Fall is in the air...

This morning I woke up and the air felt different today than it did yesterday and everyother day this past week.  I got out of our tent (in the backyard) and came in the house deciding that today was a great day to make carrot muffins.  Before Anomantia got up, I had cleaned the kitchen and started mixing the batter to my carrot muffins.  After breakfast, we sampled some of the muffins and then went for our daily walk around the block and down the back alley to admire everyone's gardens.  This year our garden is a write off.  It has been attacked from every angle and I am ready to give up.  This spring was a very dry spring and our soil proved to be fairly dead, followed by a rainy month of June and terrible wind-rain-tornado storms for most of July.  We have been hammered with hail the size of golf balls which took the leaves off of any plants that did grown in our barren wasteland of a garden.  August so far has proved to be pretty much of the same what little we have had so far.  All I can say is I am grateful for my greenhouse.  So far it has yielded a single tomato and a green pepper, several carrots (our soil is too dense to do these outdoors).  But this morning, I feel harvest time is quickly approaching as the threat of frost looms. My guess is that before labour day weekend, we will have seen the beginning of the end of gardening for this year. 

The dentist and wonder

This past week, I was tickling Anomantia and noticed a dark spot on one of her bottom teeth.  Within seconds of finding it, I was on the phone with our dentist's office.  Luckily enough, I managed to get an appointment for Laurence to have his teeth cleaned and a check-up on Friday morning and they had an opening for Anomantia on Monday morning.  So come Monday, Laurence will be taking the drive with the squirt to the dentist's office.  From what I have heard from other patients is that the dentist is very good with children.  Anomantia is still a little young for her first dentist appointment but because of the spot, there is an exception.  Thursday evening after finding the spot, I brushed her teeth and the spot came off... Now I think it was just a piece of blueberry skin stuck to the tooth, but it was also under the gums, so we decided to take her for the check up just in case it is something more than that. So Friday morning, I took her to the dentist's office while Laurence was in for his appointment to familiarize her with the office so she won't freak out come Monday morning.
Today, Anomantia and I went out for all you can eat sushi lunch with my good friend Elise.  I found out that Anomantia doesn't really like the seaweed in the maki rolls and she LOVES rice of any kind.
This afternoon, I realised that I have done and experienced so much more than I have ever dreamed of doing in the last three months alone.  I have gone ice fishing (on my bucket list), gone back to work, seen the northern lights (also on my bucket list), experienced a real winter storm (with wind drifts higher than the bumper on our Jeep),  taught my daughter to love and respect animals and other critters, and seen Anomantia change from being a baby into a toddler and more like a little girl everyday.  I love seeing the changes in her daily.  Her curiosity for everything is facinating and allows me to look at the world from her perspective and innocence. I love seeing that spark and spunk that she has when approaching the unknown. I took a bunch of new pictures this week and I am still trying to figure out my new computer, so I will upload them once she goes down for another nap later on today and hopefully post them tonight or tomorrow.  Anyhow, I am off to change another soiled diaper, still no luck on the potty training front, she is still terrified of the potty and hates the bathroom because she thinks that she has to take a shower everytime we go in there.  I have tried playing with her in the bathroom but all she does is pick up her toys and run out of the room.  I guess it doesn't really help that it is the coldest room in the house.  I guess that we will have to try something new because I would really like to have her using the potty or the toilet within the next six months to a year.  If anyone has any suggestions please comment here and not on Facebook.  I am closing my facebook account for posting comments and upping the security as I have been hacked on that account and need to revise my security options.  And with the lack of comments and imput, I am seriously thinking of retiring this blog as I don't know where to take it.

Yay for spring in Canada...

Well the geese are back and by my deductive reasoning, that means so is spring.  The other morning while I was in the kitchen, I was watching the Blue Jays jumping around in our Blue Spruce in the front yard.  I really hate that tree in the summer but appreciate the green needles in the whiteness of our winters.  This morning I decided to play catch up on my podcasts and listened to four hours of Vinyl Cafe consecutively... I think my husband was annoyed to start but Stuart McLean's calming and addictive voice sucked him in, I even went to turn it off and he was standing next to my speakers eating his breakfast and enjoying the stories.  I remember being a young child and listening to CBC with my own mum and I remember her reading stories from the Vinyl Cafe to me when I was in my teens.  I remember road trips where we would take turns reading from books for entertainment while we travelled and no I don't get carsick. The summer after my dad died, my mum, my younger sister and I drove from the island to the West Edmonton Mall.  I remember reading Bruno and Boots Go Jump in the Pool and This can't be Happening at MacDonald Hall.  I remember my mum always listening to CBC radio and enjoying it, not just the news but Quirks and Quarks, Vinyl Cafe, Basic Black and several others, it was something that defined us as Canadians.  We read Canadian authors and listened to Canadian radio, but we embraced our entity as Canadians.
This weekend, we went to the market and bought the seeds we need for the garden this year.  Instead of doing flowers in my planters, this year I am doing strawberries and Bright Lights swiss chard, it is an edible ornamental.  It will be a busy summer here in Gurneyland, lots of projects on the go and lots of things on the wish list that I hope to get to doing this year. 
Anomantia has become little miss attitude lately, she is a ball of energy and loads fun.  A couple of weeks ago, she and her dad went to visit her grandparents back on the island without me... for a whole Seven days.... by my standards, this is something I swore up and down that would never ever happen, well it did!  It felt like six days way too long and I don't think I'd let them go for that long again.  However on the up side, I did get a lot of work done both at home and at the shop.  My carpets got shampooed and the dust bunnies conquered and so the home is getting ready for the windows to be opened and the stuffy winter air to be cleared from within.  Yesterday, I was able to get the cloth diapers out on the line for the first time this year... it is way later than last year when I had them out at the end of February.  This afternoon, Anomantia and I attended a community based trade show to showcase home based businesses in our neighbourhood.  There were free glitter tattoos and I tried to get Anomantia one but she didn't want anything to do with it, on the other hand she picked out a wicked looking bat that I got on my right wrist.  There were some pretty neat little companies, including a cloth diaper company, esthetics services, scentsy dealer, epicure dealer, Usana health food products dealer, Boot Camp services, and a couple of knit/quilted blankets and stuff tables and a few others.  I found it was just nice to be outside for the walk to the community hall and back.  I actually got the Ergo carrier out for the walk, the stroller is just to bulky and not worth pushing through the slush and snow to the end of the street.  I was amazed at how Anomantia still handles being in the Ergo, I haven't put her in it since she started walking on her own but today it came in real handy.  Thank-you to my cousins who lent me their Ergo, it has made a world of difference in our lives having it this past year.
Today I had an A-HA! moment.  I realised that I have constantly been thrown curve balls in my life and that it has by no means been an easy one.  I guess that now is a better time than any to change all this crap in for something good.  Since the new years, I have been trying to change things for the better to create a happier, healthier home for my family.  In doing so, I have managed to return myself to a healthy weight and rediscover who I really want to be.  I realised that I needed to be healthier and happier in order to bring that into my home.  To date I have lost forty pounds, yes that is 40lbs!!! and I feel like a million bucks.  I couldn't justify paying outrageous amounts for a hair cut, so I did it myself twice! (and then had Laurence fix it for me the second time).  I am loving my home life but am feeling under stimulated at work.  I want to go back to school but have yet to decide on what path I would like to persue.  Everything is changing for the better and life seems to be getting better by the day.  I can't wait to see what the next nine months will bring for the rest of the year