Pop rocks

I LOVE pop rocks.....they are what I buy whenever I go to a 7-11 (Spar). This packet though is very special! Lloyd took the children to Dylans Candy Bar in Florida to choose gifts for me for my birthday....and Abigail chose these pop rocks for me...she remembered how I love them! So now of course I can't bring myself to eat them.....she was son happy to choose them for me and was so excited when she gave them to me :)

I love pop rocks......I remember feeding some to Sam when he was a tiny baby....terrible mother that I am...but I wanted to see his face when they popped in his mouth :) I have fed them to my dogs before too...that was funny to watch :)

My friend Faith......

This picture was a gift from my friend Faith.......Faith and I met in hospital when we had our first babies....Christopher was born the day before Faiths Daughter Charlotte...we became good friends and would get together once or twice a week at one of our houses or at a local play place with the children......Faith went on to have 3 girls in all and I adored them...as I had 2 boys at the time, I loved buying her girls Barbies and pink stuff and doing their hair and everything! Then when Susannah was born, Faith would give me endless bags of her Daughters clothes for Susie....Faith was a total shopoholic lol!

Faith was a dancer before she had the girls and travelled the world doing cabaret...her stories were wonderful to listen to...she then returned home and taught aerobics classes...where she happened to fall in love with one of her 'students' a guy with no hair but amazing eyes (as she described him!)

I miss Faith a lot...we still stay in touch but its not the same now that I am in Canada.....but I have kept this special gift from her and despite the fact that over the years it has faded and the polymer clay has changed colour from dust, it is still special to me...it's on the sideboard in my bedroom.

My answer to stress............

..........has always been to soak in the bath with a great magazine or book....a bath filled with fragrant bubbles....I put a LOT of bubble bath in and get through a bottle FAST.........I have even been known to have 3 baths in one day and quite often will be in there so long that the bath goes cold so I empty it and refill it and keep bathing :)
And no bath is complete without a pile of warm fluffy towels..my favourite towels are my red set from Sears.....

Then because I soak for so long I love to massage in a wonderful mosturiser or body butter.....or sometimes just a little perfume.

When I am tired, stressed, angry......or just for no reason at all :)

Baths are BLISS :)

Siblings........

Abigail and Sam were really good for me this morning when the ceilings were being done.......Abby asked me to take their picture.......

I feel like ET......................

Derek came over last night and prepped the house ready to do the ceilings today.....basically he stapled plastic to all the walls and then rolled it up......Lloyd then gave the ceiling a quick undercoat of white paint......Today Derek came over and unrolled all the plastic so it was like living in a bubble......tunnels of plastic wrap all over the downstairs of my house which unfortunately was not enough to keep everything clean and my walls look terrible now :( I felt like ET at the end of the movie where the scientists coiver the house in protective plastic.....

This morning me and the children were stranded in the kitchen for a couple of hours while the ceilings were done...boy is the machine NOISY!!!!!

The children played playdough and then made paper snowflakes, watched a little tv and played with some toys and were very good about not going into the plastic tunnels.....

I made use of the time to wash down all my kitchen cupboards, walls and baseboards and took down all the homeschool posters and artwork......after the bathrooms are done, we are having a new kitchen put in, so they have to come down eventually and it gave me a chance to spring clean......

Derek is coming back later to do some more scraping and remove all the staples etc before a final tidy-up........

After Derek had gone and I had peace at last I checked Email and saw that Val had asked me to meet her at the local restaurant again so I could have a break from all the chaos here...I wish I had seen that BEFORE - it would have been great! I think I will go there tomorrow and maybe she can meet us then instead!

I have to go wash my floors AGAIN and see if I can get some more of this white dusty stuff off of them :(

Flurries................floating....falling softly...

We woke up to flurries this morning....big flakes of snow falling gently...no wind at all...very very pretty.

They said we may have them off and on throughout today and tonight...possibly tomorrow.......but right now as you can see, we have the Alberta blue skies again and its lovely and sunny :)

Thinking of you.

One of my blog readers is going through a difficult time right now and I am worried about her........(you know who you are!!!) and I just want her to know she is in my thoughts.

I've never met you but I want to! You are someone I greatly admire and KNOW that I would like!!!!

If you need anything let me know! You aren't far away so if there is anything I can do to help just ask!

Thrilling read....................

You have to read this fabulously exciting, extremely modest and intellectual blog :)

www.dvbstyle.com/news/index.html

Ok so my url button thingy is still giving me hell lol so you will have to cut and paste the link ........sorry!!!

click on 'blog' to the left to read all the fascinating info......


And um yes er I am being EXTREMELY sarcastic.....

Does this girl love herself or WHAT????

Surely with all that money she could be living a more worthwhile and less self-centred life???????

Bookworm................

I like to be surrounded by books and magazines............everywhere! I have four full bookshelves like this in my sitting room and four in my study......and I also have a big basket of magazines in the sitting room.....a pile of books by my bed at all times and drawers and cupboards (and a closet) full of magazines.......

My idea of comfy...............

My idea of comfy........curling up on my bed on all my pillows with my soft throw and a pile of good books by my bed......

Or curling up on my big chair with my quillow.......and when it gets cold I can unfold my quillow and turn it into a snug quilt.....

I have throws on all my sofas, beds and chairs.....I loft soft and warm throws...in all colours :)

conked out.................

Sam collapsed and fell asleep on the sofa this afternoon.....and typical guy he fell asleep with the remote controls from the tv......reminds me of his Grandfather (sorry Dad lol!)

My Laurie.....

Laurie seems to be back to his usual happy self tonight thankfully :) My Mum phoned today to ask how he was and said she rushed out and bought him a magazine to make him feel better :)

Susie dancing

Susannah is at dance class at the moment, but here she is dancing to Little Bitty when she got home from school!

Afternoon naps could be a good thing............

I am so sleepy...still haven't woken up today...I blame Daisy!!! I mentioned to Daisy on her blog that I was feeling so energetic lately and thought I had her energy too.....well blah! Today I am just so so tired....

Laurence and Susannah will be home in about ten minutes...Christopher is going to friends house for a few hours instead of coming straight home....

Dinner is in the oven ready for the oven to be switched on at 4pm. We are having baked potatoes......Last night I made the MOST INCREDIBLE Hemp Salad............it was a mixture of salad greens with diced peppers, tuna fish and cheese mixed in and then I mixed in a LOT of hemp seeds......I wasn't sure how it would taste but it was really good and a huge hit with everyone - so much so that Susannah asked if we could have it again tonight. Last night we had new (baby) potatoes with it and tonight we are having baked potatoes. I may do cheesy beans with Lloyds instead. It is a salad high in Omega 3 and Omega 6 oils because of both the tuna AND the hemp seeds.

While the potatoes are baking I may soak in the bath and read some more of The Girls.

My Mum phoned today and said that my package had arrived...she says she read the first page of The Glass Castle and now can't wait until bed time so she can start reading it properly! I hope she likes it...I feel a bit like Debbie with her 'The Color Purple'

We put all the garbage out this morning and it was still there at lunchtime...and then I remembered that we had Family Day last week so the garbage men won't come until Wednesdays now...so I brought 2 bags back to the garage and they can go down to the box tomorrow. If there are too many bags in the box it won't close properly and then wild animals (and the dogs) tear into all the bags and make a mess......

I subscribed to my magazine by the way! Two years of Creating Keepsakes :) It says to wait 4 - 6 weeks to get your first issue so I am not sure whether I should buy the March issue or not....

I found a writers retreat I would love to go to....Lloyd said he would take the week off if I wanted to go...it's in New Mexico. I don't think I will though.....maybe next year! Its a womens only retreat and sounds wonderful! It is said to really inspire you to get writing! Lloyd is always encouraging me to write...he doesn't want me to go out to work but I know he would love for me to write from home and get published.......I haven't written anything for a few months though.....I used to belong to a writers group and I enjoyed the feedback and support.....maybe I will do something like that again.

Well, I am off to get a snack ready for when the children walk in the door!

Bye for now!