Loosing my mind on light duty!

Recovering from surgery is never a fun time. Especially for someone like me who is go go go all day, and generally does most things myself because then it's done right lol. Tomorrow will be a full month since my surgery, and I am still on light duty. To say it's driving me crazy would be an understatement.
It's snowing, there's a mountain of laundry, still haven't put away the Christmas decorations, the floors are in need of a good "on hands and knees" scrub, and we still have boxes kicking around from the move that need to be sorted through and organised. The kicker ... I can't DO anything. I can drive around now, and do errands and shopping but it wears me right out and I need a nap after. I can do some cooking, as long as I can sit down in between stirring/checking. Today I'm attempting the dishes. Only the breakfast and lunch ones, but somehow I've still needed a few breaks in between. The reality is I'm more scared of overdoing it then anything. Other than the low energy I feel great. Better than I have in a year since these health issues started. I really don't know what I am physically capable of because I refuse to but myself and find out. The last thing I need is another surgery.

Specialist follow up appointment isn't until Feb 3, and I really don't want to push it until I get the all clear. That being said I have hired someone to come clean the house on Friday because my boys have been working hard enough. Hopefully that will calm me down a bit for a few more weeks and I'll make it to the follow up appointment without doing something stupid.

~ Niki

This is me!

So this is me. I'm a 33 yr old wife and mother of 3 boys. Two of which still live at home. My husband works out of town as an excavator operator in the oil patch. He's away from home sometimes for months at a time, so that leaves me as a single mom with double income, and a wife to a man never around. Now I know some people aren't gonna like that statement, however it is the reality. Let me explain. I'm at home 24/7 with my boys. "Don't they go to school?" Is probably the first thing that comes to mind and that answer would be no. I homeschool both our boys. "Oh so your religious or scared of the world around you" again nope. (For the record all the questions I'm posting I have been asked more than once!) I am spiritual, and my kids see and live more of the real world than most kids in public school, they have friends scattered all over the globe that homeschool and/or go to public school. Currently they don't have many local friends, however we just moved to a new house 3 hours away from our old house, and haven't as of yet had a chance to really get out and meet people. "Why's that?" Well that's another blog post that I'll get to in the near future.

"So what do you exactly do in a day?" Well for that grab yourself a drink and you can check out a couple of my other blog posts. Typical winter "no running around" "home" day. Typical winter a "running around" day.

"What do you do in your free time?" Well when I have free time I read, knit, crochet, paint, watch movies, listen to music, take pictures, chat with friends and family, or spend time outside (that is when it's not -40c) just to name a few. I always have about 100 projects on the go, and bounce between them as the mood hits me or time finds me.

To sum me up in one post is pretty much impossible, but here's a few basics. I'm a country girl that loves life, dreams of having a full farm making my family mostly self sufficient. I love to teach art, and one day plan on getting my doctorate in art history. I LOVE animals of all kinds, even though I wouldn't hesitate to pull a trigger to feed my family. I have big plans and even bigger dreams, and I don't give up easily. I have more hobbies then I can keep track of. I have OCD, and ADHD which to me are gifts that I was blessed with. I've lived a hard life so far, and I'm still standing! Want to know more? Follow me on this journey that is my life. Just hand in cause it's bound to be one hell of a ride!

~ Niki

Typical winter "running around" day

Running around days typically start off the same as a "home" day. Coffee, smoke, breakfast, etc. only if we're going out the night before I have done up all my list (shopping, errands, banking, etc) and I normally go over them while I'm cooking or drinking my coffee. I also jump online and check if there's any sales on stuff we need that I missed. What can I say I don't like spending more than I have to if I can save a few bucks by driving a block down the road I will! Keep in mind this isn't one of my trip into the city days where I drive 3 hrs both ways, deal with Dr appointments, quick visits with friends, and large bulk grocery shopping.

So now that everyone has ate, lists are done, and kids have done morning chores, we have to start the truck, sweep the mountain of snow off of it, make sure that the driveways shovelled (if it snowed the night before this could easily take an hour), load everyone up in the vehicle, make sure we have some snacks on hand and head into town. Depending on which town we are going to and road conditions this could be anywhere from 30 min to an hour and a half ... Each way ... 

The shopping in itself seems to be a juggling act if not a tactical maneuver especially on cold days. Making sure anything that can't stand freezing or heat fluctuations isn't bought until the last couple stores. Plus you don't want to be driving back and forth through town wasting gas either. Like I said juggling act. 

There's a couple towns (the further ones) that when we go we stop and visit friends, so again we take care of our visits before our final couple stores. Then hopefully before supper we are on our way home. If not we stop and grab something quick then back on the road.

By the time we're home it's already been a long day but we now have to unload and put everything away. Generally the kids pack everything in the house from the truck and I put it all away. If we haven't had supper I normally toss a casserole that I made in advance into the oven and start it while putting everything away. Or we do "crap" food. You know those kd and hot dog nights. Yeah we do them every now and then! 

Once everything's put away, kids have finished night rounds on the pets, and suppers done we finally sit down and put our feet up. Kids can have screen time or we watch movies, or whatever else we decide to do. Days like this might not sound crazy to you, but let me tell ya we hit anywhere from 5 - 10 stops/stores on these days. By the time we get home we're done. 

Some days the boys stay home and if I don't need help or we aren't going to visit anyone. I get my shopping and errands done as quick as possible and head back home. These days the kids will get a little extra screen time, but they also get a little more reading and maybe some "schoolwork" done too.

For the record both my boys are old enough to be home alone, and this is really my only "me time" even if it does only happen once or twice a month haha!

~ Niki

Typical winter "no running around" "home" day.

Get up, make coffee and go stand outside and have half a smoke. (Half because not only am I trying to quit, but it's normally -40c in the mornings or at least feels like it)

Now if the kids aren't up already I either take advantage of the quiet and sit down and do some work (I run my own business, actually a couple of them ... Again another upcoming post), or enjoy the quiet and read a few pages in a book.

Once the kids are up the day officially begins. Breakfast needs to be made (or brunch depending on what time it is) so I get that going, very rarely do my kids have cereal for breakfast, they eat it if they get up before me or if they are in a mood for it, but generally breakfast consists of omelette, breakfast casseroles, eggs on toast, bacon, oatmeal, pancakes, you get the idea. Not a quick pop it in a microwave and poof breakfast in 2 min. This kind of cooking also means extra dishes.

Now I'll eat quick with the boys then go have the other half of my smoke from when I got up.

Next is doing up the pile of dishes that are dirty now. Before you ask, no we don't have a dishwasher, we moved from a 3000sqft house in the city with all the extras (stainless steal appliances, front load high efficiency washer dryer etc) to a 900sqft house on 20 acres. No there's no room for my dishwasher so I sold it! Along with all our other appliances because I'm done living in the rat race of needing to have the best of everything, and need to get back to basics!

Normally the kids are or have been working on their chores during this time. Which consist of, feeding/changing water for the dogs, feeding/changing water for the cats (times 2 since we have an anti social cat that like to be in the basement all by herself), cleaning cat litter, and if it snowed they start the first round of shovelling which is all the walkways and paths (again we're on an acreage there's lots of paths.

Once they have eaten, and chores are all done they generally get some screen time. Which normally means they are playing minecraft or wow with friends, which also means Skype calls as well. Some days they choose to play together on their Xbox, and others ones on computer the other on Xbox. Either way they get some free time.

While they are doing their free time I normally try to do some laundry or cleaning, in between answering emails, doing work, paying bills, baking, ordering this that and the next thing for hubby, or again any combination of the list. It is very rare that I just sit around doing nothing if I'm lucky I'm on my second cup of coffee at this point which is probably cold.

Then we do what most people consider school work. Kids will either work on a lapbook project, have a movie to watch, do research online, work on crafts, cooking, baking, worksheets, experiments, etc. my boys are constantly learning from the min they wake up until the min we go to bed.

In between I'm normally still cooking/cleaning/working when they don't need me. We also have had lunch and a snack or two by this point. Again generally real food, not a microwaveable dish although some days we do have that kinda thing.

Once that's all done the kids would normally go outside start working on shovelling the driveways, take out garbage, burn the burnables, etc. and I'd be starting supper. They also do a second round of food/check the water for all the pets if they haven't done so already.

We eat together as a family, especially supper. That is one meal that we make sure we have together. Whether we eat at the table or on the couch while watching a movie it is together.

The kids deal with the supper dishes and I try to deal with work or school or more things for hubby as well as fold and put away any laundry. 

The night really depends on a lot of things, but is generally family time. 

Once the kids go to bed I take care do any other business/school stuff, catch up with friends, read, clean, bake, sow, crochet, knit, paint, etc. Then crawl into bed myself. 

In between the craziness of the day I've also smoked a few more cigarettes (half at a time), drank more coffee, and had a couple phone call convos with my hubby (the kids talked to him before they went to bed too). 

This is a typical "no running around" "home" day in the winter. There of course are many variations of it, including me helping them shovel outside, snowball fights, running remote controls outside together, taking hikes through the snow to take pics, so on and so forth.

~ Niki

Trying to get this blog going.

So here I am, iPad on my lap stearing at the screen, just like I've done every other day since I downloaded the blogger app. I've been saying for years I'm going to do it this time, I'm gonna blog. So I start a new one with every intention of keeping up and then boom life hits me and it gets lost in the shuffle. I really don't know how to keep on track with it, but hey here goes! This time I'm not gonna spend all the time making everything fancy. I'm gonna for once try and keep my OCD in check and just write. I figure once I hit 50 posts I'll reward myself with that ability. I don't know exactly what I'll be posting in the future the reality is I do a lot and have a lot of interests. So heads up this could be a wirlwind of a blog. Like I tell my kids, strap in, hang on cause this is the ride of our life!

~ Niki