Have you hugged your cupboards today?

I have no fun kid mess pictures to share because my dining room has now returned to it's regularly scheduled job as a dining room and all food items are now safely secured in the cupboards....where they belong. I much prefer my peanut butter in the pantry and not decorating my walls. Interestingly, these are not the cupboards that we ordered. The colour is right, the wood type is right but the design, not so much. We will however not say anything about the mix up as the cabinet people were long gone and we had already filled the cupboards with kitchen stuff before we noticed.

Horray For Cupboards!!

There's still a huge amount of work yet to do- tiles, flooring, paint etc. but I have cupboards so...who cares??

Day whatever

I've lost track of the days as my brain can no longer function under the layer of plaster dust and old vinyl flooring adhesive. I think we're finally getting somewhere though. It's starting to look more like a kitchen and less like someone's barn- and not one of those fancy horse barns either. More like a barn where you put the cattle you don't like. Hopeully tomorrow there will be cupboards. Lots and lots of glorious cupboards.

Mess of the day= peanut butter

I am having a hard time envisioning the end results at this point in time!

kitchen reno- day 2

I've decided to keep a photo-log of our kitchen renovation project with the hopes that we will look back at the photo's and perhaps reminisce fondly about the sheer chaos that our lives became. At this point however I'm beginning to wonder if we will survive. I tried to convince my mom that care packages containing food and royal chinet would be a fabulous idea but I don't think she took me seriously. Tomorrow we get to put in dry-wall and rip up the floor. I am giddy with anticipation.


The kitchen is now devoid of anything that makes it function as a kitchen. No counters, no cupboards, no sink. The water supply to the fridge filter is turned off thus rendering all house water undrinkable. You would think that we would have thought to purchase water somewhere before we did this wouldn't you.

Because we have no kitchen, the dining room is now covered in all things kitcheny and the kids are really enjoying the fact that everything that they could possibly want to get into is now right there in the open.

Things like jam......

.....and large tubs of protein powder.

Finally, a valid excuse for take-out!

Today as we were cleaning out the the cupboards in prepration for a massive kitchen overhaul I came across a bag of peanuts. Printed in bold type on the bottom of the bag were the words: Allergy Alert - packaged in a plant that processes peanuts. Hmmm.....you don't say.....

I've been meaning to update here since the move but haven't had the time. Perhaps once my kitchen is no longer strewn all over the dining room and back stairs and the walls have more than the original lathe on the them.....cupboards would ne nice....I will have time to actually sit and type.

In the past several days I have packed no less than 40 boxes. Combine that number with the rented storage closet full of rubbermaids and two basement storage closets full of misc. boxes, plus furniture and you have an insane amount of stuff. I'm not having fun anymore. Anyone who wishes to skip reguarly scheduled gym time or the like on the 28th to haul boxes will be my hero for the next while. I can promise that it will be a worthy work out as we have calculated that we currently own over 750 lbs of books. I wish I could say that I was kidding. For the less physically inclined, I have also packed many boxes filled with stuffed animals and polly pockets. These boxes are very light, but look identical to the boxes containing 75 lbs of books. If you use a little acting, nobody will be the wiser. They all have to get moved from the uhaul (which we're hoping will actually make the trip) and I am dreading trying to get it all done with just T and I.

Today we drove up to Athabasca to finalize the purchase and shipping details on my new project(read: yearling Friesian filly). You have no idea how excited I am about this.

much happiness....i think

I hate those days when you just know that you should have stayed in bed because it's only going to get worse as the day progresses. It was one of those days. I would have stayed in bed but my suddenly less than cherubic one year old decided to herald the morning by throwing up all over the sheets. The rest of the day was pretty much the same. Lexi spend most of the day crying, only being consoled by nursing. Normally this isn't a problem, but when your digestive system has turned into Mt. Vesuvius it's not so pleasant. Then to top of the day, as I was walking into Safeway to pick up some much needed groceries some little kid (who shall henceforth be referred to as the spawn-child) pointed directly at me, turned to her brother and said "See that lady....she's ugly!!" I kid you not. WTF?? Who says things like that??!! Maybe I really should have stayed in bed.

It's finally official. We are definately moving. To be honest though, it doesn't seem like a reality as of yet. Things have been so crazy with trying to get the basment finished and keeping small fingers out of dry wall mud and rotating saw blades that I haven't really had time to think or process any of it. I'm not exactly sure when we are leaving...coming....going... but I'm thinking sometime around Thanksgiving or possibly as late as Christmas. It will all depend on Edmonton's insane real estate market. Perhaps one day real soon I will have time for a real update.

This is what happens when your husband lets your daughter pick out your birthday cake

Trent took Tatyanna and Skylar in to Dairy Queen with him with the objective of buying my birthday cake. Yanna took one look at this gem of a cake and refused to consider any others....because "mommy like bunny hops" you know....

I'm not sure what it is but I have this strange desire to cook rabbit stew. Oh, wait....maybe it's the 3 hours of Max and Ruby that I was forced to endure yesterday on the way to Lac la Biche. Yes, that must be it.

I survived. To be honest, I wasn't sure that I would. T has been gone for the last week on another one of his work holidays. He tries to tell me that it's work but I tend to disagree. In my world to be considered a holiday, the event must meet the following criteria:

1. Sleeping must be done in a bed other than your own. Setting up a tent the basement does not count.

2. Housework is not necessary and does not involve cleaning dog slime from the walls or cheerios from the vents.

3. Intelligent conversation with other adults must be had.- At this point though, I would settle for any conversation. In the last few days I have found myself saying things like "I really don't think that it's a good idea to lick the cheese grater....I understand that you like cheese, but I can't see this going well for you." and "Please stop carrying your sister around by her head....she doesn't like it" or even "Someone hand your sister the puke bucket....please!!!"

4. Any trips to the bathroom are done without an audience. Most people take this one for granted, I don't.

See, he's totally on a holiday. I am however going to look at a horse on the way home from picking T up. I realize that I could be setting myself up for some monumental disappointment but the opportunity was too good to pass up. If we move, I will have the money to put towards riding, if not, I will have to content myself with playing with yanna's collection of plastic horses. She's only a yearling at this point but seems quite promising. We'll have to see what happens I guess.

Yanna has always been a rather perceptive sort of kid. For all her outward, bull-in-a-china shopness, she can be pretty tuned in to the feelings of those around her. Yesterday, i was upset and frustrated for most of the day. I thought I was hiding it pretty well from the kids but Yanna found me, gave me a hug and asked what was wrong. After I explained to her that grown-ups have bad days too, she smiled and asked "you need penis mommy?"* and then offered me a tissue. How can you not smile after that? I think I will miss the "Yannish" once the speech therapist starts working with her.

*In Yannish, all hard c/k sounds are p's and x's are s's...thereby making the word kleenex sound...much more entertaining

Nostomania - noun; an overwhelming homesickness; a desire to return home or to a place of familiarity

I can't say that I'm homesick exactly. To be honest, there are aspects of returning home that would be extremely difficult (read: there is a distinct lack of decent sushi places) I'm not sure what it is. There seems to be a general sense of angst and unrest lately. Perhaps it's the months of living in limbo and the uncertainty of whether we are going or staying. We have done all we can to improve the situation here to no avail and while moving back seems to be the best solution, it is also proving to be impossible. Any jobs that we apply for compete with the local population....people who are available for interviews and can start immediately. Needless to say, this is making the whole process that much more difficult. I applied for 4 jobs at the hospital but can't imagine that I will hear anything. We extended our "moving deadline" to the end of the month. After that, I'm not sure what will happen.....we can't really stay here but don't really want to move the kids mid-school year. One kid wants to move, one doesn't. The younger two are too young to care. Moving would free up money we have in the house....money for T to get his education...for me to get back into riding. We even found a decent house, with enough room for a family of 6 and a mortgage that would be half of what we currently pay. It seems like the ideal solution and yet we can't seem to make it happen.