Home – Page 4 – Notefull Living

Suburban Gardening

It’s Harvest Time!

I live in the Suburbs of Vancouver in the lovely Fraser Valley and I’m happy to say we scored a decent backyard with the property we bought. I’m still dreaming of an acreage, but for now I will soak up all I can from our little home in the burbs.

I’m a country girl deep down and I grew up with helping my grandparents harvest out of their big garden in the country and their suburban home that they downsized too. I grew up gardening with my mom and my grandpa ended up having a garden on our property too. It’s just in my veins I guess you can say.

To me, our backyard is small. This year we made planter boxes. Wow, I wish we made these sooner. We are actually planning to make more in another area. Dreaming big over here.

I’ve shared in my 10 Reasons why I love Gardenening that you can garden anywhere.

Here’s a look at our garden looked like in June.

Here’s a recent photo in the end of July. We have 4 boxes this year. The wooden Tee Pee’s are covered with snap peas and green beans.

This year I didn’t have as big of harvest as I have had in previous years. Still, anything in our freezer or in canning jars is a win win.

Our kids love running to the garden to pick a fresh snap pea and for me, I’m just simply in my happy place.

Our harvest this year was lots of Pole Beans, Snap Peas, Rhubarb, Strawberries, Maggie, White Onion, Lettuce, Arugula and Chives.

I think my favorite so far was making the blueberry rhubarb sauce with local blueberries. We made a cheesecake and brought that sauce along to a friends luncheon. Lets just say the dessert was DEVOURED. It was so good. I’ll have to remake it again and take pictures next time!!

I love summer. Especially our camping trips and time with family. But gardening to provide fresh food for my family, you can’t put a price on that.

_Growing your own vegetables never looses it's value_

It’s worth all the hard work that does into it. Once you have a system, it doesn’t take much to keep the maintenance going with it.

Do you have a garden? Like mine in town? If I could I would expand on the whole property…then we would really need an acreage.

What’s your favorite thing to grow?

Mom’s Summer Survival Guide

Mom's summer

It’s the end of June! School is OUT and Summer Holidays are here.

I’ve already been doing these things in my days before the end of the school year that I figured, why not share it here with you.

If you have kids in school and maybe your excited as I am to have the kids home (or your not), hopefully what I have to share to help survive the summer will be helpful.

If I miss something and you want to add to this, please do so in the comments below.

I love having my kids home. Some days, I feel like I’m only surviving. I would rather be a mom that models to her kids that she’s thriving and not only in survival mode.

However, it’s summer vacation…I might just need these tips to look back on and review again.

Here’s my ‘Mom’s Summer Survival Guide’:

Prep your home BEFORE school is out:

I worked hard last week that my son was still in school to get all the at home activities and house cleaning ready to go for an easier start to summer vacation.

My kids know the usual household stuff I do on a regular basis. Usually they leave me alone when I do these things.

Having to NOT be doing all this on the first weekend or start to the week when the kids are home, helps me to not burn out.

Plan/Post your July/August Calendar:

I’ve been struggling with keeping up with my calendar and recently got a nice planner for at home. Attempting to keep up with a digital one is clearly not working.

This is the one I ended up buying. Simplified by Emily Ley

With summer here and learning how the months are taking shape, with company coming into town, when to schedule a summer Reno (like our deck at the moment). I needed to have the summer calendar posted up for the kids to see and have it all laid out. Plus my husband and I spent a whole evening dedicated JUST to looking it all over.

Plus, we all know that life loves to jump up and add to your schedule and make it even more busy. But that’s the adventure right?

Plan PLAY DATES NOW!!

Yes, I put lots of emphasis on this. I booked Play dates for the start of the week and it’s really paying off already. Knowing our summer schedule is keeping me on task with when it works and when we are available.

We can all chat as mom’s and say “Hey let’s plan a play date”…I can promise you if you don’t put down a date…it’s not going to happen. My kids don’t leave me alone and make sure I’ve contacted “so and so’s mom”. Save yourself the headache and get on it before summer comes and goes like it always does.

Summer Bucket List:

We did this last year and it made a massive impact for us. Jordan Page from the blog Fun Cheap of Free has a post about a summer bucket list. I actually watched her video on YouTube about it and figured why not give it a try.

It was a life saver last summer!

We actually ended up finishing our list way past summer. It helps teach your kids about goal setting which is awesome. Go print one or make one!

Local FREE activities:

Save yourself lots of money and find local summer activities in your area. Well worth it. More money you have for the much needed camping trips.

At Home Activities:

I keep lots of activities at home for our kids. During the summer we get to do more as I have a crafting table outside.

Just a disclaimer: Activities like painting that need to be supervised…should be supervised.

This is that survival mode I was talking about. This is what happens after I was exhausted having a wonderful night out with friends in Vancouver and I fall asleep and had a nap. My 3 year thinks he can mix paints!

At Home Summer School:

What? Like homeschooling? No, my kid doesn’t need summer school, that’s not what I am getting at.

My son LOVES crafting and science projects, so we do stuff like putting flowers in food dye and watch them changed colours.

Also, I have seen lots of friends getting their kids to do just one page a day during the week from the curriculum books you can get at Costco or at a local Walmart.

My sons teacher sent him home with a little printed journal thing like he’s used to doing and willingly he’s filling it out.

Sure helps for the upcoming school year if they have kept up with a simple, reading, writing and math over the summer. I’ve shared a FREE printable from Education.com website in my Spring Break Post and they having a CONTEST!! Click on the link to apply.

You Time:

Don’t forget the much needed down time for yourself. Plus planning summer date nights with your spouse. We have one coming up.

Make adult zones! I love this swing in our backyard. The kids can fit in it but, it’s more for us.

FYI, yes the day I took this picture with me having “mom time” was still jeans weather, I was keeping it modest ;).

I hope this is helpful as you coming into summer break with kids home.

You have 18 summers. My kids are still young, and 18 summers comes really fast. Enjoy the time you have when they are young.

That’s what our family is trying our best to do.

A new look at Spring Cleaning

It’s Here, Spring finally came for 2019.

I’m aware you can google this topic of Spring Cleaning and you can find SO many videos on YouTube about spring cleaning.

I’ll be honest, I’ve binged watched and subscribed to a few channels on the topic. My favorite is Melissa Maker from Clean My Space. Not a plug for her, just really like her content and she’s Canadian!!

Hopefully what I have to add that works for me is helpful for you too.

I have found the Spring Cleaning has become less complicated. Doesn’t anyone else what that? I know I did.

My Method for Spring Cleaning has finally come down to a task that happens all year round.

I have 3 kids, if we don’t attack it all year it’s becomes overwhelming and too much, insert meltdowns, I get frustrated and it’s not fun for everyone. We have finally gotten to a place that our oldest understands and this process has gotten easier. He’s starting to mature and see what it’s all about, which is wonderful.

Yes, our kids are included. Especially the playroom and their toys.

The Spring Cleaning I want to talk about today isn’t one you would expect. As I mentioned, if you want, you can watch YouTube videos’ of people cleaning. Up to you.

I’ve been doing this and it’s made a world of difference. Focusing on _All Seasons_ Cleaning, Purging and Organizing has made all the difference or it's a mountain of a task in the Spring

We always talk about cleaning our houses or car or closets. What about cleaning the unexpected places that you might not know is dragging you down. I hope you’ve had the wonderful experience of cleaning out an area in your home and feeling a lot “lighter” afterwards and it makes you motivated to clean, purge and organize another area.

Since I do my cleaning, purging and organizing all year, I can focus on specific areas.

Here’s additional items to think about for Spring Cleaning:

Apps on my Smartphone.

I started deleting the apps I NEVER use. Or the ones I’m OVER use and waste LOTS of my time.

Which app could you delete that wastes lots of your time?

My app was YouTube. Yup, I got rid of it off my phone. I don’t like my kids seeing me gripping my phone all day long. YouTube is my zoning out place. Lots of DIY’s, Farmhouse and homesteading channels I can’t stop binge watching.

I noticed I was telling my kids “Mom’s just needing to sit down and take a break”…45 min later, I’m still telling myself I can watch another 12 min video.

When I first deleted the app, I didn’t miss it the first 2 days. Then I found myself trying to go to the usual spot that I had the app in. NOPE, I made a choice to get rid of it.

If your phone is less distracting with deleting apps, getting into the routine of “All Season” cleaning gets easier.

I actually would prefer to be without the phone all together, truthfully. It’s not something I grew up with, but my kids are. I don’t find myself to be any further ahead with one and looking forward to seeing my options once my contracts up. Plus it’s taking me away from the ones who need me most, my family.

Since I’m on the topic of technology. My other spring clean I need to do is my blog, and computer. For my computer I specifically mean our family pictures.

Our dream for our family home was always to have our pictures from our family life as our “Wall Art”.

Cleaning up of pictures and organizing them on the computer will help us accomplish this goal.

Plus my blog needs a spring clean. Now that I have a better flow with how blogging goes, (it’ll probably change again once I get the hang out it fully), I can go back and spring clean my old posts.

What’s another benefit of being in spring cleaning mode all year?

Right now we are attacking a large area in our house, that most people won’t let you ever see. I can’t wait to show you the before and after pictures of this space. I’ve tried making a space work in our home since we moved here as my work space. We finally said enough is enough and are officially making it a storage space.

My husband has more time at home now and wants more space in the garage to do Reno’s and wood projects. Fixing up this old work spot of mine into a storage will make a huge difference.

Since we got our trailer, lots of our camping stuff came out of the garage. Still wasn’t enough space.

My canning jar collection is going to have a new home and we are going to install an official boot room. Can’t wait to show you the reveal.

Again, If I didn’t approach my cleaning all year round , this wouldn’t be possible. Or we would still attack it with lots of frustration from the kids. Plus over spring break I got a new flower garden in and got garden boxes.

Less time wasted on my phone, means more time pursuing LIFE. We can always get sucked into the endless content on our phones OR put it down and get stuff done so you can play more later!!

Do you spring clean ONLY in spring?

What apps would you delete that you don’t use or overuse?

Love to hear what fun projects you are doing in your home to make life that much easier to do the things you love, which space is it?

Living Our Dreams

Here is an ‘About Me’ on my blog. Check out my link for more.

Carries Pictures 014

Living our dreams, also known as “Living your dreams”, seems to be the phrase of the century doesn’t it.

I used to think this was such a fluff statement and didn’t give it much thought. I used to never believe in this stuff. Or didn’t think that dreams ever do come true.

Well, something I have learned is life isn’t handed to you and when I learned you have to pursue it yourself that changed everything.

The only person that physically can make a mindset change and work towards goals is YOU. In our home and family life we also acknowledge our faith as our number one, second comes us listening to the Holy Spirit.

What is our Dream?

I grew up in the Fraser Valley on acreage. I’m still deeply a country girl at heart. The desire to be outside and being surrounded by nature runs deep.

It’s my husbands and I prayer and dream to own acreage.

It would be great to raise our kids with the similar childhood experiences as mine and my husbands love for the outdoors.

How it all began:

After I graduated High School, through a young adult ministry I got to help co-ordinate and start up, my “man of my dreams” showed up to one of the first meetings of getting the ministry started. It didn’t take long after sitting at Starbucks for a “first date” we got kicked out when the coffee shop closed, we both knew we needed to get to know each other better. Just under 2 years later we got married and this September we celebrate 10 years of marriage.

Today we have 2 boys and 1 girl. We are in our second home and our home is full as a family of 5. Our faith is important to us and our family is very connected to our church community.

We do whatever we can to get outside and have family time.

My oldest loves to create projects like I do and is loving learning music like his mom. Our youngest could be outside everyday (rain or shine). We are loving figuring out his passions and interests.