a hippie with a minivan

Marche dans le Marais…

Right after I wrote my post last week about being discouraged, I went for a walk in a marsh near my home which is also a bird sanctuary. It was a beautiful day, so I got the kids ready and headed out…

I received my new Ergo recently also so it was a perfect opportunity to put Wilhelmina on my back and have my hands and front free for the camera.

I am ashamed to say that I had never been there before, it is a 15 minute drive so I have no excuse, but I will be going back often I hope…

The walk itself is not long at all,and if I didn’t have the boys I would have done it twice at least, but going at their pace and taking tons of pics was really nice.

I saw so many birds but wasn’t able to capture them all… Since coming back from Annie’s I have a new interest in birds, I used to love watching birds but now I want to identify them and learn their calls… and what an amazing place to do so!

(Tree Swallow and Yellow Warblers)

(Great Blue Heron)

It was a lot of fun being out with the kids and just enjoying the walk…

Of course getting a bit of exercise was also great, but because I didn’t feel challenged at all by the walk, I headed out to the pool in the afternoon… I am starting to see a lot of opportunities to help me get fit this summer and a lot of places to discover…

Discouraged…

If you have been reading my blog for a while then you know that I have been struggling with my weight for a long time now… I have always been overweight and I have always felt insecure with the way I look.

Now, is not different.

About ten years ago I was at my highest weight and decided that I would lose it. I went to Weight Watchers and over the course of about 6 months lost 50 lbs. I was feeling great and feeling more confidant and more healthy…

I still had weight to lose but I was on the right track. Of course, life got in the way and I got pregnant, something that I really wanted but of course was not the best for my weight loss. Then came Colin, then Khéna and again I lost a bit of weight but was still about 20 lbs from where I had been before my first pregnancy. I was swimming, I was feeling great bit the summer hit, I went on vacation and fell out of the routine and the weight crept up again.

Now, 3 months after having Wilhelmina, I step on the scale and feel like weeping. I am right back were I started all those years ago.

The more you weigh the less energy you have and the harder it is to get up and get going, and with 4 kids, including a small nursing baby, the timing never seems right.

I need to do it though. I need to do it for myself. I need to do it for my family…

Wilhelmina is most likely our last baby. This time, I am saying to myself that when I lose weight, there will no longer be a pregnancy to throw me off.

So, I making the vow to myself and here publicly. I am going to be using a food journal again… though I won’t go back to weight watchers, the journal I did when I was on it, helped me a lot. It was also what I did last time I lost weight. I am also going to start walking more and go back to swimming again. Hopefully doing those things will help me get back on track and feeling better.

11 years today…

Simon and I have now been married for 11 years…

I was just 21 when we walked down the aisle but I knew that I had found “the one”… now 11 years and 4 children later, I know that I was not mistaken.

It is amazing how time flies, and though I don’t feel “old”, I look back on pictures and I can see that I looked so young… It won’t be in too long now that we will have been together for more years than not… what a strange concept…

So here is to 11 years and many more to come!!!

Colin drew this for us this morning…

Us on our wedding day 🙂

lemons… lemonade…

My computer died last week, so I have been working off my laptop… not, much of an excuse for staying away from blogging but it just doesn’t flow as well when I am not in my normal space…Luckily, my computer had been behaving weirdly, so everything had been backed up and was safe. I just got it back yesterday and it was a breeze to get it back up and running which was great… my system is much more stable and I even had a little upgrade which makes things run a lot more smoothly.

On the subject of things getting fixed… I hadn’t mentioned it, but just before I left for my trip, my favourite lens (Pentax 50mm 1.4) broke and I had to send it away to get it repaired. Of course it had to happen just before I left so I was stuck with just my zoom lens while in BC. The zoom lens is a great lens but not indoors. Indoors, if you want to be without flash and still get good pics, you need a good fast lens which of course the 50mm 1.4 is, so though I missed it like crazy and I am very happy to have my little 50 back, I do realize that the time without it made me a lot more comfortable with my other lens which is great in many circumstances, which of course is a good thing…

It always feels good to find the good in in things that may set you back for a while…

Earring holder… (for the lack of a better name)

I love dangly earrings and have a few pairs now, but I always seem to be searching for them…

So, I decided to make an earring holder.

I fished out an old frame from the bottom of my closet and a needlework crafting sheet and went to work…

I cut the crafting sheet to the right size, then cut two pieces of Batting (so that there is a space between the crafting sheet and the back of the frame) and then piece of white fabric and the layered them together. Fabric, sheet, batting, and then the back of the frame.

Being as it was a bit thicker than what the frame was made for, I then nailed the back to keep everything in place…

It took about 30min in all to make it, making it up as I went along to figure out what worked best and now I have a perfect place to put my earrings and I love the way it looks in my room above my dresser. Now to find the rest of my earrings!

(the pendant is an early mother’s day gift for myself that I found while visiting Annie)

btw…I usually don’t like fake flowers, but the pink flower is something Xavier bought for me when he went to Disney on Ice with my Mom when he was 4. I smile each time I see it 🙂