Have you ever gone for a walk in nature and started down the path feeling a bit stressed and worried about something going on in your life? And then something incredible happened~during your walk you became hyper conscious and present. You were suddenly aware of the air moving in and out of your body and then a brilliant, joy filled emotion erupted inside of you, as you recognized beauty everywhere? That my dear friends and family is the magic and power of Mother Earth.
She balances our energy and heals us.
Sometime today I hope you take my hand and we will walk. We will walk and allow Mother Earth to fill us up with peace and joy.
And love.
Nothing more is needed on the earth right now.
And in thanks for the wonderful gifts and restorative powers our Mother Earth gives us… we will give her a gift too.
These rocks greet our guests upon arriving on our doorstep…today, “Peace in our World,” is my favourite. Although they are all wonderful!
Today as our children packed their lunches, they consciously made choices to pack a zero waste lunch. They took left over vegetable casserole in their thermos, with a piece of my homemade sourdough bread. Each chose the fruit of their choice that was wrapped in it’s own container; an apple, an orange and for for recess they took some fresh raw veggies to munch on and one of my sourdough oatmeal cookies. (I am going to blog about the sourdough starter my sister J gave me…stay tuned) It’s not much, but thinking about what we throw away on our earth and limiting plastics and even items we think are recycled is a good start.
Our vegetable casserole and sourdough bread….good for us and the earth
This evening, we are going to plant two more trees in our yard for our Earth Day celebration. A few weeks ago, my husband David and our son Will planted the first one, a new “Sweetheart,” cherry tree. Sadly, I think the severe heat dome that occurred in our area last summer was deadly for a few of our plants and trees and we lost our “Lapin,” cherry tree that our older son Mitchell planted in our backyard 13 years ago. Can it be that long ago now?
Our son Mitchell and our cat Ryuuki…..he planted the fruit trees below, even though the day we planted them was such a rainy and windy day.
Mitchell was always happy to help us work in the yard. As he got older he worked for several landscaping companies to make money for his University education. I’m thrilled that he is still groovin’ in the garden and finding joy and peace there. He’s now living and continuing his education in Melbourne, Australia. This past year he started his gardening company…if you are in Australia, “giddy up with Mitch,” and he will help you with your gardening needs.
Our little fruit orchard in the early days that our son Mitchell helped us plant thirteen years ago. Even a small yard can grow at least one fruit tree. Could this be a second string of gardening lovers? Will and David planting our new “Sweetheart,” cherry tree in our back 40 to replace the “Lapin” cherry tree that died last summer. (notice the ground…this was all raked up, smoothed out and then we covered with it with cardboard and mulch last weekend)While being outside in nature is so restorative, planting trees and caring for plants is even more so. David and I have enjoyed teaching our children to work with us in the garden over the years and the ones who have helped out have learned the value of the experience. All three of our older sons worked as landscapers during their University years. On this day the little girls planted a ton of onions in one of our upper gardening beds.
“The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.”
~John Ruskin~ (Art Critic, social thinker and philanthropist)
This week we found two trees that we wanted to plant in our yard. On the left is a “Hot Wings/Tartarian Maple,” and on the right is an “Ivory Silk Lilac.” Both trees grow to twenty to twenty five feet. Both are drought and cold tolerant and will be great shade trees. I’m excited as hummingbirds are drawn to lilacs!
I have to say that I’ve had moments of despair the past twelve months. And it wasn’t just over the Covid pandemic, although that didn’t help my mood. My thoughts have swirled around the state of our planet. Last year, when it was so hot in our Province and it felt like forest fires were burning everywhere, I wondered if it’s too late for us to move beyond the climate crisis. And now, as if we haven’t had enough to deal with, Russia has “chosen,” to wage a war on Ukraine. Russia is consciously destroying this beautiful country and cruelly killing its’ people. For what??? I will never understand. It makes me want to sit and weep. And often I do…..but I love this next quote as it always makes me feel hopeful. Keeps me going.
“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”
~Martin Luther King Jr.~ (Baptist Minister and Activist)
So today I will commune with nature. I will pray for peace and later, plant some trees. We will do what we can to care for Mother Earth. It’s all any of us can do.
Earth Day 2022….I snapped this picture this morning after taking the kids to school. It’s suppose to be a nice weekend so I will do some more planting. If you look down at the bottom of our yard you can see the results of our hard work this spring. After Will and David planted our new little cherry tree, (third tree from the left, behind the raspberries) we went up into the mountains to find some large rocks to place around all of our fruit trees. After that we cleared the area and laid huge pieces of cardboard over all the ground. Finally I spread mulch. No more grass mowing down there~~~yeah! And the bonus; the cardboard and mulch will eventually break down and enrich the soil around all the fruit trees.
We have so many projects we want to tackle this spring but today I’m going to head out into the sunshine and listen to Mother Earth.
Want to take my hand? Later, we can plant some trees.
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think, the real miracle is…to walk on earth.”
~ Thich Nhat Hank~ (Monk and peace Activist)
Wherever you are today, may you walk in peace and wellness. Much love too!
Welcome blogging friends and family. I’ve been wanting to write about the bedroom refresh we did last fall all winter. Where does the time go? Before spring takes a good hold on me and I’m out in the garden, I’m going to carve out some time right now and tell you all about it.
First some back story and a thanks to Cheryl!
A few years ago, an old high school friend of mine posted pictures of her recently renovated bedroom. I loved them! She had a similar oak bedroom set as ours but had used chalk paint to create a whole new look. It was so refreshing! After building our first house in 1988 we were thrilled to buy a Shermag oak bedroom set AND a matching dining room set at the same time. (I haven’t touched the dining room set…yet.) At the time everything in our new house was all matchy, matchy and looked spectacular throughout the ’90’s. Over the years, the only update we did was covering our brass bed with a new look. You know, new comforter/skirts, and pillows. The most recent comforter set was an expensive treat we bought around ten years ago, or was that twelve. Anyhow, it’s what you do when you have kids as there is always something else to buy; crib bedding, toddler bedding, big kid bedding, teenager bedding, and finally off to University bedding.
So, I put the seed of my friend’s bedroom renovation in my back pocket and finally, FINALLY last fall I pulled it out. It was long overdue but since I love that Cottage Core look I knew painting the oak set was only going to improve the look in our bedroom. I did a ton of research on using chalk paint and while my husband wanted to use the old latex tried and true, I wanted a different look. I also wanted to play around with distressing the piece after it was painted. That’s easier to do when you use chalk paint.
I’m quite proud of myself. I took off all the hardware and then did all the prep, painting and re-assembly of the pulls and handles. The only thing my husband David helped me with was spray painting the brass as he was concerned I’d get it all over the place. It’s true. I usually get more on me than on whatever project I’m painting. The point is, if I can do it, ANYONE, can do it.
I have to say thought that the one thing that held me back all these years from painting this set was that I have always been reluctant to paint over lovely wood.
I have NO regrets though and still, six months later, I’m LOVING my bedroom.
I’ll share the pictures now, but I wanted to let you know that another thing I really love about the new look is that it’s no longer totally matching. The bedside tables and my chest of drawers are all “White Linen” but I did David’s tall boy an “Aged Grey,” which actually looks like a bluish grey. This is a nice change and a bit more masculine. Also, it looks great against the grey/blue walls in our bedroom.
Some of the other extras we bought to refresh the room were:
White curtains from Amazon. I really like them as they are a heavy weight and kept our room warmer this past winter. Finally, I found the carpet this spring on the Wayfair site. The carpet is crucial, as the kids often use our bedroom door to come in after being in the pool or the hot tub and usually they are dripping wet. This saves our wood floor big time.
Okay, ready to see the before and after? Here we go…..oh this is the fun part.
Our old bedroom. Our brass bed and our very ’80’s Shermag Oak bedside tables. Also, check out the lamps…they have little amber beads hanging off the shades. Shea sh! In the corner is my mom’s old dressing table, which our daughter Alyssa had brought home with her last summer when she moved back home. She didn’t have room for it so we kept it in our bedroom, although since then it’s been claimed by our daughter Grace…who asked for a room makeover after she saw how our room turned out. Anyway, looking at my mom’s old dressing table makes me wonder if someday our kids will have some of our pieces and maybe remember when their mom painted the set. In this picture you can see how much wood we have in our bedroom; wood floors, wood furniture and even the bedding is brown. The comforter folded at the end of the bed is actually a light blue…almost aqua colour and matches with the shams and rectangular pillow. It was lovely years ago but seriously our bedroom needed an update!Here you can see David’s tall boy better, as well as the curtains and a corner of the old beige rug. I was reluctant to take down the curtains as they were a wonderful room darkening curtain. The rod was a bit bent though as it held up the long span of curtain. I was hoping David could repair it and we could spray paint it black but it was not repairable. We bought a new curtain rod on line. My bedside table. It would have been nice to find a different table for a new look but once it was painted I loved it again. I think painting the hardware black was a good change as well. I did look into buying new drawer pulls but do you know how expensive it would be to change out all the hardware? Crazy expensive, besides, I could buy new lamps for what it would have cost for new hardware. Tip…David put the old hardware on a large piece of cardboard and just spray painted them when he was doing the brass bed. I think it’s a huge improvement.
Okay are you ready for the transformation?
First, this is the paint we used. We also used, “Aged Grey,” for David’s high boy. Same paint company. I had wanted to try “Annie Sloan’s” chalk paint but I couldn’t find it in our little town so I bought the Rust-oleum White Linen and the Aged Grey. And while I can’t compare it to the Anne Sloan product, I was really happy with the product we used. Also, many people that use chalk paint also finish it with a wax, but David was concerned that it wouldn’t stand up so we used Rust-oleum’s protective top coat. So far, so good! Our bedroom doesn’t get a lot of wear and tear. Me, in my painting duds….I cleaned all the pieces with a de-greasing cleaning product called, “Simple Green,” before I started painting. The pieces weren’t overly dirty, even though this set was over thirty years old! What I loved about using chalk paint is that it dries super fast!!! It did take me three coats for good coverage but since it dried so fast it only took me one day to paint everything. A tip…I found it handy to spray my brush with water as chalk paint can become too thick for a lovely thin coat. I let everything dry over night and then I took some sanding paper and distressed the pieces. Finally, I put two protective top coats over all the pieces. I waited 24 hours between coats for the top coat to dry well. All in all, it took me three days to paint everything. One day for the chalk paint. One day for the distressing and first coat of protective coating. Then one final day for the final coat of top coat. The evening of the third day I put on the newly sprayed hardware. It a perfect long weekend project. And now our refreshed bedroom….The bedding we found at Bed Bath Beyond. It’s a Bee and Willow brand. I fell in love with the “Believe,” pillow also on the Bed Bath Beyond website. I’ve read that sayings are not in vogue any longer but I love this word (believe)….and of course the word, “Hope.” Anyway, it can always be flipped to the other side where it’s just white. The lamp I found on the Wayfair website too. I had gone into our local Homesense store to search for lamps but for the last two years, (throughout Covid) stock has been low. Anyway, I’m happy with the lamps and find at night they throw more light when I’m reading than our old shades did. Our cat Ryuuki likes our new bedding too. On the edge of the picture you can see the red plaid blanket I had on our bed throughout the Christmas season….it’s my homage to the “Outlander,” books and t.v. series. Both, which I love. A different angle view. Since we are not lacking mirrors in our master bedroom, we took the mirror off of my dresser and put a couple of lamps and a small smart T.V…..which is actually our daughter Alyssa’s. When she moved home last summer there was no place to put it so instead of storing it in our crawl space, we put it in our bedroom. I haven’t had a t.V. in our bedroom for YEARS….but it’s nice to watch a movie once in awhile in bed. The picture above David’s high boy is a numbered Brent Heighton print. We went back and forth over changing the frame but decided to leave it as is. We have another one over our bed….and decided that we would not change the frame. You can see the new curtains in this picture as well. I found them on Amazon (I know, I know…we try not to use Amazon but it’s so hard to find items in our small town) and they are a heavy weight and kept our bedroom warmer this past winter. We only lower the venetians in the summer as our view is so great. When I saw this carpet on the Wayfair site I knew it would be perfect and it is. It’s a 7 x 9One last look. I think what makes this such a huge improvement is that there is not so much wood. From the aspect of Feng Shui, there is a better balance of all the elements now in the room….and when things are in balance, then there is a greater sense of peace and calm. Isn’t that what we want in a bedroom?You can see the light distressing I did on my bedside table in this picture. And on my bedside table I keep my gratitude journal, *thank you to my friend T) a candle to light in the evening for a bedtime meditation moment and a place to put my tea cup…”Hope,” …..is always by my side.
If you want to refresh your bedroom but don’t have the time or the cash for a totally refresh, no problem.
Here are some easy ways to refresh your space.
Clean your room really well. Wash the bedding, dry it in the sunshine. Put all your clothes away…hopefully in a decluttered closet.
Add some scent, some lavender essential oil or light some scented candles.
Add a plant or some flowers.
Hang some new art or framed pictures of happy times/loved ones.
Change the lighting….I love to read in bed and having good lighting is important to me. I love the mini lights on my dresser now too!
Clear your bedside table and add only what you love to look at or need.
Add a new soft blanket…something that says, come and have a nap…..something that entices your pet or loved one to join you.
Think about the air in the room, crack a window, make sure you are breathing fresh air when you sleep.
Add some quiet noise….something restful. White noise works for some people but I like cracking the window and hearing the wind, the birds, etc
Rotate.flip the mattress, find a new pillow, remember when you lay down each night, You Are Loved!”
Thank you for visiting today.
This video reminds me of my mom….she would laugh and say, “goodnight Irene.” Going to sleep with a smile is the best way to end the day. Good night my dear family and friends. Good night Irene/mom too!
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
