Stuff I like Archives - Page 10 of 10 -

New House and New Traditions

November 4, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

This post is sponsored by Tempur-Pedic, the brand millions of owners trust to deliver their best night’s sleep every night. Enjoy our Buy 2, get 1 free pillow offer now and give the gift of custom comfort to someone you love.

So, we bought a house yesterday.

<– That’s it. Pretty good, eh?

We jogged into town on Wednesday afternoon, bought an iPhone (because, obviously) and started looking at houses yesterday at 10 am. The deal was done about 10:00 last night.

We are totally thrilled with how this worked out. It’s almost miraculous. We got a house we love and – get this – the possession date we wanted. We’ve agreed to be out of our house by the 26th and will be into the new one on the 28th. Of November.

So that means we’ll be in our new house for Christmas.

I’m not actually sure what our Christmas plans will be this year, but I think it’s going to be a little odd. We’ve spent every Christmas except two at home with my parents and other assorted family. We’ve picked out a tree at the same nursery every year. We’ve done the same lights tour. We’ve eaten Christmas dinner at the same table and hung our stockings from the same fireplace. Those things will change and it will be okay, though I’m feeling a bit sentimentally sad about it.

What we will have, however, is this, which we woke up to this morning:

There’s actually no guarantee we’ll have a white Christmas but if we do I will be a very happy girl. Despite many years on the coast, it never feels like Christmas without snow. And I think this little dude will like it too:

We’ll be in town for good just in time to gear up for Christmas, which will involve my sister and her husband, and my parents are planning to come out too. My mother-in-law lives here, so we won’t be short on family.

And it will be kind of fun to start new traditions and find new holiday comforts. We’ll go visit the great light display they do in a park here and actually enjoy hot chocolate in the car without being too warm. I’ll prove to Connor that I do, in fact, know how to build a snowman. We’ll bake my mom’s Christmas cookies in our new oven in our totally awesome new kitchen, and then we’ll sit by our new fireplace and eat them. (Or maybe I’ll leave the boys downstairs and eat mine upstairs because our new bedroom has a fireplace in it. Squee!) We’ll introduce our stockings to their new home and make sure Santa knows we’ve moved.

And we’ll enjoy the snow. Until we’re sick of it.

***

Comfort is the perfect gift for everyone on your holiday gift list, so be sure to take advantage of Tempur-Pedic’s Buy 2, get 1 free pillow offer! I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective.

Filed Under: Happy things, Stuff I like · Tagged With: family, favourite activities, firsts, hope, living life, The Universe

Snow, Polar Bears & a White Coke Can

October 26, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

I know, Halloween isn’t even over yet but bear with me while I talk about Christmas for a minute.

Chances are good we’ll have a white Christmas this year. You’re probably thinking, “What?! Doesn’t she live in Canada?” Yes, I do, but I live in a part of Canada that doesn’t get a lot of snow. But not for long! It looks like we’ll be in Calgary just in time to really enjoy winter. (Whose idea was this…?)

I am ridiculously excited about having more snow this winter (though feel free to talk to me in March and see if I still feel that way). Just yesterday morning Connor and I were watching Backyardigans and in this particular episode they were snowboarding. “Look, mama! Snow!” he said. Oh kid, you’re in for a wonderland of fun this winter.

There are certain things that always make it seem like Christmas to me. One of them – I kid you not – is the Christmas Coke commercials. You know the ones with the polar bears? I love those. Especially the ones with the sliding baby bears. Those ones are awesome.

I don’t know why I love those commercials so much, but I do. Maybe because they’re cute. Or because they’re happy. Or because I drink a lot of Coke…

Or maybe it’s because I think polar bears are magical. My brother spent a couple of seasons WAY up north in polar bear country, and one of my sisters was there for a season too. Their stories and photos are incredible.

Photo credit: Greg Hounslow (my bro)

After hearing about their experiences I understand more how tragic the threat to the polar bear habitat is. (And yes, I’m going to get all “do good things!” on you now.)

Coke is turning their red cans white this holiday season as part of the “Arctic Home” campaign, another thing I think is awesome. It makes total sense to me for Coke to raise awareness and funds to support World Wildlife Fund (WWF) efforts to protect the polar bears’ Arctic home.

Coke will contribute $2 million to WWF over the next five years, and donations from consumers made by March 15, 2012 will be matched – up to $1 million USD – through the Arctic Home campaign.

I love seeing companies do this. A white Coke can with polar bears on it? That will totally get people’s attention. I hope it generates donations (need a Christmas present for someone environmentally-minded?) but I think the awareness is important too.

Coke will be doing “Arctic Home” commercials as well as other advertisements and promotions, and they’re also working with Academy Award-nominated filmmaker MacGillivray-Freeman Films on a new IMAX film called To The Arctic 3D. (You can see some preview footage from the film in the video below.)

You can find out more on iCoke.ca, where you can explore, experience and learn about the polar bear and its Arctic home. You can also watch video chats with WWF scientists, track virtual polar bear sightings, and make donations online.

This whole endeavour is something I applaud, and I will be supporting the campaign, sharing it with others, and checking out the polar bears (I can’t resist photos and info about these bears). I will also totally be in the theatre for that IMAX film. Probably with popcorn and a white Coke can in hand.

Filed Under: Better world, Stuff I like ·

The Secret to a Clutter-Free Life

October 24, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

Thanks to Tervis for sponsoring my writing. Visit their website to learn more about the world’s first smart cup.

If you were to peek inside our cupboards right now, you’d think the most ~~anal~~ organized people ever lived here. And they do! (But there is a bunch of stuff in boxes at my parents’ house.)

I’ve told you about how we’re moving, right? And how we’ve done a ton of work around our house in preparation?

One of the big things we’ve done is get rid of stuff. Not that we belonged on an episode of Hoarders or anything; we do a fairly good job of getting rid of superfluous crap every few years, mostly recently right before Connor was born. But after this most recent spree I’ve found the formula for a clutter-free life: baskets (or containers) + trash bags = HALLELUJAH.

We already had some sweet systems in place, but by getting rid of the extra stuff we had hanging around, it really feels like we have more space. We don’t, really. We just have less clutter.

We’ve done a few things over the last few years to beat back the insanity that is a normal family’s house.

A year or so ago my husband tackled the kitchen. Our pantry basically consists of two cupboards in our island, and we had a tendency to just chuck stuff in there. (Please tell me we’re not the only ones.) So he went through and purged all the unidentifiable bulk-aisle bags, the boxes of crackers with only crumbs inside, and about 243 escaped raisins. He sorted, put everything in its own container and labelled them all. And see? Totally ~~anal~~ organized!

Then you have the hall closet. It’s been more or less like this for a while, but we got rid of a few extra coats and did the whole thing up in spanky wooden hangers and voilà!

I told you – baskets = brilliant.

Want to see the drawer formerly known as “junk?”

Little baskets! That clip on to each other! I feel more sane just looking at this. (And this, incidentally, was my system. My husband made it better by ditching some stuff… Hey! Where’s my iPod…?)

And last, but certainly not least, I give you this:

Why yes, I did just show you a picture of the cupboard in my bathroom. With baskets, thankyouverymuch. Everything I need in the morning is in that basket in the front, which means it’s not cluttering up my bathroom counter.

Baskets, I tell you. It’s as simple as that.

***

I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. To learn more about Tervis, visit their website: http://www.tervis.com.

Filed Under: Happy things, Randomness, Stuff I like ·

Halloween Traditions and the Battle of the Candy

October 18, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

One of the best things about buying this house almost nine years ago (and moving from an apartment) was really getting to enjoy Halloween. That first year we started several traditions we’ve stuck with ever since, one of which is the totally awesome pumpkins my husband carves every year. Last year he did this guy:

The wonderful thing about Tiggers is they make good carvings.

Some past masterpieces (he has a thing for comic strip characters):

Help! I'm stuck in a pumpkin!

A cherished neighbor undeserving of such a fate.

He also likes ogres, like this one:

I'm grumpy.

And this one (oh wait, that’s not an ogre, that’s my husband):

I'm grumpy too.

I’m typically more of a two-triangles-and-a-mouth sort of pumpkin carver, though I did a pretty fancy haunted house last year. It got the Pumpkin Master Seal of Approval, so I consider it a success. I’m going to continue that particular tradition this year and do another inverse design – a simple but classic glowing black bat.

Connor is now getting in on this tradition as well. His very first jack-o’-lantern:

Apparently his style of art is more abstract.

He drew the features and dad did the carving, and thus the artistic tradition continues.

In addition to doing several pumpkins each year, we hang bats from the porch and bring out the glowing ghosts. Some of our neighbours do great decorations (sound effects included) so we always have a great time walking up and down the street looking at them.

But the best part of Halloween for us is handing out candy.

Friends of ours do fireworks and hot dogs on Halloween and we always really want to go. It would be fun but we never want to miss the trick-or-treaters, so we stay home, order Chinese food, and take turns calming down our dog when the doorbell rings.

Every year, in preparation for the big night, my husband and I engage in the Battle of the Halloween Candy. It goes like this:

He wants to be “that guy” on our street so he likes to go to Costco and buy full-sized chocolate bars.

I think that’s a bit much, especially because we get the same teenage kids coming back over and over because we’re “that house.” But I know he’s going to buy them anyway so I at least try to convince him to wait until close to Halloween so we don’t eat them all ourselves.

He buys them early.

We eat them all ourselves.

Okay, not all of them. But in the past we have been known to be a little light on candy by the time the 31st rolls around. But not this year!

Handing out big bars of chocolate certainly makes you look cool, but to me Halloween is about a big bowl of individually-wrapped candies. It’s about choices and options and different-coloured gummy things, and this year I’ve got a whole stash.

I’ve got Sour Watermelon Slices, Peach Slices, Sour Cherry Slices, Tangy Wild Strawberries and Sour Grape Slices. I have Big Foot (Big Feet?) and Green Thumbs and Hot Lips. I’ve got gummies and sours and jubes and jellies.

I’m going to pit my BIG bowl of candy against my husband’s chocolate bars. I’m going to dive wrist-deep into the bowl and grab a whole handful of different kinds of candies and listen to the satisfying shush-and-rustle as they drop into treat-laden bags and pillowcases. And then I shall compare the lasting looks of delight on those children’s faces to the fleeting awe of those who get a whole candy bar.

Okay, so there’s no guarantee I’m going to win the award for the Best Treat Giver-Outer. But I’m totally going to have fun trying.

***

Disclosure – I am participating in the Allan Candy Company program by Mom Central Canada. I received compensation (and candy! glorious candy!) for my participation in this campaign. The opinions in this post are my own.

My husband and I had fun reminiscing about Allan Candy’s rabbit-ears logo and corner store candy trips as kids. Here’s some info about their candy:

Allan Candy is a Canadian company and all of their halloween candy is peanut-free and proudly made in Canada. Their line-up includes Allan Intense Jubes & Jellies, Allan Chewy Rascalz and Allan Fruit Buddies, which can be found at stores like Wal-Mart and Loblaws.