Day 15: Smart Shopping - Start Early!

I know it's a little early to be thinking about Christmas shopping, heck, I'm normally a shopping-a-week-before-Christmas kind of person! This year, however, I don't have a whole lot of money for Christmas; so I figured I'd start early and try to find some good deals!

I realize that not everyone celebrates Christmas, but I think this idea applies to a lot more than the one holiday. It's just as important to keep your eyes open and be a smart shopper for every day household items! However, Christmas Shopping is my example, run with it?

Every year Christmas kind of sneaks up on me, and, while I know exactly who I'm going to be buying for every year, I never make a plan! This year had to be different; I really don't have the means to just roll with the punches this year!

I figured that I knew for sure that I was going to be buying for my Nieces and Nephews so when I saw that EVERY TOY at my local, get this, Super Market (did not previously even know they had toys) was on sale, we for sure had to check it out.

We literally found everything we were looking for! And for once I didn't feel like we just had to grab the cheapest toy that was in Toys-R-Us, on our one Christmas shopping trip. We didn't have to settle! Because realistically, I really didn't even need these presents yet, so if they didn't have what we were looking for we could just leave! No pressure. Fortunately? They had all the things we normally would have been looking for! They weren't odd brands, overly small gifts, or knock offs. They were the regular toys that our Nieces and Nephews recognized and would be really happy with, for far less than I expected to pay for them. 

Now, don't get me wrong. I in now way believe that Christmas should be a materialistic Holiday, and neither do my Nieces and Nephews; they would honestly be just as happy with the dinner, and getting to spend the day together. I just really love getting to get them a little something for them to open, and they are always so grateful! And they sure were a little something this year! Each gift came up to about $5!!! So, for all of the gifts that we bought so far we spent $30. This is truly a record for us. I have heard of people trying to scout out deals before, but I thought they were maybe getting a dollar off here and there. Apparently deals are out there! And I am now more willing that ever to go out and find them! I am a true believer. 

A quick note on how I am also using this idea in my every day life. This is probably pretty obvious to most people but, for example, if I am out of say dish soap, or shampoo, or paper towel? I don't go check if it's on sale. I don't need to! I already have some! And then when I run out, I need it ASAP, so I buy it for whatever it is selling for right then. I'm obviously going to run out of these every day household products at some point, so it's worth it to check and buy it when it's on sale, or when you have a coupon, so that you end up paying retail prices a lot less often. And bonus? When you run out of something, you have a back stock! It can be tricky sometimes, because even if toilet paper is on for $8 instead of $12, I might need that $8 for something else! But it's worth it to do it when you can.

Day 14: Decorating with Household Items

So, this probably seems pretty obvious to most people, but when I think of decorating a space I usually gravitate towards cute nicknacks, candles, and vases. I was thinking today about how I have so little space, and don't really want to be cluttering it with a ton of little things; I would rather just have a nice looking usable space. This got me thinking about what a useable space was to me. Being that it is fall, going into winter, I like to have people over a lot and hope that they will feel free to help themselves to a nice cup of tea! Unfortunately I have all my tea stuff in like, three different cupboards, so it's not really easy for guests to just quickly make themselves tea. Because of this I decided to make a little tea area on the counter.

It's kind of nice having all the tea stuff set up and ready to go for me too, because it will also be a lot easier for me to make a cup of tea, and I think it looks nice on the counter.

I'll probably end up changing around the set up a little bit with time, but for now I really like it, and it was a really easy way to add some interest to my kitchen without buying anything! I just decorated with some household things that I already had.

Some things I for sure eventually want to add is a better way to organize the tea, like, maybe getting a little basket for the tea pouches. I'll probably also get a canister for the teas I buy a lot of at once, like orange pekoe. I'm really excited for this new little space in my kitchen, and I'm really excited about the idea of making different places around my home look a lot more finished, while also making them more functional!

Thanks for reading!

Day 13: Make Your House a Home - With Houseplants!

Hi Guys! Lately I have been looking into different affordable ways to kinda dress up my home, and to create some more finished looking spaces. Being that I can't paint or put anything on the walls, I decided to try getting some plants! We don't have a very long summer where I am, and I think bringing green into the house will really cheer me up during the winter months.

I was planning on getting some plants for my house in the hopefully near future, and have spent quite a bit of time looking up which house plants are hard to kill good for plant beginners and there are actually quite a few to choose from! One that I was really interested in was a Peace Lily. I think they are quite popular house plants, and maybe aren't super original? I was really drawn to them because they are so pretty, and they are also really low maintenance! They just need a shady spot, and to be watered once a week. Sounds easy enough to me!

While I meant to wait for a little while to get a plant, only because I wasn't in a huge rush, sometimes things just don't work out that way! I happened to be in the grocery store last night, and they happened to have a stand of all kinds of lovely houseplants for very reasonable prices. Needless to say I spent FAR too long considering each and every single plant, but I ended up coming home with two that I'm really happy with!

So this is my Peace Lily, which is keeping my little Owl Oil Burner company. I think the Peace Lily really completes this space as my little owl was looking pretty lonely on that end table all on it's own. 

Owl Closeup!!

And then this is the other plant that I bought. It's a little Calla Lily! I'm really excited about it and, even though it wasn't listed on the easy to keep plant lists I found, hope that I'll be able to keep it alive for a long time. And it's pink! I always think of Calla Lilies as being white, so I'm really excited to see this one come into full bloom. 

After getting these plants I was super excited to go out and buy several other plants to put all around my home, but I think I'm just going to start with these as my green thumb is barely even in training. I still need to get new planters for them, and will likely find myself moving them around to see how I like them in different rooms of my home, but I am just excited to have them! Who would have thought that spending $11 on two plants would be so exciting?

Day 12: Work With What You've Got

In my home I have a pretty small living room, and a pretty small kitchen. Technically I think there could be a dining area in the living room, but we have not looked in to creating that space yet. I've never really been thrilled with the layout of my house, but felt like I din't really have a lot of options because I'm renting my house, and it came sort of set-up when we moved in.

Because I don't really love my living room... or my kitchen really... I spend a LOT of time looking on sites like Pinterest trying to find different kitchens and living rooms that I liked to give me ideas for our next house. I think it's probably better, however, to stop trying to live in the future because I'm still living in this house! So for the next little while I'm going to make a really conscious effort to be happy where I am, and to stop wishing I was somewhere else. Otherwise I'm always going to be saying "When we move", or "When we redo the floors", "When we get new counters", and I'll never be happy with where I am in life.

So today I made a small change, and instead of looking up ideas for the next house, I looked up some different decorating ideas for this house! I decided to look up some ideas for a small dining area incorporated into a small living room, and there were a lot of really good ideas!

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I think this set up is a really good example because it is clearly all in the same room, but it still looks like a really cohesive space, and it just looks like they used really inch of their space really really well.

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This one really inspires me because it's a lot like the layout that I would have in my house and I really love the look of the round glass-top table.

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I really like this one too because it's a lot like what I would want to have in my house, and I love that they put up the shelving by the table. I feel like it really completes the space. 

After seeing all these beautiful examples I'm really inspired to try to turn my home into something that I could be really happy with. I'm actually really excited to try to be happy with where I currently am in life, and hope that if I make a habit of it, I will stop looking towards the next goal, and will always just be happy with where I am.

Day 11: Fitting in Fitness

Fitness has become quite a challenge for me. I find it really tiring, and time consuming, and because I don't exercise consistently, I don't see any result. I would LOVE to be a person who liked to exercise several times a week, and who just kept really active, and felt healthy and energetic all the time. At current I just have a ton of exercise dvd's that I don't use. I really want to get into a habit of just being really active. I used to think that I wanted to lose weight, and that to do that I would have to follow a carefully constructed set of dvds that would be exhausting and horribly boring, to get there.

I pretty much tried everything with the dvd's and did have some short term success here and there. I tried making a habit of it, and did an exercise dvd every morning as soon as I got up. I would try to focus and make myself finish the dvd, even though I could think of 100 other things that I wanted to do, because it would be worth it.

Losing weight is no longer the issue for me. No, I'm not the weight that I want to be exactly, but more-so I just want to feel healthy and energetic.

Thinking back to when I was my lightest... I didn't work out AT ALL. I tried to eat well most of the time, and would walk everywhere. Like, I would walk up to 2 hours a day because I just had errands to run, and things to do. I didn't work out, but I led a fairly healthy lifestyle, and I was a LOT happier at that time of my life. Eventually I began to think that my life was too busy for me to walk everywhere, so I would drive, and I slowly cut out the active part of my life back to nothing.

So today, I decided to go for a quick 20 minute walk before work. It was surprisingly hard to find just 20 minutes! But I was so glad that I did. It was so nice just to stop everything for a short time and just enjoy the cool fall air and the crunchy leaves!

Just going for a quick walk made for such a better day. It seemed like such a small thing but it really made me feel a lot more awake, and a lot happier. I think I'll try to go for a walk again tomorrow.

Day 10: Just Another Day

I got up today and immediately started brain storming what project I was going to work on today. I started researching some different ideas as to how I could decorate my home on a budget without altering it too too much as we are renting, and then I realized I was really really tired.

I have had a cold for several days now and haven't slowed down at all to let it sort of run it's corse and be on it's way. After fighting with myself to try to get a list together of some things I could conceivably get done, I realized I was being silly. Anything that I got done today wouldn't be really top notch for sure, and for what?! For the first time in as long as I can remember I decided to let today be "Just Another Day". I don't need to get anything done today, just sit and drink tea, and try to take it easy, and drink a cup of chicken noodle soup. That's the plan for today, and while at first I felt kind of defeated, I'm kind of excited about it now. I'm just going to relax today before I head off to work, not because I got so much done and really deserved it, just because sometimes it's okay to relax.

Day 9: Finish What You Start

I'm starting to realize that, even if you start a project for fun, if you don't finish it and you kinda just leave it for a really long time? It still nags at the back of your mind, same as if it were for work, or anything else. I guess when I start projects for fun I sort of expect them to take a really really long time, so I end up leaving them unfinished for a while, until I have a huge chunk of time to work on them.

One project that I started recently was that I decided to make new throw pillows for my couches. When my husband and I got married and moved into our new house we didn't really have a lot of furniture so most of what we have was given to us by family members who no longer needed those pieces anymore. I really like all of the furniture we have been given, which is pretty lucky, but I don't really feel like I had a big part in designing what my living room especially looks like at all. Making the throw pillows was kind of a way to put my own touch on the living room, and it also sounded like a really fun DIY!

My couches are like an eggplant/plum purple colour, so I tried to find a good colour to go with that, and I really liked like a light yellow or goldenrod kind of colour. I went down to the fabric store and found this amazing fabric on sale! I think this pattern is called "Queen Anne's Lace" and I just love it!

I decided to give up on finding a 'big chunk of time' for making the pillows, and just sort of worked on them today whenever I had more than 10 minutes. I got most of the pieces cut out and pinned for all of the pillows and now I'm just going to sew them together in the morning! I'm really excited to get them on the couches.

I got one of the pillows finished and I couldn't help but put it on the couch to see how it looked. The two pillows on the left are the ones that came with the couches, and then I switched out the ones on the right for the new pillow. I really like how it looks! It was a pretty inexpensive way to kind of update the look of the couches.

I'm really surprised too at how much I was able to get done today just by working here and there when I had a minute, like, while I waited for supper to finish baking and such. I think I'm going to try to remember that I generally have more time than I think.