Monthly Archives: December 2008

Bought a chainsaw 2day to be able to go out and harvest fallen trees and be able to cut it up easy
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Living in windy rural area has been proing to be beneficial-free firewood on road from storms!
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Had to solve heating issue fast-friend sold me woodstove for donation 2 her charity-lifesaver!
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Have not been able to blog much over the holidays w/ so much going on! Hopefully soon though
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Christmas Haiku

It’s Christmas today
Time to eat turkey and pie
Then unzip yer pants

After a few days of EXTREME pain in my hips and back from what I can only imagine had to be from shovelling the INSANE amount of snowfall in such a short period of time. I’m finally feeling a bit better. I’ve been trying to do some Wii fit Yoga moves.

The pain was so bad I cried and could barley think straight. The crappy part was it was our solstice day holiday that I woke up feeling this way and was unable to move. It got worse throughout the day, and hubby just kept giving me pain meds, and trying to rub it out…it was as bad or worse then when I was in back labor with both of the kids, and when my pelvis went out of alignment at my son’s birth and took weeks to snap back into place.

I was lucky in that I happen to live in a place where neighbors are nice and my 70 year old neighbor with a snowblower cleared out the bottom of my driveway! yes he’s 70, but the man was out at the other neighbors last week shlepping a lazy boy chair over his back into the back of their car!!! I hope I have that kind of energy when I’m his age.

At any rate even with a lot of pain, dinner was nice, and hubby and DD8 did sbaking while I made a turkey dinner… yes I know I just posted that our Solstice dinner is roast beef… but this year we opted to switch it around and do our solstice menu on New years day…mainlt because DD wanted to, and we didn’t have much objection.

Thinking I was doing a good thing, I started a turkey soup in my new crock pot that Hubby bought me last week ( complete with auto shut off etc for my ADHD brain!!) and i guess my old crock pot was lacking in ability somehow, because what would have been nice soup in my old crockpot, was mush in my new crock pot!! What a waste, but a good lesson and I’m glad it was with leftovers and not wit fresh ingredients for stew or something!!

Monday i had an appointment in the City fo my ADHD.. a while back I had some health issues that scared me and my Doctor was nervous about me staying on a stimulant medication for my ADHD and lowered my Ritalin dose significantly to the point of rendering me pretty much a bumbling idiot, and I went and saw a heart specialist to have my heart checked.. I got the all clear from him, and I’m as fit as a fiddle he informs me, so all is a go for Stimulant meds for the ADHD. We are trying Concerta for the first time and hoping the all day slow release effect will help a lot. So I got the script, and met back up with DH and the kids at the Mall after my appointment. We browsed as we were finished our minimal shopping for the holidays weeks ago.. there is something interesting in watching others around you panic shop on the 22nd of December…lol…a neat lesson in human nature.

We picked up Rock Band 2, a gift for the whole family we’ve been saivng for since we knew it was coming out…Hubby was so excited it wasn’t even funny… we tried to buy Wii points for buying new songs but not ONE Walmat in a 100 klm radius of us had them…( we drove to every one of them!!!so I suggested we check the Zellers, and there they were…why doesn’t anyone shop at Zellers anymore???? So that excursion got us home with two sleeping kiddlets and a van full of groceries to put away at like 3 am!!! What a day…my brain was fried.. I can’t drive with no ADHD medication…i get bored real fast mentally, and need to either speed, which hubby won’t let me do, or I get drowsy while driving…I ate baby carrots to keep myself awake…and took 3 caffeine pills…I ate a LOT of baby carrots, and I paid the price for that much fiber today!!

Needless to say I didn’t get to bed until 5 am!! and the DS3yo had me awake at 8!! Yikes..then someone called at 8:5o0, when I HAD JUST got DS to snuggle with me.. I got up and started my day.

Today I Cleaned the KItchen more, made great turkey leftover stuffed potatos and then made pheffernuse cookies for the first time and they turned out pretty good too!!! Hubby LOVES pheffernuse, so I thought I’d try a recipe from an online friend out west, and they were really good i think they are a keeper and an addition to our holiday.

Tomorrow I have to fill my RX, and grab some ginger for the ginger bread house dough…and we have a winter storm watch pending right now…with freezing rain warnings, so I might not be going any where, but I’m anxious to try the Concerta and see if it helps anymore then the Ritalin did…. it had such a short lifespan in my system the doctor thought the Slow release of COncerta would be better. The problem is I’ve got a compassion prescript form the company to try it, and it is a drug not covered by my drug plan!! so if it works I’ll be fighting to have it covered…and my Dr warns it is a HARD process.

Hubby is playing RB2, and I’m exhausted…. so I’m signing off and going to bed.. tomorrow I am making a meat pie as pat of our traditional Christmas eve Meal…Hope you are enjoying your holiday too.. all my followers.. all….3 of you… LOL

http://www.toro.com/home/snowthrowers/electric/powershovel.html

Someone tell the Toro company to ship me one of these and I’ll advertise the thing for them for LIFE…I near killed me back shoveling last night…. and environment Canada says we have more to come!

With two small kids and a disabled husband…I don’t want one… I NEED one!!!!

I thought I’d share our Holiday Traditions with you.

Most of our families traditions come from many beliefs and customs
combined into one stretch of 12 winter fun days for us DD
calls it the “12 days of winter”.

We have been Buddhist for over 8 years now, and being Scottish and of
a Celtic decent, it was fun for us to sit down and do a totally
different holiday season than what most of the world around us does.We wanted to still have fun, but for it to be more suited to our beleifs and
revolve it all around nature and the season and the things that are
important to us.

We started to write out our own traditions we wanted to incorporate
when we were pregnant with our DD and each year we have followed it
and added a few other little things to it)

We start off with Bodhi day which is December 8th ( the day observed
as when Buddha achieved enlightenment), and then spend the rest of
December from that day on cleaning the house. We don’t “spring”
clean, we do the deep clean in December and finish any unfinished business (
emotionally, financially etc,) and try to be done before the 1st of
January to start the year off fresh with
no looking back. It’s a Buddhist custom.

We have a norfolk island pine tree that we start to decorate on the
8th and add small decorations to daily until we get to Midwinter’s
eve.(the day before the first day of winter/Solstice.)

On Solstice eve the kids get to open one gift from old man winter in preperation for the longest darkest night of the year.It is usually new PJ’s and a small toy.THe PJ’s is a tradition my mom did with us on Christmas eve growing up.

Then we are ready after most of the clenaing up etc for our Midwinter
day celebration and family dinner.

Our Midwinter celebration ( the solstice) is a Celtic holiday and we
celebrate each year. It is our big holiday ( we don’t observe
Christmas /Santa besides attending a family dinner with the rest of
our extended family who do and give one small stocking and a “Santa
present” on the 25th morning. the kids know
they come from us. But they still enjoy the fun of playing Santa and trying to stay awake and never managing to, to see us hang the stocking on their bedposts.

The Midwinter eve feast is always a candle light dinner of garlic and
basil rubbed roast beef and gravy, Stuffing stuffed croissant sacks and potatoes
and
cheese perogies with sour cream and bacon bits, broccoli and cauliflower and carrots ( winter
medley
frozen veggies) with homemade cheese sauce, and a little sweet
potatoes
with honey ( mashed), brussel sprouts, and a sparkling drink in wine
glassses ( non alcoholic).

Many dessert items are made over the
course of a few days to choose from and to have things to offer
company should they pop in. the recipes are mostly traditions from DH’s family, and I usually make a lemon merange pie, which my mother used to make every year.

That day before sundown we open our the doors and throw back the
curtains and let the sun
shine in all day and at sun down we put the blinking lights on our
living tree to light the longest night. It is decorated with crochet
snowflakes
and hand made icicles made of recycled pop bottles and blue and
silver garland, we sometimes sing “Oh Winter tree” ( our
variation on oh Christmas tree). We then leave the tree light until
the end of our 12 days of winter on new years day.

Midwinter’s day marks the first day of our 12 day Celebration of
Winter that we
start with a feast and end with a feast on new years day . The kids
receive a small gift each day until new years day, they open them after dinner usually.I love that the kids are just as excited over new socks and underwear as they are toys.

The first day of winter and technically the day in which the sun is
up for longer then yesterday and marks the beginning of the days shortening, we go for a walk at sundown and watch the sun and we
picks some pine cones and twigs and inter foliage on our walk for our nature table.

Every day of the 12 has a special event that we pick to do. One day
will be Animal day when we will make popcorn and peanut butter balls
for the neighborhood critters ( and go for a walk and hang them from
the trees.

Other days we make bread and surprise a neighbor with a steaming hot
loaf of bread for them to share with their family. AS the kids get
older we may pick certain days to help a shelter. On boxing day we box up all our dry and canned goods we won’t use and donate them to the foodbank or a halfway house. Make an art or craft for our scrap book about the year we
had.Be kind to a stranger, be kind to a friend etc.

We equate the winter solstice with wisdom, so we sit and talk about
our year gone past and what we have learned and what we want to change
and what we want to keep the same ( we don’t do resolutions for new
years we make vows of change and keep them written in a family
journal that we go back and look at the next year)

On new years eve we rent movies or play games with family or friends
and just before midnight I go outside in the quiet night and ring a
bell 108 times. it is a Buddhist tradition that rids of the
108 “sins” man can be afflicted by. I then place a bowl of fruit and
pine bows at the door of our home (outside) to bless the house with
good karma and greet neighbors or call friends and family to tell
them how I am thankful for them in our lives and what I hope will
continue in our relationship in the next year.

New years day we cook a huge turkey dinner and prepare meals for the
upcoming weeks ( turkey soups, sandwiches casseroles etc)

Then we settle in for a quiet Jan & Feb and veg out at home a lot between skating, sledding and skiing.

I made the kids octodogs tonight for supper LOL.. they LOVED em

The kids are currently playing "adoption center" & dd just read ds's price tag-$2 for a newborn
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