Painting It Up

Kitchen - Before - Brown

Living Room - Before - Brown

I love painting.  It makes me feel like I can transform a space from nothing special to something wonderful.  The house is definitely starting to feel a lot more like home now.  Though there's still a lot of work left to do, the main floor is coming together nicely.  When we moved in, the walls were my least favorite color - a non-descript brown with patches of slightly different colored paint from the previous owners who fixed a few holes in the walls.  The main floor was a priority for us; not just because we wanted to decorate that area first, but also because the bonus room upstairs is going to be a much longer and more frustrating job!  As a lover of greyscale, I went for light and dark grey.  It has changed the feel of the whole place, and I love it.  My original intention was to just complete the paint in the kitchen and living room, but we had leftover paint and I was in the mood, so I finished the entire main floor (even including the bathroom) in just one more day.  Here are a couple of shots!

Kitchen - Painted - Light & Dark Grey

Living Room - Painted - Light & Dark Grey

Front Entry



It took us a while to find the right furniture for the living room; we needed to get something that was our kind of style, comfortable, but a little firmer for our older guests.  We're planning to add a coffee table in the middle as well as pictures on the walls, but here it is so far.  We really enjoy the furniture we chose and it's so great to have a separate "adult" sitting area without a TV.

Living Room - Now With Furniture!

New Normal

The first day of school has now come and gone, with Zack now in grade 4 and Nathan in grade 3.  In all the excitement/craziness of our move, the summer flew by.

What grade are you going into?

 

 

With all of our money going to house savings over the past few years, this fall the kids are finally able to be involved in extra-curricular activities for the first time.  They are super excited to take lessons.  Zack chose to take piano lessons, which he is really enjoying, and Nathan chose karate.  Piano is on Monday evenings, and karate is on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings.  It's taking some getting used to, especially with karate being at 5pm in St. Albert.  It makes things a little tough with dinner and rush-hour driving, but we're making things up as we go.  Karate is really fun to watch, and the Sensei is great with the kids.  It is already a tough workout, both physically and mentally.  The kids not only physically work for 45 minutes straight but they also involve their minds, memorizing the moves as well as memorizing their 3-point student creed for their yellow belt test, which is quite long and has difficult words.  Zack has been settling into practicing piano each day for half an hour, although sometimes he is unimpressed with how slowly the time passes when he has such short songs to go through.  Both boys are excited to learn more and they are having a great time with it so far.



At the dojo!

Nathan's Room

Starting off in our new house with bubblegum pink walls wasn't Nathan's idea of exciting.  After a pep-talk and a promise of painting his room as our first priority, Nathan was patient and we were able to finish his room pretty quickly.  Our friend Alicia is a gifted artist, and she offered to paint the boys' rooms in whatever theme they chose!  So from start to finish, here's the process of Nathan's now not pink room!

Oh, so pink.

After FOUR coats of primer.  Finally paintable.

Base paint done - sky blue and lime green.

Looking towards the door.

Angry Birds added!

Pigs by the door.  Love how those guys turned out!

Yellow bird!

Red Bird!

Just to give you an idea on size.

Alicia did a fantastic job on Nathan's Angry Birds room, we are so excited that it's done!  We will probably add a few floating shelves on his walls for some of his toys eventually too.

Zack's room will be done soon as well.  More to come!

The New House

Eager to see pictures of our new place?  Here we go!  There's still boxes in a lot of these shots; further updates as we go along.


Coming up the sidewalk

Front entryway

By the stairs, down 2 steps to closet, bathroom, double doors to laundry, then basement and garage. 

Kitchen and dining area

Formal living room - furniture to come!

Back deck off the kitchen into the back yard.  Love the view.

Up the stairs, bonus room above the garage.

Looking back from the bonus room to the boys' bathroom on the right and the bedrooms up a few stairs and down the hall.

Our bedroom at the back of the house; walk-in closet

Other side of our bed

View from our bedroom window

Master bathroom - toilet and shower through the doorway at the end

We'll be putting up the shots of the boys' rooms as well once they are closer to completion with decorating!  I will get more pictures as time progresses - the basement, garage, and then pictures as we paint and decorate.

On The Move

Living in a mobile home was a great choice for us when we bought it almost 8 years ago.  We didn't have a lot of money to start off with, and our options were very limited, so having a brand new trailer with nothing that needed fixing or upgrading was very appealing.  When we moved in Nathan was just 4 months old and Zack was 18 months, so living in a place that was all one level was also extremely convenient!  But as our lives changed and the kids got bigger and their toys got bigger, the downfalls became harder to overlook; not having a garage, having just a small sideyard for play space, and dealing with stereotypical "trailer park" neighbours.  The frustrations with real-estate in a mobile home are very minimal when moving in, but with owning a depreciating asset comes taking a loss when wanting to leave.  Knowing that we had no equity, we had to come up with a down payment from scratch, as well as saving up enough to cover our losses.  After a few years of planning and saving and waiting, we were finally in a position to list our house in mid-April.


Everything that happened next was so carefully orchestrated that only God could have figured it all out for us.  After we listed it was quiet for a while, which was good for my unplanned major surgery at the end of April.  We started to have more showings in May, resulting in an offer with just 3 1/2 weeks possession.  Not knowing when (or if) we would get another offer, we decided to take it and immediately started looking at houses.  A few days later we found "the one" and put our offer in.  Now to sell one house & buy another in less than a month is great because you don't have to wait so long to move in, but it's also very stressful trying to make sure that all of the paperwork and changes can be done in a shorter amount of time.  With this being our first experience both selling & buying at the same time, we just had to jump in with both feet and go for it.  We encountered a few hiccups, but like I said earlier, God had everything so perfectly organized that all we could do was be amazed.  With my slow recovery from my surgery, I wasn't able to pack or move anything, and we were overwhelmed with the people that came to help pack and move our stuff.


Empty Trailer

On June 18th, we said our last goodbye to our first home.  Because of the speed of the possession on our trailer, we had a 10-day period of homelessness.  It was a little concerning until we realized that my Grandma was planning a holiday to visit my brother over the exact same days that we were without a place to live.  Thankfully we were able to help eachother out; Grandma had us to look after things at her place while she was away, and we were given the gift of an empty house to live in for 10 days.  It was so nice not having to be in anyone's way, and our daily life could continue on with school and work.  We were also blessed with great friends who completely cleaned out their garage so that we could store everything we owned in it.  Thank goodness it all fit!



Loaded up from storage!

On June 28th we got the keys to our new house.  Pete grabbed our mattresses that night after work and we slept on the floors of our new bedrooms.  The next morning Pete and a bunch of our friends and some people from our church loaded up from the garage and we moved it all into the new house.  We even had some friends that stayed after everything was moved in to rebuild the beds and other furniture that had to be moved in pieces.  That night we all slept in our own beds and we were so happy!

New Home At Last

So now it's been 4 weeks and we're settling in nicely.  I wanted to unpack at the speed of light, but I'm still on light duty so we definitely have unpacking left to do!  Since painting most of the house is a main priority as we go along, I'm holding off on decorating and putting up pictures until we can get that done.  At the top of our priority list after moving in was getting the boys settled in their new rooms, painting also being the major need especially in Nathan's room.  Nathan had a difficult time with his new room - pepto-bismol pink isn't really his favorite colour, haha.  The pink was so dark and so deep that it took 4 coats of primer to get it white enough for the new paint to be put on top!  I will have future blog posts with their completed rooms; we have the base paint done now, but an artist friend of ours is customizing their rooms with special pictures on their walls as well.  So exciting!

Hiatus

It sure has been a while.  With so much happening in our lives over the past few months, blogging has been the very last item on a very long list topped with much more necessary things to do.  Now that life is starting to normalize once again, I can offer more updates on things as they happen.  So here we go!

Ups & Downs of Ninety Pounds

Well, here we are less than three months after the big 70-pound-loss reveal, and I'm still going.  Maybe a little slower, but still steady.  I'm now down a whopping 90 pounds, my pants are a 10 and my shirts all say M on them.  I'm still shocked sometimes when I catch my reflection, or look down at my body.  My wrists and my hands have even changed so much.  With the sizing up from all the weight gain after the kids, my wedding rings are so large that I can't wear them; they are 4 full sizes too big and I will have to get them re-made.  Sad, but not the end of the world.  I've been overwhelmed with the amount of encouragement that people have given me, and I really do feel like a different person on the outside.

While most of this experience has been really positive and has a high "feel-good" level, I've found out a lot about how others (especially women) viewed me before and how they view me now.  And that has left a lasting impression.  All of this has happened in such a short time that I still very much remember being on the other side of the scale, and I hope I never forget.  But how can I not seem to recall how many women looked me up and down and decided I wasn't worth their time because of my size?  I see it now as it happens to other plus-sized women, it happens to them with the moms in the hallways at school or fellow customers at the grocery store.  And I see it now as I seem to all-of-a-sudden be welcomed into the club of thin women.  Before my eyes this new world has opened up and I am shown the shallow nature of people on a regular basis; it's reminded me just how many women have really never left high school.  It has made me realize just how many superficial friends I don't have.  I could not be more thankful that I have so many people around me who have always loved me with their hearts and not just their eyes.

Down With The Sickness

We have been very blessed in our lack of sickness this past year.  In the summer and fall, through Christmas break, and all the way through the first few weeks of January, the four of us avoided colds and flu, stomach bugs and viruses, despite being surrounded by family and friends dropping like flies on a regular basis.  We knew it would hit us eventually though, and Pete & the boys got a cold in the last week of January.  It was so bad that they are still constantly coughing more than six weeks later.  We've done the doctor visits, gotten the cough syrup, used the nasal spray, etc, etc, and it's not budging.  It keeps them up at night which is especially hard for Nathan.  The doctor says that it just has to run it's course and it may be a few more weeks yet.  Poor guys!  On Valentine's week I worked each day at the flower shop, business was crazy and stressful.  The night of the 11th and morning of the 12th I spent cleaning up projectile vomit from a nasty stomach flu that hit Zack and then Pete.  Luckily since Pete was sick too I was able to get to work still while the two guys stayed home and threw up together.  Ew.  On the 13th I got strep throat, just in time for the big day at work, but I powered through it and was acutally a little bit happy that I didn't have a voice to talk to anyone...  I'm actually the lucky one through all of this, I didn't get the coughing or the barfing, so I could take care of everyone for the most part, which is a definite relief.

The Japanese Experience

Nathan will be a world traveler when he grows up, I'm convinced of it.  He has always been into geography, other cultures, other languages, and relentlessly asks questions about any country he can think of.  Thank goodness that we can sit down together and Google most of his questions; Nathan and I spend oodles of time looking up all kinds of information while he cradles his globe beside the computer.

Right now in school, Nathan is studying Japan.  He brought home a list of his classmates with their names written in english and japanese, and studies them regularly.  Just like with most of the countries he learns about, Nathan has decided that he is going to move to Japan and live there as an artist and a ninja.  For the last month (and still going), Nathan will say hello, goodbye, and thank you to anyone & everyone in japanese.  Nathan brought home chopsticks on Tuesday, and for a few nights I made asian-style dinners to try them out.  Nathan and I used chopsticks while Pete and Zack opted to go for a fork.  Nathan is a fabulous chopstick user, by the way.  I couldn't believe it.

Weekend Of Fun

This past weekend was a fun one for our family!  The four of us and my parents celebrated my mom's birthday on Friday with dinner and an evening at Laser Quest.  It was the boys' first time playing laser tag, both Pete and I hadn't been there since we were in high school at youth group, and my parents had never been.  We had a total blast.  We played two games in a big group of 38, and it was super fun.  I wish I could have taken pictures of us, we were probably quite a sight, haha.

On Saturday we picked up my Grandma and we all went to the Telus World of Science to take in the Star Wars Identities exhibit. The boys had gone once previously with my parents in November, but both Pete and I wanted to go as well and we were gifted with tickets for the four of us at Christmas. We had a great time at the exhibit; there was so much to look at and listen to and take in. All of the costumes and models were direct from the sets of the films, and even the original Yoda puppet was there. As they go through the exhibit, each person has an electronic bracelet that they use at different stations to create their own Star Wars character. It was so cool. The pictures that I got aren't that great, we couldn't use the flash, but this is just a small glimpse into the exhibit.



The Experiment

Ever had a moment of random sudden motivation to do something that you didn't think you could do?

Without really even knowing why, without planning or timing, I started an experiment.  On July 20th 2012, exactly 6 months ago, I decided to see what would happen if I permanently changed the way I ate.  DRASTICALLY changed.  I would be lying if I said I thought it would be easy, but I decided that unless I saw no change in my body, I would completely overhaul my personal diet permanently.

I am not one of those people who was DYING to lose weight.  To tell you the truth, I was perfectly okay with being fat.  I have never been that fat girl who desperately (and unsuccessfully) clawed her way through every new diet and every fad weight loss trick.  I know a very big girl who constantly talks to everyone she knows about how THIS new diet/exercise plan/zumba class is going to CHANGE her LIFE and she's going to be skinny and we'll all be jealous, but then she quits two weeks into it because she didn't lose any weight yet.  I have never wanted to be that person.  I hate talking about dieting and weight loss, which is yet another deterrent to do it.  I was completely turned off by hearing dieters obsessing over calorie counts and weight watchers meetings and carbs.  I think I preferred not to watch my weight at all because of that.  Dieters become more obsessed with food than obese people.  I am anti-diet.

Like I said before, I have always been fine with being fat.  I was very matter-of-fact about being a big girl; seeing the "fat genes" in my family is easy, so I think I explained away any potential insecurities about my weight with the "fat is in my family so I'll never be thin and that's okay" response.  I also just didn't want to give up eating what I liked, which added to the previous reasoning as well.  Pete has never been fixated on my weight, so I have never felt pressure from him to weigh a certain amount, and he has always loved me and been attracted to me regardless of my size.

I still don't know how, but for some reason a switch flipped in my head, and I decided to do this.  And here I am, exactly six months later, weighing SEVENTY POUNDS less and still going strong.

It was a quick decision; one I never thought I'd make in the first place anyway, so I jumped in right away just in case I lost my nerve.  Besides Pete, I decided not to tell anyone at first.  Fear of failure was part of it, but I also wanted to let people notice it on their own and decide whether or not they wanted to talk about it.  It took three months and 35 pounds before the first person noticed and said something to me.  Lots of people haven't said anything at all, and that's okay too.  Weight loss is an awkward subject sometimes.

I've learned a lot in these last 6 months, and the things I've put into practice are things I already knew.  I mean, I knew them, but I didn't KNOW them.  It's not that I ate that badly. In fact, with having celiac disease, it's not very easy to eat poorly, since most processed foods are off the table anyway.  But after 2 months, I discovered for myself that food was a very real addiction that I broke myself of.  It wasn't until I stopped eating certain foods for long enough that I stopped craving them completely.  Once I took a step back and truly listened to my body, I was able to respond accordingly in both the quantity and type of food I ate.  I've now realized that for me, "fat genes" are a lie.  It's just simply a fact that if you put more fuel in your body than it burns off, your body stores it.  It you want to store less fuel, you have to burn more or fill up less.  Some bodies burn up fuel faster than others, I just had to realize that I was one of the others.

After these 6 short months have flown by and these 70 pounds have come off, I've gone from a size 18 down to a 12, and an XXL to an L.  I'm now in the same size clothing I was before I had kids, although I'm not the same proportions by a long shot.  Pete and I were shopping the other day and Pete ran to the sporting goods section and we grabbed 70 pounds of weights just for an illustration.  If you lose some weight, do that sometime.  Even if you've lots 10 pounds, it's very encouraging to hold that weight and realize that you used to carry that much more inside of you.

Here are a couple pics I dug up and one I quickly took today... They're not that good, so the difference isn't insanely noticeable in these, but you can still tell!

Before.

3 months in.

Today.

More to come as I continue my journey!

Recovering

This Christmas was an especially stressful one for me.  With adding extra hours in at the flower shop to get Christmas orders out in time and finding the time in between to bake and decorate eighty dozen sugar cookies, trying to fit in the "regular" Christmas activities and concerts among the other projects was almost too much for me.  It seemed that this year in particular was even more busy than other years for most of my friends and family as well.

Once the pre-Christmas rush was mostly over, we went to spend an early Christmas with Pete's family in Rocky.  We celebrated with Pete's grandma, brother, and sister-in-law who came from the US for a surprise visit.  We had a great time with them!  Staying there away from the chaos at home, we had the chance to really grasp that Pete's parents were moving across the country just one week after Christmas.  We had a very short goodbye a few days ago and they are now on the road to Ontario.

Adding to our household stress level, we came home from Rocky a couple of days before Christmas to find that the water pipes heading into our house had frozen solid, leaving us with no running water until the afternoon of Christmas day. Luckily Pete was off work and was able to devote his time to thawing everything out; the poor guy was outside in the minus 30 weather for hours each day. But his cold, hard work paid off and we were relieved not to get plumbers involved.  Our friends and family graciously let us take showers at their houses and move our Christmas celebrations at the last minute.

The boys had a great Christmas, enjoying their vast array of new gifts, and loving the time off to stay up late and have lots of playtime.  They are starting to get bored of eachother now and excited to get back to their friends at school!

We had our annual New Year's Eve bash with a smaller amount of guests than usual this time, which made for a nice low-key evening.  Just what we needed.

And now with our final weekend together before the normalcy strikes again, we are mostly recovered, relaxed, and ready to get back to it.  We're excited to see what 2013 will bring!