DIY Faux Wood Floating Shelves & Cariloha Bamboo Towels

Here's how I created faux wood floating shelves in our bathroom closet with supplies from the dollar store!

Our new rental townhouse came with a linen closet inside of the upstairs bathroom. I was very happy about this because our townhouse in Utah didn't have any closets (other than the bedroom closets). This closet had white wire mesh shelves and I wasn't too crazy about them. I didn't love the look and I didn't really like that they have holes in them. It just so happened that a budget organizing YouTuber I watch called DoItOnADime published a video on her channel shortly before we moved in, about a hack to make wire shelves look like floating wood shelves! I loved the idea and with just a few dollar store supplies, I thought it was worth a try!

(Update: It's coming up on 2 years since I made these fake floating shelves & they're holding up great!)

I was really happy with the result! If you'd like to try this project yourself, here's what you'll need:

Saying Goodbye to Utah

Our time in Utah came to an end pretty quickly when Ken found out about his new job offer. We found out about the job at the end of January and by the time things were finalized, we had about 6 weeks before we would start driving back to Canada so it was a pretty busy time of selling a lot of furniture, packing all of our stuff, finding someone to sublet our rental townhouse, and trying to make arrangements for our arrival in Canada.

During that time, we also tried to squeeze in as many appointments as we could (haircuts, eye appointments, dentist appointments, etc.!) Here's a photo of the girls & I after our eye appointments:

...and here are the haircut before & afters:

Some Thoughts on Comparison, Social Media, & Opening Up Online

This post is about comparison, "invisible" struggles, and the role that opening up online and through social media (or not opening up) plays in our perceptions of others' lives....

Sometimes you look at someone in the pew across from you at church, or you follow someone on Instagram and think you have a pretty good idea of what their life is like, how happy they are, what sort of weight they’re carrying in terms of life challenges, and how well they’re handling things.

You probably compare them or their life with yourself or your life- whether you mean to or not. You probably have a warped perception of what life is really like for them. (Please note that I said warped perception- this is good news because there’s a good chance that your inadvertent comparing is making you feel worse about yourself, your life challenges, and how you’re handling everything! If you can realize that the comparison you’re making isn't really a fair one, it may help you on that front.)

My Weird Ellen Dream

A few days ago I was getting ready for the day and as I was doing so, the details of a dream I had the night before slowly started coming back to me. I found myself chuckling as I remembered more and more of it and thought I needed to document it. So today I bring you my weird Ellen dream:

In my dream, I worked at The Ellen Shop (which was located in a strip mall). Ellen was always at the store, sitting at a special desk. When I arrived at work, I was told by a supervisor that all employees would get 40% off of all jeans that day because the Oprah show would be surprising Ellen by coming to the shop at 4:30 that afternoon. I started shopping and trying on jeans and hoodies until I realized that Ellen could see me and I thought I better stop shopping since I was supposed to be working.

We're Back!

Well this is possibly the longest break I've ever taken from blogging...

Details on what's in the background can be found in the Cottage Instagram stories (linked below).

I wasn't able to blog during our road trip from Utah to Canada because I was relying on hotel WiFi and had little free time. When we arrived back in Canada and were living at the cottage, we were relying on our cellphone plans for internet access and since we were out in the country, that wasn't the best connection and creating a hot spot was extremely ineffective.

Cottage Life

My best way to document our time at the cottage was through Instagram and mainly Instagram stories. If you're interested in looking back through my cottage story posts, I'll link them for you right here. I recommend it- it brings back great memories for me to watch this little series of posts. :)

Road Trip from Utah to Canada

I also have a story feature for our moving trip from Utah to Canada, so you can check that out if you'd like to get a glimpse of our road trip.  I would like to share some of these memories in blog form if I can get to it, but I'm not sure when that will happen, so these stories are your best bet if you'd like to catch up on what we've been up to.

For now I just wanted to make an appearance back here on the blog, to say a quick hello and let you know that I haven't disappeared! I hope you're still here too because there's lots more to come!

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Becoming Minimalist Homeschoolers?

Last time I wrote, I told you about how we would soon be homeless. Thankfully, I can now say that we have a short term plan for where to lay our heads when we arrive in Ontario!

Photo not of actual lake ;) This was taken at our Couples Resort getaway in Northern Ontario!

At this stage, we're planning for a month or two of minimalist living & homeschooling at a cottage by a lake...