Our new front room As I mentioned last post, I've been finding some comfort in taking care of creative projects around the house. Art can be quite therapeutic. I know that home decor projects don't typically come to mind when thinking of art, but it's been a great creative outlet for me. It's brought me much satisfaction in the past several months. I hope to eventually share all of our projects, so today I'll start with our most recent completion--our front room makeover.  Our fireplace mantle makeover Our new leather sofa bed and fun throw pillows You might remember that we built a tee pee in our front room over a year ago. We worked on it as a family and it showed all of our personalities. It was made with pink and blue fabric that the girls chose (Becca being my blue girl and Kat being into pink). We hung twinkle lights and threw huge bean bags inside for reading. And it was magical.  The tee pee we built in May 2013 Well, the tee pee...

Yesterday I started writing a blog post about how I've coped with the loss of my dad in numerous ways, one of them being emotional eating. I've used other tools to cope, like retreating from the world or binge watching TV shows (like Gilmore Girls or Mad Men) or completing various creative house projects (I hope to share in future posts), but emotional eating has been a big one. Taking comfort in food seemed to numb the pain a bit. My intention with the blog post was to share how I've recently noticed that emotional eating not only dulled the pain, but also the joy.  An interesting juxtaposition. The idea had been introduced to me in the past with Guidepost #3 in Brené Brown 's book, The Gifts of Imperfection , but I didn't truly understand or appreciate it until now.  As I've begun to focus on my health again ( I have an extra 15lbs to lose due to my emotional eating) , I noticed that I've felt much happier like the emotion itself was stronger. But ...

It's unbelievable how fast the summer has flown by. I realize that Fall hasn't truly began, but my daughter's July 26th birthday almost marks the beginning of the anticipation for me. Shortly after her birthday the stores launch into Back-to-school mode and I get excited (like my favorite Staples commercial .... It's the most wonderful time of the year). It marks the start to my favorite time of year, i.e. the last half. Christmas is my absolute favorite, but I also love all the fun leading up to it. I'm a sucker for Fall and all the pumpkin decor and pumpkin spice flavored foods. I love football season, even though I rarely sit long enough to watch an entire game. I just enjoy those crisp, fall days when all the windows can be open and the sound of football on TV can be heard in the background. I love Halloween, especially because it's my first daughter's actual birthday. And thanksgiving, with all the yummy food and time spent feeling grateful with f...

Today is as good as any to start doing the things that I want to do, the things that make me happy and healthy. This message seems to be all around me, especially this morning.  For instance, several weeks ago I decided to go back to using By Jen for my blog, because it feel like it encompasses all of me whereas Running on Inspiration is really just a portion of who I am. So in prep to go back to my By Jen identity, I contacted Etsy and Facebook about changing. After a little bit of processing, today is the day that my Facebook page officially changed from Running on Inspiration to By Jen. And this morning is also my usual Weight Watchers meeting morning. But I hadn't been to meetings for several weeks partially because my leader, Teresa , had gone on vacation, but partially because I had managed to return to meetings all summer, yet still gain weight. So I thought maybe it wasn't the right thing for me now. But something made me check the meeting topic online this...