haunted house

So a girlfriend and I happened to find out about a haunted house located a few hours south of town and then we discovered that it was also a bed and breakfast! Clearly we had to go!  I called the next day to book our overnight get-a-way! The only date that was available was a Friday the Thirteenth…….spooky!  A month and a half later we were on our way to the Haunted Mansion and what is probably the strangest 24hrs of my life (thus far)

We both had to work, so we got away later in the day, planning to get to our destination by 8:00 - just enough time to get a good look around before the sun went down.  A fellow co-worker told us to try out a new restaurant he thought we might like that just opened in one of the towns along the way. The weather was beautiful, the conversation was flowing and we were sharing the road with a whole bunch of classic cars! When we got to town the streets were full of people with lawn chairs camped out to watch, what we found out later was a weekend long car show!  The cars cruise up and down the street and then race the quarter mile later and meet for a show and shine on Sunday! I tried to convince my cohort to stay and take in the show, but she was having none of it! 

The restaurant was packed (due to the car show) so we pulled up a stool at the bar, ordered a drink and ordered some food. The cute boys behind the bar kept us entertained while we waited…..and waited….and waited. I wish I could tell you the food was great at this place, but an hour later when the cute boys informed us our food would be another ten or twenty minutes we left without having eaten. At least we didn’t have to pay for our drinks!

Back on the road on our way to the haunted mansion we were in good spirits and feeling fine! Lack of dinner wasn’t going to bring us down! We had two bottles of wine in the trunk and were off to spend the night in a haunted house! Twenty minutes later we pulled into the teeny weeny little town that we would be spending the night in! Knowing that snacks were a must, we popped into the market, which is also the movie rental place, the post office, the gas station and the restaurant! All that was missing were the banjos! After we were fully stocked up on snacks and water we make the final trek to our haunted destination.

When we pull up I immediately get nervous!! What are we doing? This is a bad idea! We should go.  But we are here now so we may as well get this over with!

We walk up to the door and are just trying to decide whether or not anyone heard us knocking when this petrified albino man comes from out of nowhere looking very confused. We ask him if he works there and he is telling us that no he just went on the tour when his girlfriend pops out from behind the house looking just as scared and confused.  I immediately think that he must have got scared and ran out leaving her in there by herself and I silently judge him. Then the door flies open (think Kramer in Seinfeld) and this frazzled looking woman is standing there. She says “you must be my overnight guests” and although I feel like screaming and running away, instead I nod and say “yes we are”…..here we go! 

She tells us we are going on the tour and asks us to sign the guest book, telling us it will be easier to fill out the toe tag in the morning. I know she is joking, but when I look up at her – she isn’t smiling and again, I feel like running.  She opens the door and in we go….well in goes my girlfriend with me following closely behind holding onto her purse strap so she can’t get away from me. I am immediately anxious. Something is jumping out at me for sure….or worse something is going to grab me, and then BAM she smacks the wall and we both scream! “Jumpy hey girls” she says…..I believe this is when I dropped my first “f-bomb”. So we go through the main floor and it isn’t too bad, I can handle this, I am not enjoying how she keeps disappearing on us but so far, it isn’t too bad.

Then we come to the basement or dungeon as they call it. She says “ok ladies down you go” and my friend says “yeah right, you go first” I turn around to laugh and the lady is gone. Gone. We are standing at the top of the stairs about to go into a dungeon in a completely weird house and the lady who brought us to this stairwell is gone. Second “f-bomb” is dropped now…..followed by four or five more. I tell my friend that there is no way I am going first, I will follow her but I am also fine with leaving right now , getting a hotel and going back to the town with the car show.

No deal. Down the stairs we go. 

I think I may have blacked out most of this…..seriously it was that scary. All I remember is a lot of swearing and saying how bad of an idea this was, then we end up at four doors and the lady is back telling us we need to pick a door in order to get out. Obviously I am not touching a door, my friend tells me that I am a baby and that she is going to go back to work and tell everyone how much of a chicken I am. I am completely fine with this. In fact, if she isn’t going to try the doors I am completely fine just standing here all night.  Of course the last door she picks is the doorway into the next room. 

You would think this would be a relief….you would be wrong. The fourth doorway leads into complete darkness. Complete darkness. We make our way through the remainder of the dungeon and to a doorway, on the other side of the door…….daylight! I am very happy to be back out into the daylight and I am even happier that I haven’t wet myself!  And now I totally get why that guy ran out of there without his girlfriend - I immediately take back my prior judgment of him.

“Ok we can go now” - were the next words out of my mouth, followed by,“no seriously, we can go. I don’t think I can stay here – this may have been a bad idea”

No deal.

We grab our bags out of the car and head back into the house. It doesn’t seem as scary with the lights on, and you can actually see the beauty that this early 1900’s two-story offers. You can also see the amount of time and money these people have put into this place to make it a haunted mansion. After a quick bathroom break where we learned there was no working sink in the bathroom, we met up in the dining room for a much needed shot of tequila.

The night just gets totally weird after this.

After turning down the offer to go into town for a night at the bar where her husband is a bouncer, we were left alone in the backyard to light a bon fire while our hostess left to go pick up some random kid who was walking along the highway. While in the backyard giggling about the situation we had found ourselves in we noticed a miniature railroad complete with a grain elevator, a station and a set of tracks. When they got back the young girl took off and out of nowhere she returned with four miniature horses following her. 

As much as I was hoping one of the trains would pull out of the station with a midget dressed up as a engineer, or that a midget would come out riding one of those little horses on a little saddle with a cute little mini cowboy hat, that did not happen. (sure would have been cool though!), A lot of mosquitoes, some pretty weak ghost stories, and a ufo streaking through the sky which I guess could have been a meteor took up the rest of our time outside. Time for bed and after two bottles of wine, no supper, lots of excitement and a dress up party at 2 am we had a very sound sleep. Other than the original tour and brushing my teeth with the water from the faucet in the bathtub, the house didn’t seem that creepy. 

A beautiful morning greeted us complete with a breakfast of green eggs and ham! We thanked them for the interesting evening and got out of there! The ride home was great, filled once again with good conversation, nice weather and we even managed to stop at a few garage sales! 

It was a great adventure and I am glad I was able to share it with a great friend! As long as she will agree to go first, I look forward to our next haunted mansion adventure!

yeehaw

Everyone who lives in Calgary has an opinion on the Calgary Stampede, and most of them are more than happy to share it with you if you ask! Half of the city leaves; seeing it as a good chance to get out of town, the kids are fresh out of school, long weekend is over and work slows down. The other half stays here - enjoying ten days of paid vacation! 

Unless you are directly involved with the Stampede your work life is going to slow down! It is a time to socialize, have some fun and stroke some of those business relationships that you have. Whether your company sponsors a day at the rodeo, hosts a barbeque at your business or takes a barbeque out on the road to spread some Stampede cheer, it is a great opportunity to solidify those work relationships and make some new ones!

I did not grow up in Calgary but I have been here long enough to have both loved and loathed the Stampede.

I do really enjoy and appreciate the rodeo at the Stampede, the bull riding, the barrel racing, roping, team penning, and the chuck wagons – all of it!  All of that talent and skill in one place! One of my friends is a professional bull rider, a girl I grew up with makes a living as a professional barrel racer, even I have been on a horse a time or two and was actually pretty good at team penning (might have been the horse but we will never know for sure)!  I also like the bbq’s, the breakfasts, the visiting, everyone dressed up in their cowboy gear, hay bales all over the place and the overall feeling of goodwill the city has.

What I loathe, are the crowds, the heat, the traffic, the drunks, the line-ups, the shortage of taxis, the fights that break out, the jam packed c-trains and the lack of morals. I used to be one of the crazy people down there when I was younger! I drank too much, spent too much, ate too much and paid for it the next day! These days I do everything I can to avoid the Stampede grounds, although the Super Dogs show is tempting, I just can’t do it! I can handle the rodeo and chucks, but the rest of it turns me off enough to not even make the trek!

I think all Calgarians eventually get there, we have had our fill, we put our foot (or boot) down and stop going to the grounds. That will last for a few years and then we have kids OR we get old enough to forget about all the reasons we stopped going.

Either way, you’ll be back!

Happy 100 years Calgary Stampede. 

I will see you at the grounds in another 30 years or so -  until then I will continue watching the fireworks from the bed of my truck far away from all of your craziness!

cuba

One of the many perks of my husband's dedication and hard work is a yearly trip to somewhere hot and sunny - for free!! (well, free if you don't consider long hours and high blood pressure a form of payment) This is our fifth time going on one of these trips and this year we found ourselves in Cuba. I always have reservations about these holidays, going to a third world country, eating like a pig, drinking way more booze than any human should and sitting on my backside in the sun for seven days just doesn't seem totally right. I usually get over it a few days before we leave, or at least when we land and get on the air-conditioned bus and for sure by the time I step off the bus and unload my bags I have completely surrendered. 

This time was different.

Cuba was never on my list of things to do in the first place, it just never really jumped out at me as a place I should go to. Since I am on a very limited diet (especially on these holidays, nothing like getting the "trots" on a sunny vacation) I wasn't too concerned with all the talk of horrible food, besides, it is Cuba, there must be fruit! I love fresh fruit, fresh, exotic, juicy, just picked fruit! Hard to turn down a "free" holiday no matter where it is, so I packed the usual hot sunny vacation items, sun dresses, sarongs, hats, books, bathing suit, sunscreen, flip flops, shoes, some "safe food", some extra food (in case all those people were right about the food), my workout gear (not that I ever use it on these holidays) and of course - my camera! The food might not be that great but I knew there would be some great photo ops!

We went down for breakfast on the first day but apparently Cubans don't do breakfast, at least not the sort of breakfast I was going to eat. There were wieners cut up in a milky, runny, tomato-like sauce, eggs cooked in a variety of ways, scrambled, over easy, and poached (all cold of course) some mystery meat and some random potato dishes, including mashed with some type of gravy. I was totally wrong about the fruit too by the way. You had three options, if you don't include the fried bananas they served for dessert at night, papaya, white pineapple, and some sort of peach/pear mixture in a syrup that had to have come out of a can. Breakfast was a bust, lunch and supper were no better. My diet for the week included, rice, cheese (when it was available), more rice, fried bananas, more rice and of course my suitcase full of granola bars and protein shakes!

Thank goodness for booze, sunshine and good friends! 

Once we figured out the food situation, realized that toilet paper, bottled water and clean towels were to be hoarded and protected like gold, we put on our bathing suits and made the best of it! We had a ton of laughs, we played cards, walked on the beach, took in a magic show and pretended we were on Survivor! Since there was nothing good to eat at the breakfast buffet and when I woke up at 7am  it seemed too early to drink I  went to the gym every morning. The view from the elliptical was out of this world and on top of that, this was the first holiday I came back from in the same shape or better as when I left!

Knowing that a return trip to Cuba was not likely, I knew I couldn't go back to Canada without seeing this very real, fairly sad, but also breathtaking city called Havana. We rented a 52' Chevy with a driver and spent a beautiful day on the road, it was perfect, even the food poisoning two of the boys were dealing with couldn't take away from this experience.  Everything about it was so interesting, the lack of American influence, the communist government, the millions of people, the skinny overheated horses and most incredibly - the architecture. You just know it was once a vibrant and beautiful city, a place with a rich history. We saw Al Capone's hangout, the parliament buildings, a beautiful cemetery, a fort built in the 1500's, we spoke with our driver about the government, the taxes and the Americans. We were enlightened and by the end of the day, I had a new found respect for Cuba and it's people.

I don't know what the future holds for Cuba, but it feels like change is on the horizon and I am glad I got to see it as it is today....lack of toilet paper and all! 

change is good

Part of being happy is being healthy, so it seems fitting to share the story of how I ended up on a path that has completely changed the way I relate to food. As I have mentioned before - I LOVE food! I love to eat food, I love to cook food and I love to share food! That has not changed, what has changed is the sort of food I can put into my body.

A few years ago I started to notice some strange things happening to me that seemed to be directly related to what I was eating. It actually started out with what I was drinking and how my body would react; I brushed it off as self-inflicted punishment for having had too many drinks. Then when it started to spill over into food, I knew I needed to figure out what exactly was causing me all this discomfort; so I went on a mission and a year and a half ago with the help of a nutritionist and my doctor I discovered it was gluten!

What is gluten even? Gluten is a protein found in wheat (durum, kamut, spelt) as well as barley, triticale and rye. So just stop eating it, stop eating bread and drinking beer – easy.  

Not really. 

It is found in so many things! Things that you would never even think of, soya sauce, lunch meats, worcestershire sauce, flavoured alcohol, salad dressings, certain vinegar, and the list goes on and on and on......

Where to start? I started by talking to a man I work with that I knew was Celiac. He steered me to the local chapter of the Canadian Celiac Association website. He recommended the pocket dictionary and so I bought four, one for my purse, my pantry, my husband and one extra because I was a Girl Guide and we are prepared!  What a fabulous resource, they should be charging triple what they are for them! I would seriously be at a loss without it! My mom works with a woman who has a daughter that is celiac and my friend's father-in law is also celiac and lucky for me all these people were happy to share some tips!

Armed with all this advice, guidance and the support of my husband, I picked up my pocket dictionary and got started on the pantry. A lot of food was donated to friends and local food banks to make my house gluten free. I went through the fridge and freezer and once I was satisfied I had found all the hidden gluten in my house I started this journey. I have experimented in my kitchen with modifying my favorite recipes so that I can continue to eat the food I love and I am happy to say that so far there have been more successes than failures!  I may even post a few on this blog!

It was a year in February and I feel great! There have been some surprising positive changes that I wasn’t even aware of!  It hasn’t been easy and there have been some very painful nights after inadvertently ingesting some of this gluten that my body has deemed poisonous. Overall I feel good, I feel optimistic and I feel a lot more confident than I did a year ago! 

I am able to say “no thank you” to an offering of food now without worrying about hurting someone’s feelings...and that was a big step for me!

ten years.

On the twenty-fifth of May, ten years ago, my world lost a very special person.  I cannot believe it has been ten years already. I remember the day like it was yesterday. I know exactly where I was when I got the phone call, I remember sliding to the floor in shock and I remember crying and crying and crying. I remember wondering how I was going to tell our friends who were out visiting, who came out for a good time, who were out picking up beer to get ready for a weekend of fun and partying. I remember the silent drive home knowing our lives were changed forever. I remember it all and it still hurts just as much as it did then.  I try to be  a “look on the bright side” kind of person, but this one was really hard. I know, that until the day I die, I will be able to recall both happy and sad memories of that time. 

We all grew up together in a small community and we all took his death hard. For most of us it was our first experience with death and it brought us together. I remember trying to come up with a way to make sense of it, we were all trying to make sense of it.  Some of our friends still haven’t been able to. We don’t talk about it, and if it does come up it ends in tears, with the pain of losing him just as strong for them as it was the day he left us. He had such a presence, was such a well known and loved person. I like to think that we are all here to accomplish something and once you have done what you need to do, you move on. That is how I feel about losing him, he did what he needed to do and it only took him 22 years. This is what I believe, this is what I have believed since that day 10 years ago. It makes sense to me.

I like to focus on the good times! He was young, but he lived, he really, really lived, always full tilt, always a smile, a kind word and a helping hand. There are no shortage of good memories, adventures and lots of funny times! Anytime you would get stuck (or anyone of us would get stuck) you could always call him and no matter what time of the day or night it was, he was always up for pulling someone out the mud (or snow)! I remember going on my first road trip away from home with him, with no parents! It was my 18^th birthday and since I couldn’t drink in Saskatchewan he drove us to Edmonton. It wasn’t just a trip to Edmonton though, everything with him was a special adventure and he always wanted to make sure to include the people he loved. We stayed with his mom, his sister came with us and his brothers came up on the train. We made some great memories, surrounded by family; it was a weekend filled with love and laughter. Throughout the years  we spent a lot of days and nights “driving nowhere”, getting stuck, feeding cows, swimming in the dirty old swimming hole,  driving the tractor, playing cards, maybe having the odd drink; no matter what you were doing, it was always right where you wanted to be!  

He was a great friend to me and he was my first true love. I will forever be grateful for the time I was able to spend with him. 

For years he visited me in my dreams, we would go off together happy to be reunited.  I would see that big beautiful smile of his and he would tell me that he was back, I was always so happy to see him, they were always such nice dreams – until I would wake up and realize it wasn't real. Then one day, I met him in my dreams, it was our usual happy reunion, he asked me to go with him and I told him I couldn’t, I told him I loved him but this wasn’t real, that he was dead and I had met a man I loved and I couldn’t leave him. Like all the other dreams he visited me in, I woke up from that one crying, but I also felt better. I felt like I was ok, I felt like I had finally let go, and I knew that I probably wasn’t going to be seeing him in my dreams anymore. I have only met up with him in my dreams once since then; I still think of him often – only now it is almost always with a smile. 

So, tomorrow, on the ten year anniversary of his death I will think of the good times and remind myself that everything that has happened in my life has brought me to where I am, this incredible place I could never have imagined……especially ten years ago.

a sign of summer

So I was on my way to the grocery store when I was completely side tracked by one of my favourite things……a garage sale!  As sure as the first crocus in April, a garage sale is a sign of the summer that lies ahead!! How happy was I when I pulled up to my first garage sale of the season! The sun was shining, there was a radio playing and the ladies running the garage sale were all smiles! I overheard them talking about the move and that’s when I noticed the for sale sign. After talking with them I discovered they had bought a house in Arizona and are retiring. How nice for them, and how random for me to know that about complete strangers, and then follow that up by getting a deal on a $2 belt! Awesome!

There are so many things about a garage sale that I love, the feeling of anticipation when I see the sign. What a nice surprise! Driving down the road, windows down, radio playing, wind blowing through my hair….and then – there it is, Garage Sale! Estate Sale! Multi-family Yard Sale!  I honestly can’t believe I haven’t been in a car wreck. These signs are so bright and commanding! I have to remind myself that I am in a vehicle and there are other people on the road. Oh, and if my husband happens to be driving, well he hates it! The sharp intake of breath followed by the pointing and yelling, I am surprised that I haven’t given him a heart attack! He gets mad, his blood pressure is up, but he is usually a good sport! He doesn’t always get out of the car with me – but I am working on him.

I have made so many great purchases at garage sales! I have some beautiful outdoor side tables, an old dresser, some great books, and much more! Even my husband got a deal on an old recliner for his man cave!  One of the beautiful things about garage sales are the deals! All the prices are just suggestions!  No one actually expects you to pay the asking price. Think about it – this is their junk!! They went to the trouble of putting a price on something, hauling it out onto their driveway, placing brightly coloured signs all over the community, setting up a lawn chair and committing an entire weekend to getting rid of this junk. They do not want to have to bring it back into the house or worse, load it into a truck and take it to the dump. The goal is to get rid of the stuff. They want you to take it, you don’t really need it, they don’t need it - so it comes down to who doesn’t need it less! 

There are a few things you can do to keep garage sale season running smoothly. First of all you should never really be looking for anything; it is good to have an idea of a few things that you could use around the house, but nothing you really need, if you really need something you should go buy it! If you have specific things you are expecting to find at a garage sale you will likely be disappointed. It is all about finding that thing you didn’t really know you needed.

The other key to a successful garage sale season is to carry cash. Not just when you plan to go to a garage sale, but throughout the entire season. It is all about the random finds – the garage sale is going to find you, not the other way around! Be prepared; keep some cash in your car. A variety of cash is also very important. Lots of small bills. You need to be able to say, “oh darn, I really really like this - but I only have $5 on me, would you take $5?” and they will. It is easier to pretend you don’t have enough money than to ask them to give you a deal. They want to feel good too. Make it as simple as possible, easier the better.

Another good tip is to remind yourself you really don’t need this item – because you don’t, if you did you would go buy it! You want the seller to feel just as good as you do, so let them sell it to you. Telling them you don’t really need the item, but that you like it gets them trying to sell it to you. They want to get rid of the item and are more than happy to tell you why you need it and to drop the price! You get to work a deal and the whole time they feel like they sold it to you!  You leave feeling great about the deal you just got; and they get to tell their garage sale partner how they totally just convinced you to buy whatever it was! It’s a win, win!

A garage sale is a sneak peek into someone’s life too, isn’t it? You get to see what kind of things they have held onto throughout the years, what sort of books they read, their style in hats and purses, how well they have taken care of all the tools in their garage and sometimes you even get to go into the house. Oh, the garage sales when they let you into the house! You would never normally let a stranger into your house, never mind putting an ad in the paper and half a dozen fluorescent orange signs with arrows leading the way for an unknown amount of strangers right to your door, but for some reason when you sell your house you open the doors to all kinds of people! 

Maybe that’s it. 

You are moving - you aren’t going to see these people again - this isn’t even your house anymore! 

Whatever the reason, I love it!  

staying open

Over the past few weeks I have been lucky enough to run into two old friends from high school!  It was exciting to sit down with two separate people from two different times in my life and catch up! The feeling was warm, conversation was easy and the laughs were continuous! I found myself smiling thinking about the good times we had and the mistakes we made together. The mistakes have made us who we are and to see both of these people all grown up with their ducks in a row was amazing. I realized that I have been “pigeon holing” these old friends into the places they were when I last knew them. It was so great to see them all grown up, in better places and on a better path in life. It was refreshing to see they are still the same thoughtful, kind, fun loving guys I knew way back when, just a little older!

Seeing these boys from my past, has really got me thinking. How does this “pigeon hole” thinking affect us? I think we are all guilty of it. You remember what you remember. You forget that people can change, people do change; surely you are not the same person you were ten years ago.  You have changed over the years.

This applies to so many things in our lives, not only relationships with people but also relationships with things. When I was a kid I really did not like stew and just assumed that as an adult I still did not like stew.  Then one day I accidentally over cooked a roast, so I cut it up, added some vegetables and homemade gravy and voila - stew! Now I go out of my way to make it, stew has become a staple at our house!  

Being able to acknowledge change in all aspects of our lives is important.  It is easy to get stuck in our ways, easy to get so comfortable with our ways of thinking and our opinions that we lose the ability to change.  We still have the ability but maybe we are too comfortable to let those changes in. Changing is growing and if you stop growing you stop contributing! We are on this earth for a short period of time and we need to stay open in order to make the most of it! 

I feel grateful to have been able to see these two old friends and I am so happy for them and for all the positive changes they have made in their lives. I feel grateful too that I have been able to make this realization and to open myself up to the idea that things are not always the same as I remember.  I think we all need to let go, forgive and open ourselves to what is ahead instead of remaining stuck in the past.

It was a good reminder, seeing those boys, a good reminder to keep myself open. Open to change, not only within myself but also within others. Open to being accepting and forgiving. Things are forever changing and change is good. I never realized I was doing it, but I think because it has been so long since I saw them I just assumed they were the young men I remembered. There have been lots of really good times, lots of late nights, lots of laughs and there was a fair bit of irresponsibility. I am not that same person, but for some reason I thought they would be. 

Why?

Why did I think they would not have grown up and moved on too? I am not really sure why I thought that way but I do know that I am really glad the universe pointed it out to me!

r