Springtime Catch-up

Spring is here in full force - flowers are blooming, fruit and vegetables are growing, home renovations will be starting again...

With the start of spring, I also came across a new opportunity for work - and decided that it really was time for a change.  The change in employers (yes, I left my last employer after 25 years) has me working a whole 2 blocks from home.  I walk to work.  I walk home at lunch.  My total commute is about 3 minutes - and that is if I stop to smell the actual flowers on the way.  With this change I have regained 10 hours a week.  

10 hours!

The work week is two and a half hours shorter, but the biggest change is that I am not in my car for an hour and a half each day.  I get up a little later - yes - but I am still out walking my dog in the early morning hours. I feel more rested and less stressed.  There is the "stress" of learning - oh, and there is some stress in that, for the first time in 25 years I am actually on "probation" for three months and there is the risk that I don't make it through - but the feed-back thus far has been really positive.

Spring has hit in full force, though, and this weekend I finally got to the serious gardening that I needed to complete.  I dug out the other two vegetable beds (pernicious weed removal) and ground layered some heavy-duty landscape cloth.  It is woven cloth covered in plastic and I sure hope that it finally stops the nasty weed that I have been battling for the last few years!

Once dug out, weed-barriered, and then back filled with cleared soil and potting mix, in went the vegetables.  Last weekend I planted the Principe Borghese (cherry) tomatoes - four plants this year - into the same bed I had the two plants in last year.  I generally harvest and dehydrate these ones as they store brilliantly and a handful or two makes a wonderful addition to my soups, stews, rice dishes and so on.  Slightly reconstituted, they make wonderful pesto sauce.

I also potted some Genovese Basil - admittedly, it may be too early to have it out, but I also have some seed that I can start in the house and grow in my garden window in the kitchen.  

This weekend was the lion's share of planting efforts. Two kinds of lettuce.

Pole Beans:

Health Kick tomatoes, Red Onions and Purple Haze Carrots (This will be the colour-filled harvest bed)

And two kinds of corn:

I have also put up some pet-deterrent screening to ensure there is no jaunting through the beds (or digging in them) until everything is well established.

I also have two kinds of squashes planted in the little bed out front.

All in all, a very productive day.

Tomorrow will also need to be a productive day  I will need to get the car in for emergency brake repairs, call repair people about my vacuum (something has disconnected somewhere and while the hose has suction, the chassis does not,) call other repair people about my awning (the metal loop that the pole connects to and then turns to open and close the awning has broken off and I need to get that dealt with ASAP,) Do the requisite laundry and weekly cleaning, and also clean out the front bedroom in advance of the next stage of renovations - the new window.

Yes, more renovations are on my table for this summer - but nothing as big as last year's job!  Additional window installation into the front bedroom (for more natural light) and then a full painting refresh in here.

Other summer projects include finishing the pantry shelving and then tricking it all out (paint and flooring) and MAYBE building a Murphy bed with a floating desk for the front  bedroom. Or it may go into the bedroom I'm currently using and I may move myself into the front bedroom - something I will have to decide after the room has the new window and been painted.  It has more closet space, and I think it is also bigger. I'm still on the fence about that, though.

With love across the waters...

Getting Ready for 2014

Well, another new year is upon us - it will be here in a matter of just days now!  In anticipation of 2014 and all it will bring, I'm spending a little time looking back at 2013 to see what I will try and do, and to do differently, in the new year ahead.

As always, I will strive to be more patient and more giving.  I think the thing I regret most in 2013 was treating people I love with less patience than I should have. Once something is done it is too late to take it back.  Patience and tolerance are things I think I will always be working on within myself.  I think this year I will also try to be more patient with and tolerant of myself.  Other people give me the benefit of their patience and tolerance - so why should I treat myself with anything less? 

I wonder: What kind of place would this world be, if we learned how to treat ourselves well, and then strove to treat others with that same amount of love and respect?

I am working to change things - how I do things, how I see things... about myself and about other people.  I will try to love myself more - and to love myself for who I am and not for who I think I should be.  I will continue to set goals for myself - physical, emotional, financial and spiritual. I would like to take a course or perhaps attend some sort of seminar... I'm just not sure what at this point.  Practically speaking, I should look at taking something that will allow me to work on my home - maybe some sort of course on wiring or construction... I'm just not certain what at this time.  The beauty of today is that I have a whole year to plan for. A whole year of days to look forward to.

I cried less, and laughed more in 2013.  That is a good thing.  I want to laugh even more in 2014. I want to feel a small gem of joy every day.  I want to look forward not only to the big days, but to the small ones as well.  

It is time.  Time to pull out the red pen and the good paper.  Time to write out my intentions for 2014.

With love across the waters...

Holy Crap - Where Did November Go??

I am dismayed that November is almost gone!

I've been playing catch-up with yard work and winter home and garden prep projects (and some visiting, truth be told) and November has breezed past me in a flash!

The bathroom renovation project is very nearly done... most of the floor mouldings are installed, most of the corner trim is also in - the few pieces that aren't now in are waiting until the bathroom window has been replaced - which (aside from the door) will, for me, anyhow, signal the end of the bathroom project.  I still have a little patching, painting and staining to do, bot those things I will take on as winter progresses and I am not feeling the mad push out be outside doing outside things while the weather still holds.

We have been having an utterly GLORIOUS autumn here.  Clear and sunny days (though the chill is now officially upon us) with cold and clear nights - leaving heavy frost on trees and leaves (and car wind shields) but the dry and the cold has also kept the streets (where I am walking Jasmine in the wee early hours of the morning) relatively ice free and so our walks are being accomplished in relative ease.

The yard has undergone (most of) its autumnal leaf denuding and I have raked said leaves up and placed them into my raised garden boxes for composting down and lovely rotting into the soil over winter. I have moved the bean trellis to a new location in preparation for spring planting, planted my garlic in a new spot this year (where my spinach was last year) and have had the winter tires put onto my car.

With the exception of having all of my winter wood burning supply in hand, I have been doing fairly well.

The wood started arriving yesterday (delivery was either two or three truck loads and I am anticipating five or six in total. I spent last night splitting a fair portion of the first chunk of wood delivered into halves and then this morning I stacked the halves into space between the two posts of my "car port" to allow for smarter wood stacking when the rest arrives, gets split (when I get to it) and stacked (again, when I get to it.) I have also split all but about 14 of the rounds that arrived yesterday and have started stacking it in my "wood area" to fully dry out so it can be burned when I am out of my current dry supply.

I put in about 3 hours of stacking and then splitting and stacking this morning.  My back started to protest (loudly) and I elected to take a break and come inside.  Good thing too - it was after 12:30 and I needed to deal with some laundry and also start the fixings for some meals that I am cooking today.

I am also starting a new job tomorrow - well, not a new job exactly, but the same job in a different branch - I was asked (by the regional VP) if I would cover someones maternity leave in a different branch.  There are all sorts of things happening in this area right now (and not all of them good) so thinking that this might be "writing on the wall" if you know what I mean, I agreed - with the request of a letter "guaranteeing" (inasmuch as a guarantee can be given or had) that I will have a job in this area at the end of this year.

This means that instead of a normal weekend, I have only today off and then start back to work tomorrow - so there is LOADS to get done today!

I have been taking a lot of pictures lately and will upload and show off some of the projects under way (and those nearly complete) soon.

In the mean time, with love across the waters...

Real Success

Real success and fulfillment comes from helping someone else achieve their goals.

          ~John Stanton: Founder of the Running Room.

 

It was in one of my Running Room courses that I first learned about SMART (Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic and Time framed) goals. This morning on FaceBook I read the quote above and once again have something to mentally chew on.

 

I can name a multitude of people who have made it possible for me to make more than a few of my goals into realities.  Without my family and my friends I would be in a completely different life.  My family and friends have given me the strength, support, push, and yes, when I needed it, the real kick in the pants that I needed to take the things that were just thoughts and wishes ,and make those things into my current (and future) realities.

 

When I was in Ontario and I first started running I actually didn’t tell anyone back home what I was up to – I didn’t want to tell people what my dream was - just in case I failed. I had a big fear of failure back then, and a big fear of disappointing other people.

 

Don’t get me wrong – I still fear failure and am still avoiding disappointing others like the plague – I’ve just realized over the years that the biggest thing I can do to the people around me to make them disappointed in me is to not be myself and to not trust them to support me in my endeavours. Even when I “fail.”

 

So what am I up to now? Well, I’m trying to live more fit – get more exercise and gradually improve my endurance and over-all quality of life.  This isn’t a small goal for me – this is a big one because it involves learning to feed myself properly, and it also involves follow-through.  It also involves getting out there and exercising and trying to increase and improve things by just a little bit, but every single day.

Healthy-fit isn’t all I am trying to improve upon.  I am also trying to live more financially fit – make more intelligent shopping choices.  Ensure that there is no waste when it comes to groceries. Grow food for my own consumption.

 

This year, 2013, promises to be one filled with challenges – but the challenges I am looking forward to aren’t overly scary ones – they are goals I am excited to face – and ones that I will be thrilled to overcome!

I am also looking forward to maybe being able to help someone else achieve their own goals. Remember: what goes around comes back around threefold – good or bad.

 

Here’s to a GREAT 2013!

 

With love across the waters,

Actually Yes, I Can!

People are notoriously hard on themselves. We constantly tell ourselves that we cannot do things.  We believe we are not capable of doing something because we aren’t skilled enough, smart enough, rich enough, strong enough, capable enough – well, you know, this list of “why not” goes on and on and on.

 

We are so good at stopping ourselves from doing things for fear of failure that we forget that, without trying to do something new, something harder than we have tried before, something that could lay us open to ridicule and contempt, we miss out on the opportunities that could MAKE us stronger, smarter, more capable, more skilled, richer, happier and more fulfilled.

 

OH – and we make excuses (lots of them) for why we don’t have the time to try.

 

So how do we change things? I don’t have the answers for this one for anyone other than myself, but I’ll tell you my internal scripts that help me not only take those first steps, but also the ones that help me move through the fear of failure.

 

The first one (and for me the most dangerous) is this: “How hard can it possibly be?”

 

How hard can it possibly be got me into running - which I ended up loving in spite of myself - and miss terribly. It got me into riding a bicycle again after nearly twenty years.  Again – something I love. It got me into trying to do things in my home – things like pulling off drywall, pulling out carpeting and has started me learning how to refinish old things.

 

Yeah – this is the one that seems to get me into the most trouble.  But honestly, once I’m in it, it is also the one that keeps me going and helps me get to my second script – which is “I can do *anything* for 5 minutes.”

 

It’s true. I can to anything for 5 minutes – and I started using this script when I was learning to love running. I was miserable and cold and in pain and couldn’t see how I could ever possibly love running – EVER.  Runner’s high was a delusion.  Running outside in Toronto at -30*C was insane.  That was it – runners has to be crazy – I’d see them out in the snow and rain and wind and they seemed to be enjoying themselves – that IS crazy, isn’t it?  What got me through was me telling myself, with every single step, that I am totally capable of doing absolutely ANYTHING for 5 minutes – its only F I V E little minutes!

 

And it worked.

 

The thing I am struggling with right now is RE-STARTING good habits. I have back-slid with diet and exercise – I’m feeling sluggish and although my mental state of being is great right now, my physical one is not where I want it to be.  I need to set myself some SMART goals, write out those intentions in red pen, focus on positive outcomes and ask myself: “How hard can it possibly be? I can, after all, do anything for five minutes!”

 

With love across the waters,

Happy Anniversary to Me!

 Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of “all hell breaking loose” for me. One year ago yesterday I:

• Started my new job (and the associated training program – which just finished last week,)
• Took possession of my new home, and;
• Moved into my new home (and out of the townhouse I was renting)

When I look back over the past year (as is, I think, appropriate to do right about now) I can see I have accomplished a lot both on the job and around my house…

At work I have made a good change for myself – am now involved in a job I like – one that interests and challenges me and, for the most part, one I can leave at the office when I go home at the end of my day.

At home I have made a start to the renovations inside (and the removal of 17 different kinds of wallpaper)

And am now surrounded by clean lines and light colours:

I made a start to the changes in the back and front yards.  I hacked back a lot of this:

Removed all SORTS of strange and interesting crap:

And am left with this for now:

No more jungle out there but still a ways to go.

Where renovations to the house itself are concerned, I have also learned that I need to use some temperance in getting things started – or rather, taking on only one project at a time and seeing it through to completion BEFORE starting a new one.

I have learned how to water-bath can food and am in the throes of preserving as much of the current bounty of my space as I can before winter sets in. Next year I hope to have an actual garden and to produce (and preserve for myself) even more of what I can grow.

I still have a long way to go, but looking back, I’m pleased with my progress.

With love across the waters,

Letting Go – Part 3: A Not SO Subtle Reminder

The concept of Letting Go has been nagging at me lately. The last week or so has brought thoughts of things to let go of back out to the forefront – and I have been wondering if maybe this is supposed to be an ongoing process - like exercising muscles to make them stronger? I have been having what can only be described as “tugs” - and suspect it is near about time I get back to what I’m actually supposed to be working at. The mundane issues (like money, for example) always seem to be my biggest concern, and I decided not too long ago that I needed to do something about that and my willingness to keep letting that stop me.

The need to take “passive” action really did smack me in the head.  I received the Abraham-Hicks daily Law of Attraction Quote and I thought about it and thought about it and then really had to ask myself why not – why COULDN’T I just “delegate” all of my internal “stuff” to my guides to be looked after FOR me? Working with what I felt I was being guided to do, I wrote up some stuff that was stressing me out and handed it over to be looked after for me…

And the next day I received the second of the quotes… the one that really cemented that it isn’t my job to make it happen, it is my job to delegate the “work” out to the universe – and I wondered if I was finally, maybe, looking at the right path ahead of me.

Lately I have been having, not visions so much, but snippets maybe, of a space I could work in with people. I’ve thinking that I will need to write up another list – this time one that releases to my guides my permission to start manifesting some other things for me – things like a patient table and some clients to work with.

I think it may be time for me to – I don’t know how to say it – try harder to trust that I will be looked after? I think I let my brain get in my way and allow “worries” stop me from just getting it all done.

This morning’s Abraham-Hicks Daily Law of Attraction Quote was yet another smack in the head:

Delegate it to the manager. You have this really good staff that will take care of everything for you. You just have to delegate it — and trust it.

--- Abraham - Excerpted from the workshop in St. Louis, MO on Tuesday, July 18th, 2000 # 524

I know how very blessed I am – how much pure grace is in my world.  I have so much to be grateful for – my family is truly amazing and I love them completely. My friends are great, my home and surroundings (including the furry creatures I live with) are exactly what I need. One of these days I may actually be able to totally trust that I am being listened to and looked after by my highest power – but until then I think maybe my efforts need to go into learning how to trust that, as Abraham puts it, my “really good staff that will take care of everything” for me and that I really do just have to “delegate it — and trust it.”

With love across the waters,

Letting Go

I have gotten too comfortable with my worries.  They aren’t exactly my friends, but they have almost always been there with me, when I wake up in the middle of the night. Not exactly comforting, but reliably there.

I have been doing some mental and emotional cleaning lately – and since I spent so much time in the last year doing all of the physical clearing and de-cluttering, it actually makes sense that the emotional and mental clearing also be done – I guess that truthfully I was both not yet ready and, well, just hadn’t thought of how important it might actually be!

I subscribe to the Abraham–Hicks daily Law of Attraction quotes – the emails are in my in basket when I wake up and they are often a great thought to start the day with.  Yesterday’s quote made more of an impact on me than usual. Here’s the quote in its entirety:

Most people have a hard time delegating, or even wanting to delegate, because you have been justifying your existence through your hard work, and you equate success with struggle; you equate results with struggle. And so, you sort of wear your struggle like a badge of honour. And all of that is opposite of allowing the Well-being. The only thing that ever matters in success or achievement is your achieving the things that you want to achieve. So if you are setting standards and you're feeling uncomfortable about the standards that you've set, tweak the standards back a little bit. Ratchet it back a notch. Give yourself a break. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt. Lighten up. Be easier. Go slower. Take it easy. Have more fun. Love yourself more. Laugh more. Appreciate more. All is well. You can't get it wrong. You never get it done.

--- Abraham (Excerpted from the workshop in San Antonio, TX on Saturday, April 20th, 2002 # 490)

Anyhow, as I said, it made an impact - and off and on, all day yesterday, I thought about it. “Why not? What is it about my worries that I need to hold onto? I’m obviously not resolving any of them by lying awake at 2:00 AM thinking about them all – maybe it is time to delegate the resolution of these worries out and let someone else produce viable solutions for me?”

This in mind, I came home from work, had a decent dinner and wrote a letter to Santa Claus.  Ok, not really, but what I did do is sit down and, with my trusty red pen, write out a letter to the universe about everything that has been on my mind lately… All of the concerns and worries that have been bogging me down and waking me up at night. The letter started with grateful thanks for all of the wonderful people and blessings I have in my life. I then listed out my main bugaboos and let the universe know that I have now delegated all responsibility for resolution of these things to, well, the universe.  There is infinite energy out there, why not use some of it to help me let go of some things that have been sucking up my energy down here?

Finishing with thanks and yes, more gratitude, I let the universe know, in writing, that I trust that all of these concerns will be dealt with in the next six months to a year (I have to be reasonable in my project timelines, right?) signed it and then placed it into my wood stove and burnt it.

Ok, I know that may have seemed a drastic step – but here’s why I burnt it. Letters to Santa weren’t always sent by Canada Post – once upon a time, they were burnt and the ashes magically ended up in the North Pole, in once piece, for Santa to read and determine what was going to be possible and what would need to wait until “later.” I figure that if it works for Santa it MUST work for the rest of the angelic community, right?

Off to bed last night, I did wake up in the middle of the night – I needed to pee… but when I got back into bed, well, instead of my usual “lie there and hope to fall back asleep before starting to worry about… oh crap, I thought about it and therefore started worrying about it… SIGH” I thought about some nice things and then fell back asleep!

Huh – there must be something to this!

And then, like magic, this morning’s Abraham–Hicks daily Law of Attraction quote:

It's not your work to make anything happen. It's your work to dream it and let it happen. Law of Attraction will make it happen. In your joy, you create something, and then you maintain your vibrational harmony with it, and the Universe must find a way to bring it about. That's the promise of Law of Attraction.

--- Abraham (Excerpted from the workshop in Larkspur, CA on Sunday, August 16th, 1998 # 491)

I think I may have taken a step in the right direction this time!

With love across the waters,

Making plans…

Sunday and Monday of this past weekend were both rather nasty days here – April 1^st saw about 2CM of snow on the ground (really, no kidding!) when I finally rolled out of bed, and though it proved to be a sunny morning, rain started in the early evening here and continued heavily almost all day Monday.

Sunday night, at a loss for things that I actually WANTED to do, I sat down and started planning home renovations. I should point out that at this point in time, all I will be doing is planning since money is tight and renovations come in at the end of the list of things requiring doing that are actually POSSIBLE to do… but regardless of when and where money comes from (maybe I’ll win the lottery?) planning is free.

I sat down with some graph paper and drafted up a plan to tackle the badly designed closet space that the two bedrooms in my house actually have.

For reference, the space I’m working with is a single closet in my bedroom and a weirdly laid out closet and inset in the front bedroom – combined the space would be a room that would be roughly 5’5” by about 7’. I’m not entirely certain how a family of four managed for 30 years with this kind of closet space!  

My thought is to use ALL of this wasted space and create a single walk in closet in between the two rooms (accessed using pocket doors,) to have a functional and practical clothes hanger system AND build in a shelving \ drawer combination unit (floor to ceiling) that will have sides facing out in both rooms.  And, of course, have lighting inside it so that items can be seen!

Sidebar: Eventually I also intent to install a queen-sized Murphy bed (side fold up) and an additional window in the front bedroom – but that will be a few years out.

Where possible, my plan is to do all of the demolition and most of the construction myself.  I’ll have a professional look at the space AND my plans and tell me if it’s going to bring the roof down around my ears, of course, but all in all (aside from the drywall) it shouldn’t be TOO hard to build what I have planned.

The other space I’m looking at drafting up plans for is my bathroom \ laundry room.  They sit side by side in the house – the challenge that I think I may have, though, is that the wall separating them is the original outside wall – which I think would make it a supporting wall.  Again, before I think to do anything major I will have a professional look at the space AND my plans and tell me if I am being realistic.

My thought with that space was to make a combination room.  One large space (with an actual window!!) that would house the bathroom and laundry facilities (as well as the hot water tank) and perhaps make the space MUCH more functional that it currently is.

I think, though, that the destruction / construction of this particular room would be much better left to professionals, and that it would be best planned to be executed while I am on vacation and away from the house for at least 2 weeks so that bathing and doing laundry isn’t a major problem!

Small steps forward, though.  The next things that are planned are to have the rest of the crap taken out of the yard and then to have my 8 bales of insulation (for my attic) and new front door delivered.  After that, the new front door will need to be installed.

Hm.  I wonder if I should paint the front door before or after it goes in? What do you think?  And yes, I am finally going to have my RED front door!

Ok… On that note, I think its time to have a hot bath and get myself ready for bed – morning seems to come early these days and, if it’s a nice morning, I’m planning to take Jasmine out first thing for a bike ride \ run.  Me on the bike, her running.

With love across the waters,

Some Before and After Shots...

I'm a Lumberjack and I'm OK
I sleep all night and I work all day.
I cut down trees, I wear high heels
Suspenders and a Bra.
(OK - this is where I modify the song.)
I am a pretty girlie, just like my dear mama!

Monday was a lumberjack day for me.  I had the last tree cut down in the front yard and I cut down another one in the back yard.

Monday was glorious outside - a day where, when blessed to be off, one naturally gravitates outside. Lucky for me, it was also a day where my friend the tree faller (and yes, he's the one I have a terrible crush on) came over with his chainsaw and chopped down the final front yard tree, and then used said chainsaw to cut a HUGE stump down to ground.  So... you may recall - when I bought the house, the front looked like this:

And then, in October, my folks came up for a day - I had already cut down the small fir touching the house - and my Dad helped me pull all of the wisteria off off the front of the house... it then looked like this:

Now, after Monday's efforts, the front of my home is wide open and looks like this:

The big pile of branches in front of the house is all that remains of the tree that was removed.

In addition to cutting down the tree (which was growing up into both power and telephone lines and actually HAD to come down, my friend the faller also helped level out a stump - a BIG stump - that was actually hidden by the tree that was taken out.  My best guess is that it was once a HUGE maple tree -  the stump was cut into two pieces - two BIG pieces - which I ended up rolling over & stacking up beside my front door - this is about 3 feet high, by the way.

The stump (again, I *think* it may be maple) looked like it is spalted - so my dad has said he'll take the stump pieces and see what he can save & turn, here's a shot of what spalting does to raw wood:

After cutting down of stuff was done, my friend headed off (incidentally, to buck up firewood for me) and I got to work piling up other stuff:

Then, into the back yard.

When I bought the house, the back yard looked like this.  This picture is taken standing on the patio facing the back fence - note the metal arbour:

The Sumac on both sides were taken out in October when Dad came up.  Bearing in mind that the trees and shrubs still there are all without leaves for the winter, but this is what it looks like now:

The yard does look very bare and open right now, but once the trees start to bush out with leaves again, my privacy will come back and the yard will be absolutely gorgeous!  An added bonus, now that the other evergreen is gone, is that the pond's full prettiness is exposed. I'm thinking a couple of water lilies and some goldfish (to eat the mosquito larvae) will be perfect back there.

Finally we come to the piles. Stuff to be hauled away to the dump, and piles of branches and other pieces of various trees and shrubbery - all to be hauled out into the bush to be allowed to rot gently back into the earth. I had considered hiring a chipper, but am told that the branches are too curvy for that - so off to rot in the forests it is.

With love across the waters,

Small Change - BIG difference...

About two weeks ago the ugly old blue horizontal blinds in my bedroom gave up the ghost in style.  The metal contraption that controls the ability to pull the blind up and down (by way of the string) popped right out of its little hole and the blind flopped down against the wall like an ugly blue dead fish.

I have Made Do with it for a couple of weeks while trying to decide what would be the best looking and (more importantly) cheapest way to go.  Drapes? This would require a curtain rod being installed. Another plastic horizontal blind, but maybe white this time? This would require the removal of the blue plastic one's hardware.

All I knew to this point was that whatever I put in would NOT be blue.

Home Depot run happened yesterday - to pick up some things and check out options. I elected to go with curtains - and found some lovely suede-like ones that block out about 95% of the light when closed. A simple curtain rod topped off the purchase and, oh yes, I got a stud finder that tells me where the centre of the stud is and also identifies metal AND electrical stuff... so I won't accidentally drill into wiring.

Without further ado, here's my updated bedroom.  Yes, I do still need to get down the last of the wallpaper, patch and then primer and THEN paint - but the difference already is amazing.

SO much brighter without the nasty blue blinds!

Also moved a mirror - yeah, I don't need 2 in there...

And also moved my bracelet / necklace rack my Dad made me... 

Maybe not a Feng Shui change, per-se, but a very much needed change and, now done, the room is closer to the "positive space" energy I want.

Next up...? Today's projects included replacing the bathtub grout (GROSS!!!) and cutting down trees! Want to guess which was more fun?

With love across the waters,