The scenery here is similar to Northern Ontario, it`s absolutely beautiful! But the culture is totally different (obviously). We are in the Frenchest part of Quebec and, though I thought EVERY ONE in Canada knows how to speak English, people here truely do not speak English. My French has improved TONS this past week! I`m speaking much faster and my vocabulary has grown, I`m starting to pick up on Quebec slang. I`ve mannaged to enter many stores and people not even picked up on me being from out of province. The kids are doing well also. Abi is EAGER to speak as much French as she knows, which isnt much`, but her determination will get far. Jared repeats everything, so I think he`s got some potential too. He says ``thankyou-merci! and good-night-bonne-nuit!`` and basic expressions, but hifinates French and English together as if it`s all one word. It`s very cute. Kalvin, on the other hand, has had no interest. He thought the whole idea of learning another language was dumb... That is until he met friends and kept running over to ask me how to say this and that, then he`s run back to tell his friends what he wanted to say. Friday night, outside church, I couldn`t find him any where because he had taken off with all the new friends he met. SHEESH! Mister Social!
Anyway, all`s been good so far. We`ve met so many nice people and been having fun exploring the area with them. I love it here and I`m certain now that we`ll be moving very soon.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
The Food-wasting delima
For a while now we've had a real problem with the kids taking a couple bites out of their fruit, then saying they can't eat the rest. It's so wasteful and so frustrating! I must have lectured them one too many times about food-wasting because lately I've been finding half-eaten fruit hidden in all kinds of crazy places, like behind furniture and under beds. It's absolutely disgusting!
Why I couldn't come up with this no-brainer solution before is beyond me, but I've start cutting fruit up rinsing it in lemon juice (so it doesn't turn brown) and filling big casserole dishes with a variety of fruit. Located conveniently on the bottom shelf of the fridge, the kids can self-serve as often as they like. The rule used to be "anything in the bottom drawers" (fruits and veggies) they could have whenever they wanted, but now they are forbidden whole fruits due to the wasting issue and so now they are only allowed what's in the big glass dish. I figure, we're only using about a third of the fruit we would normally go through in a week, but it's ALL getting eaten!
VICTORY!!!
Why I couldn't come up with this no-brainer solution before is beyond me, but I've start cutting fruit up rinsing it in lemon juice (so it doesn't turn brown) and filling big casserole dishes with a variety of fruit. Located conveniently on the bottom shelf of the fridge, the kids can self-serve as often as they like. The rule used to be "anything in the bottom drawers" (fruits and veggies) they could have whenever they wanted, but now they are forbidden whole fruits due to the wasting issue and so now they are only allowed what's in the big glass dish. I figure, we're only using about a third of the fruit we would normally go through in a week, but it's ALL getting eaten!
VICTORY!!!
Monday, April 5, 2010
GREEN AGAIN!!! (WITH MY LITTLE BUDDIES)
Wow! It has been a really long time since I have posted anything... Well for the most part, our life in Hanover Ontario is pretty uneventful, but lately things around here have been pretty busy.
We've had Christmas (which seems to drag on forever when you have separated parents on both sides)... We've had two little nieces born since my last post, and another on the way. Two of the kids have had birthdays since then, which means I am now the proud mother of a 9 year old, 6 year old and soon to be 3 year old. But people still can't believe that I am old enough to have a toddler, when they first meet me alone with my youngest. lol, I 'm remembering being insulted by those kinds of comments, people thinking I'm only 16 with a kid (some people were very rude), or people thinking that my kids belonged to my mother and I was just some young auntie or babysitter... I knew that one day I would appreciate those kinds of comments, and now, THOSE DAYS HAVE COME! :)
Since my half-marathon in October, I really haven't been running much. Actually once the snow hits the ground I get LAAAAAZZZZZZY... I would love to go to the gym or buy a treadmill or anything, but those things just aren't in our single-income budget. Now it is spring and I am on a rampage! All I want to do is be outside walking, running, anything. Yesterday we went hiking and foraging as a family, though for the youngest it was more of a long distance run. I really want to get into foraging this year, I've been impatiently excited about it since the fall after everything good is done for the year. And now, still impatient to get out there foraging, all I could find this time of year was a few premature thistles and dandelion greens. (which I put in this morning's smoothie).
The kids and I have started back on the raw food diet (yes AGAIN), but this time they WANT to do it. We're trying to make it fun by letting them chose the recipes and putting it all together, they've been really excited about it! You wouldn't believe the things they've been eating, kale and parsley, tons of spinach, you can pretty much hide any greens in a smoothie and make it taste good! (so long as there's banana, lol, that seems to be their favourite ingredient in just about everything we make). Last night for supper we made a salad with oranges, dates and bananas, and honey, lemon juice and cinnamon for the sauce. This was their favourite new recipe so far. There have been things that they've LOVE and there have been things that they HATE. Olives, tomatoes and peppers are still on the hate list for them, and apparently coconut, coconut juice and coconut milk are on that list too. Too bad they can't taste the coconut oil in their smoothie everyday! I put greens, Acai berry, coconut oil, and ground flax into every smoothie, all of which are tasteless. And then it's just a matter of how we want our smoothie to taste (what berries, fruit, almond/nut milk, honey, vanilla...) and what colour we want it to be (for them, it has to be an actual colour, either pink or green, if it's in between they call it "puke colour" and they wont drink it!)
Anyway, I'm very glad that at the moment in the lives of the nutrition and the beast that the beast is the one out-numbered... It really is nice to have the kids on my side (by choice). I still have to make meals for him, although lately he must feel a bit bad because he's been telling me not to bother... Who knows, maybe soon he'll join TEAM-GREEN!
...Well I can hope.
We've had Christmas (which seems to drag on forever when you have separated parents on both sides)... We've had two little nieces born since my last post, and another on the way. Two of the kids have had birthdays since then, which means I am now the proud mother of a 9 year old, 6 year old and soon to be 3 year old. But people still can't believe that I am old enough to have a toddler, when they first meet me alone with my youngest. lol, I 'm remembering being insulted by those kinds of comments, people thinking I'm only 16 with a kid (some people were very rude), or people thinking that my kids belonged to my mother and I was just some young auntie or babysitter... I knew that one day I would appreciate those kinds of comments, and now, THOSE DAYS HAVE COME! :)
Since my half-marathon in October, I really haven't been running much. Actually once the snow hits the ground I get LAAAAAZZZZZZY... I would love to go to the gym or buy a treadmill or anything, but those things just aren't in our single-income budget. Now it is spring and I am on a rampage! All I want to do is be outside walking, running, anything. Yesterday we went hiking and foraging as a family, though for the youngest it was more of a long distance run. I really want to get into foraging this year, I've been impatiently excited about it since the fall after everything good is done for the year. And now, still impatient to get out there foraging, all I could find this time of year was a few premature thistles and dandelion greens. (which I put in this morning's smoothie).
The kids and I have started back on the raw food diet (yes AGAIN), but this time they WANT to do it. We're trying to make it fun by letting them chose the recipes and putting it all together, they've been really excited about it! You wouldn't believe the things they've been eating, kale and parsley, tons of spinach, you can pretty much hide any greens in a smoothie and make it taste good! (so long as there's banana, lol, that seems to be their favourite ingredient in just about everything we make). Last night for supper we made a salad with oranges, dates and bananas, and honey, lemon juice and cinnamon for the sauce. This was their favourite new recipe so far. There have been things that they've LOVE and there have been things that they HATE. Olives, tomatoes and peppers are still on the hate list for them, and apparently coconut, coconut juice and coconut milk are on that list too. Too bad they can't taste the coconut oil in their smoothie everyday! I put greens, Acai berry, coconut oil, and ground flax into every smoothie, all of which are tasteless. And then it's just a matter of how we want our smoothie to taste (what berries, fruit, almond/nut milk, honey, vanilla...) and what colour we want it to be (for them, it has to be an actual colour, either pink or green, if it's in between they call it "puke colour" and they wont drink it!)
Anyway, I'm very glad that at the moment in the lives of the nutrition and the beast that the beast is the one out-numbered... It really is nice to have the kids on my side (by choice). I still have to make meals for him, although lately he must feel a bit bad because he's been telling me not to bother... Who knows, maybe soon he'll join TEAM-GREEN!
...Well I can hope.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
My 1st "Halfie"
This weekend I completed my first Half-Marathon. It was quite the learning experience, and also, tonns of fun! I finished in 1 hour and 58 minutes, placed 39th out of 186 people in my age category (women 25-29), and 212th out of 1126 women over all. So for a first experience, I think I did better than most. 
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
LIVING IN THE GHETTO
Well it may not technically be the "ghetto", but to me it feels that way. It's a good reminder not to get too comfortable with what you have because, in uncertain times like these, it could all be gone in the blink of an eye... And this is what you'd be stuck living with!
The lot has two 4-plex's side by side. In our 4-plex, the walls are paper-thin, so we hear the farts, the fights, the T.V.... We hear EVERYTHING! And our neighbour is extra special because he never takes his cowboy boots off, he just clunks around all day until he finally decides to go to bed at night. I have to be real sneaky when I get my mail because our mail box is right outside and he sure loves to talk. He'll come outside with his little chihuahua in his arms, and it's so hard to get away, because there never seems to be a pause in his talking where you can say "well, I should get going..." I'm not sure if that's just his personality, or if it's because he loves me! lol But I've always thought that senior citizens have a need to talk allot, especially if they've lost someone, they have a need for company and a need to be heard. So I feel obligated, and besides they usually have very interesting stories, for anyone who loves history (which I absolutely do)!
The single-mom next door is a constant reminder of my past. The loneliness and exhaustion I'm reminded of every time I see her. I would love to offer to watch her kids for a while, but they are just so bad that I can't even bring myself to do it. They're always outside playing on the small patch of grass between our buildings that they call "a yard", with mom nowhere to be found. The other day they were fighting, one with a pitch-fork, the other with a shovel. I felt obligated being the only grown -up out there to say "you need to put those away right now, before one of you gets hurt"! Well the older one laughed at me! And so I could tell that these were the type of kids that needed a bit more firmness, so I said "I'm not laughing, you need to it right now... while I'm watching you"... Then Tim came outside and told me to get in the house, and then yelled at me because those kids aren't my responsibility. But seriously, I think it was worth getting yelled at, over a 5 year old being stabbed with a pitch-fork!
I feel a little bad for them though, they've had their bikes stolen twice this week. They were lucky to get them back the first time and they should have bought some locks, but they didn't and the bikes got stolen again. They have so little as it is, seriously, who would do that?!
The rest of the neighbours we never see, either because they're depressed and never leave their apartments or they work nights. Not really sure, we just try to mind our own business and not spend allot of time here. We are here just long enough to do our school work, eat and sleep... The only comforting sounds in our apartment is the sound of Tim singing, and the train whistles blowing almost constantly has become a comfort to me.
Well we're about to start our day, one of my kids just woke up... We've got to take our toys back to the toy library, and twice a week I take the kids to the Parent-Link Center to make a craft. It really helped us to not have to buy stuff while we were here. I'm going to miss everything that this town has to offer... The indoor, play park, the spray park, the running trails, and stores... Even the schools compete with each other for who has a better play ground. The schools out here all have better play grounds than the big Hanover park.. But it's because the parents raise money for the parks, and a better park means better (well really just richer) parents, so they actually do compete with each other... I think people in Ontario can take a lesson from these guys.... Instead of whining about lack of government funding for the schools, consider it payment for "childcare" for having the schools raise and teach your kids!
Anyway, now too many opinions are being conjured up and I fear I may break out on a rampage, so this is where I will end this blog... I'm not looking forward to going home and losing all my friends, so I'll just say "THE END". Love you friends! Be home in 3 weeks! =D
The lot has two 4-plex's side by side. In our 4-plex, the walls are paper-thin, so we hear the farts, the fights, the T.V.... We hear EVERYTHING! And our neighbour is extra special because he never takes his cowboy boots off, he just clunks around all day until he finally decides to go to bed at night. I have to be real sneaky when I get my mail because our mail box is right outside and he sure loves to talk. He'll come outside with his little chihuahua in his arms, and it's so hard to get away, because there never seems to be a pause in his talking where you can say "well, I should get going..." I'm not sure if that's just his personality, or if it's because he loves me! lol But I've always thought that senior citizens have a need to talk allot, especially if they've lost someone, they have a need for company and a need to be heard. So I feel obligated, and besides they usually have very interesting stories, for anyone who loves history (which I absolutely do)!
The single-mom next door is a constant reminder of my past. The loneliness and exhaustion I'm reminded of every time I see her. I would love to offer to watch her kids for a while, but they are just so bad that I can't even bring myself to do it. They're always outside playing on the small patch of grass between our buildings that they call "a yard", with mom nowhere to be found. The other day they were fighting, one with a pitch-fork, the other with a shovel. I felt obligated being the only grown -up out there to say "you need to put those away right now, before one of you gets hurt"! Well the older one laughed at me! And so I could tell that these were the type of kids that needed a bit more firmness, so I said "I'm not laughing, you need to it right now... while I'm watching you"... Then Tim came outside and told me to get in the house, and then yelled at me because those kids aren't my responsibility. But seriously, I think it was worth getting yelled at, over a 5 year old being stabbed with a pitch-fork!
I feel a little bad for them though, they've had their bikes stolen twice this week. They were lucky to get them back the first time and they should have bought some locks, but they didn't and the bikes got stolen again. They have so little as it is, seriously, who would do that?!
The rest of the neighbours we never see, either because they're depressed and never leave their apartments or they work nights. Not really sure, we just try to mind our own business and not spend allot of time here. We are here just long enough to do our school work, eat and sleep... The only comforting sounds in our apartment is the sound of Tim singing, and the train whistles blowing almost constantly has become a comfort to me.
Well we're about to start our day, one of my kids just woke up... We've got to take our toys back to the toy library, and twice a week I take the kids to the Parent-Link Center to make a craft. It really helped us to not have to buy stuff while we were here. I'm going to miss everything that this town has to offer... The indoor, play park, the spray park, the running trails, and stores... Even the schools compete with each other for who has a better play ground. The schools out here all have better play grounds than the big Hanover park.. But it's because the parents raise money for the parks, and a better park means better (well really just richer) parents, so they actually do compete with each other... I think people in Ontario can take a lesson from these guys.... Instead of whining about lack of government funding for the schools, consider it payment for "childcare" for having the schools raise and teach your kids!
Anyway, now too many opinions are being conjured up and I fear I may break out on a rampage, so this is where I will end this blog... I'm not looking forward to going home and losing all my friends, so I'll just say "THE END". Love you friends! Be home in 3 weeks! =D
Friday, July 24, 2009
FINALLY A CHANCE TO POST!
It's been a while, but as predicted in the beginning, I wont have time to post regularly. So I will give a quick run-down on the last week or two...
Last weekend was great! Tim, for the first time ever, showed his spontaneous side! He came home from work Saturday night and said "pack the kids some overnight stuff!" He wouldn't say where, but it didn't take long to figure out (he's not very good at hiding stuff). So we went to Drumheller, which is about 2 hours south of here. And let me just say, apart from the mountains, that the Badlands are the most beautiful and amazing thing I've seen in my whole life! We had a great time and the kids loved the dinosaur museum! But I think the part that everybody enjoyed the most was the Hoo Doo's. Kalvin and Tim climbed right to the very top of the Hoo Doo cliff, while Abi, Jared and I crawled around and explored the small caves and crevasses below. I took lots of pics on my cell phone, but we'll have to see how good they turn out before I post them. Anyway, we had blast! If anyone reading this should ever find themselves in southern Alberta, Drumheller would definitely be number one on places to visit! http://www.traveldrumheller.com/
We've finally been having real summer weather. The spray park has been crowded all week, we've been there ALLOT! There aren't any real beaches out here... Many people have tried to tell us that there are, but I don't call a small lake with a 20 foot patch of sand "a beach". We'll just have to wait until we get home... Which FYI will be in 4 weeks.... That is unless Tim takes another job.
There is a possibility that Tim will be working on another pipeline that would run from Edmonton to Winnipeg, a job that would take 3 years to complete.... So we shall see... But it just may be that our family will be traveling between provinces over for the next 3 years of our lives... Like I said before, that wouldn't bother me a bit! It's Tim that's the homebody, I really could care less!
Anyway, I'm drawing a blank here.. Obviously lots is happening and I should have lots to share, but I'm sitting here trying to think of things to say, but all I can think of is all the things I have to do. So for now I'll just say so long and I'll post when I have time to think.
Last weekend was great! Tim, for the first time ever, showed his spontaneous side! He came home from work Saturday night and said "pack the kids some overnight stuff!" He wouldn't say where, but it didn't take long to figure out (he's not very good at hiding stuff). So we went to Drumheller, which is about 2 hours south of here. And let me just say, apart from the mountains, that the Badlands are the most beautiful and amazing thing I've seen in my whole life! We had a great time and the kids loved the dinosaur museum! But I think the part that everybody enjoyed the most was the Hoo Doo's. Kalvin and Tim climbed right to the very top of the Hoo Doo cliff, while Abi, Jared and I crawled around and explored the small caves and crevasses below. I took lots of pics on my cell phone, but we'll have to see how good they turn out before I post them. Anyway, we had blast! If anyone reading this should ever find themselves in southern Alberta, Drumheller would definitely be number one on places to visit! http://www.traveldrumheller.com/
We've finally been having real summer weather. The spray park has been crowded all week, we've been there ALLOT! There aren't any real beaches out here... Many people have tried to tell us that there are, but I don't call a small lake with a 20 foot patch of sand "a beach". We'll just have to wait until we get home... Which FYI will be in 4 weeks.... That is unless Tim takes another job.
There is a possibility that Tim will be working on another pipeline that would run from Edmonton to Winnipeg, a job that would take 3 years to complete.... So we shall see... But it just may be that our family will be traveling between provinces over for the next 3 years of our lives... Like I said before, that wouldn't bother me a bit! It's Tim that's the homebody, I really could care less!
Anyway, I'm drawing a blank here.. Obviously lots is happening and I should have lots to share, but I'm sitting here trying to think of things to say, but all I can think of is all the things I have to do. So for now I'll just say so long and I'll post when I have time to think.
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