Where Have I Been?MY

I'm baaack! Oh my it's been so long. I have only one reason for being absent, work. From the time my plane hit the ground in Edmonton to the time it took off again it was all work. Crazy work. So get a cup of tea/coffee/wine whatever you fancy and let me spin you a tale.

I noticed the last month that I was in Mexico last winter that I wasn't feeling right up to snuff, something was off, not off enough to go to a doctor. Sometimes a nagging head ache which I blamed on my swimming goggles (I learned how to swim and boogie board), sometimes just not very energetic, sometimes a fever, sometimes constipated (yeah in Mexico, that's really off) and yet sometimes not. It was cold in Chihuahua, thought maybe I'd caught a flu bug. Day before I left Mexico I was covered in a very fine rash, then I knew something was up, but no time to go see a doctor, I would wait until I got home......this was my big mistake.

It took 2 weeks to get in to see the doctor, by then I had done my own research and had diagnosed myself as having Dengue fever, doctors hate it when you diagnose yourself. During the course of 3 more weeks I had 3 doctors, all of which had to goggle Dengue fever. After a blood test it was confirmed that I did indeed, to their surprise (not mine) have Dengue fever. Now they don't know what to do with me, except monitor my blood to make sure I am not bleeding to death internally. Meanwhile i am working  my ass off breathing life back into a frozen and dead golf course after a brutal winter. Working long hours. Not to bore you with all my whining, let's just say I slowly and quietly suffered for about 4 months, I dragged myself to work and back each day. Everything around me suffered as well, my yard, my beautiful garden, and my house. Here is the surprising part, I didn't care. I didn't care to work in my garden or my greenhouse.

 It was clearly time for a change, a big change, one that I had been thinking of for awhile but just wasn't ready for. I no longer needed a big house, a big yard, a big garden, I need to simplify my life. To hurry this along for you, I bought the prefect little 19 ft holiday trailer (a glamper), I searched online and held out for the prefect one (this took all summer) and it's a beauty, a 1974 Squire, bought from the original owners. It was love at first sight. I sold/donated most of my "stuff", aside from a small chest stored in a friend's shed full of some "worldly treasures" my life now fits into my little 19ft glamper. I am so proud of myself that I managed to do this without buying a shed or rent a storage unit and it was easier than I thought. The more I got rid of the more freeing it felt and the more I wanted to get rid of. I had to totally clean my house which was very cleansing and therapeutic. I learned so much about myself.

I was living in the past, mourning my broken marriage and my child growing up and moving out. I couldn't believe it. I was not mourning my x-husband....gosh no, I was mourning the marriage, I hadn't moved on from being married and having a child to raise to being single, to living alone. I hadn't embraced being single.  Single people don't have a deep freeze full of food, single people don't have 30 jars of salsa or 25 jars of tomatoes sauce or 30 jars of jam in the pantry. They don't have boxes of teddy bears in the shed, or old hockey equipment for a 7 year old. they don't have dishes in the cupboard for 20 people, they don't have 20 containers of pumpkin sauce in the freezer (nobody does) and they don't have a 3 bedroom house with 2 bathroom and a huge "rec room". When I say this was easy I don't mean that I didn't cry, oh I cried buckets of tears as I came across all kinds of treasures. All kinds of tears. Things were dealt with though, dealt with so that I no longer need to hang on to a house full of crap. I Learned that I don't have to hang on to a box of my child's teddy bears, getting rid of them does not mean I am a bad mother, I learned that I don't have to keep living in this house, my child is not coming back to sleep in her old room, I can move, I can leave, and I don't have to hang on to her stuff anymore, stuff that she doesn't even want. Single people do not store other people's stuff, other people store their stuff.

It was a hard summer, it was a summer of tears, nostalgic tears, tears of work frustrations, tears of fear of change, ghost tears of the past, tears of pain from the present, tears of tiredness,  and the cleansing tears of finally letting go, and lets not forget tears of guilt, guilt for not being able to keep up with everything.

And if all that wasn't enough, I also quit my job (gasp), I finished the season and then resigned. I spent 9 years at that golf course, leaving that beautiful place brought a few buckets of tears too. I won't bore you with my reasons for leaving. Member....this space is never to be about work. It was also just time.

So, come spring time I will searching for a new golf course and a place to park my home on wheels. Right now it is safely stored at a friend's farm.  Stick around, life is about to get very very interesting. I am finally really single and totally free. Free of baggage.  So.......I booked a ticket to Turkey and Jordan and Mexico. Yup, that's quite a trip. Stick around and I will tell you all about it.

 But first, I spent some time with my kids. My first grandchild almost makes me cry every time I see him, he is the exact imagine of my daughter at his age. Not only does he look like her, he acts like her, talks like her and this may sound weird, when I touch him or carry him he feels like her, he has her bones structure and carries his weight just like her. My second grandson has her nose and her smile but he is built differently, he will decide who he is and by the looks of him, will beat his own drum and make up his own songs as he goes. These 2 little darlings melt my heart.

So, now, hang on, right after Halloween we're going to Turkey.....I hear they have good food there. 

My new home, everything I own fits in here. 

I did discover paddle boarding, bought a board and had time to put it in the water 3 times, enough to know it will be a new hobby. In looking for a new job and a place to park my new home I will be making sure there is a body of water close to paddle. 

This little man has stolen my heart. 

Did you ever see a cuter face

This guy can't stop smiling, he is adorable like his big brother

Hanging out after a hard summer, relaxing. 

Halloween, this little man shares his grandma"s love of all things green....including John Deeres

Seeing as I will not be back to this golf course I figured it was fitting to add some last golf shots......to us turfies, we call it "golf porn". While this space is never supposed to be about work, a part of my job is who I am.

Stick around, we"re going to Turkey

"at least it's always sunny"

 

When you live in Northern Alberta you are an expert at complaining about the weather.....we all do it...all the time. We have extreme weather, we can get extreme heat from 40C (rare, but it happens) to (-40C, not as rare as 40C)  and we get everything in between. However, we always console our-selfs with this statement "at least it's always sunny". It can be a bitterly cold day...but, it will be sunny. Up here you need a good pair of sunglasses all year round or you will go blind. 

second to my flip flops these are my favorite pair of snow. 

there will be spring...just not yet

 

that's the top of a picnic table or....the door to Narnia?

wind ripples in the snow....sort of like sand ripples on the beach .....but not.

I dare you to try to be out here without sunglasses...

A tiny little spruce reaching for the sun

My future is looking so bright I wear sunglasses evreyday

Easter eggs? Nope...moose poop

ops...wipe out

The long road home

My first stop in Canada is Edmonton where I get to spend some time with my child and my grandchild, my child is camera shy but her little man is not....

Grandma...look at all my teeth I got while you were gone and thank-you for the t-shirt from Arizona .... my grandma shops at airports instead of Wal-mart 

 Then there was a long long drive home.....8 hours of it.

it even snowed on us.....this is how it looks all the way...not very scenic, rather boring

....still on the road

...still on the road

pumpjacks in the sunset.....are we there yet?

after a lovely sleep in my bed, I woke up to see this...more snow than I have ever ever had in my front yard...and the backyard....ever

the roof on my greenhouse collapsed 

Spend 31/2 hours chipping and digging my car out of the snow

had to go to the shop on my snow shoes to get a battery charger and extension cord

by now I was super annoyed at all the snow but once on my snow shoes......all was well, there is something so surreal about going where no one has gone....untouched snow so pure, clean and white....almost like holy ground. It's such a thrill for me....almost like a high

ah  yeah...back to my car to finish the job, it must have snowed sideways here all winter, it was packed underneath and around my wheel wells. Once I got it out I had to take it to the car dealership and they took all the tired off and washed the ice out and re balanced them....a bit of a pain in the behind it was.

she was packed right in.....next year I will back her in making it easier to get out

Stay tuned for some snow shoe adventures, clearly we won't be getting on the golf course anytime soon....should have stayed on the back of that Harley in Phoenix a bit longer.

The tale of a yarn gone wrong

Let me tell you it has been very hot here, very hot for a long time (and dry) so hot in fact that it seems I have a melted brain...yup, had a total meltdown. Here is the story;

But first....this is how hot it has been here for weeks, this gauge faces West, I have a South facing one and the red needle is wrapped all the way around in the afternoons.

A long time ago (a few years ago) a lady that loves to knit decided to knit a very challenging project during the Olympics and she challenged knitters around the world to join her. The goal is to start a project on the day the Olympics start and finish by the time they ended. I joined in one year and didn't finish my project (surprise!) So this year I decided that I wasn't busy enough with my work, my gardens, my already started knitted projects, my already started paintings (all 5 of them) and my already started quilts...etc, I decided I needed a more challenging project than all those, because apparently I like to push myself all the way to the edge....the edge of sanity I guess.
I have this sweater, the one that I have written about before, it's too big for me and it's falling apart, it's rather ugly but I love it because when I wear it I feel like I am hugging a big warm sheep all day, (and who desn't want to hug a sheep all day?) but it's so big and starting to unravel in places.....So I decided that my Olympic knitting project this year would be to unravel it and reknit it.

Really needed some mending

My sweater hanging out on my tractor.....just  in case I need a sheep hug throughout the day

Don't do as I do, but do as I say, and now I am saying to you " do not ever, ever unravel your favorite sweater, unless you have practiced with a sweater you don't like....and it went well". This is not going well at all and my sweater is becoming a pile of about 24 inch long pieces of yarn.....lots and lots of pieces, it is not unraveling as it should ,(in one long piece)  there is some kind of funny knot at each end making it impossible to unravel from end to end. I am watching my favorite sweater become little pieces. I could cry. I might yet. This was always my go-to-comfort sweater and now it is lying on the couch in a heap of curly sheepy looking yarn bits.

Don't sit there.....that is where my sweater is sitting....and has been sitting there since the Olympics started .