Heaven...What's it like?????

DECEMBER 6/09
Marks the day that my childhood next door neighbor Larry Leblanc left us for heaven..and as most of you know recently my dad went up to join my mom. For my mom and dad..I knew it was going to happen, they both has cancer and I was told in both cases that it was only a matter of time....I had time to prepare myself or so I thought, I wasn't prepare for ANYTHING the feelings of loss , anger and loneliness!!!

Little Larry was just gone and I can't even begin to imagine what his parents , brother, sister , girlfriend , kids and rest of his family went through and I'm sure still going through!!

So It is my wish that since my parents are up there and so is Little Larry that he can borrow them till his parents one day eventually join him. and I'll borrow his :0).

I so want to believe that there is a place up there , where they can be a peace and feel no pain and know no sickness. But I have some questions and I know that they may never get answered , but I still have to ask.....

What is heaven like??? Is it peaceful? Nil of sickness? Does it rain or snow? Or is it constant sunshine? Do you sleep? Or are you awake 24 hours a day? Where do you eat? And if you eat do you get to eat what ever you want, whenever you want? Larry do you get to play the guitar all the time? Mom and Dad do you get to go to bluegrass festivals? Paddy do you have fishing boat?
Do you get to watch us all day? If so what does it look like ?Are you looking down upon at us? Or are you beside us?

Do you all live in houses ? Do you have neighborhoods ? Or do you all live in one big house?
If you want to go somewhere, do you get in the car and go ? Or do you think about where you want to go and your just there? Do you age? Or just stay the same age as when you passed?

Do you get to celebrate holidays and special occasions like Christmas, Halloween, birthdays and Anniversaries?

And I guess the big questions is ...Did you meet the BIG GUY? Is there a BIG GUY?

Snow day ;0)

OMG....It was so nice to wake up to the snow this morning!! I don't know about anybody else , but it puts me in the Christmas spirit. Looking out the window at all the snow made me think about my childhood...

The first thing that you did when you woke up , was listen to the radio to see if it was a snow day ..fingers crossed , and if you heard your school on the list you jumped for joy. Had some thing to eat and outside you went....building snowmen, making snow angels ,sledding and whatever else you could think of.. And if we were lucky enough to get a big dump then our next door neighbor Tommy would throw us in the ditch and we had to dig our selves out. by the time we did that 3 times we were wore out and it was time to head inside for some hot chocolate with marshmallows of course!!

We had a wood stove in our house and my mom would put the oven door down and lay a towel on top and we would put our feet up and warm them.
I can also remember it snowing so much that sometime there was only one lane open on the road...especially by the Septon's house.. Oh the memories, sometimes I would give anything to be back there!!!
I can remember once I threw a birthday party for Holly at our family's cabin in merland, there was still snow on the ground, so many people showed up , the cars were lined up a mile long. I remember the deck collapsing and everybodies booze went flying ...The next day when we went to look at the damage . I can remember finding tons of booze out side in then snowand thinking ..where are we going tonight girls . LOL

oh those were the days when we didn't have a care in the world....

I love the fact that when I look out at the snow it brings me right back there!!!!

It's that time .....Christmas time is here

Hey, Hey people...

Sorry it's been so long!! I've been sick and didn't really have the energy to write.

So I was talking to my fav sister inlaw Deb and we decided that I should embrace the Christmas season like never before.....So that's right people I'm doing it bigger and better than ever before.
To try and get my mind of recent events, I'm going to decorate,wrap presents, bake, cook and decorate some more....

Normally I only get one tree, one poinsettia, and Christmas lights outside and hang a hand towel in the bathroom...This year not the case I'm gonna order as many poinsettia's as I can. Maybe 2 trees and decorate the outside better ( normally I'm afraid that everything will get stolen). But this year I don't care.

I've started to make my Christmas cards and I'm making Wes take a Christmas card pic...(that's right MAKING Wes...lol he'll do it just to humor me) . And for some reason I'm almost want us to wear a cheesy sweater or the Rudolph ears. I want to do something different with my main tree. So tonight I start to make popcorn garland for the tree .

I've already found most of the recipes that I want to make...and started my grocery list...Yes I will be heading to Edmonton for that list... The one thing that will be the same this year as it is every year is that I will be making my mom's stuffing recipe ...yummy!!

This year it will be different...instead of the usual full house for dinner, it will be just Wes and I , I have no family coming , Dar, King and Muffin have all moved on. The daughters usually have dinner with their mom and Murph will probably stay at the man house for dinner.

I think that is another reason for me to go bigger and better this year....everything thing has changed ...... some say change is good, lets see if the some are right.

So people it's that time of year......Christmas is here

What's a girl to do ???

Well I've officially been home in Jasper for a week. It's kinda weird ...I thought that I would just fall back into my everyday routine...It hasn't been as easy as I thought!!! I mean really what is my purpose here???

Work is Work 9 to 6 everyday , while I love scrapbooking(part of my job as well as embroidery) and for some reason I just have no desire to do it right now. I tried to get ready for my up coming Christmas classes today, no luck I spend more time sitting and staring at my desk or on facebook wondering what my Nova Scotia family was doing.

One of my bestest friends has moved away, and I miss her!!! Normally on Sunday's I would go down to o'shea's and visit her and make a plan to do something during the week.

The only thing to do here that doesn't cost money is go for a walk or hike , but honestly you can only walk or go for a hike for so long every day, and with winter coming even that will be limited.

I don't know how to get back to the life I had before....and it scares the crap out of me. The only thing that is the same here is Wes and that I'm gratefully for...It's like a dream, I keep running forward but don't get anywhere.

The little town that has......

I spent 24 years of my life in Antigonish, (to most martimers it's better known as Antigonowhere...)and the next 15 1/2 in Jasper. Don't get me wrong Jasper as been good to me, after all that's where I met the love of my life. I have 3 wonderful stepdaughters and an awesome job. I recently spend 2 months back in Antigonowhere and I have a new respect for the place, I'm not really sure what the population is (more in the fall and winter when STFX is in) ....and they have 2 huge grocery store.
I was in heaven. I could spend hours in them, I would go to Timmy's and grab a coffee and then off to Sobey's or Superstore and just walk around looking at everything . The produce section is amazing ,I can buy apples, oranges and just about any thing else I desire and not have to eat it that very same day for fear of it rotting. The bakery...let me just say OMG. and the Meat and Deli sections is as big as the grocery store that I live behind...seriously I'm not kidding. Here you can't even have 2 carts passing in the isle. Here there are 2 isles for potato chips , but the seafood section.....WHAT SEAFOOD SECTION. I can't even get ground turkey or chicken here because the butcher told me there isn't a big need for it, but apparently there is a big need for beef suet...who are they f#%*ing kidding.
I miss the deals too, the buy 1 and get 2 free is awesome. And that's just sobey's. Superstore is amazing...you can get anything ground that you want, clothing (love the Joe line). If you need a prescription filled , you can grocery shop while you wait. And if your sick, there is a dr's office upstairs. Seriously you could get everything you need in that one store...need a couch, pots and pans, or just outdoor furniture...that's the place to go. Here I can't get skim mozzarella cheese, but I can get rotten meat that they have marinated to try and pass it off...So I guess my point is ......I'm so jealous and have a new respect for the little town that has two huge grocery store

Questions of Life????

Well I'm back to my life in Alberta....and to be honest I'm not sure what I'm suppose to do. It's was extremely hard for me to leave Nova Scotia . I think on some level being in Nova Scotia made me feel closer to my dad. And now that I'm back here I feel lost!!! I honestly thought that when I got back here and seen Wes everything would go back to the way that its suppose to be, but that's not the case...I feel like an outsider looking in.

And I don't know how I'm suppose to do make it better, what are the steps to me getting my life back?? And will it get back to what it was?? or do I need to accept the fact that life with never be the same and move on??

Alot has changed since I left in Sept..or maybe it's just me that changed...I'm not really sure any more. So I guess I will spend the next couple of months trying to figure out where I fit in , in this great big crazy world

Copenhagen Long Cut !!!! ewwww

Well it's late and I'm just sitting down to write...I spended most of the day cleaning the Copenhagen Long cut (ewwwww )off the walls in the bathroom . My dad loved his copenhagen long cut (ewwwww again). he did it day and night !!! The Friday that I took him to the hospital, he made me go get it out of the van that night before I left. When he passed away on Saturday they gave me his belonging. 2 days later when I went to look for his chain , that I came across his copenhagen. So the day of the funeral I was planning on putting it in his pocket for him, when I went to look for it and realized that I forgot it home , so off to the store I went and got some (15 buck) . I stuck it in his pocket and told him to have a good chew on the way up to the big house. I had forgotten all about it til...yesterday when I was cleaning the pantry/storage room and I came across a sobey's bag full of empty copenhagen container. Seriously there must have been at least 30 of them in there ....(what he was saving them for we will never know) . But it was one of those little things and brings a smile to your face.. and then the tears started. Then I went looking for the open container that I had..and I decided that I'm gonna (no not chew it) ewww, but stick it in the freezer so that every time I look in there I will see it and think of him.. or til one day in the far far far away future...think to myself...why the hell are you keeping this!!!

Home Is Where The Heart Is!!!

Well here I sit at Dad's house all by my lonesome... I love this place!!! Its quiet, beautiful view and it's home. But when I get up in the morning the first thing I do is look in Dad's bed to see if he's up yet, and when I don't see him in there then I walk to the kitchen and look to see if he's at the kitchen table and then it hits me that he's gone!!

So now am I an orphane???? My Mom died 10 years ago and now my father has passed on.

It's funny looking around my dad's place( and it will always be dad's place) and seeing everything . I don't want to touch any thing and probably won't till the spring when I come home again and have a clear head. So to make a long story short my home will will always be here. and as some say....Home Is Where The Heart Is!!!.

I know my blogs are boring ,,, but I promise to make them more interesting in the future ;0)

Winter....Winter who????

Well I guess it had to come some time. I was just driving my 30 km back from town when it started to snow, hail , rain....whatever you wanted to call it...and it's damn cold out there too!!!
So for the past few days I have been trying to get everything done that needs to be done at my dad's house that I need a man for...I know I know....as bad as it sounds..I'm going to ultilize Wes while he's still here. And the inside stuff I can do my self.

Who knew there would be so much to do....clean up the yard and lock away anything that is of any value. Get locks for the shops, change the house into my name, change the cars over to me!!!
I know that this stuff has to be done...but I think in the same since...I haven't had time to grief for my father. And everytime I do something it hits home that he's gone and isn't coming back.

So today I'm staying inside and gonna do what I can in the house...plus I'm gonna make some good old comfort food...maybe chicken fried steak with gravy and smashed potatoes...hmmm!!!

Oh and of course I'm gonna take advantage of Wes while he's here as well....LOL

Is it a Happy Thanksgiving?????

Well it's been a few days ...okay more like a week since I've blogged...but I do have a good excuse!!! My dad passed away.
So I've been so busy taking care of things that I haven't had a chance to do much else.. I just wanted to say that I'll be back tomorrow in full force...

leavin on a jet plane

Well the day that I have been dreading and counting down at the same time is here...Wes is leaving to go back home to Jasper ...leaving me here by my lonesome...
I should complain he came to visit me when I needed him, and now he has to go back to work so that I can stay here and look after my dad.
What a great man I married!!! He would do anything in the world for me, buy me anything or go anywhere for me..I'm one lucky girl.
So in the past week that he's been here, we haven't really done a whole lot..not that we didn't want to but also the reason I'm here is to look after my dad ...so we stayed pretty close to home.

We ate what ever we wanted to .. and now I'm paying the price for it. I went to put on my dress pants this morning and they were way to tight...I did mange to get them on and done up , but way to uncomfortable to stay in all day...so I've decided that now that Wes is going home I'm going to walk every day at the civic centre and lose some weight...I mean what else do I have to do everyday...
till tomorrow

what a way to start the day!!!

I woke up at 8 this morning to find dad already up and at the table....asks me to get him some water...I look outside and it's overcast and looks like it's gonna rain, I instantly feel depressed. I make breakfast for dad 2 fried eggs and some rice cakes...(he's loving the rice cakes lately) and a cup of tea. while he's eating I sit at the computer and check my facebook and emails...the phone rings and it's a friend calling to tell me that my uncle's cancer has doubled in size since july ...okay so now I'm even more depressed...

Tomorrow my husband goes back home to Jasper to go back to work, while I stay here..TEARS come to my eyes...I don't want him to go, but I know he has to (and it's because of him that I can stay with my father). more depressed...Then it hits me right between the eyes ....I have so much to live for, I have my health, my husband, family and friends...I have a lot to live for and I'm going to make the best of it...so away with the depression and tears...I'm gonna enjoy every moment I have with my father ..

okay so this is my first blog...please know that they will not always be this depressing...I just had to get that off my chest...it will be about my father and his disease, but it will also be about me and my everyday life and the things that I see or do!!!