With a very long story behind it.

On January 29, 2024 I wrote about the crazy few (eight) months we had.

H broke her femur.
Venti died.
Nine weeks later Yeti died.
Cheeto joined our crazy fam-jam.
Don and I went to Costa Rica.

Sounds Peachy eh…. The facts were true, the emotion / tone was false. It was the start of my bout with depression.

Costa Rica I did my best to “be happy”. I cried every time I was alone.
Trip to Puerto Plata with my parents, Don and H, was a week of hiding my pain.
Posts about our road trip East was a great distraction to what was going on in my head.

Every post after January 29, 2024 was a fluff piece. I hid what was really going on. I look back on my last post on August 11, 2024, and it was full of sadness. I had two more draft posts to share, and couldn’t bring my self to post it. It felt too fake. Not true to my voice. I could not keep up the fake bs. Anyone who knows me knows I tell it as I see it. No bs. No sugar coating. No time for it. I just stopped.
I stopped everything.
My life felt like it was crumbling around me.

I felt like that game from the 80s, ‘Don’t break the Ice’ Waiting to fall through.

What got me to this point? Yeti died November 25, 2023, turned me sour about Christmas. Hating Christmas, my favourite holiday, made me realize I needed help. I started therapy, it rocked everything I thought I knew. It sent me down a very dark hole. Next up one of my very best friends decided we could no longer be friends and she moved (with her family) to the west coast without saying goodbye. I spent months trying to figure out what I did to her to cause the abrupt ending to a 20 ++ year friendship. I went back to work full time. I struggled to work full time, work on Dons business, help with H and have a personal life.

Due to going back to work I had to stop going to dance, and my schedule did not allow for me to get H to dance. I thought I was friends with my dance teacher, but do to the way Dharma and I relayed H not going to dance (due to not having anyone to get her there) for the current year, my danced teacher stopped being my friend. I apologized, however it wasn’t enough to repair a blip in a very long relationship.

Christmas 2024 I was not ready to celebrate the holiday season to the fullest, so I took the family to Disney for Christmas break. Nothing like going to the happiest place on earth to avoid your favourite holiday.

The job I took on was intense and high stress. It was exhausting. I was there for 9.5 months. Don and I sold our house, bought a new house and when the deals closed I quit my job in the most epic way.

Selling our house and moving was a turning point in my depression. It also gave me my time back. I felt like I could finally breathe.

That was a fucking lot to digest….. Wow. Sorry about that.

So here I am, a year later. Feeling more like myself. I now have time to focus on sharing My Effing Life with all of you, although Don wants me to rename it Our Effing Life since he is a main character of my stories, however unless he is going to sit down and write, no name change.

What has happened since I quit my job:
– Don spent four months renovating the house we bought, getting it ready for us to move in.
– Dharma and Jared did not move with us…. The idea of Dharma and H not living on the same property as me was really hard to accept. But Dharma and Jared had an opportunity to buy his deceased grandfathers house. What a milestone to celebrate, my mini me buying her first house!
– Don and I took H to the cottage for a week. She had a blast…. I came home exhausted 😂
– My sweet lil Macchiato passed away September 24, 2025. She was months from turning three, sadly she was diagnosed with Addison Disease and the vets office couldn’t get it under control. She faded away quickly. A mere 20 days from diagnosis to when she passed.
– We moved. Dharma and her fam moved the same weekend.
– 8 our of 10 Christmas trees went up! Our holiday celebration looked a little different since Dharma, Jared and H don’t live with us, but it was a great transition back into the holiday season.
– H switched schools, so I am back on before and after school care. Makes my heart happy to have her everyday.

Thank you for sticking with me!

In memory of my sweet floof Macchiato.💕 December 2022 – September 2025

I had to drive H to day camp, it was my first time driving to this camp –

H – yep, this is the way, go through the tree tunnel and around there.
Me – yes this is the tree tunnel.

As we are approaching the camp location, I turn onto the street –

Me – H! We made it!
H – good job gramma, you didn’t get lost!

🙄 Yes I get lost easily…. So rude H points it out…

H and I come home from her day at camp, I can hear Don on a zoom meeting. As I am walking into the bathroom –

Me – H, leave grampa alone, he is on the phone.
H – ok!

While I am in the bathroom, I can hear the person Don is meeting with –

Meeting guy – hi, how are you?
Silence.
Meeting guy – what’s your name?
I can hear Hs voice but not her words.

I run into the dining room to get H –

Me – I told you to leave gampa alone.
H – yes.
Me – so why didn’t you stay in the living room?
H – the guy asked how I was and my name.
Me – that doesn’t answer my question.
H – ok, do you want to watch Gabby?

I turn the tv on for H to watch Gabby –

H – oh I want to watch Captain Underpants.
Me – ok.
H – twirling her pointer finger in a circular motion above my phone – you can do something on your phone.
Me – sure.

🤦🏻‍♀️

⬇️ This here is an example of me being right and my sister being too nice to people.

It is also a very valuable lesson. Don’t let your friend be your hairstylist and don’t become friends with your hairstylist.
You will lose in both of those scenarios WHEN something goes wrong.

Movies at 9:30 am!?!?!? Sure!!!
Candy too!?!?! Absolutely worth the gut rot that will follow!

Huh, I sense a theme here. Not intentionally!

❤️❤️❤️ to the peeps in my life that I am lucky to have!

Day 7 ~ started out rocky, we had no air conditioning in our hotel room 😫😭. It was a rough nights sleep. We were out the door by 7:30 am because I could not stand to be in the hot room a minute longer!

In Kingston we did a river boat tour on the St. Lawrence River to see some of the 1,000 islands! It was a beautiful day for a three hour boat ride!!

We got off the boat, walked back towards the car and found Buskerfest started, I enjoyed a street vendor hot dog and we watched buskers perform. Such talent!

From there, I was taken hostage to our cottage 😒 – I say this because I told Don when he started to build it I had no interest in going before it was complete…. It is not close to completion.

We stopped at a small grocery store to pick up food for Don to make us dinner and something for me to have for breakfast. Don splurged and bought me Honey Shreddies and a carton of Soy Milk!

We get to the cottage, go in and I am stunned at how hot and damp it was, and the amount of Dons stuff dropped here, there, everywhere! I asked him for a garbage bag to start cleaning up. As we are doing that we noticed water spilled on the dining table, yet Don hasn’t been there in almost a month! Then we saw it….. MOLD! It was on top of the table, in the dog bowls, on the dining chairs, even the top of the salt shaker had mold! Don and I were baffled of where the water came from and why there is mold on top of the dining table. Don bleached everything.

We went down to the dock so Don can fish. Which just means cast a bunch of times. Lol no fish were caught.

We went back to the cottage, Don made us dinner. We even had ice cream for dessert! Kawartha Lakes Campfire S’mores! SOOOOO YUMMY!

When we were in the grocery store I specifically asked Don if he had bowls for my cereal. He assured me he did.

We ate ice cream out of red solo cups….. because there are no bowls at the cottage like Don said.

We cleaned up dinner, Don went to make the bed and found more mold! This time on the wall under the bed! He crawled underneath and scrubbed it with bleach. Twenty minutes later, he asked me if we were staying. I told him I didn’t want to sleep in the bleach smell or the dampness. He agreed and we left.

Away we went, nine o’clock at night, heading down the road, hour and a half to Peterborough. Ugh, got there at eleven pm! I just wanted to go to bed 😫 it was so hard to stay awake in the car on the way. We got the hotel booked on hotels.com, go in to check in, the receptionist wants a credit card for $100 deposit for incidentals, the receptionist swipes it, it declines, swipes again, it approves, nope it’s declined, swiped my card again it’s declined, swipe Dons card, declined. I say well I am guessing it is due to the swiping and not entering the pin since nobody swipes anymore, so we do it again and Dons card gets approved after he entered his pin. BUT the room won’t book so there is a problem so we need to swipe again. Don is getting real heated. I say nope, wait and I will log into my account.

I show the receptionist that there is the charge for the room from hotels..com, four hits on my account for the $100 incidentals and two of them are refunded. The receptionist is adamant the charges did not go through and it will appear later that they didn’t. I argue with her this is incorrect. The manager comes over and looks over our booking, five long minutes later, we are good to go to our room! BAH! Could that take any longer?!?!?!?!?

We hit the bed and 💤💤💤 dream land here we come.

Day 8 ~ up and out the door before eight am and headed home! We stopped at one of Dons job sites so he could answer a few questions his employees had and then we were home by noon!

Awwwwe. To. Be. Home. It is bliss.

Travelling is fun but nothing beats being in my home ❤️

We had a great time touring Eastern Canada, we now know where we want to go back to and where we will be staying far away from!

Wow yesterday went by in a blur! Before we departed Halifax we went to visit the Halifax Citadel. I wanted to go because they have World War 1 and 2 artifacts on display. It was very interesting to see these items and read about the Canadian soldiers arriving on Juno Beach. Both of my grandfathers fought in WWII.

https://halifaxcitadel.ca – for your informational purposes! My dad would have enjoyed reading about the citadel and seeing the museum.

We left Halifax and drove…. And drove…. And drove… aiming for Quebec City, knowing we would not get there in one day, we stopped in Fredricton New Brunswick for lunch and kept driving…… We did a little detour to Heartland, NB to see the worlds longest covered bridge. It is 1,282 feet long.

It reminds me of the bridge in Beetlejuice!!

We stopped for the night in Edmundston, NB. We checked into our hotel room minutes before a bus load (50 kids) of hockey player checked in. 😅 We came real close to standing in the lobby for a long time waiting on each kid to check in.

Monday night when we were still in Halifax an emergency alert come across, well, everything;

Guess who drank just water??? I will give you a hint, it was NOT Don 😭

I spent Tuesday evening in the hotel room with a very angry tummy. I cannot say for sure it was due to the water or from something I ate, either way I was not well Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning we were up and out of the hotel super early, we had three hours or so to drive to be in Quebec City…. I love Quebec City. It is so old, and full of beautiful architecture, history and old world charm.

As we are entering the city –

Don – when were we here last?
Me – for Lori’s fortieth birthday, so like nine, ten years ago?
Don – no, it wasn’t that long ago.
Me – 😑 – oh ya.

Challenge accepted. I do a deep dive into my Facebook photos and find the Quebec City album from…. 2015. Come on Don…. You should know better than to challenge me. Especially when I give you many details associated with my response.

Don making me take a shameless selfie in front of my favourite hotel….. Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac. One day I will get to stay the night in this gem!

As Don and I were walking back to the car, uphill, in the scorching heat –

Don – why haven’t we come here more often?
Me – 🤬 – are you kidding me??? Because you always turn your nose up at it. LIKE YOU DID THIS MORNING.
Don – no, I didn’t do that. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

This motherfucker is hankering for a throat punch today.

It was a quick tour of Quebec City then into the car for a four hour (or longer) drive to Kingston!

I made a new friend at one of gas station stops! There was a pet store in the plaza.

Look how cute he is! He wanted all the love he could get. He had his full weight sitting on my feet.

We arrive into Kingston, the sky opened up and it rained hard! We dodged the rain drops to check in the hotel, we went for dinner and then strolled the downtown to see how much nicer it is than home……

I had a very close encounter…

If you have never been exposed to Canadian geese, they can either be chill and let you past them or they charge at you, hissing and flapping their wings.

Tomorrow we are doing a boat tour of 1,000 islands. Three hours on the water 😫 wish me luck not to get sea sick!!

✌🏻

We left Moncton and headed towards Halifax. Don wanted to stop in the Nova Scotia Welcome centre 🙄 in Ontario these places have some maps and information on things to do and that is it. In Nova Scotia there was all that plus people to chat with, washroom facilities and a cute little souvenir shop. I got sucked into the souvenir shop by the shiny things, Don found a very informational magazine on planning your vacation in Nova Scotia. From it, we decided to go to Peggy’s Cove!

Cute “town” of art and stuff to buy, sprinkled with a few seafood restaurants and an ice cream shop.

From Peggy’s Cove we headed towards Dartmouth for lunch. Based on the information in the magazine Don picked up it is a “vibrant downtown”. Pft that was a big fat lie. The downtown had barely anything open, many store fronts were vacant, there were a few restaurants but nothing grand and the locals were not exactly warm and inviting.

As Don and I were standing on the street, Don looking at his phone trying to find a place to eat, me just minding my business waiting on him, a woman who was either drunk, high, mentally ill or all of above walked passed us –

Lady – Fuck you. Nobody likes your fucking curtain dress.
She keeps walking away from us.

Don and I look at each other baffled. I can’t help myself and burst out laughing. THE LADY STOPS, turns back, looks dead at me –

Lady – FUCK YOU! Ya. Fuck you.
Me – laughing more – Don, I am good to go. Fuck this shit hole town.

Now I am pissed. I am hangry and pissed that I was verbally assaulted for no reason. We leave and head to Halifax.

Halifax was a very short drive, but by the time we got there, parked and started walking for food I was feeling murderous. Don picks a restaurant, he orders very expensive teeny tiny lobster:

Ahhhh nice full belly, I feel less stabby, but from having lunch at 4 pm (does that make it an early dinner or liner?) I have bit of a sweet tooth hankering

We pop in and out of a couple of shops, I turn around and there is a lady standing smack behind me –

Lady – I love your dress!
Me – Thank you!!
Lady – I have been following you for a little bit, and I have to ask where did you get it?
Me – Target!
Lady – Oh, the states, 😟
Me – Another person complimented me on the dress awhile back, she said she saw one similar on Amazon, you could try there.

And she disappeared just as quickly as she appeared.

I relayed the conversation to Don –
Don – she has been following you?
Me – Ya!
Don – 😦 – for how long?
Me – 🤷🏻‍♀️- who cares! She likes my dress! Fuck Dartmouth!
Don – 😦

Ended the day on a sweet note!

What an amazing story!

✌🏻 until tomorrows adventures!!!

Boston was educational and we will be back!

Do you want to know what Don learned during our Boston adventures???

⬆️ THIS is a witches hat! 🤣😂

On our way to Salem….. want to know what I learned?

I need to get new glasses, or at least wear my current ones all the time…… We were driving past a beach front –

Don – oh look the ocean and a beach. Do you want to go swimming? It might be a bit chilly.
Me – look there is people swimming!
Don – where?
Me – oh, never mind, those are buoys not people in the water 🤣
Don – 😑😒

Salem during the day was 👎 except for the witch memorial for the first 20 witches that were executed in 1692. That was a bit surreal.
I would like to go back at night so we can do a ghost / witch tour.

Back to the car to make our way to Eastern Canada, I think the first stop is New Brunswick, but I have no other details because I zoned out and Don started to sound like Charlie Browns teacher…..

Don likes driving with the windows down, as we are getting on the interstate –

Don – the wind noise isn’t too bad in here.
Me – I guess not, but like if I want to hear you….
Don – starts closing the windows – do you want to hear me?
Me – slowly shaking my head no – 🤣
Don – you are an asshole.

He didn’t leave the windows down, but he did crank the music up……

Day two ended in Freeport Maine, where the restaurants closed 7:30 / 8 pm on a Saturday night except for breweries that close at 9pm. We checked into our hotel room, left the lobby and made a mad dash to find somewhere to have dinner, it was 7:30 pm.

We scarfed down some ridiculously overpriced burgers and were in our hotel room by 8 pm. I was snoozing away by 8:30 pm…… Hence today’s post being day two and three!

Day three has us heading to St. John New Brunswick. Don is trying to out run the rain storm that is coming to Maine, and well New Brunswick. 😒 that tells me that he is going to starve me and not stop.

I should be ok for a few hours, I got a delicious Starbucks. A first for US road trips, the matcha is pre-sweetened and after I drink it I can feel cavities forming in my teeth lol. This was not that that sweet!

Look how delicious this looks! All that sweet cream foam 🤤…

An hour and a half into our drive –

Don – LOOK! A farting moose sign!
Me – 👀 – where?!?!
Don – there!
Me – awe man! I missed it! I wanted a picture of the farting moose sign. 😟
Don – well, you should be paying attention.
Me – I am!
Don – no, you’re like this – does hand gesture of being on my phone texting.
Me – NO! NO! I WAS ENGAGING IN CONVERSATION AND LOOKING AT YOU WHILE YOU TALK. I won’t do that again. 😶

We made it back into Canada! Don shit the bed on talking to the boarder guard. Good lord, he stuttered and stammered I thought for sure we were getting pulled in and having the car pulled apart looking for things that are not to be brought into the country.

We stopped in St. Andrew’s New Brunswick for lunch. Cute, quaint little town, terrible meal. Guess they can’t all be stellar experiences.

Making our way to St. John New Brunswick, Don thought it would be interesting to take the scenic route past the Bay of Fundy…. More like Bay of Fog since that is all we saw. Back to the main highway we go! Nothing to see on it either. Well, that is not true. We saw animal fencing with one way gates along the highway. Don was confident that there are directional signs so the animals know which gate to go through. I think he is full of shit, but I do not spend a lot of time in the wilderness to challenge this point, so I just nodded along in agreement.

St. John was a bust. Cold, foggy and the downtown looked destitute….. Meander on to Moncton!

Moncton….. ugh….. everything closes by 9 pm. I swear the east coast is turning out to be a bigger snooze fest than Southern Ontario.

We did however manage to have a delicious meal at the Pump House.

We walked around downtown, looked in all the closed store fronts, then headed back to our hotel roof top bar! Roof top bar that closes at 9 pm! WTF

I even indulged in an adult bevie!
Just kidding! It is a mock tail! It is made of; House Peach Compote, Lemon Juice and Almond Syrup, with a raspberry and sprig of rosemary.

Tomorrow’s adventures TBD — due to the weather. Rain in Halifax means off to Prince Edward Island, if Don wants to go there. He can’t make up his damn mind…..