Spring Is Here!!

When we went to bed last night a spring squall was going through and it was snowing like crazy!! I was afraid when I woke up this morning, everything was going to be covered and I had plans today to clean up around the outside of the workshop today. I think that about one more dump truck should have it covered! There is just a little rubble left over that I wanted to move before the grass needed to be mowed. This morning, however, the weather was beautiful!

Mike arrived around 11:00 with this pretty bouquet of crocus blooms, just for me! I didn't even know that they were blooming - it has been so cold here next to the mountains and I just had not had the time to go looking around. It was such a thoughtful way for him to get my day off on the right foot!

After I caught up on all the emails, I decided to take a break and go looking around. It is warm out there today!! The meadowlarks were singing in the fields, on Indian Hill the crocus were blooming and there was lots of fresh snow in the mountains. It was just too pretty! I could not go back inside and try to get excited about what kits were going up on the website for May. I just had to take a little photo break!

My children are the fifth generation to be brought up on this land. I once thought that this is the way that it always would be, our family would always live here and raise families that would get to ride ponies all over the place, listen to the meadowlarks, pick spring flowers and enjoy the mountains circling around like pie crust. The past nine years, as Mike has tried to get back some semblance of his old life, I have been keenly aware that I need to take the time to more fully appreciate every day spent here. It may not always be so. We have had lengthy talks lately about what will happen if the doctors can not "fix" his leg in some form that will allow him to walk and be able to do all of the things that need to be done when you live on a farm.

Everywhere that you look on the farm, you can tell that we have not been able to keep up with the repairs and maintenance. The shelter belt needs clean up, the barns need painting and a few new windows, the koi pond was never finished, the fences are all in bad repair, the farm yard needs cleaning up and dejunking. Every view reminds Mike that he is not able to work like he used to. It is getting harder and harder not to agree with him that a smaller place would be a good idea.

But, for now, I am going to think about all things bright and beautiful - the blooming crocus, the singing meadowlark and the snow capped mountains, and pray for a medical miracle. If God can make these mountains, he can mend Mike's leg. I just need faith.

My Never Ending Dish Obsession

I have a confession to make. I only own three pairs of shoes and one pair of moccasins, I only have one purse and I have but one dress, which can be a funeral dress, a party dress or an event dress depending on the need. I am a hoodie and blue jean girl, nothing fancy, definitely not a clothes horse. But, can I walk past a pretty set of dishes in a store? Absolutely not!!!
I have so many sets of dishes that I have to hide them all over the house, under the spare beds, in the front closet, in with the decorations for that season. I must have about 15 complete sets of tableware, about a dozen partial sets for luncheons or teas or for parties. I can not stop.
I also collect antique platters, my collection numbers in the forties. I used to display a great portion of the platters on my dining room wall - until Mike told me to cease and desist, they were bothering him. I took some of them down and now I rotate the display as the seasons change and the platters need dusting. Marcie used to smuggle new dishes in for me when she came up from Lethbridge, but Mike soon caught on to her and put a stop to that.
For the longest time, Tanya was my new "dish mule" because Mike had not figured out that when she comes up to work from Lethbridge, she brings my latest order from Pier 1 along with her. She comes over to the workshop and unloads when he is not around and until recently we had not been caught. Until this week! Megan happened to be helping make kits when Tanya and I were discussing the new set of dishes that I wanted and that little brat squealed on me!!! She told Mike exactly now much money that I gave Tanya, and he decided to "trap" me when Tanya brought the dishes in on the sly. We were caught red handed!!! It was pretty funny. But now, I have to find a new way to smuggle contraband dish deliveries into the house.
This set of pottery was last summer's find. On a camping trip to Creston with Mike, I stopped by my favorite pottery studio and Mike bought me these new pieces to go along with the set that I was collecting. I love the fruit stands, the grain elevators and the bright cheerful colors of the glaze. I am eagerly looking forward to going back this spring and getting another piece or two.
Hi, my name is Cindy, I have a dish addiction, it has been two weeks since I last bought some dishes....

The Best Laugh This Week!!!

Thanks Colleen for brightening my otherwise frightful day by sending me this photo. I was laughing so hard that I almost fell off my chair - I have not had something tickle my funny bone like this picture did! Look at the whites in the eyes of the terrified Jack Russell! Look at that bird!!! OMG - I am still laughing!!! Thank God for good friends, who send something along to cheer you up, just when you think that you can't take any more crap, a thoughtful person touches your life and turns everything around. They may not have even known that you needed a lift. This just made my day!! I can only imagine what is going through that poor dog's head!

10 Things in Life That There Never Is Enough Of

This week, it seems like my life is being controlled by things that are out of my control. I am constantly in a state of panic, because I am missing something. Here are 10 random things that there never is enough of:
1) TIME - this big clock stands in my workshop and I am constantly racing against it. Only one more day to complete shipping and check everything for the last time, only one more hour before Debbie has to leave for her doctor's appointment and then there is just Andrea and I for a few more hours, only one more night before Mike comes from his quest for a classic car (which means that I will have to make supper again and I can not stay at the workshop all night, only another week before income tax is overdue, only a week and a half until the new kits go up and this madness starts all over again...
2) cold beer. See list above, not even unlimited cold beer can help me out of this month's mess, but it certainly does help. I can not do income tax without beer and cigarettes - in vast amounts. That is why I have Edna,my accountant. She takes the edge off and tells me that I am not really going to jail if all of this does not get done on time!
3) white out. I never like to be a position that I have less that three unused white out dispensers. Crossing things out makes me anxious. I have to white mistakes out and have everything look neat and tidy. Edna is bringing back up white out tonight!
4) fresh mozzarella cheese - I can not get any right now and it is driving me crazy. There is only one kind that I like and I have depleted all of the sources in Southern Alberta, as apparently it is only available at Christmas time. Who is in charge of something like this? I want to complain. How can you only make a product at one time of the year? Stupid cheese makers!
5) clean white socks. Because I am basically living in my second home, I am never in my own house long enough to remember that I do not have any clean , white socks. I have tons of other colors, but they play second fiddle to my white ones. It just starts the day off on the wrong foot (no pun intended) if I have to wear dark socks. It's sort of like having a bad hair day or having to use the wrong flavor of toothpaste, because you are out of your favorite kind. By the way, whomever thought of cinnamon toothpaste is a genius!
6) printer ink. Between myself and Monday Night Class, we own and operate seven printers that are in my workshop or in my house. Only two of them take the same ink. My ink bill exceeds my food bill for my family every month, even if you throw in a tank of gas or two as well. I NEVER have the right combination of ink when something runs dry, which at shipping time is about once a day. Even the office products in Pincher Creek can not keep enough stock to accommodate me. We alternate going around the room and trying different machines, to see if we can squeeze a few more copies out. Today alone, we ran two printers out!
7) Cheezies. Straight up my favorite snack of all time, which I am out of tonight, after staying up late last night doing books with Edna. I am leaving for town right after I finish this, to get more before tonight's bookwork marathon. If Hawkins ever stops making Cheezies, I will undoubtedly starve to death.
8) episodes of Diners, Drive Ins and Dives, my all time favorite cooking show on Food Network TV. Got both cookbooks, love Guy Ferreri, and before I die, I am going to visit some of the diners that intrigued me the most from the show. Now, thanks to my perm, I also am sporting the same hairdo as Guy!
9) Rubber Maid totes - never met one that I didn't like, couldn't resist buying and then lost! Monday Night Class must own about fifty Rubbermaid totes that are out there floating around in the world some where. Mike always complains that he should have bought shares in the company, because we would be rich. Little does he know! We'd own the company!
10) Ta da!!! My favorite thing in the world that I could never have enough of - Windex!!! I will go to my grave and never have to be embalmed from all of the Windex that has leached into my system. I love how it eats glue on workshop tables, dissolves ink and grime and in general will clean anything you want. I buy it two big bottles at a time at Costco and then still have break through purchasing in between (and I go to Costco a lot!). Maybe that is why I have no fingernails, the Windex has eaten them ???

That is why I am going to live forever. With all of the bleach, beer, Cheezies and Windex in my system, no self respecting germ is going to stand a chance at invading my body. I will be preserved forever!

Bad Hair Day - OMG - Really, Bad Hair Day

Okay, I wish that I had a picture of this one to show you. I don't know why, other than maybe I just wanted a change, I asked my hair dresser if my hair was in good enough shape to perm. She assured me that my full, beautiful head of hair was in excellent shape and although I specifically said that I wanted a WAVE in my hair, it didn't turn out that way.
About half way through, when the perm solution ran into my eye and caused excruciating pain, I had buyer's remorse, but by then the cold, stinky solution was running down the back of my shirt, all over my arms (as I tried, unsuccessfully) to hold a towel over my eyes to prevent what eventually happened anyway. I was past the point of no return and entering the zone of dead head. My hair couldn't look worse, unless it was stuck to one of those taxidermy animals. A water buffalo might like my hair, or if they need some dead looking fur to make a Sasquatch out of, I have a donation to make.
It looked pretty dam scary when she gave me my glasses back, but I thought that I had better not gasp and break into tears, so I waited to see what she would do with it. By the way, my bangs did not curl at all ( you must be getting the picture by now) and so they were flat, the rest was an afro.
But, not just a curly afro, the perm solution had leached all of the color out of my hair. I knew that it would lighten my hair and that is why we were perming it two weeks before my next scheduled cut & color. But, the bizarre shade of GOLD that was achieved, even frightened the hair stylist! She quickly suggested that we cut some of it off - so I lost a couple of inches right at that time. With it being so curly, it "boinged" up so that it looked considerably short than it was. Then my stylist applied lots of goop to my hair and sent me home. I didn't look in the mirror all the way home and went directly to the bathroom.
This is what I saw: flat bangs and then a "wedge" of curly hair that stuck two feet past my shoulders, two inches of grey roots, topped off with a ridiculous shade of coppery/gold. I knew that I could not wash it for two days and whatever she had put in it had now made it "crunchy". I tried to put it in a ponytail, but had a hard time fitting a regular size elastic hair band around the bushy, crunchy, golden/grey mess. When I finally got it roped in, I put it in a comb and then took another peek in the mirror. The crunchy ends were now sticking straight up about four inches over my head and I looked like I had been electrocuted and that I should see smoke coming out of my hair at any minute. I lived like this for the two required days. Megan just about wet herself when she saw me at the workshop.
Then, finally, I got to wash it!! Bad idea! The parts of my hair that had previously been highlighted turned into something that I told Christy looked like frisee lettuce. You know... the white/yellow/green/ curly lettuce that looks like tree roots. It just went bizarrely frizzy all over, in strips ( where the highlights were). Which is a big deal when the rest of your hair is already frizzy and this is EVEN MORE SO!!~ When I tried to pick through the hair with my wide toothed hair pick, the frisee, lettuce hair was all rubbery and elastic and just peeled off my head. In little tangled, rubbery, lettuce looking globs.
Christy stopped laughing long enough to suggest that I take a photo. What a friend! I am going to have to get it all cut off, because even after slathering it with conditioner and wrapping it in a towel for the night, I woke up this morning to more rubbery hair peeling off. I am so screwed...

Catching Up At Home

Sooooo, being gone for a week definitely has its ups and downs! What a lot of work I came back to! Dead plants, 159 emails, dust every where, unmade beds (from Megan and her friends house sitting) no dog food (did not find out until we were home and so I had to go back to town) , no food left, but plenty of beer and wine in the fridge (courtesy of Megan) and no scrapbook fairy had come and prepped kits!!

It has taken pretty much all of these past two weeks to feel like I was on top of things again. Debbie, Andrea and I tied into the kits and we are almost ready to ship! The email box is EMPTY!!! I am finally caught up, and I even cooked supper last night instead of having cereal for the third night in a row. I am surprised that Mike just doesn't move out!! He eats in town so much around shipping week that I think we own a table at our favorite restaurant!

I wish that I would have had my camera with me today! Mike called me about 11:00am and told me that Rona had called and the freight guy had dropped off a "huge" pile of stuff and they were wondering if I was coming in today. That should have been my first clue - why would a lumber yard (big, big, lumber yard) be concerned about my scrapbooking freight. But I went in any way, because I don't want to make the staff deal with my mess. Well, I can see why they were alarmed. It was a WHOLE PALLET FULL!!! I am talking, move it with a fork lift type pallet. It seems like both suppliers decided to send the Monday Night Class freight on the same day. Holy shit - I don't even want to look at the invoices. I am pretty sure that we could have bought a truck cheaper.

There is so much, I don't even have any where to put it until we are done shipping next week. We loaded it all in the back of mike's truck and I parked in the garage when I got home. My car is full, Mike's new truck is FULL, and our farm truck with the topper is full. At this rate, MNC is going to have to buy another storage vehicle or a cargo trailer. Can't get the covered cargo trailer - Mike would want to take it to Vegas to the Barrett-Jackson sale!!!! Forget I said that!

I Love Being A Country Girl!

Okay, I am glad to admit that city life is not all that it is cracked up to be. I thought living in Lethbridge for a week would be fun, but it was EXPENSIVE and I can not believe that I am saying this - I got tired of shopping. ME!!!!! After seven days of shopping, I was through with it for a while. My purchases almost did not fit in the truck. My credit card was groaning after two days, and so I robbed Mike's wallet and went through all of his money too! Luckily, I have a VERY understanding husband!!
Of all my purchases, my favorite thing was the placemats and table runner that I scored at Pier 1. Marked down from $11.95 per placemat to $1.48. Gotta love that!!!! Mike just rolled his eyes when I brought them back, all excited and such. He knows that they probably never will be used, but they will look really pretty sitting on my oak dining room table. I have pillows with pillowcases that he is not allowed to use, bath towels that just hang and look pretty and now these beautiful velvet placemats that will never see a crumb. Guys just don't get it!! I guess that is why every good shirt that I have ever bought him has a barbed wire tear or a grease stain . Would he ever think of changing out of his good clothes to put on something that he could fix the baler with. Guys!! Another thing that they don't get is the concept of summer and winter clothes. They just have clothes. Period. The whole idea of light versus dark clothes are lost on them!
My most favorite meal of the week was at Fire Stone and included the Al Forno Mussels and the mini doughnuts. My least favorite thing was Mike watching the Barret-Jackson auto sale on TV for three solid days because now he wants to go to Vegas in September and buy his hot rod.
I bought so many cool kitchen gadgets and tools that all I want to do is bake for a week now, however, it is prepping week next week and then shipping, so my big expensive baking book (the most I have ever paid for a book, don't tell Mike) is going to have to wait until the end of the month! Something to look forward to!

I Love Being A City Girl!!!

Today is my third day of being a city dweller, as Mike and I are staying in Lethbridge while he undergoes four treatments at the Haig Medical Clinic. Today, I also underwent tests to see why my vision has changed dramatically in the past month or so.

So far, we have driven out to Green Tree Garden Centre, where I bought some herb plants for my windowsill and for Mojiotos (not sure if I spelt that right), shopped around Pier 1 and Winners, by myself, with all of the time in the world and went out for MANY great meals!!! My favourite find, so far, is the mini doughnuts from Firestone Restaurant. YUMMMM!

I still have lots of things on my list that I want to do - tomorrow I am going to go and buy a coffee in Starbucks and sit and read a book from the Chapters portion of the building. I have always thought that would be so cool. Nothing but time on my hands and a good food magazine - heaven!!! (That is, if my eyes are co-operating!) In the evening, I am planning on going to the movies, the Bounty Hunter is my pick. Then I am going to order the mini doughnuts from room service and read another magazine or two.

Saturday, I am going shopping again -probably will have to buy a new pair of jeans, as I am eating a lot on this trip. I am going to lounge my way through a couple of kitchen stores that I spotted down town and spend the rest of the day enjoying high speed Internet in the motel. God, do I love the Internet!!! I just spent two hours on the Martha Stewart website this afternoon, don't tell my optometrist, I was supposed to rest my eyes this afternoon. Shush! Don't tell!!! You have to realize that is a BIG deal to me, as I do not have, and can not get high speed at my house because of the mountains. Sunday is going to be more shopping and food related activities. Today, I googled "food vacations" and found out that I can take week long cooking classes in Nova Scotia this summer. High speed could get me into a lot of trouble! Monday is Mike's last session before we go home, although we have to come back Thursday again for our respective results. Then I will officially a farm girl again and all of this fun will come to an end. I am seriously thinking that I am going to have to go home and perfect that mini doughnut recipe!!!