Another little update about this and that!
We made it into the spring issue of Country Sampler Farmhouse Style Magazine! Well, OK, it’s just one little recent photo of our DIY pine flooring that we have upstairs, but it’s still always fun to see your work in print! I’m getting quite a little stack of magazines that have my name in them and it makes me happy. It’s a neat collection to have.
My little desk nook project is slowly plodding along. This was supposed to be my “January project” for this year, but you know, things happen. I was going to put it off until we were done with remote learning so I didn’t disrupt anything, but then it seemed that we’d be doing school this way for quite awhile, so I decided to move ahead with it. Decorating therapy. 🙂 Well, I’m happy to report that our local schools will be reopening on Monday, so this is just perfect timing because my happy little work space should be ready for me to use it very soon. I’ve painted the stone wall white and everything I need is ordered. I just need to wait for everything to arrive and then I’ll be all set!
This print for over the desk came in earlier this week and I love all the soft colours in it. Definitely a mood booster!
Creek skating season has arrived. Honestly, it’s been a bit too cold and windy for me to want to slip and slide around outside for more than a few minutes, but Jack and Chris have been playing hockey out on the creek every chance they get. It’s so hard sometimes to find bright spots in our days with this lockdown and with us being right in the dead of winter, but I’m glad this is one for them.
Speaking of which:
We have fully hit a wall with this whole lockdown thing. We’re so lucky to be healthy and safe and able to function pretty well while in lockdown. We’ve still been able to get some work done even if it’s on a bit of a different schedule than what we’ve used to, but I have to admit that some days are definitely a struggle. There were times when the novelty of online learning seemed to have worn off a bit, and there were times where it seemed like Jack was telling us “I’m bored” every 12 seconds and we’ve just been fresh out of ideas and energy to do anything about it. If you follow me over on Instagram, you may have noticed that there are days fairly often where you just don’t hear from me at all. I honestly just feel a lot of the time that I have nothing new to share. One big bright spot these past couple of weeks though has been getting the cousins together on FaceTime to play a little Minecraft every few days. We haven’t been able to see our family much this year at all because they live a few hours away in a different area, so it’s been so nice for them to have fun and play together and it’s almost just the same as if they were in the same room. I’m definitely very excited to have our kids back in school though so they’ll be able to have a little bit of normalcy back in their days, even if things are still far from normal.
We’ve been able to safely do a few shoots and they’ve been so fun. We’ve really missed being able to go out and shoot on location for all of our amazing and talented local clients like we’re used to. It’s definitely hard work, but we just love the creative challenge of trying to capture a space in the best way possible. We’ve been able to do a few product shoots at home during lockdown and we’ve even helped out a few local real estate agents with their photos, which we don’t always have time to do (real estate agents are still able to operate during lockdown and we’re alone in the homes when we shoot, so it’s all within COVID guidelines). It’s been such a great little mental vacation and it’s really made me excited to be out in the world working our regular busy schedule, hopefully one day soon. I think I just really like working. Not being able to be out working with our usual clients and not necessarily having the time to work on my own blog stuff as much as I would like to has just been really exhausting for me. So I’m doing less, but somehow I feel more tired? Anyway, I know for sure that I’m going to really appreciate it when things become a little more normal again, so that’s a very good thing!
Just look at this beautiful loose-leaf tea from our local blueberry farm/farm store Parks Blueberries! This was a really fun shoot.
And that’s what’s been going on around here! Are you in lockdown where you are? What bright spots have you been finding lately?
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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.