In my daughter’s school playground there is a small log. It’s big enough that I can stand on it and try to balance as it moves under my feet, but small enough that the kindergarteners can move it around easily. The other day, I went to pick up my daughter and saw some kids trying to stand on it as it rocked back and forth. Their substitute teacher rushed over and told them to get off: “That’s not what it’s for!”

What is a small log in a school playground for, exactly?

Silly teacher. Nature is for playing on and in and through.

And with that in mind, we went to the Natural Playground yesterday at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton. To play outside in the warm sun. Welcome back, spring!

Wabi-sabi is the Japanese concept of finding beauty in imperfection. Or so I’m told. I’m actually not that up on design philosophies.

My kitchen has lots of wabi-sabi.

A business called Kitchen Fitters recently opened up a store front down the street from my store on Ottawa Street in Hamilton. Their idea is pretty cool – they replace your existing cabinet doors and hinges with newer styles so that you can quickly and inexpensively update the look of your kitchen.

Right now, they are running a contest to find the UGLIEST kitchen in Hamilton, and I think we’ve got a good shot. The picture of a kitchen on their marketing material is almost IDENTICAL to our kitchen – go ahead and look – it’s hilarious! So of course I absolutely had to enter when I saw that. Go ahead and jump on over to their Facebook page and vote for me. All you need to do is (1) like their page and then (2) like my picture - go on! It’s okay, I’ll wait…

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Welcome back.

Here is the image that I submitted (but of course, you know that – you just went and voted for me, right?)

Let me point out some of the features…

1. We’ve got mismatched cupboards – about 65% are worn out wood and the remaining 35% cupboard doors are cheap laminate
2. The countertop was cut too short, and so there is an extra inch that sits between the counter top and the wall. It’s not attached or anything, it just sits there.
3. The door beside our dishwasher is about 3 inches wide and fits absolutely nothing.
4. The backsplash is faux brick that doesn’t come off without damaging the whole wall. We painted one wall white, but that took so long that we never bothered to start the second wall. I realize now that white was a bad choice – painted brick doesn’t wash well at all and so the wall is always dirty. I’m thinking it would be fun to do them aqua instead?
5. The counter-top is so old that we can’t fasten the tap to the counter top – you have to hold the faucet down with one hand if you need to switch it from one sink to the other

I had assumed that we’d redo the kitchen fairly soon after moving into the house. That was back in the days when we rented and had things like disposable income. Oh, silly us.

But despite that I don’t have the kitchen of my dreams, there are things that I love about my kitchen – little quirky things that make me happy.

1. The matryoshka dolls on my oven. They’re actually measuring cups, but I don’t know that we’ve ever used them to measure anything. They are there mostly to make me smile.

2. The sign my mom randomly had plaqued for me. I’m not sure what inspired her to do it, but it matches my kitchen and makes me laugh. Because I’m awesome.

3. Our worm composting bin. We like digging through it and looking for worms. Okay, the girls have lost interest, but I still like digging them up to say hi.

4. Our bulletin board covered in art work. Honestly, I love seeing how my daughters skills grow with each new picture she creates.

This next picture shows two of my favorite things:

5. Our chalkboard wall filled with lists, inspirational quotes, goals, pictures and words that we’re learning to read. In June, I’d like to make the whole board into a giant summer bucket list.

6. Our dresser that we use for baking supplies. I really love the dresser – it’s unexpected but so totally practical – it just fits the space perfectly.

It’s funny. My house doesn’t have a lot of character in itself, but I’m happy that we can still fill it with whimsy. And even if we never redo the kitchen at all, it’s still one of my favorite rooms to be in.

(Seriously, go vote now: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152757089075013&set=o.371656242899597&type=1)

What room do you want to redo? What is your favorite thing about that room as it is right now?

I don’t know about you, but when I get into a TV show, I really get into it. I’m the kind of person that watches “just one more episode” at 2:00 am and frets constantly over the characters in the show. Battlestar Gallactica left me wondering which one of my friends could be a Cylon. Project Runway had me looking up contestants on Twitter so I could tell them they didn’t deserve to be cut. And Downton Abbey? Season three left me with stabbing chest pains and the overwhelming need to call a therapist. And I can’t WAIT for season four.

But with no new episodes coming out for awhile, I thought I’d get a quick Downton Abbey fix by visiting Hamilton’s Dundurn Castle, which I’ve heard has a similar vibe to Highclere Castle in Hampshire, England, where the show is filmed. Perfect.

Yesterday after school, the girls and I headed over for a quick visit. We showed up at 3:30, and at first I wasn’t sure if we would be able to catch a tour since the museum closes at 4:00. Luckily, there was a tour set to leave right as we arrived, and because we were the only ones that decided to stop by on a Tuesday afternoon half an hour before close, our guide was able to give us a fast-moving tour that was perfect for my girls’ short attention spans.

As we walked to the entrance, I asked if more people have come to the castle because of the show. She laughed and said that Downton Abbey is a popular topic. She told us that the show is actually set a few decades later than the museum display – season one starts off in 1912 with the sinking of the Titanic whereas Dundurn Castle has been restored to 1855, when Sir Allan MacNab was a the height of his career.

Regardless, when we walked in, I was delighted by how much it felt like the show, despite a 50 or so year difference. But really, how much difference would a few decades make? It’s not like the fictional Crawley family rushed out and bought the latest in furniture each year – they passed down their belongings from generation to generation. Oh, can’t you just hear the delicious disdain in Lady Mary’s voice as she responds to the suggestion that they purchase new furniture to furnish Hacksby Park? “Your lot buys it, my lot inherits it.”  How I love Lady Mary.

The tour of Dundurn Castle was great and I’m so glad we went. The beautiful chandeliers, the bells lined up in the kitchen, the servants quarters in the basement – they all had that Downton feel. And rather than seeing the cook’s bedroom and the butler’s office, I imagined Mrs Patmore’s heading to bed and Carson working away. During my last tour, I didn’t really know what a butler did (Mr. Belvedere was not super educational) and having characters I could refer to really made the place seem more alive and less like a museum.

I think The Princess enjoyed herself too. She liked seeing the children’s bedroom and sampling the shortbread made in the old-fashioned wood stove in the basement kitchen. We both enjoyed looking at a large painting of children wearing surprisingly fancy dresses and trying to pick out the boys from the girls (the girls have their hair parted in the middle while the boys had their hair parted on the side).

I wonder what The Princess thought of Dundurn overall. When I was small, I thought the castle was enormous and a bit intimidating. Now that I’m older, it doesn’t seem nearly as big (though still ten times bigger than my own house).

I read up on about the castle some more when we got home. It was the home of Sir Allan MacNab, Premier of the Province of Canada (before Confederation) and apparently Dundurn Castle was famous across Canada for hosting grand parties. Sir John A MacDonald and King Edward VII were both guests of Dundurn Castle – AND they were both guests of Highclere Castle in England too. I also learned that Sir Allan MacNab was the great-great-great grandfather of Camilla Parker Bowles – some trivia for fans of the royals.

We will be hitting a lot of museums in the next couple of weeks because – and this is what I really want to share with you – we’ve taken out a Hamilton Civic Museums Family Pass for 4 from the Hamilton Public Library. For three whole weeks, we can visit SIX museums completely free:

Battlefied House Museum & Park
Dundurn National Historic Site
Fieldcote Memorial Park & Museum
Hamilton Children’s Museum
Hamilton Museum of Steam & Technology
Whitehern Historic House & Garden

That’s a lot of museums. For FREE.

All you need to do is log onto the library website and place a hold on a museum pass. Don’t be put off by the waiting list of nearly 100 people – there are 84 passes and we waited a week or two to get ours. We’re going to head back to Dundurn this week and check out the Military museum, which has costumes to try on and a big play area. And then maybe Whitehern? Battelfield? We have a couple more weeks, so really we could hit them all.

Do you have a favourite museum to visit around Hamilton?

I’m itching to do a good spring cleaning of my house and I’ve been anxiously waiting for a warm spring day when I can throw the windows open, play Queen REALLY loudly and give our house a good deep clean. Not the pick-up-all-the-blocks-and-put-them-away-for-the-seventy-third-time-today kind of clean, but a polish-the-wood-furniture-with-a-homemade-patchouli-scented-oil-mix kind of clean. The kind of clean where you look around at the end of the day and everything is shiny and sparkling and smells amazing and you’re not sure but you think that the birds flying past your window are lingering for a moment longer just to admire your hard work. Which is generally a sign that you need to take a break.

In anticipation of my yearly deep clean, I’ve started sorting clothes – I’ve been bringing up the next size for each of my girls and packing away the winter clothes that won’t fit next year. I wasn’t expecting snow and freezing rain all last week – I kind of feel like I jinxed us all. Yikes – sorry about that.

But I can’t help it – I’m excited to get started and whip this house into shape! And I want to get it done before April, when I tackle my garage. (I need to get work up some momentum before I take on that horrid mess.)

My favorite part about spring cleaning is making up my own cleaners. I took a class years ago about using essential oils to create cleaners, and I haven’t looked back since. When it’s time to make up a new batch, I line up all my little viles of essential oils beside my vinegar and baking soda and, with the precision of a scientist, I carefully add drops into my spray bottles to make custom concoctions. I just barely passed chemistry class in high school, so really, this is as scientific as I get to be.

Read the rest of this entry on my guest post at momstown Hamilton to learn my absolute favorite recipe for all-purpose cleaner: Spring Cleaning with Homemade Cleaners

Thank you for visiting my blog! Please note that the contest is now closed.

Confession Time: It’s been five years and I STILL don’t know how to get my child to go to sleep at night. And I’m a bit tired.

A lot tired.

My husband is a night owl, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that our daughter, The Princess, turned out to be a night owl as well. I didn’t expect it though – I kind of assumed that all kids just ran out of steam eventually. Usually at about 8.

We’ve approached sleep in many different ways throughout the years – early bedtimes, late bedtimes, (attempted) naps, no naps, early morning wake up times – they all created a lot of stress in our home and nothing worked. And I feel like we’ve been struggling with sleep since day one.

Once, after trying to get The Princess to nap for well over an hour and a half, I plunked her down in her crib and left the room. It was a sanity thing – I desperately needed five minutes away or I thought I would lose it. No less than 90 seconds after I sat down at my computer, I heard angry footsteps as The Princess stomped out of the bedroom and stubbornly sat down in my lap. She was 13 months old and had just learned to walk weeks before – yet through sheer determination, she had apparently mastered flying too.

Sigh.

“It’s easy,” well-meaning people keep telling me, “just wake her up earlier in the morning!”

And of course we tried that. For a full year, The Princess attended a morning pre-school program that ensured we were up early yet she still laid awake until 11 or 12 each night. And the poor thing was exhausted.

Eventually I just gave up. I decided that bedtimes just aren’t worth the daily stress that they cause, and I relaxed about times. And that was okay, I suppose. My husband works wonky hours and letting The Princess stay up later than the typical bedtime means that she is able to see him after work more often. And because her school is in the afternoon, we don’t really need to get moving in the morning at all beyond church on Sundays. She sleeps in and I feel better knowing that at least, for once, she’s getting enough sleep.

This relaxed approach has given our home more peace overall, and a peaceful home is very important to me. However, it leaves almost no time for me to be child-free. If you read my typical daily routine in my Sleep or Sweep post, you saw that The Pixie wakes up at about 7am and The Princess falls asleep at 10:30 (or later). If I’m going to get 8 hours of sleep, this schedule gives me 30 minutes to frantically cram in as much relaxing “me time” as I can. By the time The Princess drifts off I’m too tired to actually do anything but sneak a second bowl of ice cream and watch 90s reruns on Netflix. 90210, anyone?

And then we discovered Sparkle Stories (imagine some sort of heavenly choir-like sound effect right here.)

Sparkle Stories is a collection of delightful stories that you download one week at a time.  The site offers five different series of original stories to choose from, plus another series of classic stories. Be sure to check out the site – you can download samples for free! We started off with So Many Fairies and now we’ve been listening to At Home with Martin and Sylvia. It reminds me of the Adventures in Odyssey stories that I listened to on tape each night when I was a kid. (Anyone remember those? Adventures in Odessey? Cassette tapes in general? Anyone?)

For the past month, The Princess – the child who has fought tooth and nail against sleep for five years – has happily gone off to her room at bedtime with the promise of some stories on the iPad. She doesn’t necessarily fall asleep any sooner, but she generally stays in her room quietly until she falls asleep. No nightly tears, no regular tantrums.

I cannot tell you what a difference this has made for me.

For the first time, I feel like I have my evenings off. And I’ve been fairly good about sticking with my January resolution to stop working and cleaning at 8:00 and enjoy the rest of the evening when I can.

And guess what? I get to share some Sparkle Story magic with you too! 

I wrote the lovely people at Sparkle Stories to tell them how great the stories are, and they generously agreed to give one of my readers a Original Sparkle Sampler worth $20 – awesome! If you’re interested in trying Sparkle Stories out, please enter below by leaving me a comment. And you don’t have to like my Facebook page to enter, but my ego would sure like it if you did. ;)  Contest ends on Saturday, March 23. Contest is closed. Tell me your favorite way to indulge or relax when you can sneak a moment for yourself! With all these peaceful evenings ahead of me, I may need more ideas of what to do! ;)

Sunday evening was a particularly bad evening for my five year old, The Princess. As dinner approached, she complained nonstop: that pot roast is just too smelly and those carrots are just so crunchy and mashed potatoes are way too mushy and that little sister is oh so pushy and on and on and on. My husband and I started to get stressed as we prepared for a dinner with a side of whine. (Yes, whine. I make lame jokes like that. I just can’t help myself.)

As I was setting the table, I noticed an old beeswax candle that we used to light each night during supper. We had stopped using the candle about a year ago, back when my younger daughter, The Pixie, moved from her nice, safe high chair to a regular chair without safety belts to restrain her and her grabby hands. Oh, how I miss those restraints.

Anyway, I figured that this would be a good night to try the candle out again…

Read the rest of this post on the Hamilton momstown blog:
http://momstown-hamilton.blogspot.ca/2013/02/a-bit-of-nature-each-day-magic-of.html

We’ve recently started burning a candle each night during supper as part of our evening ritual, and so I thought it might be fun to spend the evening making our homemade candles with The Princess.

As far as crafts go, this one is super simple. We learned how to make hand-dipped beeswax candles at the Halton Waldorf School back in December; I remember that the entire process was very relaxing. And I already had a brick of beeswax left over from making hand lotions last month, so all I needed was a wick.

Which was a bit more complicated than I thought.

I read that cotton wicks are the best for beeswax candles. They don’t burn as hot as the wicks with metal and they don’t contain lead. After calling every candle and craft and health food store in Hamilton, I finally found some at Dutchman’s Gold out in Carlisle, which is a pleasant 20 minute trip from our house. We headed out on our country drive as soon as The Princess finished school, and we bought our wicks and some Blueberry Blossom honey too. Yum.

After supper, The Pixie went to bed and The Princess and I got to work. I had almost a full brick of wax and I started off by grating it like I did when I made lotions.

Once it was grated, we melted the it all. We don’t have a double boiler so we put about an inch of water in a large pot and put a smaller pot inside with the wax. I have to say, it looks like there’s a lot less when the wax is melted down, so we ended up throwing the rest of the brick in the pot. This time, we didn’t bother to grate it. That’s probably just necessary if you need to measure  accurately.

When all the wax had melted, we poured it in an old travel mug that has a broken (ie useless) lid. We wanted something tall and skinny and we thought the double-walled stainless steel mug might even help keep the wax warm.

Next, we dipped the wick into the wax. Again. And again. And again. For ever.

Now, the trick is to dip it in quickly, then keep it out for 5 – 10 seconds until the wax dries. If you leave the wick in the hot wax too long, the wax that’s already on the wick melts back off. At first it feels like nothing is happening, but after awhile your candle begins to take shape and show some character.

Given how tedious it was, The Princess seemed to really enjoy herself. She is five years old and she is cautious enough that I wasn’t worried about her burning herself – even so, we didn’t leave her alone with it at anytime. The wax is really hot. If you’re doing this with kids, you need to decide first if the children are cautious and careful enough to be safe. And if you haven’t already, making candles with your kids is a great opportunity to talk about the importance of fire safety.

In the end, we made three candles before I sent her off to bed. I love the personality that they have! One candle looks like a gnome and one looks like a tree (we covered the candle in drips of wax to achieve this effect). We also made a third candle by putting a wick in a mason jar and pouring all the excess wax around it so it wouldn’t be wasted.

My kitchen smells SOOOOO GOOD right now. I hope it still smells as lovely tomorrow when I’m picking wax off my dishes and my floor…

Some tips:

• We tied the wick around a chop stick and let The Princess dip the candle in the cup like a fishing line (you can see this in the picture above). This stopped her fingers from getting anywhere close to the hot wax, but it also made her candle move around a lot more, flinging wax on to the floor. 
• The floor. Oh my goodness, you cannot imagine how messy my floor got. PUT DOWN SOMETHING UNDERNEATH!
• And by something, DO NOT USE A LAPTOP. Yup, I know this is what you’ve been waiting for! I foolishly was playing with the mason jar candle while chatting on Twitter and managed to cover my hand, my keyboard and my laptop screen in a whole lot of burning hot wax. The wax oozed under the keys and then solidified, which led to quality tweets like this:

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;’;';;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; #Mompreneurs2013

— Tamara Watson (@tea4tamara) February 22, 2013

I think it’s okay though. I had to remove some keys but I think it will survive. Lesson learned! And now we have three beautiful new candles to choose from for our dinner tomorrow. Although I might just keep using our old one and treasure these ones for awhile first.

In general, I don’t care much for fashion trends – although I really should admit that I’ve never been much good at it all when I’ve tried. Can you blame me though? The industry is so indecisive! Flip through the archives of any clothing magazine or blog and you find so many mixed messages:

2010: Flared jeans are so unattractive and don’t suit anyone.
2011: Flared jeans are the epitome of fashion and look great on everyone.
2012: Death to flared jeans. Skinny jeans for the win.
2013: Let’s all wear tights and pretend that they’re pants.

Usually, I buy what I like and I stay away from anything new until its been around for at least five years (and likely no longer in style).

However, a year or so ago, I packed up my maternity clothes and realized just how old and dingy my regular clothes were. Most of my jeans had holes. My shoes didn’t fit right anymore. And I felt frumpy. So I decided to put more effort into my wardrobe.

I didn’t go on a crazy shopping spree, but I really thought about my clothes and purchased a few things that I liked a lot. I bought a couple pairs of boots. I traded in my baggy jeans for ones that were more fitted. I bought a lot of lovely nursing shirts – as “product research” for my store, of course. And I read some good fashion blogs too. I learned about the “mom uniform” from The Happiest Mom and worked on a few outfits that had interchangeable pieces and made me feel polished.

Overall I was satisfied with my wardrobe, yet there were a couple days when I stared in my closet and grumbled that I had “nothing to wear”. You know – those mornings where you rip every single shirt you own off the hanger and fling it to the floor in frustration, insisting that nothing looks right?

On one such morning, I was angrily tearing through my clothes, annoyed because they were all too old or too small or just too unflattering.

And then I felt ashamed.

Because I have more than enough clothes. And refusing to wear a shirt because I don’t like the neckline/details/length makes me feel like a bit of a spoiled brat. Because while I think it’s completely fine to want to dress better and wear flattering clothes, I have to start from a place of gratitude for what I’ve already been given. That required an attitude adjustment.

So that morning, I did this little experiment – I looked at the clothes scattered across my floor and I intentionally picked a weird shirt that I rarely wear and don’t really love and I wore it for the day. The world didn’t end. No one pointed and laughed at me, and I didn’t feel as uncomfortable as I expected I would. In fact, every time I caught a glimpse of it in the mirror, the weird shirt made me feel grateful for everything that I’ve been blessed with.

Since then, I’ve done this experiment again. Instead of staying up to do a load of laundry so I’d have my favorite outfits to wear in the morning, I’ve consciously chosen to wear something that I like a bit less. And each time, the choice has made me more aware throughout the day of the gifts I’ve been given.

Who would have thought that wearing something that doesn’t look quite right would make me feel happier…

Happy Birthday! And happy birth day to you, Tamara xxoo – Crystal

Every time one of my daughters has a birthday, I buy myself flowers.

Because I am proud of myself and who I’ve become. Because my life changed dramatically when I became a mother and when I became a mother again. Because I have grown as a person while I’ve watched these little persons grow.

Such life-altering events demand to be acknowledged. Even if it’s just with flowers. That I bought for myself.

Happy Birthday to my sweet little Pixie. Happy Birth Day to me.

I know, I know. As far as resolutions go, this one is kind of boring: January’s goal is to head to bed early, which doesn’t seem to need much explanation, right? But it’s not just about hitting the sack at 10:00 pm – there’s a bit more involved:

1. I resolve to get the girls into bed at a decent time,
2. I resolve to take time to actually relax (or knit, which isn’t necessarily relaxing), and
3. I resolve to be asleep at a decent hour too.

I’ve been more or less successful.

Mostly less.

Back in November and December, I thought a lot about how I use my time. This is a typical weekday for me:

7:00am
The Pixie wakes up. And she has to use the potty NOW.
I make tea, load/unload the dishwasher and take a clean load of laundry upstairs.

8:00am
The Pixie and I eat our first breakfast. I clean the kitchen and check Facebook, then suddenly realize that I’ve entered a black hole of time and that 40 minutes has suddenly passed. Then I wonder where The Pixie is … She appears to be jabbing her finger into her sleeping sister’s ears. Okay, then.

9:30am
The Princess wakes up. She immediately heads to the table to make some art. After realizing that I’ve already wasted productively networked for an hour on Facebook, I fold laundry and put the toys away. I make another cup of tea.

10:30am
When (and only when) her art is finished, The Princess eats breakfast, and the Pixie and I eat our second breakfast (we’re kind of like hobbits). I find the laundry hamper upside down and full of dolls who absolutely must not be disturbed because they are using the hamper as a bed/boat/castle/spaceship. I refold the laundry and tidy the bathroom.

12:00pm
We eat lunch, then everyone gets dressed and I try to get The Princess ready for school. She would prefer to dance. We are ready to head out the door when I notice that The Pixie has had an accident. While I clean it up, one or both girls will completely undress. And hide the clothes.

1:00pm
After dropping off The Princess at school, The Pixie and I run errands, head to work, or come home and tidy the bedrooms. I might attempt to organize the office. Usually I’m not that ambitious.

3:30pm
The Princess is home from school and I tidy the kitchen while the girls have a snack and practice Spanish watch Dora the Explorer. I move the laundry to another room and tell myself that I should really put it away.

4:40pm
Time to make supper. The counters need to be wiped down and I wonder why there are no clean cloths. Then I wonder where I put the clean laundry.

5:00pm
I find the laundry and put it away. I will loudly ask why there are toys everywhere when I’m sure that I’ve already put them away 16 times.

6:00pm
We eat supper.

6:30pm
I start to tidy up, but The Pixie is tired. I put her to bed.

7:00pm
I clean up after supper and attempt to tidy the living room.

8:00pm
We start getting The Princess ready for bed. This is a one to two hour process that leaves me exhausted.

10:30pm
The Princess finally falls asleep. I try to catch up on work. After I spend an hour on Facebook.

12:00am
The Pixie wakes up. I go crawl into bed and as I fall asleep, I realize that I didn’t read any of my books, start my latest sewing project, or pick up my knitting. I think about the blog post that I had hoped to write. I resolve to do better tomorrow.

What a lousy day! I spend the whole time puttering around, trying to keep my house somewhat organized, and every night I discover that my whole day has been wasted (but I continue to act surprised. It’s more fun that way).

All I do is clean. And my house is still a mess. So as part of this month’s resolution, I’ve decided that the madness ends every evening at 8:00. At 8:00, The Pixie is asleep and The Princess takes a bath and I STOP cleaning. At 9:00, we turn the lights out and I REFUSE to do work. I reserve those last hours for reading or knitting or watching TV with my husband. And its been nice. I haven’t managed to get to bed by 10 yet, but I’ve been knitting some socks and I’m currently reading a couple books.

The house doesn’t seem any different, but I feel like I have more free time. I am falling behind in my work at the store though, but I’m truly hoping that I’ll be more productive there if I take time to relax here. And let’s be honest – I’m usually behind in my work, regardless of what time I go to bed.

How about you – how are your resolutions going? If you’re blogging about it, make sure you include a link so I can track along with you!

Photo by .reid. on Flickr.