Raw Chicken Freaks Me Out and I Love Santa Clause. So What?

Holy Bongos Batman!! 

^miniature dictator

Did I ever fail at sticking to my plan of blogging weekly. And not that I have a huge following, or any sort of following at all; but if I did, I would like to send out my deepest apologies for not keeping my promise. I have no idea where the time went but I guess when we finally get the miniature dictator of the house to bed, more formally known as Ali; I'd rather contemplate how long that mysterious booger has been on my sleeve and why there is lego in the toilet. So seeing as the weekly posting appeared to be a little too challenging, I shall strive to post bi-weekly. Or maybe more… Just depends on the snot to shirt ratio I suppose.

Anyways, as promised I will now give you some insight into the nightmare known as raw chicken.

FYI- I am very aware how over the top my antics are and have acknowledged and fully admit to having a problem.

As I was cooking our dinner throughout the weeks the thought crossed my mind of, "You should totally snap some pictures of the sheer havoc that is happening."

Uhhhhm… HELL NO.

Reason one, salmonella.

Reason two, salmonella.

Reason three, salmonella.

Lets just say I'm a little anal about having all electronic devices in a completley different room while handeling the cold, floppy, flesh coloured lumps of nastiness. Cross contamination is NOT an option in this little house on the prairie. So then someone might ask,

"Why Janine, how do you cook such delicious chicken so often if you are so bothered by it?"

Well let me tell you. 

I drove myself to our local Walmart and bought some latex gloves, a HUGE box of latex gloves. (Of which I am actually almost completely out of.) Before I discovered latex gloves, I would probably wash my hands thirteen times while cooking. However, since this discovery I am proud to announce that I only wash my hands about eleven times now. 

It is important that you don't just put on one pair of gloves and call it a day. 

No, no, no, no.

Anytime you need to touch something else, you must remove the gloves, wash your hands and put on a new pair. If you are feeling as though you want to take the glove use to the next level, you can layer your gloves. This gives you the option to peel off a layer and already have the next ones ready to go.

Genius, I know.
This not only makes for a cleaner, less contaminated work space it also prevents dry, cracking skin on ones smooth delicate hands. While wearing the gloves you also avoid skin to skin contact with the unforgiving texture known as cold dead chicken. 
And to all you people who handle raw chicken like your partaking in the hand-jive or something, good for you. Not this girl, it will never be this girl and that is fine by me. I will forever appear grimaced and as though I am dissecting a cow eyeball while cooking dinner. For all you Saskatchewan people when I say dinner I mean supper, not lunch. It's called 'brunch' for a reason, not 'brinner'.

Next up, CHRISTMAS.

Spot the Janine!

Only twenty days, two hours and forty-seven minutes until the most magical day of the year. And for all of you scrooges out there, *cough cough Derek cough cough* let me inform you that you are voluntarily missing out on all the warm fuzziness that come along with embracing the holiday season. I don't feel as though I need to explain myself. There is a reason a whole SEASON is dedicated to this one special day. It's marvellous, filled with joy, very important in a biblical sense and exuberates love. Thats it, thats all.


Now, in a few days I am parting ways with all four of my wisdom teeth. This could be great material for a blog entry or the complete opposite. Time will tell, and so will the size and swelling of my face.

Later gators.

The Blog is Back. Time to Get Real.

According to this blog, I have a six month old baby, dark brown hair and I am going to Vegas in three days. Although that all sounds very lovely, I have to inform you none of the above facts are true.



I do have a baby, however she is now a year and a half. I think that makes her a toddler... and she is the size of an average three year old.




My hair is blonde again. This is a great thing.


And Vegas was a great time, however Edmonton seems to be as cool as my vacations are getting these days.



I also now have four tattoos compared to the zero I had before. SAY WHAT?

Badass, I know.

It has almost been a year to the day since I last wrote a blog entry. And according to my whopping three previous entries, I was what they call an 'avid blogger' (just kidding). However, I would LOVE to be an avid blogger so this moment, right now, shall commence the baby steps towards that.

Now, lets get serious for a brief moment.

I stopped writing for a reason, and that reason was not laziness or procrastination (although that would be a an easy explanation). The real reason was much more personal, debilitating and to be honest with you a whole lot more challenging. The real reason was mental illness. Yupp I said it, and as far as I am concerned the whole world can know that I have been diagnosed with and continue to battle ailments that are clinically classified as anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

There is no need to go into detail about all of my symptoms, countless therapy sessions, endless psychiatric evaluations, multiple hospital stays, terrifying panic attacks, different medications or all the  breakdowns that accompanied these illnesses. The important thing is that they all lead me to where I am today. Better. Not 100% better, but at least a solid 87% better. I now understand I will never be the same person I was before all of this came to be, but I know in my heart I will in fact, be okay. Which if you asked me back in February when I hit my all time low, I would of had a much different answer for ya. Thanks to a handful of amazing professionals, great friends and family, a proper dose of medication, exercise, a nutritional diet and a good sense of humour I have gotten to where I am today.

Now hear me out. I am not in any way shape or form writing this to attract attention, or gain sympathy. Please do not view me differently, or feel as though you constantly need to ask me how I'm doing. You will know if I am not doing so hot, trust me on that one. I am being open and honest about my struggles to give people hope and let people know I am more than willing to listen, help and give the best advice that I can. Above, when I mentioned that I hit an all time low, you need to understand how drastically low it really was. Mental illness, regardless of what it may be, is an awful thing. No one chooses it. And more people then you would ever even know, struggle with some form of this disease. That being said, I would like to extend a huge thank-you to all of those who knew of my battles and provided and continue to provide endless support. You guys are da bomb.

Seriousness, over.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned next Saturday for a much more uplifting post on getting over a fear of raw chicken and how not to seem crazy after setting up your Christmas decor two months early.

Chia Pets Do What & The Tooth Fairy Makes How Much?

First of all I would like to say how surprised I am that people are actually reading this blog. I honestly thought it would be my Mom reading it telling me how darling I was, because as a Mom it's naturally your job to make your kids feel way cooler then they ever actually will be. But apparently this blog has been viewed 441 times.... I'm sorry to all those people who will not be getting those four minutes of their life back.

Okay, shall we move on? 

...Yeah, I thought so.

Let's start by covering the key events that have occurred over the past few days.

1. I died my hair brown, and still don't know why.

2. Ali got a tooth.

3. I put up our Christmas tree, and also still don't know why.

4. Discovered chia seeds don't grow chia pets in your stomach.

5. Have yet to start studying for my mid-term in two days.

        -Once again, not sure why.

Exciting list hey? You can tell me how jealous you are of my super exciting life whenever you want. The fact that I spent hours hand writing addresses on sixty-seven envelopes today is a fine example of what excitement truly means.

1. So about that brown hair thing. I wouldn't say that its

due to a mid, mid life crisis.. or at least I hope not. It's really a reflection of how lazy I am when it comes to hair. Less bleach = less work. And according to my friend Jenny, I no longer look like your typical young Mom; I look like a young Mom who is ready to get down to business. Now someone just needs to provide me with some business to get down on. 

2. I stuck my finger in Ali's mouth and found a tooth. Then Derek and I discussed how the going rate of the tooth fairy must be something ridiculous like $5.00 these days. Kids just don't know how good they have it. My kids are going to get a letter telling them they will not receive their payment until their room has been cleaned. Signed by the tooth fairy of course.

3. We were bored on Sunday so we made the trek to Walmart, and Derek let me get a Christmas tree!!

I think he thought it was going in the basement for at least another month but somehow it wound up out of the box, set up and decorated in our living room. I say stores shouldn't sell Christmas stuff before December because its really just an open invitations for all the crazies (like me) to get an unnecessarily early start at decorating.

4. So I started eating chia seeds this week after hearing how

good they are for your digestive system and I couldn't help but to have this awful image of a friendly chia pet growing in my stomach. But to my surprise no such non-sense occurred. In fact, they do the complete opposite, they remove all the chia pet-like fuzzies from you intestinal track. Gross, but kind of cool.

5. Instead, I wrote this, thought far too long and hard about chia seeds and stared at a fake tree covered in pretty lights for hours. Procrastination really is an amazingly cruel thing. Now the next two days is going to be filled with a cranky teething six month old, an abundance of studying, a spray tan, taking Ali to get her six month shots and trying to prepare to go to Vegas in three days. 

I honestly just realized all that I am having to do over the next few days. So on that note, I'm going to go study. Wish me luck.

Bowling + Birthing = Egg Salad

I often think about how I was meant to live in a different era. One with less technology, awful hair and radical movements. All and all I think the 1960's would be my time to shine. However, seeing as I was born in 1989, and time travel does not yet exist, my dreams of paying 57 cents for a dozen eggs, crushing on a once attractive Beatle and styling my hair like a beehive will never be a reality.

But since I had a baby out of wedlock, just months after going steady with a boy I am forever grateful it is in fact 2013.

I wrote previously about how I went bowling one Saturday night in March of 2012 and then a year later I was eight months pregnant. So if we do the math properly, I met Derek that night bowling and had a baby 13 months later. 

Carry the one.. 

subtract 3.. 

multiply by 8...

That means I got knocked up around four months after we met. Might I add that we also broke up for a month in there somewhere. Needless to say, everything moved quickly for us. And to sum things up, thank goodness we actually like each other. Heck, we even looooove each other. Lets just say most people don't spend their one year anniversaries in a prenatal class.

Then came April 28th, the morning my water broke and the day I thought we were going to meet our baby. Little did I know that the birthing Gods had a different plan in store for me. I ended up being in labour for 30 hours all to have an emergency c-section. So on April 29, 2013 and 2:29 p.m. we welcomed our baby girl Ali into the world.

I would like to say when I first laid eyes on her it was the most magical moment of my life. But the fact of the 

matter is that I was so incredibly doped up and freshly 'coming to' after general antithetic that I can barely remember those first moments. Further more, in all of the pictures of me first meeting Ali I look as though I went to hell and back about twenty-seven times; which I quite possibly did. But boy did things change. As soon as I knew my left from right again and came to the realisation that I was in fact no longer pregnant I fell deeply in love with Ali, and more in love with Derek. I was bed ridden the first week or so due to surgery and a few other complications and the man who vowed to never change a diaper was changing all of them! (I honestly didn't change her diaper until she was a week old.)

Blah, blah, blah.. Some time passed and Ali is now six months old! I've totally become that uncool Mom I vowed never to be. I no longer do my hair, rarely wear makeup and wear stretchy pants far too often. I'm still working on losing that baby weight, but I'm told that will come off with time. And my idea of a fun Friday night is making egg salad and going to bed by 9:30. I call myself a party animal but I'm thinking most people call me boring, and I'm more then okay with that. Although I don't have a lavish life in some penthouse in the city, I do have a comfortable life filled with love in a little house on the prairie. And if you ask me, life couldn't be any better.

Farewell Penthouse, Hello Farm House.

Why Hello!

To start things off my name is Janine. I'm taller then the average man, have an addiction to ketchup chips and will always love show tunes.

Some call me J-9, my daughter will one day call me Mama and if I'm lucky my Mom or boyfriend will call me Hunny. I spent the majority of my life in Calgary Alberta, followed by a quick stint in Vancouver and now I literally live in the middle of no where. Look for Kindersley, Saskatchewan on a map... I dare you. And when you find it know that I don't even live in that town of 4700. I live outside of it on a farm, and my next door neighbours are my in-laws and some grain bins.

Anyways, I took Broadcast Journalism in University with high hopes of being an on-air personality on some TV station in Toronto or Vancouver. Alongside this cushy job I would live in a penthouse apartment in the core of downtown with my handsome, funny and sensitive entrepreneur husband and our french bulldog. Needless to say my life turned out a little differently then I had originally planned.

After working in bars, dressing like a floozy and being hit on night after night by strangers for four years I decided it was time to act on that Broadcasting thing I went to school for. Throughout my time in post secondary, our instructors drilled it into our brains that if we wanted to make it big, we would have to start out small in the middle of nowhere to build our experience. So when I saw a job posting for a radio personality in small town Saskatchewan I knew I had to jump on that opportunity. Two weeks later I packed up my white two door Honda Civic and drove to Rosetown Saskatchewan (population 2000) to start that journey to my penthouse in the big city. Within a week I had received a promotion to morning show co-host in Kindersley and packed up the Civic once again to move my new 'temporary' home.


Fast forward six weeks; I loved my job, was starting to build a social life and was fully adjusted to waking up at 4:00am every morning for work. Then one Saturday night I went bowling with some friends, and that night changed the rest of my life.

Fast forward one year. It was now March 2013, I was 8 months pregnant, just finished working part-time in a grocery store and living in my boyfriends parents basement. Farewell penthouse.