a final goodbye

In two days, the new owners will take possession of the #naturalurbanhome. 

They will move in, change things around, add their own style and signature and smell to the place, and make it their home. 

As I sit here in the COLD waiting area at my kid's dance studio writing this, I am surprised by how NOT upset I am about this. (Seriously someone needs to turn up the damn thermostat in this place!!)

I went to the house today to do one final walk through every room, one final peak in every drawer and cupboard, and one final exhale in this beautiful house that was our home for the past five years. 

It felt good to be there by myself this morning for this farewell. I wanted to leave the house today and take all of its memories with me, the good ones as well as the not-so-good ones, and hand over the new owners a clean slate and a space free of any negative emotions. 

I do still love this house. I loved who we became as a family in this house. This house of concrete and glass was our literal foundation when our world was falling apart around us and was always a soft landing place to which we could return. It housed our bodies and our souls, and we learned to love deeper and stronger within its walls. 

I love the beautiful pine ceiling in the living area so damn much, and I'll miss my apple martini countertops. My cold feet will miss the in-floor heating the most. (#HintHINT: Someone **ME** needs a really good pair of slippers for Christmas this year!)

I hope the new owners will treat the place well and add to its uniqueness. 

I hope whatever energy and spirit and footprint we have left in the house continues to give its inhabitants strength and love and nothing but good juju. 

Goodbye to you my #naturalurbanhome. 

And thank you. 

XO,

N~

bathed in blue light

We are getting new street lamps in our neighbourhood. This is a good thing. We are in an older hood, the old lamp posts were starting to get all rusty and nasty looking and in an effort to be a greener city, the new lamps have LED lights in them and are much more effective at actually lighting up the streets. I saw the workers on our street this morning digging up more holes with an auger, but I didn't think much of it, because 90% of the lamp bases have already been installed on our block. And then I came home and saw what they had done and now I am rather pissed off!

This is the configuration of the three (yes, 3!) VERY BRIGHT new street lamps that will now be surrounding our house.  Number 1 is the replacement for the existing lamp post and #2 and #3 are new. Our house and property is literally going to be bathed in a swath of blue-ish, somewhat creepy LED light from about 5:30 PM to 7:30 AM from now until late, late spring.

We've made some calls and left messages and I've sent a few tweets to my city councillor, but I am not sure if it is going to change anything, since the crew poured the cement for the bases while we were having dinner tonight. And I hate to be a complainer, but to be honest, we are paying for these particular lights (our neighbourhood voted to get the upgraded fancy light posts), and since we didn't get any kind of notice from the city about the placement of these two new lights, I feel like an explanation or some consideration of what we would like is in order.

I am probably overreacting. Maybe. I mean, it's just street lamps right?. And who doesn't want to have their street well lit at night. Right. Or... maybe this is a big deal. That sure does seem like a lot of lights for one corner. When does light pollution outweigh the green LED initiative to save money and energy? Because with this amount of lamps going in around our property, I will be able to sit in my backyard in the dead of night and comfortably read a book!

And now I am starting to sound like the crazy neighbour lady getting all bent out of shape over lights. OY!

OK, I'll just have to focus less on the lights and more on the re-landscaping that we are planning for next spring. I am not sure if I have mentioned it, but our yard is going to be EPIC!

I have even more than halfway convinced The Consort that I need a cool shed/writing studio thingy. I was thinking something along these lines...

This little baby house should take my focus away from all that eerie blue light, right?

n~

~~~~~

Day 6 of NaBloPoMo.

One post a day, every day in November.

Please keep reading and sharing and/or commenting. It helps. 

A different kind of home birth

I haven't written a post about our Natural Urban Home in over a year. Which corresponds to the approximate amount of time it has taken me to get it to the point where I feel as if our home is almost, practically, kind of, mostly 'done'. One of the DIY projects that I have been asked about the most is our home's living wall. Having a wall of plants, a "green" wall in our green home was something that my husband REALLY wanted from day one of planning our dream home. I was leery of this given the fact that I have two thumbs that are about 4 shades darker than the colour of a moonless night and little to no gardening experience to brag about. Yet, the benefits of having a lot of plants are well known for improving indoor air quality and having a beautiful green wall to look at during our long winter months here in Alberta was in and of itself VERY appealing to me and so the project got underway.

It started with a frame for the wall. We wanted it to look like a piece of living art and so I had our amazing contractor/cabinet maker build and install a 6 foot by 4 foot wooden panel of rift-cut oak for the wall behind our sofa. The wood matches the rest of our custom cabinetry in the house.

We then attached our "containers" to the wood panel. B did all the research and figured that the easiest way for us to get the desired look we wanted and the simplest system to install and care for would be Woolly Pockets. I'll let the following video do all the explaining of how brilliant they are and how exactly they work.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/61138204[/vimeo]

Then it was time to shop for plants. I went to The Enjoy Centre for some inspiration (they have a gorgeous 20 foot tall living wall) and some advice from the experts. I then went home with a car full of lush beautiful plants. I will admit that there was some learning to be done with regards to how much soil to use (more than you think) and how big your plants should be when you first plant them. I thought 4 inch plants would be fine and figured they would eventually grow and fill up the space just fine. I was wrong. Bigger is better, and if you want your living wall to look nice and lush from the get go, as I did, then I suggest going with 6-8 inch or bigger plants.

There was some more trial and error as I experimented with placement of the plants and decided whether or not to make one of the pockets my herb garden, something I ended up kiboshing at the last minute. It took me a good two to three weeks to get it all just right and I had to make at least two more trips to the greenhouse for more soil, more plants and more advice!

I am still working on the wall and as with anything that is living and breathing, I am sure it will continue to grow and change as it matures, as some plants do better than others in our environment and as I get better at knowing which plants works best together and endeavour to green up my thumbs some more.

For now though, here is my baby! (And yes, I say MY baby, because for all his desire to have this feature in our house, my husband did diddly-squat to help install and maintain it. He has now been assigned the weekly task of 'feeding' the baby!)

Yes, that's right, I {home} birthed a Living Wall in our Natural Urban Home.

What did you do today?

Natasha~

~~~~~~~~~

This post is part of the #SummerBlogChallenge. Please check out some of the other daily contributions from the following writers: Liam, Zita, Magz, Peter, Christine, April, Cliff, Hethr, and Karen. And for goodness sake, give them some comment-y and sharing love, it takes a lot to write for 30 days straight! 

the ordinary life of a {closet} loner

This is what I love doing. I am sitting alone at one end of a dining room table that can easily sit 10-12 people. A cup of tea to my right and the Tar Beach Lullabies playlist from Songza playing on my iPad to my left and my sleeping pup at my feet (keeping them warm). The lights are mostly off and I am writing by the glow of my laptop and the still light dusk of a Northern Alberta spring night.

Today, I took my children to a birthday party at one of those jumpy castle play place establishments that are all the rage these days. I knew most of the parents and kids at the party and while it was nice to visit with everyone, I felt this strange urge to escape from this social situation. I wanted to hightail it out of there and run off for the two hours of the party, or at least plunk myself down in a corner and read a book, or pull out my iPad and get lost in the long list of Favourited links from my Twitter stream. I did manage to escape for about 45 minutes and ran a few errands (ie, went to Anthropologie and bought a new top. Shopping, also something that I love to do by myself.)

I know this is going to sound a bit crazy to those of you who know me, but I think I am a bit of a loner.

I sometimes dream of being that woman who hosts perfect big dinner parties or the one who has that group of Ya-Ya Sisterhood friends that meet on a regular basis and tell each other everything and know all of each others secrets - the good, the bad and the ugly. I dream of going on holidays with another family (or families) that we are so close to, our kids are more like brothers and sisters than friends. I think that these are the things that I should be dreaming about.

I just don't know if I am that person.

In one week, we will have been in our Natural Urban Home for exactly one year and we have yet to have an official house warming party. To be perfectly honest, I have only had a handful of friends over and never all at once. I am not ashamed of my house at all, it's just the opposite. I love this place so much and we worked so hard to make it 100% us and ours, that sometimes it feels strange to have other people here. And it's not just me, my husband has always been one to consider his home his sanctuary from the world and on any given day, my kids are usually 70/30 when it comes to going home to play or going out. This is our centre, our starting point and our end every day and walking through our door often feels like exhaling after having held one's breath for a long time.

Now, I know what you are all thinking, "Natasha, you are not a loner. We've seen you work a room! Your the most social of the social butterflies!" I won't deny that I feed off of the energy in a room and yes, I do like to be social, but at most events that I attend I am just that, a butterfly, flitting from one conversation to another, stopping in for a sip of the nectar from this group and then flying off to the next.  I know why I seem like the social, extroverted one. I know the reason behind my flitting about and social insect behaviours.

I fear depth.

I fear that if I spend too much time with people, that they will see deeper into the real me and then not really want to be around me. And I can feel it. I can physically feel the wall that I put up when things get serious. It's both a defence mechanism and a protective shield. I am defending myself from the inside out and protecting myself from any {perceived} attack from afar. If she could, my therapist would tell you that this all goes back to my very early childhood and my feelings of never being good enough, of always being an outsider, of always dealing better with other people's feelings and problems than facing my own. This all makes me think that perhaps then my home, my concrete walled home, and the sense of relief I feel when I walk through it's doors, is a physical manifestation of this fear.

Commander Chris Hadfield of the Iternational Space Station, tweeted this photo and caption today.

 

That is how I feel some days, like mostly liquid rock covered by a thin crust. For the most part I can control the hot spots and keep everyone {including myself} safe and sound on the surface. If anyone tries to crack that surface though, my biggest fear it that it is gonna get really ugly. Everyone will see the messy, not so pretty parts of me, and will head off running in the other direction. I know that this is not likely true of most people and that I should give folks more credit, but hey, it's fear! It messes with our minds!

I also saw this tweet from Maria at @boredmommy earlier tonight. It is what sparked this rambling train of thought and post.

I thought about this and then came to the realization that I wouldn't change anything. I have a really wonderful life. One that I am incredibly grateful for. I don't want to go back to the career that I had pre-children, it just wouldn't work for our family and I don't foresee myself getting back into the 9-5 workforce anytime soon. I made a choice to be the at-home parent for my children, not just for when they were babies and in the safety of my arms, but for when they are leaving them and beginning to navigate the world beyond the walls of our home. This is when I think they are going to need me the most. I believe that part of my fear in the aforementioned social situations is that someone is going to ask me the dreaded "What do you DO?" question. I am afraid that I won't have an answer that is good enough for them. That me being a stay at home mom and yes, a sometimes blogger/writer too, will not be interesting or extraordinary enough for them.

As it happens when I am tackling issues of fear and vulnerability, I defer to the expert on these things, the wonderful Brene Brown. Please watch this 2010 TEDx talk she gave. At 6:34 she kind of blows my mind (as she has a tendency to do to a lot of people I am sure) and takes ALL THE WORDS FROM MY HEAD and puts them up on her screen!

[youtube]http://youtu.be/_UoMXF73j0c[/youtube]

I am an ordinary woman, living an ordinary life, loving my ordinary husband and raising my ordinary kids. And I like to write alone, at the end of my huge table, in my big beautiful sanctuary of a home.

And I am trying not to be afraid of scarcity anymore.

Maybe one day you can come over for coffee and we can talk about ordinary things together.

natasha~

Score!!

It seems I have been hit with an early Spring Cleaning bug. This week I finally cleaned up and organized the laundry room and unpacked the few remaining boxes that had migrated there for lack of a better place. I now can actually see and use the counter-top that is in there and even managed to organize the drawers with all the kids crafting supplies.

Today I tackled the next room and cleaned and de-cluttered my half of our joint office and my desk. And yes, it took me the better part of the day!

BUT...

While I was cleaning and purging and shredding A LOT of papers, this is what I found:

•  $70.00 worth of Chapters/indigo gift cards.
•  A $25.oo gift card for Superstore.
•  A $150.00 gift certificate for Cosafina (a home decor store here in Edmonton).

And...

•  Not one, but TWO gift certificates for a one-hour massage!!

All in all, I'd say that this is not too bad for a days work and a definite silver lining for today (#8).

Now to just figure out what I want to put on that very bare wall that I am staring at all day???

Any suggestions?

Natasha~

Let there be shelves

Natural Urban Dad may not always be the handiest guy around, but when he sets his mind to do something, he finds a way. He chose this weekend to furnish our storage room with shelving and I am thrilled with all of his hard work. Including the multiple trips to Home Depot because he miscalculated and needed to get a few more pieces of plywood or more screws or a new drill!

So with lots of help from his dad and the kids too, what started out as this.

Soon became this.

Which then got moved into here.

...and now it is my job to organize it all!

Wait...

Whose bright idea was this again??

Good night all.

I guess we all know what I am doing tomorrow!

Natasha~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HA! Post #19 DONE!

Okay.... 

Carry on.

Summer Blog Challenge.... yadda, yadda, yadda

Zita at The Dulock Diaries.

Meaghan at MagzD Life

April at This Mom’s Got Something to Say

Aramelle at One Wheeler’s World

 Jessica at 2plus2X2

and Liam at In the Now

 

Tired and dirty

I am so tired. Ridiculous, can't keep my eyes open, can't think straight tired.

And I am not the only one.

Little C woke up at 7:30 AM, went back to bed, woke up an hour later and is now back in bed sleeping again.

Looks like some kind of bug may be hitting our house or maybe our long days in the sun are catching up to us.

Either way, today is turning out to be a stay at home, watch movies and maybe bake something kind of day.

It is also the day that landscaping starts at the Natural Urban Home and I have been jokingly refering to my street at #hysterialane on Twitter because of all the cutie patootie young men who are topless and working up a nice sweat in my yard and will be doing so for the next few weeks!

If anyone wants to bring over a thermos of sangria and help me 'supervise' from the deck, just let me know.

Cheers,

Natasha~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is technically yesterday's post. Day 16 of the Summer Blog Challenge. I was just too damn tired to post it last night.

Please visit the healthier and less dirty old lady posts from the other challenge participants!

Zita at The Dulock Diaries.

Meaghan at MagzD Life

April at This Mom’s Got Something to Say

Aramelle at One Wheeler’s World

 Jessica at 2plus2X2

and Liam at In the Now

We are home.

Two full weeks in and it is official.

We made cookies.

Click here for the awesome recipe we used and yes, I have Appletini colored countertops!

We organized the new Play Room!

STUVA system from IKEA.

We christened the new appliances! (Not like THAT! Minds out of the gutters Mamas!)

Little C has taken it upon himself to be my official laundry sorter. (I win!!) AND I may be slightly in love with both my new washer/dryer and also having my laundry room on the main floor!

We walk the dog HERE every day!

This is literally steps from our front door. Ravine living FTW!!

And we flipped the switch and had our first evening by the very modern fireplace.

THIS is our home!

Our beautiful, dream come true, Natural Urban Home!

Natasha~