Friday Favourite Moments #14 2026

This was a big week of favourites, and included some of my favourite things!

1) Couch moving (and other post-reno tasks)

One of the big things which needed to happen after our reno was moving the couch from our old living room to our new one. The couch had been hard to move into the old living room and then the reno made the doorway about two inches smaller. Thus, I'd been nervous for a month that it wouldn't fit through the door and would have to stay in our old living room forever. The night before we moved the couch, I was actually awake in the middle of the night for a couple of hours. That's how worried I was. So while my friend and three of our kids left to clear out our second storage unit, Dave, Tim, Sam, and our other friend moved the couch. 

I was so relieved to come home and have it in our new living room. I didn't even want to be home when the whole process happened! (And no, our couch isn't that big -- it's just that our doorways are small.) I'm so thankful for our friends.

2) Easter Sunday and "flowering the cross"

 

I always love the Easter service at our church and it's one of my favourites of the whole year. This year's service was an especially memorable Easter as we "flowered the cross." Basically, this is a tradition where you cover the cross with flowers to signify the new life that has come from it. I hadn't heard of it before but my friend, Alissa, saw the cross covered in chicken wire in the middle of the sanctuary and said, "Are we going to flower the cross?!?!?!" And we did. It was such a joyful part of our service. Our one pastor explained it and then said, "This might be holy, joyful, chaos" and that was a perfect way to describe it.

 

This was one of my favourite things I've ever done on Easter. After church we had Easter Dinner with Tim & Janice, and while I have no pictures, that was also a favourite moment.

3) New coffee maker

 

My cousin got this coffeemaker and then my aunt got one too. My parents used it at my aunt's and thought we would like it, so they ordered one for us! We set it up this past week and we love it! You can make a single serving of coffee or espresso and it's so easy. We've gone through a lot of coffee beans this week making coffee. And now Dave and I will no longer have to negotiate who gets the last cup in the pot! I especially love that it doesn't use "cups" so there's not extra waste. Dave loves that he doesn't have to pre-grind beans.

 

4) Flowers and tea time with our best friends

 

Remember how last year we visited a botanical garden and had a tea time? (You can read about it here, if you want.) Well, this year we decided to make it a mother-daughter event with our best friends. Rachel, Janice, Tessa, and I went to the gardens and wandered through the exhibits. This year was called "Bloomland in Oz" so it was fun to see all the Oz touches! Then we had the most delicious tea time together. It was such a fun day!!!  

  

 

5) Reading Nook

Since the renovation, we have some much bigger spaces in our house. One of those spaces is my and Dave's room so we decided to create a reading nook. We ordered a rug, picked up a comfy chair from IKEA, and set it up. We need a light and a side table (and some books and some time to read!) and our reading nook will be complete! Sam helped me put together the chair earlier this week and that was a favourite moment for sure.

6) Church night

Dave and I are Jr Youth sponsors and last night we had a supper at church with the Jr Youth. We played games and it was so fun! We're going to be doing this weekly for the next bit and I think it's going to be a favourite (but exhausting!) evening in the week. And it might also mean that my "favourite moments" posts are going to be late for the next few weeks as I came home last night completely wiped out! Jr Youth are ENERGETIC!!!

So those were my favourite moments from this week -- lots of friends, flowers, church, and post-renovation activity! How was your week?

Friday Favourite Moments #12 2026

Woot! Woot! It's finally Friday! And the Jays play their first game of the official MLB season today! You can count on our family watching the game tonight and we can't wait!!! Until then, here are some of my favourite moments from this past week. Spoiler alert: It's a lot of "post-renovation work."

1) Tulips

Yes, the tulip love is still going strong. These bring a bright spot of sunshine to our otherwise grey, early spring. I will probably stop buying tulips soon but until I have some flowers outside to brighten my days, I will continue to enjoy them :)

2) My yellow office

 

Painting my new office a bright yellow was a favourite this week! As I've said before, there is very little natural lighting in this room so I wanted it very bright. This yellow was the perfect fit. It looks very empty still as we haven't yet emptied out our storage unit but imagine it with a desk, a cozy place to sit, and a rug, and I think it will be perfect.

 3) Rachel working on her room

I've mentioned this before too but Rachel fixing holes in her walls and painting her new room with her bestie, S, was a definite favourite this week. These two girls were so proud of all their hard work. Dave and I did the second coat of paint but other than that, these two taped, primed, and painted the first coat. They did an awesome job!

 

4) Sam and Rachel's new rooms

Both Sam and Rachel are now partly moved into their new rooms. While there is still some setting up to do, and some furniture to acquire, the fact that they can both sleep there is awesome!!! Since Sam's room is brand new, he got to choose his paint colour but didn't have to do the work of painting it! Hahaha!!!

 

5) CAN-Struction

We took a small renovation break and went to check out CAN-Struction last weekend. It was fun as always! All these structures are built out of food which is then donated to the Food Bank.

left: Mario Kart; middle: sushi; right: Stitch from Lilo & Stitch

 

6) Our friends rock!

 

On Saturday, our friends and their son came over and helped us move furniture, helped us move Sam down into his new bedroom, and helped us move all our boxes from our neighbours' basement.

 

A few evenings ago, Janice came over and helped me dust for a few hours -- we cleaned off the rest of Sam's shelf, a shelf of books in the living room, and the shelf of canned food and boxes in the dining room. Janice even helped me fold a couple of loads of laundry. Our friends have been so supportive and helpful throughout this whole renovation process and I am so thankful for them. 

7) Coffee at work

One of my co-workers had won ten free coffees through the Tim Horton's Roll Up The Rim to Win promotion. Yesterday she brought coffees for a few of us. I've been so tired this week from working and unpacking/cleaning after the reno, that I very much appreciated the extra caffeine boost. 

So those were my favourite moments from this week. It's Thursday evening as I'm writing this and I know another favourite moment will be in a couple of hours when I can crawl into bed really early. I'm tired.

 

How has your week been? Do you have a favourite moment?

Friday Favourite Moments #5 2026 (On A Monday)

This past weekend was a full one with a dance show for Rachel and all the rehearsals that entailed, including one on Thursday night. That meant instead of having time to write a Friday post, I was volunteering at a dance rehearsal. So you get my favourite moments from last week on a Monday.

I'm doing a bit of a different "favourite moments" post because really, my favourite moments this past week all boil down to "our community rocks"! This was a week that decided to throw a lot of inconveniences at Dave and I, and we would not have managed them so smoothly if it weren't for our amazing friends and neighbours.

We still don't have a shower, and our neighbours returned to their house, but Tim and Janice offered us the use of one of their bathrooms for as long as we need it. I didn't realize what a relief this would be. We are not a family who showers every day (thank goodness!) but this means that I don't have to figure out where we can shower a few times a week. We know where we're going, we can leave all our shower supplies there, and we just have to get there.

Our car had some issues last week and needed to spend time in the shop. Thankfully, people kindly offered rides, or their cars. Our neighbours let us use their car to get groceries, friends gave Rachel rides home from dance, and other friends let us use their car for other errands.

Late Thursday night, the only toilet in our house clogged really badly. We needed a different kind of plunger to fix it but it turns out places to buy a plunger aren't open at 2am. So on Friday morning, I went out as my neighbour was getting ready to leave for work, and asked if we could use their washroom for a few hours. They were so kind and gracious to say "yes" and I was very thankful (and relieved). 

I'm really just so thankful for our community. We would not be getting through this winter, or this reno, without them, and I want to acknowledge that. Never underestimate the power of providing, without hesitation, what someone needs in that moment -- whether it be a place to pee, a car to get groceries, or somewhere to shower. This past week we needed all those things.

Here's hoping this week goes a little more smoothly...

Memories, Reflections And Dreams 2025

For my first blog post of 2026, I am recapping our 2025. I found this way of reflecting through Lysha last year and I really loved it. Lysha blogs at A Camera & A Cookbook and you can find her here. 

1. Me!

I couldn't pick between these two favourite photos of me. On the left is me in London with my favourite sweatshirt that my mom bought me and a Pimms. On the right is me cheering on my Jays at a World Series game! Travelling and baseball are two of my favourite things! 

2. I Love You

For our anniversary this year, Dave and I went to a restaurant near us. I actually discovered this restaurant when I participated in a local walking tour. The host of the tour mentioned the tasting menu at this restaurant and that is what Dave and I ate for our date. We didn't know what we were getting for each course until it arrived. There were six courses and Dave and I think it was one of the top five meals of our lives.

3. Still Laughing...

When we had to reimagine our March Break plans, we decided to do a "stay-cation." One of the activities we did was Activate, which was recommended by an Instagram/blog friend. It is a place where you can participate in games for about a minute to 90 seconds at a time. We ran from game to game to game and had so much fun, we went back with friends about a month later. Writing this post reminds me that we need to go check it out again because it was so fun!!! 

4. Winter Wonderland

While I didn't love all the snow we received in February (two huge dumps of snow within three days),we sure were living in a winter wonderland for most of the month. The snowbanks in our front yard have never been so high!

5. Birthday

My birthday this year wasn't super exciting but considering two of my friends died since my last birthday, I was just happy to be celebrating another trip around the sun. And I will always remember my birthday month (May) as the time when my favourite local ice cream shop rolled out Grapefruit Orange Blossom ice cream and I ate it about five or six times in the month! It was sooooo good!!!

6. Friends

There were so many great moments with friends this year but I'm choosing this one when, for the first time ever, a friend I made through blogging came to visit us! We've gone to visit many blog friends and it was so fun to have someone come our way! And yes, we went to a Blue Jays game with them as well as exploring our city and having so much fun together.

7. I Was Inspired…

I was definitely inspired by all the tile I saw in Portugal this summer. I have tried to bring little pieces of it into our house with the renovation we're doing and I'm so excited to see it all come to fruition! 

8. Spring Fever

While there were many fun things about the spring, the Blossoms 'N Brunch I did with Janice in April was a definite highlight! We had so much fun making bouquets and just enjoying ourselves. 

9. Travel or Vacation

We travelled to Europe with my parents this summer and we had the best time! Sam planned most of the trip -- where we went and what we did -- and he did such a great job. This was an especially joyous celebration as my mom had successful surgery for lung cancer in April so we celebrated a lot on this trip!

10. Summer Days

After our Europe trip my parents stayed in Ontario to help us celebrate Rachel's Bat Mitzvah. We spent many, many summer afternoons sitting at our table, under our tree, enjoying the back yard. And of course, my dad mixed drinks! These are some of my favourite summer memories.

11. A Day In My Life

When I'm at home, almost every day in my life begins with coffee-hot chocolate in a different mug. When it's cold out, this is my view -- sitting in my favourite spot in our living room.

12. All Smiles

Rachel was overjoyed when she got her braces off this past summer and could eat popcorn again. We didn't have popcorn in the house while the kids had braces and the amount of popcorn we've gone through since August is unbelievable!

13. Autumn/Fall

Our favourite night in our uptown is the LUMEN festival and this year, Janice, Tim, and Tessa joined us! It was so much fun!!! This night is a highlight of our fall.

14. Family or Home

This is the year our home started undergoing a major renovation! Here's me on our new living room floor. We're trying to live in our house while this is happening so it's been an interesting couple of months with more to come... 

15. Celebrate!

Our "celebrate" moment of the year was definitely Rachel's Bat Mitzvah! It was so great to celebrate with so many friends and family. A highlight for me was hosting all of our family for a backyard BBQ. We had relatives come in from California, Texas, New York, and Saskatchewan for this weekend and it was so special.

16. Let’s Do It Again…

Watching our Jays play in the ALCS, and then the World Series, was one of the best moments all year -- after my mom's successful lung cancer surgery and Rachel's Bat Mitzvah. Let's do it again Blue Jays (and win it all this time)!!! October 2025 will not be one I soon forget :)

17. I Miss You

I took this picture on a walk to Lake Huron with a group of five people at our church's Winter Retreat in January. I had a great conversation with a friend on this walk, and two weeks later, she and her daughter (who was Sam's age) were killed in a car accident. This loss has been incredibly difficult for our church community. They are so missed.

19. Dress Up 

We had so much fun dressing up to celebrate Rachel's dance studio's 50th anniversary at their Gala. I even bought heels for the occasion, which I wore again at Rachel's Bat Mitzvah.

20. Macro

I don't know if this counts as "macro" but I liked this close up of one of the ornaments on our tree and the fact that you can see the dumpster for our reno in the background.

21. Holidays

We enjoyed a special Canada Day at the Jays' game. It was so neat to see the huge Canadian flag on the field, and the giveaway was a red jersey so there was so much red in the stadium. Plus the Jays won over the Yankees, and George Springer hit a grand slam!!! This was the beginning of the Jays run to take over the AL East and I'm so glad we were there for it!

22. My Favourite

 

Sitting in the backyard with a drink, and laundry hanging on the line, will always be my favourite thing to do at home. I love our backyard so much! 

23. Don’t Ever Change

We had family photos taken in October and I love these two so much! Even though they've hit those "antagonistic towards your sibling" teenage years, and can be as annoying as all get out, I hope they never change.

24. Just Because…

We celebrated Dave's birthday by enjoying an ice cream making workshop at our favourite ice cream shop and it was absolutely one of the best things that happened last winter. I don't want to forget how much fun we had doing this. And we came home with 16 pints of ice cream which kept us going for a couple of months. Hahahaha!!!

25. Hopes and Dreams

I often see things that I think look really interesting come across my Instagram feed. One of them was a golden hour picnic at a lavender farm near us. Dave was not at all interested in going so I asked Janice if she wanted to go with me. She said yes and that Tim was in too! So Dave had to come -- hahaha! We ended up having so much fun, we all want to do it again next year. So this was one of those events that was beyond my wildest hopes and dreams!

So that was 2025. There was a lot of good this past year (my mom and dad both overcame challenging health issues, Rachel's Bat Mitzvah, our three generation Europe trip, the Blue Jays playoff run) but there was also a lot of hard (the death of our friends, the unknown with my mom's health especially, our cancelled Hawaii trip).

 

Thanks for being here through all of it and here's hoping 2026 brings so much goodness and joy to all of us. 

What's Up Wednesday: November 2025

This is the month that our big renovation started! You can go here to read more specifics but I will be referencing it a lot in today's post as it's been a major part of our month.

Answering these questions monthly helps me reflect on the past month and I really appreciate having a record of what we've been up to. The questions come from Shay at Mix and Match Mama and Sheaffer at Sheaffer Told Me Too.

image from here

 

What we're eating this week... I made the first batch of Applesauce Jumbles last week as well as the first batch of Cranberry Tea. These are both recipes I got from fellow bloggers and they have become a huge part of our holiday season. You can find Holly's Applesauce Jumble recipe here and the Cranberry Tea recipe I got from Allena. In fact, I'm drinking a cup of cranberry tea as I get this post ready and I'll be baking another batch of Applesauce Jumbles tonight!

 

Also, in preparation for losing our kitchen in the next month, Dave and I went to Costco and looked at all the prepared foods they offer. I found some cheese, fruit, and nut snacks and asked Dave to buy some a few weeks ago. These have been a really good addition to my lunches lately and I know I will be eating a lot more of them in the next few months.

 

What I'm reminiscing about... From 1997 until 2002 I owned a house with ten other people. We were all post-university and wanted to try living intentionally. We bought a house together and decided to make it a five year project. People came and went but we were still friends after five years of living together. I somehow ended up with the bin of "house papers" and, with permission from the others, I've been going through them and recycling/shredding them. So I've been reminiscing about that time in my life.

 

These are pictures of pictures but they were taken the night we sold the house. With my share of the proceeds I took my dad on the Trans-Siberian Railway from Beijing to Moscow through Mongolia and then we went and visited the area in the Ukraine where his parents were born. (You can read more about that trip here if you're interested.)

 

What I'm loving... I'm loving that, in some ways, November has been slower than October and I've had time to read, get more sleep, and knock a few huge tasks off my "to do" list. Don't get me wrong -- November has also been full, but I appreciate having just a little more time these days. 

 

What we've been up to... We've been up to a lot!

I did another Blossoms 'N Brunch with friends.

 

 

We went to a town near us to check out their "Sparkles" event. We enjoyed fancy hot chocolate, some photo ops, and some sitting by the fire. We ate some really good pizza and made an evening out of it. Rachel commented that it was like a Hallmark movie "but with lineups"! She wasn't wrong :)

 

And renovations have started! The playroom has been taken off, the basement has been gutted, new windows have been put in, and framing has started. In preparation for all of this, we have continued to pack up, sort through things, and move a lot of stuff out of our house. We just have three more rooms to move out of (the kitchen, bathroom, and Rachel's room).

Here's me blogging in the office while laundry dries this past weekend.

What I'm dreading... While I'm excited about the renovations, I'm also dreading not having a kitchen and having to pack up Rachel's room. She'll be moving in with Dave and I so things are going to get... cozy! Hahaha!

What I'm working on... Sorting stuff. Getting rid of stuff. Packing stuff. Moving stuff. Repeat.

What I'm excited about... I get so excited to come home every day and see what progress has been made. It's fun to think that in a few short months our house will look so different!!!

What I'm watching/reading... I started watching Hallmark Christmas movies a few weekends ago. 

I haven't watched any of the new ones yet -- just some old favourites like The Santa Summit and Hannukah on the Rocks. Maybe this weekend I'll watch a new one! 

 

As for reading, I read a lot in November. I read One Good Thing by Georgia Hunter, Broken Country by Claire Leslie Hall, and My Friends by Fredrik Backman, among other things.

 

However, the most life changing book I read this month was How To Winter: harness your mindset to thrive on cold, dark, or difficult days by Kari Leibowitz. I want to buy this book, underline it, and re-read it every October as I prepare for winter -- my least favourite season. If you are not a winter person (like me), check out this book. I might actually be looking forward to this winter, after reading this book.

 

What I'm listening to... Construction noises. And, as I mentioned in Monday's post, the lot across the street is being worked on too (and not just 8-4:30 like our renos), so when I'm not hearing construction noises at home, I'm hearing banging across the street. It's a lot.

What I'm wearing... My family decided they're done with matching holiday pjs, so I decided to get a full on fun pair for myself! In the midst of renovation life, I needed something to bring me some holiday joy! 

I got them from Old Navy this past weekend and the pants are especially fun! They're striped with candy canes, trees, and gingerbread houses on them :)

 

What I'm doing this weekend... I think we're going to start packing up some more things in the kitchen and get more done in Rachel's room. Rachel has a bunch of Nutcracker rehearsals in preparation for her show in a few weeks (including a lot this weekend) so we're chipping away at her room as she has time. I'll probably watch some Hallmark movies. It might be one of our last slow weekends before the holidays hit so I'm going to enjoy it.

What I'm looking forward to next month... Seeing more changes happening with our reno! Finding moments of joy in the midst of upheaval at home. Celebrating the holidays with friends and family.

So that's what's up with us this Wednesday in November. I used to really dread November but now I've just enjoyed savouring its coziness and enforced slowness. How's your November been?