Monday 31 August 2015

Life lessons in the card section at Walmart

Yesterday I went to Walmart to develop a picture for my mother-in-law's birthday gift. I was in a crazy rush, trying to get my errands done as quickly as I could because I just wanted to be at home with my family. I made a point to keep my head down and motor it, avoiding eye contact at all costs with everyone around me. 

I was in the card section looking for a Birthday card. I was in my own little world without realizing that someone was standing very close next to me. An elderly gentleman began speaking to me. It honestly took me a minute to even clue in that I was being spoken too. He had a hard time speaking, his voice was merely a whisper. I had to lean in really closely to hear what he was saying. 

He told me that he was picking out a birthday card for his daughter. I noticed a single card with a pink envelope in his cart. As his eyes watered he told me that his wife had passed away this past June, and he was not used to picking out cards. Wow. I was officially dropped dead in my tracks and brought back to the world of humanity. I asked him if it was his wife who had done the shopping for them; he said yes. I told him I was sure he had picked out a nice card that his daughter would like. He went to tell me that this was a difficult task because many of the cards read "from the both of us," and in his case, the card was no longer from the both of them. I suggested it still could be. Really, if this was my life and my dad gave me a card that said that, I know that I would be accepting and understanding of that. I probably would even say I would like it even more if it said that. The gentleman told me that he had been married for 47 years last October. He then spoke about where he had been this summer with family, and that he was at the store shopping with his other daughter and his son-in-law, who was recently diagnosed with cancer. He commented "it has been really hard on me." We ended the conversation by him thanking me for talking to him. He added, "sometimes it's nice to have someone to talk too."

We stood there for almost ten minutes, but I honestly would have stood there for a hour speaking with this man if he of needed me too. I left the store thinking... okay world... lesson learned. Let it be a lesson to me and to anyone who so graciously comes on my blog to see what I have been up too... when you are out in public take time to make eye contact with people, smile at people and acknowledge people, even if you are in a hurry, because you never know the awful time that someone standing right beside you is having, and is needing someone to talk too, and to listen. 

... and thanks for taking time to listen to me, my thoughts and what is important to me :)

We had a nice night celebrating my mother-in-law who is our "mommy-works-late-too-many-days-to-count" saviour who picks up Max from daycare on those crazy days.. and of course that is just one of the bazillion things she does for our family. She is a real life superhero :) We celebrated with dinner and Ombre cupcakes. 


One more cute pic... Max's new fall boots.. I couldn't resist, and he LOVES them :) He just starting saying "shoe!"


Have a great week everyone!
~ K

Friday 7 August 2015

The playroom of my dreams

Seriously, I have not been more excited about a post since sharing details from Max's 1st birthday party. We embarked on finishing this room earlier this year, and we are finally in the home stretch with only a couple more minor details to go! aka purchasing a door handle (see below pic) haha.

So without further ado, welcome to Max's playroom!


There are definitely aspects of this room that I had envisions for. There are so many cute ideas out there to choose from, so I borrowed lots of different ideas from Pinterest to bring it all together for a playroom that suited our taste. 

I posted this flag on Instagram some time ago. It was a very inexpensive DIY project using yarn, a small piece of doweling, felt and a dollarstore placement. 

When I was little I loved chalkboards. One of my closet childhood friends had a ceiling to floor chalkboard in her father's workshop. I was obsessed with this chalkboard, playing "school" for hours on end. So when I saw a picture of a framed chalkboard for a little one's playroom I fell in love with this idea. The scrabble letters were also a favourite of mine I saw some time ago. The popsicle art was from Etsy and the fox clock is from a very cool store in Stratford, Ont. If you google fox pendulum clock you can find out where to purchase it. The white shelf is two Ikea picture ledges placed closely together.



Max has so many fun toys, and there are a few toys in particular that I love to display; mostly his wooden toys. I had a floating white shelf purchased from Home Depot secured on one of the walls, low enough for him to have easy access too.



We have had one of those large Ikea shelves since we moved into our home five years ago. This is the perfect unit for a playroom. So much space and various cubbies to display toys. I am a tad OCD when it comes to organizing books. For one of my baby showers the theme was Build Baby's Library and we received so many beautiful books. I keep the paperbacks up high out of the reach of curious paws, the board books down low to destroy easily grab, and then the holiday books in a cubby entirely it's own, because you know how important the holidays are to me! Oh and then arranged by height :S.. I know it's a little too much but it looks so nice this way!



The tent has made a comeback after receiving some much needed TLC. I won't get into details about what happened to it, but if you read my blog regularly I am sure have had a good laugh about it's demise.  This is our space to cuddle and read books. Our dog loves to use this space as his comfy vantage point to have eyes on the whole room while we are playing. 

This picture also displays our fun striped wall. Yes, it took a long time to paint, and no, it was not fun. BUT, I love the way it turned out and it makes the room so bright!


Our creative space was also a fun area to decorate. I am really pleased with the Ikea table and chairs set we bought for Max this past Christmas. It is the perfect size for him right now. I went back and forth between decals for awhile. I also really like the saying "every child is an artist," but ultimately this decal won me over. I stained an inexpensive piece of wood and bough some inexpensive oversized clips from Micheals, where they charge you an arm and a leg. Unfortunately I used my 50% off coupon for a donut pan that same night and so I took one for the team and payed full price for the clips against my better judgement. Max still isn't big into the artwork yet... he is more about filling up the crayon container, only to empty it out again all over the floor, just to start all over again. The focus this child has is unreal.  


In the middle of the room we have a small Little Tykes climber (ladder and slide), a car mat and a train table. 

We have been having so much fun in the new space together, and it is also really nice to have our space back that had been cluttered with toys for the past year. This also means, more free wall space for mama to create :) :) Details to come.. 

Thanks for stopping by!

~ K