• Being True to Me In My Etsy Business

    14/11/2017 - By 

    I was having coffee with a friend the other day and he pointed out that I have become the quintessential 1950’s housewife and we both laughed. I have known him since I was 20 years old, so we both remember my Beat generation, damn the man, I’ll always be a free artist phase. But when you have kids, things change. Some of us long for roots and security. A place for the kids to come home, some stability. My need to keep an organized life has come out ten-fold and I have heard a lot of moms say that. I…

  • Capsule Wardrobe: Attempt #3

    09/11/2017 - By 

    If you live in Calgary, AB, like I do, you know how crazy erratic the weather can be. I’ve lived in three provinces and Alberta is, by far, the craziest. There are no seasons, there are seasons within seasons. It is possible for it to snow in June or rain in January. It is also possible to have really warm days in December, thanks to the Chinook winds.  When I was looking up Chinook winds, I came across this fun fact: “An extreme example of a Chinook wind was recorded in South Dakota in January 1943, according to Black Hills Weather.…

  • Happy kitty, purr purr purr

    Gratitude

    07/11/2017 - By 

    In the past, I was never one to make a gratitude journal. I’m weird and always tried to start one when I was in a funk or very depressed. It’s hard to write what you do have when you are in a mood that makes you reflect on what others don’t have.  You think, “Sure. I have that but it means that this other person in a less fortunate situation doesn’t. I’m spoiled.” This is not the right way to start a gratitude journal. (Obviously. As I have learned, the hard way.) So I was skeptical that it even works.…

  • A Quick Last Minute Halloween Craft

    31/10/2017 - By 

    Did Halloween sneak up on you this year? Did you just realize that Halloween trick-or-treaters will be out TONIGHT? There’s still time to decorate!! If you are running out to get a quick box of candy to hand out, you can also grab 3 craft supplies and have a wonderful Halloween wreath to let the kids know that you are ready for them! Inspired by The Nightmare Before Christmas, the kids and I mixed together dollar store Christmas and Halloween decorations to get this:   It’s seriously the only time that I’ve been happy that the Christmas decorations are out…

  • Finding Love Ten Years Ago

    28/10/2017 - By 

    Ten years ago yesterday, I was in a work friend’s tiny apartment (let’s call her M.), drinking boxed wine and trying to figure out where to go for Halloween parties that weekend. I didn’t even really want to be out for Halloween, it being my least favourite holiday, but decided that I should so that I could make friends, seeing that I was new in Calgary and couldn’t say no to social things forever. It was a Saturday night, I was dressed as a rag doll, and I had $40 to my name.   M.’s friends were visiting from out of…

  • Zombies on the hillside at Ghouls Night Out YYC

    Ghouls Night Out 2017: A Favourite of Ours.

    27/10/2017 - By 

    If you live in Calgary, have you heard of Ghouls Night Out at Heritage Park? Have you ever gone? It’s a fun little Halloween event put on by the park and is great for all ages. We have gone for a few years now…I want to say four or five years in a row, since Hunter was really tiny. My kids look forward to it all year! We make sure to have their costumes ready and they dress up for it. It’s really fun to walk around the park and look at all the guests dressed up, from adults to…

  • Leaky Gut and Flaky Eyes: How It Happened to Me and What I’m Doing About It.

    26/10/2017 - By 

    My health has slowly been improving this year. I suddenly decided I didn’t want to sit on my hands and just accept that my health would never be great again. As you know from previous posts, I just coasted through life eating whatever I wanted and exercising sporadically until my late twenties. Not because I was naturally skinny and comfortable being that way, but because I was lazy. I swung between being chubby and downright fat and had terrible acne. When I had my kids, I focused a bit more on my health, but it took getting really sick to…

  • Almost Two Months Since We Moved.

    24/10/2017 - By 

    It has been almost two months since we moved from the other side of the city. I didn’t think it would feel very different, but it has, and that has shocked all of us. It is different in a lot of good ways. Our street is quieter, for one. Before, we lived on a very major road that everyone seemed to use for commuting. We were just off a highway, so cars would forget to slow down and would roar through our street, forgetting to look for kids, despite the fact that we lived four blocks away from a school.…

  • The One Thing I Do With My Kids to Make Them Happier and More Confident.

    19/10/2017 - By 

    Whenever I speak to my friends who don’t have kids yet, they relate to my stories about my kids by sharing stories of when they were a kid. We start to talk about fond childhood memories and I find that one type of memory always sticks out. That is the time we spent with one parent and had their full attention; no technology, no distractions, nobody interrupting. The memories are all different, of course, but they all have the same feel. Whether it was baking cookies, reading together (even quietly and beside each other rather than to each other), throwing…

  • Healthiest 5 Minute Cinnamon Baked Apple Recipe

    04/10/2017 - By 

    If you live in Calgary like I do, you have already lived through a taste of winter. On the southeast side, it was a couple of days of bitter cold, with a good dose of icy wind and blowing snow. Of course, now it is warm out again and the sun is shining….because we live in the Wild West out here, where we are both prairies and mountains. When it was still cold, I wanted nothing more than a comforting cup of hot cocoa….but I couldn’t drink that. I restarted the Gut Makeover  after we finished our move and sugar, caffeine…