Save Me From Myself (Updated!)

Please...

I have entered a zone of hyper-domesticity. It's alarming, seriously alarming. Since I got back from Edmonton I have baked 40 cookies, made a huge batch of clam chowder (the good tomatoey stuff, not the nasty white stuff) half of which is now in our increasingly packed freezer (Santa, I want a big deepfreeze for Christmas, okay?), baked a pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin, cooked supper last night, made up my husband's lunch for work, turned 6 lbs of apples into some rockin' spiced applesauce, and I am now in the process of baking bread. I've also somehow managed to invite my dad and his wife over for Thanksgiving supper which we will be having on Saturday. My plan is to make a turkey, steamed veggies, mashed potatoes (Ian's favourite) another pumpkin pie, and home made parker house rolls. Of course depending on how this experiment with bread goes today we may not be having fresh rolls after all. I've cleaned the upstairs of the house, done 6 loads of laundry, scrubbed the bathroom, and this afternoon my plan is to clean the outside windows and bake orange scones...and I'll do it too. This weekend I'm going to make up a giant batch of Mincemeat, it'll have a couple of months to soak in rum and get really yummy before Christmas. Oh, and I'm also stitching stockings for the girls and getting started on Mary's Halloween costume.

I've barely watched any TV at all, which is really a fabulous thing. I love having the TV downstairs, I get so much more done when it isn't there sucking the attention and life right out of me. Now, I get up in the morning, turn on the radio and listen to CBC-1 while I drink my tea. I hang out with the girls for a while, read Mary a few books, and then get started with my day. Mary watches a movie or two (her current favourites are a Winnie the Pooh movie, Little Bear, and Alladin. I try to get out for a walk in the afternoon, but I'm often too busy to bother. I do of course watch my shows in the evenings, although I'm not terribly impressed with them so far. House is kind of blah for some reason, Grey's Anatomy is getting annoying, ER is not great, but it's still the best of the bunch. I started watching Reaper on the advice of a fabulous woman in Edmonton and it's pretty great, I watched the series premier of The Tudors on CBC, and while the costuming is fabulous and Henry VIII is hawt, I found it a little slow and full of boobies (beautiful boobies, but still a little much). Private Practice was a complete bomb in my opinion and Dirty Sexy Money is moderately obnoxious. I've decided to avoid reality TV all together, including America's Next Top Model and Dancing with the Stars, mostly because I'm trying to cut down my TV viewing to only two nights a week. The other nights I intend to spend with Ian after the girls go to sleep. Even if we can't get out, we can still talk, play cards, and do stuff together at home.

For those of you who bake bread, I have a question. Why? Holy crap is it hard work. I tried to mix it up using my electric mixer, but it just balled up and climbed up the mixer deelies. How can I avoid this problem from happening? I'm not strong enough to mix it by hand, and I don't really know how else I can do it. Also, kneading the dough sucks. I worked up a crazy sweat doing that part. I hope my bread turns out okay, but it's my first time ever attempting bread, so I won't be heartbroken if it's a flop.

My weekend in Edmonton was fabulous, even if I didn't get a chance to see everyone I wanted to see. We were busy constantly from the minute we got to town till the moment we left. I had an awfully hard time at a few points, things aren't working out as we had planned/hoped here in Saskatchewan for reasons that I'm not going to go into on a public blog (if you're curious, feel free to email me), so going back to the city that I love and all the people that I adore was tough to take. I spent a good part of the weekend very close to tears. Oh well, I keep telling myself that I love my house (which I do) and it's fantastic to be debt free (which it is), but I'm still desperately lonely and isolated. I miss my husband, we haven't been out together without the children since July. That's a long time, and it doesn't look to change any time soon. The loneliness could possibly be a reason for the frantic domesticity, don't you think?

Mary's preschool is still not running, which is really unfortunate. I've heard no word on the teacher, which is likely bad news. If it weren't West Nile then I suspect she would be back at work by now. I feel bad for Mary, I need to find her some friends here. She was so thrilled to see Jonah when we were in Edmonton, the both of them shrieked and ran around together the whole time we were there. The only time they were quiet was when they got into the water that Jonah's daddy had set aside for his fish tanks. When it was time to go, they hugged like crazy, and Mary kept following Jonah around giving him kisses. We had to drag her from his side and into the van.

Anyways, it's just about time to punch my dough, I guess I'd best wrap this up. Here's a picture of Mary and Ian enjoying some imaginary soup at my Dad's place to take you out.






Update

Hey! Here's a picture of my bread! Looks nice, doesn't it? I'll wait till supper to see if it tastes as good as it looks.