What have I been up to?

Maybe stuff like this?

And this?

And maybe a little of this?

Well howdy strangers! I hope I still have a few people who at least follow me in a reader or something so will see that I have finally posted again!

Oh. My. Gosh. What a ride it has been since I last posted! I said I didn’t want to go all summer without posting like I did last year, but then I went and pretty much did just that. I didn’t know at the time though just what the summer would bring!

I am very happy to say that I have made amazing progress on a couple those little goals for the year that I set for myself in January.

First of all my weight, I had a goal of losing 20lbs this year. I blogged about our change in diet, almost completely cutting out sugar, grains and starches. We are still going strong with that, we still have our little treats once or twice a week of a burger and I have my favorite coffee. With 2 and a half months still to go in the year I have lost 30lbs officially as of today!  My husband has lost 40! We both feel GREAT! Not just because of the weight, but the change in diet has done wonders for other things like migraines and stomach issues that have plagued me for years.

The other goal I’ve made progress on is the “plan a business” goal. I have been working my butt off for the past 3 months not only starting my business, but one for hubby too. Remember my Juno Designs website that I posted a while back with my CafePress T-shirts and stuff? Well, that’s not what is on that site anymore! My CafePress stuff can still be accessed through my CafePress Juno Designs site. But now my Juno Designs site is home to my new business. I’m making jewelry, and not just any jewelry, fun and unique jewelry with skulls, dragons, celtic symbols, buttons, washers…..and I have SO many more things to come(think Steampunk and Chainmaille just to name a couple)! I’m also selling some of my husband’s amazing photography. And I have been helping my husband get his business going too. My husband is a bit of a huge Geek, we’ve been moving his huge collection of comics and gaming books around for over 20 years……well he has finally decided to let most of them go and use them to start his own business!

We have spent the past 3 months setting up at a Swap Meet Farmers Market every weekend with our stuff, and it has been a blast!! Sadly because it is an outdoor market it’s closed for the season now . We’re trying to find a place we can afford to set up during the winter, but so far haven’t found anything decent that we can afford. I am going to do a couple of craft sales next month though with my jewelry and my husband’s photography….I’m so excited about that!

Anyway, I need to cut this short now because I have like a gazillion things to do, but I really wanted to finally get on here and post an update. I have had no time to work on recipes to post and I don’t have much to post for outfit posts because most of my clothes are too big for me right now LOL, that and I’ve just been so busy  that even if I do get dressed up nice I don’t have time to take pics. Don’t give up on me though, I just need more time to get life a little more organized(which is probably also include a move in the next handful of months) and I will be back to blogging!

I would LOVE it if you would check out my website , I can’t ship to the US off my actual website because Paypal has major restrictions as to how you can set up shipping charges and stuff like that as soon as you are outside of the US…..I have some of my stuff up on an Etsy store, and I can ship to the US if ordered off there, but I had to up my prices a bit because of the extra fees Etsy charges…..I still strive to keep my prices really good(right now none of my jewelry is over $10!). And come see me on my Facebook page too! I have pictures of almost everything on there, and I do my best to accommodate requests too!

My website

My Facebook Page

My Etsy Store

If you’re into the Geek stuff(or know someone who is) my husband’s website is Winking Mutant Collectible Comics and Gaming Books, there’s not a lot of comics up yet because I have to scan and post them one at a time and there are hundreds of them….it’s going to take me a while! LOL

Some more of my jewelry :

         

One of these days soon I hope I can find time to get reading blogs again, I miss reading everyone’s blog!!!

 

Jolene

Holidays Are Over :(

Well, today is the last day of hubby’s 2 weeks of holiday. It was a great 2 weeks, but I’m sad it’s over(fortunately he has 2 more weeks in early September, yay!).

A lot happened in 2 weeks. We got some yard work done, got a little bit done inside the house(though not as much as we wanted, it just got too hot and with no a/c going in the house we just couldn’t do it in the heat). Went to the Calgary Stampede. We went camping for a couple of nights, cut it short by a night because the heat was just too much for everyone, but we enjoyed the 2 nights we did have. We spent all day every day together, had our 15th Anniversary and for the first Anniversary in a while we actually got to spend it together! We went for burgers and out collecting firewood for our fire pit lol, I’m a cheap and easy date because it was all good for me!

I got a phone call while camping on Wednesday. My Mom and Dad had just got back on Tuesday after being gone for a month because of my Grandpa passing away(my Mom’s Dad), then just the next day after being back they get the call that my Grandma passed(my Dad’s Mom). She was 96. I haven’t got to have a good cry over it yet, I know I need to. But I don’t like crying in front of people. I’ve had some small break downs that I’ve managed to hide. Now I just have one Grandma left. It’s been hard to go from not knowing losing anyone to losing 2 special people less than 3 weeks apart. There’s a bit of guilt in there too because I haven’t seen them in such a long time, but we just never had the money to go visit.

On a more upbeat note; hubby and I finally got to go out on a REAL date night last night for the first time in a very long time(probably last time would have been hubby’s Christmas Party for work 2 Christmases ago). I was on Twitter yesterday and saw a tweet from the Calgary Stampede to go to their Facebook page and enter to win tickets for the Johnny Reid concert that was last night. In order to enter you had to post a picture of the Stampede. I almost wasn’t going to do it, I hesitated a few times then finally decided to post a picture we had taken of us at the Travel Texas booth. After posting it we went out to get some groceries, I started to feel a little sick because it was so hot and muggy out so we decided to finish the shopping later and come back home. I went to lay down when we got back home but decided I would check Facebook quick first…..and when I did I found out I was one of the winners!! I realize Johnny Reid may not be so well known to some, he’s a Scottish born Canadian Country Music singer. I’m a HUGE Country music fan and I have loved this man for a while now but could never afford to go see him when he came. It was short notice, but fortunately we had no plans for the night and our kids are now old enough that we don’t have to worry about finding a babysitter. We had such an amazing night!!! The concert was absolutely incredible, I love this singer even more now! It was a fantastic way to finish off hubby’s holidays. I can’t remember the last time I went out and had such a great time! Even though when we came back home the stresses of money issues and other things and the sadness of the loss of my Grandparents was still there, it felt so good to go out and enjoy myself for the night.

Now I need to get back on track with our regular schedule, blogging better and more often will hopefully be a part of that! Most important thing I have to do is make money though, have to figure out what I’m going to do and very soon. Sadly as much as hubby likes where he is, he might have to look for a job that pays more, he’s not getting paid the going rate for his position in this city as it is and his raise is going to be so low it’s a slap in the face and that after being told they probably won’t get full bonus and yet the company is doing amazing and growing all the time. Neither of us are too happy about it, when he went to work there 2 years ago it was with the plan of him staying there long term and hopefully eventually retire with the company. But the type of position he works should pay enough for a man to support his family, especially considering we are a pretty frugal family, we don’t buy extravagant stuff or go on expensive holidays or anything like that. With the job he has we shouldn’t be struggling like we are. So unless they clue in to that he’s going to have no choice but look elsewhere, which it looks like they won’t because they just lost a guy who worked there 18 years because he got a job with WAY more money and less responsibility and then they go and give hubby this pathetic “raise”(can’t even call it that, it’s less than how much cost of living has gone up). Currently almost every one of their supervisors is looking elsewhere over the same issues, so it’s not just us being picky or whiny.

Anyway, I will make an effort to get back on track with blogging regardless of what ends up going on .

Jolene

Just Saying Hello

Just a quick hello post!

Today my hubby and I celebrated 15 years of marriage! How fast that time has gone, hard to believe I’ve been married for that many years already!

Tomorrow we’re going to the Calgary Stampede, other than one year when we were living down in Texas I have not missed a year of going since my family moved to Calgary in 1988. We don’t do a lot, in fact tomorrow will probably only be a couple of hours of walking around just looking at stuff, but the Stampede is such a big and wonderful thing and we love and support our city so we always go. We just can’t afford all the rides and games and shows and stuff. The $20 for parking(provided it didn’t go up this year) and the cost of getting in is already more than we can really afford.

Next week we’ll be going camping. I’m a little concerned because it’s supposed to be very hot and I don’t handle heat well, but we’re going anyway and hopefully I’ll do ok and we’ll have a great time. At least the car will be right there so if I start to get my usual heat exhaustion I can sit in the car with some a/c blasting if I have to lol.

I’m sure I won’t be able to post again for at least a week, so I hope everyone is having a great summer so far and hopefully I can get to some great posts I have in mind soon!

  Jolene

Friend Makin’ Monday

I am slacking big time, aren’t I? I’ve just been so busy and now hubby is on holidays, and we all know holidays mean being even busier, right? LOL. I don’t know how much I’ll be posting these next 2 weeks while he’s on holidays, we have this week planned with getting stuff done around the house, the week will end with taking in the Calgary Stampede, and then next week we’re going camping again(pleeeeeease let the weather cooperate!!). So don’t be surprised if it’s another couple of weeks before I’m posting much. I’m definitely feeling better than I was in my last post and have lots I want to blog about, just haven’t had the time.

Since it’s Monday I thought I would quickly participate in this weeks Friend Makin’ Monday.

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

FMM: Quick Questions

1. What are your plans for Independence Day? I live in Canada, but we just had Canada Day yesterday. We spent the day working outside in the backyard.

2. What is the last thing interesting thing you drank? I never drink anything overly interesting LOL, but I treated myself to my favorite coffee tonight, Tim Horton’s XL Double Double, yum!

3. Share on of your favorite quotes. Not much of a quotes person(becoming more fond of them lately though), but I’ve loved a good many quotes from the great Ronald Reagan, one: "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."

4. Name someone or something that makes you smile.  My husband and my children

5. What will you/did you eat for lunch today? the usual, nothing LOL. My small appetite is definitely helping with the lack of money situation lol!

6. What’s the last movie that you watched and enjoyed? Can’t remember the last movie I watched, it has been a couple months since I watched one.

7. Share something sweet and unexpected that someone did for you recently. My hubby gave me a little back massage last night, LOL, I don’t get those very often anymore.

8. If you could spend ten days on vacation anywhere in the world, where would you go?  That’s a tough one. I would either want some gorgeous beach somewhere, or spend it on a road trip visiting ghost towns and other points of historic interest….there are so many ruins all over the world I want to see so badly.

9. What are you currently reading? Blogs LOL, that’s about it.

10. Share at least one thing that you’re looking forward to this week.  My hubby not going to work! And going to the Calgary Stampede on Friday. And most of all, my 15th Wedding Anniversary is this week!!

Now it’s your turn to answer the questions on your blog.  Don’t forget to come back and link up in the comments!  Happy Monday!

RIP Grandpa

My Grandpa passed away Friday night. He surprised everyone by lasting just one night shy of a full 2 weeks with nothing entering his body but morphine to make sure he wasn’t in pain and the very occasional sip of water when he was conscious. He was even talking to the nurses at the beginning of the week.

I’m so sad he’s gone, but he would never have wanted to be like he was, so I’m glad he’s no longer wasting away and in a way that was not him. He never wanted to be like that.

The funeral will be Wednesday, I do feel bad that we can’t go. I want to send my Grandma something, but I don’t know what. She’s in what I guess would be an assisted care facility herself. If anyone has any ideas of what to send, please share. So far all I can come up with is a letter and some pictures, I’m horrible at writing letters though, not sure what to say. Grandpa loved trains, I wish I could find some sort of train themed thing that could be engraved in his memory or something. I don’t know. I’m not used to this sort of thing, I don’t know what’s appropriate and I don’t have much money to spend. I’m worried that now that Grandpa is gone she will go downhill fast, I hope I’m wrong. Grandma is tiny but strong.

I have so many posts I want to do, hopefully I’ll feel up to doing some better posting soon. It’s not just Grandpa passing away, but I’ve been feeling a little down lately anyway. Money is definitely high on the list of reasons. But everything else just seems to come together all at once too. I hate never feeling like I fit in anywhere. I have felt like this my whole life. I’m always too fat for the skinny crowd but too skinny for the fat crowd. Too poor for the rich crowd but too rich for the poor crowd(bwahaha, yeah, right, rich). Too smart for the dumb crowd, too dumb for the smart crowd. Not conservative enough for the conservative crowd, but way too conservative for the liberal crowd. Too funny for stick up their ass crowd, but not funny enough for never take life seriously crowd. Too nice for most, not nice enough for some. I just feel we live in a world where if you’re just nice, calm, cool and  middle of the road you’re nothing, you have to be extreme to get noticed or be worth anything. I refuse to change who I am, but wish more people would realize that middle of the road is a good thing too. I always feel this way, just sometimes it bothers me more than others. I think it has been bothering me a lot lately because I tried so hard for the past years to gain more followers for my blog. I see others who started their blog around the same time as I did and they have hundreds of followers even though I never see them commenting on other peoples blogs. How do they get so many followers? While I haven’t had as much time lately, in the past year I have spent a LOT of time reading, following and commenting on other blogs. I have done everything that top bloggers list to recommend getting more followers and none of it has worked for me. I know having a lot of followers shouldn’t be a big deal, and in many ways it’s not, but in a lot of ways it is. If you have very few followers it makes you feel like you’re not good enough to follow, having a decent amount of followers makes you feel like what you’re spending the time to post is worth something. I don’t know, I don’t think I’m explaining very good what I mean lol, my mind is mush. I know there’s some out there who understand what I’m trying to say and struggle too.

Hubby works this week and then is on holidays for 2 weeks, the first week we’re sticking around the house and getting stuff done, the second week we are going to go camping again(please let the weather cooperate!), so I likely won’t be posting at all that second week. I’m going to try and pull my emotions together though in the next couple of days here and get back to posting some good stuff!

Jolene

The Great Outdoors

It’s been a pretty good week! We went camping for 2 nights, first time in 20 years hubby and I have been camping, first time ever for my boys. We all had a great time. It would have been better if it was a bit warmer and a little less windy, but we had a lot of fun nonetheless. The boys didn’t get to go fishing as they were hoping to, we even had the river running right behind our campsite, but the fish are still spawning and the first day fishing is allowed is tomorrow. They were kind of bummed about that. We’re going to go camping again in a few weeks when hubby is on holidays and we can go for longer hopefully because he has more days off and it should hopefully be warmer by then.

We thought about staying one more night, but figured we wouldn’t push our luck and since it’s Friday we knew the campground would fill up more and not be quite as peaceful as it was during the week. It was my birthday today too(I can’t believe I’m 37! Seriously hard for me to comprehend I’m that old already LOL!), so hubby wanted to take me out for dinner(a hamburger since that’s all we can afford LOL, but it’s my favorite food so I love it all the same!). I also haven’t had much sleep for a few days, I don’t sleep well at the best of times so sleeping somewhere “different” doesn’t help. I probably slept 3 hours max the first night, but I managed about 5 hours last night. I’m definitely exhausted and ready for my bed tonight.

Amazingly my Grandpa is still hanging in there. My Mom and Dad ended up flying out at the end of last week because the Dr said 2 days at the most. A week later and he’s still hanging in there. He was taken from the hospital back to his bed and taken off the IV last Saturday. For the first few days all he did was sleep, but in the past few days he has actually been awake and even talking to the nurses a bit(though can’t really be understood much). He has had nothing going into his body except morphine to make sure he’s not in pain and the occasional sip of water for a week and he’s still hanging in! It sounds like my Grandma might be having some difficulties though and on top of it there’s some sort of outbreak at the home she’s in. I’m hoping she will be strong and stick around for a while longer. I’m so happy for my Dad too, they were able to go see his Mom today and she actually knew who he was and looked pretty good.

So that’s been my week! I have a ton of cleaning and organizing stuff from camping to do, amazing how much work just for 2 days of camping lol, at least it was fun though! I need to get back to some regular blogging though, and soon! I know last summer I slacked a bit, just so much on the go, I’ll try to be better this summer!

 

Jolene

 

Grandpa

I’m very fortunate that at my age I have not had to deal very much with death. I’m an extremely emotional person, but I don’t like to let people see me be emotional. Some people may find me “cold”, when I’m fighting with everything I have to keep my emotions in check, keep from breaking down. A huge amount of time that I’m alone is spent crying, it’s just how I deal with things. I have had a lot to deal with in my life, just not death. I guess eventually everyone has to. Sure, lots of family I don’t know well is gone, but people I don’t have much memory of even meeting. Now it’s coming closer though.

We’ve never been too close with extended family because they all live in Ontario, my parents moved away from Ontario when I was just a newborn. My Grandpa on my Dad’s side passed away when I was about 12, my Grandma hasn’t known who I am for a very long time. That set of Grandparents were farmers, they didn’t go anywhere, I never saw my Grandpa except when we would go there to visit. Grandma finally left home to travel after Grandpa passed away. I called her about 6 or 7 years ago, she barely knew who I was and certainly did not know who my kids were or that I had any. They got to meet her once at my brothers wedding, 12 years ago I believe(the last time I saw her), but at less than 6 months old and 2 years old they of course don’t remember her. Grandma’s hanging on. For the past few years I’ve heard that it will likely be her last Christmas, but I guess she’s not ready to go yet. She’s 96.

I haven’t seen my Grandparents on my Mom’s side in a very long time either. I’m guessing 9 years, maybe 10. I saw them a bit more growing up. We would visit them, they would visit us. I have great memories of both of them. I wish we lived close and I got to spend more time with them. I loved Grandpa’s blacksmithing and his old Rumley. I loved Grandma’s pies and jams. I loved “camping” at their old caboose in the bush. Grandpa hasn’t known anyone for a little while now. Grandma still is doing ok for her age.

My Mom called the other day, Grandpa is in the hospital. He has pneumonia. In both lungs. He’s 93?(either 93 now or on his next birthday, can’t remember what Mom said now). Mom called again yesterday, it’s not looking good. He can’t swallow, he’s not getting any food. They don’t recommend feeding tubes at this age and he’s already pulling out the other tubes so probably wouldn’t keep it in anyway. His only nutrients right now is through a tube, an IV I guess? My Dad called today, my Mom must be busy packing or too emotional to talk, likely both. The family(my Mom and her siblings) have to decide when to pull the tubes, it has to be done. He’ll be gone soon after that.

They were waiting for Grandma to ask to be taken to see him. Yesterday she hadn’t yet asked so they asked her. She did. She got to see him. Today she asked to go see him again. I know Grandma is pretty strong. She still knows who everyone is, she still remembers. I can’t imagine how hard it is to be strong, they have been married for 66 1/2 years. She hasn’t been able to be with him for a while, they’ve both needed a different level of care.

My Mom didn’t know when to go, she’s the only one who doesn’t live nearby. Going too early would only mean sitting there unable to do anything, he doesn’t even know who she is. If he hung on for a long while they couldn’t afford to stay, if he improved and they came home they couldn’t afford to go back, though I’m sure a way would have been found. Now they know for sure it’s the end. My parents will leave this weekend, they’ll drive. I hope for my Mom’s sake that they wait to pull the tubes and he holds on until she gets there. Even if she only gets minutes with him to say goodbye.

My sister and one brother will go to the funeral. Another brother apparently says he’s thinking about it, I don’t think he will though. I can’t go. My financial situation is no secret. There’s no money to go. But I’ve known that all along. I knew the time was coming and even when our finances were better I knew there was no way I could afford to go when the time came. The days are numbered before my Grandma’s are gone too, yeah one is doing well, but for how long after her love of so many years is gone? Thank goodness for memories, the memories I have of younger and healthier Grandparents are what makes it easy to accept that I never got to say goodbye. In some ways it’s comforting to know that my great memories are my last and not a funeral.  I’m already crying more than I thought I would, I’m not very good at this.

Jolene