City living envy

If I lived in Toronto, I dream our apartment or loft would look something like...

 

The pink squished between brick. Neighbors through flower boxes and balcony gardens. 

Mark lives next to an old toy factory turned loft apartments. How fun would that be? I picture everything open with lots of light. 

     

 

This kitchen is probably bigger than anything realistic in our city apartment. Its also white and Mark insists on Navy. 

Its fun to dream.

Waking up with Dagny and Mark

A typical day in Toronto started out a lot like this:

Mark's room was bright at 5am with his floor to ceiling windows. We would hear a couple sweet sounds, toys rattle and a pacifier get thrown onto the floor. Usually one of us would fail at convincing the other NOT to look over the covers to see what Dagny was doing. The second you made eye contact it was over. How could you care though when this is what you'd see?

The only benefit to Mark still being hurt while we were there, was that he got to go into to training later and spend the mornings with us. The three of us stayed in bed until Dagny fell back asleep, or one of us lost the "don't you want to make me coffee?" war. 

When we did venture out of bed, breakfast was always next. Cozy mornings when we stayed in and made pancakes or cinnamon rolls... 

 Or mornings when the Hagglunds picked us up and we went to Mitzi's cafe. An all day brunch spot that was tucked away in a beautiful residential area. They serve buttermilk oatmeal pancakes that really just taste like cake. done.

Other mornings, when we didn't have any food but didn't want to get out of our cozy clothes, we'd walk to get donuts and coffee or scones and lattes in Mark's neighborhood. 

All of these mornings were the best mornings. Waking up with the two of them is truly joy unspeakable.

July!

It's a new month. I had a pretty great June because I spent the better half with my husband. For July, my sister Mary Kate and I have decided to set some goals.

My list:

1. I'm deleting Facebook.
Its one step towards minimizing the social media in my life. And right now it's not a good use of my time. My Facebook feed is mostly ugly. I love staying relatively informed on the current events, but I'm tired of them. Everyone seems angry. I'm tired of old acquaintances and their gross pictures, I'm tired of random animal memes, and I'm tired of people that believe in everything I do not. The good about Facebook is truly keeping tabs on ones that I love and miss. I'll find other ways to stay in touch. Mary Kate is probably doing the wiser and just cleaning up her friend list, but I don't have the energy and at one point accepted too many friend of a friend of a friend requests.

2. I'm going to read The Peaceable Kingdom. It's been on my to read list forever so it's time.

3. I am also going to challenge myself to come up with something fun and new in the kitchen each week. I have a couple of things I've been wanting to make but haven't made the time to do so. Anything that ends up being awesome, I'll share!

4. I started a study in She Reads Truth called "Women in The Word," but I never got passed day three. I'm going to finish it this month.

5. Lastly, July is hot. My goal is to get out side earlier in the mornings and walk with Dagny. We walked a lot in Toronto and it was great. I have always worked 12 hour shifts, usually working 2 on, 2 off, 3 on, 2 off etc. Now my schedule is changing and I am going to do four 10 hour shifts each week. Tuesdays through Fridays. Dagny is going to start going to the Child Development Center, the daycare through the Navy instead of the nanny we've been using. I'm hoping this helps in a lot of other areas I was struggling with recently, but mostly, I think I need a little bit of routine in my life. Taking morning walks on our weekends sounds great.

The picture has nothing to do with my post, but what says July better than stripes and ice cream? This waffle cone was made fresh right before my eyes! It was warm in my hand! Which means it soaked up the Salted Caramel Oreo and Funky Chunky Chocolate flavors and my last bites were gooey! Drool.