Energizing The House

After listening to this podcast by Chris Loves Julia on a rainy, cold, gray day I was all energized to re-energize the house. They were referencing this article from House Beautiful. I seem to forget that I have so much control over how my home feels and I can do a lot to make it MORE lovely.

So I took some of their suggestions and pulled our my white sage and lavender smudging bowl and lit it up and walked all around the house letting the smoke wander into every corner of the rooms, closets and garage. It may sound strange and I certainly don't have any idea what the mixture of scents and powers of the universe are at work, but it made the house feel calmer, clearer and more energetic.

Another thing mentioned in this article, I learned when I lived in Denmark. The Danes often open up their windows for 10-30 minutes in the mornings, no matter the time of year, to let in fresh air. Because it's such a humid climate it definitely helps to air out the home but I think it helps just about anywhere. I like to do this in the mornings to refresh the house.

Then I took another suggestion and got a spray bottle and added a little water and some orange oil and shook it up and took it around the house spraying into every room. The scent of orange oil is also supposed to help raise the energy in a space. It does smell wonderful and between the sage and the orange oil the house smelled lovely.

A few other things I want to do is to get more Himalayan Salt Lamps going in the house. They are also supposed to help raise the energy and clear away negative energy in the home. We have a few somewhere and I know I've seen them but I'm going to need to go hunt them down.

We also have Oreck air purifiers in our home and turning them on helps clean the air and gives air in the house a very soft, sweet feeling. It's easier to breath and it does feel like a lot of irritants and dust are gone after they've been turned on for 20-30 minutes. This is something I should have done before I smudged and sprayed the house with orange oil. Doing it after would pretty much negate the effects of both. A good thing to remember, Oreck first then smudge and orange oil!

I have also neglected lighting candles and turning on our twinkle lights. But when I think about it, there's a reason. As Spring has come to fruition, we have already been getting more light in the house and Spring just brings more energy to the home and world. This past week has been rainy, cold, gray and we even had snow on Friday! So with all the dark coldness we are yearning for that light and warmth we've been enjoying the past weeks.

Here's a laugh for you. Some time after Christmas we did a deep clean on our two-sided fireplace. In the living room we have a big open fireplace with a movable screen. On the dining room side is it glass doors that are actually bolted closed, so you can enjoy the fire but can't access the fireplace from that side. Giving it a deep cleaning had not happened since we moved in although it had been cleaned or ashes, etc. multiple times.  The glass on the back side of our two-sided fireplace was covered in black soot.

The Man got the bug to clean out all the ashes and after he did that I vacuumed it all out and then crawled into the fireplace to clean the back glass that faces our dining room. It was a lot of work, and really hard to work in that tight space in crazy angles. I scrubbed that thing down for a long time, over and over again, before it finally started to look clean.

Well since that happened neither The Man nor I have even wanted to light a fire because we don't ever want to clean that fireplace again. We have to break that spell and light a fire or we might was well just tear down that fireplace! Maybe tonight I'll see if we can get one going just to break the spell. We have to do it sometime. I do just dread the idea of that glass getting wrecked again...but seriously we cleaned the fireplace so we could enjoy it. We should be enjoying it.

We've already had temperatures in the 80s this spring so for us to have full winter weather the last week of April is a bit of a shock. We were trying to get the pool open for heaven's sakes. Kiddo has already been swimming at friends' houses who heat their pools. (We don't have a heater on our pool so our pool season is a little shorter than if we did have a heater.) But snow, seriously?! Wow.

But I've heard others north of us are having a cold spell too so maybe this post is perfectly timed for all of us who are so ready for Spring/Summer weather. If the sun is neglecting you, there are lots of other ways to increase the energy of your home environment. I just plugged in the twinkle lights over our kitchen windows and I'm going to light some candles next. Hope you're staying warm this week if you, like us, are having a cold spell.

A Quick Introduction to Live Love ABQ

I haven't been here much the past two weeks and that is because I've been wrapping up a huge project that I first dreamed up two years ago and have been working hard on for the past several months. Over the past two weeks I've been pushing very hard to complete setting up an online store and yesterday I was able to launch it which was very exciting. I'd like to introduce you to LIVE LOVE ABQ!

The idea behind LIVE LOVE ABQ hatched not long after I moved to Albuquerque, aka ABQ or The Duke City. Not long after I arrived it became clear that due to a variety of factors, Albuquerque had a bit of an image problem, that there were some ABQ residents that felt pretty "meh" about the city and that there were a lot of really amazing things about Albuquerque that just weren't getting the recognition they deserved from locals or beyond.

I remember specifically one conversation with a friend who has lived here for many years now. I mentioned this absolutely beautiful place I had visited that has been here in ABQ since the 1930s. She had never heard of it. It was at that point the idea of  "Living" the city and "Loving" the city came to me.

Living the city to me means enjoying all the fantastic things there are to do, see and experience. It's so easy to get into a routine and just stay in that routine....work, school, local grocery store, same restaurants, fast food chains all in the same neighborhood(s). But living the city to it's fullest means checking out new restaurants, theaters, shops, sights and events. Really taking advantage of all the cool things there are to do in the city. There is no reason to be bored. There are always things to do and online calendars, newspapers and television stations that promote all of these events to locals.

Albuquerque is very unique in it's history, ancient sights, arts community, large number of museums, culture, culinary depth and energy behind large and small business development. I want to help promote all of that and I think a reminder to LIVE the city does just that.

The city also has it share of problems as any city does. LOVE the city to me means we all take part in having responsibility for what happens here and why. We can do so much to help build the community in our own ways if that is as simple as getting to know our neighbors and participating in neighborhood watch programs. We can participate in town meetings, with volunteer organizations or serve on city or civic councils. We can all do something! We can love our cities to a better place! And we can also speak positively about our cities and help build they image of our cities by accentuating the positive instead of focusing on the negative.

So that is where LIVE LOVE ABQ came from and I have had so much fun creating products to promote those ideas including tote bags, mugs, home decor, and more. The goal for now is to create small, handmade items in small batches - so they feel special and unique. Hopefully as things go along I will also add some large run items like sweatshirts, hats and tees. It's been a fun labor of love for my new city that also really feeds my creative and entrepreneurial spirit.

I hope we'll have a chance to work with collaborators to use our tote bags for event swag or wedding guest gift bags. I think a lot of the decor items are great for a home office or workplace for anyone doing business in ABQ! Any of the products would be a fun gift for anyone moving to ABQ or for anyone going off to college or moving from ABQ to remember all that's great about life here.

There are so many applications to helping promote our city and share all that is great about it. I'm excited for the opportunities! Now it's full speed ahead to continue with marketing, networking, product fulfillment and more product design. I seriously have a list of about 100 things I'd like to create as we move forward!

You can find the shop at www.liveloveabq.online -- not .com -- but .online. If you have a moment, I'd love you to check out the shop and let me know what you think. Thank you as always for all your generous support now and over the years here at kalanicut. I adore my readers and treasure the relationships we've built over the years!