More waiting

It has now been a month and a half since I finished the Provera. Just as I suspected, no period. I had little faith that I would get one, but I decided I would humour the doctor. I've also been trying to call the gyno for the last two days to try and book my follow up appointment. Monday, no answer, just voicemail. Today, more of the same, so I left a message this time with my reason for wanting to book an appointment. Hopefully I'll hear back from them sometime this week. They were so vague on the voicemail too, "I cannot answer the phone as I am either busy, on the other line, or the office is closed.". Well what is it? You'd think if the office was closed for more than one day they would leave a message stating that. Oh well.

Andre has been the little optimist through this whole thing. He is the one with the never ending faith that one day we will be parents. Me on the other hand, I tend to be more of a realist in these situations. Even the other night he turned to me and asked "how my temperatures have been, and did I think I was ovulating?" You'd think after your wife harping about how she never, ever ovulates, you'd know the answer, but in his mind, anything is possible. I just told him, most likely no, but you can never tell.

Hopefully some of that optimism will rub off on me.

Mean to Green (er)

I decided that I was going to do something productive while relaxing tonight, and review one of my favourite green (er) products.

I've always had a love hate relationship with bleach. I love that it keeps my whites bright and well...white, and that it disinfects like a champ, but hate the chemical smell, and the risk of bleach spots on my dark clothing. I was talking about this exact thing with my friend Pam months ago and she mentioned a product that she loved.

I have been converted. Not only is it safe for colours (what a thought!), it's concentrated so you don't need to use a ton of it, and it does.not.smell. When was the last time you used bleach and didn't smell anything?

Now for the question of whether or not this stuff works. Does it work just like Clorox? No. Does it help to remove stains, and keep my whites white? Yes. To help boost the cleaning power of this stuff I just let my white load soak for 15 minutes, and ta da! Clean clothes.

Now if you all excuse me I have to go beat my darling husband who is making fun of my review of bleach.

Spaghetti Sauce Recipe

I was still running a fever late yesterday afternoon, so I am still sick. What better way to use my time off then post another slow cooker recipe. I'm sure you could make this recipe on your stove top, but why?

This recipe originially hailsfrom 300 Slow Cooker Favorites by Donna-Marie Pye, with some changes from me. This is one of the best recipes I have found that not only stretches a jar of tomato sauce and a pound and a half of ground meat something fierce, but it also comes full of veggies which is a recipe must have in our house.

Anthony's Big Ragu (spaghetti sauce)

1 lb ground turkey
1/2 lb ground beef
2 onions finely chopped
5 cloves of garlic minced
1 stalk of celery, finely chopped
handful of spinach leaves finely chopped
4 tbsp Clubhouse Italiano Seasoning
1 can diced tomatoes with juices
1 carrot finely chopped
8 oz mushrooms, sliced
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 can of pasta sauce (or roughly 3 1/2 cups)

In a large skillet brown the ground turkey and beef. Drain and add to slowcooker.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the slowcooker and stir to combine.

Cover and cook on LOW for 8-10 hours, or on HIGH for 4-6 hours, until hot and bubbling. Serve over your favourite pasta, or over some spaghetti squash just like we're going to do tonight. That way there is no guilt even though I'm also eating garlic bread.

This recipe works best with a 6-7 quart slowcooker.

My Day off

I am currently sitting in my dining room praying my congested nose doesn't start to randomly drip all over my netbook keyboard. I know, you're all jealous.

I'm actually waiting for my miracle cure to be ready. Homemade turkey soup. I am a firm believer that homemade soup can cure anything. Thank goodness I always try and keep some frozen chicken stock in my freezer for just this sort of day. It also helps when someone in my family gets sick as well. There's nothing like being curled up on your couch (or bed for that matter) with a big fluffy blanket and a steaming bowl of soup. Well actually there is something better, doing all of that, but not being sick!

I was so bummed today. I had planned to get today with my friend Pam and her daughter Abbey this morning, and then get together with my friend Mary Ann tonight for a fun evening of hot chocolate and Wii Super Mario Brothers. Alas, I am still feeling like poop, so I opted out of these plans to rest up at home. We have a wedding of a friend this weekend and I really want to rest up so Andre and I (along with Mary Ann) can have a blast dancing the night away on Saturday.

I hope everyone in Blog Land is having a better Monday than I am!

Interesting article

I was at a family dinner on New Years Day and I was reminded of an article while listening to my Aunt. My aunt is a very unhappy woman. She's mentioned to me (and other family members) about the dismal state of her marriage, and talks non-stop about how she hates the whole mundane routine of working, taking care of her house, and her children (I would like to mention that her children are not "children", they are 23, 20 and 17). If you give her the chance she will go on and on about how horrible it is to have to work all day, come home, make dinner and clean after her family. On New Years day, she went on for at least a half an hour. So long in fact that my other "aunt" who is in her 70's got up and left the table because she was just so sick of listening to the ranting.


Now while listening to her tirade I was reminded of this article, talking about this book. I had read this article after it was posted on a forum I read. In it the "Superior Wife" is described. In the article they talk about how this over-achieving wife takes over all aspects of keeping the house and family running that eventually they are resentful, and miserable. This I think describes my aunt perfectly. Her house, always immaculate. She complains about having to do all the housework around the house, yet she she still makes the bed, does the laundry, and prepares lunches for her two adult, and one teen aged child. Hello! How about you take a step back and let them take care of themselves for a change?

As I've listened to other family members and friends describe situations with their husbands I am reminded of this article more and more. Hell, I hate to admit it, but I find myself doing the same thing occasionally.

I was at lunch with my friend Pam a couple months ago, and she was going on and on about how her husband "can't do this, can't do that". I looked her right in the eye, and told her that every task she was describing was indeed something that he could do, but she wouldn't let him do them. They were all simple things like putting her daughter to bed, cook dinner, pack a box when they were moving, etc. She was so adamant that he couldn't do these things she actually banged her fist on the table and yelled "no he can't do them!" I told her calmly that yes he could do these things, but she was a control freak, and he wouldn't do them her way, so she didn't want him to do these tasks. She just looked at me for a second and admitted that yes, this was the case.

Please note that only a fellow control freak could call a friend a control freak and get away with it!

I wonder quite often how many of us do this same thing. Just sit back complaining about our husbands, and how useless they are when in reality it is us that is creating this chain of events. Would we want to do a task when every time we go to complete it we are told we're not doing it right? I'm guessing no. So why do we do the same thing to our husbands?

Been Baking

A little while ago I was blog surfing, and I came across a blog entry talking about a new cook book that was out. Actually they were giving away free copies of this cook book. I was intrigued to say the least. So I did some more surfing and decided to purchase Pioneer Woman's new cookbook. I have tried out a couple recipes, but they have all been from the dessert section.

The first was this recipe for a chocolate sheet cake for Andre's birthday. It turned out really well, and sure enough, everyone did moan about how good it was.

Then last week (New Years Eve to be exact) I wanted a brownie. Actually I needed a brownie, so I cracked open her cookbook again and made her mocha brownie recipe. I'm not a huge fan of mocha icing though so I substituted the icing recipe from the chocolate sheet cake instead. They were so yummy, I served them as dessert for our company for New Years Eve.

Here is a picture of the finished product:

Going to pat myself on the back...

...because Andre and I just finished caulking the bathtub and it actually doesn't look half bad! The last time that we had to have the bathroom caulked we had my friend do it. She worked with her uncle at his construction company, so she did a pretty good job at it. So she re caulked the bathtub before we moved in, but I had been noticing that some places were starting to peel, and then this morning noticed that there was one area on the side that was not attached to the tub surround anymore. Not good.

So before going out to the movies I took all the old stuff off and cleaned it up so it could dry while we were out. Then we came home and followed these instructions and set to work.

Once Andre figured out that with the help of the painters tape he didn't have to be so neat about it we made some progress. He caulked, and I smoothed everything out. After taking off the painter's tape I made another go around smoothing everything out, and I think that we did a not so bad job, for rookies!

I know, you're blinded by the pink tub, and tacktastic tub surround, so you'll have to look past that!

A little late I know...

I had promised earlier to post a little picture of some DIY holiday decor and I totally slacked off. So better late than never here it is!




The one in the middle is actually a square vase filled with seasonal potpourri that we had received as a gift. I had no idea what to do, so I went with the red and silver scheme in it and decided to make use of two other square vases that I had kicking around.

I went to Zellers and picked up some plastic red faceted Christmas balls and some small shiny and sparkly silver balls. I played around with them until they were where I wanted them, and Ta Da! Cheap Holiday Decor.

I have seen Christmas balls used as decor quite a bit this holiday season, but I didn't want to use glass balls as I didn't want them to break. I think that this looks just as good, and it's a little more guest and pet friendly. This way if my cat decided to play I wouldn't be cleaning up shards of glass everywhere! So keep it in mind for next year or this year when you're out shopping and see some decorations on clearance!