Right Here. Right Now.

 

What I'm wearing .... teal pants, with a grey tank top and a teal loose and longer tank over top, my teal socks and my teal slippers. Hair in a messy bun and sunglasses.

What I'm reading .... sat outside this afternoon after our work was done to take in the warm sun and read 20 more chapters of "No Ordinary Life." There are 104 chapters altogether in this book, so I'm getting a good start on it.

What's happening in my kitchen .... Sunday dinner is cooking ~ pork roast the AGA, veggies cut up for roasting, salad and fresh buns. My Mike's Hard Lime is chilling in the fridge.

What's outside my window .... sunshine with blue skyand a warm breeze. Lots of little birds flitting from tree to tree and singing. Tree buds are getting ready to bloom.

What I'm thankful for .... our sweet little family and our sweet little cottage. Good health and good care for my mom.

What I'm smelling .... fresh air and the remnants of a fire from down the lane. Our neighbors are all burning old branches at this time of year. Love the smell. Reminds me of Fall, though I'm definitely NOT ready to go there just yet. 

What I'm hearing .... the 3 littles laughing down the lane (truly our best neighbors ever), though its quite faint. And Fleetwood Macs "Rumours" is on our little outdoor speaker.

What I'm crafting .... same project as last week ~ "Tiny Houses" by Jennifer Chamberlin. It was a great class and super cheap ($20). And the links for the video that was live are available to me for an entire year so I can go back over and over if I need to see it again. Love this concept. 

What's on my mind .... worries that I have "parked" for now. 

Words to live by .... my quote for the week is above. A quote from the hit production "Hamilton" ~ we were set to see it last Summer, but Covid .... so now it's reset for the Summer of 2022. Love the music. Can't wait to see it in person. Enjoy!

Happy Sunday, my blogging

buddies. Namaste to all.

~ Chy

Suntanning.

Look at my sweet babies enjoying the sun and working on their tans! Yesterday was sunny at times and then cloudy, so when the sun was out, these guys must have been singing inside. We have another couple of great sunny days and then, thankfully and finally, we're supposed to have 3 days of rain starting on Friday. It's quite dry right now and fires have started popping up around the region. A good soak will calm the threat down I'm sure. And turn everything green again. Our trees are full of buds that are just about to open. We've been poking around a bit to see what plants will be back this year (so far, so good) but we haven't moved anything as the recommendation is to let the little critters who nest in the leaves, compost, etc. have a few more weeks of cover. Our seedlings we've started inside are doing well and once the nights are warmer, we'll move those out to the greenhouse. I so hope this all works this year for us. 

Our neighbor popped over yesterday to look at our ideas for placing our new shed, which is currently in 2 boxes in our garage, waiting to be put together. We had 4 options and I think we have it down to 2 now. He has a tractor that can level where we want to put it and then we can build the base. Bought the wood last week so we're ready to go. It'll be nice to have more space in the garage as we'll use the shed to store big items like the wood for the rink, the snowblower, the wood chipper, etc. So thankful that our neighbor can do this for us and that we have a couple of good spots to consider. Then it's on to more landscaping this Summer. We now have a plan for where the rink sits in the Winter so it's lovely in the Summer. Won't share that just yet as it does involve finding the right contractors to carry it out. A bit beyond a DIY project for us! Updates to come.

On the agenda today: after we listen to our grandson's radio show at 9:30, then I'm doing my workout, showering and I have some tidying to do. A quick vacuum, a load of laundry in to the washer, lunch, some writing, outside work if we feel like doing more (did lots yesterday) or just chilling on the deck, then our board meeting for our music festival at 4, dinner together, tidy up, then a relaxing evening of watching a few of our favorite shows. Nothing too pressing this week other than I have a grant to finish up that is due on Friday, and paperwork for my hospice position. We hope to hear back from the landscaping companies we've contacted so we can get our project started. Would be nice to have this big chunk done this year. Next weekend when it rains, I'll work on some of our indoor projects. We have painted the board and batten in the lower level but now we have to start up the stairs. Good rainy day projects. Bring on the rain!

All for today. Have an amazing

day my blogging buddies. Namaste.

~ Chy

Little Houses.

I love little houses. Even as a child, I would draw them in my notebooks and in all my artwork. All our married life, we've had tiny houses, though our last one was a good size as we had many small children. Though this house is not tiny, we still call it our "cottage" and love to decorate in a cottage style. I picked up these sweet little houses at a store one day, where I had ducked in to for a few minutes to get out of the pouring rain. I searched for my warm lunch, then came around the corner of an aisle and they had these on the shelf, for 85% off. Such a deal! So I bought 5 of them. Each is different and I love the details. Tiny, cozy and colorful.

I've often shown favorite corners in our cottage but I love this one a lot. I'm not looking for some pretty fabric to create curtains that I can see in my head, blowing in the breeze. And to cover a window seat cushion, once I have that made too. Sweet now but will even be better in the future. The shelf I've talked about before. It was an awful dark color but much brighter now. Plants do well here and my tiny wreath hanging from the shutters gives a warm feeling of home. The highchair was gifted to us and is now a spot for a little pillow that says "I'm in the Garden" and another little plant in a vintage pot that is doing well here. The quilted pillow was a great find in a charity shop, as was the bunny who rests beside it. And you can see my one hat that I sometimes wear in the garden. Special treasures in the shelf, including a vintage tea pot someone gave me, some prints, glass birds and on top, one of my favorite lanterns. 

Enjoy the weekend, my sweet

blogging buddies! Namaste.

~ Chy

My Favorites.

I have a love hate relationship with food. You may have heard me say this before. Born with undiagnosed reflux (discovered when I was in my 40's), an undiagnosed hiatal hernia (same time line) and severe life threatening food allergies, eating became painful and scary, and for decades, something I dreaded. I battled anorexia and it still blows my mind to this day that we were able to carry 4 good sized babies to term, though we've lost 8 precious little ones and now I often wonder if being too underweight was part of the problem. Over time, once I was diagnosed, we began to experiment with food to get me to a point of being able to eat without pain, and to achieve a healthier weight. Now, most of the time, I enjoy eating. And have some favorite foods that I could eat every day .... and sometimes do! 

My favorites included soft pasta with alfredo sauce, baked ham with coleslaw and roasted veggies, soups, yogurt with berries, grilled cheese sandwiches (with pickles), chicken stir fry and anything that is easy to chew and swallow that I'm not allergic to. Love casseroles with chicken, broccoli, cheese and rice. Mmmm. And lobster. Who knew all those years ago that lobster would be a food I can tolerate. Do you have favorite foods you love to eat? Share away if you wish.

Namaste on this sunny Friday morning.

~ Chy

Earth Day 2021.

Today is Earth Day. And just because Mother Nature sometimes has a sense of humor, instead of a lovely day filled with sun, blue skies and warm air, we have snow! Blowing and cold. It won't last but it seems quite ironic for the year we're all experiencing. I hope where ever you are today, that Earth Day is warm and wonderful!

Give some extra love to our sweet Earth today.

Namaste my blogging friends. Be well ....

~ Chy

Hodge Podge ....

 

It's Wednesday and time to join in on the Hodge Podge link from Joyce's blog "From This Side of the Pond." Here are the questions for today:

1. Find a penny. Look at the date and tell us something about your life or what you were doing that year? I live in Canada and in 2013, the Royal Canadian Mint stopped making pennies. It's rare to find one now as they were taken out of circulation. I looked today but nope, none in the house. 

2. Were you given an allowance as a child? Did you have to earn it in some way? Did you learn to save money when you were a child or is that something you figured out as an adult? Yes I recall being paid $10 per month for chores and I would save a good chunk of it. Ended up between my first job, babysitting money and the allowance I saved as a kid, plus dh's savings, buying our first house at the age of 20 ~ we were actually 19 years, 11 months old when we made our first real estate purchase. We're great savers but I had to teach dh how as he truthfully would spend all his paycheque as that was how he was raised. Took some time but he finally got it! Now he loves to save and it shows.

3. April 23rd is National Take A Chance Day .... what's a chance you need or want to take? To move forward on a few initiatives that are sitting because I'm worried about the outcomes. Need to just move boldly forward! Risky, but we only live once .... could create some heartache though.

4. What's some outdated slang you seem to use a little too often? I actually couldn't think of anything.

5. It's National Poetry month and I always like to make us work our brains a little .... Roses are red, Violets are blue .... I'm super short but I'm not super port! 

6. Insert your own random thought here. Snow is on its way. We went from blue skies with sun all day and a high of 20 degrees C, to a huge drop in temperature, dark skies and strong winds. Ugh .... I just want a year without storms.

~ Chy

Vintage Home.

I love my Country Living magazine, the U.K. edition that I have to search for each month but always find. It's often a month behind and yesterday, we stumbled upon the March edition. Such a good read and I love how some of the little character styles we incorporated into our cottage show up in homes featured in the magazine. Love the articles, the artwork and the inspiration. Recently we discovered that Country Living has created a new version called "Country Living Vintage Home" and I'm in love again! It's a huge edition as you can see by the first photo. I'm not sure and will have to check later if it's going to be a monthly offer or periodically. I'm going thru it slowly and enjoying each and every page. When we were at Indigo yesterday, they still had copies of this first one, so it could be a quarterly.

It was a busy day yesterday, between work and connecting with my staff virtually for resident rounds in the morning, driving our car in to town for a new windshield and then running back to pick it up again later in the day, and then a board meeting last night. All good stuff but I was tired last night. Expected to sleep through the night but actually had a crappy night. So now I've woken up exhausted. However, once I'm done my post, I'm off for my workout and then a nice shower. Then I'll be good to go. A quieter morning today, which is perfect, so I can catch up. Then a counselling session @ 11, lunch, then my team and I meet each Wednesday @ 1. I love this meeting as we talk about our clients and dream about new projects! I have to check if I have another session @ 4. Can't recall if last week we decided to book again, but it will be in my case notes for that client. In between, I plan to drive in to hospice, get dressed up in PPE and check in quickly with a new resident who I've been chatting with on the phone, pick up a few items I need (files and my laptop) so I can keep working from home as directed by our ED, and water my plant. Then home for a quiet night. Not a super exciting day but I am looking forward to connecting with my clients, my team and to be outside as much as possible ~ it's a blue sky day with a 20 degree C prediction. And then, can you guess what? Yup! Snow tomorrow! Photos to follow ....

Namaste my dear bloggers. 

Enjoy your beautiful day!

~ Chy

Foody Books.

Yesterday was a crazy, busy work day. And today is the same. I don't think I have a quiet day this week until Thursday when it's a bit calmer. New programs this week starting up, new referrals for counselling, deadlines, etc. I'm starting to get super tired but working out each morning and the weather is helping. Pushing through and getting it all done. Feels good once I get to the other side and the to do list is smaller. The rest of Spring should be a slower pace for work. Not life, as we have some grand landscaping plans this year but work will be quieter. I am thankful each day that we both still have our jobs through this Pandemic and that we enjoy what we do. When it's super busy, it's very tiring. 

Our kitchen island looking all forlorn. No food being prepared. No one sitting on a stool working on a project. Just an empty island, waiting patiently for the next user to come along. Do you collect cookbooks? I started with one given to me at one of my bridal showers. And over the years, I've collected a few. I have a stand to hold the book when its in use but sometimes find using my laptop works well too. Those are all my sweet "foody books" on the bottom shelf. Just enough to give us inspiration for trying new things. 

All for now, my blogging buddies.

Wishing you a peaceful day. Namaste!

~ Chy