Winter Reading
6 December 2018 • books, Home, winter
Every fall and winter I love to really hunker down into some good books. Now that my kids are old enough to entertain themselves (for the most part) and I don't have to worry about them swallowing dimes from behind the couch (for the most part) I've been able to actually sit down and read more than a paragraph at a time. Yay! And I would much prefer my kids to see their mama reading all the time than scrolling on her phone.
A few winters ago I re-read the entire Harry Potter series. Never gets old. I cannot wait for our kids to be old enough to really get Harry Potter. We've tried with Iris but she had a hard time keeping all the characters straight and you could tell she was totally boggled by why the Dursley's were so mean to Harry. Bless her. We'll try again next year ;)
Last week we all got the stomach flu so we had a lot of time (between all the laundry and fun stuff that goes with the stomach flu) to sit and read and I ended up reading books 3-7 of Harry Potter again. Like I said, Harry Potter never gets old!
Last winter I tackled just one book and that was Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. What a brick of a book! But so wonderful! Not gonna lie, sometimes that Levin character would just go on and on about peasant farming methods and I would doubt my choice, but I just loved the timeless insights into family life. And I feel kinda weird saying this but Tolstoy really captured the complexities of motherhood so well.
Anyway, this snowy season I've started in on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy which I've never read before. I just finished The Hobbit last night and wow was it was better than I thought it would be! I also have Gone with the Wind sitting on my shelf and it's looking pleasingly dense and perfect for a winter read.
If you have any book series to recommend, hit me up!
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On an unrelated side note: doesn't the wood stove look great?!
Getting Back To Our Normal
27 November 2018 • Family
Well as you may have heard we have a new Nunn arriving this June! Baby number three, oh boy! We had planned this baby but once the hormones kicked in and the dreaded "Pregnant Natalie" returned I had some second thoughts on what we were possibly thinking. Life was just starting to feel kinda "easy" again, why did we throw Pregnant Natalie and a soon-to-be-newborn into the mix?!
The past two months have been hard. So so very hard. I am happy to be pregnant and excited about this new kid, BUT pregnancy is not a fun time for me. We kind of forgot how hard it is, not just on me but the whole family. For me, I get really sad, feel nauseous 24/7 and disengage from the entire family. I don't want to parent, I don't want to cook and I cannot bring myself to really contribute in any way. It's rough! I felt like a total failure and burden. Poor Dave, he really had to become a single parent for a while there all while trying to keep me from falling completely into a dark and hazy state. Thank goodness for our parents! I honestly don't know how we would have survived without all their help. And help from friends! People who dropped off food or just sent me a message to see how we were doing or to even commiserate about the trials of growing a person. All of it was so appreciated.
During those two months we completely abandoned all of regular crunchy routines. Cloth diapers? UGH too much work, just put Harv in a disposable when we go out. Using the cloth wipe spray? Well as soon as that ran out I didn't feel like making more. Getting outside every day with the kids? I could cry just thinking of the process of getting two kids dressed and outside. Nope, unlimited Netflix it is! Making bread and food from scratch? HA! The kids lived off PB and J, cereal and fruit for 8 weeks. Things I did not have to cook or think about. It made me realize how living a more hands-on life really requires a certain amount of privilege. As soon our home life became stressed and I became unwell, all of those things immediately became unattainable.
At one point during a day where were eating cereal for lunch, the dog hadn't been walked in over 3 weeks, I had just finished crying at the table, and the kids were whining about watching even more Netflix after lunch Dave looked at me and said in a half joking way, "You know, I think this is a real low point for the Nunn family. We're barely functioning right now!"
Now I'm slowly starting to feel more like myself which we are all incredibly grateful for. When I ate a full dinner for the first time at my parents house recently I thought my mum was going to cry tears of joy lol. I'm getting cookbooks out at the library again, seeing friends, cooking real food, and saying no to Netflix more often. I cry, tops, once a day! Life is starting to feel good again and I'm starting to look forward to each day rather than dreading it.
I hate to get cheesy here but you know the saying how you can't appreciate the good times unless you have the bad times too? It really is so true. Sometimes the bad times seem to go on forever but then you slowly make your way back to the good times and it's like being able to breathe out of your nose again after being stuffed up for weeks. You suddenly get to appreciate all the little things you took for granted before. Like having an appetite. Actually enjoying your kids. Having the energy to walk the dog. Helping someone else instead of being the one being helped. I could go on forever.
Here's to new babies and making it through hard times!
The night after I wrote this both kids came down with the dreaded barfing flu. Ha! Back to the hard times I see for a while yet! Ah such is life.
Painting on the Walls
27 September 2018 • Crafts, Home
When we first bought our house the entire thing was painted this dark salmon colour (ugh!). We ended up painting all the walls in the entire house white. Not even "cloud white" but straight-outta-the-can eggshell white and I loved it! We have a very...hmmm....eclectic (?) style so having white walls means there is no colour scheme and everything we put on the walls just magically works. It's great!
You know what else is great about white walls? It's very easy to paint on them. I don't know why it took me so long to get to the idea of painting directly on the walls. When I first learned about Maud Lewis, oh man, was that ever an eye opener for me. "This woman just paints on every surface of her tiny house?" I was so inspired! I remember watching Maudie and mentioning to Dave "Wow, I really want to paint on our walls now" and he (surprisingly) said "yeah, go for it!"
So when I had the house to myself for a few hours I just did it. I stared at the wall with my paints on a plate, totally second guessing the idea (what if it looked bad?!) and I just started painting. I painted some flowers by the coat rack and loved it so much I did some above the light switch as well. I kept telling myself, "well if it's weird or Dave hates it I'll just paint it white again".
This planter I saw on Pinterest
Ooko I copied from a library book
I don't have any tattoos but people who have them are always saying you get one and you immediately want another. I feel this way about painting on my walls. I'm itching to do something in kitchen now...
The Current Brood
21 September 2018 • Chickens
I've realized that so much has changed since the last time I wrote about the chickens! Here's a little update if you're curious :)
Sadly, we lost one of hens this summer. Good ole Frida. By far our favourite hen! The only one that would stand still when the kids came near and let them pick her up. She got something called an impacted crop which I guess is pretty common for chickens. We knew that it would eventually kill her so when we got a text from our house sitter while on vacation we weren't too surprised. Iris was very sad though. When she's overtired she'll still sob "oh I miss Frida! She was my best chicken!". Poor girl!
To be honest I'm quite surprised that we haven't lost any of the other hens to predators! I've jinxed it now but we live pretty close to a conservation area so we've kind of prepared ourselves for something to snatch a hen. So far so good!
In happy hen news, this past spring we got two baby chicks! Iris saved up her allowance for months and was so excited to buy her own "babies". We let her name them and she went with Dolly (Parton; Jolene is one of her favourite songs) and Betty (if Harvey was a girl he was going to be named Betty so she heard the name a lot. Guess that name's out for our next kid!). And oh man, I will forever get baby chicks instead of pullets now! The temperament of Betty and Dolly is so different than the others which we got as full grown hens. Betty and Dolly will follow us around out back, aren't nervous around Gus, and let the kids pick them up so easily. Dream chickens! Plus their colours! So beautiful!
In terms of eggs, we only get about 3 eggs a day from the 5 hens. Which I mean, if you were doing it for the eggs isn't the best lol. Factory egg layers are typically killed after a year since their production goes down so much but our chickens are more pet chickens now I suppose. I remember before we got them Dave and I thought "well we'll just get them butchered when they stop laying and use them as soup chickens" but then you name them, the kids (and let's be honest, Dave and I) begin to adore them and you can't possibly imagine having them killed regardless of how little eggs they are producing. Pretty soon we'll be running an eggless chicken nursing home ;)
This time last year we we're getting nervous about the coming winter and if the hens would survive the cold. This year we have another whole year of experience under our belts and are confident that everything will be just fine.
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We buy all our hens from this amazing farm called Happy Hens Heritage Farm. It's a bit of a drive but the owner, Marina, is so kind and helpful. She gave us a little how-to booklet when we picked up our chicks and has (happily!) answered many of our questions for us as we venture into this chicken adventure. Highly recommend her farm if you're looking into chickens, especially interesting breeds.
Hello Again!
14 September 2018 • Family
Hello again! I've really been feeling the urge to write and blog again lately so I thought I'd pop in here and spruce things up a bit :)
The past few weeks have been very full around here. Dave went back to work, our wood stove got installed (!!), we did a tiny reno (read: put up shelves) in our kitchen, were handed down Dave's moms piano that had to get moved in (!!) and the kids and I are settling into a different routine with just the three of us during the day now.
We've been spending lots of time at home lately. I've been trying really hard to let the kids be and what a difference this has made in our days! Being the one staying at home with them, I've always felt this pressure to be doing something with them all the time and really planning out our whole day. Which, surprise, left me feeling like I had no time to do my own thing and the kids were constantly nagging me to entertain them.
I hesitate to use the word ignore, but essentially for most of the day now I just get on with my own things and let them be. If they're safe, and not destroying the house (the bar is low here people lol) then I just let them be. Even if that means they've pulled out all the crayons and dumped them on the carpet to find the perfect shade of pink, I just let them be. To be honest, sometimes I just have to leave the room because I find it so hard not to interrupt them and shout "Gah! Don't do that!".
What a change! I've noticed the kids will play with each other so much more, and they've become so much more engaged in their own little worlds and activities. It's so lovely to see! Plus I've been able to read SO MUCH more and work away on my own projects. Instead of waiting for the kids to go to bed to have some "me time" I just do it during the day.
What a revelation!
This makes feel so optimistic about the coming winter and spending more time together inside :)
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This book was really inspiring to back off and let the kids be : The Idle Parent by Tom Hodgkinson
Around Here
17 January 2018 • around here, Family, Home
Oh hello! Long time no see! Just thought I'd check in and share a little about what's going on around here....That makes it seem like I have big news or something. A new baby?! We bought miniature goats?! Nope nope nope nothing like that.
At the end of the fall Dave and I pulled the trigger and bought a wood burning stove! We had a bit of money saved up and decided we could afford a small renovation. Our top choices were either a dishwasher or a wood burning stove. Although a dishwasher would have probably been the more practical choice there's something about a wood burning stove that just screams COZY and HYGGE that a dishwasher simply can't compare with. We have to wait till the spring to get it installed in the living room so we aren't enjoying it this winter but we're stoked to have it for next winter! We live in a small bungalow so we do all of our living on one floor of the house so we'll be able to use the stove to (most of the time) heat the house in the winter which, come on! Doesn't that sound amazing?! The house will always smell like woodsmoke and chopped wood *swoon*. Our modern Little House on the Prairie dreams are pretty much all coming true.
Now that winter has definitely settled in I'm starting to feel the dreaded cabin fever. Over the holiday break we didn't play outside once because there were extreme cold warnings every day and now it seems like we're stuck in the rut of playing indoors most days now. Ugh! Must get outside every day!
The chickens live on! Near the end of the summer Dave shingled the coop roof and added a small extension to the back to give the hens a bit more room. We were wondering how they would do in the winter but they've been really great so far! Surprisingly they come outside and walk around in the snow every day and Rosa is still laying an egg every other day or so. We haven't had to add a heat lamp or anything, but we do have to bring the water in every night and fill it with boiling water in the morning so it doesn't freeze as fast.
Trying very hard to fully enjoy and appreciate the winter and not wish it away for spring but man, it can be hard! In the meantime we've been drinking lots of tea, reading so many books (I recently took up reading Anna Karenina and there is nothing like Russian literature for the wintertime!), and Iris just started Forest School for the winter semester so there's that!
Hope you're all enjoying your winter :)
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