/līf/
The period between birth and death of a living thing, especially a human being
Living in Saskatchewan
Hello Everyone! I know that there are a good chunk of people who read my blog who don’t live in Saskatchewan. THis blog post it more for you, just in case you wanted to know what it is like living in Saskatchewan. Lets dive into what it is like living in Saskatchewan. First thing first, […]
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We have always been here by Samra Habib
I have very clearly kicked my reading into high gear after not reading for four months! I finished three books in one weekend – go Devan! As I was finishing one of my books, I start looking for a new one to move onto. I found We’ve always been here and it had a very […]
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Pup-date on Brie!
Brie is officially an 8 month old puppy! Yaaay! So here is a little Pup-date on Brie She got spayed just over a month ago and that was a fun time. While talking to the vet they said that there was the option to get PJs that go cover the incision so that it can’t […]
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My 30 for 30 list
It was my birthday yesterday and not just any old birthday, my 30th. When one of my best friends turned 30, she made a 30 for 30 list and I thought this was such an amazing idea that I had to copy it ( Hi Jess!). When I first started this list I had 3 […]
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Eat that Frog! by Brian Tracy
Have you ever come across the statement “eat the frog”? Well in the past 2 months I have seen that statement numerous times. It clearly got to the point where I googled “Eat the Frog”. THis is the review of the book that is making it very popular right now. I believe it actually originates […]
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6 ways to let your creativity out
I don’t know about you, but my job doesn’t really let me access my creative side. I love my job because it does require me to use my brain, just not creatively. Therefore I need to find other ways to let me get it out or I will explode. So without further adieu here are […]
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Spring Cleaning Tips!
Well it is about that time, Spring Cleaning! It has been spring for a few weeks, but where I live we also had a decent amount of snow recently. It seems that the false spring is gone and real spring is here, it is time for some spring cleaning tips. I don’t know what it […]
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9 Harmless April fools day pranks anyone can do
a man in a suit and a floaty tube with flippers running down the street. the text says 9 harmless april fools day pranks anyone can do!
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3 things that I wish I knew before starting my blog
Wow! I cannot believe how fast time flies. I very clearly remember the day I decided to start my blog. If you want to read more about why I started my blog click here. As I write this it has been 3 years since I launched devan smiles. That is wild! Anywho, here are 3 […]
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5 Ways to get organized
In all honestly I am constantly going from a clean and organized desk space to complete chaos in literally minutes. My partner actually just said to me this weekend ” you have to be the only person I know who can have a sparkling clean kitchen and I turn around and back again to an […]
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International Women’s day
Today, March 8th, is International Women’s day or IWD for short. A day that was brought to fruition by Clara Zetkin, Kate Duncker, and Paula Thiede in 1910. The date of March 8th was because in 1917 in Soviet Russia women gain the right to vote after a food strike. The United Nations adopted this […]
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Foto February Round-up
Wow! I cannot believe that February is over! like it is gone. Which means hopefully warmer weather is on the way! Naturally after a photo challenge, I should do a round up of all my photos. I would also like to give a special shout-out to one of my besties for participating in the photo […]
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Mexican Gothic by: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
It is that time again, the monthly book review and I have a good one for you! I read the book Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and it was such an amazing book! I am still just blown away by it. This was one of the books that I was just scrolling through my library […]
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Things you might not know when you get a puppy
I grew up with dogs. My family always had 2 dogs at the same time. So I am very familiar with dogs, but we never had a puppy. I would say that the dogs were always around a year, so kind of a puppy but also not. So when we got Brie, it was such […]
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Yoga for 30 days
Hello all! if you cannot tell from the title, for the past 30 days I have been doing yoga. I followed yoga by Adriene on youtube who had a 30 day calendar and video everyday for January 2021. It was a great way to start the year and it gave me time to myself where […]
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Goals check-in
Welp we are a month in to 2021 and I feel that I have really just been working on my goals. There isn’t much else to do when you have been told to say home and see no one (Thanks COVID). So as a recap here or you can read them below 🙂 get a […]
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Foto February
This year I wanted to challenge myself in taking more photos. I really like taking photos but I find a good chunk of the time they don’t turn out and then I get discouraged. Not this year though! I have planned a whole month of photography. Every day in February, I will be taking a […]
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The Sirens of Mars By: Sarah Stewart Johnson
It is here! The first book review of 2021! Yes, I know I wrote a fuck ton of book reviews at the end of 2020 but this is the first of 2021 and it is almost the end of January, so I think that is a lot of control for me lol. The premise of […]
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We got a Puppo!
Really the title says it all. We got a dog. Well we actually got a dog the first week in November. If you follow me on instagram, you have probably seen pictures of her. If you don’t follow me on instagram, then go follow me because I post adorable pictures of my Pup. Anywho, everyone […]
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2021 Goals
Well here we are, a new year. I know 2020 was a shit show, I think that we can all agree on that. I know that everything is not going to be better because it is 2021, but things are looking up😊. So just like a lot of people, I set myself some goals for […]
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…and with that 2020 is over.
Wow what a year 2020 was. I cannot believe that it is over already. I won’t lie this year felt like it took forever but somehow also felt like it passed really quick. Looking back on this year, there was a lot of not great things that happened. Mostly just dealing with COVID-19. I don’t […]
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Happy Holidays
Hey everyone! I hope that y’all can have as joyful of holidays as possible with the current world situation. I hope you are able to see some family, blood or choosen, virtually or possibly in person. This holiday season will be extra hard because of restrictions but we are hopefully nearing the end of this […]
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MY TOP 5 READS OF 2020
So I posted a lot of book reviews on the blog this year. Especially near the end of the year. Like that is all I posted at one point. That was because I had a goal of reading 20 books for 2020. Now in reality that is not a lot of books (I feel). This […]
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Where the Crawdads Sing By: Delia Owens
Well well well here we are again with another book review. I know I have posted a lot of them but I am having a bit of creativity block and I keep reading books (mostly because I had a goal I needed to finish). So, I finally read Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. […]
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The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by: Grady Hendrix
Well hello there! It has been a hot minute since I last put up a blog post, but no worries I am here and I have a new book review for ya’ll. I found The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires completely by accident. I was scrolling through what was available for audiobooks at […]
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Untamed by Glennon Doyle
The latest book for me to review is Untamed. There is a pretty good chance you have probably seen it or heard of it because it is quite popular. The only reason I am able to write this review right now is because I got a skip the line copy from the library ( I […]
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Between the World and Me by Ta-nehisi Coates
On my continued journey of unlearning societal racism and learning to be a better ally I came across the book Between the World and Me by Ta-nehisi Coates. This book is different than any other book that I have read because it is a letter to Ta-nehisi’s son. Although this did confuse me for a […]
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Braiding Sweetgrass by: Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer
I have heard so many good things about this book! I kept seeing people suggest it and so naturally I was pretty pumped to get my hands on it. When the time came and I got my notification from the library I was like YESSSSS! Unfortunately, I only had it for 14 days which was […]
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How to handle Halloween during a pandemic
We have reached spooky season! But we are also in a pandemic which has numbers going up again, at least where I live. Last year, my partner and I got possession of our house on November 1st, so we didn’t get to hand out candy to kids and before that we lived in a condo […]
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Every Basic B*tches Fall Photo List
We have reached the best time of year and ultimately the prettiest. If you live in Saskatchewan, you know that this is really at max a month window. Usually there will be snow soon after or the wind has blown all the leaves off the trees. As I am writing this, I can see the […]
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10 THINGS YOU NEED TO DO THIS FALL
It is that time again! You can smell the pumpkin spice in the air…. along with a bit of a brisk wind. It is fall! which is this bitches favorite season! ( I wear my basic bitch-ness proudly). Naturally I had to make a list of things that are a must for the season! Get […]
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Atomic Habits by: James Clear
Another Wednesday…another book review! I am always looking for book recommendations so when a youtuber that I follow was reading it and suggested Atomic Habits I immediately when to put a hold on it at my digital library. As I was reading this book I would have to periodically jot down some notes to keep […]
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LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE BY: CELESTE NG
Here we are again! Another book review. I would like to pat myself on the back because I have been doing so good at reading all the books. Although I have also gotten super overwhelmed because I put a butt tonne of holds on books and they are all coming up to be read! Eeeek! […]
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8 THINGS THAT GET ME TO BE PRODUCTIVE IN A DAY
Hello all! and welcome to another bomb list of a blog post! Ever since COVID-19 happened and shut down/forced people to work from home I found that my productivity and motivation plummeted. Like really dropped off. I would wake-up have my coffee, mosey my way to my home office and half ass do my work. […]
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I’M STILL HERE BLACK DIGNITY IN A WORLD MADE FOR WHITENESS BY: AUSTIN CHANNING BROWN
Another book down! And now I am starting to get the books that everyone was reading when the Black Lives Matter movement was at its peak (btws there are still things going on and there is still the fight against racism check out my blog post about it) On my list of many books by […]
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5 PLACES YOU MUST SEE IN SOUTHERN SASKATCHEWAN
Hello all! It has been a while since I actually wrote something that was not a book review, but I come with some awesome stuff to check out while or if you are traveling in south Saskatchewan.
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In My Own Moccasins: A Memoir of Resilience by Helen Knott
It has been a hot minute since I have read a book, but I have finally finished one again and here is the book review! The latest book I read was In My Own Moccasins: A Memoir of Resilience by Helen Knott. In my personal goal of reading more books that are by diverse authors, […]
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WHY BLACK LIVES STILL MATTER
It has been a few weeks since the world found out about the tragic murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor (and others) at the hands of the police. This erupted the world in protests and a call to make a change is so many ways. Over the past weeks I have really been diving […]
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BAD BLOOD BY: JOHN CARREYROU
Finally, my last book from the back log of books that I read over the past month! I read this book firstly based on its title. It just intrigued me. Once I figured it out that it was about a silicon valley start-up, I immediately knew which company it was about only because my friend […]
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THE YEAR OF LESS BY: CAIT FLANDERS
Slowly, very slowly, I am working my way through the backlog of books to review. So let get to it and tell you about my second book The Year of Less by Cait Flanders. This book is exactly as its name implies, Cait challenges themself to getting rid of a good chunk of their possessions […]
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THE WITCHES ARE COMING BY: LINDY WEST
Another day and another book review! After a bit of a hiatus to do lots of learning to be a better ally, I decided that I needed to write again. There will be more to come about life and current world climate but I have a backlog of book reviews right now so that is […]
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ARTEMIS BY: ANDY WEIR
So when I finished Pandemic (my last book review) I wanted to read something else immediately. I have been unsuccessful in finding a free e-book version of Genome (second book to Pandemic), so I needed to find something else to satisfy my reading hunger. I decided to look and see what my local library had […]
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29 things that I learnt from my 29 years
Hello! look at me go, two blog posts in one week! I am really making up for lost time! But in all seriousness, I had planned to post this one the week before my birthday (oops). When that time came I didn’t have my list together nor did I have the motivation to write anything. […]
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PANDEMIC BY A.G RIDDLE
Hi everyone! It has been a hot minute since I last read a book. Mostly because I like having a physical book and due to COVID-19, the libraries are closed. I also don’t particularly like buying books unless I absolutely love them or will go back and read them again. So I needed to find […]
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you know what…..social isolation is teaching me things
so the world is a mess with COVID-19. Canada especially has been taking the social isolation seriously, which is good don’t get me wrong, it just sucks. There is nothing more that I want to do than be sitting on a pubs patio basking in the sun as a waitress brings me multiple glasses of […]
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TILLY BY MONIQUE GRAY SMITH
I got this book from the library because it was marked as an indigenous author. I want to try and read more indigenous authors to learn their stories. Honestly I havent had much luck when I go to the library and wonder around to find books. The past few times I have done that I […]
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Tushy review (is it worth it?)
First things first… what is a tushy? Well it is a brand of attachable bidet. So essentially it is an attachment to your toilet that shoots water up your butt to clean it. It is suppose to wash away anything that has been left behind on your behind🤣 So if you know me, you know […]
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GIFTS FOR EVERYONE ON VALENTINES DAY!
Most people don’t know this but Valentine’s day is my favorite holiday. Not because I love getting flowers are being showered in gifts but because I love the color pink, there are hearts everywhere, and cinnamon hearts are readily available ( I eat these until i am literally in pain). I am not much of […]
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JURASSIC PARK – MICHEAL CRICHTON
Well another book down! Good job Devan! my goal is to read 20 books in 2020 so that puts me at 1.5 books a month. I am 1/2 a book ahead of what I need to be! Ok Devan get to the review! OK, This book is entertaining, just like the second book that I […]
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WHAT STARTED DEVAN SMILES?
So it is that time for another blog post, and I think the hardest thing about writing blog posts is figuring out what to write. I decided today I would write about why I started devan.smiles.com. I have been told throughout my life that I am a generally positive person. as I have grown older […]
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THE LOST WORLD BY MICHEAL CRICHTON
One of my goals for 2020 was to read more. This is the first book I have read in 2020 and damn was it thrilling. Now I have not watched the Jurassic Park movies since I was a kid so I don’t really remember what happens in them nor do I remember any of the […]
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NEW YEAR/ DECADE…NOT NEW ME!
Well it has been just over a week since the new year and new decade have started. I don’t know about you but that is exciting! I am not a new years resolution person at all. I never really like the word, maybe because growing up a new years resolution was always associated with diet. […]
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easy and cheap Halloween costumes
Welp it is that time of year, the week before Halloween. I don’t know about you but I always get caught up in everyday life. I don’t even realize it is Halloween and I am scrambling for a costume so I don’t look like a fool at whatever Halloween party my friends and I have […]
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Ways to reduce waste
A big conversation everywhere is the environment, and in the grand scheme of things it may seem like you doing anything may not help combat the battle to change it, but it does. You may seem like a single person and you doing your part CAN help. I think that 7.53 Billion people trying to […]
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MY THOUGHTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE
So this has been a hot topic for quite some time. Scientists were aware of it since the 1970’s and with the use of computers in the 1990’s, we have just increased our ability of gathering data proving that the temperature of the earth is going up. With the advances in technology, we now more […]
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Fall favorites
It is officially fall. This is literally my favorite season! I cannot wait to share with you what some of my fall favorites are. my Kate Spade blanket I was gifted this blanket a few years ago for Christmas and it has been a solid fav. I am always using it while I am siting […]
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MY MINIMALIST STORY
As you can tell from the title of this blog, I am a minimalist. So what is a minimalist and why is it such a big thing right now? A minimalist is a person who owns very little. They are people who find freedom in owning less. Now, this does not mean you can only […]
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A YEAR OF GROWTH
Well, I have officially been moved out of my parent’s house for a full year! It is beyond belief to me! Literally, where did the time go? Anywho my “adulthood anniversary” also coincided with the beginning of the end of the year. Wow, that last sentence is a mouthful. But it is true, December is […]
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THE FIRST!
Well, here it is, my very first blog post! As I was preparing for my website to get up and running, I realized that I need to write an actual post. I was thinking of things that I wanted to write about but this is the first post so I kinda wanted to make it […]
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GIRL, WHERE WERE YOU?
Hello! It has been a hot minute since I have last posted anything on my blog. There has been so much going on in my brain and life. It has been so long because a few things happened and I kind of spiraled and all of a sudden a few months passed and now we […]
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