Happy Birthday to Me

Well today is my birthday.  As you can tell in the picture above (digital birthday card) I am now 35 years old.  I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the thought of that - I have never been one to really care how old I was but this year I am certainly feeling a bit older.  There could be many reasons for my hesitation in accepting my age; my "baby" is starting school in one week, I will most likely not have any more babies, I can see 40 years in the horizon - it feel like the last 5 years have flown by so the next 5 will and I'm feeling a bit overweight. On the flip-side, I am excited for the next stage in my life.  I'm looking forward to expanding my career with our farm business - I have been focussing on the kids for so long that I need something else to make me feel complete.  I have absolutely no regrets about being at home with our children and I am really happy to continue that way (so thankful to have that flexibility) but now I will have time to feed my own desires in business and in creativity with our home. 
To commemorate by birthday here is a list 35 items I hope to achieve this year:
1.  Strip and Paint a couple of rooms in our home.
2.  Improve my health by losing a few pounds and excersising more.  In the past I have done a better job of taking care of myself and in recent months I have let that go a bit too much.
3.  Plan a really awesome winter vacation with our family!!
4.  Go on that vacation!
5.  Give some more of my time to our children's school - I love volunteering there.
6.  Continue with my blog to document our life.
7.  Complete a block-of-the-month winter quilt for our home.
8.  Finish a beautiful "pink" quilt for a special person and her little girls.
9.  Make a batch of salsa.
10.  Drink more water.
11.  Drink more red wine.
12.  Travel with Ian on a little "couple's" vacation... Quebec City is the plan... to celebrate 10 wonderful years.
13.  Watch less t.v.
14.  Sew more.
15.  Make lots and lots of jam to sell next year.
16.  Purchase and use more eco-friendly and skin-friendly products.
17.  Continue to try to teach our children to eat healthy.
18.  Eat more fruit and veggies myself.
19.  Run 5 kilometres.
20.  Read the 3rd book in the 50 shades series.
21.  Learn to make my own pasta.
22.  Hug and kiss the kids more.
23.  Kiss my husband more...
24.  Breath through my stress.
25.  Call my mom more often.
26.  Go to bed earlier.
27.  Reorganize and give away the items I have saved from my teaching days.
28.  Clean out my big deep freezer.
29.  Take a yoga class.
30.  Make zucchini relish.
31.  Take a skiing class... refamiliarize myself with that sport.
32.  Put the kids in skiing lessons.
33.  Go for walks by myself.
34.  Show my husband that he is the most important person to me.
35.  Love myself a little bit more.

That list is pretty long and some points are more daunting than others but I am going to strive to fullfill it despite the length.  Here's to another great birthday... my day was filled with love, laughter, tears and joy!

 

Productive Days

I love days when we plan on having some fun.  I love spontaneous days when we don't have any plans but we go out and drive somewhere.   I really really love productive days.  Today was one of those days and it feels really good to just sit down at the end of one of those days and relax, put my feet up (especially when something heavy fell on my right foot and it hurts) and decide to do nothing for the rest of the evening. 
Grace went away for the day with her friend so that left Jean and Alex to just play at home on their own.  It amazes me how having just 2 makes the day more peaceful.  They easily played together and then on their own throughout the whole day.  Both Jean and Alex have great imaginations and they always have such interesting dialogues... the dress-up clothes is all over the floor and then later on in the day the cars and animals are lined up in the livingroom.  Now the play-doh is covering half of the table as I write but no doubt they are getting along, singing and talking amongst themselves. 
As a result of such a peaceful day I made raspberry jam, homemade granola, cinnamon buns, washed and folded 4 loads of laundry and finished making a sundress for Grace.  I also did some vaccuuming! 
What a great day... but my foot really hurts so I'm going to relax for the rest of the evening.

Celebrating our 10th Anniversary

Today Ian and I have reached an important milestone in our marriage... we have been married for 10 years today!!

We began dating in the middle of our 3rd year of university.  I'm not exactly sure when we met though because Ian remembers me before I remember him - oops!  I pursued him but he asked me out on our first date and we have been inseperable ever since.  I have so many great memories of the times we shared in University.  We made some very good friends while attending the University of Guelph and attended a lot of weddings for quite a few years afterward.  After graduation from U of Guelph and then Teacher's College (Buffalo N.Y.), we moved to the Ottawa Valley.  Ian had lived here all of his life and wanted to be a part of his family farm and I felt I could teach anywhere so followed him up here.  We lived in a nice little house owned by his Grandparents and it was then we got engaged.  On July 24, 2001, in our big red barn, Ian proposed to me (it was very romantic... planned out perfectly).  A year later on August 17, 2002, we got married on the front lawn of what is now our home.  When I think about it now it gives me goosebumps but it was one of the hottest days of the summer!  The best part of our wedding was EVERYTHING!  We had so many family and friends here to celebrate with us and I still say it was the best party I've ever been to!  We danced and danced and danced...

Ten years later we are still dancing just not as often.   These past ten years have given us 3 beautiful children - the best part of our marriage!  We live on a beautiful, big farm, which has changed a lot in 10 years.  Ian started out our marriage as a parttime teacher and parttime farmer and I was a full time teacher.  Ian is now a fulltime farmer and I am work at home looking after our children and working parttime for the farm business.  It is exactly the life we want - filled with doing what we love!  No doubt we have our challenges and our marriage has not been perfect but we take each day as it comes... I feel blessed to have someone I can rely on, someone who takes me as I am and someone I know loves me - forever.  Despite all of the hard times (and we have certainly had our share) we are a team and we are going to travel the same path.  I love him with all of my heart and soul.

Here's to many more decades of travelling the same path!  Cheers to us!

Words I Need Today

"Surround yourself only with people who are going to lift you higher."
"Laugh when you can, apologize when you should and let go of what you can't change."
"No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everyone on the couch."
"Everything you were looking for was right there with you all along." (Wizard of Oz)
"Then one day she decided to design a life she loved."
"I am thankful for the difficult people in my life.  They have shown me exactly who I don't want to be."
"You is kind, you is smart, you is important." (from The Help)
"Its just a bad day not a bad life."
"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember what you now have was once among the things you had hoped for."

Oh boy, that last one is a doozy.  I just thought I would share some inspiration that I am needing today...

And the last one for today as I head upstairs to have my own:
"Showers are great; they make you feel nice and clean, you sound like a professional singer and they also help you make life's big decisions."

A Wonderful Lazy Rainy Day

The main reason I'm blogging is to tell our story and to record our life and it's transitions.  Today was just a regular day - actually, no it wasn't! 
It is raining and has been for most of the day - a blessed rain that we need so badly.  I decided that we were going to just stay home today and hoped that I could get some laundry and baking done, which I did.  I even got to attempt to sew a dress for my girls which is finally coming along nicely (I will post a picture when the dresses are done). 
The kids were amazing today - they just played together and separately with very little arguing and battling over toys.  I should say the t.v. was on for much of the day but most of the time it was in the background (it is Olympic time!)... the kids played with their lego for the WHOLE morning and then the afternoon was filled with baking, computer games and just plain relaxing.  It was heavenly SO I thought I would record what a great day it has been and hoping that the evening is much the same. 
It is days like this that I wish school time won't come so quickly... I love love love having the kids home with me.  Tomorrow we are off to run errands and Grace is heading to a birthday party so back to normal!
Here's hoping your day has been heavenly as well!

Sometimes it is the Simplest Things

If you know me well, you know I love to cook and preserve food.  I'm trying to improve my baking skills but I like the freedom of adding a little of this and that and baking doesn't really allow for much freedom from a recipe. 

The time is coming for me to start preserving and I love to spend some of my time finding new and improved recipes for relishes and salsa.  Our tomatoes are finally ripening and the zucchinni and bountiful.  Earlier this year my food processor bit the dust while I was grating cheese for homemade pizza so a few weeks ago I started to watch the flyers for sales on a new food processor.  Ian bought me a wonderful kitchenaid mixer a couple of years ago and I've used it a lot and love that it is a high quality machine.  We have learned that if we pay the money for quality, we will not regret spending the money and my mixer was a perfect example.  I was looking for a sale on a less expensive processor but Ian was adamant I get something "good" so we found a kitchenaid food processor.  IT IS BEAUTIFUL and works so well!  Now I'm really excited to get started on my preserving!

It doesn't take much to please and impress me.  Ian knows that.  I guess after 10 years together we know what eachother like and small kitchen appliances make me happy... hee hee.  We also needed a new vacuum earlier this summer and it crossed Ian's mind to buy me one for my birthday but that idea did not go over very well... but a food processor was just fine.  I guess he is still trying to figure me out still.  I need to keep him on his toes.

So today I'm going to grate zucchinni for loaf cakes, make raspberry jam and oatmeal cookies.  Both of my favourite kitchen appliances will be put to the test today!