The travelers are back....

A past co-worker of mine set out almost a year ago on a trip around the world and they are back in Canada again. Brandy and her husband adventured to some amazing places...they safaried in Africa, they checked out the Himalayas and Peru. They even spent some time in the Galapagos Islands and in all their adventures, they took the time to take pictures and blog about their trip to make people like me dream of winning the lottery and planning my own little trip!

If you are looking for some wonderful first hand info, pictures, recommended places to see and guides to use...check out their blog and sign their guest book telling them you are jealous and you envy them and maybe even hate them (just kidding folks!) for taking the wonderful trip of a lifetime!

Enjoy the reading...it truly is amazing and the pictures are fantabulous!!!!

Welcome back Kevin and Brandy!

This is totally me......if I was a car!

I'm a Chevrolet Corvette!

You're a classic - powerful, athletic, and competitive. You're all about winning the race and getting the job done. While you have a practical everyday side, you get wild when anyone pushes your pedal. You hate to lose, but you hardly ever do.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

I really don't know about rarely losing...somedays if feels like I rarely win! Athletic??? Don't know how that one got in there! Not me! The only activity that could come close to being a sport (cause it's played on a team!) is my 2 nights a week at pool!

So which car are you????

Meating the dealers!

No that wasn't a spelling error. Last night at pool I endeavored to prove to the whole community what carnivores we really are!

I've been really lucky and made some great contacts for people that have access to some of our family's favorite meat...cheap!

Hubby is a real sucker for all things hot! He tries out every new hot sauce on the market and when we find a spicy sausage it's a really good day for him!

At pool on Tuesday nights I meet with my regular dealer for Jerky...my family loves beef jerky and it's normally soooo expensive. This guy's brother in law makes it with love and care and the perfect recipe for spiciness and sells it for cheap. It could be compared to having a drug habit that a good dealer knows how to exploit. My guy sees me walk into the place, asks me how I'm doing and how much I need and I place my order. He even brings extra grocery bags so I can carry the product non-descript like through the pool hall! He's good!

My other contact gets us chourice and linguisa (both are types of hot Portuguese sausage)

Last night I left the bar with two grocery bags of our favorite meat and this morning my husband was kneeling before me when he got home from work..thanking me for being the BEST wife EVER!!!!

For the next few days I will be regaled in love and appreciation till the meat is gone!

Just a big CRYBABY!

That's me! I'm just a big emotional crybaby!

We just finished March Break for the younger crowd and Brianne and Jen have been home all week and I've seen them on and off all week. Brianne spent her weekends babysitting for my girlfriend and Jen, well you know her she was at Boy's house most of the week. I mean let's face it, I have a busy schedule as well and it does make it hard to find alot of time.

Anyway, on Saturday I called Aimee (who had to stay in Waterloo studying for Lab exam and finish her thesis stuff) to see how she was doing. Aimee was sick. She also sounded cranky and when I offered to come for a visit she told me "no,never mind, I don't want you driving here by yourself at night. Wait till tomorrow and we'll see then." This was 6 pm. At 7pm she changed her mind and called and asked me to come the next day for sure. At 8 pm Jen and Matt came over to hang out and we changed her mind by calling and telling her we were coming! We piled into the car and arrived to visit an hour later.

We decided to go see a movie. This is where my crying started! We chose a Disney feel good movie called "Eight Below" OMG, this type of movie should be outlawed! It was a good movie, but frankly anything that makes you cry from beginning to end should be banned! I honestly spent more time crying than anything in this movie. I should have been doing a range of emotions, that's what I'm used to! Laugh a little, get a little angry, annoyed, excited...okay, even cry a little! But seriously, one hour and forty minutes of crying in a two hour movie...NOT SO FRICKING MUCH!

Anyway, after the movie we took Aimee grocery shopping to restock the pantry! My kid, the 85% vegetarian, had no fresh veggies, no fruit, no juice! NO wonder she wasn't feeling great!

So finally we said our goodbyes and when we left Aimee seemed in better spirits. She was smiling and had put down the razor!

All in all it was Mission accomplished and for me it was a opportunity to spend some time with the girls!

Have a good week everyone!!
TTYL

Follow your Dreams!

All of my children's lives I have been telling them to follow their dreams, to do want they need to do to make them happy and to know that no matter what we would find a way to make things happen.

Today I look back at this philosophy and I know that I was right! It has been a struggle at times, both emotionally and financially but in the end it's SO been worth every bit of upheaval.

Last night we got wonderful news! Aimee called me very excited, she had just received an email and needed me to be on the phone when she opened it....it was from the University of Toronto and it held the message that she had been anticipating for ages...She's been accepted to do her Masters. Along with this comes summer employment! All of this briefly eased her mind about her future dreams and I say briefly because after doing the happy dance the next words out of her mouth were "Shit Mom, how am I gonna pay for this!" OMG...can you just celebrate for one week and we'll figure it out.

This year my eldest daughter Jennifer will graduate with Honours from her Bachelor of Education and fulfill what she believes is a lifelong dream to help young minds grow! She will be a teacher. This young lady has struggled and grown into a beautiful young lady that will enhance the lives of many with her kindness and wisdom!

To both my daughter's I have only this to say:

Congratulations my Dear Hearts! I am very proud of both of you! You make my heart sing and the tears of joy well up in my eyes just thinking about you both. And I'm never gonna stop cooking with cheese!

Follow your Dreams....and remember to dream big!

In my next life......

Kilo and Hunny just a laying in the sun

In my next life....I wanna be a dog!

Wait for me, it's all moving so fast......

This past weekend was a busy one! The girls raced home from University to give the house a sprucing up before I got home from work....Aimee messaged me and told me not to go grocery shopping after work that she would pick something up for dinner...

Can you tell that something was up? Actually my girls have always gone way out and above the call of dutiful daughters when it comes to their Mama Dukes special occasions. This weekend it was my birthday on Sunday. In order to accommodate everyone's busy schedules we started celebrating mine on Friday night. The evening began with hugs all around, yay, the girls are home! Look around, wow absolutely spotless house...(sure that's not how I left it in the morning!)bottom to top, floors and all done by Jen, Matt, Brianne and Hubby! Look further into the kitchen and you will find, lovingly prepared by Aimee and Greg a meal fit for a Mama Dukes if she was a queen! Seafood appetizers to begin, Chicken cordon bleu with parmesan sauce,cauliflower and potatoes! Way too much for one night! You might wonder why all this was done on Friday instead of Saturday, well I wondered too! That was when they announced to me that a party had been planned for Saturday night in my honour. Imagine my surprise to discover that my Hubby found his way to organizing this all without my help! He truly outdid himself!



He ordered the cake





He invited the gang. He got a few pictures.



I got some great gifts!!!

The next day Aimee and Rob and Brianne cleaned up and the house was back to spotless!

On Sunday afternoon we attended a Baby Shower to celebrate the upcoming arrival of a first born child to our friends Kate and Mark

This was a type of shower I have never attended. It was actually held in a rented hall, catered and there were no nasty games where people steal your clothes pins if you say baby. It was actually a very nice time, just a lot more formal than anything I've ever attended. (Kate tells me one of her wedding showers (the one I missed) was the same type of deal...kind of like a Lesbian Wedding..150 of her closest friends, family and strangers to a sit down lunch complete with open bar!) There were probably 30 or 40 people there. The gifts were absolutely beautiful! Looking at the gifts made me wonder how my kids got out of infancy! They got a baby monitor that monitors breathing (motion stops for more than 20 seconds and the alarm goes off!),they got one that sends video of the baby sleeping to a monitor that the parents can watch from another room. They got so many crib activity items that made me think the poor child will surely grow to have ADD and require 24 hour constant stimulation. The gifts were amazing. Everyone was wanting to ensure that this new bundle of joy would have the best upon entering the world.

Here's a couple of pics to give you an idea...











Kate's Mom and Mother-in-Law did an amazing job organizing the event!!

It was a great weekend! Can I get a couple of days off to recuperate..ah, maybe next weekend.

TTYL

Hot and Bothered by Some Peoples Children!

Man oh Man, it's hot in this office. Why can't they regulate the temperature in this building! Certain days we freeze and others we swelter and there is not a fricking palm tree in sight!

I know the title makes it sound like I'm being aroused in ways that should remain unspoken. This is not the case! I'm hot and on another train of thought I'm just damn bothered by some peoples children....including my own!

Let's start this off by saying it's not been a good day. In fact the week started off pretty crummy. I just came back from 5 days off, all in a row. They were enjoyable days off, spent drinking coffee with DD#2, playing cards and creating (I'll expand more on this next week!)so Monday was expectedly yucky. What made it more interesting is the changing of the email system that made it look like I hadn't missed a thing! That was not to be...
Anyway,with my b-day less than a week away, I was trying to blame the recent down mood on the change of life but people keep telling me I'm too young for that! How do they know....?? I mean, frankly, my body could just be saying "Enough is enough, I can't go on.." ooops, put a little Barbara Streisand or Donna Summers tunage to that and I'm definately giving my age away...who am I trying to kid? I talk about my kids and the fact that they are in University all the time...I'm older than 25 okay! Anyway this week the office heat has been blaring and it's not just me! I have confirmation from at least 4 other people in the office (all women over 30, but just the same!) I hate the heat.

So what else is making you down you might ask....well it's people. I have very little tolerance for stupid people...have I mentionned that before? yeah maybe I have. Today while in a meeting, I received a panicked call from DD#3, as soon as I heard her voice I asked if I could call her back. "But Mom, I'm calling from the school payphone...can I go to the mall?" That is what she paged me for. I was defenseless in a room full of people unable to voice my anger and all I could say was no.

She is grounded....the message I got when I got to my desk was this...

"Hi Mom, it's me Brianne...I didn't really hear what you said before you hung up so I just wanted to let you know that I went to the mall and I will talk to you around 5:30. Maybe you could pick me up at the back door of the mall? I found two sweaters for $10 each that I like at Bootleggars. I don't want my belly button peirced anymore so can I have my money?"

no, not grounded, she will be dead.

On another note, a very good friend of our family, "Thumper" has not been taking care of himself and has gotten himself so run down that after blood tests, the Dr's office has called him and told him to report to the hospital for blood transfusion because his hemoglobin is at 55. (norm is supposedly around 135) Please enlighten me as to why a man with a beautiful wife, 2 small children and another on the way would put himself and his family in such danger of loss? He went, complaining all the way!

There are other items that for fear of being "dooced", are much better left un-voiced.

So that is it...hot

and really "SOME PEOPLES CHILDREN!"