Love/Hate

I LOVE/hate being so busy. It’s a good thing when you’re a small business owner, right? Not so much a great thing when you're supposed to be on maternity leave cuddling up with W for another 6 months...

Here’s hoping that things will seem less overwhelming soon...

Normally, this is a VERY slow time of year, but not for me! I’m working on that great in-fill project, as well as a re-reno (a kitchen/family room project I worked on about year ago flooded and needs to be gutted and redone - so terrible for the clients...), a really hip living and dining room, as well as a few bathrooms, and some staging...

*sigh*

Did I mention that I am supposed to start teaching again in April!!!???

Really, this is what Mod Ethel means...

Every fibre of my “Ethel” wants to be at home with my kids. I just want to love and cuddle them, teach them, clean the house, cook and bake for my family (not that I’m a good cook or baker.....but maybe I could be if I had the time....)...

Then there’s “Mod”... the driven, ambitious, hardworking entrepreneur that wants to win every design award there is, wear power suits, drive the luxury car, have my own tv show, and all this by getting as many clients as possible...

I have to admit it’s a pretty close race.

TRX

I signed up for TRX training! They were setting it up at my gym when I asked the girl at the front desk about it! I was lucky enough to be able to speak with the TRX instructor and I immediately signed up for a demo...I’ll be honest – after the demo, I was sore for almost a week. There were muscles engaged that I don’t think had ever been used before!!! I start on the on the 8^th of February so I’ll definitely report back (if I’m able to lift my arms to type!)....

As an aside, the weight loss is going. Slooooooooooooooowly. I lost 1 pound last week. It’s a loss though. I’m hoping that the dedicated workouts will kick the weight loss into high gear again... I’m also hoping the salad overdosing will help too.

I'm doing it!

I am sticking to my New Year's Resolution. I will lose the rest of this baby weight come hell or high water! I've worked super hard at the gym for 2 weeks, 5 days in a row now. I've squeezed it in between, before or after being a mom, a wife (thank god for J's support and for the fact that he works from home so when the wee men are napping I can scoot out), a maid, never mind a friend, a sister, and daughter all the while juggling a HUGE project for my small business...

YAhOooOo!

Tonight was exceptionally rough. Didn't get to the gym until well after 8pm but it was one of the best workouts I've had since I started back...funny how that happens. I was dead tired and decided to get into my gym clothes (half the battle) before putting S to bed and bathing W. When the whole bedtime routine was over with I piled myself into the car and off I went. Mind over matter!!! It was worth it because now I feel like a million bucks!

Dumpster Diving?

I love the story behind these chairs!

We had just bought our first home. We needed dining room chairs. My initial plan was to find four different styles of chairs, paint them all the same colour and re-upholster them with the same fabric like these ones I came across:

http://divineconsignoakpark.blogspot.com/

I came by my garbage night "shopping" habit at an early age. My mom (who is the QUEEN of refurbishing thrift store, garage sale, and curb side finds) taught me that there were so many treasures out at the curb on Thursday nights in our neighbourhood!

The habit was hard to break. I was on my way home from the gym on a cold Ottawa winter night. It was snowing, and the roads were terrible. I was almost there. Through the frosty windshield of our tiny hatchback, I spotted them! My curbside treasure! Four chairs with beautiful bones! I had to have them. I pulled over and sat on each of them. Sturdy. I quickly flung open the hatch and piled one in. Then another??? Nope. Only one fit. I tried to maneuver them every which way. Only one fit. I rushed home and dropped off the chair. Josh laughing his head off at how excited I was. Being the gentleman that he is, he offered to go back and pick up the rest so I could warm up. Off he went & he was back in no time at all. He looked sad (for me). The other three chairs? GONE!

Back to square one. We'll go with the original plan and have four different style chairs. I looked on Used Ottawa and Kijiji and about a week later I found the three missing "garbage chairs" on Used Ottawa! Sooo, short story long, I bought the three matching chairs for $40 and had my complete set of four!

Here's what they looked like in the end...I removed the caning, primed and painted the frames and reupholstered the seats...I was pretty proud of them.

To end the story, when we finally moved into our new home about a month later, my gorgeous chairs were WAY too big for the space...

I sold them on Used Ottawa for a healthy profit!

Love this!

I love this idea out of House and Home Magazine! They suggest finding vintage hankies on Ebay or at thrift shops and framing them! What a great way to add pattern and colour to your space! I'm working on a few with wallpaper and fabric remnants - will post photos when it's all done!!

Another crack at it...

I've so often wanted to "blog" but never thought that anything I had to share would be of interest to anyone. BUT I am starting this year with a more positive attitude and even if I only attain 1 follower in 2011, my resolution will be complete.

I originally wanted to start this as a design blog as it's what I do for a living but I feel like we're a little over-saturated in design these days...

Although I definitely want to incorporate design ideas, I wanted to share about life. My life. Your life. Just life....kids, books, cooking, entertaining, families, husbands, friends, work, etc. . .

Who is Mod Ethel? She's me.

I came by the name when brainstorming with my husband, Josh, who is a creative genius in my humble opinion. I wanted to name a small side-company I started sewing pilows, curtains, aprons, etc... after a female ancestor... I LOVE old fashioned names. We had Olive (after my granny), and Frances (my nanny who is still going strong at 96), and then I thought of incorporating both - Olive + Frances.

All of them were good, but not great. Then I thought of my great grandmother, you guessed it, Maude Ethel. LOVE IT! And here's where my genius husband comes in: "why not spell Maude, M-O-D?".... Perfect! That's me. A modern girl with a traditional twist.