A little bit of Christmas spirit?

It’s not a secret that I find the holiday season very difficult and I am usually in the WORST mood before Xmas. Ugh, I just find it very depressing, phoney and fake and this is partly due to work usually blowing up in my face right before Xmas, and my family being a collection of nutbars…

But I take steps to combat this!

Chiefly by making things I like to do a priority and giving back to my friends, who have had hard years themselves. I also make sure to take time OFF at Xmas, so I don’t poison everyone around me with my horrible mood, lol. (Plus it’s just easier on my mental health if I am not slowly being ground down by work at the same time, so a win-win).

This year we have already been to one Xmas party and we had a BLAST!! Omg it was so fun- at my husband’s work. We made ornaments, enjoyed amazing food (an entire seacuterie!!) and danced and sang karaoke 🙂

And then last weekend we made and decorated cookies as gifts for my friends and trainers 🙂

So who’s been naughty or nice??

This weekend we got a tree! We also watched the Jon and Roy Christmas revue and it was really good, wow it was LONG lol we didn’t get home until after 11pm on Friday!

I also invited a friend/former colleague out to see Oats and have a pony ride and she came on Saturday and they were so good together, makes my heart proud to see people enjoying my pony too!

A nice day!

Soooo bad mood at Xmas or not, I am trying to make the best of things and I am on the home stretch- 2 DAAAYSSS!!! Let’s do it!

Snack Review: ‘Fattening’ the curve with Nutter Butter Fudge Covered

In these sad, frightening times, I am hoping for a bit of levity. We can all use some personal reflections…And in all honesty, I bought these (and two other of Nabisco’s finest, Chips Ahoy Soft-bakes and Peanut Butter Pie Oreos) in a hunger-filled haze where all I wanted was ridiculous junk food. You should have seen what I bought in that shopping order…It was pretty gratuitous. (Including pickled herring, a 1kg bag of fruit juice gummies, sparkling water, peanut butter, snack crackers, party mix, chips, popcorn, peanuts…)

But these did pique my interest, so much so that I tore into the box like some sort of insane wolverine (my box not pictured because I still have SOME dignity).

So how are they then?

In a word- fine. My other word would be ‘disappointing’ but I do feel like that is a bit unfair for these snack cookies. They don’t claim to be anything better than they are, which is exactly like what Oreos and Chips Ahoy are. Cheap midrange mass produced snack cookies. Nothing more, nothing less. However I do get to rag on them a bit because ‘fudge covered’ is laughable. Fudge what? Have these people met fudge and did it slap them or something? The cookie is covered in the thinnest, stingiest layer of WTF not chocolate but something that looks and smells like chocolate. Not fudge, a poor excuse for chocolate, really.

Cookie itself? Like a bland peanut butter Oreo. The ‘made with real peanut butter’ makes me laugh. Like, really? Sure doesn’t taste like it! I can’t go above and beyond that. Just really ‘eh’ for something that has a laughably absurd number of calories. I actually liked the Peanut Butter Pie Oreo better, even if it did have a weird smell that reminded me of my long-time smoker grandmother’s house.

It reminded me of my similar complaints about Nature Valley’s peanut butter granola cups. Really cool in concept, execution is the cheapest, wimpiest, lamest thing ever. Light, cheap and tastes cheap (both for Nature Valley and Nutter Butter Fudge Covered). If I may make a leap here, I would say this type of cookie is perfectly acceptable for a party where nobody is expecting anything better than Oreos, I guess. Certainly not good junk food, but you know, you can dumpster-dive a little on a special occasion, eh? I actually put peanut butter on mine to make it more interesting, and likely triple the calories. Oh well, I never claimed that I wanted to live forever!

These were purchased for $2 on sale at Canadian Club Warehouse, and I wouldn’t pay more for them. Or buy them again, probably.

We were wild

I had a really nice weekend, despite the fact that I am still sort of in the grips of the ‘death cold’ and Ian picked it up as well, UGH. My energy levels aren’t great still, I am coughing up grossness and blowing my nose every two seconds still. BUT I was able to get off the couch to do things, so that is a big win!

And just in time too, because I had lots of plans for this weekend- I didn’t go ride on Friday, partly due to my extreme fatigue/sickness, but also I had to make approximately one million cookies to decorate as part of my holiday festivities for my friends on Saturday night. I had a few friends over and we had a blast! Cocktail hour with snacks/appetizers and mulled wine and mulled cider, which is my specialty, and then our activity- cookie decorating, and then dinner! It was such a lovely night.

I did get a lot of running and riding in, though my run on Saturday was short and miserable due to my endless coughing, nose blowing, and incredible fatigue. I only ran like 6k I think? And it felt tough.

I wasn’t super happy with my ride on Oats on Sunday- I got way too wrapped up in angsty perfection-chasing, which is NOT normal for me. I had to take a break, re-set my brain and let things go. This includes me clenching my jaw and feeling tense…Sheesh. Every time I think I’m past that kind of tension, it comes roaring back. No fair!

Oh well, I am planning on a fun bareback ride today, and in reality, I had a GREAT ride on Saturday- he felt like riding a cloud! Smooth, effortless, easy. I loved it.

Plus the weather has been fantastic- warm, I was running in shorts, and not even that rainy! How amazing is this, compared with the awful deep freeze of a few weeks ago? Aren’t we so lucky? I love it!!

Merry Christmas!

One year of Tucker Bunny! 

Hah this year I am quite behind in Xmas- I didn’t do cookies this year! 

Ian and Gidget last Christmas! 

Beginning holiday traditions

I’m usually a hold out for Christmas stuff until after Dec 1. It just doesn’t feel right until then, but I do make one exception…Making and decorating Christmas cookies with my friend. We’ve done this two years in a row now, and maybe it’s the start of something?

A yummy Christmas tradition!

I have a TON of sprinkles and I love using them. Love love love it! I even found a recipe for sugar cookies this year that worked to make them softer, and less ‘rock hard’ than last year (yeah they kind of sucked…). So, I was even happy to eat them this year too! Score!

We drank lots of cider, decorated cookies, and laughed a ton. What a great way to spend a Friday night.

Saturday I was up and at the barn, and Oats was good, I can’t remember specifics but he was amenable to whatever I was working on, anyways. I came home later and we went on a bit of a longer run, 14k or so, on the Galloping Goose. It went fairly well, can’t complain as my legs were tired but workable.

Saturday night my husband and I got a hot chocolate from Starbucks (salted caramel for me, yes I’m sure the 1,000++calories that I gained drinking it was so worth it!) and then we went to the Oak Bay Rec centre for a late-night splash around in the pool and hot tub. Overall, a very nice and relaxing weekend.

Sunday I wasn’t going to be riding Oats-he was going on an adventure! A girl at the barn asked if her friend, a very experienced event rider, could borrow Oats to ride on the trails with them. I do like him to get out and have some fun, so I said sure, as long as it was safety-first. Sadly, the friend cancelled so no adventure for Oats…And also meant that our plans had to shift a bit for Sunday, but no worries.

We enjoyed lunch at my husband’s parents farm in Cobble Hill and wow…It was freezing out there in the country. Brr. So cold. We went on a short walk, freezing the whole way, and visited and then hot-tubbed it up!

Then we stopped by the barn on the way home and I rode Oats–my long-suffering husband was quite gracious about this change in plans. I hopped Oats over a few jumps I lowered in the ring and he was really great about it. A short, but good ride. The ring was still very deep and mushy in places, and Oats stumbled a few times going near those spots. A bit disappointing.

What you imagine, you create

Weekend update- rode Oats on Saturday and he was SO BLAH! UGH.

Yummy cookies!

Just…not rude or anything scary or dangerous, just ‘blah’ and completely phoning in his ride. I was bummed, because he was literally ‘sparkling’ with energy Tues/Wed, and I felt his energy decline in my lesson on Thurs- though he was still cooperative, and then Saturday? He just felt like, ‘yeah yeah yeah whatever’ and that’s how my ride went. Fell over a few crossrails because he couldn’t be bothered to pick up his feet. Blah.

Maybe Oats does best when he gets to spend 12 hours at a horseshow on the weekend? Because it seemed to *really* liven him up for some of the week! Hm…

Thursday was a good lesson- not without it’s bobbles- me forgetting to ride to one x-rail and us kind of landing in the middle of it, me trying to push him through a short gymnastic at the canter and bailing out halfway through, him having a coughing attack in the middle of our course…But you know what, it actually rode pretty well after our ‘bobbles’ and I felt pretty fine about it.

So, after his VERY unenthusiastic ride on Saturday, I decided that I would *gasp* take him out of the arena on Sunday and attempt some weenie trail riding. I mostly hate trail riding, it scares the bejesus out of me. I have had MANY bad experiences, and the roads around the barn are so so so busy- motorcycles, buses, big trucks, tons of cars, bike races, dogs, kids, etc etc etc. NOT relaxing.

Well, the good news is that we didn’t quite make it to the road, hahah – we rode past the ‘scary barn of terror’ that Oats was petrified of (wind chimes, flag flapping and going nuts, creaking doors, farm equipment?!!!) and made it like halfway…And then he refused to go forward, and started thinking about rearing, so I made an executive decision and hopped off, led him past it- with 1 big spook! And got back on…And had to repeat the ‘get off, lead past, get back on’ procedure a few times.

We made it to the end of the road, and then Oats didn’t want to go home! He tried to charge off and take me to the road, which is NOT where I was planning. So, hopped off, led him back, hopped back on and managed to ride safely back to the arena. The girls were in the outdoor stomping on ice that had frozen in the puddles, so Oats and I joined it and stomped some ice too! Me on his back, and him enjoying himself, haha.

So, we tried. That was that!

It was still incredibly nerve-wracking. UGH.

And what else did I get up to? Some cookie making & decorating, and preparing my items for the craft sale a friend is having this weekend (at her house). Check it out! I’m looking forward to it, I have bath/body items that I like making for fun, so I figured why not see if I can sell any?

Craft sale goodies- nice enough to eat!