oh happy day!

GREAT NEWS! I've been working for the past year or two on a fold up utility desk (the big bulky plastic tops you might see in someone's garage or basement) and it was working fine for stationery and scrapbooking. But we were starting to get tired of the hunk-a-desk sitting against the wall with a bunch of stuff stored on-top AND below...so today I bought a NEW DESK! Woo hoo! And it's a real one too - I shall post pictures of it when it's done.

Anyway, wow. I got carried away. So really, that's excellent news. But what I meant to write about was the fact that, while I was unpacking and repacking the stuff underneath said old desk, I found an entire box of scrapbooking supplies (i.e. stickers, brads, glue, dots, pens, embellishments, and everything else you can think of) that I had forgotten I had!! (sometimes I get worried that I'm a hoarder...)

I'm thrilled to have this new-found supplies and have ideas already how to use them...tee hee.

New desk, here I come!

simply living life

As I was playing with my niece, eating an orange and trying to clean out our old PVR recordings I turned on an Oprah episode from Monday. It was about turning down the luxuries in life that we don't need but have grown to expect or to 'think' that we need. About how we've learned to be wasteful with the things we do have, how to stop consuming and how to start learning to live with just the basics and being happy cherishing everything you have in life - not material things, but your family, friends and valuing your own life.

I watched an incredibly inspiring and uplifting story about a mother of 2 who felt like she was living in a false life built on 'stuff' and 'money'. She discarded it all for a tiny cottage in the middle of nowhere with her 2 young children and found the deep down happiness in life she'd been longing for. See the article here.

Photo: Rob Howard

By no means do I feel that Noel and I are living a wasteful life, or that we take what we have for granted. But I do think that we could easily fall into a destructive path of wanting and buying without noticing that we'd gone too far. I've noticed that just recently we've been talking about all kinds of ways to make life simple and peaceful again in our busy non-stop working lives. Both of us come from very simple backgrounds (in some ways) and we both know that filling our lives with things and stuff isn't what we truly want or need, but that it's just so easy to do that it takes extra care to keep it from happening.

Noel has given up TV on weekdays for lent. I've given up working on the weekends and late evening hours. It's only been a few days and already life has changed. I don't watch a lot of TV in the first place, and watching is so much less enjoyable when there's no one to watch with. So we spend our meals in front of each other catching up. And instead of TV before bed, we talk or read a book. It's so quiet in this house now!! You can be deep in thought in all hours of the day because you don't have that constant 'noise' in the background.

Suddenly we have more time on our hands to do productive things, like practice our music or clean the house. We did a complete over-haul on our office this past weekend and came out with 3 garbage bags of paper and a trunk full of cardboard to recycle. I can't imagine how we lived with all that trash (in one room) for so long. It's got me aching to do the same for the guest room - there is a pile of wedding stuff that I haven't touched for a year and a half...ooh and how about getting rid of the clothes in the back of our closet that I haven't even looked at since we moved in...

We're also taking it easy on big purchases - especially considering the economic crisis and our amazing trip to NY this summer! So we're thinking (a lot) before buying...like couches and SUV's. I think we're realizing that if it's not something we need right now, we shouldn't purchase, even if it's affordable...although being able to sit 2 of us comfortably on a couch right now is really tempting.

Anyway, there is a lot more to simple living than you might think. I plan on getting to know how to incorporate it into our lives over the next few months as summer approaches, it'll do a world of good for our home and our life.

my work space

My desk is an absolute complete mess this morning. It's a combination of me letting it slowly build up (piles...no...swarms of paperwork and important documents) and it being one of the craziest weekends. Nothing huge happened, but it was just "go go go" every second from the time my eyes opened in the morning until I passed out late in the evening. I just didn't have time to organize these papers, so instead I piled everything on top of everything else (my mom would vouch for me being a stacker my entire life...and also for the fact that my desk has always looked like this when I was living at home).

We [Noel and I] had a client over for a wedding music/stationery consultation on Saturday evening. She was just lovely, and is going to be great to work with over the coming months. We're both totally excited for her wedding in July! Outdoors, in the evening. Couldn't be more perfect! So along with her papers, I've got multiple other clients' papers, whom we've been in touch with recently. It's not even just that, but piles of colourful cardstock cut beautifully into squares ready for me to take the glue to them, and colour swatches everywhere. I mean everywhere. I don't know how this little business became a thriving one so quickly, but I really shouldn't complain. In this economy, I'm lucky to be working and making a living. Thankfully, the clients never see this desk. All they know is our clean and pristine main floor, which is constantly maintained for the plethora of students I have coming in and out all week.

Well, it's definitely harder to be productive when my desk looks like this...but somehow it's a little bit inspiring, so instead of cleaning it up, I'm blogging about it. hee hee. Don't I have file folders or other organizing tools? Yup, you bet I do. Do I use them? Sometimes...I'm learning. Mostly I just like the way they look (I get the ones with fun, pretty patterns on them in coordinating colours). The other day I was at Chapters, and bought some great items on an amazing sale. A bright shiny red box to stand my files in, and a matching little 'vase' type thing to hold my pens, scissors, ruler etc etc. So at the very least, I'm on the path to somewhere far away from this cluttered desk.

Ok - I shouldn't put it off any longer. Darling desk, here I come.

sarah richardson is my idol

Some of my most favourite 'me-time' moments involve Sarah Richardson and the Design Inc. Team, and don't even get me started on Sarah's House. Whether I'm sick and snuggled up on the couch, having a quick lunch in front of the TV, or sipping a cup of steaming something after a long day of teaching, Sarah Richardson is there and I enjoy every second of her shows, watching wide eyed, trying to absorb every texture, colour, and shape during that half hour. I live for Sarah's design ideas. Somehow, all the things I love and wish for in design, Sarah brings to life. Somehow she has my exact same taste. The only difference is she's got a clue when it comes to what to do with it all.

It's not even just about her amazing, incredibly lusciously delicious design - her team is absolutely hilarious. Every single one of them. Tommy and Kate are my favourite (though I love them all), especially when you get them together with Sarah. Oh my God. So I'm sitting watching without blinking and suddenly they say something that catches me off guard and I'll spill my coffee in the midst of letting the laughter take over, and totally lose track of what was going on in the show. Thankfully - I have every episode recorded on my PVR. I can catch what I've just missed with a simple push of a button. Oh Sarah.

The episode I just watched got me totally inspired. The Design Inc team were redecorating their office. I too, have dreams of redecorating our office(or just even decorating...well really pre-decorating for goodness sake). And every other room in the house for that matter. Both Noel and I work from home, so we're sharing an office all day (and sometimes night) and just finding our own separate work spaces was hard enough. Nevermind trying to make it look good. But I want so badly to have an amazing space for us to both work in. With drawers and shelves and cabinets and colour. One day it will happen, I know it.

There are more important things to tackle right now though, like our bedroom. Though it's clean and modernly painted, it's cold and totally devoid of personality and life. Only lately have we noticed how uncomfortable the bed is too...maybe we're just getting old. But it's definitely time for us to do something about it. Investing in your bedroom is like investing in your quality of life. I don't know why we hadn't done something sooner!

Anyways, I can assure you that this will be the first of a plethora of postings about Sarah Richardson. She's just too much a part of my life for this to be the first and the last. Thanks for being just so darn great, Sarah.