The View From Here

It's been a very snowy winter here in western NL. On Monday we saw the sun, honest to goodness, for the first time since Christmas Eve! It has snowed and snowed and snowed. On the 3 days since Christmas that it did not snow, it was cloudy. Oppressively cloudy. It was getting rather depressing.

So I decided, "Well, self, can't sit around and be all depressed about something that cannot be helped." and I got myself up off my (increasingly round) rearend and started getting out snowshoeing.

Now, I'm not a big fan of winter. I much prefer being warm. But I have always loved winter sports. And there is nothing like cold fresh air in your lungs and a splash of vitamin D in your face to perk you right up and get you out of the winter funk.

And when you get to your destination - I really do live in the most beautiful and fabulous place in the world! - and it looks like this, you can't help but feel alive and happy and rejuvenated.

Hope you're getting out there skiing and snowmobiling and snowshoeing too! If you can't beat it, may as well throw snowballs at it :)

The Return

I've just returned from a trip to St. John's. For those of you unfamiliar with Newfoundland, St. John's is on the east side of the province and about an 8 hour drive away from me.

8 hours on a good day. But we left home in a blinding snowstorm. Couldn't see a thing is some areas and the wind was blowing so hard, we burned about a gajillion dollars in gas to get there!

And we had to go...HAD to! My mom, you see, had a recurrence of the skin cancer she had removed back in 2006. Unfortunately, the procedure did not remove the entire root of the cancer and it continued to grow. Basal cell carcinoma, luckily, is slow moving. But still, after 7 years, when she got out of the MOHs surgery,...well, if you can imagine what a nose looks like with no skin and only cartilage...then that's how she looked and that's how much skin they had to remove to ensure (with 98% accuracy) that they had finally gotten it all.

Not fun at all for her! I found it completely fascinating to see, however, because I'm rather morbid that way. She was not impressed and kept passing out when I changed her dressings! It's a good thing she wasn't the one looking at it.

The St. John's trip was for the plastic surgery required to reconstruct the nose. A skin graft was taken from the forehead, kept it tact only by the adjoining arteries, and then "tunnelled" under the skin at the bridge of her nose. Keeping the arteries in tact means the skin does not "die" and turn all nasty black like a burn. Despite the numerous stitches, it looks really good. I was quite impressed with Dr. Fitzpatrick. He did a fabulous job!

And Dr. Fitzpatrick, after years of mom complaining about that horrid bump on her nose, even chiselled away the offending bump, giving mom the added bonus of a rhinoplasty. She didn't expect or ask for that, but he said it was actually for the betterment of the skin placement from the forehead.

Skin cancer = bad! Free partial (forehead) face lift + rhinoplasty = good! Always gotta look at the bright side.

Now, I am back home on the west coast. (Also had to return in a blinding snowstorm!) My Dad has taken my place as the sitting-around-being-completely-bored bed-side companion. Mom will likely get her stitches out on Wednesday and get to come home too. Thank you all for following along with my FB statuses and keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. We so greatly appreciate it.

And, for those of you who asked about pictures...I have been absolutely forbidden! FORBIDDEN in all caps...to share! :)

Myrna

P.S. Oh, and I had another root canal, just for kicks, while I was there too. In comparison to her ordeal, it was nothing.

It has been nearly a year since I last blogged. A year has gone by so quickly. This morning, while reading Christa's blog, I thought to myself, "Self, you've been away for far too long!"

As I've said before, I do write. I have a journal that sits on my bedside table. I write my thoughts, my joys, my grievances, my daily monotony, my struggles with parenting, my self analysis, my inner workings, if you will; I sketch pictures of cakes, I pen poems, I figure out my schedule, I doodle hearts; I send myself little cryptic messages on the side so, when I go back to re-read something I had written long ago, I can smile as I remember the interpretation.

I stopped blogging. To be honest, most days, I could barely remember the keys to my car (still can't on many occasions!). Blogging became another chore. I didn't need more jobs to do. And it became a struggle to write something, to write anything. I didn't want my blog to just be a place where I elaborated on my facebook status, "Going snowshoeing today. Here are the pics". I wanted my blog to be about my experiences and how I relate to those experiences. I somehow lost the ability to get those thoughts out of my head and onto "paper" in any sort of way that made sense.

After continuing to write in my journal, no matter how much sense it makes, my writing is coming back to me in little pieces. I get severe brain-freeze sometimes. So you'll have to excuse me. But I'm going to attempt to do this again. I'm not going to make promises. But I will seriously do my best to blog once a week. And yes, sometimes the entry may have about the same level of content as a box of rice krispies - dry and flavourless without anything further added - but I will try to bring it back.

My apologies to those of you who did read. I hope you'll come back once in a while to check in.

Myrna

Too Quiet

You know there is trouble a-brewin' when your children are suddenly being quiet.
I was in the kitchen and realized Charlotte was being particularly quiet. Very very quiet.
I thought the bathroom door was closed. It usually is. It prevents her from playing in the toilet water and flushing massive amounts of toilet paper.
So I go check out the silent situation and this is what I find: Charlotte sitting on the potty (pants up), scrapbooking magazine in hand, toilet paper strewn about everywhere. haha! Now there's a good one for the scrapbook, for sure!

Seeing the Cousins

Sarah has been asking for a while now to go see her cousins in Ontario. And when I would tell her, "But baby, that costs a lot of money." she would reply, "But Mommy, I have lots of money in my piggy bank!"

So cute. So not enough money.

So when Mom checked out her aeroplan points and saw there was enough to fly us there for Spring break to see my sister and the "cousins", we were all for it! Yay!

Spring break, here we come!

We'll be flying to Toronto tomorrow morning. I can't even use the expression  "bright and early" because it's even too early for the sun to be up. 5:15am. What kind of a gross flight is that? Ungodly, I tell ya! Makes me nauseated just thinking about getting up at 3am to drive to the airport. But anyways...

At 7am in Toronto we'll be picking up our rental car and heading to Niagara-on-the-lake to watch Miss Erykah play in a basketball tournament. We'll be spending Sunday visiting Niagara Falls - it'll be the first time for my girls and a while even for me. So I think that'll be nice.

That is, if the weather holds up. I've been expecting to go to "spring" weather, 15 degrees or so. But this morning it was snowing there! Ack! After all winter of no snow, Ontario decides to get snow NOW?! Like, come on!

Then it's off to my sisters home in Chatham for a week to spend some time with the girls on their week off. So looking forward to that!

Hopefully next weekend we'll also get to spend a bit of time in the Brampton area, visit some family, and I can take a quick trip up to Acton to visit my dear friends, the Hann family, and meet sweet baby Jenna.

Happy Spring break everyone! What are your plans?

Sarah Turns Five

Our dear sweet Sarah is 5 years old today. She is officially a "big kid", according to her, which means she is now finally old enough to go to school (in September). Since people have been asking her "How do you like school?" since she was 3 (about the age she was the height of a kindergartner), we figure it's about time.

For me "5" means she is finally old enough to stop taking that wretched sippy cup to bed with her every night. I can almost hear the collective gasp as you all read that. Yes, yes, I know. I'm a terrible mother for ever allowing her a sippy cup for this long. We all have our things we swore we'd never do. That's mine. Let's move on, shall we?

Sarah's birthday party was yesterday afternoon. It was a very exciting event indeed. Sarah was beyond thrilled about having friends come over to play and bring her presents. She received more Barbies than should be permitted in any one location, other than Walmart. It is the bane of my existence. Correction, Polly Pockets are the bane of my existence. At least Barbie is big enough to see.

And while all the other 5 year old girl moms get to wait another 7 years for the super girly-girl stuff to kick in, my daughter was busy gushing to her friends about the cuteness of the Justin Bieber birthday decor adorning walls and doors and cake, and dragging her friends to her room to give them hair and makeup makeovers with headbands and nail polish and glittery lip gloss. Seriously? Aren't girls supposed to be like 12 and having sleepovers before they do this stuff? I think I am in for it!

But at the end of the day, after a busy time of playing and excitement, when all was dark and quiet, and I tucked my tired little "big" girl into her bed, she was still the same baby I held in my arms that first night, rocked back and forth, back and forth, and sang "Away in a Manger" for the first time. I still sing it to her every night, at her request, and she still closes her eyes at the very last line, "...and take us to heaven to live with thee there." as I whisper sweet dreams and pray to God that I will never live to see her birthdays come to an end.
Happy Birthday my darling Sarah!
Love Mommy xox

My Valentines Surprise

The beautiful orchid the hubster got me for Valentines Day.

I love getting flowers!

Thanks babe, so glad you took Sarah's advice, lol xox

Happy Valentines Day!

Valentines isn't a huge event for us. I don't buy gifts for the kids and we seldom get time to go out for dinner.

As a kid, Valentines Day was all about filling out those little cards and giving them out to all your friends and crushes. Remember those?

In our Town, we would go out on Valentines night, knock on a persons door, drop off a Valentine card as quickly as possible and run for the hills before the person could answer. Don't ask me why we did that, nobody here does that anymore, but it was great fun! It was super exciting to get a knock on your door and run out to find a special card from a secret admirer.

Thanks to my cousin (Thanks Mel!) who took Sarah to her Valentines preschool party. She made the cutest little "Owl Always Love you" bag with lots of little cards from friends and heart-shaped treats inside. Last night I decorated the house with some homemade banners and hearts and baked a heart cake. Jamie said Sarah was very excited when she woke up this morning to see the decorations.

And that is when she reminded Daddy that he needed to do something for Mommy for Valentines Day too. This may not be a huge event but I do still love a cute sappy card and a box of yummy chocolates (What better gift could there be?)! Way to go, Sarah! Get Daddy's Valentine butt in gear!

How do you celebrate Valentines Day? Do you give/get gifts? Do you got out for a romantic dinner? Do you make special little treats with the kids? Or is it just another day?

Either way, hope you have a wonderful Valentines Day filled with lots of hugs and kisses!

Blind

I may be a slacker with my blog sometimes. But I write. I write every day. I've talked about it before. When I first started my blog way back in 2005, I did a post HERE talking about the journals I had at that particular time.
Now I have the following:

A "I want to write a novel one day" Journal: This is where I write thoughts about my future novel. I scribble down character profiles, possible conversations, the occasional rambling chapter, details on place and time and whatever else pops into my head.

My Daily Journal: I write details here about my day. General thing. The weather. Projects I'm working on. How things are at work/home. Achievements/Stories/Silly things about the girls.

My Poetry Journal: I constantly write poetry. It may be a verse or a line. It may be waking in the middle of the night to a complete poem in my head and I have to scribble it down in a hurry so I won't forget it. It's dark and nostalgic, mostly. It gets those thoughts out. Helps me to move past it.

Yesterday as I was going through some old scribbles I came across an entry entitled "Blind", a poem. I've decided to share because it was a good reminder for me. I reminisce so often. I think and rethink and overthink. I guess I've always done it.

The entry has no date and I have no memory of writing it, so I know it's not recent. But I decided it was a good one to share.

Blind
Did he love me then?
Does he love me still?
Across the sands of time
And in between.
On summers eve,
so long ago?
When sun upon my hair
could make him smile,
reflections in those eyes
gold flecks on blue.
And I so lost
within the depths.
Remember how that
hand upon my face
could melt the world,
And soon forgot
the tears I cried
speaking his name.

And then a note at the bottom of my little poem:
"To anyone who'e ever got caught up in the fantasy world of "what if" because you had your blinders on and chose only to recall the good stuff instead of facing the harsh reality of true remembrance."

This is for you...

-Myrna

Hired!

The hubster is a fabulous cook, when he wants to be.
He makes a wicked "Sunday Dinner" (In Newfoundland, that consists of a roast chicken, salt beef, potatoes, carrots, turnip, cabbage, bread pudding, stuffing, all smothered in yummy gravy! and maybe some beets and pickles on the side).

Last Sunday he decided to change it up a bit and got a prime rib roast. Now, I'm not a huge fan of red meat but it was absolutely YUMMY! So moist and tender....and with all the fixin's...what a delicious dinner!

Thanks hon, wish I could "hire" you to cook for us every day! ;)

Just out of the oven - testing the temp

Perfectly pink! mmm