Happy Spring! 

Pardon my absence, I have been keeping myself busy Spring Cleaning. 

Over the past few months, I have been working evenings and weekends organizing hoards of items stored in the basement at my flophouse. This was a repository for extra supplies, unwanted furniture, leftovers from renovations and the abandoned possessions of previous tenants. I had collected these items...until it got out of control. 

Here are some before and after pictures:

Before...the clutter gives me a headache

In April I buckled down and finally started organizing! I have donated many boxes of dishes and other miscellaneous items. I sorted through building materials and salvaged anything I thought I would use in the forseable future, the rest were donated.

Every item you see had to get moved FOUR times!! A very tedious process which was more tiresome due to the low ceilings.

I spent 2 days solely to organize my light bulbs and light fixtures! This cubby shelf is great for organizing them. It was a $50 find when our Sears store went out of business and sold all their shelving.

I was profoundly proud of myself when a light fixture blew and I had to replace it. I knew *exactly* where to look for the replacement fixture! Huzzah!

Do you see the dangling chains suspended from the ceiling? They were my solution for holding trim for doorways. The trim is flimsy and prone to breakage. And so the chains keep them suspended out of harms way. I used the top of the cubby shelf to store lumber. With lumber fetching high prices...I salvaged every usable length I could find. They were all leftovers from previous projects.

The finished result. A compact storage room where I can easily find everything! This took 5 weeks of work to get to this result. I still have 2 other rooms to organize at my leisure. Thankfully they have higher ceilings and are not a disaster.

I need to go rest my aching back...this week I start landscaping and painting ;)

happy thrifting 

I'm still here.

 I'm still here. Hi friends, I know it's been an absence. I've been working hard, and also enjoying life. I've undergone some lows and highs.

Let's start with the seasonal changes here in Northwestern Ontario. It's late November, and I am packing away the denim jackets and light cotton layers I wore during the heat of the summer and early fall.

Here are two outfits taken while I am seated in my car...first one is of me at the mall car park.  Shopping trips are becoming rarer, and therefore have become a treat and excursion. I am planning more carefully, so that I make fewer forays into our local shopping mall. I enjoy people watching, and being out and about. So I savour looking at merchandise and seeing what people are wearing. I also like striding about in indoor malls...which may soon become a thing of the past as shopping malls are increasingly loosing flagship stores. There are waves of longstanding stores which are dissappearing...shopping is changing. I have changed with it, I am allowing myself a budget to snap up well made clothing at liquidation sale prices.

me-made corgi mask, thrifted denim jacket, orange t-shirt (from store liquidation), blue camo jeans (from another store liquidation).

Outfit pic of me prior leaving the car to go to my job as a retail clerk in a women's wear shop. 

Abalone necklace from women's wear store liquidation, tank top from RW sales, thrifted Calvin Klein jeans, long lacy cardigan from sales.

I became suddenly unemployed in mid-May...and wanting to be frugal and not slide too deeply into debt, I picked up 3 part-time jobs (retail clerk, newspaper delivery person, and corner store cashier/prep cook). I enjoyed these adventures,  but thankfully I have secured an replacement full-time job.  One which pays more than my previous job, and ensures that I will survive financially. It's extremely difficult to support a household working minimum wage jobs, as it's impossible to find a job with full-time hours. I made the best of it though...and I'm still here. 

Here is what I learned about myself from my part-time jobs

1. I absolutely adore staging outfits, and presenting accessories and merchandise for sale. My favorite task as a retail clerk in a women's wear shop was opening up boxes of merchandise and arranging them for sale.

2. I love opening up mysterious boxes of inventory and exploring the contents.

3. I adore fashion, but I cherish well made clothing that is durable as well as stylish.

4. I thrive on working in a corner store/restaurant...the pressure of prepping food at high-speed is intoxicating.

5. I enjoy the peace and serenity of getting up extra-early and traipsing through neighbourhoods for 2 hours to deliver papers (except for Thursdays, when circulars add additional weight and bulk to my carrier bags, ugh!).

Assorted jean jackets and other clothing, all purchased second-hand.

Covid has not been an easy go for me. I haven't seen my kids in a long time as they live with their dad. A long term relationship also ended. And a career job suddenly disappeared. But I came back stronger, with a new relationship and a better job. I hope that you, my blogland friends, also persevere and survive. Perhaps you will discover new strengths, and new ways to enjoy life in quarantine.

I feel nostalgic as I pack away my summer wardrobe. But as the temperature dip, Mother Nature is giving us a taste of frosty weather...time to unpack cozy sweaters, tights, thicker trousers and leggings, and long jackets. I also plan to unpack my festive clothing. My boyfriend and I may not be going out to Christmas parties...but I will be damned if I don't dress up in my glittering finery.

happy thrifting ;)

Door rehab.

I've been filling in holes and gouges.  That is the first stage of rehabilitation at the door hospital.

I'm fixing a stack of doors.

Literally, a stack.

Before applying filler.

After filler application.

I vow, I will never, ever, take a smooth, nicely-painted door for granted again.

The good news about repairing doors, is that I get to make Pinteresty improvements.

Measure twice.

Measure a rectangle, score the lines, mark with painter tape, and apply two coats of blackboard paint.

Ugh, I hate paint bleeds!

Stay tuned for more door rehab!

happy thrifting ;)

3 month renovation check-in

Hello friends! Welcome to the 3 month check in.

In mid-February the renovations at the lodging house began in earnest..we began removing old, battered drywall.

Later, new materials arrived.

New drywall and insulation!

New windows!!

New switch plate covers!!

This is what $600 worth of GFI electrical outlets look like.

Gasp!

Lots of new materials are going into the renovation, which means that lots of old stuff is coming out!!

Like this cast iron bathtub (it weighs about 300 pounds).

And these old windows.

And lots of garbage!!

I feel like this post (and the renovation) should be sponsored by caffeinated beverages from McDonald's.

I'm saving these bits of drywall, and insulation. They'll be used for small repair jobs later.

We removed a lot of scrap metal.

Jackpot! I found a great deal on curtain rods at our Habitat for Humanity!  They are still in the box!!

We removed a LOT of old appliances from the building.  Some of the collection is outside, waiting to be picked up.  I used to refer to the building as the "dead appliance museum".

Have a cuppa on me everyone!

happy thrifting ;)

the end of summer

The summer we enjoyed this year was spectacular.  

Then the weather got a little cooler and the air a little crisper.  I remember the first day I had to reach for boots.  Ugh.

The good news about fall is ponchos!!

When people say, "the best thing since sliced bread", I feel they are doing a disservice to ponchos.  Anything that feels like a blanket, which can be worn at work and while running errands, should have it's own idiom.

Enjoying snuggly warmth while impressing people with my fashion acumen is always a big plus.  Usually when I'm this comfortable, I'm wearing sloppy, over-sized, sweats.

One day when I was trawling through the Halloween costume rack at Value Village, I stumbled across this beauty. 

$25...what??

I peered at the label and was delighted to see it was made in the USA.  Bemidgi Woolen Mills is in Minnesota and judging from their website, they sell all manner of cozy things to keep you warm. Technically this isn't a poncho, it's a cape. But whatever.

I wore the cape during an especially chilly 5 degree Celcius day, and it kept me toasty warm. It's the perfect thing to wear if you plan to spend extended time outdoors.  If I were going to a daytime, outdoor event, I would wear it over a heavy sweater and jeans.

If you walk or commute, it's the best thing ever.  It has pockets where you can keep your cell-phone and bus pass.

If you drive, you will have to take a few minutes to tuck the folds of woolen material around you. 

I found this lovely in the beach-coverup section.  I guess it pays to check all the weird aisles to find ponchos.

$15...yes!!

I refuse to acknowledge cold weather (until I really have to).  So if wearing a poncho means delaying putting on a coat, then it's all good. 

Other great things about fall are boots, sweater dresses and road trips with amazing blue skies.

Roots stripey poncho, vintage silk blouse, RW leggings.

Most comfortable boots ever.

American Eagle sweater dress (thrifted $5!) Plaid coat (thrifted) Canadian made boots (Hudson's Bay)

If you are visiting Ontario during the autumn, you're in for a treat!  The fall colours are so beautiful.

Wardrobe staples for me are silk blouses over cotton t-shirts, my favourite RW leggings and boots.  Toss on a poncho and you're set for chilly offices or a walk outdoors.

Here are some pictures from my fall road trip.  Driving across Ontario makes you really how really BIG Canada is.  I stopped to take some pictures.

It's common not to see anyone for miles on the highway.  So when I saw this train, I had to take a picture.

Canadian or what?

Small town Ontario.

If you look closely, you'll see stacked rocks on top of the rocky outcrop.  I saw scads of Inuksuks  and stacked rocks along the highway.

Spectacular sky.

happy thrifting everyone ;)

Summer trip to Ottawa Part 2 National Gallery, white dresses and an eerie resemblance!!

Hello friends!  Welcome to our summer trip to Ottawa, part deux.

Here we are at the Apple store in the Rideau Centre.  These are the perks of visiting a large city.  We don't have an Apple store in Thunder Bay, so most discerning stylist brought her glitchy iPad along to see if it could be repaired.

Thank goodness!  There is wifi!!

I like the Apple store, it reminds me of grown-up kindergarten.  Plus there is a bevy of talented nerds, eager to help and instruct on the wonders of iOS.

Sadly, stylist's iPad wasn't damaged, and thus wasn't eligible to be repaired. It was just old.  And slow.

So we purchased a pair of ear plugs, as the cats had absconded with the previous pair and moved on.

The next day we visited the National Gallery of Canada.

The big spider (look left) is out front.  I think it's sister is in San Francisco.

The architecture is amazing!

View from the restaurant.

The exhibit was Vigee Le Brun, the portraitist of Marie Antoinette.

It was breathtaking!  The luminous colors seemed to float through the air.

And there was an interactive DRESS UP ROOM!!

You heard me people, I said DRESS UP!!

Back to the architecture.

White dresses.

Shoes to match.

Stylist and I wandered through the gallery all day.  There were so many interesting things to see!!

Due to the age of the paintings, some of the hallways were quite dark and gloomy.  Imagine our surprise when we turned into a secluded corner and found this lady.

Portrait of a Lady, Antonis Mor van Dashorst

1560

She reminds me of someone...I just can't think of who.

Back to the Ottawa skyline.  It's lousy with old edifices!

The Chateau Laurier.

The Parliament.

These historic landmarks were clearly visible from the Gallery, as parts of it are floor to ceiling windows.

Yours truly in a thrifted dress and purse.

Here are some snapshots we took on the way back to mom's.

The Chateau Laurier (again).

Random government building?

Old train station?

The eyes have it.

Back at mom's, heading out for dinner!

Heading home again!  There is no place like home!!

Waiting for our plane to arrive.

happy thrifting ;)