Unicorn Puke and other experiments

This weekend I decided to dig out these 2 old coffee tables ?! night tables!? Not sure what they are

I can't remember where I got them but they have been useful over the years but let's face it they are ugly and one was completely broken 

(broken door, damage to the fake wood and handles would not stay on). 

I was planning to document the whole process whether it failed or not but I was having so much fun I totally forgot .... I know bad me. 

I promise to make a tutorial in the future PINKY SWEAR.

My aim was to learn new techniques and make both look completely different. on the good one, I decided to play safe and decided to try glazing and new distressing techniques. Glazing is much more difficult than I was expecting. I painted it gray and then added a dark brown glaze and at the end, it did turn out beautifully and it fits in my spare bedroom perfectly. 

I do not use fancy paints I just use whatever I have on hand. the only time I will use a specific paint is if a customer requests it 

Now for the unicorn puke, I have been admiring the Boho style of paining for a long time and watched countless youtube videos on it. I was fully prepared to fail on this. every tutorial I had seen on it recommended clay-based paint which I didn't have, so my broken table was going to be my guinny pig. 

my results are in my opinion outstanding, I am so proud of myself. I had to change the technique that other people used because of the paint I used. which was leftovers from my daughter's constant change of her bedroom over the years. I have to admit it exceeded my expectations. 

So a trip to the home hardware was needed to see if I could fix the door and the rest. 

I NEEDED to salvage my unicorn.... Guess what I did and it's just as good as the other one now 

I'm very happy with how both turned out 

***** for residents of grande cache only , I'm giving away the unicorn table,  all you have to do to be eligible to win is head on over to my Facebook page ( link is at the top of the page) and comment on the giveaway post ....GOOD LUCK ******* 

Wow! what a diffrence !!!

At the end of this year, I decided on a whim to sign up for a course that was advertised all over Facebook. It was free so I thought why not if I don't like it ill just stop. It was called the best decade ever with Mel Robbins.

I thought it was kinda stupid at first not going to lie but my whole mindset changed in a way I totally did not expect in so many areas of my life. I'm impressed because I read a lot of self-help books and listen to podcasts but this was maybe just what I needed at the time. All I can say is it worked for me. 

Not only am I happier, sleep better and don't sweat the small things as much. I have a million ideas too for my future and unlike how I usually am (all in and want it fast). I'm working at it one step at a time, which is a nice pace.

I have an Apprentice

George had been bugging me for a few days to teach him how to build stuff like I do, and since it was family day and I had no projects on the go we decided to build a shelf with the leftover lumber I have on hand
I let George pick the project, colour and design. I was a bit surprised at his choice but it turned out beautiful. possibly my favourite project to date. I would have kept it if I had had a place to put it.

This is the project he picked to make 

   

It is a beautiful project and it sold really fast to a man for a late valentine day gift, which I thought was really sweet. I got to deliver it and it made me feels like a florist suprising somebody with a gift. It made my day  

Sitting here enjoying my house

Does anybody ever do that just sit and enjoy their house? I do this all the time

I've always loved my house but now that it looks the way I always imagined....I love it even more

I don't have the same decorating skills as some of my family members.  My Mom, her sisters and my grandma just always seemed to know how to make a house pretty naturally.

So when I decided to make my house pretty. I studied what I liked on Pinterest and tried to figure out why I liked it. Some rooms completely became my own but other rooms are a pure copy of a decor I loved on a Pin. 

There are a few things I learned along the way to make me love my home even more. Because I renovated my house room by room. I would purge that room from all unnecessary stuff and I still do so regularly and keeping that room clean makes it even better ..... I still use this chart  HERE and it still works wonderfully, in keeping my home clean

It takes me about 40 minutes to fully clean my house now, 30 or less if I'm just making it tidy.

There is something to be said about having your house really be a home for you and since I work from home it makes it even better.

One of my big dreams has always been to do workshops to teach women how to use power tools and build, renovate and restore. even if it just to give them confidence that they can repaint a room. I did every single room by myself as my hubby had a renovating handicap....I wish I was joking but I am not .... love the man to death but if he touches anything in the house it is guaranteed to look awful. 

Here is the post of when we bought the house 12ish years ago  Click here

my trip to New Zealand

This is a little late but I've been wanting to post it for a while

As most of you know Marc made a bet with me ....get to 140 lbs before Xmas and he would pay for my trip to New Zealand but there is a story to this bet 

Last year, one novel 2018. I got really depressed, I slept all the time, stopped doing the things I enjoyed, the usual depressed stuff that humans do. Well, I not surprisingly got my weight up to 165 LBS. I still looked good  but I knew I needed to stop this before it got worst .

Marc knowing my competitive nature told me to get to 140 and he'd pay for my long awaited trip to NZ. He didn't pick this number randomly. its always been a goal of mine but I was never motivated to try to reach it as I was happy with how I looked.

And here I am at 140 lbs and most importantly happy and feel great again. There was quite a few up and downs to get here. I believe meditation and going outside everyday  was the key to getting my mental health back in a good place 

Since I always get the how I did it questions . 

I counted my Marcos with flexible dieting and yes I still ate my chocolate a day 😉. My starting calories was 1890 . The lowest my overall calories got was 1570 . I was not consistent with those numbers until the end. I love food too much and was struggling with fighting feeling down and I deal with being down with food.

I did not step on a cardio machine other than a warm-up and the occasional fight with the stair climber ( I love/hate that thing) 

I hiked one hour outside a day (a promise I made to my elderly dog) and lifted heavy weights 5 times a week sometimes 6 

That's it...... no secret recipe  ... just being pretty consistent,  not perfect but I showed up .

There really is something to be said about exercise and mental health ....even Cinderella benefited from our daily hikes she looks and act younger than she's had in years 

before I forget I want to thank Colin DeWaay  my coach for not giving up on me even when I wanted too,

my hubby Marc for intuitively knowing what I needed to get out of this funk and get myself well again even if I didn't know I needed it.

Aandrea, Yvonne and Jeremiah and my dogs for making sure I wasn't lonely on those hikes 

and Shannon for reopening my beloved gym it made a huge difference 

I Matter

I'm taking a course on how to make your 2020 dreams happen. I just signed up on a whim but I'm really enjoying it.

Last night's homework made me realize something. I had quite an emotional day and I almost said fuck it to the homework. I felt too tired but I decided to do it anyway. The assignment was about limiting beliefs. 

So I had to write dreams and then write what my limiting belief was,  what I told myself about this dream basically.

I have no problem writing dreams, I dream big and quite enjoy going all out with dreams. When I dream of my dream house, it's complete with color scheme and type of trees surrounding it. That how big and vivid my dreams are.

So off I go writing probably way too many dreams but when it came to writing what I thought about it ....there was a very evident pattern. 

Anything that was stuff (possessions/money) or something done entirely on my own, like fitness goals or big projects. No matter how crazy or outlandish those dreams were. My brain went automatically to ideas on how I could achieve them .....never once doubting myself.

But.........

Anything that involved Friendships/relationships my brain told me the vilest most demonic things, things I would never say to another human

You are not good enough 

You don't matter 

Nobody likes you 

Why would they hang out with you ?

You don't have anything to offer 

You are not lovable 

You are too difficult and annoying 

You are too much trouble

You are weird 

Why would somebody want to do that with YOU?

I was horrified I've always considered myself as somebody with confidence. I knew I had some issues with relationships but this really was an eye-opener for me.  No wonder I can decide to renovate my house on my own but have panic attacks when I want to ask somebody out for a cup of coffee even if I know them well.

I sure hope this exercise is going to help on how to overcome this because I don't like it. If they don't I'll have to get some of Katya's Krisis Kontrol 😉 to control the demonic voices in my head

I Love this Queen so much hahaha

https://youtu.be/a0GTj-CvG2U

I also had a beautiful hike with my dogs today ....taking selfies with dogs is pretty much impossible haha 

Its our anniversary

We have been together for 17 years.

It’s odd in a way I can safely say our relationship has always been pretty easy but in some ways, we dealt with a lot of stuff, some that might have broken other couples.

The easy part is that we have very good communications and we are very good at talking in an adult fashion so most problems do not become big deals, I can thank Marc for this because this was not the case in my other relationships. We both can find the humor in the worst situations and we seem to accept each other good parts and bad parts easily.

Life had thrown us curveballs which haven’t always been easy. Near bankruptcy, depression, the rollercoaster that is raising children, cross country move that neither one of us really wanted are amongst the few but we dealt with it all. 

We are happy and I can’t really imagine life without this big jerk in it. He has always been there for me and he is a wonderful father. I’m so proud of him for what he has accomplished in his life. He loves me even when I am kind of difficult hahaha, he is a good man, he is always cheerful even when life is trying to kick him down. I am so proud he chose me. 

I’m pretty sure I’m ok with another 17 years with you      

Happy New Year !!!!

Well, I had plans for a big blog post about my love of resolutions but frankly, after dancing all night, I'm too tired. 

I don't wait for new years to start making changes in my life if I need them but resolutions I find helps with the little annoying things you want to change but keep putting off. Although I have done big Resolutions too 

This year I seem to have a bunch of little ones and I'm not sure how that will go.  Hey!! throw enough stuff at the wall and something gotta stick right????  

So here are mine for this year  

Break my cell phone addiction or at least get it under control

Have a better schedule, get my life in order 

Save money for my trip and spend less 

Write regularly on my blog, at least 2X weekly

Use my big girl camera more  and play with editing

Do death race marathon
Get more creative 

and here's our annual family photo  

I did a thing !!!

I was scrolling good old facebook yesterday. I happened upon this little guy who sadly needed to be rehomed. Normally I would have thought he was cute and kept on scrolling but something got me thinking that maybe he would be a good fit for my parents.

long story short... I met with him, after a sad goodbye I took him home and drove him to Grande prairie today to his new home. 

It was love at first sight with my parents and He seems just as happy.  He seriously is the sweetest dog I have ever met and so calm.

Welcome to our family Rocky