency room after a happy afternoon of tobogganing. My super, SUPER thankful thought. The landing here threatened a concussion but this girl is so brave; a couple Advil and she was up for a movie night watching E.T. (If her dad had been in town, we would have spent the evening at the emergency room. Word.)

Ya. That picture makes my feel a little queasy. I'm back to the no-going-over-the-jump rule, and I think this girl is now fully on board.

Decorator of Kitchen

I haven't received the pink slip as of yet, butt I'm pretty sure that I was fired by the blue-collar workers union. They don't want to call any pansy lazy butts, like me, one of their own. Sooooo... onto my next profession. My sister is overhauling her bathroom, which I hope to feature here, and learning how to put in wainscoting, which she will then teach me to do. My plan is to paint my kitchen grey, put in some counter height wainscoting on the one wall (you thought YOUR kitchen was small but mine only has ONE wall!) that doesn't have cupboards on it. You should know that long ago, in a land far, far away... okay, a town 10 minutes away but it was last summer, my sister ordered some vinyl for me.

I chose orange, and yellow orange versions of the above vinyl decals from wiwicoco on Etsy.

Which I plan to apply to these cupboards in my kitchen.

 So, the plan:

1. paint walls grey
2. put up some wainscoting and paint it white
3. re-paint cupboards white
4. make a new valance: a graphic orange and grey material
5. order white vinyl quotes for up above cupboards
6. wait 1 month then put up vinyl decals

And just in case "anyone" is confused, this is my kitchen. My kitchen right now. The kitchen that you just walked out of after you finished the dishes. Yes, OUR kitchen! Don't be confused because you see it on the interweb. It can be viewed on the internet AND in our house at the SAME time. Okay, ya, the 1st picture is not our kitchen. You're right. But the next three really are.

sigh.

Chore descriptions

I have thrice searched the interweb, in vain, for chore descriptions. I have purchased the lanyards to hang around my childrens' necks from which to suspend the chore descriptions... butt there are no chore descriptions to be found. Lots of chore charts, if you're wondering. So I spent the day making some up. I did up 18 chores and can send you a pdf if you're interested in having some quirky chore descriptions for your children. Here are 3 samplings:

[I make me laugh. Downtown instead of Downstairs. Baaahahaha.]

 

 [Haha. Ore. A reference to the board game Settlers of Catan, if you haven't had the good fortune to play it.]

[Seriously, there's not enough room on this card to give my 13-year old the amount of instruction necessary for him to successfully complete this chore, so I resorted to ridiculing him. I find it to be quite motivational.]

So I avoided work today while researching work! I enjoyed searching for brief quotes to add to the cards. Perhaps someday they will mean something to them. Now I'm planning to put 6 cards on each lanyard and the children can take them off and hang them up as they finish them. They will have 1 week to complete them and can figure out when to get them done.

So for my blue collar work, I gave 3 haircuts last week (as requested from people NOT related to me), and 4 haircuts this week (to people who I threatened to charge if they didn't stop complaining and start singing my praise. Yes: related to me). I volunteered thrice at my childrens' school, visited the housebound (a little shot of healing energy out to poor Julie!) and elderly. I also worked hard on my DH's 40th birthday. I hosted 2 parties, took him out and did up Valentine's gifts for all. For his 40th birthday on Valentine's Day I printed 40 of my favorite pictures that made me think of him. I thought that he could put a couple up on his bulletin board at work each week. He actually expressed appreciation for them! Here's a few of those, too.

He treated himself to Lasik eye surgery for his 40th, so that was his monetary gift. I believe he likes that gift a little bit more. Haha. Stay tuned for a guest blogger: my sister is a "professional plumber" and is finishing up her bathroom overhaul. Now THAT takes some real work!