8 years ago
Me and my girls went with my mom to my Gramma's house for Easter long weekend. We do try and go at least once a year as Gram's not getting any younger! She seems to be suffering now from early Alzheimer's. She's forgetting things, sometimes repeating things, doing things twice or not at all and getting more ornery than she used to be. I love her, a lot! But it's hard going now when she's not the same anymore. The trip started off well enough, nice and early wednesday morning we started our 10-12 hour drive to Saskatchewan. The babe slept on and off, the big girl watched her movies, coloured and generally did her thing. All in all not a bad trip.
Gram was happy to see us of course. She LOVES the baby. She wanted nothing else but to have the babe sitting with her and she did lots of watching! By saturday though, you could tell she wanted her house back just a little bit. Saturday was my mom's 58th birthday. We celebrated with a homemade poppyseed chiffon cake with fluffy yummy 7-minute frosting. We only had 12 candles and mom thought she was just going to get away with that. LOL I re-lit them until we hit 58!!! She had the kids helping her blow them out. It was fun!!
Easter sunday saw the whole family over for dinner, we had a bit of everything!! It was so yummy. We have a traditional dessert on my mom's side that we always had at easter, christmas or any other occasion like that. Our family calls it Napoleon cake. We don't know it's actual name. It has about 10 layers with some pudding mixture between each layer, it's SO GOOD. We actually all fight over it. If there is a piece left, watch out!!! Since Gram's is aging, she has stopped making this amazing yumminess. My mom and my aunt and uncle have taken turns trying to conquer this dessert and making it good. We have had dry versions, sticky versions, and some in between. In the last two years both my mom and my aunt and uncle have managed to perfect it and it turns out amazing! Every gathering it is asked if someone made it, and as it is a time consuming desert to make, no one usually does. This year though, SURPRISE! My aunt and uncle made an amazing cake! It was soooooo good. There was a piece leftover (it was for my other aunt who was working) this is it in the fridge.
Notice the price tag? hahaha.
We played a few rounds of scrabble, Gramma has forgotten the rules. Which sucks. After the rest of the fam left, my Grams asked who the young guy was who had dinner and played scrabble with us was. It was my cousin! That was a bit of a shocking moment!!
On top of all that, my father in law went into the hospital with major problems with his heart condition. He has arrythmia and has had a pacemaker for a few years. He still has attacks, but not normally violent ones anymore. This weekend, he had non stop attacks for over 12 hours. Nothing is working to make them stop. It has been pretty touch and go. Can a heart continue to be under that kind of stress for a long time? He was supposed to have surgery today, but this has been postponed to the 13th now and he is on new meds. What a shit show! They keep saying there isn't anything they can do. It was hard being away from my husband while he was going through this, but apparently he doesn't need me in stressful situations. We have a one way marriage I guess.
Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! Here are some shots of my Easter babies!
Category:
Alzheimers,
Easter,
Gramma,
Heart
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I need you! I need you in my life for so many reasons. I need you to keep me grounded, I need you to keep me sane. I need you to make me laugh and I need your laughter in return. I need your quirks, without them you wouldn't be you. I need your mistakes, they make you who you are today. I need your talent and your unique trains of thought, without them it would all turn out the same. I need your compassion and sometimes I need your kick in my ass, what an idiot I would be without that! I need your opinions, good or bad, how can we make decisions without them? I need your beliefs, although they may not agree with mine, they are needed to round out a fulfilling life. I need your company, without it I would be very lonely. I need your creativity, sometimes I am too tired to think at all. I need you, the whole you, the good and the bad. I accept you as you are, you are amazing!
To all my amazing friends and family, thank you for giving me what I need! I love you all.
Over the weekend, my baby started coming down with a cold. Runny nose, chesty cough etc... Some of you know, she is a COMPLETE Mommy's girl. She's the kid I can never put down, no one else can hold her if I'm within 50 feet or all you get is crying and screaming. It's very tiring and a little overwhelming at times. As she got sicker over the weekend, the Mommy suckiness amped up about 25 notches. Now I can't get her to stop crying even if I am holding her. Thank goodness for motrin!!!! As the baby was sick, I kept the big girl home on Monday as she was coughing a bit too, turns out she seemed to be ok by bedtime last night. Until 2am that is!!!!!!
2 am, I'm woken up by the bright lights of my ensuite and lots of crying. I crack an eye and ask what's wrong. Through the crying I understand that her tummy hurts and she threw up in her hair. It doesn't look bad from bed so I tell her to come and crawl in with me. No Mommy! She says, there's lots of throw up in my hair. So I crawl out of bed and have a look, sure enough I can't even see hair. So into the shower she goes. The screaming and the crying that ensued, my goodness! Mommy, my everything hurts, Mommy it's hot, crying, crying, crying. I finally tell her she has to calm down because I can't understand her and she's screaming. I get her all washed up and in a warm towel while I go and hunt down a clean pair of jammies. I took the opportunity to go and check her room. BIG MISTAKE at that time of night. It was everywhere! EVERYWHERE!! All I could do was make sure the kitten wasn't in there and shut the door tightly! OK, new jammies on, dry kid and cuddled into bed with me. That lasts about 10 minutes. She's off again, both ends poor thing. Another new pair of jammies on the way! This continues every 30-50 minutes all through the night. She did fall asleep and started puking in her sleep all over MY bed this time. Good heavens!! (At least it was only the water she drank after the last episode) By 4:30 she's telling me she wants to go to school in the morning, to this I just snicker and try to sleep again. By 7 am it seems to have stopped, she's up and at 'em wanting to watch tv. I told her she was banned from her room until later.
After a coffee and some breakfast, I put more motrin into the baby and plug my nose on my way into the big kids room. GAG! I cannot believe the amount of wash I need to do. The bedding, the pillows, the stuffed animals, the carpet, and then my room, the bedding, the sheets and on and on we go.. I am 5 loads in to the mess right now and still have another 5 or so to go. Hopefully my machine holds up!
I forgot to mention that throughout this whole night, DH doesn't even crack an eyelid to ask if all is well. No offer in the morning to take the baby so I can get some sleep. No nothing. In my next life, I want the Daddy pass to doing nothingness.
At least the baby slept well........
Category:
kids,
puke
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Alright, I am not sure who broke the mirror, but it wasn't me I swear!!
I have not blogged in a while because it's been a REALLY bad couple of weeks. I didn't want this page to become a sob story for me with nothing but negative posts, but it seems I have no choice because it's been a lot of negative lately : (
We have suffered through 4 layoffs in the last two years. Normally, DH gets laid off almost every year in the fall and normally it's no big deal as he's a tradesman and usually has something else right away. Me however, have been laid off twice in the last two from two different builders during our lovely recession. The first time was ok, I had something within the month. The second time however, I was 5 months pregnant with no hopes of lying my way in to a new position to just leave a few months later. So I had to take my maternity leave early, no hopes of saving up money when that happens. Then, DH gets laid off in September! Great! But....... he only just recently finally found a position. Needless to say, things are months behind and everyone wants their money! On top of all that, DH was in an accident in 2001. Long story short, the gov't just decided that he has to pay $9000 for that accident, really? Now? They are ruthless about it too, taking his license until we figure out a payment plan. I asked her how she wants to get paid, pocket lint or smiles? All in all, it's a lot of money that keeps coming down the pipes. I mean a lot!
Seriously, it's been a long time with a lot of bad luck and I'm not sure why. I don't think we are bad people, I don't think we have done anything to deserve the "goes around, comes around". It's really becoming disheartening. The only good things right now are our girls. They make the world go around, too bad they can't work! LOL
So, there's a bit of my sob story, woe is me and all that. But it's off my chest now at least a little bit and we'll keep trying to forge ahead. Anyone win the lottery lately? Any rich Aunts on there way out? LOL
Alright! I have taken the first step and downloaded a spreadsheet that will allow us to put all our debts into it! It's one that follows a snowball pattern so it moves the money you were paying to the next bill and so on. Other than the caps on what you can pay each year on a mortgage, this is a great way to eliminate debt. You just need to stick to it! I am looking forward to the first happy dance.
Tonight I am making a florentine spinach manicotti, mmmmmmmm......... I have been trying to use what's in my pantry and saving a bit on groceries, this means I have 3 boxes of shells but no cheese. So I will have to splurge and go buy the cheese needed for tonight. On a good note, I have enough shells to make an extra tray and freeze it for later. This jobless business is bullshit, really! I can't lie about it.
My oldest has been at home sick since thursday last week, and boy am I ready for her to get back to school. She HAS to go tomorrow, even though I know she does not feel well she's going stir crazy. At least I know that whatever it was, she's surely no longer contagious. And the baby nor I have picked it up so hopefully it stays that way.
Category:
dinner,
financial planning,
kids
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I want to hear from all of you, your thoughts on lists. I am talking, let's put all this down on paper, work to pay each of them off at a time and look at the big picture kind of lists. I'll admit, my husband and I have never "planned" and it's to the point that I am tired of living like we are teenagers. Oh, don't get me wrong, I have tried to plan, but it's VERY difficult to plan one sided. So now, I am working out a two year plan. A plan that includes getting everything off our plates that went sour when we both lost our jobs last year, a plan that includes new furniture, a tv and so on. Eventually we want to sell our house and move to a home that fits us a little better than this one does. But again, this is 2 years away due to our mortgage still having 2 years to go and now our credit is teetering on the brink.
So I want to know how you all do it? How do you plan? How do I get my husband on board to working to pay off our debt and THEN having money for pleasure items? My DH seems to think that it's ok to purchase big ticket items for himself when he has the money because he's not interested in working just to pay off bills. How do I get him on board? Ladies??
Personally I want out of the credit crunch and on to bigger and better. But I married a spender, not a saver. *sigh*
Category:
financial planning,
lists,
money
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