Remembering

I came across this photo tonight and I love it! Halloween 2008, just before going trick or treating (you can tell by the chocolate around his mouth and on his suit that he has already been snacking!) My son loves to play dress up, he has many costumes that he loves to pretend play in. This fire suit is one of those, he loved it so much that he had to use it for Halloween.

Had to throw in our attempt at getting a photo of our 2 together. Miss E never cooperates. This happens anytime we try.

Here he is a couple months earlier at our private fire hall tour thanks to "Fireman Steve", in the same suit! We bought the suit for him a few weeks before we moved and he wore it each and every day for weeks. If you notice what Miss E is wearing, it was the summer. Do you think he cared? Of course not, he would wear it over pants and be all red faced and we still had to fight to get it off.

I need to dig up one of his newest costumes, the NASA space suit we bought at the Kennedy Space Center on our trip to Florida. Yes he wore a space suit around Cocoa Beach in 80F weather. At least it was not the princess dress of his sisters that makes my husband cringe! Shhhh... don't tell him I told you that, or I won't be able to share a photo of him dressed up as Snow White! ;)

Life's Advice

I just read this advice this morning and I just had to share because I think it is so very true!

Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don’t. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.

Friends and loved ones are like balloons; once you let them go, you might not get them back. Sometimes we get so busy with our own lives and problems that we may not even notice that we’ve let them fly away. Sometimes we are so caught up in who’s right and who’s wrong that we forget what’s right and wrong. Sometimes we just don’t realize what real friendship means until it is too late.

The pursuit of happiness is the chase of a lifetime! It is never too late to have or become what you might have been.

But if you lack the courage to start, you have already finished.

This is one of my biggest challenges for 2009. I am being selfish and putting myself first for once in a long long time. I am taking care of myself so I can take care of the others around me. I am surrounding myself with people who treat me right and forgetting about the others. At times this has been hard for me to do. I am constantly faced with the struggle of why some do what they do. But in this process I have connect with some amazing people who are showing me that everything happens for a reason.

I am in a constant struggle to make myself and life better. Some days I fail miserably, but I am working on it. Well off to get myself ready and feeling beautiful - the first step in a "great" day!

Bedtimes

It is 9:45pm and as I sit here typing this I can hear my son upstairs running around. His bedtime is 8pm. We saw him climbing on the outside of the stairs so he came and sat with me for a couple of minutes. He told me he was hungry so I gave him a cheese stick and took him back upstairs. It was to dark and scary for him to go down the hall by himself! This was all at about 9pm. He has done this the past couple of nights. So it makes me wonder if he goes to bed too early. The only problem is he doesn't want to wake up in the morning for school. We have had the odd week where this happens and then he reverts back to his 8pm bedtime and 7am waking. He is almost 5, is 8pm too early for him to go to bed?

How do I get him up in the morning if he stays up late? What time do your kids go to bed at?

How did you spend earth hour?

This year we spent a few hours outside with our neighbours. They set up a little bonfire in their fire pit (you know the kind that is in a cute bowl you can move around) and a few families gathered and we roasted some marshmallows. We talked about the homes around us that had all their lights on. And then we looked at our house and our outside lights were on! I forgot about our lights that are on a timer. We installed it when we moved because if our lights were on my husband would forget to turn them off before he went to bed. Good thing it was at 8pm that they went on. I went back home and hit the bypass to turn them off. Our house was dark and it felt great. Last year we went dark too, but I still worked by the light of my laptop on battery power. Yes I had a lot of work to do but it was nice to shut everything off for a few hours. It reminded all of us how nice it is to just sit back and relax. We all sat around the fire and said we want to do earth hour every week!

Dave and I discussed earth hour before the festivities began because there has been a lot of discussion about how worthy it actually is. I believe even a little something makes a difference. That is one of the reasons that we have done our small part to do what we can. We have a brand new house that is energy certified, our windows, extra insulation, high efficiency furnace, low flow toilets, showers and faucets. I adjust the thermostat a few degrees, I believe that you should be able to be comfortable inside in the same clothes you would wear outside, sweater in winter and tank top in summer (I still remember how cold my friends house was in the summer, so cold I needed to wear a sweater inside when it was hot outside). I use my a/c to just remove the humidity from my home, and love to take advantage of those breezy days and turn off the a/c and open up my windows. Installed compact florescent light bulbs in every light and put ceiling fans in every room we could. When we moved and bought our new appliances we made sure they offered the best energy guide rating. I love my front load washer and dryer! I do all of my laundry and run my dishwasher in off peak hours.

There are so many other "green" things that I do to help reduce our carbon footprint. I used no/low VOC paint when I painted the kids rooms, and will use it when we paint the rest of the house once our 1 year warranty is up. I use all natural eco-friendly cleaners and personal care products. We recycle and compost 90% of our garbage. I regularly visit our household hazardous waste and recycling depot to drop off items that should not go in the garbage. All of our clothing and household items we are no longer using get donated. We don't use a gas lawn mower. I put a "no junk mail" sticker in my mailbox. I shop at local farms in the warmer months. I shop at a grocery store that doesn't give out plastic bags so I bring my own. All of the wood products in my kitchen are bamboo. Just trying to think of it all I have realized a few extra things that I didn't think about.

I think the point of earth hour for me was to remind us to do the little things. If we all do a few little things it will make a difference. We can all make a difference - for our kids. If you question anything you have to remember that this is all for our kids, and their kids.

Germs, Germs go Away!

It is after 11:00pm and I just finished cleaning my bathrooms! I swear I have been sick with one thing or another for months now. Well since the beginning of December to be exact when I got strep throat for the first time in ever {well as long as I can possibly remember ever}. It really has been one thing after another as I know many of you are aware because I have posted about it more than I wish to admit. Right now I have this stomach bug. Nothing horrible, just a little nuisance. But since it started on Friday night, and I am sitting here on Tuesday night still dealing with it I got fed up. I had to rush to the bathroom and as I sat there {OMG insert my red face here because I am talking about this online!!} I said no more. I got up and went to get all of my bathroom cleaning products and started to clean my bathroom from top to bottom. Then I moved onto the others in my house as I am getting rid of the germs. I am going to sanitize everything I possibly can in my house in hopes of banishing the bugs.

Has this winter been horrible for everyone else's health?

You know you are living in 2009 when...

1. You accidentally enter your pin on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses...

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )

12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.

14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself.

A friend emailed this to me and as I read it I had to smile and agree to a lot of this. I know many times I wonder about what our world is turning to with all the technology and convenience created, well that is another long post, so for now I just wanted to share so you could all giggle as well!

Spring Organizing my Office

To do list:

1. Organize desk
2. Remove excess junk from bookshelves
3. Gather inspirational items
4. Hang designs and art on walls
5. Finish filing
6. and then all of this is done I will want to move all of the furniture around.

*Note to self - Look at furniture placement first!!*

I am with only one child for a few days as Kal has gone to my mom's place in the city. He is all excited to ride the street cars and subways. I am not sure what he likes better, her country home on the lake or her trendy condo right in the heart of the city. I am not sure if he knows either! So with all of this free time of only having one child (can you sense my sarcasm?!) who is constantly on the go and talking and wanting to eat I am sure I will get lots done. My plan right now is to work on my office. Lets see how far I get... with Miss E standing beside me naked wearing only her running shoes and asking to go outside!!