So Long, My Friend

But it's definitely not good-bye.

About a year and a half ago, I found the most beautiful purse - at TJ Maxx in Whitefish, no less.

A rich red leather with gorgeous stitching, and a handle long enough to put over my shoulder.

Oh yeah, and it's also got this:

My purse is an authentic Kate Spade. I love Kate Spade. Love her. I love everything she's made. I still remember a purse at the Kate Spade store in Houston that I didn't buy. I browse her online store regularly - it's good that they don't ship to Canada or I'd have a lot more than one purse. 

So, when I saw this purse at TJ Maxx, I carried it with me around the store, so nobody else could have it.

But, as much as I love this purse, it has its challenges. 

It is the size of an envelope. I can put my wallet, my keys, my blackberry - and that's it. There's no room for anything else. 

And being a working mom, that makes it a challenge sometimes.

For the New Year, I have decided I am going to try and document life more - that means taking my 'purse camera' with me wherever I go. This obviously won't work with my little red beauty.

So, I'm going to lovingly pad her with tissue paper and delicately store my Kate Spade purse away. 

And try this one instead. It's cute, isn't it?

Cheers!

Kim

Cooking with the Boys

I'm not exactly sure what the long term effects on the boys will be, but they were avid watchers of the Nate Show while we were hanging out over the winter holidays.  They thought the home-made pizza pockets looked like fun.

So guess what? That's what we made for dinner the next night. :)

Here are Aidan's hands chopping the pepperoni (he refused to let me take his picture, so this is the best I got)

The boys had fun rolling out the dough

And, we ended up with these masterpieces:

They were really tasty and somehow we ended up with ten large pizza pockets - more than the recipe said we would. That's okay though - they re-heat really well too :)

All in all, that was a fun afternoon. Shared time with my boys who are growing up way too fast.

Cheers!
Kim

My Word for the Year - Choose

As I plan my year and try to figure out what I want to do, where I want to end up and who I want to be, one word kept popping up - Choose. It seems so appropriate so I am going to adopt it and use it to guide all my actions in 2012.

For instance, I can choose:

- to get upset about a messy house, or relax and enjoy life;
- where I spend my time, and with whom;
- what I eat and how often I exercise; and ultimately
- to be happy or not.

I see this word as an internal rudder, guiding me as I make decisions. Too often, I have chosen to take the easy road, the one that leads to anger and frustration.

So today I choose to become a better person in 2012.

Wish me luck.

Kim

(sigh - I had originally posted this on Jan 2 - but I am re-posting it today because I really have no idea what I'm doing! :) Anyway, I've linked up to Layla at the Lettered Cottage, along with other wonderful ladies who all have words for 2012. I wish all of them the best of luck!)

The Front Hall Bench

So, I showed you the fabulous stencil I painted on our front hall wall. I love it - it completely changed the look of that wall. Of course, the rest of the hall needed some attention too.

We have a bench for the hallway - it's a nice black bench with wicker baskets to hold a ton of stuff. It worked for anyone who needed to sit to remove / add footwear. And since we have winter forever around here, that's a pretty important thing to have.

However, the bench didn't have a cushion, so it wasn't the most comfortable spot. That has now been fixed.

I bought some burlap at the fabric store, and some 2 inch foam at Walmart.

I cut the foam to fit the top of the bench, dry fitting it to make sure it fit well.

I cut and sewed the burlap, making a large pillow for the top.

Trying to fit the foam pieces into the burlap was a bit of a challenge, but after some wrangling, I ended up with this:

I'm pretty happy with it. The colour ties in well with the wall stencil and the baskets in the bench, and it finishes the bench off. The kids thought it was great too and spent a few minutes jumping on it making sure it would stand up to repeat use.

Another successful project for the front hall, if I do say so myself.

Cheers!
Kim

Our Front Entry

Over two months ago, I completed a project in our front entry - our bland, boring entry.

I didn't take a true 'before' picture, so just imagine a bench beside this wall and forget about the ladder :)

There was nothing exciting about this entry and it definitely didn't reflect our family. So, I decided to change it. Wall paper is very trendy right now, but the one I loved was very expensive - and Mr. E did not want to hang any. So that was the end of that idea.

Another popular option is stenciling - we could get the style and colour we wanted. This handmade stencil from Jones Design Company looked great in her office, and all the how-to details were written down. So, this was the project we decided to tackle for the entryway.

I downloaded the stencil and traced it on to cardboard, so I could use it over and over. To keep the design straight (ish), I enlisted help to hold the laser level so I could trace the design vertically. Conscripted might be a more accurate word - it was definitely not a volunteer position. My oldest lost the rock-paper-scissors competition so he was my 'helper.'

Can't you see the genuine enthusiasm? Um - I can't either. That is definitely a look that says 'are we done yet?'

This took a LONG time - I won't lie. And knowing that I had to go over the pencil with paint was tough - that meant it would take even longer.

I won't go through the details - there are tons of explanations about how to do this, with better pictures than mine. I did learn a few things along the way, which I will share.

1. Make your pencil lines very light or they'll show through your paint. Realistically, nobody will notice - and if they do, just give them the paint and brush so they can add another coat. :) But I switched to a lighter pencil about halfway through and the lines aren't noticeable after that.

2. Start with a small paintbrush - you can always go over your first brush strokes with larger brush but you can't make the brush strokes any smaller. Unless you paint over it with your wall colour and start again.

Go ahead, ask me how I know that.

3. Don't start painting the lines on the right side of the wall unless you're left handed. I'm not - so after a couple of awkwardly painted rows, I let it all dry overnight and started on the left side the next night.

4. Double check how level the level your 'helping' son is holding before you start tracing the lines on the wall. you don't want to have to erase and re-draw them. Again - go ahead and ask me how I know this.

5. Make sure you have something comfortable to sit/lie on when you're painting the bottom portion of the wall. Especially if you have tile floors. They're very hard on the knees when you have to kneel on them for a while.

After a week of working on this after work, it was finally finished - and I think the result was totally worth the effort. I love the wall now:

It is such an incredible difference - the entry has depth and character now. Yippee!

Overall, this was a time consuming project, but a very economical one. In total, I spent $5. Yup, that's all. I bought a sample colour at Benjamin Moore - I had everything else. 

You can't beat that - good looking and cheap. That's my kind of project.

I'll show you the rest of the front hall update soon, I promise! :) Here's a sneak peak:

Until next time,

Cheers!

Kim

Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding - a definite make again recipe

I love trying new recipes, and I've been cooking and experimenting for a long time - one of these days, I'll share the story of why I started cooking. Anyway, I love it and do some crazy stuff sometimes.

Like trying a brand new recipe when I promised to bring dessert for a party. Yup, I like to live on the edge.

I have a huge stack of recipes ripped out of old magazines, so I decided to start there. And of course, something caught my eye  - Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding. I mean, with a name like that, it has to be good, right?

Right.

It was amazing.

Photo from Food and Drink Magazine

It took a couple of days to make this - I made the banana bread in advance so I wasn't rushing around like a crazy woman on Saturday afternoon. Or a crazier-than-usual woman. The banana bread sat in the fridge for a couple of days and the kids had strict 'do-not-eat-under-pain-of-death' orders. (banana bread doesn't last long in our house - a day or two, tops)

The recipe was fairly straightforward and got rave reviews. The host told me that it was good enough for seventh or eighth helpings and I had requests for the recipe from the other guests.

So, if anyone is looking for a huge ego boost and a relatively easy dessert recipe, here it is:  Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding

Yummy. It's definitely a make again.

Cheers!
Kim

I have lots to say . . .

I do have lots to say, even though I haven't posted on here for more than a month - where does the time go?

Life has been taken over by kids, work, kids activities, work travel, kid stuff and work stuff - can you see a theme emerging? I was traveling nearly every week for more than a month, for at least a day or two at a time. (I put more than 1200 km on Mr. E's truck in two days)

That seriously cuts into leisure time - which means I want to spend more time with the family when I'm home. And that seriously cuts into blog time.

And, family wins - hands down, every time. So, no blog posts for more than a month. Not that many people read this - yet. (Hi Mom!)

My trusty notebook with blog ideas has been coming along for the traveling though, and I have lots of ideas of things to do and share. You'll have to forgive the badly lit pictures (it is pitch black here before 5pm every day) and the lack of painting (it's too cold to paint outside and I've decided not to subject the family to paint fumes from the basement - very often :) ).

So, I'll try to update this blog every few days and keep everyone in-the-know about all the goings-on around here.

I know, you can't wait, can you? ;)

Cheers until next time!
Kim