Fighting The Winter Blues

Hi to everyone out there reading this blog!  I'm excited to tell you all about how I'm busting through this winter depression that is trying to pull me down. I don't know if you or someone you know deals with seasonal depression, but we have been socked in for weeks without sunshine and it's driving me crazy! So what I been doing to fight the blues is sports and outside physical activities, even though I don't want to do it and it hurts. I've been putting myself out there and trying new stuff. My cousin Vera has encourage me and a few other ladies to try a 30 day squat challenge. Here's a link to the challenge if you want to try it yourself. Hey, what do you have to lose? :) http://www.fitsugar.com/30-Day-Squat-Challenge-30806625?fb_action_ids=600164606716571&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B156944174490876%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.likes%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

The picture below with the little bumblebee and write-up on how to fight depression is home-made. It's just a few tips and ideas that may work for you, and the picture was actually taken by my seven-year-old daughter Gillian. Super proud of this photo. I let her loose in the garden with my long-lens camera and this is the photo that she captured. I hope that you are making it through these winter blues! Let me know if you've any questions or comments or any other great ideas on how to get through gloomy days :) 

Here is a picture from this weekend. Above the clouds at Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre.  

This picture is the best way to describe how low the clouds are in the valley and how dark it gets once we are in town. That white expanse is the top of the clouds which are covering the whole valley. The mountain is the perfect place to get some sun at this time of year:)

http://www.sovereignlake.com/

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Thank you for all the support!

Yours truly

Christine Turpin

Powder Day Adventure!

My powder adventure started out with 30 cm of fresh snow in 12 hours at Silver Star Mountain Resort. Morning started out blissfully as Amber and I drove up through the beautiful snow-covered forest. It looked like heavy icing covered all the trees. It was fairly quiet on the hill which made it really easy to get through the lineups fast. After four hours of skiing we packed ourselves up and headed out to our next destination, Revelstoke BC. We organized ourselves at our hotel, hot tubbed, and then headed out for dinner and a few drinks. The Village Idiot Bar and Grill was recommended to me by my brother. The food was great, our sever Alley was super nice and the Caesers were huge. Afterwards we enjoyed a walk around downtown Revelstoke in the snow. This little town seemed like it was straight out of the movies. The next day we headed out to go skiing at Revelstoke Mountain Resort. We took two gondolas and one four-person chair to get to these super epic tree trails with 60cm of fresh powder. It was an awesome day full of laughs, face plants and amazing snow!!!

Powder Day #1

Silver Star Mountain Resort, Vernon BC

 

Dinner and drinks 

Powder Day#2

Revelstoke Mountain Resort, Revelstoke BC

The outfit I packed for hanging out fireside after along day skiing :)

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Thank you for all the support!

Yours truly

Christine Turpin

Organize Chores To Keep On Top Of Clutter

Today I would like to share chore charts that I have built. The chores go from daily chores to weekly chores and monthly chores and even yearly chores. I picked chores from things that I found on the internet or household chores that I do or should be doing, and things my husband does. Below is my Little Piggy magnet chore chart. Crafting project! I used regular printer paper for the chore circles, and some stiffer construction paper for the backing. I cut out each of the chore circles and glued them on top of another larger circle of construction paper, then glued magnets to the back. This chart was for my kids, and each one has a small reward, usually like $.25. They can do enough chores to walk to our corner store when they are done and buy a slurpee or a treat. I hope that you find this useful and are able to use it in your daily life.

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Thank you for all the support!

Yours truly

Christine Turpin

Moonlit Snow shoe Adventure

Yesterday when I woke up to blue skies, I thought to myself "What adventure can I get into today?". Clear skies means it would be clear at night and the stars would be out. We haven't seen that in a few days. I sent out a few texts and soon Nicole, Amber and myself were organizing the hot chocolate, fireball and cheeses. We also borrowed my mom's dog Ruby to protect us from the wildlife.  We went out around 7:30pm and it was a beautiful night sky with snow that looked like white sparkles crunching under our snowshoes. We were out there an hour and a half, and half way through our hike we set up a picnic and chilled with some tunes and just enjoyed each others company and caught up on things after the crazy Christmas holidays.  If you're in a place that you can go snowshoeing or anything at night to enjoy the stars. it's really magical. We are lucky that we only had to drive 35 minutes from our houses in order to see these spectacular stars at Larch Hills.

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Thank you for all the support!

Yours truly

Christine Turpin

January The Month To Organize

Happy New Year Friends!!!! 

For me and a lot of my friends and family the month of January is all about "in with the new out with the old", may that be dust bunnies or organizing. One of my favorite times of year is January, when Walmart and other box stores have their storage and organizing stuff on super sale. First on the list was my closet :) 

 I love the 5/$5 shoe box size container sale. I keep black heels in the blue-lid-colored bins for a quick and easy find.

I scored manaquin heads at Value Village after halloween for $.99. They keep my fave felt hats in great shape.

One of my favorite tricks to keeping my studs organized is ice cube trays! I had blue ones because that's my favorite color, but they were too dark to see my goods at a quick glance so white works best for this job. 

I love utensil drawer containers from the kitchen. I scored these babies on a clearance rack at Winners. I have used these for necklaces, scarfs, and now my growing wallet collection. 

My new storage for earrings, brooches and necklaces. I found this bad boy at Winners for ten dollars. I love that it has storage on both sides and stays out of the way, hanging with my clothes.

Here is a quick look at my bathroom storage solutions.  On the right I have a metal basket that hangs on the wall. I love having a place to hang and store hot appliances. The pic on the left showcases my picture ledge shelf used for my nail polish collection and beauty products. These fab narrow shelves take up very little room and make it a breeze to keep my counter clean.  

My new toy is a closet app for my ipad. Over the weekend i catalogued everything I own into this fantastic app and now can see everything I own anytime, anywhere. Plus mix and match new looks!

Here is a look I put together using my new app and new shirt I fell in love with:)

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Thank you for all the support!

Yours truly

Christine Turpin

My Bucket List 2014

My bucket list for 2014

1. Go for a walk in nature, practice mindfulness, and lose track of time for a while.

2. Watch a TED video to learn about inspiring ideas. (Look on Youtube for these)

3. Share myself authentically in my blog posts, don't be afraid to be vulnerable.

4. Create a vision board with pictures of all of the things that inspire me.

5. Try something I've always assumed I can’t do but secretly wanted to try.

6. Teach someone to do something and tap into my potential as a leader.

7. Ask someone to tell me about the thing they love the most in life, and watch how they light up when sharing their passion.

8. Make a conscious decision to let go of something that doesn’t serve me.

9. Try something new and revel in the sensation of stretching beyond my comfort zone.

10. Attend a conference or retreat to connect with people like me! 

Here are a few pics of christmas with my lil pink leopard family & our Elf Mr.Mischief

Here is what new years looked like in the backyard this year

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Thank you for all the support!

Yours truly

Christine Turpin

Christine Turpin : My Top Ten Moments Of 2013

Christine Turpin : My Top Ten Moments Of 2013: My top 10 favorite moments of 2013: 1. My first time teaching a face painting class. I did this in Salmon Arm, BC at the community arts cent...

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My Top Ten Moments Of 2013

My top 10 favorite moments of 2013:

1. My first time teaching a face painting class. I did this in Salmon Arm, BC at the community arts centre. I had such a wonderful time with all the girls that I had in my class, we had a great time going through some techniques, running through my books of faces, and playing with the products while hanging out in the sun.  It was beautiful.

2. Launching my blog!! I'm pretty stoked about creating something that I'm super passionate about.

3. Downhill Biking in Squamish BC http://www.tourismsquamish.com/. We have an all-girls biking tour every year, and this year we went biking in Squamish and found some trails that we toured on our mountain bikes. These amazing trails through trees with green moss everywhere are totally crazy.  Later in the night we would  bike into town and enjoy the scenery and the people and a great little brewpub http://www.howesound.com/home.aspx.

4. White water rafting on the Columbia River http://www.raftingtherockies.com/. It was very chilly to say the least, but we had a great time.  We stayed in Radium BC and enjoyed visiting the neighbouring town of Invermere, Panorama ski resort and Lussier Hot Springs. 

5. Super Moon in Vancouver. We decided to have a picnic on the beach and enjoy watching the Super Moon, which is a full moon during a close orbit, making the moon appear to be larger than usual. I pulled an all-nighter on the beach and enjoyed this amazing picnic, sparklers and candles. It was so much fun riding our bikes around Stanley Park at five in the morning, way too much fun.

6. Shooting stars. The past summer we went out to my girlfriend Amber's cabin and enjoyed being on Mabel Lake in the boat at night. It was the season when there were a ton of shooting stars and we enjoyed a perfect view from the boat in the middle if the lake. It was the most amazing shooting star display I've ever seen.

7. Zip lining with Zip Trek in Whistler http://m.ziptrek.com/. This October was my first time zip lining and being in Whistler BC. The best way to see Whistler is from above! It was beautiful flying through the trees with spectacular views and great people. Whistler itself has so many beautiful sights to see, drinks to be experienced and foods to be enjoyed. It was such a beautiful , warming and charming little town. 

8. 2013 was for me the year of the picnic. At every adventure I went on, picnic was the theme. Nakusp public beach, Halcyon Hot Springs, and even making a picnic on a random dead-end road that had a beautiful view of the lake. We had a picnic on the back of my car at Silverstar's ski resort with the beautiful sun shining down on us during our mid-day break. I love picnics!

9. I took a class on art decoupage. I had a lot of fun being the student and seeing things through another person's eyes. It was a great experience and I encourage everybody to go take one class in 2014 and try something outside of the box .

 10. Family dinners!  Finally got the hang of feeding large groups of people. I have it almost down pat. One of my favorite things is having people over at my house and being able to have dinner for them. In the last few years I've been grieving over the loss of a few loved ones, and that seems to have taken away the feeling of wanting to have people over, but I'm slowly getting that feeling back where it's comfortable and it's fun again and I'm really, really enjoying setting the table and creating the menu.

That's my favourite  top 10 things of 2013. Thank you so much to everybody who reads this blog, your support means the world to me :) . If you have an idea for an adventure that I should try please let me know . Looking forward to what you all come up with :)