Going So Soon?

That's it. I'm depressed! Okay maybe I'm being a touch dramatic but I am definitely sad that summer is ending. The days are getting shorter, there's a coolness to the air. I feel like I'm in denial but all of the signs are there. Fall is around the corner. Don't get me wrong, I love fall as much as the next guy. But I just can't stomach the coloured leaves, warms sweater worn with leggings and fun boots and pumpkins and worst of all; Halloween. Gasp! I love all of those things but it's too soon. Summer hasn't even left yet and we're already onto the 'next' season. Give summer a chance to properly go before we start lugging out the warm hats and scarves. Before we start searching 'fall styles' in Pinterest. Enjoy what little of summer that we have and live in the now.

 Besides, end of summer and beginning of fall means school for me. Eeeeek! I'm freaking internally and very hopeful that I can pull off this big helping of adulthood. I hope I can balance being mom, full time worker, wife and now student. But I won't know if I can handle it unless I try. It's scary but in the end, it will all have been totally worth it. I've always wanted to go back to school and now I finally am. I'm surprised it's for pharmacy because I was never super good at any of the sciences and I am most definitely a total wreck when it comes to math. But, because this is something I do everyday at work, I think it will be different. I have been reading my Pharmacology textbook and I was genuinely interested in the things I was reading. I even had a chance to talk with a customer about generic drugs and I actually knew what I was talking about!!! As a pharmacy technician you really have to watch what you say because you aren't the trained professional. The pharmacist is. It doesn't matter if you know that someone should be taking a certain antihistamine for their allergies because it is the pharmacist's job to suggest and give advice. But I find my position the most frustrating when I am just simply talking to a customer and I can't even contribute anything intelligent to say because I have no real knowledge of what we are talking about. I have to act like I understand and nod and be polite.

 My in laws are here for another few days and then they're back to Ontario to talk to their granddaughter through Facetime on our cell phones again. This trip has been a really good one for Alina. She has been with her grandparents full time and has been enjoying them so much. I know that they're totally in love and think the world of her. So it really feels good going to work knowing that she's in very, very good hands. I have also been very lucky because my mother in law cooks. I don't have to worry about packing lunches for any of us, besides myself. Rob has been coming home for lunch. It's been wonderful. I'm able to come home from work and I don't have to immediately rush into the kitchen to get supper started. I can simply grab a cold drink, sit down and visit. It's been really nice and I'm going to be rudely awoken by the reality of it all being my responsibility again come September.

 I'm always such a sap when it comes to an ending. It doesn't matter if it's the end of a really good book or the end of a trip. I just can't help but feel a bit sad. I feel sad that my in laws are leaving because the freedom that comes when they're here to share the responsibility of Alina is so appreciated. I feel sad that summer is coming to an end because we still haven't sold our house, the days are going to get darker and gloomier and the house is going to start getting cold. I'm sad because my evenings with Alina are going to be cut short because I have to really focus on school when it starts..

 On the other side of that, I am a t.v. junky and all of our shows are going to start back up in September. I'm the kind of person that likes to sit cozily in a blanket with a good book. In the new house I'll be able to do that with a real crackling fire in our fire place. To kick off the end of the summer and my in law's trip and to celebrate Rob's dad Rodney's birthday we're having a big birthday bash at our house tonight. It will be the first big get together that we're having at our new house. Lots of family and friends are coming to eat, drink and have some fun. So I can't help but look forward to that tonight.

 So in honour of the summer coming to a close, I raise my future glass of alcoholic beverage (the one most of us will be drinking out of at some point this weekend) and I say here's to another great summer under our belts.. to those gorgeous, sunny days that lead us all to the beach, to the pool or to the lake. To bbq's, warm evenings, camping and boating. Here's to you summer, you've been good to us once again. See you next year!

ALS - Ice Bucket Challenge

 The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge started in July raising 5.7 million dollars in two weeks. Now, only a few weeks later, the public has raised 70.2 million dollars!! I know that social media gets a bad rap and for good reasons. But when as many people donate and get involved like they have been for the Ice Bucket Challenge, social media is an inspiring and innovative tool!

 I was nominated by my cousin Alex to participate. In doing so, I had to make a video, nominating three other people, drench myself in a bucket of ice water and most importantly, I had to donate money to Lou Gehrig's Disease aka ALS.

 I wish I could write more, but it is very late in the night and there are not enough hours in a day to do all the things I would like to do! If you feel like donating to ALS please do so HERE! (Canadians) and HERE! (Other)

IceBucketChallenge from HJunks on Vimeo.


 

MHB- Week 33 -Company In Town

  I'm adjusting to the new house really well and I'm really loving all of the extra space to work out in. The beach being so close is a huge bonus and I'm really happy that once a week I get a chance to watch the sunrise.

MONDAY-

 Day 1- Strength and Endurance. I finally had the Bluray up and running properly so I successfully worked out Monday morning. I'm doing three rounds instead of all five because of time and the weights I use are heavier so I don't want to wreck a wrist or overdo anything. I'm sure I'll be up to my five rounds next week. I took a photo of my new working out area in the basement. I like being in the basement because it's carpeted and I can do noisy workouts without bothering sleeping people.

WEDNESDAY-

 Day 2- a jog to the beach. I mean really.. who could resist this beach? I get a bit side tracked every time that I go for this jog because the ocean is just so beautiful. I ended up detouring down to the beach and stopping to snap a few breathtaking photos of the sunrise..! The only bummer about my beach jog is that the hard part is all on the way home. It's aaaaall up hill!

FRIDAY-

Day 3- Abdominal Strength and Core Conditioning. I left my phone upstairs while I did my workout. But it was the same old- warm up, three rounds and done. Alina's been having a blast with her grandparents. She went to the harbour for ice cream on Wednesday and on Thursday she went boating all day. She even had a boat nap...!

 I'm so happy it's Friday, as usual. I'm excited to get a chance to sleep in a bit in my own bed. I hope the sun is shining as bright tomorrow morning as it is today!

Ant Eater

 My baby is a genius ...... that eats ants.

"More ants..."

 The first line of a blog post is sort of like the first paragraph of a book; it's important! I also understand that people don't generally like to read blogs about other people's children. I totally get it. Other people's children are just that; other. people's. children. Nobody cares that your toddler can almost sit responsibly with a 'real' book and not eat the pages. Nobody cares that she dances to techno music and is a terrible, terrible dancer. It's only interesting to me because she's my kid.

 Now that all of the baby hating, children loathing a-holes are gone, I can share some little stories of Alina with the ones that care just a titch.

 My baby has certainly morphed into a curious, constantly changing toddler. It's crazy! She doesn't say a ton of words on her own. We prompt her to say words and if she's up for it, she'll give it a try. Her vocabulary consists of dad, baba, ta ta, kitty, Jody, key, shoes, hi, bu-bye, mom and num num and some words that sound sort of like "all done." She can say other words but she doesn't without the usual prompting. Jody is the lady that watches her on a regular basis now and she taught her sign language from an early age. The one sign that she continually uses is 'more' because my child is a little pig.

 Rob's folks are in town for the next couple of weeks and they adore little Alina to the moon and back and then back to the moon and then back again. No joke, she is the sparkle in their eyes. It's really nice to see. Jody is on a little vacation so Rob's parents are watching her while we're at work. Nonna, Alina's grandma was off somewhere and Alina and her Papa were together upstairs. Well Papa sensed a little stinky odour coming from his one and only grand child and he started calling for his wife. Papa isn't a big fan of cleaning poopy diapers. Alina disappeared for a minute and returned with two clean diapers that she handed to him. Then she led him into her bedroom, to her change table. When I hear about her doing things like that I am continually amazed at how smart she is! I don't mean, just her. I mean kids that age in general. They are so receptive and they know a lot more than we think they do. Just because she can't say the words does not mean she can't understand them. She knows who we all are. She knows what toys are what. My one cheat is that I do let her watch Sesame Street and often. So she knows the characters because she sees them on the t.v. But I didn't realize she knew them individually and by their names. She has three Sesame Street characters; Abby, Ernie and Elmo. Well, the other morning she came out with Abby. I told her that she forgot the other guys and she hurried into her play room and proudly presented Ernie and Elmo to me. I was impressed.

 About a month ago, Jody was in bed with her husband and they were looking for their t.v. remote. It was nowhere to be found and then Jody thought; Alina! So the following day she asked Alina if she knew where the t.v. remotes were. Alina perked up from her playing and waddled to the play room and under a pile of purses she pulled out all the remotes she had stashed away. I mean first that is pretty funny. But then I am impressed that she understood and remembered where she put them the day before.

 I guess this post is all about me bragging about how great my kid is. How obnoxious. But to balance it all out; she did eat an ant the other night. We were all visiting on the back deck and she discovered an ant for the first time. So she was chasing it around the deck and finally she bent down, picked it up and popped it in her mouth. Mmmm - ants. My kid is a genius, but she does eat ants.

MHB- Week 32- I'm Back Baby!

 So I did do two days of working out two weeks ago. I even took pictures, but I didn't post about it. I meant to and life happened. So Week 31 still needs to be posted and I'll just date it to be published on the Friday I missed. Good story, I know.

 I'm back at the working out from a mini holiday I took. We moved and I couldn't move my ass out of bed all last week. I had the intentions of working out but I must have set my mind to not get up earlier once because I sure didn't. As if to deter me this week from doing my workouts, I lost my good set of workout clothes. They just disappeared. My sports bra, my workout pants and top all gone. Instead of using that as an excuse (a pretty legit excuse by the way!) I improvised with some shorts and my not so sports bra and tank with the holes in it. Oh well.

 MONDAY-

Day 1-  Fight Conditioning. It was my first workout in the new house. I started out in the basement but the damn Bluray player wouldn't turn on (yes it was plugged in) so I couldn't play Rushfit. So I had to hurry up and do my stuff upstairs which was challenging because it's a bit echo-y upstairs with the vaulted ceilings and the two stinkers still in bed. I cut the workout to three rounds because there was some ground work I didn't want to do on the hardwood floors and because I was running out of time and to be quite honest; I was tired! The tummy photos are to show that taking a little bit of time off AND eating like a total pig shows.

WEDNESDAY-

 Day 2- I did a jog to the beach on Wednesday in my new neighbourhood! It was pretty quick so next time I'll time it a bit better. I was surprised how quickly it took me to run to the beach. I'd say it took about five minutes. The jog up was pretty intense but oh so good for my legs and my butt!

THURSDAY-

 Day 3- I decided Thursday evening to do my workout because I took Friday morning off. Rob, Alina and I are picking up his parents from the airport for their first ever visit at our new home. We're all pretty excited about it. We ended the night in the hot tub having a couple of drinks so I knew I wouldn't feel up to getting up early in the morning to sweat. My workout was about twenty minutes long. I couldn't get the bluray player working again and Rob wasn't home so I improvised with doing a bunch of things I remembered doing from my RushFit videos. Then I cleaned not one, not two but THREE bathrooms simultaneously. Talk about the ultimate workout.

 It's Friday folks and I'm not going into work until noon. My mother in law is coming to cook her delicious meals for us and life couldn't feel any better! Happy Friday to everyone!

"That's A Good Meatball" - Robbie Hart

 I got this meatball recipe from my mother in law, Andrea. BUT- the crazy lady doesn't remember giving it to me. I couldn't believe that she didn't remember. I know it was her because I absolutely loooooooved the meatballs and ended up tweaking the recipe ever so slightly to make it my own. So, I suppose I'll have to take the credit for how good they are- starting now!

  The bonus is that we all love us some meatballs. I could seriously pop them in my mouth and eat them like popcorn. When I make a big batch of them, I usually make Curry Meatballs as a dinner that night or the following. Obviously they're good with spaghetti as well. The curry I make is pretty sad and not as good on its own but once you add the meatballs to the dinner, it's perfection.

 What you'll need:

- ~ 1 lb of extra lean ground beef
- 1/2 cup bread crumbs
- 1 egg
- 1 package of Lipton's Onion Soup Mix
- 1 can of condensed milk (the original recipe calls for 1/2 cup but I like it when all of the meatballs are sweet.)
- 1/2 cup of finely chopped onion

Mix all of those ingredients together.

Voila! You have yourself a bunch of meat mixture that needs to be rolled into small balls. I heat up two frying pans with some olive oil and fry them up in batches. It takes a bit of time and of course, the sugar in the condensed milk will burn if you have the temperature up too high. I promise you won't be disappointed with these meatballs..!!

 Is there any kind of food that you would happily take as payment?!

 My list would go on and on and on; 

Ribs, Caesar Salad, Wings, King Crab doused in garlic butter, coconut prawns, dry garlic ribs from Gus', bruschetta, spinach dip, Rudi's clam chowder, chinese food, camembert cheese, corn dogs, white cheddar popcorn, theater popcorn, jalapeno and cheddar Old Dutch chips,Nibs, Sour Patch Kids, chewy Gobstoppers...etc, etc, etc! 

So many things!!!

We Moved!!!

 I have been absent for a solid week. That's because we moved to our new house on Thursday!!!! It all happened so fast that I didn't even get a chance to blog a single word about it.

 We still live in the same town, just a little bit closer to the beach. (Bonus!) The house is oh... three times the size as our old house. (Super Bonus!) We have two living rooms, two bathrooms, an ensuite, five bedrooms, a pool/ping pong table, a hot tub, a garden, a fireplace, a fire pit out front, a walk in closet, a giant deck to enjoy the sun on and a gorgeous kitchen!!! (Super, Duper, Ridiculous Bonus!!!) I am absolutely in complete shock that this house belongs to us. We are still in the midst of selling our home but we are hopeful that a buyer will scoop it up soon.

 We've had the keys to the house since Monday, so our evenings were filled with slowly bringing loads of our things over. On Thursday Rob and a friend brought all of our heavy furniture over and by that evening we were pretty well moved in. It's Sunday evening (of a long weekend- ya!!) and I can honestly say that we are totally moved in. We have a few things to do here and there, but overall; we're in! Already, we have spent more time outside in the last four days than we have I feel like all summer. The sun is out on the deck each morning and it just impossible to have coffee anywhere other than out there. Alina has eaten every single meal outside since we moved here. I am so in love with this life we are already leading. I feel like I don't deserve it, it's so great! I keep expecting someone to jump out of a closet to yell- gotcha! Go back to your 800 square foot home and have fun in that teeny, tiny kitchen with NO dishwasher. Although, I have to admit if someone jumped out of a closet I'd be more concerned with the how and whys behind the surprise than the 'gotcha' bit.

 I digress....

 Rob and  I were very reminiscent on Wednesday night. We spent some time in our hammock in the backyard; the very hammock we shared our first kiss in. We looked through the darkness at our house; the windows all aglow and we both had a shared, sad moment, remembering all of the good times. We started our relationship in that house. We haven't been anywhere else, so it was a big deal, a huge step leaving. I have an idea for a tribute post for the old house and when the time comes; I'll post it and give the house the true credit it deserves. The night we had our very last hammock kiss; we discussed some great times together in that home and Rob made a note of a bunch of them to share on Facebook...

The last line reads; "We sure did." 

 But after having been sad about moving on, we have already so many memories here at our new abode! We've definitely played our share of darts and pool in the last few nights. I discovered that Rob is a bit of a darts extraordinaire and I can match him in a game of ping pong. I have skills I didn't even know I possessed! Alina has a bedroom AND a play room that she loves. She seems to love the extra space to run around in. I seriously haven't felt this level of happiness before. I mean, I realize that material things aren't supposed to make you happy, but they certainly freakin' help! I love my new kitchen. The cupboards, the endless drawers, the fridge with the water and ice dispenser, the gas range stove, the space! I can't get over how much space I have to work with. I feel like I need roller blades to get around here!

Alina helping her dad with some electrical duties in her play room, eating fresh blueberries from HER garden Friday morning, Rob filling the hot tub with water, the bulls-eye I managed to get and Alina picking her mama some lavender petals.

  We have so many memories to begin with and I am so looking forward to the many, many more we have to make... If you are hating your home right now, hang tight because your true, real home is going to happen one day. 

Okay, I'll post pictures of my kitchen...