I'm overwhelmed and just need to bitch

It's been a while since I've posted because I'm so busy I can't even find time to be online. I'm now juggling a 5-6 days a week job, parenting a four year old, and running a household. I know I'll get used to it eventually, and it wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't so dang broke.

I'm so sick and tired of my credit card/debit card being declined. It happens every time I go to the store lately, so I've been avoiding grocery shopping. I'm eating everything that's left in the freezer, and the nights I don't have Aloka I'm eating crackers and peanut butter left over from my salad making days, which I don't think I posted about coming bitterly and abruptly to an end.
I'm sure I'll get my feet under me at some point, but for right now, it feels like everything is falling apart.

Ever since Josh moved, we had to pull all (over 100) boxes out of his basement from the house he had to leave, and go through everything. We divided stuff and I have to say I ended up with the bulk of it after he got the things he wanted for his new house. Now I have boxes filling my front porch, basement, and living room, all needing to be gone through and gotten rid of. There's really not much in there that either of us even want anymore, and a lot of it is just piles of paperwork and crap.
I had to go through 8 giant rubbermaid bins full of pantry food.
Originally, I thought we'd only be without our things for a couple months at most when we first moved, so i brought all our dry goods, thinking how expensive it would be to replace it all. Well, it turns out it was in storage for 1.5 years, so all the food went bad/stale/rancid. We had lots of jars full of flours, and grains, even boxes of crackers.

So my house has been extremely not uplifting, which is probably also why I've been so grumpy lately. I finally did some rearranging of mine and Aloka's bedrooms last night after she was in bed and it feels a little better. I am going to work all this weekend on trying to go through boxes and clean up this house.
My poor roommate. She has been amazingly tolerant through all this!

Going to bed, g'night.

Happy Thanksgiving, and blissful Autumn!

It's so dang beautiful here in the fall!! It's been warm, sunny, and there's a crisp in the air as they say. The crunchy leaves are beautiful shades of golden, red and orange. I went on a walk during lunch last week, and just right off of Baker Street (the main drag) there was a tantalizing hazelnut tree dropping hazelnuts all over the sidewalk. I crunched through the golden leaves looking at the abundant harvest on the ground.
And speaking of abundant harvest, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving up at Naomi's house with Richard, his daughters and ex-wife Naomi and her boyfriend Ralph. Aloka had so much fun with the girls, I hardly saw her for the first two hours we were there I think.

Here is a video of the feast we contributed. My roomate Andrea is also in this video preparing her own feast that she brought to a potluck as well. We love Andrea, and she is so amazing with Aloka too which is a bonus!


This photo below is of a bunch of Philo Tartlett shells I filled with two different kinds of pudding. Dark chocolate pudding, and a Hazelnut Gianduja pudding. I topped them with vanilla laced fresh whip cream and grated chocolate (respective to the flavour it was on) once we were at Naomi's. They were so addictive!

And speaking of fall harvest.... We have an enormous plum tree in our backyard. The funny thing though, is that while everyone else's plums were in full harvest season a couple weeks ago, these ones were yucky, bitter, sour and astringent. They were falling off the tree like crazy, but just tasted gross!

I had pretty much given up on them, as plum season is now coming to a close, but Andrea had a friend come over and tell us that sometimes plums just need a good chill before they become sweet. We tasted them again, and sure enough they are decadent!!
You can imagine the scene that followed! Andrea and I have now each made 10 jars of plum jam, and that was even before the massive harvest we had today!

Today, Josh came over and we pulled the tarp off of Aloka's sandbox and positioned it just right. Then Josh grabbed a branch and shook it a little and down pelted zillions of plums!
All and all we ended up with close to 50 liters of plums, just over 15 gallons!

Josh also helped me hook up the freezer in my basement and tomorrow I'm going to be pitting a whole lot of plums! I'm going to make another 20 jars of jam, some pies to freeze, some plum syrup, and I will freeze a bunch of chopped up plums for use on porridge and whatever else. Josh is going to dry about 5 litres in his dehydrator for me too.

I sent him home with about 7 litres of his own plums, 3 jars of jam AND and whole bunch of hazelnuts off our hazelnut tree! It makes complete sense to have Thanksgiving during the harvest time of year. I love autumn!

Below are the pictures and videos of our giant plum harvest. Here is the plum tree; Giant, un-pruned and pretty much ignored from an arbourists viewpoint:


















The plums!




























Aloka with a Dahlia Andrea picked on Thanksgiving Day:

I'm so tired *yawn*

I'm actually going to go to bed now, but I just wanted to post since it's been over a week now.
I started my new job last week, and it's wiping me out! I think it's because my body just isn't used to standing for 6 hours straight in one spot. This is due to me processing web orders and responding to emails, but my desk is very high, so a chair wouldn't really work.
Anyway, my back hurts, my legs hurt, my bum hurts. Yesterday I discovered that I'm having some sciatic nerve thing. Shooting pain all up and down my left side.
Today I was "on the floor" basically doing sales. Welcoming, helping, ringing people up, etc. I had to smile for 6 hours straight in other words, whilst standing the whole time. Which thing is more tiring, smiling or standing, I don't know.

This email sounds like just one big huge whine. Well, it feels good to whine sometimes. If Aloka gets to do it *all* the time, I get to do it sometimes too, like at 12:30am all alone sitting at my computer, where she will never hear me.

And don't get me wrong, I really do love this job. As far as entry level jobs that pay really bad go, this one is great! The people are awesome (I only have 3 other coworkers), I can do a little work from home (like a few hours a week or so) managing the website, and I get to sell toys and children's products! It's great training for my own website, which I'm very excited about now, and it feels even more attainable now than ever.

Tomorrow we're having Thanksgiving dinner (even though Thanksgiving is officially on Monday) with Richard and children and ex-wife and ex-wife fiance. Sounds interesting?
I'd like to have American Thanksgiving with Josh and Aloka, and maybe some American friends, especially since it's near Josh's bday.
So, this is what I'm contributing tomorrow to the feast:
Apple Pie, Pumpkin Pie, two kinds of Phylo tartlett shells filled each with Dark Chocolate Mousse or Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse (Gianduja), topped with fresh whipped cream and chocolate shavings, Baked Yams with Rosemary and Olive Oil, and lastly my favourite yummy pleasure lately, Hot Artichoke Dip served with sliced vegetables and french bread. This is so dang good, words cannot describe. I'm going to post the recipe which comes from my very extremely good friend Kara:

Hot Artichoke Dip

1 14oz can Artichokes (in water), drained
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1 cup mayonnaise
1 Tbl green onion, finely minced
1 Tbl fresh parsley
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp fresh lemon juice
sea salt to taste
1 or 2 vine ripened tomatoes, sliced thin

Combine all ingredients and place in a shallow oven-proof dish. Top with the sliced tomatoes.
Bake at 350F (180C) for 10-15 minutesor until heated through. Serve hot. Try not to drool on it.

Before I retire to my super comfy and warm bed (it's beckoning me), I must post some photos of Aloka and her block creations from a couple weeks ago. They were so cool, I had to capture it on film:

Ok, Josh actually did this one.

Yes, she really did this tall thingie. She loves going up up up.