Holidays

Four more days to the holidays!!  We were chanting this last night and clapping.  Two weeks off with my wonderful girls, I can hardly wait.  It's been dark and dreary when I leave in the morning and when I come home at night.  We all need some more sleep and a rest from our routine.  The last time we had a good chunk of time off together was July and while it will be a busy time over the holidays we will be together and that's all that matters.

This is 6pm in our backyard.  Snowman building by exterior illumination.

The clean eating diet has been going well ... with a few exceptions.  I am not feeling guilty about having the odd cookie and I refuse to call it "cheating" the important thing is to keep exercising!  I'm feeling great.

Lots and lots of veggies.

Do you have an elf on the shelf?  One of my girls friends told her about it last year.  I knew about them but did not want to give in to the hype...and then she felt she was missing out on something very important and I had to give in and get one.  So how is your elf magic doing?  It's become part of my morning routine...get up at 5:30, have a shower, brush teeth, move elf.  The things we do.  

Hanging from a snowflake in the kitchen window.

I'll be back after the holiday's.  Merry Christmas!

December

Hello to the 15 people that read my blog - welcome!  Well it's December 10 and it's cold outside.  We are ramping up to Christmas at our house, I can hardly believe Christmas Eve is two weeks away from today.  I've bought two gifts and I've decorated and made 5 dozen sugar cookies and a dozen peanut butter chocolate chip shortbread.  It has been an extremely busy time on the farm for us.  We had a door blow right off the top part of the barn 2 weeks ago and we are in the process of re-building it.  The horses have been coming in at night from time to time.  I know they don't need to come in at night but we bring them in when it's going to be really cold or if we are expecting a lot of snow overnight.  My husband chopped down our Christmas tree last week oh it's an original.  He offered to find another one but I thought that would be wasteful so this is our tree.  It's uneven and sticks out all over the place but we love it anyway.

Next year the girls and I will go to a tree farm and pick one out.  

I'm happy to report that this winter so far has been MILD.  Yes I'm still wearing slippers and layers in the house to keep warm even with the furnace blowing at 68 degrees, and the heaters on in the mudroom, bathroom and upstairs hallway.  (Note to self:  get hubby to put that extra insulation in the attic)  I say it's been mild but it is just December and last year we got that unexpected ice storm on December 22nd.  So I'm not holding out for an entirely mild winter but fingers crossed for no ice storm and an early spring this year.  Amen!

So as things get busier I wanted to take the time to say Happy Holiday's!  All the best to you wherever you are.

Change

This is not a word that frightens me.  I went through so many changes up to the age of 12, I don't feel content unless there is a big change going on and turning everything upside down.  Funny though, it too me years to figure that out.  I bought my first house, got married, had a baby and completely renovated the house all in 5 years.  I left my full time, permanent job to take on a 6 month contract that had me working closer to home.  I turned down a full time, permanent job offer to work contract for a year with the promise that a permanent job would be mine in the end (it was).  I moved my family twice in one year so we could live on this lovely farm.  I know I can embrace change.  And things have been become a bit too day to day lately.  Not mundane (Danny nearly knocked me unconscious on the weekend swinging his head toward his oats bucket as I walked by with it - rookie move) but everyday I wake up and know what the day will bring.  My husband and I have gotten settled nicely into our new fall / winter routines so I'm about to shake it up.  I'm on a 28 day clean eating program.  It's also a pretty hard core exercise schedule - 6 days a week.  What's life without a little challenge?  Today is my first day and I know it's going to be one of the hardest things I've ever done.  Most of the food on the program is stuff I eat anyway, I only had to buy greek yogurt!  And I steamed kale instead of roasting it - delicious!  It's the exercise part that scares me a bit - I haven't done a proper push up in years and tonight I have to do 15.  And I am going to miss my processed food, I'm not going to lie.  This will not become a fitness blog but I will post updates.  Please send me your positive vibes and wishes.  

Pictures

There has been a lot of these - roasted meats and veggies.

And chicken stock.

And snow

And cake this month (2 birthdays!)

Happy November!

Snow doubt

Oh hi there!  Sorry it's been a while.  Between work and a mini vacation in Niagara Falls I haven't had time to read my favorite blogs - never mind write my own!  Last week I took a 4 day weekend to celebrate my 40th birthday and at the same time treated my daughters to 3 days and 2 nights away from the farm and the computer and the cold.  I have to admit, I'm having a little trouble getting back into the winter chores when it's so bitterly cold outside.  My work schedule has me away from the farm for 48 hours this week and when I finally do drag myself through the doors all I want to do is put on cozy clothes, catch up with my girls and sit down a bit.  My wonderful husband has been picking up the slack by keeping the horses and chickens happy and I've been doing my best to make wholesome meals in the crock pot or in advance.

On turning 40...I have a few things to say.  It is very liberating to be this confident in myself at this age.  To not care about what people think of me, my weight, my hair or my clothes.  To say what I mean and feel instead of what I think people want to hear.  Am I obnoxious or is that what 40 is all about?  I've got enough grey hair for everyone over here...why not opinions too.

On it being hard to get out there and work...after working all day and still having more work to do in the house and a family to care for...and a dog and external obligations.  Someone suggested to me at work that it was too much.  Too much work for us, how are we handling it all?  How do we ever rest, go to the gym, find time to play???  I had never really thought about it before.  I knew this would be more work and I welcomed it.  Along with that work comes exercise and sometimes play and always more time together.  We work together and we make it work like we always have.  The most amazing thing to me is that we are the happiest we've ever been with this arrangement.  To think I actually doubted we could handle it all.  Yes it's hard at times and my house is often messy but we are happy and that's all that matters.

Warmth

I write today from my kitchen table.  I'm in jeans, socks, a long sleeve shirt with a t-shirt on top.  Warmth is something I do not associate with a big drafty farm house in winter.  I go to bed with a duvet and a comforter and when I wake up I put on slippers, grab my clothes and make a dash to the bathroom for a hot shower.  We've worked out ways of staying warm in this house - taking your clothes with you to the bathroom is one of them!  Thankfully the house has all new windows and that does seem to help keep the warmth in.  Last year we didn't heat the mud room that joins the outside to the kitchen.  It's a 10'x12' room and it was so cold all last winter that we had to shovel off it's roof.  This year there is a little heater blowing in the mud room and it's making a nice difference.  And we have the electric fireplace going in the living room as well.  We don't have a wood stove so we heat our house with an oil furnace.  It's not the most economical ways to heat but it's what we have.  There are other ways to stay warm - lots of home cooking, a walk with the dog, warm slippers, wool sweaters, hot chocolate, layers of clothing and lets not forget all the work that needs to get done around here.  Only 6 more months of this to go!  So until the snow melts, stay warm my friends.

This week in my kitchen

This is one meal done two ways.  First, a cottage roll - very Canadian and essentially it's cured meat - like a very fatty ham.  Slow cooked in the crock pot for several hours.  And the squash cut sideways - which is just so pretty.  Then the leftover sandwiches my husband made with coleslaw, pork and squash.  YUM.  This week there was also pumpkin seeds, chili and  pea soup made from the boiling of the ham hock.  Linking up with www.beautythatmoves.typepad.com