New Blog!

Ok... so I decided to completely revamp my blog instead!

Here's the new address:

http://lindiv.blogspot.com/

There's lots of tweaking that still needs to get done - and none of the pages are written yet, but it will all come in time :) Enjoy!

Happy New Year!

Special Delivery

Yay! Christmas time is here!! I'm so excited for Christmas. I thought at 25 maybe I'd be less excited, but I think that having Mr. A around has made this year even more exciting! I've been spending time with his family (from here and visiting) so much that they're really starting to feel like my family. It's been a great vacation. If I can't be home with my mama and papa in Ontario, I don't think I could ask for anything better than this!

Also, this wonderful package arrived from home :) with stockings for me and Mr. A!

The last few days have been great (I'll. give more details soon). I can't wait to see what the next few days hold!

Ps - sorry for all the exclamation marks! I'm just really happy!!

New Layout

I'm experimenting with a new background. I'm also contemplating changing the name, but I may just change the URL... So many decisions. I know some of you like my blog name. It'll stay as long as I can't think of another name! Thoughts?! Ideas?!? I'll take anything you've got!

One Word

If you could use one word to describe me, what word would it be? Just ONE word.

....

5 Reasons

Here are 5 reasons that I'm thrilled that my bestest friend of life is here!

In no particular order....

1. It feels like home has come to GP!

2. We got to exchange awesome Christmas gifts

3. She'll now understand all my random references over skype or the phone

4. She could give her "A-OK" to my Mr. A :)

5. It had been a while since I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe

I love her and I'm super happy that she took the time to come and see me! Hopefully there will be some pics from her visit to follow... Thanks friend!

Apartment Christmas

Christmas has invaded my life and apartment. Here's a sneak peak of what I've done with the small amount of free stuff that I've collected this year.

Stockings that mom and dad sent me last year :)

The mini-Christmas tree that we made, free lights (on the balcony), and the blanket I (or rather Mr. A) won at a Christmas party. Joop is clearly enjoying the Christmas fun.

Presents!!! (these just magically showed up!)

I know I've been posting a lot of Christmas things lately, but I just love Christmas time! It's been such a great time of year. I feel like I'm at home this year and it's been wonderful to fill up my life with Christmas joy. My bestie visiting from Ontario also makes it feel a bit more like home :) I'm enjoying the holidays so much already and they haven't even started!

Hope you're pre-holidays are going fantastically as well!

More Treats

I was inspired by my friend who is a soon-to-be-baby-mama to make some Christmas bonbons!

They are basically little balls of sugar. So good! But you can only eat one at a time. Unless you are me and my brother, circa ages 6 and 8, sneaking them from the garage fridge five at a time.

If you really wanna make them...

1. Get a brick of cream cheese

2. Add a tsp of vanilla

3. Add icing sugar until it gets to the consistency that when you scoop some on a spoon and turn the spoon upside-down it doesn't fall off

4. Split in two and add food colouring as desired

5. Scoop up with a spoon and drop on parchment paper

(6. roll bon bon in coconut if you want)

Super easy. Aaaand delicious! (one at a time). Yumm :)

ps - I also made nuts & bolts!

Tasty Treats

I've been on a bit of a crazy baking kick lately. I think it's due to a combination of five main factors:

1. I miss my mommy (who I did all the Christmas baking with!)

2. I no longer have homework or exams at Christmas time

3. I have a real job to afford all of the ingredients

4. I have a manfriend and his family that I like baking for

5. They're delicious!

They're just rice krispie squares but they look prettier :) You can find the link to the recipe for the treats I made here. Enjoy!

Christmas Cards!

I tried to make all of my Christmas cards this year. If you're lucky, you just may end up with one of these lovely creations :)

ps - none of the cards have money in them... just so you know.

pps - I made duplicates of most of them so there are lots to go around!

Epic Baby Prediction

Ok folks... just remember that you heard it here first. These are my epic baby predictions. Above is my beautiful pregnant friend (that hopefully doesn't mind me stealing her photo...) who is expecting a little baby this month (probably... or next month).

These are my predictions:

Birthday: Dec. 28th

Sex: Female

Weight: 7lbs, 4 oz.

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Blonde (but it'll turn red-orange when she's like two)

Cuteness: 10 (out of a possible 10)

Let's see how close I get! Feel free to make your own predictions...

5 Reasons I Am Happy It's December 1st!

1. Gonna put up the Christmas Tree (someone.... made me wait 'til December....)

2. Holiday Baking :)

3. Joop's Christmas bandanas

4. Presents are bought

5. MY BEST FRIEND IS VISITING GP THIS MONTH!!!

....ok so this list is gonna be a bit longer...

6. I'm making a fresh batch of Nuts and Bolts on Saturday

7. I'm gonna send out home-made Christmas cards

8. I get to celebrate with a family again this year!

9. Christmas music starts on the radio

10. I get presents too :)

So, 10 reasons I'm happy!

Letters to Santa

Just in case you didn't know what Russ or I wanted.... Merry Christmas!

Scrapbooking Again

I was not gifted in life with artistic skills. Drawing, sketching, painting, scultping... I am awful at all of them. Scrapbooking is my only artistic outlet. I don't know why I enjoy doing it so much. I find it very satisfying to keep a book of the finished products though. I recently got into scrapbooking again after a somewhat long hiatus.

Here are the pages I've done recently:

This one is a page of pictures from my mama and grandmama's visit to Grande Prairie! We had a great time :)

This is a page of some pics of my manfriend and I. The colours are a bit brighter than in the picture. I pictures make me smile and the owls that we made look amazing.

This is a page of Joopers! I can't believe I haven't made a scrapbooking page about the pup yet. Watching him run around with his boots on outside had me laughing so hard I was snorting. So I decided to make a page of his cute pictures!

If anyone ever wants to scrapbook with me let me know. I think the dog one is my favourite of the three pages I just did. Fun, easy, quick, relatively inexpensive hobby. Maybe I'll post some more pages as I make them :)

From Someone Special

I'm dating the best boy ever! I was home from work sick today and someone amazing brought these to my place after he finished work today. They are beautiful and they smell amazing and they absolutely did make me feel better. I am a lucky girl :)

Cheesecake Is Not Easy To Make

So I tried to make a cheesecake this week. I attempted it with someone who we will call... Mr. Awesome (only cause he will love that if he ever reads this). Basically we saw a recipe in a kraft baking flyer and really wanted to make it cause it sounded amazing! "Chocolate Chip Black Bottom Cheesecake". Half cake, half cheesecake, filled with chocolate chips. What's not to love about that?? Neither of us had ever made cheesecake, or baked with a tube pan... but it can't be that hard right?!?

The recipe all ready to go. LOTS of ingredients.

The MOST important ingredient!

Mr. A baking for the first time, making the chocolate cake portion.

Using my lovely hand-held mixer and mixing the cheesecake batter!

CAKE!!! Ok, so it doesn't look all that appetizing, and we couldn't get it off of that tube thing from the pan for the life of us. BUT it tasted amazing!! If we could just perfect the look of it, we would be dessert geniuses! Seriously, we greased the pan, and baked it for the right amount of time, and the edge piece slid off nicely, but how in the world do I get it off the middle part without breaking it?! We may have tried once, and a hidden portion of the cake may or may not have fallen off... hard to say what really happened... All the cracks may have been caused by that incident as well... or maybe not. Who knows? Anyway, the point is that it tasted amazing and we will continue out quest to be master dessert bakers. Practice makes perfect!

Welcoming The Snow

Winter has arrived! Well... I don't know about the rest of Canada, but winter has arrived in Grande Prairie. The snow poured down, the roads are slippery, the temperature has dropped. True winter! Actually, the last couple of days have been absolutely beautiful. It wasn't windy so it wasn't that cold, and the sun was shining all day long. Lovely winter days :)

These couple pics were taken on my street yesterday at about 4:45pm. The sun is almost down, and the snow covers the ground. Joopers was enjoying the walk.

Just wanted to give everyone a picture of what they're missing up here in northern Alberta!

The crappy thing that comes along with winter is the colds and flus. I unfortunately have already caught a small cold... I'm now pumping vitamin C and NeoCitran into my body and hoping for the best. I'm guessing my early bedtime will be the most helpful of all :)

ps - tomorrow is suppose to be -24 degrees, with a high of -15. Lovely... Alyssa, if you're reading this, don't forget to bring a warm, warm coat when you visit!

Sidewalk Prophets - You Love Me Anyway

I cannot get this song out of my head lately. I love the message and the lyrics. So powerful. I'm a huge fan of having a local Christian radio station (ShineFM).

"I am the thorn in Your crown

But You love me anyway
I am the sweat from Your brow
But You love me anyway
I am the nail in Your wrist
But You love me anyway
I am Judas’ kiss
But You love me anyway
See now, I am the man who yelled out from the crowd
For Your blood to be spilled on this earth shaking
ground
Yes then, I turned away with a smile on my face
With this sin in my heart tried to bury Your grace
And then alone in the night, I still called out for You
So ashamed of my life, my life, my life
But You love me anyway"

Beautiful lyrics. Enjoy :)

5 Things

I decided to make a list of 5 things I like to do with my alone time. Don't get me wrong, I'm a super social being. If being super social was a type of super hero, I would be that hero. Buuuut occasionally I need a night to myself to relax and unwind. Here are 5 my the things I do almost every time I get one of those nights:

1. Drink wine or tea (depends on my mood)

2. Read a good book

3. Take a bubble bath

4. Make an amazing meal or snack (like... I'm talking elaborate Holly Housewifey food!)

5. Blog

True story. The combination of these things often leads to a perfect night, and an even perfecter sleep. I know you all want a night to yourself now.

Preparing for the Christmas Season

It may be a bit early for a Christmas prep post, but here are my reasons...

1. It's the next holiday

2. The first snowflakes fell in GP today

3. I love Christmas time :)

So... another Christmas season that I'm gonna be away from home and I'm already sad about it. Skype is a huge blessing in my life - I really don't think

I'd be able to live this far away if I couldn't skype my mama once a week. I'm already anticipating the hard times being away from my family for another holiday season. It's strange to join with other families and learn about other families' traditions. I am going to miss having eggs and bacon in the morning, and having big piles of "stocking stuffers", and sitting around in my pajamas for 3/4 of the day, and eating Christmas bon bons.

Things I am looking forward to as we enter a new season:

1. Making Christmas cookies

2. Buying gifts for people I love

3. Making Christmas cards (hopefully!)

4. Sending Christmas cards

5. Getting new boots

It is going to be a great season, and I'm grateful to be surrounded by amazing people to spend my holidays with here :) (One amazing person in particular...)

Hope it wasn't to early to grace you with some festive cheer!

Fall Leaves

Well, I've officially made it to my second fall in Grande Prairie. It has been a very full year. Some ups, some downs, some very exciting things. I thought it would be a huge transition... moving all the way to northern Aberta. But I find that I don't feel all that far from home. I guess I've made my own life, and found my own family out here. Having actual family out here helps as well!

It's the little things that make me feel far from home. I love the fall in Ontario. It's always been my favourite season. The colours are so beautiful and the leaves cover the ground so perfectly. Fall in GP is not the same. It only lasts 2 weeks. The trees turn yellow, the winds pick up, and then all the leaves fall off the trees. Its short and swift. The leaves are still beautiful, but it's not the same. I miss the red and orange. I miss maple trees in general. I miss sitting on the back porch drinking something warm, and wearing a sweater. I miss walking with my mama. It's funny how one thing I miss leads me on a string of missed memories.

I'm very glad that I've moved to GP. Wonderful things are happening in my life, and I am very happy. It's just different. Some days I miss home more than others. Hopefully GP will soon be the home and I miss when I'm away.

If you're in Ontario, try to enjoy the leaves for me!