Bah Humbug and Natures Bounty

As you may know, they have already started playing Christmas music on the radio at the start of last week and every time I heard one, I would reach over and turn down my radio,  saying to myself, gawd it's not even December yet! 

Then on Saturday, on my lunch I find myself drooling, when I spied at the local grocery store all the  gorgeous fresh greenery and decorative shiny balls, pine cones, faux pomegranates all on long sticks,  oversized large berries in red and gold and picture perfect birch logs for your urns. No word of a lie, I could have dropped $100.00 easy but that wasn't going to happen, but what it did do, was

it somehow got me into the spirit a little already!!!!

There are those people,  who are all ready for each and every holiday season with tons of time to spare and as much as I wish I was,  I admit I am not one of them but then when we were blessed with unseasonably sunny, warm weather this weekend we decided to take advantage of it for once and put up our Christmas lights instead of doing the usual freeze your hands and bum off thing. 

 So while I still had visions of gorgeous urns dancing in my head, I coerced

 Todd to drive me to cut branches from some road side trees for ours. I wasn't sure how hard it was going to be to find some nice ones but we only had to drive east for a few minutes and then took the next dirt road north. I always wanted to see what kind of houses were on this dead end road since I drive by it on my way home from work each and every day and much to our surprise there was only one house on the entire road which meant lots of trees belonging to no one were mine for the trimming. 

The first stop, I excitedly jump out and am looking way up at some beautiful feathery branches to trim that are mostly out of my 5'1ish" reach, then I look down to my absolute horror to find at the base of my feet a half eaten massive bird carcass!!!  Of course I was freaked out and had to ask Todd to cut my branch that I couldn't reach but really I just couldn't stand the site of that poor dead bird anymore and couldn't wait to get back in the truck.

We  stop a few more times and I make sure to properly and responsibly trim the trees and end up  getting my feet soaked in a mucky area just to get to some red dogwood branches. At this point Todd keeps saying to me, you've got enough, you got enough but I know it takes a lot to make a nice urn so of course I ignore him and keep trimming.

Once I think I may have enough, we go back to the main road on the hunt for some fallen birch logs and I have almost given up when Todd spots a bunch of large branches just off the road and thankfully not in swamp land! 

Then when we are almost back at our front door, literally just a few doors down we make one last stop at the side of the road to trim some gorgeous red sumac. 

When I get back to the house I trim some stunning blue green spruce branches from our backyard  trees. We added some leftover potting soil to stick the branches in and after layering my branches I topped it with some pine cones I already had and some silver disco balls I bought from the bargain store for $5.00 each last year.

Then to make it just a little more earthy and rustic instead of chopping up the leftover large branches I decided to just casually lean them on either side of the door for some visual height and texture.

And while I'm at it all, getting more and more into the spirit, I can't help myself and end up bringing out my mini Christmas tree for the front porch.

LED lights will get nestled in the branches for a pretty night time display.

To be honest it was really hard to walk away from that grocery store without spending any money for our uns but I am so happy that I did and ended up with stunning urns without spending a cent and so I can officially say, I'm in the spirit,

well,

almost.

Are you?

I Dream

I started this blog when I turned a corner with my health. After being so sick, severely hypothyroid for years, I miraculously discovered here what natural thyroid hormone in the place of synthetic thyroid hormone and hydrocortisone could do for me  and it has no doubt made incredible improvements to what how I feel and what I can do each day. Where I was once trying to figure out how I could quit my full time job as a kitchen designer (which I love) because I was just so bone weary tired all the time, I was finally able to go to work and then come home, actually walk the dog and make dinner without the consequence of utter exhaustion. 

I won't get into the details but I'm still not 100 percent recovered and need to find the answers why I am not there.  I have so many dreams to fulfill.

I look around at my home and know what is wrong, know what needs to be done to fix it but as long as my health is still compromised I cannot seem to muster up the energy outside of work, walking, making all our home cooked meals and doing the every day chores to

"get"er done." 

When I look at the pictures of myself in my twenties, I cannot believe I am the same person as her and what has happened to my health over the past years as a result of having my thyroid removed from cancer and being on a synthetic thyroid replacement hormone that only replaces 1 of the handful of hormones your body needs to survive. That girl had the world in the palm of her hand and she had the energy to do anything she wanted.

This is my husband's  garage which we jokingly call "the shed" since it was built in the early 1900's to fit a small model T ford  but I dream of one day making it my own little store that I can open on the weekends in the spring, summer and fall selling beautifully painted second hand gems. 

I have always had an eye for the diamond in the rough and I pray for another miracle.

I can't tell you how much I just want my old self back, the one that doesn't know the meaning of the word can't so I can make my dreams come true.

Now I must figure out how to connect the last few dots.......

Red Shed

I thought I would share a nice little job Todd just completed for a customer of his in the nick of time while the weather is still nice. Two summers ago Todd built this beautiful custom cedar fence for this customer.

and then he asked Todd to build a shed onto the back of his century barn. Todd dug the base down 12" to create a floating slab foundation for the structure. His customer sketched up how he wanted it built in keeping with the architecture of the barn and then added his own unique touch by making the door handle out of a tree!

Then it got a coat of the same gorgeous red stain.

I love when people respect old barns.

What fun!

We will soon have some pictures of a gorgeous bathroom he just completed as well for you to see.

Time is running out for jobs to be done before Christmas. If you live in the Stouffville, Uxbridge, Newmarket, Markham, Sutton area and need any renovations done contact Todd at

416-275-6725.

Been a bit and Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen

Hello,

I'm up unusually at 7am this morning on my first day off as sheer exhaustion had me hitting the hay 9 hours ago and it felt so good to sleep that long as I have been having some pretty broken sleep lately. After a stint of cooler weather we are going to expect 15 degrees and sunshine today and so I'm happy to be up early enough to make the most of the day.

The past little while I have not felt like blogging, the terrible devastation of storm Sandy has left me  feeling that no post can be of any importance while I think of those who are so unfortunate to have been in her path and lost so much. It just didn't feel right to me. I have also had a low in my own energy resources, the time change affects me greatly as well with how I take hydrocortisone for my adrenal insufficiency as my body relies on it at specific times of the day and I loose all ability to do anything except work, maybe walk the dog and make our dinner after work. 

Here is my big accomplishment recently. I gave this very messy and dirty mudroom which is also our laundry room and Emma's daytime room a good cleaning last weekend which felt amazing.

and a lesser feat of switching out the frame of my little original sailboat painting from White Flower Farmhouse. Yes, I still have tons of painting to do.

Please keep Lori of White Flower Farmhouse and her son Ronan and her family in your prayers as they are going through a very tough time right now.

As you may know I suffer from many food sensitivities, gluten, dairy, processed sugar and don't feel good sometimes after eating corn or soy (which is not good for you anyway contrary to what you may have heard) and I have to rotate my foods not eating the same thing every day or I could possibly develop a new sensitivity. I am very bored with the things I eat and need to shake it up but first I need to organize my nice sized pantry.

This is how it looks now which is ok but I have a lot of items baking items that I have not used and are probably past their expiry.

and I even have a radio stashed in it that is taking up prime real estate.

But what is motivating me is my new discovery, a wonderful cookbook by Alissa Segersten and Tom Malterre, MS, CN called Nourishing Meals available on Amazon.

You can read their wonderful blog that is on my reader list and they offer up many of their recipes their for you to try. This book is not just about making food but about the sad state that our food supply has come to today tainted with pesticides and the sad fact that 90 percent of our food is GMO (genetically modified).

I have already made one good and easy change and sourced out a wonderful egg source from a woman who raises chickens in her backyard naturally.

 I'm sure the food is just as amazing as the pictures.

I don't think I will be disappointed with this one and will share with you whatever I attempt to make.

Hope you have a good weekend.