Puppy love

Toshi's best friend came over today.

My favorite boy loves bigger dogs. I think little dogs either annoy him or he considers them food.

What to do, what to do

I gave a problem.

I have 8 days off IN A ROW and a lot of projects that I want to work on. Sigh.

How to prioritize?

Do I do some work on my bedroom?

I have some beautiful new bedding waiting to go on my bed,  but there are some things I want to do to that room first.

I have a fairly basic wooden headboard that I want to upholster and tuft.

Some Ikea dressers to hack for each side of the bed.

Plus I picked up a coffee table that I want to turn into a bench for the end of the bed.

Our living needs a new ottoman.

Maybe something like this?

In the spirit of DIY, I want to replace our existing every-speck-of-dust-shows-up-and-drives-me-crazy coffee table with a hand built upholstered number.  There are lots of plans out there.

But then my basement needs work. 

A lot of work! But do I really want to spend my time in my dark, dank basement?

My bathroom needs some updating. 

Some cabinet paint. A frame around the mirror. Some grout touch ups. But is it really important?

My backyard is my current passion project. Conquering my black thumb is a big thing for me. I'll definitely spend some time plant in my annuals. I think I should build a potting bench.

Javier doesn't even know about this project. Maybe I'll surprise him...

Hmmm, the mudroom. We plan to rip out of existing cabinets and build sonething like this.

So pretty. And I can see myself getting pretty organized with this.

Then there's the attic.

It's long been a dream to properly turn it into a media space. How Javier would love this!

The really sad thing is that this is only a very small fraction of what I'd like to accomplish.

Maybe I'll just spend the whole time here...

With a coffee, a book, and my favorite dog.

So many things to do, so little time.

The great transplant experiment of 2014

Oh my daylilies.

These are not my daylilies pictured above. I didn't feel like tracking down at old photo.

After many years of hating my frontyard daylilies, I finally did something about it

Something crazy. 

I moved them to the backyard.

Wild, right?

After changing our fence and losing some trees last year, we were left either a vast concrete wasteland.

Not pretty.

My 20' by 5' planter lay empty and sad, little more than a playground (& potty) for Toshi. My brilliant coworker suggested transplanting my daylilies to the back. If they didn't survive, no bug deal, at least I have space for new plants out front. And if they do survive, it's a cheap and cheerful way to add colour to the space.

It took two days of hard work, digging and pulling and moving plants around, but I did it. Impressed? Thus formally black-thumbed girl sure is.

For two weeks now, I waited anxiously for signs of growth. The internet assured me that daylilies were pretty much indestructible. Despite the unseasonably cool weather we've been having.

And they grew. I'm pretty proud...

Reasons why I love my husband #4

He installs new lights on our deck for Mother's Day.

Stay tuned for further installments of "why I love my husband" (he's a pretty great guy) & updates on our backyard improvements.

Time to dust off the blog

Hello out there! Are any of my friends still around?

It's been more than 2 years since my last post. For a whole I just lost my blogging mojo. Not only that, I lost my desire to create and beautify. My craft room turned into a vast storage jungle as I focused more on fitness and healthy eating (very time consuming, by the way). Plus, I got lost in the madness that is having a school age child in multiple activities.

But now I'm back, baby!

And I'm better (hopefully) than ever!

I'm overflowing with ideas and I can't wait to share the things I'm working on.

What's new, you ask?

Well, I'm 42 (yikes) and happy about it.  My forties seem like the best decade so far. We have such a great life.

My got a dog! Meet my darling Toshi.

He's 1 1/2 year old shiba inu. And he's insane. But I'm so crazy in love with him.

My little Lizzie is no longer so little. She's now 16, taller than me, driving by herself, and has a job!

She's so lovely. The teenage years are in full swing, a little rocky and emotional at times, but we have so much fun watching her.

Our life is still very busy and full, and always full of adventures.

I look forward to sharing some of those adventures out there in the blog world.

Reasons why I love my husband #3

He buys me pretty things with wheels.

Meet Lailani

She's awesome

Christmas throughout the years

And a tree is up!

Actually this is one of two trees.

This year we (I) stepped our of our (my) comfort zone and purchased a multi-coloured LED Christmas tree. I'm normally a white light kind of girl all the way. There was a lot of debating around here as we could decide between an 9' tree or two 7.5'. The two smaller trees won out as the 9' one was just too wide. And this tree was just so lovely. And maybe a bit retro.

We have made this tree our family tree, filled with our yearly ornament, plus a few others to fill in the spaces.

Each year we try to purchase or make an ornament that signifies something that we did or something that happened in the previous year.

1995

One of Javier's first ornaments as a bachelor.

1998

Lizzie's first Christmas and my first as a mom. My mom bought us this ornament.

1999

Lizzie was just 1 that year and it was just the two of us living in a tiny little apartment in Vancouver. We went walking in Stanley Park Christmas Day.

2000

Our first year as a family.

2001

This is the first ornament that Javier & Lizzie bought together.

We didn't go to Disney but we spent lots of time at the Disney store!

2002

Our first trip to Hawaii at Christmas. Lizzie was so little.

We also got married that year.

2003

We painted pottery this year with some wonderful new friends.

Everyone made keepsake ornaments.

2004

Not a handmade ornament. I was consumed with school work and the yearly ornament almost got forgotten. I hastily embroidered the year on a purchased one. There was a worn out mama in the house that year.

2005

The height of Lizzie's obsession with horses. She still loves them.

2006

Our second trip to Hawaii. The hula dancer gingerbread man says it all.

2007

The handmade Christmas. I was pretty crafty that year.

2008

Our first trip to Seattle. It rained a lot but we fell in love with the city.

2009

We took a fabulous two week camping trip.

We decorated our campsite with flamingos.

2010

Sand & pearls. We took a family trip to Hawaii just

before Christmas (yes, we are that spoiled.)

Javier's Grandma Pearl passed away that Fall.

2011

An extremely blessed Lizzie attended SeaCamp in July (touched an octopus while there) & went to her first concert (we think the legs look a bit like Katy Perry's hair)

And our tree at night. So pretty.