Snow walk ,gingerbread cookies and so much more
Hello there folks it has been quite some time since my last post. This has been an extremely busy year. This year has been full of some really great highs and some really low lows. There probably are a few folks out there celebrating all their accomplishments, but to be completely honest I’m one of the folks that can honestly say I just have tried to survive the year. Well, I say that now, but in reality, it is only three more sleeps till Christmas and several more sleeps till the new year so I guess perhaps I shouldn’t be too quick at summarizing 2024. One thing I know for sure I am looking forward to this year coming to a close.
Today, my wife and I along with Miss Ayla put on our snow gear and headed into the woods for a snow day. Nature walk. Perhaps I should backtrack a bit and share with you that yesterday was just one of those days where nothing went right so last night before sleep, I said to my wife tomorrow is going to be a surprise day. She didn’t know what the surprise day would actually consist of, but I knew that it was definitely going to be much better than the day we had just had.
So this morning when I got up the first thing I did was make myself a hot cup of coffee. Of course I went on the deck and enjoyed my hot coffee and my cigarette (no judgment, please)in complete quietness and I took a deep breath and said to myself OK let’s get this day started and let’s have a good day. My wife was still asleep so while she was sleeping, I decided to make her breakfast I whipped up some scrambled eggs, fried her some turkey bacon oh by the way, I don’t eat meat so this turkey bacon that she loves so much smelled like shit lol but because I knew the day before was a hard day I suffered it out and prepared her breakfast complete with toast and a hot cup of coffee.
Now, while I was in the middle of the surprise, my wife enters the kitchen and decides to make a comment about me frying the bacon when I could have just done it in the microwave as she does as it’s much quicker. I kept my cool and kindly reminded her today was surprise day and breakfast is part of the surprise. She must’ve read between the lines because she went back into the bedroom, came back out to the kitchen and greeted me with a good morning and a big hug and a big smile on her face (I may have rolled my eyes)
Regardless the day started for her with a home cooked breakfast and a nice hot cup of coffee in her favourite grinch mug. ( she was actually the GRINCH when she first got up , just saying)
The second part of surprise day was a nature snow walk in the woods. We along with our dogs used to throw our snow gear on and head for a walk back to the lake and sometimes we often went off path and explored nature. We are fortunate that this is literally in our backyard and we don’t have to go far to enjoy this experience, but we haven’t taken the time to do a lot of nature walks and so this I felt was something that we really needed. We got dressed for the occasion. Ayla came with us and it was different because usually my wife would have little Jemma in her backpack, but sadly a few weeks ago we had to say goodbye to our little Jemma and so because of that this walk felt different when getting ready to go. I picked a good day to go out for this nature experience because the weather definitely was in our favor. It wasn’t too cold. Obviously wasn’t too hot. The sun was shining and there was a calmness. We followed the four wheeler tracks, so it made for a much easier walk although I realized that I am not in the same shape as I used to be and did have to take a few breaks.. Ayla just loves being outside. She has always been an amazing dog to go hiking with even when she is ahead of us, she always stops when she is ahead and can’t see us and then waits for us to come into her sites. Today was no different even though it has been quite some time since we even had her out for an adventure she did exactly as she always has. She runs ahead looks back if she doesn’t see us she waits and if she doesn’t wait, she comes back to us. It was nice to get outside and take some pictures and even though my wife and I didn’t have a lot of conversation it was just perfect to be out together in nature and in calmness. After our mini hike, we walked back home, relaxed for a brief moment and then was part three of surprise day.
For quite some time, my wife and I have always said we were going to make gingerbread cookies for Christmas, but not once have we ever done this. We are more into cooking than baking clearly as I learned today we don’t even have a rolling pin, thank gosh, we did have a can of Campbells Soup in the cupboard because it actually made the perfect rolling pin. I found a really simple recipe for beginners, lol and together we made homemade gingerbread cookies. The best part of this is to acknowledge that both of us were in the kitchen baking at the same time and we both survived this. It was a win-win for both of us. Now this being our first time baking gingerbread cookies together they actually weren’t too bad or to great in fact lol🤪 BUT our little Ayla thought her mom’s did an amazing job and next year when we do this again, we will make sure to have the right brown sugar and maybe perhaps a few more spices on hand might not be such a bad idea either. But I guess the point is that we finally did it and actually made the gingerbread cookies instead of just talking about it so surprise day actually turned out fairly well.
My mom and sister dropped by and gave me a little pin to wear as a reminder of my little Jemma. It’s a little pin of a Chihuahua with a Santa hat and a sweater super cute and super thoughtful. Little Miss Jemma will be with us for Christmas as her ashes arrived a while ago and she is now home with us in a little heart shaped urn with a paw print on it. Little did my mom and sister know that giving me, giving us this tiny pin was the perfect way to end surprise day and the best part was they didn’t even realize that it was even a surprise day at all.
Thanks for reading folks. I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Enjoy your time with family and friends and stay safe.
Rhonda Roy
theresg2babetterway
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