changes, changes

"Your time is limited, don't waste it living someone else's life" - Steve Jobs

I have recently found myself at a crossroads between a new career and leaving the old one behind. In today's economy I can imagine that a lot of you have experienced, or are experiencing, the same emotions that I am. It is amazing how similar losing a job can be to losing someone in your life, specifically in terms of the stages of grieving the loss. Too often I think that we define ourselves by what we do and not who we are. One of the first things that we tend to ask a new acquaintance is "what do you do for a living?." Maybe that is why the loss of a job in today's society can seem so devastating, all of the sudden something that used to define you no longer exists and you are forced to fill that void. I find myself going back to how I felt in high school and university, that a world of endless possibility was right at my fingertips and all I had to do is work really hard to get to that point. So, who knows what is next...keeping my fingers crossed that things change soon and all of my hard work pays off.

www.thenotebookdoodles.com

Dog days of summer...

So, I haven't blogged in what feels like FOREVER! Work, home renovation and weddings have been crazy the past couple of months. I have a lot of home renovation things to blog about, from brand new siding and a fixed foundation to new kitchen hardware. Bill has accomplished so much on the house this summer, I will have to post a picture of his crazy huge list!

But we have also found some time this summer to do a little of this:

While watching Lady do a lot of this:

Summer is such a great time to relax with friends and family, in August that is our only plan!

"A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken."  ~James Dent

Our next project has been the front of the house. Unfortunately, the awning and front porch had to come off in order to finish the siding, rotten wood in the living room / dining room walls and foundation issue. We were initially planning on putting an awning back on but the house actually looks a lot bigger without it and we are going to finish a nice front deck area instead. So, this is the before:

...and this is where we are at right now:

It doesn't look like much right now but I am starting to have a vision for what it will look like in the end. I want to put a large decorative piece (possibly a metal leafy idea) in the middle of the two windows and we were initially thinking of a dark navy blue siding (kind of nautical) but we are concerned about it fading so now we are back to the beige family. Can't wait to show the finished product!

"A man's home is his wife's castle" ~ Alexander Chase

Gardens are a form of autobiography. ~Sydney Eddison, Horticulture magazine, August/September 1993

My love of gardening started back in highschool where my first job was at Rice Road Greenhouses in Fonthill. Ever since I have been fascinated by plants and flowers, especially perennials. One of my favorite gardens to plan out is a perennial garden, I love to research bloom times and lay out a garden area so that there is colour all spring, summer AND fall. We have been blessed with a larger property so I have lots of space to experiment! Last summer I tackled a side garden that was filled with goat weed (a very annoying weed that grows so fast it is hard to keep up with and that you probably can never get rid of 100%) and cleaned up our front garden. We don't spend a lot of time in  our front yard so I made that garden fairly low-maintenance with sedum, hostas and some cedar bushes. In the side garden I planted a variety of hydrangea, phlox, shasta daises, clematis and trumpet vine. Everything bloomed pretty well last year but I am excited to see what happens in the coming seasons as the plants have matured! I also made a little path with a wishing well over our cistern to "prett-i-fy" the concrete hole that we need for our water but was kind of an eyesore in the garden. Here are some pictures of what I have done so far...

I think this year I will put more colour in this pot, the verbena kind of strangled the poor pink geraniums last summer:



 This one was a gift from my mother-in-law for my birthday, a peegee hydrangea (the same flower that I carried in my wedding bouquet!):

This summer I am going to tackle some pond gardening!

 My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant's point of view.  ~H. Fred Dale

change & opportunity

If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it.  ~Mary Engelbreit

 

You can avoid having ulcers by adapting to the situation:  If you fall in the mud puddle, check your pockets for fish.  ~Author Unknown

If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies.  ~Author Unknown

If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.  ~Milton Berle

 

Opportunities are never lost; someone will take the one you miss.  ~Author Unknown

 

Seize every opportunity along the way, for how sad it would be if the road you chose became the road not taken.  ~Robert Brault

images from: www.thenotebookdoodles.com

 

...food for thought...

www.thenotebookdoodles.com

Two Rooms Done!

After the bathroom was finished we tackled our bedroom...and slept in our living room for a few months! We actually ended up turning two rooms into one to make a huge master bedroom. While the bedroom presented a few less obstacles than the bathroom we still managed to find a lot of rotten wood, a severely off level floor and a wall where a window used to be with NO insulation! To top it off Bill also had to re-do a lot of the drywall work because when we ripped the side of the house off in the summer all of the screws popped and the corners cracked. All in all we are pretty proud of this room, especially Bill's trim work. He makes all of our door/window casings and baseboards himself (so glad I married such a handy guy!). One of the cool choices that we made in this room was to do bamboo flooring. It looks really awesome and its great because it is a renewable resource so we are also making an environmental contribution. 

Here are a couple of before pictures (the first one from before we moved in):

These are a few of the after pictures:

~ It takes hands to build a house, only hearts can build a home ~

~ you are the love of my life ~

I am a firm believer in the old adage "everything happens for a reason". My husband, Bill, and I met a few months after I we both got out of long-term serious relationships. We were introduced through a work friend and his cousin and started our relationship on a blind date. Some would say that the rest is history but I really think that it comes down to the fact that we both knew exactly what we wanted and each of us is that person for each other. We only dated 11 months before he proposed and got married only 8 months after that, when you know you know! So, for anyone out there who thinks that maybe it is impossible to find that amazing guy to treat you like the princess that you should be....I married my very best friend and in the words of our wedding song "God blessed the broken road that led me straight to you"... 

...the journey to our bathroom...

When we first bought our house it had two showers and no tub, something I couldn't live with! The upstairs bathroom ended up being our first renovation project (planned out while we were on our honeymoon and started the day we got home!). Bill knows how to do everything so he completed this project himself, with some minor painting mishaps contributed by yours truly! This particular renovation has set the bar for the rest of our projects and began a trend of finding the many many things wrong with our first home. We ended up having to rip down ALL of the drywall, replacing ALL of the (rotten) wall studs and ripping out the ENTIRE floor (including the sub floor). At one point you could actually see from the upstairs bathroom right down into the downstairs bathroom! However, all of these issues pale in comparison to the ceiling caving in one lovely afternoon (while Bill was working in there might I add). This was the only point during the renovation where I completely lost it. I had to walk outside, after learning that Bill was fine and braving the dust/insulation/drywall to turn off a work light that was rapidly beginning to heat up under the mass of insulation and starting a fire, and sit on the front lawn to shed a few tears over what had become a complete and utter disaster! We later recovered, after a call to Bill's brother to help with the clean-up, and Bill ended up finishing what is now my favorite room of the house a couple of days before Christmas. I had my first bath in my first house on Christmas Eve! So, while we over-spent, over-stressed and had to take a major hiatus from starting our next project, it turned out amazing and I enjoy it every single day :)


This is what the bathroom looked like before:

We moved the wall out three feet into the living room and replaced absolutely everything, this is the finished product:

...and this is what Bill looked like throughout the project...

DIY

 Our house is a bit of a fixer upper, thank goodness Bill is great at electrical, plumbing, drywall...and the list goes on. We have had to come up with a few cost-effective DIY projects to make our house a home along the way.  So far we have tackled the bathroom and the bedroom. One particular project that I think turned out pretty well was our bedroom closet doors. The closet unit is actually one of those organizer ones from Ikea, and was a major buying feature for me :) The previous owners had put those laminate fake wood-looking sliding doors on the closet with one large mirror. When we finished renovating the bedroom I wanted to keep the Ikea closet but I hated the doors! Below is a before picture of half of the bedroom taken during one of the visits we made to the house while the previous owners still lived there:

...and here is the after! I bought wallpaper from Home Depot and papered over top of the laminate fake wood-looking doors and left the mirrored door as is. Overall, great idea and worked a lot better than I thought that it would!

My Little Lady

As many of my friends and family know I have lots of dog stories about my little puppy named Lady, so it is only fitting that my first blog post be about her.

We got her last Christmas (picked her up on December 23rd) and she has been entertaining us ever since! From her antics in our backyard pond to her love of cuddles and kisses, we have no idea what we would do without her. She turned 1 on November 4th this year, but you would never know that she wasn't still a little puppy. She is a ball of energy and she certainly keeps us on our toes! As an example, she sometimes goes to visit my parents and their dog (who just happens to be related to her by the same dog parents, but a few years of litters apart) on Fridays. One Friday last year she was hanging out with my Dad in the basement and then wandered upstairs, he followed a few moments later and found her in their kitchen sink! To this day we can't figure out how she got in there...what a nut!

She has some pretty unique facial expressions this is one of them...

She loves to sit on what I call the "roundy roundy" chair (one of those round Pier 1 Imports chairs) and look out the window at the squirrels, bunnies, birds, neighbours, Bill shovelling the driveway...you name it!

She also loves to swim! All summer she was in and out of our backyard pond, sometimes for hours at a time. What started as a casual dip in June/July eventually turned into the great frog hunt of 2010 in August/September.

Bill and I found this video on youtube one morning and it really reminds us of Lady.

... until my next blog about my dog, enjoy :) ...