Two weeks to go ....

... before we actually move in our new home ! We've had the keys to it since October 15th but waited to move in for the installation of wood floors (dining room, living room and on the second floor (3 bedrooms, hallway) as we didn't want to live with the noise and the mess of having something installed in our home. We've also have had installed some "plancher flottant" (wood flooring) in the basement and boy did it ever changed the look of the basement. We love it ! The walls freshly painted in a revigorating green, same color that was in my previous art room, also made a H-U-G-E difference in the atmosphere in the basement ! I am sooooooo looking forward to organizing the living part of the basement as my art studio and also a space for our family and friends. It's a much smaller basement than our previous one but we do want to make it work for both art and relaxation.

We've been moving my art stuff progressively to our new home for the past 3 weeks. I knew that dismantling my art room (Studio D, as my DH calls it !;)), would be a lot of work and I was right ! I own a LOT of art stuff. Too much for that matter, but that's for another post ! Ha ! We've moved most of it in laundry baskets and other plastic containers. Simple and very quick !

This past weekend, we again spent quite a bit of time in our new home and I finally started to organize the smallest basement storage room (there are 3 storage rooms) : it will house my PP, CS and some other scrap supplies. This little room used to have ugly blah linoleum flooring and washed down pinkish white walls and the previous owners were using it as a storage room for their paints and tools for the household. This very small room is now sporting the same flooring as the rest of the basement floor and the same gorgeous green paint. It looks like an extension of the main living part of our basement. It's exciting to organize this room as I visualize myself (and friends) ambling over to choose CS and PP and letter stickers, among other things ! In our new home, I don't want all of my art stuff in plain view like in my previous scraproom ; it was too distracting even though everything was well organized and labelled. It was stiffling my creativity at times.

On the same topic of scraprooms, have you been following Donna Downey's scraproom rejuvenation ? I love watching her room evolve. I've spent some time during the past month on the internet, looking at other scrapbookers' rooms since I have to organize my new one. It gave me some neat ideas.

Here's a link to Donna Downey's blog, in case you would like to see her scraproom's transformation :

http://donnadowney.typepad.com/

If you have ideas or suggestions for the placement of stuff in my new scraproom, I'd love to hear them !

Until next time, take care !

O

Life ....

... always has some unexpected turns when one least expects it ! Ha ! Ain't that the truth ! These past few months have been super busy (and tiring) for our family. Also exciting.

Lately, it's still very busy. So many things and situations that appear and keep us so busy. Lately, it's our health that has been on the forefront. My son came back from school last Thursday, he had a fever, was tired, had a sore throat. He stayed home on Friday, fever got worse, started having some respiratory problems. It reminded me of 7 years ago when he had the flu and then asthma set in and he spent 6 days under the oxygen tent at CHEO (hospital for sick kids in Ontario, Canada). So Friday, when I noticed that his asthma was getting worse, I didn't wait any longer. We got into the car at 9 p.m. and headed straight to CHEO where we were greeted with a smiling woman who immediately gave us a mask for all of to wear. In fact, everyone in the hospital was wearing one, including small babies ! We left the hospital at 1 a.m., after the doctor had told us that Rafael had the H1N1 flu and had given us a prescription for Tamiflu, a ventolin pump and another pump plus a cupful of Advil. There were lots of people in the hospital. The personnel was pleasant even though it was clear that they were overworked.

We then spent 3 hours to get the Tamiflu. We had a list of pharmacies opened 24 hours so we went to the first one, in the south end of Ottawa, to learn that they had run out of the Tamiflu. While my husband was getting that piece of news, I was in the grocery store next door, getting some light foods for our son : jello, popsicle and such. Then we drove to the far end of Orleans, near Tenth Line, to this other pharmacy where we waited an hour and a half to get the Tamiflu prescription. We got home at 3:30 a.m. No one hardly talked : we were all so tired, we all headed straight to bed.

A good portion of Saturday was spent working in our new home, installing stuff, etc. DS spent a lot of time sleeping. Then DH went to work at 7 p.m. (yes on Saturday night) on a special project he is heading at work. He came back home at 4 a.m. Sunday morning. Yup, two nights in a row with little sleep. Result ? He now has a beginning of pneumonia. So he has been staying home with DS since the beginning of the week. His voice has gone down considerably lower. Quite a sexy voice ... almost. As for myself, I have been holding down the fort. But today, I started to feel symptoms of a cold. Sore throat, scratchy throat. I took a nap this afternoon. I'm hoping that I'll be soon back to normal. Positive thinking IS always good !

I am so looking forward to unpacking my art stuff : I miss so much having time to create art. I miss being able to amble down in my art room. Soon though. I still need to exercise my patience ! I am thinking of doing the December Daily again this year. For the second year. I haven't taken photos since the month of June. I am missing taking photos, especially of nature. That too will soon resume in my life.

It's already past 9 p.m. Time for this tired and a little sick person to get to bed. Have a great day tomorrow !

Still here ...

This week has gone very quickly, like they the previous ones ! I've been working a lot, napping during several afternoons to heal my body of the cold that invaded it and took my voice, I started the end-of-the-school-year routine in my classroom (pulling stuff away from walls, etc), designed Father's Day's cards for my grade 2-3 students.

This afternoon, I spent more than 2 hours in our basement pulling stuff for the consignment store and some stuff to give to my colleagues since it doesn't look like I'll be teaching some subjects in the near future so I might as well take this teaching material out of our home and have another teacher use it. I also prepared a little pile of stuffed animals and misc. stuff that my husband and son left at the nearest St-Vincent-de-Paul red bin as soon as they got home. While in the basement, I threw a couple of loads in the laundry machine. I made a pile of books from my teaching years in grade 3 for Rafael to look through and decide if he wanted them - if not, out the door they go ! LOL Edited : He took them all except for 2. I love his passion for reading and learning ! :)

Barb, if you're reading this, let me know when the silent auction at your sons' school is - I'll be happy to donate something like the previous years !

I gotta go ! We're dropping off our 2 bins of stuff to Boomerang Consignment Shop and then we're coming back with a pizza and a rented movie ! I'll be back during the weekend, in between report cards and around the house. We have a long list of things to do but I'm feeling really good about having done 2.5 hours of it this afternoon ! What a great headstart for the weekend ! Getting rid of more stuff feels so good ! Simplicity is soooooooooo much better than having lots of stuff ! Amazing how, as time went by, I just want to be surrounded by simplicity. One could argue that I'm now allergic to stuff surrounding me ! LOL This way of living my life has a lot to do with my personal growth of the past few years. I know more about who I am inside, rather than defining myself by what I do, what I wear, what I own, etc. Life sure has its advantages as we get older ... and wiser ! :)

I'll be back with photos of the mini-scrapbooks from my grade 6 girls, called MY BOOK OF FAVORITES.

Have a great evening, everyone ! Bonne soirée, mes copines francophones !

Procastinating ...

I am usually not procrastinating but today, I certainly did ! I had planned, among other things, on starting to write my students' report cards but ... I didn't. I felt too tired. DH and I went to bed past 1 a.m. last night - I haven't done that literally inYEARS ! - and I paid the price today. But, it was well worth it : last night was so much fun ! :) Anyway, the report cards will have to wait another day before I start them as well as the other stuff on my list to do ! Life goes on !

I mostly vegetated today. I stayed in my pjs the whole day, sent some emails, did very little housechores, had chats with DS, savored DH's lunch (steak and veal on the BBQ - can I just say YUM !), then went for a 2 hour long nap. Niiiiiiiiice ! :)

This afternoon, I was inspired by a lovely page done by Nathalie V. (see link to her blog on the side bar on the right) and I thought of going upstairs in my scraproom to lift her page but that's as far as it went (the thinking part) because I couldn't muster the drive to do it. Oh well, I'll lift her page one afternoon this week, that's one of the benefits of working half-time. Thanks Nathalie for the inspiration !

Today will end like I started it : slow and relaxing. DH is cooking some chicken breasts on the BBQ and fresh veggies are broiling. After dinner, we'll take out a boardgame to play with our family. That kind of thing. I have a busy week ahead so a relaxing weekend was good-timing : the school end is near, always more to do at this time of year plus a couple of appointments scheduled after work.

Hope your weekend was as you intended it to be ! Have a great week ! :)

Finally !

Yes, finally, the good weather is back ! It was hard having 3 days of rain in a row. That means, since I'm teaching in an elementary school, that all recesses are inside the school - which means some students being more active than usual in class (read disruptive and having difficulty concentrating on the lessons and the work) because they haven't had the opportunity to use up their energy playing outside. Sigh. But I understand them because I would find it hard to stay cooped up inside all day. I need my time outside, rain or sunshine !

My family and I went to get reacquainted with nature this morning after those 3 rainy days by stopping by at Petrie's Island just outside Orleans. The chirping of the birds, a Canada Goose family strolling on the river, a heron meditating quietly nearby were all very soothing to the senses. I also enjoyed watching the many people fishing nearby. There's this quality about fishing - tranquil, living the present moment, cultivating the virtue of patience - that appeals to me although I've never had the opportunity to fish in my lifetime.

Besides working at school (3 weeks left before the summer vacation !) and hiking in nature, I've been playing lately with colorful scrapbooking papers, and all I can say is YUM ! My circle and square punches have been very much loved also ! ;) More about that soon !

My entire family of 3 - LOL - took a lovely long nap this afternoon ! :) It felt sooooo good ! Right now, DH and DS are busy preparing our dinner and then I think that we'll be heading outside again. Gotta take advantage of the lovely weather !

I'm leaving you with this photo of an Oriole that we saw this morning, jumping from branch to branch, from tree to tree, in search of its food. These birds are really difficult to photograph as they move sooooooooo fast ! Hence, I didn't have the time to adjust my camera to shoot upwards towards the sky for this photograph so we can't truly see their lovely bright yellow-orange color that makes me happy - but one can see how these birds just sort of throw themselves in the air towards their next destination ! LOL



Thanks for stopping by and take care !

Tooth Fairy money, rain and a cute little swamp sparrow !

This morning, Rafael showed me the 5$ bill that the Tooth Fairy left for him under his pillow ! He had a big smile on his face ! I asked him if he wanted to deposit it in his bank account.

"Huh-huh", he said, shaking his head.
" Are you storing it in your wallet ?" I pursued.
"No, I will be using it later on today to buy some batteries for my flashlight and other battery-operated objects that I have."

And that's what he did. After dinner DH and Rafael went out to do two very quick errands. Rafael came back with 5$ worth of batteries, saying that it was 1$ for 4 batteries so he got 20 batteries. I commented that he could have bought less batteries at a time and save the rest of the money for later. He said that his father told him (after telling him pretty much the same suggestions as me, about saving, letting the store shelve the products instead of it taking up space in our home, etc) that that's how he will learn the value of money : by making his own choices. So true ! I remember my parents doing the same thing, letting us figure out the best way to spend-save our money by trial and error. Perhaps Rafael will realize in the future that it might have been better to buy less batteries at a time and save the rest of his money. But knowing him, most likely, he will use ALL of those batteries without wasting any. Besides, like he pointed out, it's almost camping-season and he will be using his flashlight a lot besides his other battery-operated gadgets! LOL

After my morning's teaching, I stopped by Scrapbox to see the store owner about those Impressabilities that I bought for my school about 2-3 weeks ago. Without wanting to do any play on words here, I wasn't impressed at all at the embossed impressions I got with the Impressabilities (with the school Cuttlebug). The embossing was very faint, not a neat embossed result like with the Cuttlebug embossing folders. The store owner graciously offered me a store credit and I got some beautiful Basic Grey paper from the very vibrant Lime Rickey collection instead. Those will do just fine for my students Father's Day project - and I bought 5 sheets for myself. I will definitely be challenging myself to use these new pps VERY SOON as the big scrap stash that I already have is the main reason why I've cut down drastically on scrap purchases since last December. I am so happy about that ! :)

And we had more rain today ! As soon as I got out of the bus around 1:30 p.m., it started to pour. I was ready though, with my umbrella in hand. I enjoyed my ride in a double-decker city bus (OC Transpo) - it was my first time sitting on the second floor of this kind of bus. Very cool ! The only drawback about the rain these past two days was that I couldn't go and photograph birds. Yes, I'm THAT addicted to photography ! LOL

I'm leaving you with this lovely bird, a swamp sparrow, that I shot a few weeks ago in our backyard ! It reminds me of the penguins' babies, with all that softness and grey color. My son and nephew, who are both enamoured of penguins, have each this very soft and cuddly baby penguin stuffed toy - hence the comparison with the swamp sparrow !

Hopefully, I'll be posting some of my new layouts this weekend .... if I have the time to scan them in between writing my students' report cards !

Take care !

Great Blue Heron and a lost tooth !

Yesterday evening, I drove down to Petrie Island in the hope that I would have the opportunity to photograph some birds - yeah, it's getting to be an obsession. ;) I was secretly hoping to see a heron, as herons are my favorite type of birds. A good example of how effective visualisation is, as I was driving over the bridge leading to the island, I spotted this heron standing in the water at the far end of a part of the island. :)

Keeping my enthusiasm in check in order not to be disappointed if the heron left before I would get to see and photograph him, I put on my boots to trudge into the woodsy muddy area to the end of this part of the island, and lo and behold, this beautiful heron was still standing there, quietly. Awww ! I snapped quite a bit of photos of this beautiful bird, in different light settings as well as a couple of beavers swimming in front of me. There is something so serene and peaceful about herons that I just love ! They have a contemplative quality to them, almost like they are meditating, which appeals to me. Here he is (click on the photo to view it bigger).


I almost missed the heron taking flight a few minutes later as I was busy snapping photos of one of the beavers swimming away. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the heron starting to move. So I turned my camera to the heron and although I didn't have time to change the settings on my camera to follow the heron in sharp focus while in flight, I am pretty impressed with this photo nevertheless. Slowly but surely, I am bettering my photographic abilities in regards to birds, which is my goal in photography for this year.


In a totally different world, Rafael lost another tooth this morning ! Here's his smile tonight, just before going to bed. He lost the tooth that was at the left of the two front teeth. I asked him tonight what he had done with his tooth and to my surprise, he had already put his tooth in a plastic container and placed it under his pillow ! He hadn't bothered to do that for the previous lost tooth so I thought that it was over for him, the Tooth Fairy thing ! Apparently not ! LOL I asked him how much he thought the Tooth Fairy gave for 9 year old boy's lost tooth ... he didn't know ! LOL



I'm still really tired, in spite of having napped 3 hours this afternoon so I'm going to bed in a few minutes ! I'm still itching to finish this layout sitting patiently on my scrap table but it will have to wait until tomorrow afternoon, when I am more alert than today. LOL I had much difficulty in staying awake on the way home in the bus this afternoon ! LOL Talk about being tired ! The rainy weather didn't help either as far as feeling lethargic !

Take care !