Grateful

On Saturday, February 7th J decided to go skiing as a reward for himself after the 20 hours of overtime he had put in. 

At 12:17 that I was on my way home from work when he called. 

"You're going to kill me," was the first thing he said to me. 

He had wiped out on his first run down the hill. Ski patrol had gotten him down the hill, and he was waiting for an ambulance to get there. 

The first responders were pretty sure he had a break in his lower leg. 

I managed to drive myself to my parents' place and then had my dad drive me to the hospital. 

X-Rays confirmed it, J's leg was indeed broken. And not just a little broken. He had a spiral fracture is his tibia and a break in his fibula. The X-ray technician told him it was a "doozy" and everyone who's seen the X-ray since has made a similar comment. 

Post-surgery x-ray. You can see the rod & pins. 

We were transferred to Halifax later that evening for more X-rays and to wait for surgery. J eventually had surgery on Monday afternoon. He had a rod inserted with pins at the knee and ankle. (Gross.) He was released the next day and we started the rehabilitation process, plus the process of applying for EI since he'll be off work for several months. 

It's been quite the struggle. I'm not used to doing everything around the house plus everything for J plus working full-time. The first couple weeks I spent A LOT of time crying and a lot of time praying for strength. 

And you know what? Things are getting better. Slowly, but I'm starting to feel like we're going to make it. My head is above water, I'm getting enough sleep, J is impressing the physiotherapist, and Daisy and I are doing lots of bonding on our daily walks. 

Daisy and I enjoying our evening walk.

When I start getting stressed or overwhelmed I remind myself how much worse it could have been. I could have lost J that day. Or he could have permanently damaged himself. And I am so grateful to still have him by my side. (Even when he's complaining about how bored he is.) I think I've been guilty of taking my husband for granted. Not just all the things he does, but his strength and his presence. Those couple nights without him in the bed beside me were really, really hard. There are a lot of lessons in this situation - and some are easier to take than others - but I'm also grateful for every one of them. 

PS: This was very long, and very ramble-y. Ooops. 

Going Viral

I don't talk about work on my blog a lot for several different reasons, but I'm throwing caution to the wind tonight. Mostly because I'm really freaking proud, but partly because what I'm going to talk about has been all over the internet and the local news for the past five days.

Last Friday a woman driving by the store I work at snapped a picture of one of my employees walking home an elderly blind woman. She uploaded the picture to Facebook and tagged my boss (whom she used to work for) in it, asking him to thank this young man for being such a great employee.

Since Friday the picture has now received over 15830 likes, 191 comments, and has been shared 5875 times.

This young man (Austin) and the customer in the picture were interviewed by all three of our local TV channels. (CBC, Global, and CTV.) Then, the icing on the cake was Sunday when two of my staff simultaneously texted me to let me know that the story had hit Cosmo Online. Later on Sunday it even hit Fox News too.

Walking this customer (her name is Mary and she is an absolutely sweet heart) home is something my staff does on a regular basis. On multiple occassions my faith in humanity has been restored by the amazingly sweet things my staff will do for our customers. Sometimes young people all get lumped together in an unflattering way, but the team of young men and young women who work for me and in other departments of our store blow me away on a regular basis. I am so glad that they're getting this recognition, and I couldn't be prouder!

PS: While I do work for Sobeys, all opinions are my own. (But I'm pretty sure everyone is pretty darn proud!)

My Messy House

My house is currently a disaster.

Nothing is where it belongs, and there is dog and cat fur everywhere.

By the time I get home in the evening after work and then make supper all I want to do is curl up on the couch with J and watch TV. And then on my day off I feel like I "deserve" a day to relax and do nothing except read and play on the internet.

I thought about doing PopSugar's 30-Day Cleaning Challenge. It seemed fitting since I'm already doing their 2015 Reading Challenge, but I don't necessarily think my microwave and my oven are the first place to start. I think I need to get the house clean, and then start using some sort of schedule that involves doing one or two quick tasks each night. I've seen some on Pinterest, I just need to find the right one for me. (Or find one that's pretty close to tweak a bit.)

Do you have any tricks for keeping your house clean and tidy?

Closet Make-Over

Now that my students loans are almost completely paid off (two more payments!) J and I have decided to start doing some little things around the house. Part of it is because we're hoping to sell within the next couple years and we'd like to make a little money, and part of it is just because we haven't done much since we bought our place three years ago.

So far we've laid new flooring in the living room and dining room, plus we've given the spare room and the office a minor face lift. (Check out the fun I had giving our filing cabinet a new paint job...) The next room we plan on tackling is our master bedroom. But, before we could even start thinking about painting and re-decorating the room needed to be completely re-organized.

We decided to start with the closet and our dresser drawers this weekend. We ran a few errands in the morning, including getting our passport pictures done (yay!) and taking a run to Home Depot to pick out some kind of closet shelving kit. We went with the 5-8' FreeSlide because it looked like the best for our needs, and it was within our budget. (We had a $50 gift card and it was $59.99, so it was perfect.)

We've been horrible lately when it comes to putting our clothes away after we do laundry so we had baskets full of clean laundry everywhere, and most of it wasn't folded. So Saturday evening we threw in a DVD (Mom's Night Out, which was really cute) and started folding and organizing clothes. Of course we had some helpers during our laundry folding. Sydney wanted to play in every basket we opened, and Daisy wanted to knock over every pile of clean clothes she could. Luckily Daisy got tired eventually!

Sunday after church I took a little nap (like I do pretty much every Saturday) and J started putting up the closet organizer. It's a good thing my husband is handy, because the instructions aren't the greatest and they were designed for an 8' closet even though the organizer is for a 5' to 8' closet. Our closet is only 6' so he had to do some playing to get everything in and the way we wanted it. We spent Sunday evening sorting and putting away all of our clothes. We are huge pack rats, but we forced ourselves to throw out anything really ratty and we filled a couple garbage bags with clothes to donate somewhere. By the time we went to bed I was extremely happy with how the closet looked. Now it's time to pick out paint colours!

 

Book Review; "Midnight Crossroad" by Charlaine Harris

On Friday I finished my first book of the year and scratched "Book by a Female Author" off my 2015 Reading Challenge list.

Midnight Crossroad (A novel of Midnight, Texas)
Charlaine Harris | May 6, 2014

Amazon Synopsis: From Charlaine Harris, the bestselling author who created Sookie Stackhouse and her world of Bon Temps, Louisiana, comes a darker locale—populated by more strangers than friends. But then, that’s how the locals prefer it…

Welcome to Midnight, Texas, a town with many boarded-up windows and few full-time inhabitants, located at the crossing of Witch Light Road and Davy Road. It’s a pretty standard dried-up western town.

There’s a pawnshop (someone lives in the basement and is seen only at night). There’s a diner (people who are just passing through tend not to linger). And there’s new resident Manfred Bernardo, who thinks he’s found the perfect place to work in private (and who has secrets of his own).

Stop at the one traffic light in town, and everything looks normal. Stay awhile, and learn the truth...

My Thoughts: I read (and loved) all of the Sookie Stackhouse books and I think I was expecting "Midnight Crossroad" to be very similar. Harris is a great writer - her characters, settings, and plot are all well-developed and well-written - but I still struggled to get through this book. I blame that on the fact that I was expecting there to be more of a cross-over with Sookie's world. If I hadn't known who the author was I'm not sure I would have struggled quite so much, but I still don't think I would be inclined to pick up book 2 when it's released in May.

Have you ever been disappointed by a book from an author you usually enjoy?

 

Breakfast of Champions

For Chistmas this year J and I were given a Hamilton Beach Breakfast Sandwich Maker by my friend Lauren. The store I work in sells this little gadget and I've been eyeing them for quite a while so I was pretty excited when I opened it up Christmas morning. Yesterday was the first chance we actually had to use it and I was really happy with it.

We made our breakfast sandwiches using pancakes (Compliments frozen buttermilk pancakes fit in the sandwich maker perfectly if you've got one of your own), pre-cooked bacon, and an egg. After four minutes they were cooked perfectly. We covered them in maple syrup and enjoyed them with some fresh fruit. Best breakfast I've had at home in a while. (Actually better than the last meal I had at Cora's too, now that I think about it.)

Clean up was easy too, which is important to me. If it's too big of a pain to clean it I'm just not going to use it. I'm super lazy, especially when it comes to cleaning! (I made sure my slow cooker was dishwasher safe because I knew I wouldn't use it if I couldn't just chuck it in the dishwasher.)

The only downside was that we could only make one sandwich at a time, so J had his breakfast half finished before mine was finished cooking. They do sell dual sandwich makers, so if I feel like we're getting a lot of use out of this one I make look into getting one of those.

Do you have any neat little kitchen appliances that you love?

PS: This post wasn't sponsored or anything. I just really like our breakfast sandwich maker and I wanted to share one of my new favourite products. :-)

Upside-Down Pineapple Cake

Yesterday was my youngest brother-in-law's last day in Nova Scotia before he headed back to school in Florida. I can't believe how fast the last five weeks have flown by! It was great getting to spend some time with Joseph, he's grown up so much since he left for Pensacola a year and half ago. Joseph is the baby of the family and his older siblings (J included) have always treated him that way. These past five weeks I think they all saw their brother as more than the baby and I think their relationship with him changed and grew. It was great to see. He and J spent some one-on-one time skiing and I have to admit it made me really happy. (I'm a dork, and I accept that.)

 

The entire family went over to my mother- and father-in-law's place for lasagna last night. My mother-in-law doesn't make lasagna very often but we all get pretty excited when she does. I will always pick my mom's chilli, my mom's turkey dinner, and my mom's cookies but when it comes to lasagna my mother-in-law definitely wins. (Just don't tell my mom!)

 

I was off yesterday so I volunteered to make dessert. I've always wanted to try a pineapple upside down cake and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I was really happy with how well this cake turned out, and how simple it was to make. It was a huge hit with the whole family. If you're looking for something new to try, I definitely recommend giving this cake a try!

 

 

Upside-Down Pineapple Cake
Makes: 9 Pieces
Prep Time: 20 min. Total Time: 60 min.
Source: compliments.ca

[ Ingredients ]

1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 tbsp butter
9 slices pineapple (drained)
9 maraschino cherries
3 tbsp water

3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup of butter
1 large egg
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

[ Directions ]

1. Pre-heat oven to 325° F.
2. In a small saucepan heat brown sugar, butter and water. Stir mixture until it boils.
3. Grease the side of an 8x8 baking pan and pour the mixture in. Arrange your pineapple slices and cherries. (I had to cut a couple of the slices to get them to fit properly.)
4. Using an electric mixer cream the sugar and butter. Add egg, milk and vanilla and mix well.
5. Combine all the dry ingredients and then use a spatular to fold them into the wet ingredients.
6. Pour the batter into your greased pan and put it in the oven for 40 minutes. Check to make sure the cake is done by inserting a toothpick in the centre. If the toothpick comes out clean it's done.
7. Once cake has completely cooled invert it on to a plate and serve.

Enjoy!