All About me – Page 14 – a hippie with a minivan

The holidays are coming…

November is quickly coming to an end (Khéna will be 2 on Friday!!!) and of course that means that December will soon be here and the holidays will seem much closer…

Today we had our first snowfall that stuck for more than a few minutes… there is still snow on the ground and I have a feeling that more will be coming soon…

Anyway… the more that I think of the holidays, the more that I just want to boycott them…

Simon and I have already decided that we are not doing anything special, we are using the time he will be at home as family time… we are not inviting anyone over for the eve, and if people want to come over on other days we are not going to make a big deal of it…

Though I like the spirit of the holidays, all the pretty colours and I love taking out our decorations and making the house look all warm and colourful…I am tired of all the expectations… I am done with buying gifts just because I am expected to buy them without really wanting to, or knowing what someone wants or needs…I am tired of getting gifts that I don’t want or need and just end up cluttering space somewhere… and I am tired of people buying toys for the boys that are cheap, boring, loud or the kids are just not interested in…

I don’t think I would give up the holidays for our small family… we’ll keep the tree and a few choice gifts, we’ll keep some old traditions and continue to make new…

but there are things that I am ready to give up…

shopping day…

I have been wondering what to get Khéna for his second birthday for a while now…

we have enough toys… I have been wanting to purge toys, not have more…

yesterday I thought of the perfect thing…

Simon agreed…

so this morning I decided to head to IKEA…

I packed the boys into the car and we headed out… we got there at about 10:40 and the boys wanted to go to the playland… but it was only opening at 11… se we waited around a bit and they went in and Khéna and I went shopping a bit.. I don’t go to IKEA much but there is so much cool stuff there and the kids loved the playland…

I got the chair and few more things and we put the things in the car and then headed back in to eat…

Just as we were leaving IKEA I saw that Homesense was right next to it and my pizza stone broke a while back so I thought that since we were there I should pick up a new one… Just across the Aisle from the pizza stones were the mixers so I checked out the one that I have been waiting for (still on backorder) and saw that it was on special at the same price and in stock… so I called Annie for her to look up the number for Sears, called them and cancelled my order and picked up the one that was there… omg… I can’t wait to use it!!! It is now sitting on my counter and just calling for me to bake something!

oh… and Khéna loves his chair…

long but great day yesterday…

Yesterday was my great friend Gen’s baby shower… she is having boy/girl twins! She is so beautiful!

It was held at her mom’s in the afternoon…. the weather was pretty bad… grey, raining, cold… so I left a bit early from the house to have the time to go to Fabricville and then called to see if her mom minded if I got there a bit early… In the end it was a good things because I was able to help them get ready…

Gen arrived and was pretty surprised, she knew that there would be a party but she didn’t know when it would be… and I think she was also a bit overwhelmed at the amount of people that were there and the amount of gifts that they recieved… (I gave her a buckwheat nursing pillow and an amber necklace)

I got some great pics which I still have to process and then went back to her house with her after to pick up a co-op order and hang out… by the time I started heading home it was pretty late and it was raining and I was exausted… so I did everything I could to not fall a sleep at the wheel… I hate feeling like that…

Another thing that happened yesterday was that at one point my jaw got really sore and wouldn’t stop hurting… I noticed just before that I was clenching my teeth a lot and I was also eating a bit too much sugar… I am not sure what caused it but it is not going away and it is really annoying…

anyway… I cheated a bit yesterday for my post because I got home and then headed for bed pretty much straight away… I think that my body is starting to get used to the new time that I have been heading to bed at…

there's going to be a whole lot of baking going on…

Yesterday… when taking out my old loathed stand mixer from under the counter (a ten year old 30$ west bend) the glass bowl fell and broke into a million pieces… and no, I am not exaggerating by saying a million… there was not one large piece left in tact and there was tons of glass dust everywhere…

Anyway… Ironically I had sent Simon a link last week of my dream mixer…

you know the kind that you don’t have to hold down with all of your force when it is trying to knead dough….

the kind that doesn’t start smelling like burnt plastic after 2 min…

The kind that can actually mix a batch of cookies and not cry out for help…

Well… guess what I am getting for X-mas!

Cuisinart 7 Quart Stand Mixer

I just ordered it today because it is on sale at Sears until Friday… (150$ off…)

Omg… I can’t wait to get it!

I feel weird today…

The more healthy I eat, the less processed and more whole, the better I feel…

I am also quickly realizing that when I don’t eat well I feel it… something that didn’t happen as much even a year ago…

Yesterday… I didn’t eat well at all… it was delicious, I didn’t overeat, it was homemade and yummy… but it was greasy (both lunch and supper) and then followed by a bit too many snack size chocolates and today I have been experiencing the consequences…

Feeling this way kind of makes me happy in a weird way…

My diet has been improving more over the last years… and when I was not eating well on a regular basis, a day like yesterday would not have phased me or my body… as I am sure is the case with many others that do not eat well on a regular basis… and because it doesn’t make you feel “worse” then it is hard to change your habits…

but now, knowing that I don’t feel well after eating certain things makes me want to eat better.. not just because I know that it is good for me, but because my body says no also…and I want to avoid feeling like I did this morning…

That is a big step I believe…