Category Archives: the acreage

Oops…

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I seem to have a small problem this year.

You see, I promised I wasn’t going to plant a vegetable garden. After 3 years of mediocre results and uneaten salad greens, I was going to order some bulbs and roots from a fundraiser to start a perennial bed, and that was it.

I bought 2.5 yards of fresh garden mix and got the bed up to snuff:

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For a few days, I was content. The plants were taking root, and the deer were visiting without eating.

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Somewhere in the past two weeks…well…I forgot the last part of that promise.

And I developed a bit of a habit…

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And then, it got worse…because someone got her cute nose where it didn’t belong!

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So, I had to buy a new tomato plant (or three…). Also, I desperately needed mint…for mojitos…and I heard they had it HERE.

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And they did!

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But they also had all this:

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Which became this:

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Which turned into this:

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And now I’m not allowed to go out by myself anymore…

Oops.

Keurigs and Kittehs

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April sucked. It sucked so much, in almost every area it could suck. We evicted our tenants. I spent our savings on our empty duplex. We had a huge sale fall through. A window freaking fell out of the duplex in a storm. Petey ran away and hasn’t been back since. And the list goes on.

Finally, my Keurig full-out exploded. Hot coffee grounds from floor to ceiling and all over me. No amount of drying and cleaning saved it, either. Believe me, I tried.

And with no coffee, I gave up all hope for the future.

Seriously:

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It exploded.

The thin thread I’d been holding on by slowly disintegrated before my eyes. No coffee. No hope.

But there were forces at work in the universe. Well, in the twitterverse, to be specific. While I wallowed in despair, some amazing people starting to come together. And on Friday of that same desperate week, I met Natasha at the park.

And in her car, she had this:

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From her. And Tom. And Sarah. And Dash. And Darci. And Raymie. And April. And I cried big fat tears.

I was speechless.

I was blown away.

I was unbroken. Pieced back together with love and kindness. Amazed by the hearts of the community I love so much. Some whom I know in real life and cherish dearly, others whose voices I’ve never heard speak.

And now I have the opportunity to give them thanks with every cup:

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So, thank you, for helping me and supporting me in that very dark hour. Thank you for being the light in my world when I needed it the most. Thank you for being there.

Thank you for giving me strength, so that when we realized Petey probably wasn’t coming home, I was able to deal with it. Because in the last week, we lost Petey and the promise of our new puppy later this summer.

We’d priced out Mastiff pups, and had two breeders who were expecting June litters. Sadly, one’s pregnancy didn’t take and the other didn’t come into season in time for summer babies. So my 250lb furball dreams are put on hold.

Leith has been missing Petey a lot too, and so have the girls. Thus, we took a trip to the Parkland County Animal Shelter today and picked up this guy:

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Meet Kitty Soft Paws. He’s embarrassed by his name, but he’ll get over it. Kit-kat had him named before we even got to the shelter. He’s 5 weeks of spunk and spitfire, and he has the chiweenie torn between mad love and heartbreak. I’m sure they’ll be cuddling in no time.

And the best part? He’s a polydactyl. He has 7 toes on each front paw, which apparently makes him very lucky.

I think that we can use all the luck we can get.

Kitties and Keurigs. Sometimes the simplest things in life have the greatest depth. It’s all up from here.

Being a grownup sucks

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I’ve been up for an hour and a half because I forgot to sign and send my tax return back to my accountant. That slight oversight very nearly meant a penalty on Leith’s return when we are already strapped for payment. I’ve been wide awake since 1:17am, embarrassed by how my stress has managed to creep in to every corner of my life.

The overwhelming stress of the spring dance season is nothing compared to this: that mountain of fear was a cake walk compared to what I am feeling now.

Oh yes, it’s all related to that duplex of ours. I’ve never lost so much sleep over a situation. Empty since April 1st, with a mortgage looming and a real estate market that just doesn’t want our property. A loan wrapped up in that, lurking in the background, demanding payment that we just won’t have. Trying to find other financing options to pay it back. Throwing around words like “bankruptcy” and “foreclosure”.

Scraping pennies to buy paint and rent a carpet cleaner. Finally giving in and agreeing to choke down the cost of new windows. Giving up my entire savings for our dream to a bank, and knowing that I won’t recoup the cost for 5 years.

Adding up all the costs from the past month, past 4 years. Wondering if we should have never moved out here and just stayed in our duplex that didn’t sell back then. Wishing hindsight wasn’t 20/20. Crying about all our lost dreams, lost savings.

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Trying to keep perspective: hot rental market, our health, the strength of our marriage. Trying to breathe when breath has been the only means of avoiding panic for 7 days now.

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Trying to tell myself that we don’t need material things; that we can start from scratch again, feel the burden of needing two incomes to survive. Trying to tell myself that it doesn’t matter how much we make in a year, that it doesn’t matter that we will be busting our butts on a more-than-comfortable dual income and yet barely keep our heads above water for the next 5 years.

Trying to convince myself that it will all work out. That one family can only experience so much distress and instability. That this has to be as low as we can go, and that from tomorrow morning on, we will only be rebuilding. Not backtracking.

Please. Don’t let us backtrack anymore. Please.

Listography #10 and on…

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I am STRESSED RIGHT NOW!! Holy cow. Our empty duplex has been for sale for 4 weeks, and I am freaking out a little. Since I like to make lists to soothe my stress, I thought I’d spend the morning catching up on my listography! I’ve skipped one of the lists in the past couple of months, since I don’t have a son, and then just ended up distracted and not blogging! So here goes:

List #10: In my dream home:

Truth be told, I love our house. I’d love it more with a few upgrades, and maybe some baseboards. But if I was going to go all-out, here’s what I’d be sure to add:

  • First and foremost, a housekeeper. Someone to cook and clean, shop for groceries, do my laundry (and actually put it away), tidy up, file my paperwork…and rub my feet. They do that, right?
  • A laundry chute. This was THE SELLING FEATURE at The Acreage, and I can’t imagine another house without one. Even if the laundry is on the same floor, I want a magic transportation tube for it.
  • Central vac with the baseboard suction hole thingies for sweeping. Magic. Pure magic.
  • A garbage disposal. I miss scraping plates into the sink.
  • A master ensuite with a big bathtub and walk-in shower, and (more importantly) water that smells really nice.
  • A bigger closet. Not a walk-in closet…just a bigger closet in every room with built-in shelves and drawers.
  • Floor-to-ceiling windows in my living room. We already kind of have that…but I want MOAR!!!
  • A walk-out patio from my master bedroom :)
  • A new deck, with a hot tub that is sheltered but open. Like a pergola, but no spiders living in the corners.
  • A slightly bigger kitchen with a gas range/big hood vent, and room for an island. If we could transpose my mom’s kitchen layout into my house, it would be perfect. I love my current kitchen style though.
  • Equal-sized bedrooms for my girls.
  • A finished basement that walks out to our fire pit, doesn’t smell like cat pee, and has a guest bedroom suite PLUS an office (rather than crammed into the same room…)
  • A broom closet. A cleaning closet. Some kind of storage space on the main floor for the vacuum that isn’t just my hallway.
  • A non-cave-like laundry room. Something with sunlight.

List #11: Best Blog Posts I’ve Written

This is really hard. I have to give up a little modesty and admit that some of my posts were pretty decent, whether from my own feelings, conversations generated, or traffic.

Surprisingly? Nothing about coconut oil. Hmm.

List #12: What I love about spring

I love spring. This year, it would appear we are skipping spring. So, this is more or less a list of what I can vaguely remember about this mythical “spring” season:

  • Longer days!! Coming out of class at 9pm to daylight! Wheee!!
  • Snow melting into puddles, splashing in those puddles
  • Walking to the mailbox each day
  • The first backyard fire of the year
  • The smell of sunshine in my girls’ hair at bedtime
  • Walking the chiweenie, without having to carry her because she’s cold
  • Planning my garden, and turning up the soil once it’s thawed
  • The dance season wrap-up, complete with dance festivals and fun days :)
  • Opening up the windows, and sleeping with fresh air in the room!
  • The first rain showers, and the first thunderstorms of the year!
  • That first hint of green washing through the trees
  • Pussy willows
  • Running outside

Now, with that taken care of, it’s time for me to go and do my duplex-selling dance with C-boo so that we can get rid of all this stress! Wish us luck!!

 

Listography #1: Things I’m Looking Forward To in 2013

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I’ve watched Crystal, Heather, and Melinda write their weekly lists for 2-ish years now, and I love every post. I hope they don’t mind, but I’d like to use their prompts each week on my own blog – I love the self-exploration and discovery, the reminiscing, the gratitude, the appreciation, the wonderment of it all. So, without further ado:

List #1: Things I’m Looking Forward to in 2013

  • Mexico. Always Mexico…I think it’s what gets me through these short, cold days!
  • Two sweet little bugz turning 5 years old
  • Festival/performance season as The Boss, for the first time in 8 years. Eeks!
  • Summer projects, like putting baseboards in our house, building new gardening beds, and more
  • Two months off this summer
  • Those little bugz climbing the steps to the big yellow school bus this September…although I’m equally scared about letting my babeez go off into the world!
  • (having two to three full days to myself this fall…)
  • More skiing this winter
  • Teaching the bugz to ride big-girl bikes, and surprising them with new bikes for their birthday this year
  • Saving for, planning, and booking our 2014 Disney Cruise!!!
  • Running outside when the weather warms up
  • Finishing up my 2nd round of 101 in 1001
  • Wrapping up the first “new” season of Expressions Dance Studio in 16 short weeks – ahhhhh!
  • Travelling to Vegas again for the Dance Teacher Web expo
  • More nights curled up on the couch with Leith, watching cheesy TV shows and bad movies together
  • Continuing the guilty pleasure of my Sweet Valley High book club with my childhood friend :)

What are you looking forward to in 2013?

 

Inadvertently prepared

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I’m kind of lazy about important things. We don’t have wills, although we have tons of life insurance. I occasionally change my winter tires, but sometimes I forget to. I keep all our important documents in a safe, but I don’t have them scanned.

One thing we don’t have is an emergency plan. With all the impending chaos on the east coast tonight, and last night’s 7.7 earthquake on the west coast, it was no surprise that many of us on twitter were discussing emergency preparedness. I’ve always (gently) scoffed at it. I enjoyed watching people hoard beans and water bottles for Y2K, as I’m sure they will do for December 21 this year. Maybe I just have a Mayan sense of humor…!

But them I stopped and took stock of our little acreage and was pleasantly surprised at what we do have in case of an emergency, just by default:

•two wood stoves, and nearly 4 acres of fuel, er trees that we can chop and burn to stay warm and cook
•at least one 18-litre bottle of water, and usually as many as 5 since our tap water tastes gross!
•a cold room full of food, including soups, beans, pastas, snacks, baking supplies, etc
•in the winter we have nearly 4 acres of snow if we run out of water, and in the summer we have our slough and water tablets
•Hubz’ work truck had a generator, and we have a power inverter for our car cigarette lighters. My car charger will also run when the car is off

There you go: food, heat, power, and water without even trying! Who knew? I guess we should expect guests in the event of widespread chaos ;)

When life happens

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I’m still alive. Honestly. My mind has just been consumed with dance class wear orders and canning carrots and making pickles. And more class wear orders. And more pickles. And house-breaking the chiweenie. And parenting. And working.

And stuff.

So, what’s new? I’m on quite the motivation kick this week, and feeling great! Monday was sheer chaos, as I had to cancel $6000 worth of dance wear orders, resize them for a different company, and reorder them on a rush.

Yesterday, I canned EIGHT LITRES of dill carrots. All of the were from my garden. Yes, my garden grows carrots, zucchini, and potatoes. Nothing else. All my onions, peas, beets, radishes…nothing but greens. And truthfully, I only got one bowl of potatoes from twelve hills of potatoes, and only 5 small and 2 monster zucchini from six plants.

Yes, that is PURPLE cauliflower, from the St Albert Farmers’ Market!

But I have carrots!

Today is all about getting back on a health kick. I haven’t been running since my 30k at the end of July. I’ve been eating horribly, and if I get a litre of water a day, it’s a miracle. Ugh. I’m back on My Fitness Pal (add me: magzd), tracking and logging my food and activity. I may even start running again!

Then there is the house! I’ve finally narrowed down paint colours for my living room and I am getting rid of my red wall. It’s just too aggressive. I’ll keep my red accents, but it’s getting toned down. I’m also buying us an early Christmas gift as well:

And thanks to my dear Sku, my office is functional and tidy again!! We spent Sunday purging and organizing everything! I finished up on Monday, and it is SO nice to walk past the door without feeling massive anxiety… Yes, there is still a couple of boxes to put away, but as of yesterday, the desk clutter was completely gone!

And I took my long-neglected SCOBY, separated the layers, made a SCOBY hotel, and started brewing kombucha tea again, much to the horror of most of Facebook and Twitter :)

You can see that, while I’ve been absent from my blog, I haven’t been absent from life! I hope to be posting much more regularly now that dance is in full-swing and life has calmed down. I miss you all – and I have the winner from my 1000th post contest to post too!!

Now for the big question: did you miss me?? ;)

Chiweenie watch

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I have the cutest, sweetest, wiggliest puppy.

The chiweenie:

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She’s just adorable.

But she poops on my floor. And pees on my floor. Everywhere. All. The. Time.

I don’t know if you follow along, but I have enough poop issues in my life without an 8lb dog adding to them. With the chaos of the summer (and the gorgeous temperatures), Leith moved the chiweenie outside for the summer. We crated her in the sunporch at night, and she roamed freely with Petey-cat during the day.

All this outdoor time did not solve her indoor bathroom habits. She could play all day, come inside, and poop on my floor!! Unfortunately, we are now moving closer to the autumn chill. The past two nights have dropped to freezing, and poor Chiweenie doesn’t have a thick coat or body fat. She is a wee pup, meant to live indoors or on a beach in Mexico!

Thus, the crate has been moved to the basement. Tonight is Night One. With the help of my mom and my friend Dawn, I hope we can teach Chiweenie some household manners. She is an absolute angel and I want her to stay.

Wish me luck!

1000

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1000 posts.

That’s a lot of rambling to put up with over the last 4+ years. It’s a little over 250 posts each year. You’ve listened to me ramble a lot.

Sometimes, it’s been inane mutterings. Sometimes, I’ve actually had something good to say. I’ve covered the gamut, from breastfeeding to mom-formula, from policing to cancer, from twins to contraception. It’s never boring around here!

I’ve fought with my Christmas tree and with my demons. I’ve moved and changed jobs. Myyyy, how I’ve changed jobs! I’ve baked and cooked and gardened. I’ve made cheese. I’ve been through not one, but two 101 in 1001 lists. Well…the first one ended in defeat, and the second is still in progress.

I’ve travelled alone and with my husband, and even with my kids. I’ve taken pictures along the way, and journaled my way through life. I’ve made good choices and bad choices. I’ve even made really bad choices. I’ve told my story.

And along the way, I’ve developed some fabulous friendship through the ether. I’ve cultivated relationships and poured my heart to my readers, who have loved me and accepted me with open arms for the most part.

So, to thank you for this, I’m having a little giveaway:

Leave me a comment on this milestone post about your favourite MagzD post in the past 4.5 years.

Let me know what your favourite charity is as well, and in one week, I will draw a random comment. I will give $100 to that commenter’s charity, and $100 to the Canadian Cancer Society as well.

You know, just to say thanks for putting up with me. Xoxo.

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This post is a part of the Summer Blog Challenge (and I’m still down by two!!). Join the rest of us:

Natural Urban Mama
This Mom’s Got Something To Say
The Dulock Diaries
2 Plus 2×2