newfoundlanders!

Here's a grainy pic of Emily, myself and Bill at Christmas this past year, which was held at Cathy's farm out near Rimbey. Christmas was kind of the start of integrating Bill's family into our lives.

Not that we were avoiding them or anything...okay, maybe a little.

With Bill just coming out of two years of isolation when we met (he'd had a helluva time getting custody of Em and trying to find a job that would work around having a six year old. Daycares don't usually accept kids at 4:30 am, which is what time Bill had to leave when he was welding) he decided to lay low.

Lay low from his sister Cathy, who'd witnessed his struggle while she went through her own, working in Alberta while her kids stayed in Newfoundland. When she settled down here, it took another year before we got a call from their mum, Margie, to get together because Cathy's son was in the hospital with appendicitus.

It didn't take long before Bill's mum & dad came out, and as of last week, his cousins out of Labrador. To be honest, the whole family is awesome. I've enjoyed meeting and talking with all of them, and just love the whole culture, from the food to their interesting dialects.

I'm off to work for awhile. Happy Sunday!

wedding anniversary

photo by J. Chanders

Today is my second wedding anniversary!

I've been sitting here near the deck, listening to all the birds chirping and thinking back to this day two years ago when Bill and I were saying our vows. We stood on a dock in the middle of Bear Lake, and as we repeated the Commissionaire's words, two eagles soared over top. I'm a city girl at heart, but it was pretty romantic.

More than just having a companion to share the burdens in life, Bill gave me a much bigger gift - a family unit that protects each other. I longed for a relationship that my daughter could admire, instead of one that would breed fear and resentment. I hoped that I could set an example for her, that she could see that rebuilding a life was possible.

And it really is.

We have a few problems, but nothing compared to before! For the most part, my days are filled with laughter and kisses and I never really know what'll happen next, and I'm really enjoying it.

Happy Sunday!

love Monday

photographer unknown

Thank goodness that Bill went back to work today!

Since last Monday, he's been off work with a bad back and today he started at his new company. I love that man more than any man I've ever known, but I still wanted to kill him by the time I woke up on Sunday.

In the past week, I have not driven anywhere, because he likes to drive. And he likes to take the most circuitous routes available. A three kilometer trip will eventually add up to about eight, and not only will you hit both the north and east sides of the city, but you'll end up downtown at least twice.

He throws his cigar butts on the ground. He forgets to lock the truck when he comes home. He makes plans to vacuum the bedroom but gets distracted by something else and I trip over the Hoover and the handheld.

The other night he ruined my $40 Party Lite three wick candle by setting another small jar on top of it. While it was still burning.

"Why would you do that?" I asked.

"Well, the little one was almost burned out so I thought that it would burn the table if I didn't set it on something."

"You need to go back to work before I strangle you. And don't even think about retiring."

The rest of the last week was actually pretty nice. I do love spending a lot of time with him, but that "too much of a good thing" is absolutely true.

my life was changed forever

Halloween 2006

Today is the fifth anniversary of the day I met Bill!

I'd come across his profile on Hot or Not a few days before, clicked on the little "Meet Me" button and the rest is history.

We've fit a LOT into five years!

The first year, he was away working and we were in a LDR.

The second year, he came back but moved to Calgary and we drove back and forth every weekend.

The third year, he moved in and we got custody of Em.

The fourth year, we got married.

In the fifth year, I struggled with my health and my sanity and my business really suffered! But he was so awesome through all of it - he never said a word, even when when we couldn't pay our bills.

Here's the kicker - I forgot! The first thing he said when he returned from work was "happy anniversary", and I thought, "of what?" LOL. What a good guy!

road trip

Bill and I drove to Wetaskiwin yesterday, to see one of my oldest friend's, Dale's Sensei from Winnipeg. To be honest, I wasn't sure if he would come with me - for awhile there, I thought he might get called into work, or not want to go.

But for a man that has married a widow, he's been great. I used to read about recoupled widow/ers having trouble with resentment and jealousy all the time. The "I just can't compete with a ghost" bs was one of my biggest worries. Thankfully, he doesn't do that.

He listens to me talk about Dale, although not as much as I used to - right now I'm still angry that the stress he caused has started messing with me physically. And maybe that is why Bill doesn't resent Dale very much. Dale made some HUGE mistakes during his short, tragic life and I have been left behind to deal with it all, and most of the time Bill feels empathy for me.

At any rate, we drove about an hour north of here to see his Sensei. We watched part of the class and then met them for a beer afterward, which was nice. Bill got to chat up the Two Dale's (two former students and good friends of Dale) Takanaka (the Sensei from Wetaskiwin) and Sensei's Smabey(from Iowa) and Marr (from Winnipeg) and we all laughed and joked around for an hour before we headed home.

It was the perfect way to spend Mother's Day.

afternoon delight

photographer unknown

I've been trying to write something all day.

Well, since I didn't wake up until 11:00 am, make that all afternoon. You know, this is one of the things that bothers me. I was asleep by 11:00 pm last night, so why did I sleep twelve hours?

I suppose it won't happen once I start setting an alarm, but it is still strange. You know, when Dale was alive I used to sleep four to five hours during the night, and maybe have a two hour nap after work - that's because the house was always in such chaos.

After I got up, Bill called and said he was coming into town to wash bins at the Jumbo Wash, so that meant he could come home for some makin' out. Errr, I mean lunch. After he had some chicken, he went back to work and I did a load of laundry, cleaned up one of Lola's mistakes, and sat down here.

That's when Jamie came upstairs and turned on the TV. That means it's time for me to go to work.

Hope you all have a nice Thursday!

more than paper

The more connections you and your lover make, not just between your bodies, but between your minds, your hearts, and your souls, the more you will strengthen the fabric of your relationship.
- Barbara De Angelis

Whenever Bill and I are out and about running errands, we often listen to CBC Radio just to see what's going on. Must be an age thing, because I wouldn't have been caught dead listening to CBC Radio in my youth! At any rate, we were out and about last night. Bill's hair needed trimming and we needed to pay the cell bill, so that I can get calls about the jobs I've applied for.

In between, we went for coffee and wandered around Canadian Tire before getting in the truck to head south so that we could get some vegetables and stop at the bank. That's when we heard the story of this girl who'd been living with her boyfriend for nine years, and was interviewing all her friends and family. It seemed as though each time someone in her circle got married, she'd long to do it herself. She started wondering, why did she want to marry? What was it about marriage that she wanted? At the same time, her longtime boyfriend was digging in his heels, trying to avoid the subject with her, or used the "it's just a piece of paper" explanation.

Is it really? Well, my first thought is, if you don't believe in marriage to start with, the only difference is going to be the piece of paper. I used to say that in my early twenties, after my first marriage failed. For the record, my first marriage failed because I didn't marry for the right reasons. My second marriage ended when my husband died, but if it hadn't been for the alcoholism, I would have considered it a successful marriage.

My marriage to Bill is my third one, so obviously, I have come to believe in it.

Marriage is the ultimate partnership. When it comes to love, family, money and sex, a marriage is the ultimate in commitment. I'm sure there are people that would say a person can commit without marriage, and I suppose that is true to a degree, but ultimately, if you're not willing to say the vows and sign the contract, something is holding you back. In your heart of hearts, you know the reason why.

If you're married but it's not working, that doesn't mean you have to become jaded and consider it a bad thing altogether. One day, you might be surprised, if you meet the right person.

To marry or not to marry, only you can say. But to Bill and I, it's much more than a piece of paper. It's a declaration, and it was one of the nicest things we've ever done for one another. Say what you will about the legalities, but to me it's not about that. I guess it all comes down to a feeling. A connection.

I'm such a romantic.

have a lovely Easter

photo by Hermann Uwe

Happy Easter!

It's going to be a very quiet day for us. Emily is going to stay the night with Bill's sister, who lives about an hour west of us. She moved out there about two years ago, although we don't socialize with her. I met her once, about six months before Bill and I were married, but they'd drifted apart in the last ten years with her in Newfoundland and him living out here. I find it ironic that she ended up so close, but it's nice that Em can go stay with her - especially since they all have such heavy Newfoundland accents! I bet Em really misses that.

Last night I was having a hell of a time understanding what Bill was saying. When that happens, I usually ask if he's been speaking to family, because his accent gets really thick. Or as he would say, tick. The phrase I asked him to repeat was "I hadda bat." I kept thinking, "bat? What bat?" but what he meant was, he'd had a bath. Oooohhhhhh! To be honest, I think that the way he speaks is sexy.

Occasionally, he imitates my flat Albertan accent, but when he does it he uses proper English and good grammar and I end up sounding like the Queen of England, LOL.

He's working this morning, and as luck would have it, he's working near his sister's home, which is why Em is going with him. I hope he gets home by lunchtime.

memento mori

birthday polish, from Jamie


At my weekly counselling session last Thursday, Glenda said something about Dale that's been bothering me since then. We were talking about the guilt I have as a mother, for staying with an alcoholic. Because I couldn't leave, I changed the course of mine and Jamie's life forever - and in some ways, that was a good thing. In other ways, it was horrific. Anyway, she had said something like, "You shouldn't blame yourself so much because after all, when you met him he was still young and a nice guy. You didn't know he'd turn out to be not such a nice guy."

I'm sure she didn't realize how that would set off more guilt, because one of the reasons Dale chose to die was because he felt he deserved it. He quit drinking eight months before he died but kept beating himself up, I kept saying that I would keep his memory alive and I would celebrate the person that he was before he lost the battle with booze. I hate that other people only know the bad things.

Anyway, one of the nice things I truly miss about him is that he had a thing for giving me pedicures.

It wasn't a fetish as far as I know, but he thought I had beautiful feet. He loved the way they got so brown in the summer time, he loved the way they arched along the bottom, and loved painting my toes.

We'd be reading on the couch, with him sitting on one end and me laying down with my feet across his lap. Every now and then he'd notice that the polish was fading or coming off and fix it.

A few months before he actually died, we were on the couch in the same way but when his hand closed over the top of my foot he started crying. Through tears of my own I asked him what was wrong and he said who's going to take care of these? You have such pretty feet...

In the six and a half years since he died, I thought of this story every single time I painted my nails, with the exception of the time I asked Bill to do it last fall. We sat on the bed in the bedroom for over forty-five minutes because we kept laughing so hard that I couldn't stay still. Thank god the colour was light pink.

I kept that polish on for months, until it eventually faded away.

word verification snafus

I've been trying to comment on several journals (Tammy and Bobby come to mind) but the word verification thingy is not loading. If you're considering taking those off, please rest assured that in the two months I've been here, I haven't encountered one spam comment.

Today is the second day that Bill is on vacation this week, and already I can see how difficult it's going to be when we're both retired. He completely ruins my routine, which causes me anxiety! Basically, I get up at 9:30 every day, have a shower and blog for at least an hour while I drink my coffee. When my hair is dry, I flat iron it, do my make-up and get dressed and head out the door.

This morning he got up, ran a bath, and started reading the news on the computer. I went back to bed, turned on the TV to watch Cold Case Files, but the anxiety kept building up so that forty minutes later I had to ask him to get in the damn bath because he was ruining my routine, lol.

Happy Tuesday ~

love weekend continues

photo by Cecil Williams

There are so many widows out there that are afraid to start looking for new partners, and in many cases I understand where they're coming from. If you have had a wonderful, nearly problem-free marriage, it would be daunting (to say the least) to think of starting all over. For some people, it seems like an insult to the late spouse, because it can feel like "settling".

I think that in many ways, some of my friends thought I was settling when I fell for Bill. Jamie actually confronted me about it, when Bill first came back from working overseas and we were trying to figure out how and when he'd move here.

For the record, my official "type" is usually an athlete. 5'11" to 6'0" tall, dark hair, green/blue eyes, Irish or Scottish descent. I'm not sure if Jamie thought that I was settling because Bill is shorter than that - he and I are exactly the same height in bare feet, 5'7.5". Or because his brown hair is often bleached blonde, like Eminem, or if it was because he was trying to start over and we were a bit ahead of the game, due to the house.

Whatever it was, I remember being shocked when she asked if I was settling.

"Oh my God, no!", I replied. "In fact, he is almost exactly what I'd hoped for..."

Late 2001

It was the year leading up to Dale's death that we got our first PC, and quite often, while he was sleeping or passed out, I was learning how to navigate the internet and came across all kinds of websites and forums. I joined one for spouses of people suffering from borderline personality disorder, and another for spouses of alcoholics. Eventually Dale was officially diagnosed as terminally ill, and I joined a site for caregivers.

I don't remember when I first heard of people meeting and marrying other people they'd met online, but it would have been in the last months of Dale's life. In August and September I looked over a dating site, but by the time I was actually widowed in October of 2002, I had decided to be celibate for a year before beginning to date.

Of course, I wasn't ready to date by October 2003, but that didn't stop me. Thankfully, I was ready to fall in love again by May of 2004, and I did fall in love with Bill, almost immediately. We'd met online, on a rating site called Hot or Not. I emailed him, we added each other to MSN messenger, and I asked him out to dinner two days later. Our lives changed from that point on.

That Moment

I had been seeing Bill for two or three weeks, and because we lived 80 miles apart, we would take turns driving to the other's city on weekends. Most of the time I would do two weekends in a row because Jamie and I loved Calgary, so we would do one Date weekend followed by one Family weekend.

One Date weekend, Bill and I went out dancing, laughing and doing shots until three in the morning, followed by hours of kissing and making love back at his apartment. Em was staying at the sitter's house, so we were free to do whatever the next morning. After waking late and making love again, Bill got out of bed to make coffee and eggs in his robe. I stayed in bed and listened to him puttering around the kitchen.

At one point, he came back into the bedroom where I was laying, and crawled up the length of my body. He settled himself over top of me, burying his face in my neck and giving me this full bodied hug that just enveloped me. I was sure that he could hear my heart thumping away in my chest, and as I ran the palms of my hands over the back of his head and down his neck and shoulders, I got the feeling that we weren't two separate people anymore.

I wasn't exactly sure until three weeks later, that that had been the moment we fell in love.

Back to the Future

Well, this coming June will mark five years since that moment happened. We were in love but didn't talk about it for several more months, due to the LDR and his time spent in Newfoundland, Texas, Libya and Qatar while I waited for him here.

We spent three days together in September of that year, and that's when he said the words. Of course, I had to wait almost another year before he came back to stay, but by the time he finally did, we were very sure.

Settle? Not likely.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

photo by Declan McCullagh

Happy Valentine's Day! It's not just for lovers, it's for anybody that has passion and a sense of the romantic. I'm such a sucker for that kind of stuff, too (flowers, jewelry, romantic dinners) but these days Bill and I settle for things that don't interfere with our budget.

Here's one of my favourite songs of all time:



Last night while I was putting away groceries, Bill brings up iTunes and starts playing At Last. Four years ago, I would have been listening to it all alone while Bill was working over in Qatar and longing for him with an ache that would never go away. This year, he took me in his arms and danced me all over the kitchen.

It definitely makes up for the fact that tonight, he got called back to Fox Creek and won't be home again until tomorrow night. I think I'll have some shiraz and watch SNL. Who's hosting?

love the bad boys

emaciated idol, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta

It's been a nice morning. I meant to get up at 7:45 but since I was out late at my friend's house (silvertag...she hasn't been updating lately!) I slept in until 9:00 and now I am having a coffee and catching up with everyone.

I have to get into the office soon because I have some forms to print off as well as another course and exam, and my 7:00 rebooked for this afternoon. This means I get to spend the evening with my hubby, who's being very attentive today.

Sometimes I look at him and wonder what my life would be like without him. Not in paranoid way, but as if I had married someone else. I used to think he was different than the usual type I was drawn to, but he's not really. He's the bad boy with an addiction to adrenaline, but he's forty-one so he's slowing down. He can't do the extreme sports he used to (thank god) and he's not taking anymore extreme jobs (getting shot at by bedoins was enough, thanks) and if he had to choose someone to calm down with, I'm glad it was me. Still, enough of his old ways remain that he's definitely not boring. It also helps that he channels all that unused energy into his sense of humour and his love life. I'm a lucky girl.

Have a good one!

lost socks

We've spent the last few days trying to finish up all the laundry downstairs, and today we'll be done. Between that and the handwashing (all my skirts, sweaters and new PJ bottoms get washed by hand) it's been keeping me busy while I'm here.

Today I feel like I have a hangover, but I'm sure that it's because of all the drama around parenting and trying to get it all worked out. I think that we've finally got that done too. It's so upsetting, because I love my life now. Jamie is almost finished school (she says she feels good about the first part of her English final, part two is on the 23rd) Emily is thriving, and Bill and I seem to spend most of our time laughing at one thing or another.

This last bump in the road grew into something much bigger than it needed to be, all because he kept insisting that I was over-reacting. I wasn't being heard at all, and to be honest, my marriage to Dale went like that for the last six years, and I'm not letting this wonderful marriage go the same way.

I posted an entry at the new JS but don't know how to navigate, so I have no idea how to get to your journal unless you post a link here. Since I read a few journals while I'm getting ready for work (right now I'm about to blow dry my hair, lol) and my friends are all on my dashboard, I tend to stick around here.

Thank goodness I have this Saturday off. I'll be able to look around a lot more.