Only at my house

Seriously someone better tell me these kind of things happen in their household even if you have to stretch the truth.. I would hate to think that these moments only happen to me :(

Today I have staff training to do at work and we are starting the evening off with a BBQ. I was bringing ribs so were browning the racks in the oven early this morning before putting them in the slow cookers. As I would take a batch off the grill I would cut them in smaller pieces then pop them in the cooker and get the pan ready for the next batch. I had JUST put the last of the pieces in the cooker and was very carefully taking the very hot bottom part of the pan from the stove to the sink as it was filled to the top with meat juices and marinade that the meat had been in. Just as I was twisting to turn this very loud bang came from 10 or so feet in front of me scaring the heck out of me enough to make me jump and drop this hot pan all over the kitchen floor. When I looked over to the front entrance way to see what the heck that noise was I could see this gallon and a half size jug squirting thick orange syrup all over the place.

We have a storage room that has our food staples and freezer in but in our front entrance way in the closet, half of the space has food shelves that I keep my every day staples in as well as baking pans etc. I'm not like most people that keep all their baking pans and stuff in bottom cupboards as most of the time I can't bend to get in them so all my every day things are on these shelves. Well on the very top one is where I store my bins of potatoes, onions, different flours etc. Right beside them for months now has been this huge jug of orange syrup that is very thick and concentrated that you use to make orange drink when you need large batches of drinks. Keith had gotten it for some activity he had been in charge of and he hadn't needed the 2ND jug so it has just been sitting there since last summer.

Do not ask me why all of a sudden it took a flying leap and hit the floor with enough force to pop the sealed lid off shooting it across the entrance and past me through the whole kitchen and end up in the dining room. It also had popped the silver foil cap that had been under the lid. You know the kind that you can never get off when you are opening a new bottle of something?? If that wasn't enough I noticed that the syrup was rapidly spreading all over the floor onto the floor mat there, into the shoes that never seem to get onto the shoe rack and also onto the hall carpet. I picked it up thinking it was only leaking from the lid but of course not. This is my life we are talking about, it would never be that easy. The side of it had completely split open and when I lifted it up even more syrup came gushing out.

I grabbed the garbage can from under the sink slipping on the hot liquid that still was all over the kitchen floor from the meat pan, and threw it in then grabbed some towels from the dryer that I had just finished washing I might add and started to wipe it up before it got more of the hall carpet. It was only then that I saw the walls in the entrance way. Have you seen that TV commercial where the little girl is talking on the phone with her dad and she is describing to him this mountain that had erupted with the experiment she had made with her mom and how it went all over including the ceiling? Yup that was me. Only my mother was not with me to clean it up nor was I smiling. It actually sprayed on the ceiling which is stippled I might add. All the shelves had syrup on it, all the food items, all the walls in the entrance way, the front door, all the bottom cupboard doors, the fridge, oven and dishwasher was covered, there was even spray onto the dining room carpet which is easily 20 feet away. Now this isn't liquid that is thin like water where you would understand it leaking every where. It is thick syrup like molasses!!

Now with my back there is one motion I can not do. I should not do. When I do it I suffer for a long time after. And that is a twisting motion. The kind of motion you do when you wash walls, windows, floors, vacuum etc. But yet there I was washing every thing down. I had 2 little girls watching this mess wanting to help and I kept saying noooo you guys go play outside. One of them says "Nana do we have to keep this a secret from Papa?"

I washed the kitchen and hall floor THREE times with soapy water and after the 3rd time I grabbed the girls, locked the door and went to my daughter's house. She came back with me after I had run errands so I could drop my things off first so I didn't have to carry them from her house and as she was walking on the floor her flip flops were making this sucking noise and she said oh mom this floor is really sticky then she said mom I am not laughing at you I am laughing with you. Uh huh... sure you are!!

But I can not wash it anymore I have to wait till Keith gets home to give it another really good scrub. I keep telling myself to go around the kitchen (which is a pass through to the rest of the house) instead of going through it but 2 minutes later I go walking across the floor to get something or go through and my feet stick and I think of Homer Simpson which I cannot stand but now know the reason why he invented the word DOH!!! It is about as safe a word as I can muster at this moment.

Only at my house does this happen.

Creation and 5 year olds

So today I am walking to my daughter's with my 5 year old granddaughter. You know how you tend to tune out young children when they are rattling on and on about nothing in particular or at least nothing of interest to you then all of a sudden your brain registers something and you pay attention? Hence the following conversation:

Rosaleen: yadda yadda yadda
Me: uh huh, yes, uh huh

Of course in my defense at the time this conversation was going on we were on a very busy street and she has such a soft voice it was hard to hear. But in reality I was thinking of a garden stepping stone I had in mind to do.

Rosaleen: (tugging my hand) Nana you're not listening!
Me: Yes I was
R:No you weren't cause I asked you a question and you said yes but it wasn't a yes or no question..

uh.. what 5 year old knows what a yes or no question is?

Me: Ok ask me again
R: Do you know why God created Earth?
Me: Of course, we've talked about this.. He created Earth so we could come to earth to gain a body so we could return home to Him when we die
R: I know THAT Nana but do you know really why He created it?
Me: uhhh how about you tell me why you think He created earth
R: Because he was sad all the astronauts kept crashing into each other and into other planets cause He hadn't created light on the 2nd day yet. They kept crashing on the 1st day.
M: where did you get that information Rosaleen?
R: Nana everybody knows this..didn't you pay attention to your class in church before?
M:.. I guess I didn't.. maybe I was home that day
R: See Nana you should stop talking to Papa at church so you could hear what they are saying

uhhh Nana is usually stopping Papa from giving you guys wet willies or poking you!!! Am I the only one that missed that Sunday School lesson???

Using my 5 senses

Today I am up very early..way too early especially because Keith is still in bed and I am up but it is also a holiday so should be back in there. But my body is telling me I can't lay on my sides or back anymore and to get up up UP before it starts screaming so here I am. It is spring over here so my allergies are back in full swing. I can not wait till the next life when our bodies will be perfected.. I live for that day!!!

But as I sit here with my face covered with a heat mask it reminded me of things I miss smelling. Which of course made me think of things I miss hearing and then seeing then tasting.. hey what can I say... My brain works like my mothers and my daughters.. we can go from no thoughts in our head to a marathon of thoughts in 2 seconds flat.

So here are some of the things that I miss using my 5 senses:

The smell of Johnson's Paste Floor wax. I wonder if they even make them anymore. I loved that smell. I would wash then wax my floors just before the kids would come home from school and they would be so excited when they walked in the door, as they would smell the wax and know they got to put on Dad's big socks and slide all over the floors while they got polished. I miss hearing that sound of laughter.

I miss the sound of sheets hanging on a clothesline where there was a little breeze and you would hear them snapping. I miss the scent of clothes coming in from outside. I miss climbing into bed that first night with clean sheets off the line and just smelling the sheets.

I miss our house on Hyland Road with all the fruit trees there. I could just go outside and grab an apple or a pear and bite into it tasting that crispness and taste of them. I miss getting a basket of fruit from the trees and bringing them in the house to make a pie with them, or can them for the winter months. I miss hearing my children saying "there's nothing to see" and my telling them to go outside and find something to eat.

I miss Sunday dinners with the Hunters and the Bells. I miss my excitement knowing they were coming over every week and planning what I was going to serve trying to make something new each time and just being together.

I miss Northgate Bakery in Sask. We had a "deal" with the bakery who's claim to fame was that they only sold baked fresh that day items. We had gotten the scoop from our friends that you could go to the back of the bakery at 5pm and you could get everything left over for 40 dollars. The deal was 40 dollars flat. At times you got 2 grocery bags full other times we could not stuff the back of our vehicles there was so much stuff. But it was always 40 dollars. You got every kind of breads, rolls, muffins, danishes etc etc. The children would love Thursday nights as that was when it was available. That seems so long ago

I miss living close enough to see my family whenever I wanted to. Now I am down to once a year as I save my money hard to be able to make the trip back to see everyone. Even after 20 years I still get so homesick for my mom and my brothers and their families.

I miss Mondays at my mom's growing up. We knew that Mondays were laundry days but it also was bread baking day which meant for lunch we were getting "Petit Pains". The bread dough would always be hitting the first rise and as mom would knead the dough she would take pieces of dough roll them into a log then fry them in hot oil for a couple of minutes. We always raced home that day cause we knew what was coming. We could always smell laundry soap in our yards as the laundry was always on the line and we could smell the bread dough cooking. We would open these petit pains up and put butter and something in them. It could he jam or honey or peanut butter or real maple syrup in Quebec but eat them we did.

I miss getting that syrup from Quebec. Dad's family every year would ship us some maple syrup when they were tapping their trees and the day it came to the house we knew what we would get to eat. Dad would heat some of it up and then poach eggs in it. Ohhhh man you have never tasted TASTE till you tasted that. It was sooooo goood.

I miss the sounds of branding season on the farm. The sounds of the calves being branded, the sounds of my dad, uncles and grandfather talking and "yelling" to us kids to get certain calves or to get out of the way. I miss the sounds of my mom, aunts, and grandmother as they would talk while setting up the long tables that would hold massive amounts of food soon. I miss the smell of the hay up in the hayloft as we jumped from the loft down into the stacks on the ground, then waiting for the tell tale voice of our mothers yelling at us to not make a mess and to stay away from the bulls in their pens which always seemed to come just as we would be poking the bulls.

I miss the taste of my mom's head cheese. That would be part of our Christmas morning breakfast. She would slice them and I would put it in toast and then mustard and just keep eating till I was stuffed. One year I didn't eat any cause that was the year I mistakenly got up in the middle of the night for some reason and went to get my mom who was just taking a pig's actual head out of the oven. She had to explain to me why it was in there. That year I could not eat it as I knew where it came from but the next year I was so over it and dived into it.

I miss the sight of our community garden on the farm. All of the uncles and aunts, our parents and grandparents would have this huge garden area (well at least to me it was huge) and in the spring everyone would be there planting. Every summer we would always be there weeding and every fall we would all be there harvesting the crops. Our house would be crammed with dozens of cobs of corn or baskets and baskets of peas we had to shell into bowls and of course into our mouths, mounds of green beans to cut into pieces. Every body worked together and always talking while we worked alongside our grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings of course.

Well I think that is enough remembering for one early morning. Some days I wish I was back there doing all those things again. But I guess we all have to grow up some day and become responsible adults and make new memories for our children and grandchildren. But still, those sure were the good old days.

Grandmothers

I was doing some pictures tonight putting them in folders and some of them had my grandmothers in them. Today is Tuesday and at my house that means sleepover night with 2 of my granddaughters. We play house, we bake, we do crafts, paint, build things, go swimming..just lots of stuff. I remembered my grandmothers and the relationship I had with them.

Both of them were obviously french and my paternal grandmother or Memere as we called them both, refused to speak English. If someone called her on the phone that spoke English she would just say "call Roland (my dad)". She was all of 4 foot 11 if that but that never stopped her from raising 13 children. I remember one Christmas family dinner at the farm house, she took a chair and took it to the counter in the kitchen, climbed on it then stood on the counter top to get a platter that was on the top shelf. My dad saw her and grabbed her by the waist to get her off telling her with all the men there (who are pretty much all over 6 feet) she only had to ask someone to get it for her but she just whacked him on the head with the platter and said she might be short but this was still her kitchen and to put her down. :) She was a firecracker.

My maternal grandmother had a date with my sister Adele and I one year every Wednesday at 2:15. For some reason that year we both had a spare at school for our last class and instead of being in the library we played hooky and would go to our grandparents. It was a ritual. She would have laid out the table with the good china, would have baked something just coming out of the oven and my grandfather would make this pot of tea seem like an event!! He would pour us the tea like a grand master at the finest 5 star restaurant. We had linen napkins and fancy dishes, little spoons to stir our sugar in and tiny forks to eat the dessert. We talked about school, our parents, boys, listened to them giving us advice. We always felt like it was our little secret that they kept from our parents although I am sure Mom knew but to this day I never asked.

Every summer the 4 oldest in my family would go to our grandparents for an entire week. My sister and I would go to one farm, and my 2 brothers would go to the other farm. then on Sunday we would come into town for church and switch farms for another week. It was relaxing, no fighting, didn't have to share the house with a bunch of siblings although when we went to our paternal grandparents, because there was such an age difference between my dad and the younger ones, there were still some living on the farm. but they loved it as they usually were able to pretend "THEIR" chores were TOO old for us KIDS to be able to do and of course we would say no they aren't and go do them as they would think ahhh reverse psychology lol. Of course it only worked till Memere found out :)

Little did I know those years with my grandmothers would make such an impact on my life, the way I spend time with my grandchildren or try too. Today I am 52 and have a lot of grandchildren and I hope that when they grow up to have grandchildren of their own, they will have great memories and be able to pass down the traditions of sleep overs and tea time with their best china.

I miss my grandmothers very much and I truly hope that this reunion I am planning for my paternal grandparents this summer will be a tribute to her to thank her for making me the person I am today.