Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Kids Playing

It is 8:45 in the evening and a winter storm warning is in effect with 20 cm expected. The snow must have started a short while ago and large flakes are falling from the sky.

The kids (16 and 14) are outside playing together (which is amazing in its own right). They are dressed in snow gear, have headlamps, and are digging tunnels in the soft dry snow. They are then coaxing the dog to follow them through their tunnel mazes which are crisscrossing through the back yard.

I forget how nice it is to watch the kids playing. Now that they are older it doesn't happen very often - they are usually off doing their own thing. I'm a proud mom.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Weight Loss, Goal Setting and Stevia

Well here we are at the end of the first week of 2011. We, as many people, have our New Year's resolutions (or goals as I prefer to call it). I think goal sounds much more like something that is achievable by following a set plan, whereas resolution (to me) is something I might want to work towards without much intention.

Husband and I have set a goal to lose weight (okay, now who hasn't done that), but our goal does have a plan attached. My plan is to lose 35 pounds by December 1, 2011 and I have carefully set out how I will achieve this loss. I have a written plan, and also a journal in which to make myself track progress and be accountable everyday. Now that I have put that out there publically, I guess I had better achieve this goal!

Do you have any goals with set written plans for 2011? If not, you may want to write them down...

Harvard University conducted a study in the 1950's to see how many students had taken the time to set goals. While virtually all of the them stated they had set goals, when the question was asked how many had written down the goals the percentage dropped significantly. In fact, only 3% of the group surveyed had actually put their goals to paper.

Fast-forward 30 years later...the same group was surveyed. Guess what? The 3% who had written down their goals were worth more (financially) than the other 97% combined.

Husband likes to drink sugar in his coffee and to have it on his cereal. He already cut out drinking the 'evil' sugar laden soda pop and cut down on the sugar in his coffee late last year and managed to drop 12 pounds (Cheers and clapping). I have purchased a natural sugar substitute for him in the form of Stevia to help him along the way and to make his coffee more enjoyable.

Stevia is a plant grown in western North American and into South America, and is related to the sunflower family. The extract is taken from the sweet leaves and is up to 300 times sweeter than sugar. The availability varies from country to country, and I found that my local health food store has carried it for an number of years. In Canada it is considered as a dietary supplement.

The other day I also saw it in my local grocery store with the natural food products. It came in either liquid or powder form. I decided to purchase the powdered form, and did some cost comparison before finally buying stevia in a canister shaker which cost approx $12.00 for 112g. There was also a box of stevia for just under $12.00 which I originally looked at. Upon closer inspection I found it contained small individual packages of stevia and the entire weight was only 28g! Obviously the cost was for the extra packaging and not for the actual stevia itself.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Seasons Greetings

Seasons Greetings


Over the past year I have noticed that I many more followers to our blog. In fact we have just received over 10,000 hits.
I want to wish you and your families and loved ones a very Merry Christmas.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Last of the Holiday Rush


The last of our holiday rush is over! Gifts have all been purchased. Groceries have been bought and put away. Now all that is left is to give the house a quick clean, then sit back and relax.

Husband's sister and family will be arriving tomorrow around noon. We are really looking forward to spending the holidays with them.

Christmas eve my parents will come and we will all have a fondue dinner, then open gifts from them. We are German so we still celebrate Christmas eve, but have now 'Canadianized' the season as well, and will open the rest of the gifts Christmas morning. A tradition turkey dinner will accompany Christmas day and my parents will return for for the meal as well as a friend who would otherwise be alone for Christmas.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Simple Things

Up early on a Saturday morning. Having a coffee, sitting by the fireplace and looking out the window. Watched a moose standing across the road eating his breakfast of willows. It was wonderful watching him. Life doesn't get better than that! Its the simple things that make us happy.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Boots

Now that winter is here I decided that I would really like to wear more skirts in the cold weather. I do have to dress up for work and I usually wear pants all winter due to the cold, and also because I have never in my adult life been able to find dress boots that fit my calves.

I'm sick and tired of going out to Christmas and New Year parties wearing a dress with snowboots and carrying my dress shoes in a plastic grocery bag to the event. (You ladies who live in northern climates know what I mean! I'm sure you have done it before too!)

Trust me, these boots look lovely with evening wear ;)

I finally did a search online for wide calf boots and guess what I found? A company specializing in wide calf boots! http://www.widewidths.com/ has all sorts of boots in wide calf, extra wide calf and super wide calf and I found a pair I thought looked great. I measured as instructed by the website and ordered them. A week and a half later the boots appeared on my doorstep thanks to door-to-door delivery! I was a little nervous at first, but they actually zipped up.... all the way up! [Cue the angels singing and the Hallelujah chorus] I honestly couldn't believe it! The quality is nice and I'm very happy that I can finally dress up in winter!
This is the boot I purchased. I thought it had a classic look and shouldn't go out of style. It is the Ros Hommerson Ella boot in super wide calf.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Homemaking Book


In an effort to become a little bit more organized for the upcoming year, I have decided to for go the usual planning calendar that I normally buy (and only use for the first four months of the year) and make myself a homemaking book.

My homemaking book is personalized for the things that I want to keep track of. I took an old binder which I recovered with some leftover fabric and sewed a small pocket in the front to hold my fountain pen.


It was very simple to sew the cover:

1. Open the binder and place face up on the wrong side of the fabric

2. Using a pen trace the outline onto the fabric

3. Using a ruler make the outline bigger by 1 cm

4. Cut out the fabric

5. Place the binder face up on a new section of the fabric and trace out the each section of the cover (without the spine) plus an extra 3 cm to use as a hem (must cut 2 fabric flap sections)

6. Using a ruler make the outline bigger by 1 cm (other than the 3cm hem)

7. Cut out the fabric

8. Get out the sewing machine

10. Zigzag stitch the hem portion of the inside flap and zigzag the middle section of the larger fabric cover at the spine

11. Turn over the 3cm hem with wrong sides together and sew

12. **Pin all pieces wrong sides together and sew with a 1 cm seam allowance

13. Turn inside out and iron

14. Place binder inside the cover

** If you want to add a pocket on the front cover you must do it now before sewing all the pieces together.



Here you can see the inside flap and how the binder cover slips in.





I purchased heavier paper to put in my homemaking book because I write mainly with a fountain pen and I need thicker paper so I doesn't bleed through. I then proceded to section my book with purchased cardboard tabs and made up my own pages with vintage images and fonts.

Though it seems like a lot, some sections only have one or two pages or combine page. Sections in my book include:
Calendar
To Do List (now and someday)
Shopping List
Weekly Menu
Diet and Exercise
Housework schedule (still needs to be worked on)
Correspondence
Future blog posts
Gift giving ideas
Books to read
List of books read
Movies to see
Beauty and Fashion idea
Vegetable garden journal
Flower garden journal
Party planner

Photos of some of my pages:















The great thing about a homemaking book is that everything is one place and easy to find. Plus I can add and reorganize
sections as I see fit and not what a commercial calendar/personal organizer thinks I need to keep track of.