Community Carshare

We have officially been a car-free family for about a week! And so far, so good. It is very liberating.
That being said, we are also now officially members of Community Carshare. Joe and I went on our first Carshare outing this past weekend (sans Henry), and it was super easy and pretty fun!

The best part: We got to drive this gem:

Yep- That is a fully electric vehicle. Pretty nifty! And very quiet to drive! You could sneak up on people in that thing it is so quiet. It holds a decent charge, too. We drove about 60km and it still had quite a bit of juice left. Apparently it gets less km in the winter, though (about 50km). Still, I will definitely use this car again.

Using Community Carshare is super simple. We booked our car online (about 30 minutes before we left, but you can book up to a year in advance), and used our key-card to unlock the car, and lock it once we got to our destination. The keys are attached under the steering wheel. 

We went to Dryden Tract/ Alps Woods near Cambridge for a great fall hike. I recommend checking it out if you've never been. It is a gorgeous area, especially in the fall. And without Henry, Joe and I got some great chats in. It was a really great afternoon.

All said and done, we are really happy with our decision to go car-free. I'm not going to lie - I had my doubts and almost wanted to renege my commitment to go car-free the day we sold our car, but I'm glad I didn't. Of course, Joe and I are aware that *most* families would not be able to do this. We are in a perfect situation to do so (living within walking distance to work/groceries/some family/etc, only needing a car once every week or so, AND living close to a bunch of Community Carshare cars). We would recommend Community Carshare at this point to anyone in a similar situation as us, or anyone wanting a second car the odd time (or who wants to go down to one car but still have access to a second). It is a pretty great set-up.

Some other benefits that we've thought up so far on being car-free:
- It makes you really aware of your car-use and the cost of driving
- It is environmentally friendlier than owning our own car
- It helps us to consider alternative transportation when possible (walking, biking, bus, train, etc)
- It helps Joe and I to live in alignment with our values
- It helps us to be more active: We walk a lot!
- It is much cheaper than the alternative
- And so on.

If you are at all interested in joining, talk to me!

Cottagy Porch Décor

We spent our last week of summer here:

This is the lake at my mum and her partner, Rick's, cottage.
I love being at the cottage. It is so relaxing, and it is amazing living by the lake. Since summer holidays are over, I knew we'd be missing the cottage so I thought I might try to recreate the cottage feeling in the outdoor space at our house: The porch. While we were at the cottage, Joe and I kayaked to the island (on the right side of the photo) to go driftwood hunting. We came back with 3 great pieces. When we got home, one was a clear winner as it perfectly fit the space we had wanted to fill. It didn't even need anything to help it hang on the nail... it just worked! Best of all, we had been wanting something to hang there since we moved in, and this was free!

One problem with our porch, however, is our old wicker chairs. This might be the last season for these babies. To be fair, I have used them for 4 summers (mostly outdoors, uncovered) after scoring them for free off of Kijiji. And the chair pads were a thrifting purchase for a few bucks a piece. Needless to say, they are starting to look pretty sad, and aren't really too comfortable anymore.

So, back to my cottage inspiration. My mum bought these amazing faux-wicker chairs a few years ago at Winners for the covered porch at the cottage. Joe and I would LOVE a comfy style chair like that for our porch, especially considering we have spent most of our down time out there since we moved in. We love it! I think it might need to wait until next summer, though. That is, unless we find something great on clearance! 

September Update

As usual, we have been busy around here!
There are a few projects that I haven't written about yet... although some of them happened a while back! (Time flies in the fall as a teacher... so busy!)

Here are a few things we have done lately:

1. Painted the exterior garage and front door.
In case you forgot, when we moved in the doors and garage were painted in a 'lovely' rusty brown.

Summer 2012

I had originally planned on painting the front door a fun colour. However, it was quicker and easier (for now) to just pick one colour. I also found it hard to choose a colour to go with the odd greyish-white brick that we have. I opted for a greige (grey-beige) colour, and I am pretty happy with the result! It really modernized the house. Here she is! (I also pruned the shrubs and got rid of some weeds and rose bushes in the front...). I just need something to decorate the front door!

(Note: The pretty fall leaves in the background! I love fall!)

The pretty fall planter my Aunt Nancy bought us. Unfortunately it got neglected during the first 2 weeks of school and the mums turned brown. I am hoping they come back!

2. Waaaay back in June, Joe and I ordered some awesome Canadian-made furniture at a store called Shreiters in Kitchener. Little did we know that it would take over 2 months for the furniture to be made and brought to our house! We were a little disappointed, but LOVE the furniture now that it is finally here. We put it in our fireplace room and it is ready for some fall decorating. It is looking a little blah.. we are in the process of finding some nice accessories (ex. pillows!) to liven it up and tie it all in. (These pictures are not the greatest...oops!) Oh, and we got a new rug, too! And new curtains... I guess we've done more than I realized.

 

Our awesome and massive couch...it needs some pillows!

3. Remember the special fountain from our backyard?

That we removed and turned into a pile of dirt?

Well, I finally got around to seeding it. And it is getting there! After 2 weeks of watering (and loving any rain we get!) it is starting to fill in. I'm pretty excited about it and can't wait to have a regular, dirt-pile-free lawn!

 

4. Still growing a baby! Only 18 weeks to go. I have been having some crazy preggo dreams though. In my most recent, I had a baby that looked just like Joe...but baby sized. It was sooo creepy! 

5. We have been busy with other things, too. But I'm not ready to show you just yet :) We've painted the nursery, replaced the blinds in all of the bedrooms, and bought paint for them. And we've been cooking up a storm. Stews have been on the menu lately :) 

Ok, that is all for now! Hopefully life will be a little less busy in the upcoming weeks so I have more time for updating. Have a good week! 

Let The Blogging (re-)Begin!

Hello everyone!

After months of anticipation, we are FINALLY in our new place!
And for the most part... it is great!
The first few days involved living in a pile of boxes and a disorganized mess. Last weekend we put our butts into gear and unpacked almost everything (except for one spare bedroom, which is still a pile of boxes...that we will ignore for now.)

After a whirlwind of a week, things are starting to look a little more organized around here. (I will try to get a house tour up sometime in the next couple of days!

Let me re-cap our lives since the move. We have gotten around to a few little things on our to-do lists, but nothing major yet.
For example, we changed the yellowy-orange lights that lit up the front of the house:

And replaced them with bright, white lights. (This seems like a small change, yes, but you have no idea the change it made in person!)

We bought planters for the front and back yards...9 in total! We got a good deal at the local market. Getting them home in the Rav4 was...interesting!

We also put in an automatic garage door opener, and installed a few new register covers. So, nothing too exciting, but stuff that just needed to be done.

Of course, we've taken some time to enjoy our new place, too :) Look at the poppies that began to appear the first morning we were here! We have been LOVing the backyard, the pool, the hot tub, the privacy. It is awesome.

And Mira seems to be adjusting alright, too. She even found a way to get on the roof so that she could meow at us through our window at 5:45 am. That little....

However...we have a *little* problem. We need new furniture. ASAP.
The only existing couch we had was the blue one that used to look really cute in our old place. We had plans of putting it in the basement here and to get new (at least to us) furniture for the fireplace room. But, the couch doesn't go down the narrow stairway. Back to the drawing board!

I've also been putting my creative juices to work and trying to pick out paint colours! It's exciting...but I can't seem to make up my mind. The people at Lowe's must have thought I was a crazy lady hoarding all of the paint guides and paint chips in sight!

On a completely unrelated note... did I mention it is report card season?
And did I mention that my Mum got married on Tuesday? It was a great day! Married in style :)
My Mum and Rick looked amazing and happy, and dinner was a blast. Thanks, guys!

Needless to say, it has been one busy week. I'm excited to get thinking about the projects we will take on over the next months!

Sprouting!

For the first time...ever, I have finally gotten around to sprouting some herbs to have them ready for planting in the Spring.

Well...that is a stretch. I wish I could take the credit, but these were planted on a school field trip and we were given the plants to take home. That being said...I have managed to keep these going from seed to now! It's pretty exciting and has been surprisingly easy.

I was given the tip to put a layer of plastic wrap over the seeds to create a sort of greenhouse effect, as seen here:

I must say this really kick-started my herbs. Within a couple of days I already had sprouts. It has now been a few weeks, and most of the herbs seem to be off to a great start. I'm pretty excited about it. Unfortunately, the chives seem to be having trouble...which is surprising, since I thought chives would be the easiest to grow!

I also stuck little popsicle sticks in the soil to label which herb is which. Below you can see the oregano :) The other herbs are chives, parsley and basil. 

My next job will be to decide where to transplant the herbs. In the most recent House & Home magazine, there were these really cute DIY tea tin herbs that I love,  as seen below:

 Go to the H&H page here

Otherwise, I could go with my original plan of potting them and sticking them in the backyard, something like this: 

We shall see. 

And on a completely unrelated note, is my husband not the cutest? This is what welcomed me this morning.

Patio Furniture

Oh my!
It has been over a week since my last post.

I can hardly believe it. I could blame it on the fact that I spent 2 nights starting and then finishing the Hunger Games. (A must read!) Or then watching the movie for another evening. Or I could blame it on the fact that I've been uber exhausted lately. And work has been crazy. And I have been trying to be active.

But in reality, the real culprit is a case of writer's block!
I am still stuck in the "limbo" state, where I am simply waiting to move. It is only 7 more weeks at this point, but it has been putting a serious damper on things to write about.

Anyhoo...since the past few weeks have been unseasonably warm, and our new backyard is large and lovely, I have been thinking a little bit about patio furniture. My Dad has kindly offered to buy us a set for our wedding. But my question is, should I get a set without cushions? Or a set with them? See examples of each below:

I've asked around and there are pros and cons to both types.

For example: Patio furniture with cushions is super comfy, but requires a lot of care in taking the cushions on and off in case of bad weather. You would probably also need a place to store the cushions, like a deck box. However, the trade off may be worthwhile in that I plan on spending a lot of time in our backyard, and hopefully hosting many friends and family, so the extra comfort is a bonus.

The sets without cushions, however, are also quite comfy, but you don't need to be constantly worrying about cushions. I don't mind the look of either. Of course, I don't actually plan on getting a new set until we are moved into our new place.

So, any thoughts or experiences that could help me to decide?