A Hearty Home: August 2015

The illusion of growing up

A thought that has been nagging me for the past few weeks is this: do we ever really grow up or is it all an illusion? I'll clarify what I mean by telling you a story. When I was in first grade I used to look up to the sixth graders (the last grade of primary school in Belgium) and I would be like "Wow, they're so big and cool, I want to be just like them one day." But then I grew up, went to second, third, ... and eventually sixth grade. But nothing ever changed. I didn't feel big and cool. I still felt like the 6 year old first-grade-me. What I had thought being in sixth grade would feel like, that feeling never came.

The second post in this little Back To School series is going to be about lunch and snack essentials for school. It turned out to be a very happy and colorful post. Just look at those pictures, right? All items featured in this post scream "Food is FUN!". And it is! So eating at school should be fun too. If you missed the first post in the series, I talked about must have homework essentials, so be sure to give that post a read as well. Now on to snacks and lunch.

A school day is a long and very tiring day for your little ones. A little bit like our work days. Learning new things is hard work for sure. To make it through the day and maximize their learning, our kids need a lot of energy, both physically and mentally. And what better way to provide them with energy than healthy and yummie foods? In colorful boxes obviously, like that is even optional. This post is going to be about the best choices of "hardware" to take food and drinks to school, not about what food to bring to school. Maybe I'll do one about that in the future, if you'd like to see that, let me know in the comments below!

I'm always complaining to Ruben that we don't do anything together. We do sometimes but we really ought to do more activities together out of the comfort zone of our daily lives: go on a city trip, do a biking tour, visit a museum, ... I'm a big fan of doing fun things and building happy and unique memories together but for some reason we're kind of bad at it. We always stay in our comfort zone and at times we even get bored at home with no idea what to do other than play some ping pong or badminton which Ruben is always begging me to. Lately the number of "special" activities we do together has even dropped from few to none. Being in the midst of renovating our apartment there doesn't seem to be much time left to have some quality time together and get away from it all. Past weekend we decided to do just that. We got ourselves some take out french fries (I know I know, don't judge) and went down to the river to watch the sunset.

Here in Belgium, school starts again in a week. What? Yes. One more week and the deliciously long summer break will be over. In fully Back To School season I thought it would be appropriate to do a little series on some important school topics. Today we're kicking this series off with a post dedicated to Homework Essentials. Are you a parent looking for what to stock up on to make your child's homework experience just that little bit easier? Then this post is exactly what you need. Over the next week or so there will also be a post on Lunch & Snack Essentials, Teacher Essentials and Healthy School Night Habits.

Initially I was going to write an entirely different blog post. A post about me feeling horrible, sad, unworthy of love and ashamed of my body. A feeling that started after viewing some pictures of myself on my 25th birthday party. Last Friday I had thought that I looked gorgeous in my shiny bright blue dress but I must have been wrong. Feeling sexy must have been a mistake. I just couldn't shake the sadness and the shame and kept thinking "If this is how other people see me, why do they love me? Why does he love me?" If you too are feeling ashamed of how you look, I am here to tell you you don't have to be. You are allowed to love yourself. No matter what. That's what I realized, looking again and again at those pictures. Feeling sexy wasn't a mistake.

Browsing through Pinterest for inspiration on how to paint our walls, I came across various pictures featuring a statement/accent wall and I thought by myself: I want this... and I can do this! Since we're going for a white-and-grey-neutral color scheme on our walls with colorful decorations throughout the entire apartment, a statement wall is the perfect way to spice things up and give our interior a modern Pinterest-ready look. And the best part of all: painting a (triangle) statement wall is actually easier than I thought it would be. You will need a couple of days to finish this project but it is so worth it!

Reading books for me is like going on holiday. When I'm reading I should have a sign next to me that says "out of service". I'm not joking, my ears literally stop working when I'm reading a book: I don't even hear my phone, the doorbell or someone talking to me. It's like I'm just not there. Time and again my friends and family need to shake my shoulders to get me back to reality. Or I should say this reality. Because even though books are fiction, in there it's all real. My latest read Big Little Lies by Liane Mortiarty is one of those books with an intriguing reality.

For my first kids' activity post I wanted to share something really bright and colorful for summer: DIY animal decorations made with buttons. It's a project you can either do as a team, together with your kids as young as 5 or a project your older creatives can do on their own. You can use this technique not only to make room decoration like I'm going to show you today, you can also make cards with it or customize notebooks. Are you ready? Let's do this!

Every other week or so I'd love to sit down in front of my computer and write a more personal, life events inspired post on top of the normal Sunday-Thursday schedule. A post without all that much of a plan but with lots more personality than the other tutorial-like posts here on A Hearty Home. Don't get me wrong, I love doing those and that's what I want to keep focusing on but I also want this blog to be a representation of all of me. I debated whether or not to do them from the minute I started this blog but since I love to read these kinds of post on other people's blogs I thought I too could get away with rambling about life and its ups and downs. I feel like without a little bit more personality this blog could become too clean and unrealistic which is exactly the opposite of what I'm going for. For your information I'll be indicating these personal posts with #MM, which stands for "Margot's musings" so if you don't like chatty personal posts you can just skip those. I'll be putting them into the "life + more" category so you'll be able to find them in the tabs if you'd want to.

I am so excited for today's post that I can barely stay in my seat (which is a sunbed in our garden actually, if you must ask). But seriously, I am over the moon to present to you: A Hearty Home's very own DIY printable blog planner! It is available in my Etsy shop as a digital instant download so right after purchasing you can start printing and planning! You can choose to purchase the complete blog planner which consists of 25 printable files or you can choose to purchase some of the files separately. This blog post is a tutorial to show you how I put together my planner. If you want to see what each printable looks like, head over to my Etsy Shop and browse the photos of the individual files. So, are you ready to DIY?

Today I'd love to talk to you about a book that will change my life and probably yours. What? I know. It sounds a little weird when I say it like that but let me explain. I read "Women, food and desire" by Alexandra Jamieson in February this year, a month after it hit the shelves. I discovered it by accident, on Goodreads or on Amazon, I honestly don't remember. It was one of the first books I read on my (then) new Kindle Paperwhite 3G. I didn't even know Alexandra Jamieson even though she's quite famous for being a chef in Super Size Me. But however I found the book doesn't matter, I'm glad I did. I believe everything happens for a reason and I'm quite sure this was the universe giving me a push in the right direction, my direction. I said it will change my life because I'm not there yet. It's still a transformation in progress but from the very beginning till the last word this book hit home for me, starting with these powerful opening lines.