What does 11 years, 11 months and 11 days look like?

Today my husband stopped by my work and surprised me with 2 dozen multicoloured roses to celebrate our 11:11:11 anniversary. 11:11 has sort of always been our thing so it was completely fitting for him to celebrate this milestone with me.

I posted this picture on Facebook this morning after his visit, also changing my profile picture to a picture of just the flowers. 87 likes and 15 comments later I started thinking about what 11 years, 11 months and 11 days actually looks like.

It's so much more than the flowers I posted online. It's dating. It's falling in love. It's buying houses. It's having kids. But it's also fighting, it's not liking the person for that moment, it's losing houses and it's suffering just as much (or even more) when your kids are sick. It's looking your spouse in the eye and accepting them for ALL that they are. All the wonderful 'dropping flowers off to work' moments but all the faults and demons as well. Looking them in the eye and saying, "You aren't perfect. But you're perfect for me" and having them say that SAME back to you.

I didn't want to trivialize 11 years, 11 months and 11 days into a picture of flowers on Facebook. We've been through the rough times. The really hard times. The amazing times. The absolute giddy times. What truly makes 11 years, 11 months and 11 days so amazing is that here we are - giving and accepting flowers all happy and giddy like we were when we were first dating. Our hard times haven't tainted us. They haven't broken us. They have only made us stronger.

In a new era of "if it's broke - just replace it" I pride my husband and I for sticking it out. For always having each others backs. For trusting each other completely - even if on the inside we weren't so sure.

11 years, 11 months and 11 days is so so much more than a vase full of flowers. It's losing people you love. Attending funerals together and wiping the tears away. It's sitting in the waiting room of Sick Kids in silence holding hands both too afraid to talk. It's laying WIDE awake in your new bed in your new house too excited to sleep. It's saying, "it's a boy!" one more time as you birth your next child. It's late nights and dirty diapers. It's mowing the lawn and stepping in dog shit. It's walking in the house and stepping in dog shit. Let's face it. It's a lot of shit. It's listening to first words, watch first steps, and holding the tears back as the school bus pulls away for the first time with them on it.

It's date nights. It's finding yet ANOTHER babysitter so you don't have to give up those precious date nights. It's spending date night at Walmart buying diapers and having dinner at Wendy's because that's all you have money left over for. It's putting the kids to bed and drinking entirely too much together trying to recapture those carefree days. It's waking up early the next morning and doing rock paper scissors over who gets up to deal with the kids.

11 years, 11 months and 11 days is history. It's a whole history with the person you fell in love with. The person who knows all your weaknesses and strengths. A person who you just couldn't live without.

11 years, 11 months and 11 days is so much more than a vase full of flowers. But flowers after 11 years, 11 months and 11 days says so much too.

I love you....MORE.

xoxoxoxo

A new office!

Paul has the wonderful opportunity through his work to work from home 2 days a week. The only problem with that is we don't have an official "office" space for him. We set up a desk behind our bed, but the kids come in and want to watch tv lying in our bed, or just ask questions - they don't see it as a 'work space'. Another problem with our open concept house is there is no good homework location for the kids. 4 kids means a lot of comings and goings and TV's and video games and friends and LOTS of distractions.

We have a 'front room' in our house beside our entrance that was pretty much just for show. This is the only good picture I have of the half wall from that room.

What a cute model eh?

So basically wasted space. So step one of "new office project" close up that room and make it a closed in office!

Oh that's so exciting!!!

But now look inside - this is what we were working with!

The space was disorganized and dreary drab! I wasn't going to spend all this time and money to have a dreary drab office. So enter Pinterest! Here was my inspiration:

So off to Ikea we went. I liked these:

...but they were a bit rickety and for the price I didn't feel like it was worth it.

So enter Kijiji! I lined up some units for $300 but then the guy decided he wanted to keep them! :( So back to the drawing board. Then I found these:

I was thinking I could paint them. And these were only $100!! Enter in Annie Sloan chalk paint. WOW. My advice is next time you do your FIRST painting project - START SMALL!!

But after the first unit was painted I was sold!!

So are you anxious to see the big reveal??

Here it is!!

I'm SOOOO happy with it!!! And so is Paul!!!!

I even got creative and lined the drawers and made desk blotters with some left over wallpaper.

I'll post more about the chalk paint process another time - but what do you think about our before and after?!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

February 25th

This was more of a blog post than a status update so forgive me for sending you to yet another page.

February 25th, 2008 cancer STOLE a wonderful soul from this world. One of my very good friends, Nola, was taken from us. She was my fellow puck bunny. My fellow 'mom to a boy', my confidant, my rock in my new shaky world of motherhood. She was a relatively new mother too, ahead of me by just about 18 months, but she was a natural. Anytime I had questions, I KNEW Nola would have the right answer. And NEVER in a preachy way, just in her natural loving way suggesting whatever worked for them. Her husband, Rick, was my husband's best friend, so by default, we became very close. We both had boys, we both would enjoy going to the game and watching our men play hockey, and we both felt like we were fumbling our way through new motherhood. Only like I said, she wasn't. She was a pro. Everything from Nola's kitchen was homemade. And by the off chance that you caught her on an "off" day and she used frozen pie crust instead of homemade (the filling would be from scratch), she would apologize for the 'fake' pie. Mostly what I remember about Nola is she LOVED life. She loved the outdoors. She LOVED her son. One weekend, Paul travelled for work and knowing I didn't like being alone, she invited me to come and sleep over. I was newly married and not yet a mother. She had a new baby, but somehow she doted on me making me feel right at home. I felt loved when I was near Nola. I felt all the loves she had too.

February 16th, 2016 cancer STOLE another amazing soul from this world. Nicole Jannis Marchand. I knew her when she was a precocious little girl, and thanks to social media reconnected a few years ago. Nicole is happiness. Nicole is life. Soaking in every moment for all the good and leaving the bad behind. She will never know it, but she saved me. Through various circumstances I had become bitter. My gratitude journal had been growing dust for weeks, no MONTHS. Following her and her journey, transformed me. How could I hold on to my bitterness if she could go through all she was going through with grace, style and a smile on her face?! It wasn't even conscious. All of the sudden I was noticing sunsets, cold ice cream on the chins of my boys, giggles, small arms around my neck, laughter, friends, and the list goes on and on.

Two beautiful souls are in heaven now, watching over us. Nola still guides me as a mother - when I have questions I think, "what would Nola do?" Nicole you will always guide me on my path of living life and taking the good.

Nola, please find Nicole and give her a tour around. She's the new girl with the glowing smile that lights up the room. If you two do find each other, I'm sure you'll be running the place by the time I get there.

I love you both.

#FUCKCANCER