been MIA...

Well I have not been around on the www much since my last post. I must say it feels really nice to take a break from it all. Last week John was home on holidays and we tackled a bit of home reno's. We(well John..lol) laid a tile floor down on our basement stir landing(that would be the sideways pic...forgot to rotate it) We still have to finish putting up the corner round and painting the one wall. We will also be carpeting each individual stair and have oak risers( I felt the carpet was needed for slip factor with all the kids that go up and down them). OUr next project to tackle was the kitchen backsplash. I choose to do it in a tumbled travertine with a travertine/marble mosaic tile to accent. I am extremely pleased as to how it turned out. I finished up the last bit of it yesterday afternoon. We have 3 out 5 of our basement doors put up(just waiting for the other 2 to come in) and they are still waiting for me to finish painting them( I have one coat done so far) I am really wanting to finish our inside projects so we can start on the outside ones. Hopefully by the end of this week we will have a pool bought so we can have it installed by end of May. We are also wanting to do interlock in the front walk and perhaps fencing and decking in back.

I have been lacking on my running as of late and I definitely have a love/hate relationship with my weight loss progress. It is definitely not going as well as I hoped.

We have been plagued with more bad news. On this past Sunday night John's Grandma has had a massive stroke(in my opinion) and as of last night she was still unresponsive. I am awaiting any news of changes as we speak. After telling Ab you could see the hurt in her. My grandma's death last month definitnely saddened her and she was not as close to her as she is to Gram. I cannot believe how incredibly strong my girls are through everything that is happening in the past month. Abigail is definitely showing maturity(at times..of course) and I can see her as the 10 year old that she will becoming next week. So now all we can do is pray and know it is within god's hands. Here is a photo of them from our last visit at christmas time.

So with all that is happening, I think I will be MIA for a while longer. Emotions are just everywhere right now, and both scrapping nor computer is on my mind as of late. I am hoping to go out for a run tonight just to help me put everything in check.

Day 2, and a layout.....

Well I did my second run yesterday. It was an absolutely beautiful day to go do it also. I started with a brisk warm up walk for 5 minutes, I then would jog for 1 minute and then walk for 1 1/2 minutes for a total of 20 minutes and then just did another cool down walk around the block. I ran for a total of just a little bit over 2.5 kms. This is amazing for me. I have never liked running, and pretty much sucked as it..lol...but yesterday even though it was tough at times, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and cannot wait to go out and run again. Found this cool website mapmyrun after seeing Donna Downey write about it on her blog. It is the coolest site ever. I can map out my runs and it will tell me the distance of them, I can also see other maps of people in town who have mapped theirs. It keeps track of all my workouts, calories burned, weight...etc... I am very determined to stick with this, in hopes of maybe doing a run sometime in the future. I have finally decided I am going to do myself right. Sure weight loss is great but my body needs to be stronger. So my next run will be tommorrow. I am going to sit down soon and try to make up a training schedule....I picked up a book today to help me with easing into the running and all the ins and outs of it.

Now onto the layout. I actually had this finished the other day, just did not get around to taking a picture of it. Nothing special, but it is a page done.

I started playing around with something that I wanted to do as a home decor project, but it is not working out as well as I hoped, perhaps I will gain some patience to do it today.

KISS ME, I'm Irish....

......er .....well....I have a little bit of Irish somewhere in me. My ancestors did start off in Ireland before they planted their roots in Scotland. Heck...are'nt we all Irish on this festive day;)

May the Irish hills caress you.

May her lakes and rivers bless you.

May the luck of the Irish enfold you.

May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.

~Irish Blessing

So here is a little funny for the morning. I was trying to explain st. patty's to Hadley this morning and why we were going to wear green and such. As we make our way downstairs she says when is Sponge Bob day since today was Patrick's day..LOL...my daughter watches way too much spongebob!!

So update on my weight loss journey..last night I was not firends with the scale...it said I went up 1.5 pounds. It deinitely did not help that hormones kicked in about 2 hours before I was to go and be weighed and I bloated up like a big balloon...ughhh...so now I am super determined to have a nice loss by next week. Today will be day 2 to my jogging routine, and I am very happy to see that it will be an absolute gorgeous day for it. I cannot wait for John to get home so I can go out and have my time. I am still a wee bit sore, but I love feeling it...it makes me know I have done something good for my body. Plus ...I will also not feel any guilt as I indulge in one or two of these this evening;)

On a creative note..I am almost finished my layout I was putzing with, and I think I am going to try and do up a little mixed media type project today....I have be wanting to do it for a while now, so hopefully today I will be successful.

Well must get dressed so I can take Abigail to her course today..it is either cpr or first aid...so glad to see her taking these...

Day 1 and a beautiful day .......

Today is the first day to a newer stronger and healthier me. I have taken the plunge and started on a new adventure. What adventure may that be.....the joys of jogging. Mind you I see no joy in this activity yet..lol. This is how I hope to look sometime in the future as I run my way through the neighbourhood streets.....the graceful, this isn't so hard look....

Yet today I believe I may have looked a little like this....I have come to the quick realization that this will be definite baby steps to get to doing any type of distance running. My lungs are in need of some serious training. I was able to run down one street and a bit of the bikepath before I was going to die. Thank god for my mp3 to help push me along my way. One thing I know for sure is I will definitely be investing in a good pair of shoes..so if anyone has any recommendations of some..let me know.

Today I have also decided to put in my contacts and start getting use to wearing them once again. Now that the sun is shining, I really want the ease of just putting on any ol' pair of sunglasses. I hate having to change out my glasses for my prescription sunglasses and then back again once I venture inside. I do not remember it being so odd to wear them in my younger years. Pregnancy over the years definitely changes things. I think baby steps will be involved in this process also.

After lunch I will be running to the sotre to quickly pick up some well needed items and then I will be doing a little bit of this.......................................................but my paint will be white.

John was successful enough to hang 3 of the doors in the basement yesterday, so I will be painting them today so that we can put on the hardware for them. He will also be putting up the trim around the windows and doors, but first he needs to go out and buy it. Then all will be left are the 2 doors to the office and a storage area to go up...they should be ready to pick up in a week and some...we needed to special order these. Then it will be onto flooring.

Nothing creative to show today, but I may have another layout to show by tommorrow if I get a chance to finish it off.

bits and pieces.....

Well it took about 3 days of sneaking in little creative breaks(otherwise meaning sneaking a moment away from Hadley..lol) to get this layout done. I absolutely loved this photo of Hadley, so I printed it out to 8 1/2 x 12 so that I could scrap it. My first thoughts were to do a single page, but I am really happy with the double page I did instead. I rarely do double page layouts...I really should do more of them. I have another page that I would like to get done, yet I am sure it will take me a few days to get it done also. Unfortunately by the time Hadley is gone to bed and I have no distractions, I am just too tired to work on anything.

So tommorrow I will be attending another wake. One of my great Uncle's died from a massive heart attack on Monday morning. It definitely took everyone by suprise. He was only 63 years old. I do hope this is one of the last wakes I have to attend for some time.

March break is almost apon us. It really will not feel like the normal break though. I have signed Abigail up for a weeks worth of courses which run from 9-3:30. She will be taking a home alone, first aid, cpr, babysitting and a conflict resolution one. I am really excited to see what she takes from these courses. She is really excited also, so that is a bonus. Besides that, not too much going on during the week. John took off the next week and we plan on doing some home renovations during that time.

Thank goodness for crazy hair/pj day.......

Well, it has definitely been one of those hurried mornings. Let's start from last night. First off one woohoo moment, I had my weigh in last night and dropped 4lbs in my first week. Doubt I will ever see that again, but definitely made me want to get up and do more. I would be very happy if this week will be a 2 lb one. Anyways I got home and John and I played a few rounds of tennis on the wii, then moved to a a game of golf(since I got a littel to over zealous and hit John as I was swinging for the ball...who knew you did not have to run to the ball..lol). After that I had to stop and go to bed for this spring ahead is just killing me....I would never thought it would, I mean I have kids and use to do shift work...it is not foreign to me to have any type of sleep routine..lol. Anyways I go up stairs to check on the girls and shut off their lights. As I walk into Hadley's room I am hit with this awful stench. I am going around the room smelling everything wondering what it is. Well thinking maybe she did something in her pull up, I get closer to her, and I go to move her blanket and what do I see......PUKE...everywhere. It looked like she did it several times. The kicker is she is sound asleep all the while covered from head to toe in it. This is the first time she has ever puked in her life...I am quite suprised she made it in life for 3 1/2 years without doing it....and to be not bothered with it. So I quickly get her out of bed and into the bathtub to have a quick bubble bath to wash some of it off of her. The poor thing was shaking like a leaf, and had no idea as to what all went wrong. So instead of going to bed we were bathing, changing sheets, cleaning walls and vacumming Hadley's room. We finally got her back into a clean bed and fast asleep were we all. So asleeep that I did not wake up till a bit after 8 this morning. Ab must be out of the house by 8:30 to get the bus. This is where I am so thankful that she had pj/crazy hair day today. All I had to do was get her out of bed, pack a quick lunch, feed her some breakfast and mess up her hair a bit more and off she went. She was in heaven:) Thankfully Hadley seems to be okay this morning, not a huge appetite, yet there is no fever and signs of tummy aches. Hopefully it will be a quiet day, and I can get some scrapbooking done. I have 2 layout ideas in my head that I want to try and get done. Crossing fingers I can do it.

some new art....

A little while ago I came across this piece of art by Niro Vasali that immediately caught my eye. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to reproduce the look of it for the house. Instead of just painting it though, I wanted to make it more of a mixed media piece and add some different textures to it.So this is the canvas I made which now hangs in our kitchen. I painted nine different coloured squares to start. I then added some houses...one which was a textured handmade paper, a house cut out of an old encyclopedia, a chipboard covered with crackle paint and a metal g, a house cut from fabric and stitched along with a felt word with some stitching to it and the final textured house is made of a thin metal with a saying stamped into the tin with paint and alcohol inks on it. I then just painted the remaining houses onto the squares. Did some detail work with oil pastels and that is it. I am quite pleased with how it turned out. I cannot wait to work on my next little canvas..I just hope my idea translates well onto the canvas. Perhaps I will try and do it later this weekend if some time permits.

Phrase in the metal says "fill a house with love and it becomes a home".

I also finally snapped a picture of my journal entry for the letter "d"-"decide". Not too much too this entry...watercolurs, glimmer mist, masked of the letters, did a photo transfer and some oil pastels. Now I must try and work on "e-elude". I have a thought in my mind so hopefully it will come about quickly.

No new scrap pages. I really should get to scrapping some. I just have found myself content in doing little pieces of art lately. I have so many ideas I want to try, that I just do not want to stop playing with art supplies. I actually have to start preparing for my art/scrap project that I plan on doing at nav can...

Well that is all for tonight....I am about ready for bed...night.

..journey of the heart

So I was commissioned to do a piece of artwork a little while ago, and I finally finished it up this morning. I was kind of given an idea as to the basis of the work and I went from there. It is done on an 8 x10 piece of masonite with the boy and girl drawn and painted with watercolours on watercolour paper and then hand cut out. The shirt and dress was made from pattern paper. I was a littel dissapointed withmy heart though. I think I put on too many layers of paint. Because I did the heart on lined paper and then stamped journey of the heart all over it and then painted over it. I was hoping the bbeswax would soak through and have those lines and words pop through. Live and learn for next time right. I then stamped the bottom with the journey of the heart phrase and beeswaxed it all to mute it all down...plus it gives off the most deliscious smell:) I then finished it off with some small mirror squares scattered around the canvas. All and all I am quite pleased how it turned out.

I have also finished my journal entry for the letter "d" I just have to snap a photo of it sometime soon.

This morning I did a bit of internet surfing to get some home decor ideas. We have now been in the house for 7 months, and I really want to start putting those finishing touches up. I think I have desided to put up travertine tiles as my kitchen backspash and now just debating if I want to add a decorative strip of glass tiles in with it. I am also mulling over what I will do above my fireplace..it is a huge mantel..probably 5 1/2 feet wide by 2 1/2 feet deep. The fireplace is all stone with the mantle being a dark chocolate oak. I htink I am going to make a great big mirror and then find some really big accessories in creams and moss green. I have come to the conclussion that I want the old brought back into my home. I have always loved antiques and have a few throughout that w have picked up or were passed through the generations. A while back I tried to do the more modern but really it just is not me. So my compromise is mixing the two..I really like that look together. So now I am going to start scouring around for some cool shabby looking things that I can embellish the new house with:) I will first start by going through all the things I have already that have not yet been unpacked and see if I can use them..I may need to change a few things up, nothing a good coat of paint will not do:) I also have a few canvas projects stirring in my head that I would like to do up. I cannot wait to see everything finally finished around here.

....great night

So tonight was the night to put in all the paperwork and meet teachers and such for the start up of junior kindergarten. Most of the stuff was nothing new sincew we are already familiar with the school. We did get to see who one of the english teachers are(since that has changed since Ab) and she seems really nice. The french teacher cannot believe that she will have Hadley join her in the fall..she kept on saying how she remembers her just being born. Now here is one of the great things that happened. The family centre does special programs to get the kids prepared for school and this year they are doing it at our school. So starting every Friday on April 3rd, Hadley will be going to school for the morning where they can become accustomed to the kindergarten room and some of the routines which will be done. This will run till middle of June.....whoohoo...so every friday I will have from 9am till 11:30 to myself...I will have to get a list of projects that I want to do so I can tackle them on those mornings. I was also impressed withthe kindercare program and hearing how structured it really is. It sounds like the kids that get to attend this really come out well in their schooling. It saddens me that I could not have given Ab that chance nor Hadley now. Cost is definitely an issue with that. I know at the time it started when Ab was in jk it was pretty pricey. I am sure my girls will turn out just fine none the less:)

...getting back on track

Well I finally did it! I went last night and rejoined Weight Watchers....and thank god I did. The weight was definitely starting to creep up on me since the last time I was with WW well over a year ago. I have just left my BMI range and not too happy with that. With the sale of the house, building of the new house and the move, helathy habits seemed to just fly out that window as the stress came in and made itself at home. The past little while I have been noticing the weight slowly come back. Unfortunately for me also, it just has to be a mere few pounds and it shows on my small frame..ugh.. SO the goal is to be bathing suit ready for the summer..I mean if I am going to get a pool with neighbours so close by, I need to feel comfortable. It is just not how I look though. I am starting to feel it physically. I am feeling tired alot more, and hate to have that feeling. Now just watching what I eat is not the only thing I will have to do. I really must include exercise. I really want to try to take up jogging. I always hated running, even as a kid...but I want to be able to get cardio into my routine, where it is not going to cost me anything. I am just have to embrace the fact of when I first start running I am going to have jiggly bits(ie my butt) but those will not be there always...if I keep it up they too will go away. As soon as warmer weather comes I will start up this new adventure, until then I will just have to become great friends with my Wii and run in my family room:)

Another big thing happening today is the finishing of registering Hadley to school. Tonight John and I attend a meeting at the school and hand in all our finished paperwork. Tell me..where did all the time go by...I blink my eyes and she goes from a baby to big girl. Though I am a wee bit sad to see this time come, I must admit I am a bit excited to have some time in the house without any kids. I will now be able to get some much needed things done around here without an interruption every 10 minutes;) Well off I go to start our day, kids need to be awoken, dressed and fed, and then of course a lunch must be made before I tote the girls off to school..another frigid day here...really too frigid for Ab to walk all the way to the bus stop without freezing.

total sweetness...and then some

First I will start with the sweetness part and then I will follow with the creative other. For 99% of the time when a camera comes out, either Ab will be running to hide or having a miserable look come over her face. Well this Saturday evening I believe neither happened not once. After dinner we finally went over to meet the newest member of the family...little baby "Joshua". The girls were so excited. As soon as the girls saw him their faces beamed with delight. Both the girls kept on wanting to hold him and show him their stuffed toys throughout the evening. We could not even leave without Abigail holding Josh just one more time. SO do not take my word for it, here are some cute shots. I cannot wait to scrapbook some of these soon...just hopefully I have some blue paper..lol..not use to have boys around.

Now for the creative part of this post. A while ago I did up a micro mini album of this past halloween. I bought some little halloween playing cards which came in a plastic holder and thought...this would be a cool album. It measures a little under 2"x3". I painted up the clear container and embellished the front of it. I then used one of the playing cards as the front of my album and cut my papers and photos the same size/shape as the card. I must admit the glueing and such was very tedious...and thank god for un-du and my adhesive eraser:) I am pretty happy how this turned out.