Fighting for good mental health in (UGH) January
The Christmas season has its own set of stresses and depressing points days weeks, but sometimes January can kick you in the crotch, too.
Judging from (A) my social media feeds, and (B) the real-life humans I interact with (mostly at the school bus stop because, hello, HERMIT GIRL), it seems there are two key ways to approach January …
Option 1: Yayyyy new year, new goals, gonna take on the world, yaaaaaas.
Option 2: January is bleak and so is my spirit, kinda.
2018 has NOT gotten off to a great start for our family, and there is something shitty about a “fresh new year” that starts off badly. It feels like a rip-off.
My mental health has been taking hits, so today’s post is all about REAL THINGS you can ACTUALLY DO if you’re feeling similarly during this cold, dark, uninspired month called January …
Cardboard box entrepreneurs
I can’t remember when or why the first cardboard box arrived. All I know is he’s been steadily adding to the collection for almost two months.
“I’m making an arcade,” our seven-year-old son announced.
With scissors and tape, he’d turned one box into some kind of foosball game using army figurines. Another box was a simple “claw machine” with a paperclip on a string serving as the claw.
The boxes started piling up in his room, and soon he was enlisting neighbours to help. Then the focus shifted from making the games to working on the business model and that ended up being even more fun.
One volunteered to be the secretary and he got to work building her a cardboard computer — complete with cardboard keyboard, mouse and mousepad and cords made from yarn. (I think all keyboards should have “send” and “done” buttons).
For the monitor, he covered it with a sheet of paper and drew an email inbox: “new arcade going great for business. No pets.” and “the little pictures at the bottom” (the taskbar). I suggested a pie chart for the arcade’s finances and was delighted when he carefully coloured one in. I’m not sure each section represents, but one says “PR” so at least they’ve allocated some money to promoting themselves …
Continue reading in my weekly parenting column, The Mom Scene …
I’m taking an oil painting class!
So Darling Husband had been on my case for weeks asking what I wanted for Christmas, and I was honestly no help. Everything he suggested just didn’t feel like something he (i.e. WE) needed to spend money on.
I didn’t want anything, and isn’t that a good thing? I couldn’t care less about getting new clothes. I did NOT want a new iPhone (mine’s just fine, thanks). I didn’t need a new sewing machine or a new power tool. He got more and more frustrated with me and I was nervous he’d just run out and buy ANYTHING (an expensive “anything”) for the sake of getting me SOMETHING.
Then I realized what I wanted. Not a thing, but an experience.
AN OIL PAINTING CLASS!
Fast forward to yesterday, when I had my very first two-hour class. It was AWESOME and absolutely the best gift he could have given me.
What makes it doubly special is the fact that one of the instructors — Christene Sandeson — is the very same art teacher I had when I was nine or 10. I still remember walking up the steps to her studio on Saturday mornings for private sketching lessons. Now she’s teaching me again! That’s pretty special, isn’t it?
Now, I should start by saying that I’m basically brand-new to oil painting. Yes, I’ve messed around with it on my own, and my grandmother helped me do a painting once when I was 10 — she was a wonderful painter — but I always felt like a bit of a fraud. I just globbed on the paint and did abstracts. It wasn’t REAL oil painting — at least, not to me. Read More
Converting an awkward space to a cozy reading nook
Some of the split-level houses on our street share the same cool feature: a strange nook set into the walls of one of the bedrooms.
I’ve noticed it in a few friends’ houses and I’m always intrigued by it. (Our house has a disappointing lack of interesting nooks and crannies.)
One neighbour turned her nook into a deep bookshelf, but a neighbour down the street mentioned turning theirs into a play area for their five-year-old son. I jumped at the chance to help them cosy it up with a few cushions.
They sent me measurements of the space, and I lucked out by getting two 24×24-inch chair pads (around $11 each) that fit almost perfectly — no trimming required. I also bought four metres of colourful, funky, Riley Blake fabric to go with the little boy’s green walls.
Once the fabric was washed and dried — always important when you’re dealing with cotton that’s going to shrink a bit — it was time to sew the cushion covers.
Instead of using the chair pads to make one long 48-inch cushion, I decided to keep them separate so they could be stacked or rearranged.
Sewing an envelope-style cush- ion cover is easy. Just lay the cushion in the middle of the fabric — so the good side of the fabric is facing up — and fold each end over the cushion so they overlap at least six inches.
Trim off any excess at the sides, and pin/sew along the sides. (It’s easier to do this one side at a time, since you have to remove the cushion to do the sewing.)
To get nice, crisp corners, pin off the excess — the little triangle at each corner — and sew a vertical line down each one.
It was exciting to head down the street to set up the reading nook with its new cushions. I even had enough fabric left over to make a little throw pillow, too. It was just so I could take pictures, though — the actual space was going to be a Christmas surprise.
The cushions looked great, and the little boy’s parents plan to add a guardrail and rock-climbing grips to the wall — how cool is that? — so this space is about to get even more awesome.
I love that they wanted to do something unique with this unusual nook in their home, and I know their son is going to absolutely love it.
Easy folding chair makeover
I did a little victory dance when I came across not one but two folding chairs in the thrift shop last month. Actually, that’s not true — I quickly collapsed them and dragged them around the store with me so no one else snapped them up.
These chairs were — wait for it — $2 each. I dare you to try to buy something that nice for $2 at one of those nothing-really-costs-a-dollar-anymore Dollar Stores.
I needed folding chairs for my new craft table, which I shared a few weeks ago, and these ones were perfect. One was a dark brownish metal and the other was the identical black metal/black vinyl combo they sell for $10.97 at Walmart.* Read More
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Heather's Handmade Life 