Tough Decisions: Housing

This past year has been pretty tough in terms of living situation. Don't get me wrong! I love my roommate Annie, but she had to move to a different city for her job at the end of April, and while I've been very happy with the person I had living with me for the summer, she has to go back to school in a different city at the end of August. Since there has always been a third room open, I've been searching for a third roommate since October, and for two since Annie left and I just haven't had anything work out. I considered only renting out one room and keeping the other for an office for myself, but it just wasn't financially prudent. I finally realized that I had to look at the reality of the situation and start thinking of other ways to deal with it. Even though I love the place I'm renting, even though my landlord is fantastic, even though I live right across the street from my boyfriend, even though my drive to work is quick and simple, and even though I really enjoy the neighbourhood that I'm in, I realized it was time for me to move on.

I considered finding other women that were looking for a roommate to move in with them, and I came across a few good options, but they just didn't sit well with me. I was kind of at a point that if I was renting I really only wanted to rent from my landlord (he really is that great!) and I also have my whole living room, kitchen, and dining room set up that I'd have to figure something out for. After much praying, thinking, deliberating, procrastinating, and pro/con lists, I have decided to move back in with my parents to be able to save and hopefully purchase my own home much sooner. If I moved in with other roommates somewhere else, it was very likely I would have to store most of my stuff at my parents' place anyway, and I'm just at a very transitional point in my life where I feel great peace about being able to rest in the safety and love that my parents, and their home, provide.

I have a little less than a month left in my home, and it is definitely sad, but I plan on taking advantage of having my own space as much as possible while I still can. :)

And now, some photos of my home for the past year!

The Living Room/Dining Room

 The Kitchen

 The Guest Room/Storage Room

 My Room

My room has gone through the most transformation over the past year. I had a desk and bookshelf in there at different points, but the bookshelf was moved to the guest room and then to the living room when I had my summer roommate move in and choose that as her room. My desk moved in to Annie's old room when I made it a bit of an office... I was covering rent for both rooms for a couple months, so I figured I would at least make use of the space!

Prior to me moving in to the suite, my landlord painted all the walls and trim, replaced the bathroom tub and tile surround, and installed great window coverings that let the light in a bit in the kitchen and living room, but were almost blackout in the bedrooms. Also, I love how much sunlight this property gets! My bedroom and the guest room are east facing, and waking up to natural light is one of my favourite things. Annie's old room and the kitchen face south, and the living room gets to experience the sunset to the west. All so great!

All in all, for my first rental, this place has absolutely been a gem and I am so pleased with how much and how fast this felt like home.

Summertime Weekend Adventuring

Last weekend found me with an abundance of time that I had not originally planned for. What's a girl to do? Make use of that time, of course! I got in touch with old friends and was surprised to find many of them available pretty last minute (always a novel concept for my over-planner mind).

I failed to get photos of this, but on Friday night Jackie and I met up at the Saskatoon Fringe Festival to head to Loon by WonderHeads. The performance was really sweet, but made my heart feel a little heavy. The character loved the moon so much that it started shrinking... He loved it so much that it became less of itself. I really, really liked how the entire performance did not involve speaking, though; it was emotions shared purely through movement and music. If you ever have the chance to see a WonderHeads production I absolutely recommend that you take advantage!

On Saturday morning Jackie actually came over to my place for a mid-morning coffee so that we could catch up. It was so nice to see each other two times so close together! She is one of my closest friends, but we both have very full schedules and very diverse groups of friends, so sometimes we go awhile between seeing each other. I truly appreciate every moment we get to spend together.

On Sunday afternoon my friend Aaron and I ended up heading to the Saskatoon Zoo. The weather was absolutely beautiful and Jackie had mentioned that I should go see the baby goats. They weren't so "baby" anymore, but they were nice to see.

Aaron and I enjoyed wandering the grounds and catching up while enjoying the sun and clear Saskatchewan skies. Aaron is another friend that I don't get to see too much, especially now that she goes to school in a different city, but we always pick up right where we left off.

We especially liked this lookout point that we stumbled upon. We were a little sad there were no passers-by to take a photo of us together, but look at that view! It's hard to believe that this is in the middle of Saskatoon!

Then on Sunday evening I headed out to Wakaw Lake to a friend's cabin where a bunch of people were getting together. I ended up missing the Aberdeen turn-off because the highway I was on was the same highway towards St. Pete's where I spent my first year of university and I was feeling all nostalgic. I barely missed it, so I totally could have turned back, but I figured I would take a dirt road to connect to the other highway but when I turned off there was a sign stating that the road did not connect to the exact highway I was looking to get to, so it had probably been washed out in previous years of flooding. I decided to keep heading the way I had been going, and meet up with where I needed to be via two perpendicular highways instead of a diagonal one (sort of a triangle situation)... Google Maps said that route added only 12 minutes on anyway. I am SO glad I stuck with my original route, because I came across a beautiful Ukrainian Catholic Church right on the side of the highway. The sun was starting to set, giving the prairies a beautiful glow and I just couldn't resist pulling over to take a photo.

I had a great time at the lake and left to head home around 12:45. It's about an hourish to get back to Saskatoon, but I love solo road trips, as I'm sure I've shared before. Minutes in to hitting the highway, I saw a falling star and then a shooting star. I don't know if there's actually a difference, but one was sort of passively falling downwards, whereas the second one moved upwards and then almost accelerated by leaving some light behind as if it were a cloud of dust behind a fast vehicle. I don't know if that makes sense, but either way, it was a welcome sight and brought a smile to my face as well as my heart.

What started off looking like a very slow weekend ended up being wonderfully full! Have you had any summertime adventures lately?

3 Easy Makeup Looks to Transition from Day to Night

Awhile back (okay, a long while back) I had my friends Maria and Veronica over for a little makeup photo shoot that I had dreamed up. I haven't talked about this too much on here before, but I am a freelance makeup artist and I wanted to play around a little while getting some photos to add to my portfolio. I decided to go with three different looks that build upon one another: "no makeup" makeup, a day look, and an evening look.

"No Makeup" Makeup Look

This look is really all about the skin. If you perfect your base you really don't need much more makeup, and the makeup that you do add doesn't need to be as heavy to compensate. Maria has great skin, so it wasn't hard to create an even base with a medium coverage foundation and under-eye concealer. I added a light application of mascara, a very light contour, and brushed through her brows to make sure they were going in the right direction.

Day Makeup Look

For the day look I wanted to build upon the "no makeup" look (which, in reality, could absolutely be a day look itself) so I added in a bit of smudged pencil liner on the top lash line along with some soft matte brown shadow in the crease. I also added a bit of peach blush and then curled her hair.

Night Makeup Look

And the final look! I added a darker matte brown to the crease, deepened the liner, added a bit more mascara, added plum blush, added highlight, applied lipstick, and pinned back one side of her hair.

What do you think?! I really wanted to do these looks to show how it doesn't take much to transition a look from day to night, that a "night" look can still look quite natural, and also that simple is really still very beautiful! Thanks so much to Maria and Veronica for helping me out with this project :)

*All photos by Veronica Neufeldt