Brrr x 2

Day too of the cold snap. Yes, I definitely remember why I left this province, and living on the edge of a small town with nothing but bald prairie to stop (hah!) the wind....well....ick. Why on earth does anyone live here? I watch my poor birds and I can't believe they don't just turn into little feathered blocks of ice. It boggles my mind that the little bastards can survive at minus 30 now and thirty above in the summer.

Today was a relatively lazy day. I didn't bake anything as I still have lots of brioche and corn bread that I need to get through. Mary is helping, she loves my baking. I did go through all the baby clothes and put everything under 9 month sizes away, and I pulled all the 12 month stuff out of boxes. Holy crap that baby is huge! I weighed her on the scale today by weighing myself without and then with her. According to my scale she is now 19 lbs. She's still 2 weeks away from 6 months, and she's the same size as Mary was when she was 11 months old...and we thought that Mary was big then too!

Skating went a bit better today. The other mothers joke about her guarding the circle, because she just stands there, on the edge of one of the circles in the ice and refuses to move. Today the teacher (I learned today that her official title is coach, but it seems a little ridiculous for a 3 year old to have a coach, don't you think?) actually convinced her to lift one of her feet off the ice for a second. Only one, mind you, and she wasn't thrilled about it, but she did lift it. It's a start. I felt kind of bad because the teacher (coach) has to spend so much time with Mary, but I spoke to her about it and she doesn't mind. She said that as long as Mary talks about skating and likes coming to keep brining her. So, I will do just that. Next lesson is on Monday, maybe she will lift the other foot!

I'm not going to be in Edmonton for Christmas (damn it), but when I do come visit I'll make sure to bake up something special to share with everyone! Maybe I'll make a brioche loaf, oops, sorry Goody, I didn't mean to offend your American sensibilities...I'll bake up some "Freedom Bread." Hey, how do you tell the difference between French Bread and Brioche? Isn't it all Freedom Bread?

The reason I am so fat

This is what I do with my life:


Brioche. It isn't lovely, kinda looks like malformed breasts, but boy does it taste good! With four eggs, lots of milk and sugar, it's rich and heavenly. I suspect it would have looked better had I not forgotten the egg wash before putting it in the stove.


Six "mini" cornbread loaves. Yeah, they're small, but not what I would call mini by any means. Again, they taste heavenly, especially fresh out of the oven.


Sugar cookies I made in honour of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Oh, they're good, and addictive.


My nicest looking loaf of bread yet. Dijon Honey bread with thyme and oregano. It is fantastic for ham sandwiches I've been told. Ian liked it, but it's not my favourite.


So, there you have it. Today I can't really get out. With the temperature at -20 plus 60 km/hour winds, well, it's damn cold out. Too cold for the girls, and too cold for me. I went out this morning to feed the birds and after 2 minutes my fingers were too frozen to open the door when I wanted to come back in. I remember now why I left Saskatchewan.

Winter

Yikes. It looks like winter has joined us here in Milestone for real today. Brrrr. It's cold, bloody windy, and snowing today. My poor sparrows and doves look extremely cold out there today.

The weekend went well. The Riders won the Grey Cup (Yay!). I made pizza for us to eat during the game. We had pondered ordering in, but instead I found a recipe for pizza dough. My pizza was superior in every way to restaurant stuff and altogether cost a fraction of what it would have had we ordered in. I'll definitely be doing that again!

Rico drove out to visit us on Friday, and that was fantastic. It was great to see him and to actually have someone other than each other to talk too. I was awfully sad to see him go, but he sure lifted our spirits while he was here!

Other than that there isn't much to report since my last update, so here, look at pictures instead!





I made fresh french bread for Rico's visit on Friday. It turned out really well, although it did split down the side.

I'm a Superstar!

Did I mention that I read for a part in the local theatre company Monday evening? Well, I did, and today I got a call from the director. They offered me the part of Carol, the eldest of four girls, recovering alcoholic, Chartered accountant, bitter spinster. It's funny, of all the characters in the play I liked Carol the least, and I wasn't able to identify with her in the slightest. Ah well, I guess a challenge is a good thing, right? We have another meeting tonight and I'll be getting the full script. The play runs the first two weeks in April, with a competition in North Battleford happening the week after Easter. I'm still a little shocked that I got a part at all, let alone a relatively major parts (not that there are many minor parts in a play with only 8 characters in total).

Okay, Frances is howling, she's probably flipped over onto her belly again. She works so hard to get there, and then is filled with rage when she succeeds. She hates being on her belly.

Marshmallow Creme

So, this recipe for one of the many homemade Christmas gifts that I am making called for something called marshmallow creme. I couldn't find it anywhere, and I have no clue what it is, so I looked it up on line and learned that it is something almost exclusively American. So, I did what any determined gift maker would do and I found a recipe on how to make it myself. Do you know what is in marshmallow creme? I do, it's sugar in several forms, a few egg whites and a dash of vanilla. Anyways, the recipe I found made way more of the stuff than I needed. I now have a litre of marshmallow creme languishing in my fridge. Anyone have ideas of what I could do with the stuff?

Valuable Lessons

How do you like the new colours? I decided to switch from pink to green in honour of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. For those of you who care, the Riders are on their way to the Grey Cup, for those of you who don't, well, fine then. Never Mind.

I learned a valuable lesson yesterday. Ian was strapping Mary into the van so we could head off to the rink for Mary's skating lesson, and he was being pretty feeble and taking a long time. Mary was muttering to herself as she often does, and at one point she sighed, looked at Ian and said "Oh Jesus Daddy." Ian just about choked from fighting his laughter, and I was mortified. You see, I couldn't blame that one on Ian's foul mouth at all, Mary was channeling me in a terrifying way. I don't even realize when I'm saying it sometimes, but "Oh Jesus" Is my curse of choice. When Mary's being bad I often say "Aw, Jesus Mary!" So, It's my fault. I told my Mum, and she mentioned that when I was that age my favourite thing to say was "Goddamn it!" Anyways, the lesson I learned - watch your mouth around 3 year olds.

Skating is still going surprisingly well. Mary talks about it all the time, and we have to drag her off the ice. It's funny though, her instructor told me yesterday that Mary is very quiet and serious. I guess she hasn't said one word to anyone in the course of her lessons so far. It's like the ice sucks the voice out of her, and the minute her skates are off she turns back into a chatterbox. I do know that she likes it because every time we go to leave the rink it's a fight, and all she'll say is "I stay here Mummy!"

Frances is good. She started rolling over the other day, and after a few hours of practicing hard she now has rolling from her back to her belly down pat. Unfortunately she hasn't figured out how to get back to her back, and she gets mighty pissed off about 2 minutes after rolling over. So, we flip her back onto her back, and 5 minutes later she's on her belly again. She's been much nicer to be around for the last week now too. Nowhere near as much screaming, she's laughing at everything, and in one day she cut down the puking by more than half! She still doesn't have much of a personality, but I can certainly see it developing.

Oh, and as a final note, Lady Myke finally had her baby! Yay! It seemed like she had been pregnant forever, and it's finally over.

She Skates!

Hmm. It would seem that I've been lollyblogging again. It's not a bad thing though, I've just been too busy to come here and moan about how miserable my life is.

Things are going pretty well, I think. This week Mary started her skating lessons, and they are going amazingly well. We had a bit of a hitch at the first one on Monday as the cheap WalMart skates we bought her were, well, cheap. She couldn't stand in them on dry ground, let alone ice, they just didn't give her the support she needed. So yesterday we went to a used skate shop, picked out a pair of incredibly cute little figure skates, and after trying them on and discovering the big difference, we bought them. Unlike Monday when Ian had to drag Mary around on the ice himself, today I just dropped her off in the care of one of the young helpers and headed off to the warmth to watch. Mary did so well, I can't even express how proud I am of her. She stood on the ice instead of laying there bawling (like some of the other students), she listened to the instructor and her assistants, and by the end of the half hour actually managed to move around on the ice a little by herself. Soon she'll be a better skater than I am, although it's not hard to be better than me at that sport (or any sport, really). She had lots of fun, she didn't shed a tear and I had to bribe her off the ice.

Yesterday we went off to the city so I could get my eyes checked. It went well, though it took forever, and nothing was resolved. It turns out the doctor I had is related to my favourite Veterinarian, Dr. Love (not his real name, and you have to say it in a pornographic sort of way to get it right). Anyways, he is sending me off to an Opthamologist because I saw squiggly lines when I should have seen straight. All I know is that he put nasty drops in my eyes that made my pupils swallow the iris, shone incredibly bright lights in my eyes, and I couldn't see my grocery list when we went shopping.

I know I've been busy doing something, but for the life of me I can't remember what else I've done. I have put together some more stuff for Christmas gifts, I've made bread. I learned that I cannot make meringue to save my life, my poor husband loves lemon meringue pies, and he will never get one made by me.

Man I'm exhausted. You'd think that I was the one on the ice today. Well, I'd better go get supper started so it's ready for my loving husband when he gets home! Aren't I a good little housewife? :)

Lest We Forget

In Flanders Fields
Written by John McCrae in 1915


In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Long Day

Today Ian is working 13 hours. Sigh. I feel kind of bad for him, although it was his choice to work so much, but I feel worse for me. As crazy as he often drives me, he is my only adult contact, I get lonely and depressed if he's gone too long.

Mary is sleeping right now. It's 5:30. She fell asleep at 3, and at 5 I tried to wake her to get her to eat supper, but no dice. Pity for her, supper was really good tonight. I ate it and drank a pint of dry cider all by myself. I don't know when she'll actually wake up, but I suspect I won't get to shower tonight after the girls go to sleep like I planned. I doubt Mary'll sleep before 9.

We bought Mary skates yesterday! She's starting skating lessons at the local rink on Monday, it should be interesting. The woman I spoke too told me that if Mary despises it after 3 classes they will refund our money. We are getting a family membership to the rink, I think I may take up curling, and Ian wants to play hockey. Thankfully my father is pitching in, we'd never be able to afford the rink fee's without him.

Frances is miserable. I'd better go.

Goodnight Sweetheart

I've created a problem. A serious problem. I don't know how to fix it. A while back I started unlocking Mary's bedroom door before going to bed myself (yes, I lock my child in her room at night. I am a bad bad mother). She would wake up every morning between 6 and 7 and wander over to our room, climb into bed and snuggle with me for an hour or so before we got up. It's nice when she does that, I like it. Then last week she woke up in the middle of the night and came sobbing to our room. So, I pulled her into bed to sleep with us. Every night since that night she has come to our bed at some point in the middle of the night. I don't generally mind, but it's getting a little out of control. Last night at about 3 am she came to our bed, but instead of going back to sleep she lay there between Ian and I, kicking and flailing and occasionally exclaiming "Ah! Aaaaahhhhh!" or perhaps "Mummy. Mummy sleeping. Night Mummy! Cookies please?" After about an hour of this behaviour I had enough and brought her back to her bed. She flipped. After about an hour of coaxing and singing her songs at 5 AM she finally went to sleep and stayed in her own bed till we got up for the day. Today she is exhausted and I am exhausted, and I'm dreading having to break the habit that I have inadvertently encouraged.

I called the eye doctors office to make an appointment for Ian and I, and we have to wait over a month! I was some annoyed. I told the girl after the appointments were made that I was having some problems with my eyes, and when she found out that I have a black spot in my vision, she bumped me up to next week. I would say sweet, but by her reaction I think that my eye spots may be more than just a little annoying. Sigh. The last thing I need is to have a serious problem with my eyes. There's enough on my plate to keep me miserable without that.

We voted in the provincial election today. When I went in the woman who took my name was very excited to meet me. She welcomed me to Milestone, told me that she understands how hard it is to move to a small town and actually meet people, and gave me several phone numbers of people to call about the mom and tots group as well as skating classes for Mary. I'm off to call them right away. Wish me luck! I may just make a friend in this stupid province yet!

I Need It

So, I'm reading these books, a series by the author Michelle West called the Sun Sword. I've finished the first three of the series and enjoyed them greatly. I went online to see if I could order books 4, 5, and 6. Five and Six are available, but four...ah four...you can't get it. Not for under sixty bucks for a stinking paperback copy. What the hell? So, if anyone out there has the Sun Sword book 4, Sea of Sorrows, by Michelle West, I'd love to borrow it. I promise not to sell it on Ebay.

Sick

Yeah, we're sick again. Got a problem with that? Mary has spent the last 4 nights in our bed. She goes to sleep in her own bed but in the middle of the night she stumbles over to our bedroom and crawls in between Ian and I. Surprisingly, I don't really mind having her there, so I don't make a fuss about it. She's been pretty crabby for the last couple of days, and now she has some bowel issues, the poor wee thing. She's miserable, poopy and feverish.

Other than Mary being crabby the weekend went well. Ian was off all weekend and it was nice to have him around, even if we didn't get much done. He was going to finish cleaning up the leaves in the yard, but it was so incredibly windy (welcome to Saskatchewan!) that he couldn't really do anything. I baked bread, cookies and cinnamon buns. Friday I got out by myself and picked up some groceries and a new car seat for Frances. She's already grown too big for the infant bucket seat that we had, so we had to get a great big convertible one. How I long for the days of my childhood when carseats were just baskets that you plunked the baby into, and you could hold the baby in your lap if you really wanted too. I'll tell you a secret, on our way home from the town Foul Supper, that's exactly what I did. Rather than fight to get Frances into her stupid car seat, I just held her. I'm a bad mother. :)

Nothing much else has happened since my last post. Mary's worn her halloween costume every single day. It's windy and cold. Frances ate an entire jar of baby food, and then downed 8 more ounces of formula. She's going to be eating steak and chips before long. I tried to make friends with the lady across the street by bringing over cinnamon buns, but her little boy wouldn't get her, he wanted to talk to me his self, and when he was done he just shut the door. Sigh. Who needs friends when you have squirrels, right?

Don't Make Me Go....

To the potty. This morning when I woke up I decided that we were going to start potty training in earnest. No more pull-ups, no more messing around. So, I put Mary in Big Girl Panties. They were very nice, and we spent a great deal of time admiring them and discussing what it means to wear Big Girl Panties. Every hour I took Mary to the potty where we sat, sang songs, and discussed the fish on the shower curtain. About 5 minutes after one of our potty breaks I heard Mary start crying in the basement. I knew what had happened, she had "made water" and discovered the down side of Big Girl Panties. I comforted her, cleaned her up and told her that next time she should try to get on the potty. Ten minutes later, more crying. Repeat comforting. Twenty minutes later there was a heartbroken wail from the basement, and Mary started sobbing in earnest and saying "BAD GIRL!" I cleaned her up, cuddled her and put her into pull ups. Obviously she's just not ready, and I guess she was feeling pressured or something. I've never called her bad girl for accidents, but she was clearly upset, and I don't really want to keep up with the potty training if she feels so stressed about it.

Halloween was fun, I guess. Mary wore her Elephant costume and we visited about 6 houses. Every time someone opened the door Mary would barge right in, ignoring the candy. I guess she couldn't figure out why we would knock on all these peoples doors and not go in for a visit. She took far more pleasure greeting the "boys" (everyone is either a Mummy, a Daddy, a Grandma, a grandpa or a boy) that came to our door, I think.



Mary the ambivalent elephant. She cheered up a bit once we got outside.




The shirt says "Your Misery Makes Me So Happy." She's my little life and soul sucking vampire. Luckily she's cute.




And here is why that dress is so very appropriate. Every time I put her down she makes that face...