Checking in once again! Just sharing a few of my “wins” from this week to hopefully provide you with a happy distraction and maybe an idea or two for positive things to do while you’re waiting this thing out at home. 🙂
Well, life goes on. First of all, I have to say that I’ve basically stopped watching/reading the news almost altogether. I’m checking it every few days now instead of once a day and I’m better off without it. I read an article somewhere that basically said “Who are we kidding? This thing is going to go on waaaay longer than we think it is.” and that kind of sealed the deal for me. While I continue to try to focus on the good stuff and stay connected to everyone I can in a positive way, those feelings of uncertainty about what our future will look like really do a number on me. So if you notice that I’ve gone quiet on Instagram for a few days, I’ve probably read the news and I’m busy working myself out of a giant pile of worry. Also we had a very late spring snow this week and it was actually a pretty neat change of scenery. Almost pretty. 🙂 So what are we into now? Week 5? Here are some of the great things that happened in our little world this week:
Kennedy Birthday Room Makeover
Kennedy turned 15 on Monday and we decided to give her room a little makeover as her bday present this year. I’ve put together a post with all the details that I’ll share tomorrow, but it was a lot of fun. It also just really made me feel good as a parent to be able to give her a fresh, happy space to spend time in right now. As I’ve said before, I really think that being able to enjoy some of the home upgrades we’ve done over the past few years during this pandemic has really been a comfort to me during this time and of course kids need the comfort of a safe, happy space too. 🙂
Here’s a shelf we added. She has great natural light in her room and she wanted a place for lots and lots of plants. These are all fake, but we’re going to get more real ones in there for her soon.
My Bday
Well, technically, my birthday was the week before (on April 7th), but I was able to treat myself with a bit of online shopping with some birthday fun money my family sent me. I spent a bit of time on my actual bday placing a couple of orders so this week I had some pretty great happy mail starting to arrive on my porch. 🙂
The Perfectly Imperfect Home has been on my list for awhile and that arrived this week. The illustrations are beautiful and it’s full of really approachable, practical design advice. It’s the kind of book that makes you feel good about the home you’ve created while reading it, rather than making you feel like everything about your home is wrong and you need to invest in a $200K renovation immediately. You know the feeling I’m talking about.
By the way, if you’ve read this book before and enjoyed it, you’ll probably also like Classic Style. It had a very similar positive effect on me, only it focusses more on a combination of personal style and home style, rather than on just the home.
Other Great Things
I cleaned the microwave after a popcorn explosion from a few weeks ago that we were all just ignoring. I still use this method and it works like nothing else. I also reorganized the kids snack pantry. We had one of those situations where the cupboard was full, but it always seemed like there was nothing to eat going on. And now the cupboard is full, but everyone can see that there are plenty of things to eat. It makes life easier, mostly for me. 🙂
-I re-started my two new routines for spring that I told you about earlier in the spring to maintain a clean stove and a clean tub at all times. I kind of let little things like these slip over the last few weeks because it just seemed like we were living through strange times and once everything got back to normal, I would pick them back up. I realized that a dirty stove and tub are really unpleasant though, no matter what’s going on in the outside world. I think a lot of us kind of thought this was a traumatizing time and we should just go easy on ourselves and let things slide a little bit in the name of self-care over the last month. It turns out that for me, a messy house does not equal self-care in any way. I knew that, but I was reminded of it again.
-In keeping with that thought, I did a quick sweep of Jack’s room and tidied up his shelves and his legos that were slowly starting to clutter things up and make it difficult to tuck him in at night or grab clothes from his dresser. I also finally ordered a proper comforter for his bed. It’s just simple and basic but bringing me a lot of satisfaction. He’s had just his sheets and a couple of soft minky blankets up there for the last year. They’re cozy, but they make it really hard to make the bed properly in the morning. So yay for that!
-If you follow our little design photography business, Art & Spaces, over on Instagram you may have seen that I did a chat with Heather from Comfortable Dwelling, a local design company that we’ve been working with and that we love. We’ve both been sharing little clips from our chat all week in our stories and it’s been surprisingly fun. Heather asked me questions about styling and lighting for photography and I asked her questions about her design process, what she thinks of current design trends, and her sourcing secrets. I just loved it. I think I might like to do more? I’m not sure if I would be up for editing all that video though. Her husband Kyle edited our two-hour-long conversation down into bite-size tidbits for us and I think that’s part of what made the whole thing so fun and easy.
-I think the high points of the week for me were the makeshift ping pong table we set up on the kitchen table, complete with paddles made from cardboard taped onto mini hockey sticks (or just “mini sticks” if you’re Canadian). More to come about that soon. Also the walk we took in the park during one of the several mid-april snow storms that we had this week was pretty magical. Of course we were the only ones there.
If you’re inclined to get outside when it seems like the weather is way too cold, you need to know about this toque. This is the warmest head covering I’ve ever owned and my love for it runs deep. It has a super thick lining and blocks the cold out even at -20. So I was just super comfortable out in a snowstorm in -1 degree weather for our walk. It helped with the magical-ness of the whole thing. 🙂 Anyway, I was excited to see that Sporting Life is still carrying this brand and this specific toque, even though they don’t have this color this year. Definitely one to keep in mind for next winter! (Not sponsored or an affiliate link, I’m just really thankful for this toque.)
So that was the week! I’m curious to know what your week was like now that we’ve been in this social distancing thing for so long. Are there parts of your routine that are returning to normal now that you know you’re in this for the long haul?
MORE LIKE THIS
- Checking in: Week 1 – What Social Distancing Has Been Like For Us So Far
- Checking in: Week 2 – Finding Things That Help
- Checking in: Week 3 – The New Normal
- Checking in: Week 4 – Our Daily Routine During Social Distancing
This post contains affiliate links.
Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.