The Realest Realist

Hey, the Internet! Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!! 



Hope everyone interested knows that for wordplay fun (yes, fun) I googled who else would be real-er than me...  because I'm the realest ;)

fyi RIP Tupac (The original Realest) 

OR

xo that Ann-Marie 
The Realest Realist 

This happened

Just.. wow.  This kid just grew up in two months.. well that's just great! I suppose I have these photos of his first days of school to remind me just how long he stayed my baby.  He still falls asleep to my singing "Baby, it's cold outside" .. although he's started recently requesting 'wrecking ball' or improv singing where he needs me to just make up songs about any subject he gives me.

I actually don't do too bad.

Focus

Merry Christmas, New Years and the rest of the holidays I may have missed.  Updating is literally the last thing on my mind lately.  Don't feel badly if you read this with any regularity.. I've also missed catching up on almost every single show I watch.  YA I KNOW... MY TV... wth??

Rather than let you know what's been going on over the various holidays I'll tell you a) I got a deep freezer and I'm flippin' excited about how little I will have to go food shopping as a result.  I'm an adult and these are the things I like.  FREEZERS.  Well, freezers and money.  The former helps me save the latter.  WINning.

I'm going to be 33 years old in March and I feel like it's an anniversary to the time I said I'd stop updating this.  Happy Unblogaversary to me!  We're 3 almost lol.  So let's just say I will update or not whenever I feel up for it.  Today I'd like to share that these past 9 months have been a personal growth period that I've never experienced before, and hope never to do again.  In that time I've separated from my husband, someone I've been with for 11 years.. moved homes.. dealt with all the BS I can handle.. pain, joy, support, life, fun, anger, blessings and struggles to remain emotionally intact and sane.  I will say that when you go through the worst times in your life you will be utterly surprised who is by your side, I don't care who you are this will be true.. you will never know who exactly you can count on until you need to.

I am doing fine, the kids are fine, we will likely move homes again in the summer, have to deal with changing schools.. Kieran my baby will be in school for the first time by then.  I am looking as far forwards as I can and clearing a path for us in 2015 that will make sure we are all OK.

Ethan's Christmas show at school, Porky from Little Rascals.  His only line in the play "Otay"

I'm a ginger now

Gabriel eats all the colours of snow

I bought a new jacket, hat and scarf!  Because it's Canada dammit.

I'm wearing every shirt I own/ Kieran

My Kierbear likes eating seaweed while shopping

Trying to be a cool Mom

Pumpkin winner /Ethan

Gabriel's the best patient/ growing pains

Picture Day smiles/ Gabriel&Ethan

Pumpkin Picking

Me and my little buddy/adopted son Liam

It breaks my heart and makes me believe in things

Lately all I can think about is a story I read as a little girl... now that I think of those books I think of how gruesome they were.  Far more than any video game.  Bluebeard, anyone?

So of course as winter nears I caught a thought of the story of the little match girl.  When I was young I always imagined she was me.  That I was out in the cold with no one to care about me, and that I'd just die there thinking warm and lovely thoughts.

It's truly morbid I know.. really.  I just find it so familiar, and beautiful, and sad.  Much like a lot of things I guess.  I could spend days thinking of all the familiar and beautiful and sad things in winter time.  All the great and happy and still moments I've spent.  They all seem to gang up on me and hang over me and find me when ... ever they want.  Winter has always been the most sentimental time for me.  It breaks my heart and makes me believe in things.

I hope you are all having a very merry.. warm and cozy... love and laughter Winter season :)

But in the corner, at the cold hour of dawn, sat the poor girl, with rosy cheeks and with a smiling mouth, leaning against the wall--frozen to death on the last evening of the old year. Stiff and stark sat the child there with her matches, of which one bundle had been burnt. "She wanted to warm herself," people said. No one had the slightest suspicion of what beautiful things she had seen; no one even dreamed of the splendor in which, with her grandmother she had entered on the joys of a new year.

Steak tip sandwich

We've had a big start to summer around here.. a full week at he cottage etc. (never enough time I miss it) but I am at the blog right now because I just don't cook.  I have realized for all my 'cooking' over the years I've made some good stuff but when kids become your main customer you tend to cook for them and not for you... therefore I suddenly don't know how to cook anymore!  As little as I can cook we all have our go-to foods; ie. breakfast food is my bitch.  I can cook the hell out of breakfast.  Sometimes dessert depending on what you like.  Dinner is another thing though, requiring a lot of thought and preparation for some reason.

Fast forward to tonight I just decided I was going to try something new and made the best sandwich ever!  Of course that means I have to share it with you.

Steak Tip Sandwich:

Ingredients are simple..... steak tips, kosher salt, pepper, basil, garlic powder, olive oil

• put it all together in a bowl and then start frying on med heat for however long you like your steak.  

• put the steak aside and toast whatever bun you like
• the water in the frying pan, grab 2 cups of very hot water and a pack of gravy mix and start making the gravy
• place cheddar cheese on the one side of the toasted bun, swiss cheese on the other
• place the steak tips on the bun/bread and a little drizzle of gravy (or a lot if you like that!)
• put it together and enjoy it!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

 I had two today.

Halloween

It seems like just yesterday I was updating about the end of Summer and now it's Halloween.  I am the worst blogger ever lately.

What has changed from last year?

Zero parties to about 4 costume parties.  So far I've been to three.. once as daenerys targaryen from Game of Thrones (that my friend Kim is wearing in this picture), then girl Rick Grimes from Walking Dead, then Ariel from the Little Mermaid.

I pretty much love dressing up, just give me a reason!  I also love holding wine.  Hope everyone has a very scary Halloween this year.. I'll try to keep updating this but you know, life is just crazy sometimes!  xoxo

Goodbye, Summer

Well the whole summer has passed without my updating whatsoever.  So.. who are you and why are you still here?  Clearly you thought I died and mourned for me, right?  Thank you for whatever candles you lit for me but I'm actually still around!

What's happened?  SO much there's almost no point in going over it but...

I've moved to a new house, gone cottaging, flew to Andrea's wedding out west, lots of beach days and parties and BBQs etc. and the start of school again. I realize my perfect life includes day-drinking, sun & sand, friends nights, a fire, swimming and a hammock.  If I could just make that happen all the time, hmm.

Anyhow I suppose I could dump a bunch of pictures on you..

5 Quinoa experiments

If you come over to my house it's no secret that I love Costco's Quinoa salad.  When I like something I eat it almost every single day but after about 3 months I realized hey, that's a lot of sodium and.. not even I can enjoy quinoa salad this long!

I did still want "some" of it in the week yet was forced to buy a giant pan full.. I made up my own "recipes" that include different ways to eat quinoa salad as an ingredient and if you have guests it's even faster to get rid of.  Maybe you can enjoy it too.. here's the home made recipe if you don't want to buy it from Costco or don't want to enjoy quite so much of it in a week like a normal person.

1. Omelette:  about a table spoon full for every egg.  other ingredients were red onions, mozzarella cheese and either chunks of chicken or cut up chicken breast cold cuts.
2. Hamburger:  self explanatory as it's a topping, about a table spoon full.
3. In fried spinach: lots and lots of spinach, garlic cloves, few table spoons of the quinoa salad and a cube of mozzarella cheese if you're feeling fancy.  can add this to chicken cutlets, turkey or stuff chicken breasts and is also good.
4. As tuna salad:  a salad out of a salad!  add white flaked tuna and a little mayo or mayo substitute, at least 3 table spoons of the salad and a little salt.  You can use the tuna salad in a sandwich of course, with cold pasta or I like them with lettuce wraps!
5. On a pizza:  home made crust add pizza sauce and the quinoa salad together, then put whatever toppings you usually do.  I like it with ham or chicken, red pepper, olives and/or goat cheese (again.. if you're fancy!)