Today

Today was a pretty good day.

Deaglan woke up at 5:20 am and wouldn't snooze a little longer after I brought him into our bed. So we started the day even though I could have slept for several more hours. But then Shaune came down at 7 and told me to go back to bed which I happily did until just after 9.

At Tim Horton's I stayed peaceful even though I sat in the drive thru line for almost 15 minutes. I thought about speaking up and asking what the hold up was but when I got to the window, I saw the young woman's face and realized she must have had a good reason.

We enjoyed coffee outside in the warmish morning sunshine while Deaglan was on the swing chattering away, watching the cars pass by.

At the store, we found the exact piece of art we had been imagining for the kitchen and were able to negotiate a lower price. We got home, and after Shaune sized, measured and hung the piece, we realized that it would look better in the living room. It took a few hours of me prodding him for him to agree to switch the prints (it required a lot of measuring, drilling and trying to hide the drill marks previously made) in the living room with this new piece in the kitchen. Now all is right.

Yesterday I found an old treasure chest for $8.00 at a garage sale. I'd been looking for something to use as a toybox for Deaglan's new room. Today we scraped away the old lining of the wooden chest, washed it down and painted it a light blue. It was fun. The sun's temperature was just right and there was the most comforting breeze all afternoon. Shaune let Deaglan play in the hose. He loved it. He kept squealing. Just because he was happy.

I put Deaglan to bed in his new room. So far it's been an easy transition. I'm now sitting with the laptop on my lap of all places, a glass of shiraz on the sidetable to my left with the smell of a Thai pasta on its way. Shaune's cooking and photographing. He's built a camera box so that he can take good pictures at night, of the food he cooks for his blog.

I don't think life could get any better. It's been a pretty good day.

Bargain big boy room

I'm not sure if I would really ever want to win the lottery. I mean sure it would be nice to suddenly have a lot of money but when I think about the responsibility of it and how it would change my life, I wonder if it would be worth it.

For as long as I can remember, I have always gotten excited over finding bargains. One of my favourite things to do on a Saturday morning is to go garage sale-ing. Actually, it's something Shaune and I love doing together. I'm one of those people who when you tell me you like something I'm wearing - I can't help but blurt out it was ten bucks!

Maybe that doesn't make me very chic or sophisticated but I really don't care. My love for a great deal trumps my need to appear cool. So that's why I wanted to share this post with you. Shaune and I recently finished renovating our guest bedroom into Deaglan's 'big boy' room and it is filled with DIY (that's do it yourself for people like Jennifer who had never heard of that acronym before) projects and Kijiji finds.

This postcard was a gift from one of Aunt Chrissy's (Shaune's youngest sister) friends who is from Ireland. The common spelling of Deaglan's name is Declan, but I love that it also has the gaelic spelling. We encased this in a dollar store frame and drilled it into his door.

On this wall I printed out eight 8x10 black and white prints of some of my most recent favourite pictures. These frames are white and were each $1.50. They look really good against the grey walls.

I found this race car bed on kijiji (a community website sort of like Craig's list) for $40. I bought the comforter, matching lamp, light switch plate, bolster and pillow sham for under $50. at Liquidation world. Deaglan loves this bed and it is low enough that we don't worry about him falling out.

On the wall opposite to the one with the 8x10's we put up three finger painting masterpieces done by our little artist. The canvases were $2.00 each and I already had the finger paints.

The dollar store also had these 5x7 mini canvases on which I traced stencilled letters (I printed out extra large letters from the computer and traced them onto the canvases and coloured them in with a blue marker). Shaune had a piece of wood that we painted (with paint left over from the wall colour) and then hammered each letter onto. Total the project cost us $3.00. On the left is a tire wall clock from Walmart and opposite is a little mirror. (I'm not crazy about the mirror and am keeping an eye out for something more interesting.)

I found the dresser, matching night table (which we put near the foot of the bed) and the book shelf on kijiji for $70.00 total. All three pieces are in excellent condition.

Deaglan just loves this room. At least once a day he tells us that he wants to go up to his new room and play. Tonight is the first full night that he will sleep in there. I hope it's a peaceful night. So far so good.