[i] LoveLife

Good-bye August GIVEAWAY.

Happy trails August. In the spirit of a couple of nights and days worth of barfing small people and the kind of law that only Murphy can dish out LET'S GIVE SOMETHING AWAY. The Nurture Your Creativity + Be Bulletproof class is coming together like icecream + hot fudge. Like red wine + dark chocolate. Oh, it's pretty SWEET. I'm loving every minute of this adventure. The online class is mega full, full, full but I have trouble drawing the line because I think the ideas are important.  I saved a spot to giveaway. Leave me a comment and twitter, twot, hoot, smoke signal, facebook it - WHATEVER - with a little story about who you think could really use some nurturing right now and Dan will pick a random winner to enroll in the class of their choice - the BOOTCAMP or the SLOWandSTEADY version. Dan will pick a winner on Thursday.

Today: laundry. Booooooo.

GO!

Yum.

Hi Monday. It might just be some kind of weird pregnancy* thing - but I have been patiently** eating organic peaches that are not quite ripe. And loving them. I don't like peaches when they are soft - I like them crisp and tart. Sliced up on a simple white plate. With herb goat cheese on the side. The peaches have been feeding my belly while I feed my mind with creativity reading and exercises. I can't wait for the NURTURING YOUR CREATIVITY online classes to start in a couple of weeks. My thoughts are coming together and I'm SO READY and SO FIRED UP about sharing the goodness. It's crazy.

Dan the Man is boycotting putting up blinds or any other activity that he deems "a cold weather project". Painting. Putting up shelves or pictures. Finishing the basement. Smiling... The hard stuff. I was ticked off at first because there's so many things still left to do around here - but then it hit me that there are more cold months than hot ones around here and I am going to hold him to his promise. He will be PUT TO WORK like a cheerful little beaver.

*I'm not sure if it's a third baby thing OR WHAT but this little seed is so easy to live with that I keep wondering if maybe I am only imagining that I am pregnant. Which causes me to wake with a start in the night and lie there wondering if I need to shave my head and get a brain scan instead of an ultrasound.

**I have it on good authority that THE HONEYCRISPS ARE ALMOST READY. Which is really my most favourite season of the entire year. Peaches are nice, but nothing compares to my Honeycrisp apples. We have a pretty intense apple tree in our backyard that gifted us about a megazillion pounds of apples... but still my heart belongs to the East Coast Honeycrisps. Sigh.

Today: I have a long list of things to get at. The girls beds are being delivered today (Pilot's been sleeping on the floor for months while she patiently waited for her big-girl bunk beds). The dressers are coming! (I hope they sent the little elves that magically put the clothes INSIDE.) The massive set of bookshelves are coming for Dan's office (and his stacks and stacks of BORING books are about to get kicked out of my painting studio!). The dining room chairs will arrive with this load and the new dining room table is only a week away. FINALLY. It feels like we might be GETTING OUR SHIT TOGETHER.

Just in time for Fall. I LOVE YOU SEPTEMBER. GO!

More.

It's a quiet Saturday morning around here. The girls were up especially early and the coffee is strong. The adults are moving slowly and even the dogs are still in bed. It's cloudy and dark outside which I really only notice because there's a soccer game and a wedding today that would prefer sunshine and dry skies. Oh well. That's what memories are made of.

Goodness surrounds us. Happy Weekending.

Slow motions.

I spent an enormous part of yesterday working in my studio. Not really working on anything art-specific - but moving things around to get a feel for the way I want the space to work. IT WAS HARD. There were so many boxes and canvasses that it was a lot like one of those old school plastic puzzles. You know - the one where you move one square at a time within the grid to try to get the puzzle to show the complete image. Blech. In doing that I kept getting side-tracked with interesting finds. At the end of the day - I found that I had actually pushed through the frustrating points and (without knowing it) came to a pretty successful day of unpacking. And getting myself organized and back on track technologically. THERE'S STILL SO MUCH TO DO before my art studio feels like it's MINE. If I don't paint the walls in there soon I'm going to EXPLODE. One step at a time...

The above image was a little piece that resulted when I stumbled on a roll of tracing paper. I was digging it until I wrote the work FLY. WHAT? That's not a word I normally use and it made me stop in my tracks and drop the piece into the recycling bin. Whooops. That happens.

Today: It looks like it's supposed to be hot and SUMMERFUL so we will go outside to play. Pilot needs an outfit for her pre-school dance class (that she's crazy pumped about) so we might go in search of pink leotards and ballet slippers. And maybe cupcakes. I kind of feel like moving in slow motion today because starting tomorrow - life gets fast and furious until Canadian Thanksgiving some time in October. I'm so excited for September. It rocks ALREADY and it's not here yet.

Hey! There are only 4 spots left in the Nurturing Your Creativity + Be Bulletproof online class. That's it so sign up quick or miss your chance.

GO!

Documentaries that change you.

We watch a ton of documentaries. I've been inspired + repelled + terrified + fighting mad. From food to wildlife to yoga to gardening - there are so many ways to make the world better and so many ways we ignorantly make it worse. Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed. And sad. Here at home - we've switched to organic, less processed, more-local foods. Our beef is grass-fed hormone-free from my uncle's farm. We eat bison. I only support grass-fed and local chicken. Our breads are all local. We are as BPA-free as humanly possible. We don't do soda or sports drinks EVER. Green cleaning products only. Natural skincare. We recycle (Dan is a radical recycler!). We have a long way to go, but have steadily been making solid changes for good. I like to joke about my long boycott list but one of the things that is not a joke to me is bottled water. Of every size and kind. For so many reasons. There really is no good reason to drink it. It's almost mind-boggling to understand the politics and consequences. I am declaring house90 a bottled-water free zone and issuing a challenge. Will you stop buying bottled-water, too? Watch the documentary Tapped and then decide.

Documentaries I am glad I saw (this is my most recent list):

Food Inc. (Scary as all hell.)
The Cove (Especially moving - heart breaking - aquariums are now at the top of my boycott list)
The End of the Line (I'm boycotting sushi and more conscious about what fish we eat, where it's from and HOW it's caught)
King Corn (Terrible)
Tapped (Scary and sad)
The Garden (Inspiring)
Petropolis (Sad + shameful - utterly embarrassing that this is happening in my own country)

Are there any documentaries that changes things for you? Leave me a comment.

Today: Lots to do. My studio is at a make-over stand still and that sucks so bad. It makes me feel a little trapped and agitated which is never good for productivity. Which just means that I have to change the direction and focus of my productivity. The girls are with the nanny.

And I'm off to the races. GO!

Snips and snaps.

QUICK-SHOT QUESTIONS. I got a bunch of emails about my point-and-shoot camera yesterday. A couple of weeks ago Pilot smashed my old point-and-shoot camera and I had to replace it. I had a couple of requirements - I had to be able to adjust the ISO manually, it had to be as small as possible, I had to be able to shoot without a flash (because the best shots are always taken without a flash), it had to be mega-pixel manageable*, it had to have good video, it had to be a Canon Digital Elph and it HAD TO BE ON SALE. I have had several point-and-shoot cameras.My first one was 2 mega pixels and it was a Canon Digital Elph. I think that was back in 2001. I upgraded every year or so since then and I have had nothing but great results and happy pictures. Oh, I strayed from the Digital Elph once - and that ended up to be my most disappointing and expensive camera mistake. Do I recommend the Canon Digital Elph? You bet. There are a milllion different models and they are easy to use, fast, I just love them.

I have the little blue one. Canon 1200 IS Digital Elph. It was ON SUPER SALE at Best Buy (sorry, there's only pink left now). $120.

*MEGA-PIXEL MANAGEABLE. I don't like having files that are enormous. Oh, I know all about high resolution and all that jazz - but, seriously I am probably only going to print-to-display one of the shots so I don't need 14 Megapixels. Most people don't. I'm happy with 10 megapixels and more space on my computer.

I'm not pretending that a point-and-shoot trumps a DSLR. I just love the fact that I get MORE pictures by having a small, portable, easy camera. It's a must-have. It's not scary to perch this camera on a ledge (mountain shot) or a teeter-totter (family shot). Six thumbs up from me.

I had pilates yesterday after a three week break and fell in love with my new instructor and re-fell in love with pilates. That makes me happy so I'm just going to sort of buzz around in the after glow of knowing that after baby3 in January - I'm committed to the making certify-in-reformer-pilates one of my DO-BEFORE-2013. It feels good to have a goal that is not art or business related and it feels good to be excited about getting back to fitness and instructing (I was a certified fitness instructor from 1995-2005). It DID NOT FEEL GOOD to see that my ankles are slightly swollen. That did not happen in the least with the last two pregnancies...

Today: is supposed to be delightfully miserable and cold and rainy and I AM SO HAPPY ABOUT THAT. My heavy, comfy, sweater wrap is ready. Summer is getting on my last nerve with the sticky, humid, yuck. I'm a dry-air, prairie girl and the cool fall undertones of the evening breeze is almost as intoxicating as the wine I would like to be able to nurse in the front porch watching the leaves fall.

Hit me with tea. GO!

Doing shots + other artful moments.

I love this picture. Penn wandered up to this sculpture and gazed at it for the appropriate amount of time before saying "nice. girl." in her wee little voice then went merrily on her way. She was tiniest art appreciator at the Leo Mol sculpture garden on Saturday night and my heart grew three sizes. She pretty much just makes me giddy when I think about her. The sculpture garden might not sound like a great place for small people, but it was a pure delight. They raced from thing to thing to flower to thing to sculpture to pond to each other and all that could be heard were shrieks of delight. It was pretty amazing.

I also made a point to carry my point-and-shoot camera around with me like it was part of my arm. I was me-circa-2006. I'm quick like a ninja when it comes to locating my camera at the bottom of my bag, turning it on, and setting the timer - all with one hand. I think I would have been the fastest gun drawing gal in the West. I'm that fast. Guess what - I took 1000% more photos! And guess what else - they are great. I got back into my old skin of precariously perched cameras and self-timers and living like a tourist in my own city and shouting FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE LOOK AT THE CAMERA!! AND GUESS WHAT - I have a whole bunch of great family shots and girl-photos to show for it.

And there's even a quick shot of baby belly3 at 17 weeks. I have to admit that Pilot is my new BFF when it comes to chatting about baby names and baby clothes and baby toys. Colours. Games. She's pretty much got everything planned out and has very generously decided that baby3 is allowed to sleep with her on the top bunk of her bunk beds and ride in the wagon caboose which would eliminate my need for a new crib or a carseat. I'm fine tuning her plan.

(Those cute dresses are from H&M and cost roughly $4 each. Perfect.)

Today: I am off to meetings and appointments. It's a Monday and I am banking on being productive and quick and motivated and moving. I'm completely over this last heat wave and urging the weatherman to call for frost. Yeah. I said it. FROST.

GO!

Just treated myself.

Just ordered it.

Oh no you DIY didn't.

Excuse the iPhone photos, but this was a recent project around here. The blinds. We have a lot of windows in this place and they are all original. That means they are 100 years old. They've seen better days and as soon as I get my way they will go to the 100-year-old window graveyard. Until then - I wanted a clean and modern type of shade that would allow light in, but perhaps keep my unlucky neighbours from seeing me dance around in my gotch. The view is not particularly awesome - but, I am fond of the window casings. I figured the IKEA enje blinds were perfect. And cheap. And I had it on good authority that they were easy to trim to fit. Only I would asterisk that to say Easy (and somewhat annoying) to trim instead of just Easy. I might even add it's a good thing they're cheap because it wasn't super fun. It took Dan and I about 2 hours to get this one up. I am a measure twice cut once kinda girl - but that turned into a measure twice cut once, measure again, cut again, eyeball it, freehand it and get on with life. Technically I have 15 windows left to do on the main floor. Nine on the second floor. Five on the third floor. At this rate it will take me three thousand years to complete them. My verdict is: OKAY. They are a little more sheer than I was imagining and because of the strangeness of the house - it hangs crooked and bugs me.

Note in the photo:

- the sad rad is waiting to be cleaned and painted either creamsicle orange or a cobalt blue. Opinions?
- the cute stool is IKEA bekvam. We have 4 of them waiting for fresh coats of paint.
- there are three cute duvet covers from IKEA sitting on the sad rad
- there is a glass panel and range hood coming for behind/above the stove

Other updates at house90:

- the new dining room table is almost done! It's salvaged wood from our downtown elm trees.
- I opted to NOT get the Eames dining chairs only because they suddenly appeared in every magazine and blog I was reading
- I decided, instead, on some simple white chairs and a long white bench
- the missing barndoor hardware arrived and is waiting to be completed
- the girls bunkbeds and dressers arrive at the end of the month (Pilot is beyond excited)
- the enormous bookshelf unit for Dan's man-office arrives then, too
- I almost have Dan convinced to rip out the carpet in my painting studio
- I STILL haven't started a painting for the foyer
- I love the kitchen layout and actually enjoy cleaning up after meals
- I adore my dishwasher - it does really clean quick loads in 38 minutes
- the basement is a topic for another day
- I love the dogs, but I'm sick of dog hair
- I need about 100 linear feet of shelving or picture ledge in my studio

One step at a time, I guess.

Today: I am finishing a bunch of ridiculously cool creativity postcards for the ONLINE class. I was going to sets of 6 but they are so cool I am going to do 10 or 12 different ones and mix the sets up. I think. These ones are off to get printed this weekend so they are ready to roll. I am also dedicating 2.5 hours to reorganizing the third floor. I'm making progress, but I wish I could materialize shelves and worktables just by thinking about them. Sourcing them out IS ANNOYING! Productive Friday in the works. Ahoy!

Dan's brother and his pretty wife Jessica are welcoming their brand new baby boy later today. The girls will have their first FIRST COUSIN! Yay! Big hugs and good vibes guys!

GO!