Years and years

Wow - 37 years on the earth. Great, fun, energetic years full of family, travel, adventure, and lots of very lucky prosperity. Last year had huge highs and lows and this year, well, this year I KNOW it will be a crazy ride, but the most unbelievable, joyful, miraculous one. The stuff of permanent memory. Let the 37th year begin!

Inspired by my baby nephew, Andrew

That's it. There is NOTHING better in life than the joyful, unrestrained laughter of a baby. Check it out. Found these on Youtube and they will warm your heart, lift your spirits, bring tears to your eyes, and yes, make you laugh. Wonderful, heart-healing stuff, my friends!

Baby Boing
Ethan laughing

A life well lived...

today I head to Montreal to celebrate my husband's lovely "Oma"'s 95th Birthday. She is and has been my 'Oma' also for a number of years now and I marvel not only at her sharp mind at this age, but at the life she has led and at how pure and wonderful is her spirit. I can only hope that I live half the life she has led with one half the spirit and spunk she has devoted to it. She is an incredible woman. In fact, she has lived through two world wars and on any given day you can find her completing crosswords in Dutch where each and every letter in the big box leads to another word (no blacked out spaces). I hope she loved the montage of photos we have created for her of shots of her home town and even her birth home in the villiage of Amersfoort. She can reminisce and enjoy these memories at any time of her day. Better wrap this stuff and get ready to go.

Here's to a long life, well lived....

Feelin' Groovy

When life just feels good, all around, and then the sun also shines, it is a very good day. The BBQ is just getting started by my husband, and salmon and steak lay in waiting for a little sizzle. And the future is looking up.

Life I love you,

All is groovy!

Time of the month

I love March. Yeah, I know that the trees and bushes are still brown and lifeless, and I know that everywhere you look the snow has turned a brilliant shade of yuck, but what it is is GROWING time. Time to witness the earth come alive again. Time to plant the seeds that will become baby plants that will then become lovely, luscious greens and reds and oranges and veggies (I don't do pink). And of course, it is my birth month. Great month. Love it when things grow...what a great sunny day!

Happy Spring everyone!

The pendulum swings

To the other side. How did I go from Sunday's happy shopping day to this stinky, smarmy, snufly cold? Ick. But props to my hubby, who has cooked dinner (BBQ pork chops marinated in a rosemary and blood orange marinade - yup I am a lucky woman), is now doing dishes, and who plans to run out to get me a binge item to make me feel better.

How do YOU eat your Oreos, people?

Sundays, Sunshine and Shopping

What a great day! Found some clothes for both hanging out and heading to work, which I desperately needed, and while getting there, had the sunroof open and the music on, and loved every minute of it. Now I have BBQ burgers to look forward to - have I mentioned that I have a wicked husband (albeit a hungover one)?

I wish this day could go on for a full week or more. I wish I wish I wish. But just 'cause I wish it, doesn't make it so, does it?

love letter to my husband

no fancy poetry. Just stark, intense, honest love and thanks to a wonderful man, a phenomenal friend, an exceptional partner and husband, and an excellent smoker of meat on the BBQ. It has been a great first year of marriage, not without its emotional challenges (as many know), but he's my rock, my roll, and my partner in crime.

Here's to the many years piling up, one on top of another, to create a lifetime of experiences and memories that, when we look back, will make us cry at the big moments and laugh at the inside jokes, and that will contribute, day in and day out, to our love's solid foundations.

I love you like I love no other.

Happy 1-year anniversary.

On making babies

Oh so much that could follow that title, eh?

So after an incredible weekend getaway to Huff Estates in Prince Edward County, my husband and I will celebrate our one year wedding anniversary this week on Thursday. Time goes at times by very quickly and at other times slow as molasses. While we have had overall an incredible first year together, we have had a tough winter, and never is the hurry up and wait feel to time passing been more prevalent than now. Ever since we lost the baby in November, I have tried, entirely unsuccessfully, not to calendar watch. Not to wait and hope and see how I am 'feeling' on any given day. Not to analyse every burst of gas, every tingle of flesh or tenderness of breast... I have sailed with the certainty that I am pregnant again, only to get stuck in the muck, low in spirits and iron each month that followed. I have figured out the hard way that my body is a bit screwed up with the hormones and after-effects of what I have to say is one of the hardest things I have gone through in my life.

But of course, many MANY women experience the same thing. It does comfort a little bit, but not really. We had a baby growing, and then we didn't and that simply sucked.

So. We now again find ourselves at the top of the hope spectrum, as another wait and see fortnight elapses. Will it happen or won't it? How do I stop thinking about it? How do I force myself not to analyse my body's signals, which has proven to be fruitless as it mocks me with every conceivable symptom at the oddest times?

I don't know how, but I do know that I am more relaxed than I have been in a long time, that somehow or other a curtain has lifted a bit and I am more positive and happy than I have been since that hideous month, and I am less obsessed than I have been. That's gotta be good for something. So...we wait and see where the next turn on this roller coaster takes us.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

When monopolies are great things...

Okay, so I admit that I am a Food & Drink junkie. I am a foodie, a wino and love every single glitzy, glamourous, glossy page of this bi-monthly magazine. This, of course, is in direct contrast with the fact that I feel for the independent and small winemakers in Ontario and other parts of Canada and the world who suffer because of the insane restrictions and regulations and politics behind the LCBO. But....I love Vintages and I ADORE F&D.

How much do I love F&D? Each year I never fail to contact the LCBO via email to ask for the exact release date of each of their issues, then add them to both my home and work outlook calendar so as not to miss picking up the latest issue. Because they are seasonal in nature, for MOST people, it is just serendipity (or a propensity for imbibing a lot of wine and/or spirits) that brings them at the right time in through their controlling doors to light upon the rack of quickly dwindling printed recipes, photographs and mouth-watering culinary dreamyness that is this magazine. Oh, to have the time, money, a kitchen, and wine cellar space to support this ever-growing addiction...but in time (because I keep every issue I have ever picked up), I will have some of these, if not all...

But I digress. The Spring 2009 just came out, and OMG - get out to get one before they are all gone. Seriously. A feature on fantastic healthy but oh-so-tasty recipes awaits you as does a lazy stroll through incredible Spanish and Portuguese wines and succulent recipes from the old country. And believe me, my husband is going to be uber-happy about that, given that ever since our honeymoon to the Spanish countryside in September, he has been obsessed with anything and everything that originates from that stunning country. Sprinkle in a feature on clam classics, and various cocktails turned into - yup, you guess it - jellied nibblies a la 'jello shooters', and you've got a great issue.

Yup...sometimes monopolies are a good thing....yummmm....

Dominatrix Deanna

Oh the draaaaaamaaaah! Watching the season finale of The Bachelor and having fun trying to discern how they have edited this thing to make you believe one girl has it over another. Personally? I think the third wheel, Deanna is gonna screw him up! Should be interesting....Maybe he'll try to work it to have all three of them? I can see Deanna in black leather and studs, barking orders to the three of them...can't you?

Okay...what the heck did Jason talk to Melissa's parents about? Did the conversation give everything away? Oh..wait! here comes Deanna - the woman who tossed him aside like Ty's dirty diaper. OOOOOP! Deanna gets the shaft! Oh yeah....oh, wait. They edited the previews to make us believe she wanted him back, but she was only there to warn him against making the wrong choice. Booo!

Okay, what's next, then? Sweet little place he's staying. I'd sign up for this reality stupidity just for the infinity pool! Well, he's a guy - he picked the ring that obviously was the most ornate and expensive, but it was ugly...

It's soooooo Molly! Like I didn't know that. I knew. Just wait for it. Don't you think so?

AFTER THE REVEAL...

Yeah...that's not gonna last. She's still a child, but then again, so were they both.

Wonder what is so dramatic about the after show coming up....guess I'll find out. Later...

***********************

Oh No He DIDN'T (snap)....
What an ass. (Oh, by the way, have I mentioned that I think this earnest, sweet man is a total fake bastard (you tell him, Mel) and likely wants a fat, juicy slice of fame pie?).

But I was right. It was Molly all along. Ha! Now, I hope she tosses him over...
I wish Melissa would say what we're all thinking. He's 'had' you now, and so it's time to have Molly. Ick.

Ew. Ick.

Here it comes - let's see if Molly is the smart girl I figure she is. (As an aside, how screwed up is the poor kid Ty going to be?).

Well, and of course, there's always the fact that none of this is real, and there's the very real possibility that the entire thing is 'produced' and that Jason is being paid a LOT of money to pull this stunt. And hey, if Molly gives it a go, and they work out, it will be more promotion for the show. We live in a very twisted world, don't we?

Man, the host is REALLY treading close with this. She may be able to read this is coming, especially given there isn't a crowd. (I love that, by the way...Keeping the shamefilled rejection to just the two of them, a television host, and millions of viewers for all of time....so INTIMATE!)

You could hear his heartbeat in the microphone! Yah...this is awkward. And she's like, "You are screwed up, man!" what's she going to say to this??? I mean, besides "you are such a bastard"...

She has said NOTHING. now a commercial. big surprise.

OHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. He doesn't deserve a KISS. He deserves to be slapped! How will you trust this moron who doesn't know what he wants? Brutal.

At least he knows he's classless. Wonder when it is going to sink in that she's getting sloppy seconds? Will be interesting to follow them in the tabloids now and over the next few weeks...until they break up.

It was a good three hours of television, though.

Summoning Spring

Each year, I consider the day that I drag my greenhouse and garden seeds out to be the uplifting first sign that spring is on the way. Because I love to plant sweet and hot peppers, I have to get started especially early in order to be sure that the peppers mature before the frosts of September/October (and that isn't a guarantee at all).

But is it an incredibly good day when I can enjoy the prospect of sunshine, warmth, and juicy, ripe veggies and lovely aromatic herbs from my summer garden...

I know that true warmth is still quite a ways away...but one can dream, right? And early forecasts for our weekend getaway to Prince Edward County next weekend indicate that things will be warming up, so that's great also.

So. Do a little raindance or whatever you feel you need to do to summon the sunshine and warm temperatures so that we can wash away what is left of what has been a long winter!