Monthly Archives: April 2017

bloggingfundamentals, Colorado living, Home Decor, Laughter, Pearl St. Boulder

Home Sweet Home

Leave a comment

While I do believe that Wisconsin and Minnesota are truly where my heart lives, and the hubs and I envision moving back to one of those states at some point in the future, I am good with life in Colorado. We moved here last summer, from what we referred to as our “Grandma House”, a simple ranch with beautiful hardwood floors, a great backyard and sweet 3 season porch, to a more modern 3 bedroom townhome smack dab between Denver and Boulder. Upon returning to our Colorado home last Friday after the most emotionally challenging  9 days of my life thus far (spent with aging parents in Minnesota), I have newfound interest and energy for sprucing up our townhome. The fact that the hubs had professional painters come in and paint our downstairs walls (which houses a small living room, dining room, kitchen and half bath) is a major inspiration for me as well.

That said, I’d like to do something a little fun here with this blog post. Hubs and I have lots of ideas for how to adorn our walls downstairs and soon we should be able to start making some purchases. I’ve taken pictures of the wall spaces that I believe need to be customized to reflect our lives here, right now. If I had to categorize our home decor style, I’d say it is “arts and crafts meets modern rustic”. I’m highly open to comments or suggestions people!

So without further ado….let’s begin!

20170427_102913

This is our dining area. The small framed mirrors were a find from a few years back, which I still love,  from Ikea. I really want to keep them right where they are. However, I think they need some color! I would like to tie in the hints of burgundy (or maroon, depending on how your eyes see it) somehow. I’m thinking possibly a thin dark wood shelf above the mirrors with some small basic tealight candles in just the right shade of burgundy/maroon.

20170427_102850

So here is our main wall in our little kitchen. Pretty boring right? It is such an improvement from the previous color, however, which was a wine/burgundy that made the space seem even smaller than it is. I like the idea of a beer theme here (Hubs and I are fans of Colorado craft beer) though I don’t want to go overboard. I have been saving bottle caps from beers we’ve enjoyed with the notion that some day I’m going to actually try one of the many Pinterest crafts I have saved. One idea I have is to superglue the bottle caps onto this clock that we both really love. We want this clock to stay where it is for sure. Then possibly put a couple of framed (black and white possibly) pictures of beer. Or else some small wood shelves on either side of the clock with tea light candles (beer scented-but that might be overkill).

20170427_102942

So this is a pic of the wall next to our entryway. I am in love with the placement of the peace sign, which I picked up on Pearl St. in Boulder shortly after moving here. And the peace lily is so beautiful and special, as it was a gift from my in  law’s for my 50th birthday. I just feel that the wall space needs a tad bit more color. Perhaps adding it by putting colorful ribbon on the peace sign? Not certain if I should mess with this or not.

20170427_103046

This is of course the fireplace wall. One thing Hubs and I have agreed on from Day #1 in this townhome is that the peach colored tile framing the fireplace is quite hideous and needs to go! Especially now with buttery yellow combined with chocolate brown on the wall above it. We do plan on having a beautiful picture of the Colorado sky,  which the Hubs recently took, blown up and framed with rustic looking wood for above the fireplace. The real dilemma for us here is how to re-face (is this the correct term? Not sure) the lovely (not) peach tile. We are thinking slate or stone, but have no knowledge of how to do it. I do have faith that once we figure that out, it will be something special.

I have more pics of my house I may share in the near future, but these are the areas I am most interested in updating at this moment in time. As I said earlier in this post, comments and/or suggestions are much appreciated! It’s time for this joint to become a real home for the two of us 🙂

bloggingfundamentals, Humor, Meditation, Mind Hacking

Meditation and me

1 Comment

I have a curious relationship with meditation. Over the past several years, I’ve had several people recommend it to me as a way to cope with anxiety and calm my fears. Like lots of things throughout my life (exercise and writing are prime examples), it’s been an on again/off again affair.

I became more serious about meditation a little over a year ago, while reading a self help book entitled “Mind Hacking: How to Change Your Mind for Good in 21 Days” by Sir John Hargrave. The premise of this book is that we have the ability to “hack” our minds to change our thinking and overcome obstacles that prevent us from realizing our full potential. This book was actually a great read which empowered me to change my thinking, which improved my attitude towards life. I recommend to it anyone who feels they could benefit from an attitude re-adjustment.  Here it is: images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/…/51HW57bSE2L.UY250.jpg

A significant portion of this book is dedicated to “mind hacking” exercises, which included something called the “Concentration Game”. This exercise, from my perspective, is essentially meditation with an interesting twist: Once you are comfortably seated and begin focusing on breathing in and out, you are to keep track of the number of times you find yourself following your mind (being “lost in the movie”), by either counting on your fingers or in your head. When I first tried this, it seemed like a smart way to be mindful, which greatly appealed to me. I had recently embraced the notion of practicing mindfulness, so I was “all in”. However, this exercise proved to be quite challenging for me. Here’s how it went:

I sat my tush down on the floor of the room we used in our sweet “Grandma” house as an office. I closed my eyes, taking in a big breath, then slowly exhaling.

Then I thought to myself: “Okay, I got this. Oh, I feel so relaxed”. Then “Sh*t! I had a thought! Alright, there’s #1”

Then I thought “Okay, don’t forget to write down the total down when you’re done” Ok, so this was thought #2.  Then I thought “Alright, quiet your brain…D’oh! Now you’re at #3”!

Okay….blank mind, blank mind, breathe…..

Approximately 22 seconds later, I hear a noise I can’t quite recognize and think “Oh, that’s just hubs getting dressed in our bedroom”. Uh-oh! Thought #4….

Okay, breathe in, breathe out, in, out…then thought #5 pops into my noggin “I’m strong, I can do this”. “Shut up!” I tell myself. Okay, there’s thought #6.

Ok, so this was not necessarily going well.

Back to it. I’m breathing in, breathing out. In my head are the words “Breathe in love, breathe out kindness…oh, I like that. Very positive”. Crap! Now that’s thought #7. Focus, woman!

Ok, breathe in, breathe out…..

A maximum of 30 seconds passes, and it occurs to me that the alarm I set on my cell phone for this completely frustrating activity is likely to go off at any second now…whoops! Thought #8.

Okay, breathe in love, breathe out kindness, breathe in love, breathe out kindness. I am becoming more chilled out now. I start to physically feel  the level of relaxation I experienced when hubs and I were on vacation in the Florida Keys (Islamorada) the previous spring. I could hear the waves flapping from the ocean w/seagulls squawking in the background. Then, I thought to myself “I wonder if we’ll be able to go back there someday”. Thought #9!

Ok, breathe in love, breathe out kindness. Then the random thought pops up about how many more thoughts I might have by the time I have finished this god-forsaken exercise. Thought #10!

So, essentially this wound up being less of a mindful, refreshing meditation and more of a game of “how many thoughts can I have while meditating?”.

Surprisingly, I continue to meditate each morning.  It has a calming, grounding effect on me and sets the tone for the day. However, I refuse to count my thoughts while doing so. Instead, I set my timer to 10 (not 20 like the “Concentration Game” for Pete’s Sake) minutes. And then I breathe in with a customized acronym and breathe out to another acronym I came up with. I would bet (at least $1.08) that the number of thoughts I have in these precious 10 minutes are fewer than 10. Works for me!