So it’s come time for the Cowboy to move west. I mean come ON he’s been living out west for the last few years and never made the plunge. Today is that day. He sold his place in Manitoba and is moving PERMANENTLY to Alberta. It’s a happy/sad day. I mean I love his little 100 year old wonky house in Manitoba but it doesn’t work for us at all. First it’s in MANITOBA so kind of a far commute for the kids at school and second it’s 100 year old 2 bedroom house with a main floor bathroom, so you know FORGET IT! But he did fix up that crooked old house all by himself. He took a derelict old property and made it into the sweetest little house. I’m glad i had a chance to stay there before it was sold and I’ll miss it, it FEELS like Cowboy.
So he is currently in Manitoba packing up the house and moving west to be with me and the kids….
It’s a huge job and the 20 foot Seacan filled up a LOT faster than he thought it would.
But he’s all packed up and ready to come here and start our new life. Best part of the day was when he texted and said, ‘oh yeah I traded the Caddy for a boat.’ God I love my boyfriend. And apparently now we have a boat.
I know you’re asking yourself why does this crazy Cowboy trucker love this chick sooooo much? I mean she is brash, swears like a sailor (or trucker), drinks wine by the gallon…wow she must be a dynamo in the sack. Well that may be true (it is, ask him he’ll tell you, no really he will) BUT the reason he loves me so much is I take care of him. He takes care of me too. We are very much about treating each other with compassion and spoiling each other, it’s how we are. Now I can’t buy the dude flowers every week like he does for me, or take him on week long getaways (MEXICO THIS SUMMER wuhoo!) but I can feed him. Today was test kitchen day for breakfast ideas for on the road.
Bacon cups!
First you start by lining a muffin tin with bacon. Doesn’t every good idea start with bacon?
The you cut up everything you have in your fridge that goes with eggs! For me that meant orange pepper, half an onion and half a tomato. Then you put in some AMAZING farm fresh eggs that you picked up from the Hutterite Colony and beat.
Pour the egg mixture into the bacon holders (mmmm bacon). Realize that for a bigger batch or more variety you should mix the eggs and pour and then put the veggies or whatever into each ‘cup’. Top off with cheese if you so desire. Cowboy can only eat certain types of cheese so these are made with a velvetta type cheese that he brought home from Walmart last trip. Added bonus it melts REALLY well.
Cook for 30 minutes (ish). (oh and if you’re thinking they will pop right out because the bacon grease means the eggs won’t stick to the pan, you would be wrong). I put a pan of water in the oven with the egg cups while they were baking…keeps them moist I do believe!
Take picture before you eat the all. Sooooo good but they more needed salt as I was light handed thinking the bacon would be salty enough. I was wrong.
Perfect hand food for Cowboy as he is driving down the road. He can microwave 2 with a cup of coffee and he’s all set! The different varieties are endless also, I think for his I may add hashbrowns or a slice of bread on the bottom to make them more of a meal for him. For me and the kids just the bacon and eggs combo is enough.
Now that the test batch is done I’m going to do about 4 dozen and freeze them individually for Cowboy and the kids for the next month. I rock. Thanks Pinterest, this ones a keeper! Not linking as I used a variety of different pins and combined to come up with my own idea but you can just search bacon cup on there if you are interested to see what is out there….or use my stellar ideas!
Ok so here is my claim to fame, I’m 43 years old and have NO grey hair. I’ve been yelling that from the roof tops since a certain BFF started going grey in her 20′s. I mean I LOVE the fact that I can say “oh i don’t colour my hair it’s completely natural” with an air of superiority. It makes me feel better than most. Shut up, we all have a ‘thing’. Something that we secretly hold as better than other people. There’s even a word for it EGO, it’s why I practice yoga. Granted mine has absolutely nothing to do with me and everything to do with genetics but whatevs. It’s still all mine. And here is the thing, I have been known on occasion to say that I would never colour my hair and will go grey naturally with the hopes of looking like Toni Morrison with her long mane of grey dreadlock goodness. Then last week while twisting my beautiful dreadlocks I noticed something in the mirror. Right on the top of my head in all their glory are TWO not one, but TWO fucking grey hairs. Listen AGING, I’m all good with the holding my book a little bit further away thing that you’ve decided I’m doing now. I’m good to go with the never lifting my right arm all the way up on it’s own accord from some old sport injury (shut up and stop laughing) but GREY HAIR???? Fuck. I think this aging gracefully is one of those things that is only really good in theory. I did try to gather sympathy where ever I could but was met with a lot of rolling eyes and ‘shut the hell up’s. I even was given the suggestion (rather heartily i might add) that I could just colour them with a sharpie. But as I creep ever closer to my 44th birthday I’ve decided to say, fuck it. I LIKE my two little grey hairs! I’m going to celebrate them as I have earned the little buggers. They have fought the hard battle against genetics and boldly appeared at the middle front of my head and they should be celebrated not shunned and sent away. You know unlike their cousins down below that cause me to have my waxing lady on speed dial. I may have little to no issue with growing old gracefully but apparently, even I have my limits….
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I love when my goofy Cowboy sends me pictures from the road. We do stay in constant contact over the course of his travels but it’s nice to ‘see’ what he’s up to so I can imagine how his day is going. When he says I’ve shut down and watching movies in the truck it looks like this.
When he’s sitting behind the wheel he looks like this (well he doesn’t drive signing I love you, that was just for me)
Here’s the load he picked up this trip in Texas it’s huge!
And this is him in Walmart shopping his FAVORITE place to be, he’s usually giddy when he calls from inside a Walmart.
And when he’s in the truck shop shower he looks like this.
This is actually post 602 but 2 of my many posts aren’t “open” to the public so I’m celebrating THIS post as number 600.
I’m celebrating this by posting about my recent surgery. I know it’s weird but I write about my life and my life this week included surgery. I was told by my OB/GYN that I had only 1 more option before a hysterectomy. I have been passing out from the pain of my periods and my iron levels where getting ridiculously low. The problem was that every month the medication I had to take to NOT pass out and be able to function is not a good long term solution. Why? Cause I would have to wear a medi bracelet in case of an accident. Seriously who wants to be on a medication that is more dangerous than the ailment? I was at the end of the road for interventions….I REALLY didn’t want a hysterectomy (6 WEEK RECOVERY????) so I was extremely glad when the OB said I was a candidate for an Uterine Ablation. What’s THAT you say? My doc went in through my belly button and lasered my uterus! How awesome is THAT? Apparently there is a severe danger if you ever conceive again so while he was ‘in there’ he also tied my tubes. This second part fills Cowboy with glee and I can’t tell you have many times he said “now she’s built for pleasure” to the nurses and he asked if the Doctor put an “S” on my tummy like the vet did with Molly when she was spade. This is me looking amazing BEFORE I went in. After is another story. My body HATES being put under…there are no after pics mostly because after is just me puking and whining about how awful I feel. By the way, if you’re thinking ‘wow major abdominal surgery, she must have been in for DAYS’, that would be a big fat no. I went into surgery at 10:30 and I was home by 4pm THE SAME DAY. Ah…healthcare…..sigh. At least they called me the next day to make sure I was alive.
Lucky for me, this Cowboy dude stayed by my side the whole day….true he made fun of me the whole time but he did take VERY good care of me.
And two days later when HE had to be put under for his tests and was all floopy from the drugs….well lets just say payback is a bitch!
And a Molly pic because I love her and she stayed in bed with me all week keeping me company.
Ok so I really do love my Cowboy. I know it’s hard to believe but I do. He is the sweetest most gentle man on the planet. But he’s also ALL man. Like rough and tumble fix shit with his hands type guy This week I really saw how true that is…I went TRUCKIN’. Okay to be fair it was just an overnight trip to northern Alberta but still I was in the big truck.
Things I didn’t know about life on the road. If it’s cold, the truck stays on. I had NO idea that the truckers kept their trucks running through the night. I assumed that when they stopped everything got shut off. Not true.
I did do the feet on the dash board thing. It’s much more comfortable to sit this way in a truck than in a car. I love sitting with my feet up on the dash and felt all “Sally Field” when I did it.
And for all those who get the above reference….
The one and only picture of me in a cowboy hat. Laugh away…
The road to Fort Mac is littered with the cars that didn’t make that stupid highway 63. Some have been there all damn winter. The province REALLY needs to finish twinning that damn highway.
Fort Mac itself is under a shitload of mud. That’s the actual measurement for the amount of mud up there…shitload. There were spots where we were driving through at least a foot of mud. Cowboy had to chain up to get to the place where we were unloading the pipe. (side note it’s super sexy to watch Cowboy do all kinds of physical labour stuff on the truck).
Our little contraband. Molly isn’t allowed on site so she had to stay on the floor the whole time we were on the mine. She made sure to look all pathetic so I would feel sorry for her the rest of the trip.
Back home and on the couch with Cowboy, Molly is back to being the sweetest dog ever.
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These are not this weeks flowers, these are from a week or so ago. But they are so beautiful I HAD to post them. I have my Easter flowers too with Gerber daisies soooo beautiful.
I made Cowboy pajama pants, why? Because I can.
Last but most certainly NOT least, it was Miss Things 14th birthday this week. This year marks the year she has lived longer WITH me than without. It’s a big year for me emotionally as the journey has been such a rocky one yet so fulfilling. Older child adoption is VERY trying, it’s hard, it’s a LOT of work but the rewards are many and the joy I get watching this beautiful little girl blossom into a sweet, caring albeit annoying as hell young woman is worth every headache I get along the way.
First I should say that I am publicly apologizing for all the craptastic lunches that my kids have had to live through for all these years. Until I discovered bento box lunches my kids ate a combination of sandwich meat and apples for over 15 years I’ve had school aged children. And then I discovered the joys of bento lunch making. So now on Sundays I make 8 bento boxes and the 2 kids are set for the week. Elijah uses orange/green lids and Nadia uses blue/red lids. Inside this weeks lunches are a variety of fruits for the fruit portion (blackberries, blueberries and raspberries), carrots and green beans for Elijah’s veggie while Nadia has carrots and celery (she dislikes raw green beans), there is babybel cheese and sandwich/tortilla wraps. The lunches are all stacked nicely in the fridge and they are ready to be grabbed in the morning rush. They took MAYBE 15 minutes to put together and I LOVE the fact that the kids have a nutritious solid lunch with minimal effort from me…I wish I had found this out 15 years ago. They only have 4 each because each kid has hot lunch one day each week.
Note the coconut water in the fridge. Cowboy brings it back for me from the US by the caseload. It’s the main thing I drink….besides the cases of red wine that he also brings back for me. Having a boyfriend who crosses the border weekly has many, many benefits. Cheap coconut water is just one of many. Once he found there is a brand named Naked he was super happy. Now he can make naked jokes with wild abandon and I get flavoured coconut water, it’s a win/win.
Here’s a picture of my Cowboy on our recent trip to Manitoba. I’m including this picture because it’s warming up slowly but surely and apparently that means a switch from the ‘winter’ cowboy hat to the ‘summer’ cowboy hat. I had NO idea there was a difference. I am learning sooooo much about cowboy hats and cowboy boots. I feel like there is a whole world I never knew about. (I try not to let my eyes glaze over during these conversations)
This year this teenager will have lived the same amount of time in our family as before. It’s hard to believe that it’ been seven years since she came into my life! We are marking the occasion in a very significant (I think) way. But you’ll all have to wait until her birthday to see it cause she is a child of the times and has a million ways to access the internet!
I love my daughter soooo much, she on the other hand is ready to kill me cause i’m hugging her in PUBLIC…ewwwwwwww.
I’ve had dogs pretty much my entire adult life. The first time I didn’t have a dog for an extended period was when we moved overseas. When we lived in Germany there was an incident with a little tiny yappy dog that came running towards Elijah and a fear was born. It’s been a LONG time trying to get him to be reasonable when it comes to dogs. And then we moved in with a very friendly VERY sweet dog. Mr. Magoo told us that he wouldn’t like Indy until January and he stuck to his word. He is nice enough to Indy now and doesn’t run screaming every time she is in the same room but he is CLEARLY not 100% comfortable around any dog.
Until Molly. This morning the two of them had a moment. Molly was sleeping and Mr. Magoo came up and they actually snuggled. Molly is VERY happy because ALL she wants is to be buddies with my boy. She follows him around and desperately wants to be a his friend. He is slowly but surely coming around to the idea.
Molly is a VERY laid back dog. Here she is seriously LAYING BACK. I think she has the perfect personality to finally get Mr. Magoo over his fear.
Mind my awesome pink toenails and Cowboy’s plaid pajama pants, the point of this picture is to show Molly laying on her back snoring….
Here we all are lounging on the couch, Molly is squished into the arm, Cowboy is talking on the phone and E is taking up 1/2 the couch. I’m there too, the only one missing is Miss Thing who is away for the week at band camp. I can NOT wait for all the stories she will tell. Well not TO me but that I will overhear as she talks endlessly on her cell phone.
Mr Magoo got a hair cut. He is THRILLED that he still has curls. Luckily my office is in the back of a hair salon. All the people there are great. Elijah has a small but hilarious crush on one of the ladies and she cuts his hair for him. Thank GOD she is a patient woman because cutting his hair can be trying to say the least. Here’s a picture of his new do AND the wrist band that I made him years ago that he has recently rediscovered and is now wearing ALL THE TIME.
Yes, we’ve already established that my son is a very strange kid. I heart him.
1972 . I have NO idea when my parents actually split up but I do know that it was when I was really young and for some reason I’ve always thought I was 3 (lets say ish as it’s not important to the rest of the story). I have no memory of my Dad living in the same house as I did at all. I do have memories of him coming to see me. We would sit in the basement on the long couch and he would lie down and I would sit in the bend area behind his knees and watch tv. In my memory he’s quite tall and his legs are long and since NONE of those statements are true about my Dad, I must have been pretty tiny. When I left my first husband after a disastrous abusive marriage in my early 20′s I wrote my Dad a letter. I thanked him for leaving. I told him how amazing it was to grow up knowing that the pursuit of personal happiness is vital. That it is okay to protect yourself and to move forward even when the world around you tells you it’s selfish to do so. It’s a lesson I’ve carried with me. I chose to focus on that lesson and not the others that I probably learnt because of the split. But the most valuable lesson I learnt through their divorce was a lesson from my mother. I’ve told her about this lesson and she seemed to “poo poo” the idea mostly because she still believes on some level that she is ‘at fault’ for not holding her marriage together. In fact the one thing that allows me to hold on to the belief that she has always wanted what’s best for her children is how she conducted herself after the split. You see my mother and I do not get along. We have a very strained and uncomfortable relationship, but I will always try because I know that she is a victim of her upbringing in a way that allows me to show compassion and understanding. Even though I am not the daughter she wanted, i am the daughter she got and she is the mother I got. I love her and respect her very much but we are not mother/daughter close and that is okay. At some point after the separation my mother overheard me saying to someone how ‘oh it doesn’t matter, she is always sad’. She was devastated. She didn’t realize that I had noticed her sadness. She didn’t think she was depressed but she clearly was deeply saddened by the split. She immediately took notice of how her emotions were affecting the children still in the home. And she immediately did something about it. She made the comment that if something happened to her, the little girl she loved would only have a memory of a sad depressed woman. She is NOT that and it would truly have been a shame if that was the legacy she left me with because of her temporary sadness. So my mother did the single most loving thing a parent can do. She came out of herself and did what was best for the children she loved. My mother picked herself up, dusted her self off and moved the fuck on. I hold that memory deep in my heart and I want my children to understand that even though I am deeply saddened by the demise of my marriage that there is strength in that sadness. That a woman of strength does not just lay down and be kicked in the head by life. A woman of strength gets the hell up. THAT is the legacy that my mother gave to me. It may not be pretty and it may not be all roses and flowers but it is my truth. I get the hell up.
Today marks 7 years since I lost the single most influential man in my life. I am surrounded by loving men. Men of honour and men of strength. Men who love their family and men who love their friends. I am not hardened by the relationships in my life that haven’t turned out as expected because I have beautiful, wonderful, caring, compassionate men in my life. I have brothers, sons, nephews and friends all so close to my heart all men who hold me up and make me a better person. But today I miss the man who held me first, who loved me most and who knew my heart so well. Rest well Daddy. I miss you so very much. Rest well.
Someone drove to California and back in record time so that they could attend the Fundraiser for my kids school. I wasn’t shocked. He is always so sweet, I knew if he could physically do it, he would. Never disappoints me, this Cowboy of mine.
However I was REALLY happy ‘we’ decided to NOT go with the Harley shirt to the Silent Auction. Spent a couple of hours at WEM getting some non-work clothes. He still looks all Cowboyed up, which i LOVE. Switched the white cowboy hat a black one because he was dressin’ up. So cute. I on the other hand found an adorable retro fashion store on Whyte Ave that sells 40 style dresses. I bought the cutest black ‘wiggle’ dress. Those women in the 40′s sure knew how to dress. Just putting on the dress makes you feel all sexy siren.
The way this man looks at me buckles my knees. Seriously. Save a horse indeed.
In the words of The Dixie Chicks, Cowboy take me away.
We had a fantastic night out. He surprised me by bidding on and winning us a weekend away as one of the silent auction items. Can’t wait to use that hopefully this summer! Two nights in the mountains will be a great getaway after all the crazy work stuff that the last little while. There were many great auction items and a LOT of money raised for the International Music Fest being held here in Devon this summer. The bidding war over the Cirque du Soliel experience was frickin’ amazing!
Anyway, I am missing my Cowboy tonight so I thought I’d look through some pictures and then it occurred to me, happy blog posts are allowed too. So here is a happy one to end the first month of my YEAR OF AWESOME. Remember when I said that? Yeah. I meant it.
I’m from Saskatchewan. I’m ridiculously proud of that fact. Because I’m from Saskatchewan I can sing the words to Crystal Chandelier by Charlie Pride without even thinking about it. Because I’m from Saskatchewan I know that before Reba was just plain Reba she was Reba Mcentire and she sang Country & Western music and was married to Charlie Battles and I have the concert program to prove it. I can play Kaiser and throw a curling rock. I can cross country ski and drive three in a tree. What you see on the outside is a dread lock wearing black chick but what you don’t see is that I can two-step and probably drink you under the table all because I’m from that flat place between Alberta and Manitoba. I think the province of Saskatchewan is one of the most amazing places on the planet. And that is saying a LOT because I’ve been to a far many places on this planet. The people from Saskatchewan are the friendliest on the planet bar none. And if you want to know where wit, sarcasm and charm were invented, spend some time talking to an old dude at a Legion there. Seriously. I can not count on one hand the people I know from home that I could call right this second and say “I need help” that would be at my door. Not just good friends but acquaintances from school. Or their brothers or cousins. It’s “well my cousin Ray is out by there, let me call him and he’ll bring the truck out and get you out of the ditch”. That is how we roll. And I can prove it….wear a Rider jersey ANYWHERE on this planet. It’s our international sign of “come up and talk to me, I’ll be cool and we’ll sit down for a beer”. Sure we give HORRIBLE directions “you go down to John Yakimchuk’s place and you take a right” and if you don’t know where John Yakimchuk lives too bad or the famous “it’s over where Pinders used to be”, we are most certainly people with crappy direction giving capabilities. That is a province wide fault. We have weird names for things, I get that it confuses people ” But WHY do you call it a Bunnyhug???” We don’t know, stop asking. BUT, I know to the tips of my toes that I could raise an army of support just because we’re from the same province. If there was a zombie acropolis I would want to be in Saskatchewan because the people there would protect each other just because that is what we do. I have friends from Saskatchewan from 1974. I was FIVE. Think about that for a minute…the people I talk to over the course of the week about anything significant have been in my life since before I could subtract 2 digit numbers. Before I wrote in cursive, I know these folks. They know that I had a Tootie hair cut, they know that I played clarinet in grade 6 band, they know that I loved Billy Hall from kindergarten to grade 7, they know that a girl named Michelle used to sing “Ebony and Ivory” in Miss Rashley’s grade 7 class every time I walked in. They know the good and the bad about me and they are still in my life. Not just one person but the majority of my friends have been in my life for at least 20 years. I think that says something about how we were raised and what type of people we are. Facebook as done wonders in bringing us back together, we now SEE the lives of the people we used to know and it’s wonderful in my case because even the ones I’d lost touch with for years are the same. Crazy, sarcastic, hilarious, self deprecating, intelligent, caring people….how does that happen? How does it happen PROVINCE wide? I have no idea. Maybe it’s the perogies.
