Forty in Three!

Tomorrow, I turn 37. I’m not sure where the years have gone or how I ended up with so much grey hair (which, I admit, I have recently coloured – but it had more to do with eradicating the Fruitopia orange colour it had turned) but there is no denying, that this chicky was hatched all those years ago.

I share my birthday with a few famous people… Harrison Ford, Julius Caesar, Patrick Stewart, Cheech Marin, and Canadian R&B Singer, Deborah Cox (same year even). Lots of famous people died this day too – including an inspirational and legendary photographer, Yousuf Karsh. In 1985, the world witnessed “Live Aid” – a globally broadcast concert/festival to aid starving nations in Africa and in 1942, three German U-boats shot and sunk merchant ships in (Gulf of) the St. Lawrence and in 1974, John Denver’s “Annie’s Song” was number one on the music charts.

Now, I’m not one of those people who subscribe to a life’s purpose or think that my life has a deep meaning. Ideally, of course, I’d like to be deep and important and change something on this Earth, but the reality of the situation is 99 percent of us just exist. We are no more destined to change anything other than our socks… But I thought it would be fun to make a list (even though I said I wouldn’t) of things to do before 40… Now I’ve Googled a few lists and they have things like:

Travel alone
Balance a check book
Ride a horse
Get married
Get divorced
Have a baby
Start a blog
Buy a car
Get your heart broken
Be scared witless and do it anyway

I also found another list that you added one point for each thing you’ve done – I got 27 (it was a list of 50). I’ve found that I’ve done a lot of the things people list (I had a misspent youth) and some of them don’t hold much interest for me (travelling to places like France or Italy or getting a tattoo).

So what should be on my list? What should be on anyone’s “List”?

The only things I believe should be on these lists are things that have meaning for you. We could all take a cookie cutter approach and check off the things that meant something to someone else, but I prefer the personalized approach. A list (like this) shouldn’t be a competition or entrance fee to an elusive club. We all have birthdays, we all get older. That is a given. The things we do with our life, well, that’s individual. What holds meaning for me may be meaningless to someone else. I think a list like this is meant more to be like a record keeper. A place to layout and establish goals.

What are my goals? I’m not entirely clear but I do know that my life’s endeavors are more important that what can be rattled off in an hour’s lunch break! I’m going to work on my list over the coming months and see what it is I hope to accomplish before I turn 40!

Happy birthday to me!

A Life of Daydreams

While perusing the blogs over at The Organic Sister’s Inspiration Monday, this post got me thinking about how I’m just wading along in the water, waiting for my life to start happening. Like Cynthia at A Life Profound, I’m very tethered to reality and the obligations that I must uphold for my family, my son, and to keep my place in the world. But every single day, I dream. If I didn’t have my day dreams, I’m not sure how I could survive.

I day dream continually throughout my waking day – dreaming about all the things I can do when I get home, the writing I can do at my lunch hour and coffee breaks at work. I dream about our RV and camping. I dream about the aspirations and desires I have to start my own home-based business and how I have loftier ambitions to get back to designing with Blue Door Interiors (my design company).

I see inspiration here and wonder how I can make such beautiful art. I see my friend creating his own Graphic Novel and am inspired by his talent and his drive. I see my own husband’s beautiful photography and wish that he had time to do more.

I wish I had more time to do more baking of delectable treats with TroubleMaker. I wish I was more organized and that my house was tidier.

But then while surfing channels last night, TroubleMaker and I came across this and I got a face full of perspective and as my son swayed to the beat and tried to sing along, I realized I am here, I am alive - and so is my son. And we can continue to dream and plan...

And that, my friends, was the truest inspiration of my week.

Catching up - an apology!

This was one of those weeks - I was struck by my first and hopefully only migraine Monday afternoon... It rendered me powerless and paralyzed. I couldn't think, couldn't see and it hurt to even move a finger. The recipes for the week's menu sit unposted (I'm so sorry about that) and my design post slated for publishing Wednesday didn't get completed. Which also means my Thursday "Green" post isn't done either.

And then I went to log in to my Blog this morning only to find out my password has been changed - thankfully I set up alternative access and was able to recover my account.

So I will delay my design post and my green post and in light of it being Remembrance Day, thanks to our soldiers and our veterans - young, old and no longer with us - for their contribution.

Happy writing,
Brennan's Mom

All good design starts with an idea

Anyone who knows me will tell you I not only pile stuff, but I collect, keep and even hoard stuff. I’ve watched episodes of the hoarding show and I laugh and joke with my Mom that my step-dad is a hoarder… I didn’t realize I’m prone to condition until I started to try and sew the back pack I wanted to make for TroubleMaker.

A few weeks ago, he found a button – not just any button but a button of a backpack. I have a sewing room and as a former manager of a sewing supply warehouse, I have lots and lots of sewing stuff… One of my obsessions when I worked there was buttons. We had an entire warehouse of buttons – think of a design and I used to be able to go to the bin and find it for you. I loved buttons and would buy packages and boxes of discount buttons so I have a fairly substantial collection… Although I have tried (and with some success) to give away, freecycle and even garbage a few hundred pieces of my collection, I still have many and my son honed in on this one and began to beg me to make him a ‘backpack’.

Saturday afternoon, with TroubleMaker playing next door, I did just that.
I have not sewn anything since I tried (early in the summer) to make TroubleMaker and I matching aprons to cook in (meaning they are cut out and ready just not sewn together). Stacked on top of the cutting table are photo albums and various craft items from a few miscellaneous projects.

Stacked would indicated order. None is present so I need a different word.



Really, it’s all heaped and piled haphazardly and even the slightest jar to the table sends things sliding in a catastrophic landslide! I shoved stuff aside and laid out the fabric I selected to use. I moved a stack of junk off the ironing board (onto the floor – the only space left) and began to work. Part way through the project, I thought of an improvement and I started to hunt for a slider I wanted to use to make the straps adjustable. I know I had them somewhere but I gave up after 20 minutes or so and finished his backpack – with fixed straps.













More than a year ago – we (meaning me and my husband) decided it would be a good idea to some remodeling downstairs. One of the major changes we decided on was to move my sewing room out from the ‘third bedroom’ and move his ‘mini’ studio into my sewing room. We decided to tear down the wall that encloses his current office to open it to the family room so I can sew and craft while TroubleMaker plays. This will also allow my Husband to leave his equipment set-up and consolidate his prop storage to one room instead of two (and sometimes three).













This will also mean I have to be tidier, more organized and unable to leave projects strewn about. That scares all of us as I’m not known for my organizational skills nor am I known for my ability of keeping my stuff in one area. But perhaps if I have a well orchestrated plan and with plenty of purging, I can complete this dream. I have sketched out a custom built storage unit and I know how I’ll arrange the furniture in the newly (deconstructed) space. I have plans for keeping TroubleMaker’s toys together and new plans for prop storage.




Custom Designed Storage Unit









A place for everything and everything in its place is the only way this can work.

The only way…






Check back next Wednesday as I take you through the design process and share a colour rendering and new floor plan of the proposed space!


I'd also like to thank my Husband (Blackstone Images) for making the pictures look so good - he did a good job of hiding the absolute disaster that my sewing study is... Thank you!

How being creative led me here...

I love to create. I have since I was a little girl. Whether it was fashioning new furniture for my dolls from scrap pieces of wood in my Dad’s garage or sewing clothes (without patterns) from my Mom’s fabric stash, I was always putting things together to make new things or cooking up ideas for different things.



Sweater Set handmade by Brennan's Mom


I remember re-purposing the foot rest from my kid sister’s high chair to make a table I could use while sitting in bed and turning a first crochet project into a wall hanging (as I’d dropped enough stitches it could no longer be used as the intended pot holder it was supposed to be). I taught myself guitar when I was 13 and even began writing and playing my own songs a year or so later.



Baby blanket & card handmade by Brennan's Mom


I learned to sew, crochet, create with clay, make cards, scrapbook, arrange flowers and a whole host of other ‘crafty’ things because it’s just who I am. And today, when I started questioning my entire career choice, I began to remember all these things about me and perhaps why I chose to go into interior design ten years ago. Because honestly, three hours ago, I had no idea why I’d chosen this field.

Brennan's Nursery designed & all items in room handmade by Brennan's Mom


But what I did realize over these few hours was that I have not created a thing lately. And my job is of minimal creative value and other than my writing; I haven’t made time to do anything. I have a mother/son apron project half cut out on the sewing table and I owe my friend at See Spot Run a final crate cover! I was supposed to sew my niece pajama pants two years ago and then decided to make her gym bag from the fabric because she’d outgrown the pattern I’d purchased. I have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 100 metres of fabric waiting to be sewn into something… Anything… But it sits and collects dust instead. And the yarn – I tease my Mom about the thousands of balls of yarn but I’m just as bad – I’m just better at hiding it!


Wedding decorations handmade by Brennan's Mom before she was Brennan's Mom


So although I don’t know how to fix my current dilemma, I know that reading this on The Organic Sister's blog made me think perhaps I should try to apply myself more and find some time soon to get back to the things I know bring me joy.

Can you see Christmas in that dining room?!

Recently, we had the opportunity to view an historic home in an adjoining neighbourhood. We weren’t expecting much from the place (it was, after all, covered in pink stucco) but we went anyway, disappointed that we’d wasted our Saturday having booked this viewing.

Off we went and the realtor met us and subsequently warned us “there are renters and they aren’t the best of housekeepers”. Well. That was the understatement of the year – the renters didn’t ‘housekeep’ at all but even the piles of junk, dirty laundry and resulting damage of having four university students living within its walls could not hide the absolute beauty and splendor of this magnificent 1920’s built home.

It was amazing, from the grand staircase to the 10’ coved ceilings – the period ‘register’ covers and the original wood floors made me sway. The fat, plump wood around the once majestic dining room just needed some serious love (and gallon or seven of paint stripper). The house was amazing but it was seriously suffering from many (too many) years of abuse and neglect. We wandered around often amazed and then dismayed at the state of disrepair this majestic home had been allowed to deteriorate too.

It would be a total gut and it would require some serious consultation with an architect (good thing we know one of those, thank you very much Best Man at our wedding) to get the 70’s craptastic addition up to something that deserved to be attached to this home. We asked questions like “how new are ‘newer furnaces’ and “how much of the plumbing was upgraded?” and “was it just the panel upgraded or was new wiring pulled?” all questions the inept and incompetent realtor was unable to answer.

We left and took our son for ice cream. We dreamed and talked and dreamed some more. This would be our only chance to get into a true ‘character’ home – the ones that had been renovated and restored in the neighbourhood had been out of our price range for many years already but the work, money and time commitment could be so worth it in the end. I’d be able to design and implement a complete restoration of an historic mansion – the kind of things most interior designers only dream of. We dreamed more and found sources for (modernized) period fixtures for the bathrooms and kitchen. We postulated what we could do and how we’d do it – slowly, room by room gaining skill as we went. What things we’d keep (there was a weird pedestal sink complete with tile backsplash in an upstairs bedroom) and what we’d change (the basement was SCARY).

We dreamed up an offer - a low ball knowing that the house would likely fail a home inspection. I considered calling in industry friends to help us get a handle on what the restoration would cost. We thought about booking a second viewing to better document the space with pictures.



But the reality became all too clear. The home was already at the very top of our ‘comfort zone’ and no lowball offer could likely finance the $250 000.00 renovation and restoration we were likely going to have to undertake. Certainly, we could move into the home and ‘keep it up’ but we realized we were just unable to be the family to take this once magnificent and majestic gem of a home back to her original splendor. I think both our hearts broke a little when we realized that – I don’t think I’ve ever been broken hearted over a house before, but what a house she could be.

And for what it’s worth, both of us could picture Christmastime wrapped in her beautiful arms but as our toddler son locked his arms with ours, we knew that he needs the loving Christmas with food in his belly and a toy under the tree more that we need her beautiful embrace.