Making Messes

I'm at it again.  Making messes.

It seems to be something I'm good at.  
Unfortunately.

We live in an older home ~ 40+ years.

With that territory comes the need for tweaking

and re-doing and upgrading ~ multiple times, it seems.

Things break.  They wear out.  They get used up.
Boys live here.  'Nuff said.  :)

The boys' room wasn't on my radar.

However, not long ago something in the closet caught my attention.

And, before we knew it, the closet was emptied and gutted.

Then, I enlisted my Dad to come and help out.

He built all new shelving and supports ~ all to my specs.  

Tomorrow, he plans to hang the doors.

Thank you SO much, Dad!  :)

Tackling the closet led to moving all the furniture 

(except the bed) out so the carpet could be cleaned.

Where did all that stuff end up?  

In Howie's office, down the hall, and in the mud room.

Like I said before ~ It's a mess.

My poor Sweetie.  

All of these things led to my brilliant idea to strip the walls of the

posters of planes and hockey guys and the world map.

Those wall embellishments left behind a gazillion holes that required filling.

My sweet husband did the job for me ~ Thank you my love!  :)

All that filling has left me with walls to paint.

It's how it goes.

So, we are in a mess.  But, it's a work in progress.

The plan is to be done by the end of the week.

Anyone out there willing to cheer me on?
Encouragement in a situation like this is always welcomed ~ LOL!

It will be a little quiet in this space while 

this project is being completed.

Happy week to you all!

With Love,
Camille

Living Life

We are all here.

This day we have life and breath.
This day we have the strength and grace we need.

We are living life.

Blessings upon blessings!

None of us knows what a day will bring forth.

None of us knows what will happen next.

We make our plans.
But, God orders our steps.

It's easy to assume that the details of life
will go on as they do now.

But, we do not know if we will be given our next breath.

We are not in control of our destiny.

We do not have ultimate control of anything, actually.

So, we live life.

And, enjoy the moments.

They truly are gifts.

Gifts directly from the Hand of God.

This post is a mix of all the run-of-the-mill
blessings of the every day.
They are random and run together one after
the next ~ just like the moments of our lives.

I captured Emma one morning reading in bed ~
It's her new favourite.  :)

"Please Mummy, may I make waffles for lunch?"
Of course!

Doin' school in the living room...

...And in the school room...

...And in the office/school...
all while furniture is being constructed ~
Yippee for Ikea!

The Learner got his *N*!

Me...with paintbrush in hand, 
and painting clothes on ~
getting more things done!

Yippee for tape that works ~
nearly perfectly!

Emma's books at the front door ~
Just in from music lessons.

Fraser and Emma reading History together ~
Emma was taking notes.  :)

A family games night ~

Complete with Twizzlers.  

My fire builder...

...And one of his fires.  :)

My leaf raker...

...And the leaves before they were all gone.

What a blessing it is to know that our times
are in the LORD's Hands.
His ways are perfect.

We have nothing to fear.
Everything to hope.
Every reason to rejoice!
May HE give you His peace and presence
each step of the journey!

With Love,
Camille

More Progress

The last few days I've been doing a little of this.

Making a little more progress.
One step at a time.

The prep is as important as the painting. 

Maybe more important ~
My humbly submitted opinion, of course.  

I believe in taping and using drop sheets. 

Plastic is always a good thing too. :)

Austin's room is one of the areas in our home 

involved in the latest of our renovation endeavours.

It will double as the guest room ~ What a blessing!

Oh, and did I mention that I believe in taping? 

Here's my new favourite tape. 

Is it ever worth the money!!

There are two types ~ one is for use on delicate areas such as wallpaper, 

and the other is for *regular* use.  I bought both. 

Thank you Dad for the recommendation!

See how great it works?? 

I'm sure I could sell this stuff!!

Really..I *love* it!!  :)

To quote my friend Jennifer ~
who also happens to be painting... 

"Happy Weekend Y'all!" 

 Many Blessings, Camille

Making Progress...

It's coming together.

What a LOT of work it has been!

But...SO necessary...and such a blessing!

Slowly, the mess is giving way to order.

And, we are beginning to see the end.

Another blessing. :)

Thank you for patience with me in this space.

It's been a necessary thing to keep

mostly silent these last few weeks.

Blessings to you all!

With Love,

Camille

In the Midst of Mess

It takes messing things up to get things done.

Sometimes. And, this is one of those times.

Awhile back, I mentioned that we were

switching things up in our home.

We are still in the midst of it.

And, it isn't pretty.

Here are some *in progress* photos to prove it.

Out with the old...

In with the *new-to-us*...

How ARE we going to get this inside??

"It" was Howie's desk

and it was HEAVY and awkward ~

In the end it had to be taken apart.

This is the old office space ~

Howie somehow managed to work during the upheaval.

(No, it didn't always look like this!)

The corner of the old schoolroom...

...And the boys' room with school stuff piled high!

We have books under the beds in three bedrooms

and spilling out into the living room ~

we *love* books, and it's obvious!

I thought the title of the book

most prominent in this picture was appropriate ~ LOL!

But, we are thankful.

Thankful that we are able to rearrange and make

this home more serviceable for our family.

Thankful that we have a home to work on!

As the children grow, things change.

We must flex and change with them.

And it is good.

The next few weeks will be full of painting

and rearranging and preparing for the new school year.

I trust to be *back in the saddle*

in this space once school begins in earnest.

May all of you, kind friends,

enjoy the remaining days of Summer!

Many Blessings to you!

Camille

Switching Things Up

The photos in this post have nothing to do with the

contents of it ~

Other than this...we have been

living life apart from the renovating ~

It's a good thing.

We are in the throes of a move.

An internal one.

We are switching things up.

Four rooms in our home are involved ~

The school room, the office,

and two bedrooms ~ ours and Austin's.

Working with what we've got, purging some things,

rearranging others, and adding in a few new items ~

It will make our home more serviceable.

More use-able. More efficient.

Funny how things flex and grow and

things become obvious.

It was time.

We bought this home eighteen years ago.

We moved in 17 1/2 years ago.

I'm ashamed to admit that we viewed it

as a stepping stone to something better.

How wrong we were! How spoiled!

Thankfully, the LORD was gracious

and did not remove this blessing from us!

We surely deserved for it to be taken away.

We don't always get what we deserve, do we?

How wonderful that is!

Over the years, there have been many changes.

In the early days, we had tenants living below ~

the basement was not accessible to us.

I had to run outside and down the stairs to do laundry.

It was a shared laundry room under the deck.

Ah...memories!

After four years, we no longer had tenants,

but Howie moved his office home and occupied the space.

At the time of Emma's birth,

the six of us were living in 1100 square feet of our home.

We kept Emma's bassinette in the bathroom.

The time came for us to either sell and move,

or take over the whole house.

We took over.

The wall between us and the basement

was removed, and the fun began!

We renovated.

Every floor, wall, window and fixture were changed.

There were single pane brown aluminium windows throughout

the house ~ they were replaced with double glazed vinyl.

We tore out carpet ~ ever had to deal with glued down underlay??

Even our foundation had to be dug up to lay new pipe!

The most direct route ~ through the house!

It was an adventure.

It took time.

We did much of the work ourselves.

Painting, cleaning, sorting and rearranging ~

At odd hours, in odd ways.

We hired in those who were skilled to do certain things ~

(ie: plumbing, drywall, electrical, and flooring).

I learned how to do things like grout

and caulk ~ the school of hard knocks is a good teacher. :)

Howie already knew how to do those things ~

however, he did have the rare opportunity to use a jack-hammer

INSIDE the house...ask me if that was fun!

We were the general contractors of the project,

and we lived with the mess and upheaval as best we could.

I did install one floor by myself ~

it was the first (and probably last) time! :)

Breaking things down, tearing things out, removing the old...

these were things we did well.

My Dad helped us greatly.

He installed stairs where they were needed,

hung doors for us, and was our carpenter...

it was a wonderful blessing!

Thank you SO much Dad! XO

Perhaps, when the dust settles,

I will post about the transformation this time around.

I may even post about the past.

In the meantime...we work.

And work, and work, and work.

(You get the idea, I am sure!)

We are seeking to include the children

in this process as much as possible,

and we are trying to carve out some play time too.

Seize the day! :)

Many Blessings,

Camille

**Photos in this post courtesy of Emma ~

Thank you my little love! XO

Images are of one of our adventures in recent weeks ~

Fireworks viewed from the pier. :)

Good Enough

I'm a perfectionist by nature.
Not good.
Especially since I am the
Mum of four.
*Smile*

We are home together most days
due to the fact that we home educate.
And my husband runs his
business from the home as well.

Good news ~
The LORD is helping
me to relax a little.
A very good thing. :)

Long ago, we purchased our first home.
(The one we still live in).
It was *just a stepping stone*
to something better.
Or so I thought.

Shameful, but true ~
Oh how wrong I was.
How incredibly wrong!

This home was a gift.
We are SO thankful
that the LORD did not
strip it off of us!

SO thankful.


We had the opportunity
to renovate just after Emma was born.
And we did.

I chose these cupboards
for the kitchen.
So cute.
(My opinion).

And...
So much work to keep clean.
So. Much. Work!

Because of my
perfectionistic tendencies,
I put it off until I can do it *right*.
Which, by the way,
is very rare.
Too rare!

I got so tired of them
looking dreadful that I gave
a quick (and I mean quick)
clean to them one day recently.
All the cupboard door and drawer facings
were spruced up in under 30 minutes.


How great is that?

Sometimes Good Enough
Really IS
Good Enough!!

I remember a friend of
mine telling me (long ago)
that her Mom had shared a past regret with her.
It happened to be that she ~ (get this) ~
spent too much time cleaning and
not enough time nurturing her children!

This hit home with me.

How easy it is to get our
priorities mixed up.
Nurturing our children
both physically and spiritually
is of utmost importance.
How I need wisdom to accomplish
this task in a God-honouring way!

May we all enjoy the precious families
that the LORD has given each of us.

And clean just enough.
*Wink*

Many Blessings,
Camille

P.R.O.J.E.C.T.S.

What did we *DO* all Summer??

Well, we had some fun playing.

And, we had some fun working.

We all got in on the act.



One of the first things I did was

ask Howie to pick me up some of this...

To fix this...

Yes, I did it myself!

(Don't even ask how many rags I used up)! :)

And my Sweetie taught Calvin

how to do this...

And Calvin sanded most of it himself!

Emma got to try...

For about two minutes. :)

The finished deck...

(it's wet from being washed...

we didn't use a *high gloss* stain) :)

Meanwhile,

Austin did this...

And this...

Fraser and Emma tackled this...

And, after a LOT of this...

We got this (it's a lovely, creamy,

washable yellow).

Calvin did some of this...

To put into this...

Austin stacked and stacked and stacked...

Which my Dad built!

(Thank you Dad) ~ xo

My Treasures...





We are not always this productive in the Summer-time.

It seemed that MANY things needed attention

this year for some reason.

We are very thankful that we have

so many precious helpers! :)



Many blessings,

Camille