Live from the Lake, It’s Vacation!
I had to look up what day it was, Wednesday! The last week has been so nice. A great mix of perfect weather, bathing suits, casual clothes, no makeup, naps, and sitting. It’s just the two of us up here and we’re on day 6 of 12.
I’ve spent less time on my computer than I thought I would and more time making things in the kitchen, driving the boat, and reading by the lake. We got a couple of new small appliances recently and this week I made ice cream, hummus, and buttercream frosting in the food processor. Sean is really into cooking meats with the sous vide. I didn’t understand it at first but then he made me a sous vide steak and I fell in love. I even look online for the best home sous vide to get him for his birthday so he would cook me sous vide meals more often! He’s used it quite a few times and I’m always really happy when I see him pull out the machine.
Have had lots of fun with cottage friends, wakeboarding, surfing, and sunset drinks on the dock.
This is the all-star lake surfing team, a double wakeboarding mother-daughter team, Sean’s first wake surf, and Scott surfing behind the boat. I have wakeboarded but tbh, I’m most happy in the boat and being the photog.
Tomorrow is Sean’s birthday and I’ve been giving him one present each day since we arrived. Today I’m decorating a bit and then will attempt to make a magical birthday cake! Yesterday I made a cute HBD stencil and painted the walkway. I haven’t used this stuff before so I really hope it comes off lol. The pressure washer should do it. ?
Reminding you today to take time for yourself, create space for personal projects, and slow down a bit. It’s not a race, the joy is in the journey, not the destination.
Sending you sunshine from Muskoka!
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Create Better Days
I’ve been going through old hard drives up at the cottage and wow, I’ve taken a lot of photos. There are multiple drives with hundreds of folders and nothing is organized properly. Many people would be stressed TF out by this but I’m really trying to take inspiration from my chaos. I’m finding so many things, texting old photos to friends, making notes, and making a new list of old ideas.
Each morning here, I get up, make coffee, some type of snack, and sit down at my computer in the kitchen overlooking the lake. I’m often wearing big noise-canceling headphones with nothing playing, I like silence or muffled sound when I’m trying to concentrate. Searching my drives is an endless adventure of, what could this be?! Folder names go from date_nameofclient to ‘iPhone2014 dump’ or ‘new folder4’, it’ a mess!
I love having all my memories in photos and videos, it’s so easy to forget the daily details of life. One of the things I’ve really noticed is just how many selfies I take in relation to how many get posted. There are a lot of deleted selfies.
Yesterday, after putting the boat in the water I came back and was feeling cute. Grabbed my tripod and set it up outside, snapped a bunch of photos with my remote and voila, the ones you see here. To be honest, I looked at so many of them, hitting delete and not feeling happy with how I looked. Yes, it was early morning no makeup, but how I felt before the photos (cute) vs how I felt after the photos (not cute) didn’t match up. This happens all the time but I’m trying to not be so hard on myself. Today, looking back, of course, there were some bad ones, it was self-photography in the natural morning light!
DON’T BE SO HARD ON YOURSELF YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. We all go through this and trust me if you feel that way today, you are not alone. Not one bit. Going through all these old photos I’m seeing how many different hairstyles I had, how skinny I used to be, and the story behind every selfie.
Archives, the Art Hives
I originally started my blog as a way to keep memories. Having a diary is one of the best things, I feel, you can do to move forward, learn, and grow. I’m on a mission to be a better human, to love myself more, and to consistently find happiness in simple things. I’ve always been a pretty positive person but this past winter with my shoulder injury, nerve damage in my face, a mishap with my hair, and some other stuff, I got really down in the dumps. HOWEVER, THE TIME IS NOW. I’m crawling out, finding my creative spirit, my strong Taurus energy, and sunshiney vibes.
Having a diary is one of the best things, I feel, you can do to move forward, learn, and grow.
Loving yourself is a daily process and becoming your best self takes work. The last few days, I’ve been listening to the Papaya Podcast by Sarah Nicole, aka @thebirdspapaya. Although I don’t exactly relate to the postpartum mom stuff, I enjoy the talk about self-love, body confidence life in general. You can find the podcast on iTunes here.
Sending you love and sunshiney vibes. I’m about to go drive the boat and take Sean wakeboarding.
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It’s My Blog and I Can Blog If I Want To
Yesterday I wrote a blog about my new speaker and I seriously considered not reviewing the product here because it wasn’t sponsored and would people be thinking, “is this sponsored“? But, in all honesty, I jus really liked the thing. I like a lot of things. I hardly post sponsored stuff and sometimes my blog is about bike riding on a sunny day or speaking at an event. I used to blog about everything I liked, I’ve blogged for over 10 years. There are thousands of blog posts here about nothing in particular other than a thought or a feeling.
Almost gone are the days of people blogging because they love blogging or just want to get their thoughts onto the blog. But really, those are the blogs I love the most. The old blogs. The diary blogs. The blogs that tell a story and make you have feelings or brighten your day.
I want to bring back the blog, the writing, the thoughts, and all the feelings.
Today is a new day, a new month, an opportunity to make a change. Mercury is longer in retrograde and Leo Season is upon us. You’re in charge here.
Blog Goals for August 2019: Write Something Every Single Day
I’m putting myself up for a challenge to write something new each day for the whole month of August. I love to write and the last few weeks months I have been in a bit of a slump. I needed to take some time to relax my brain and body. To find that place inside where creativity comes from and open the door. It took some time, but I managed to crack that door and I’m making my way in.
I’ve packed up years of hard drives and developed all my disposable cameras. Over the next 12 days at the cottage, I’m taking a deep dive into the archives, the art hives as I used to call them. I’m looking for inspiration in my own digital history and hoping that together we can make something new.
These photos are from a disposable camera I had on a press trip in Arizona years ago w/ some friends. The blog post from that trip here.
Here’s to a new month, new moon, and new creative adventure!
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Review: Sonos x IKEA Speaker Collab
This week I went to the 2020 Ikea Catalogue media preview where they announced their partnership with Sonos. I love IKEA and smart home accessories so was keen to learn more. Through this partnership, IKEA is focussed on enhancing your home with sound and lighting. This post is not sponsored by Ikea but I would love if it was!
I was given the new SYMFONISK speaker and set it up as soon as I got home. Wanted to share my thoughts right away because I’m super impressed. It’s my first Sonos and by far the nicest speaker I’ve ever personally owned.
Symfonisk Setup
In a few minutes, I set it up on my home wifi, connected it to Apple Music, and my Amazon Echo to work with Alexa. The SYMFONISK I received is a bookshelf speaker which is quite the coincidence because I have been looking for the best bookshelf speakers recently so this was perfect timing! It can go vertical or horizontal and be mounted as a shelf that can hold up to 7lbs. Multiple speakers can be paired for surround sound, paired over wifi, or to your TV. You control the speaker with the Sonos app and can set up voice controls. Mine is connected to Alexa and works perfectly!
Symfonisk Design x Quality
Both speakers in the series come in black or white and are designed to blend in with your home decor. The bookshelf speaker is $149 and table lamp speaker is $249. Pretty good price for the sound quality and Sonos brand. For the one with the light, you can add in smart bulbs like Phillips Hue or Ikea’s own smart bulbs to make the light change colour.
At the media preview, they had a bunch of the speakers paired together for ‘party mode’ which was pretty rad.
One of the really cool things, when you set up the speaker, is it takes you through pairing it to your specific room from the app. You slowly move your phone up and down around the room in a wave-like technique to pick up on the room shape and tone, this allows the speaker to perform the best sound for the space. Safe to say I am loving how loud it goes and clarity of sound.
The speakers are available online and instore August 7th. If you are buying online, make sure you sign up for Ebates first because they have 2.5% cashback at IKEA right now.
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Found on Film: Memories from Bondi Beach, Australia
Last week I took a couple mystery disposable cameras to be developed and one was from Australia in 2004 while I was at university. It’s crazy to think how many apartments and places this camera has been. My life has changes to much but this year was such an important time of my life.
Let’s go back in time, this is pre-blog and social media, I was 21.
I decided to go to Australia because it was the furthest place away from Canada. I’d always felt a down under connection my family is from NZ and I am New Zealand citizen. My BFF Cheryl and I both had no idea wtf we wanted to do after college so this was a really great option. We could drag out school for another year, spent it in Australia (hello beaches & babes!), and turn our marketing diploma into a degree. Australia is just full of amazing beaches and the best way to experience them is to hire a campervan from somewhere like campervan hire Brisbane, so that you can park up metres away from the sand and sea. That way, you’ve always got everything you need and you save so much money on accommodation, as well as having some amazing views.
I think this exact day was the first time we went to Bondi Beach. These were taken at the top of the hill before you go around the bend and see the water. It’s so beautiful, if you haven’t been, I highly recommend it. One of the most beautiful and magical places. Cheryl and I ended up making friends with some people who lived in the white building overlooking Bondi Icebergs. There were so many internationals living there, it was like nothing I’d ever seen. So many people in their 20’s, different accents, young, hot, and having fun.
Cheryl and I eventually moved to Bondi from the suburb of Paramatta after finding a way to get out of our residence agreement. We went through two shitty apartments and worked part-time in different stores. My shop sold cute outfits on Hall Street and Cheryl worked at the shoe store down the road closer to the beach. I remember going into the kitchen in our second place and seeing the hugest cockroach in my life. Nobody ever cooked in there. Cheryl and I shared a bedroom with two beds, there were clothes everywhere. Through the magic of great scheduling we only had classes Monday-Wednesday, leaving us with plenty of time to spend all our money, make heaps of friends, and tan tits out on the topless beach. It really was A TIME.
When I think back to who I was then, I was so green, so new. I thought I had it together but when I got to Australia, realized I was really in for a real adventure. That year defined a lot of who I am today. It was the first time I was on my own, solely responsible (or irresponsible) for every decision I made. I made a lot of dumb choices, was bad with money, and drank too much but it was really fun. I learned so much about myself, what I wanted, who I was, where I wanted to go.
That’s the thing about growing up, nobody really knows what they’re doing at the time but if you know what you want, you can make a path in that direction.
It took me years to pay for university in Australia but even that taught me a few lessons. It was an investment well worth it. By studying in Australia, I learned so much outside the classroom about life, love, and taking chances.
I’m often not sure where my path is going on the day-to-day but I try to stay in line with my values. It was such a treat to find this camera and the photos brought back heaps of memories. Even before I had a blog I loved to document.
Here’s to digging up old memories and whatever the future may bring!
