I got a text from an expat the other day: “Staying/leaving/unknown?”  Of course I knew exactly what he was asking because it’s the favorite topic among expats. Are we moving anytime soon? I texted back: “Unknown.”

Of course, even if you are not an expat, your status is “unknown.” We simply don’t know where life is going to take us. The positive side of an unknown status? You have to get out there and experience everything.

I’ve been looking back at photos from our time here in Calgary and wanted to share some of my favorites with you. Here is one (below) from our first week in Calgary, when we went to the government offices at the Harry Hays Building in Calgary. I honestly can’t remember what we were doing there but it involved filling out papers and waiting, lots of waiting. The first few weeks in Calgary are a total blur of paperwork, hotel living, school uniform fittings, car shopping, unpacking boxes and a whole mix of emotions.

I do remember looking at this wall of bread items and thinking, “Why?” Then I was thinking, “Yum.” I’ve heard of Alberta beef but not really much about Alberta bread. It wasn’t until today that I actually looked up the story behind the Bread Wall On the artist’s web site, it says it is comprised of 400 loaves of bread and certain loaves spell out the word, “bread.” As I said, everything is a blur so I honestly don’t remember noticing that the loaves spelled out “bread.” Maybe I would have stepped back to take a photo of the whole thing if I noticed that. Maybe I did notice because my daughter is hanging on the letter “A,” which is the first letter of her name. Maybe she noticed but I didn’t. Maybe we need to stay here in Calgary a little longer to check this out and take another photo.

Here’s the scoop and here’s my photo …

(Please spare me the “Oh, I have my windows open and the sun is shining and I have my bikini on” comments. You know who you are, Houston readers. You’ll get yours in mid-August when it is 152 degrees in the shade and you can’t walk from the driveway to the front door without suffering heat stroke.)

Back to Calgary. What to do on such a cold day? My husband likes to board a plane for some important “business meeting” in a warmer place. Why do I get the feeling he is really on a beach somewhere while I shovel the driveway and defrost the children?

I like to do hot yoga.

What could possibly be better on a day like today than stepping into a room that is heated to 108 degrees Fahrenheit and performing 26 crazy yoga moves until you are sweating so much you can’t wait to step back into the cold Calgary air?

While doing yoga in this 75-minute class, I am transported back to Houston, Texas. There is a beautiful, skinny blonde woman with a very lovely Lululemon outfit in front of me, barely breaking a sweat, hitting every pose just as the teacher instructs, while I am sweating buckets in an outfit I pulled together from Target and Wal-Mart, my hair sticking to my head and the pain and exhaustion so evident on my face, the instructor laughs out loud. Yup. I’m back in Houston.

In reality, the hot yoga room is like a “nice” day in Houston,  as the room is only set at 50 percent humidity, not the 100 percent humidity Houston is set at nine months out of the year. So, for those Canadians who can’t quite understand the intense heat in Houston as they think 80 degrees with no humidity is a hot day, step inside a hot yoga class for a while. Then imagine it’s even more humid and the sun is burning your skin while the fire ants bite your feet and the mosquitoes bite your arms and the mold in the air is making your eyes itch. Lovely, right?

While in yoga class this morning, I was hit with an awful headache. The instructor said it’s probably from the temperature change and/or dehydration. I think it’s from the back bend she made me do. Either way, she suggested I drink more, and she didn’t mean wine. Darn! She meant water or tea or soup, which leads me to the second way I like to warm up on such intensely cold days in Calgary — drinking wine. Oops! I mean, making soup.

So, I went straight from yoga class, wearing my big puffy coat, to the market, where I picked up half a chicken and some pasta and other ingredients for some easy chicken soup, recipe courtesy of my Polish mom.

Are you feeling a little chilly today? I know how you feel. (Shut up, Houston readers. Go drink your margaritas.) Here is the “recipe” below for those in true need of a warm up.

I put recipe in quotes above because, when you’re dealing with a Polish mom, there is no recipe. There is just soup. She throws a bunch of stuff in a pot and, poofski, it’s delicious. I can’t recreate the amazing taste of her soup but I gave it a try and it’s pretty good. For sure it’s the perfect thing to warm up this gal after a grueling day of shoveling, hot yoga and — later — running out to my car a dozen times during soccer practice and dance class to warm it up and make sure it doesn’t freeze on me. Why did we move here again?

Polish Mom’s Chicken Soup for the Cold Expat

Put half a chicken in a pot and cover with cold water.

Add celery, carrots, onion, cut in big chunks.

Add 1-2 chicken bouillon cubes, plus salt and pepper to taste, plus a little allspice if you have it, plus some super secret Polish seasoning she is sending to me, which you apparently can only get from a Polish person who arrived in America on a boat. I added some garlic and a bay leaf to make up for the lack of this super secret seasoning.

Bring to a gentle boil for 30-40 minutes, remove chicken and skin, as well as any fat on surface of the soup. Throw away the skin and fat but cut the chicken up into chunks. Just try not to eat a few pieces of the warm and tender chicken. Yum, yum.

Serve soup hot over egg noodles or your choice of pasta and the chicken.

Smacznego!

Wait. That’s not my family. That’s a rerun of the Real Housewives of New Jersey. The smell of turkey and stuffing is coming from the Crock Pot, where I stuffed all the ingredients for a traditional Thanksgiving meal all mushed together. The fire is real, but it’s just for me, as the husband is at work and the kids are at school. We’ve got dance class later and an event to attend at school tonight. It’s not Thanksgiving in Canada, not even close.

This will be the third American Thanksgiving we are spending in Canada. The first year, we had my sister, her husband and my mom here, so it made it easier to be away from our home country, even if we served Alberta steaks instead of turkey. We had three extra Americans in the house to appreciate the cute turkey towels I put out in the bathroom!

Last year, a sweet American friend hosted a dinner on the Friday after Thanksgiving at her Canadian house. I was baking on Thanksgiving day, and her husband came to collect my dining room chairs to use at her house. It felt like a holiday, even if my husband was away on business.

This year, another great American friend invited us to celebrate Thanksgiving at her house on Sunday. Unfortunately, we will be at a soccer tournament. So, no Thanksgiving dinner to attend, no chairs loaned out, no holiday feeling. It’s not always fun to be an expatriate.

OK. Enough whining! It’s Thanksgiving in America and, since I’m an American, I need to be thankful. And, I am. I am so, so, so thankful for this amazing adventure in Canada, for my beautiful and talented children, for my wonderful husband and for the family and friends — near and far — who try to make us welcome in this new place and who welcome us when we go “home,” even when we are not sure where home really is!

And, to be fair, we already celebrated Thanksgiving, sort of. Canadian Thanksgiving is held on the second Monday of October. (Columbus Day in the U.S.) Our first Canadian Thanksgiving in Calgary, the kids and I ate curry with a family from England while my husband was out of the country. Typical.

Our second Thanksgiving was truly amazing and traditional, as we spent it with cousins on my husband’s side in beautiful British Columbia. It was a Canadian Thanksgiving with Canadians in Canada! This year, we hosted my in-laws at our house and, in between watching my son play soccer in the Wild Turkey Cup in Calgary, we made a turducken. Yes, I said turducken.

I mistakenly thought turducken must be a traditional part of Canadian Thanksgiving, as why would they be offering it at my neighborhood grocery store (for the outrageous price of $90!) on a pre-order basis if it wasn’t. Apparently, though, the turducken idea came over from Louisiana and the Canadians were just as amused by my choice for Thanksgiving dinner as the Americans staying with us and reading my Facebook posts about it.

So, what is it? Turducken, which looks like a turkey, is a partially de-boned turkey, a fully de-boned duck and a fully de-boned chicken, all rolled into one and stuffed with — in our case —  sausage stuffing from a local shop owned by former CFL players.

I placed an online order for our turducken, which my husband told me would be fully cooked. He heard that from the butcher. Easy Thanksgiving dinner on a busy soccer weekend, right? Yeah, not so much. I should have known when the grocery called to say my turducken was at the store so I “don’t need to worry”– with no more details on what to do or when to get it — that this was going to be another one of my Canadian adventures.

Thankfully, I always question my husband and everyone else, so I stopped by the grocery store a couple of days before Canadian Thanksgiving weekend to check on my turducken. Fully cooked? No, it’s raw and frozen solid. Cooking instructions? No, you’re on your own. After I stood there for a few moments in shock, the store employee took pity on me and went back into the freezer to find some instructions for cooking the crazy bird(s). After she returned with instructions ripped off a box or someone else’s turducken (probably another American) and a  ”good luck,” I threw the crazy frozen thing into my cart and dashed out of the store as numerous people tried to stop me to find out what possessed me to order a turducken.

Then we thawed and we watched soccer and we thawed and then it was finally time to cook the darn thing. Very much like cooking a turkey, we cooked it on low while at a soccer game and came home to the smell of — well, nothing. It didn’t really have a strong smell so I was getting worried that the turducken was just an empty shell that would deflate the moment we cut into it but, once it was at the proper temperature and we sliced into it, we found it had plenty of flavor. I really loved the turkey part and the stuffing was yummy. (Spolumbo’s sausages, by the way, are fabulous and that means a lot coming from me, a Polish girl. I know my sausage!).

Back to the guest of honor — the turducken. I could have done without the duck (too rich for me) and chicken (too dry for me) and the looks of horror on my children’s faces. Our guests, my husband’s parents, seemed to enjoy it and, thankfully, we made it on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, so we were able to get three or four meals out of that thing before they left town — with turducken sandwiches for the road.

There will be no turkducken or turkey sandwiches after American Thanksgiving this year. I’ve got the Crock Pot going with turkey and stuffing in my attempt to do something Thanksgiving-like on a day like any other in Canada with school, work, homework, soccer, dance and more. And I am so thankful we get to do all of those things today in Canada. We’re together. We’re happy. We’re healthy. We’re busy. Happy Thanksgiving!

I have trained my children from their first Halloween to recognize Reese’s Cups (and Tootsie Rolls and M&Ms) and go for those, when possible, as those are mom’s favorite. So, as trained, they walked in the door last night with a full report on how many Reese’s items they had in their treat bags. My daughter’s report: “I got you eight Reese’s Cups and two bags of Reese’s Pieces, Mom!”

My son,who one Halloween in Houston announced to a homeowner that his mom liked Tootsie Rolls and could he please have more as it would make his mom so happy (sweet, sweet boy), already had the Reese’s Cups separated from his treats as he walked in the door last night and set the pile on the stairs, where I would see them. I’m pretty sure he took the Reese’s Cups out of his friend’s bag, too, as his friend had a strange look on his face and said: “Um, I really like those.” I dumped all but the one I had already torn open into his bag. That kid does about 20 hours of soccer and hockey training a week. I think he can burn those calories faster than me.

Back to the Reese’s-Reese situation. Not really sure why they call them Reese here and not Reese’s Cups but, even though Canada is a lot like the U.S. in so many ways, there are so many things that are different here, including the candy you get on Halloween. Our first Halloween here, we dumped out the kids’ treat bags and, of course, separated mom’s favorites from the rest but also made groups of candy we had never had, including Smarties (the chocolate kind), Wunderbar, Crunchie, Coffee Crisp, Caramilk, Aero, Mr. Big and various Maynards gummy thingies. We took bites and passed the bars around for each to try and decide if they were good (Coffee Crisp, Aero, Caramilk — yum) or not good (Maynards wine gums– bleh).

This was our third Halloween in Canada and, even though we can buy all this candy at any time at our Canadian grocery stores (and probably in the U.S., though we haven’t checked), we still get excited to see the different kinds of treats people are giving in Calgary. Last night, candy-coated chocolate Smarties were the most frequent, while full-size Aero and Snickers bars were the big hit among my kids just because they were full-size. The Red Bull Energy Shot was the weirdest thing, followed closely by a chocolate hairy ear (ewwww)!

Here’s a little tour of our treat bag:

That’s a lot of candy.

Stuff you don’t normally get in the U.S.

If a Reese’s is a Reese in Canada, why aren’t they called Reese Pieces?

Gross!!!!!!!

Exactly what every 12-year-old needs on Halloween night with all that sugar … 80 mg of caffeine.

The U.S. Smarties (bottom) are marketed in Canada as Rockets to avoid confusion with Nestle’s Smarties (top), which are candy-coated chocolates. I like to confuse Canadian children, so I gave out the fruit-flavored Smarties, brought over from the U.S.

Can’t forget the All Dressed Ruffles!

This one sure did. Well, after I read my old blog post.

As I wrote in my blog two years ago, my daughter (who was 6 years old at the time) brought me this picture not too long after I had reprimanded her for leaving a mess behind in the living room. (See previous post about Extreme Tidying.) I wasn’t sure how to react to the words, “Mean Momy,” but the drawing of me apparently hanging from a tree branch was even more disturbing than the words.

“You think I am a mean mommy?” She looked at me with this puzzled look, which I took as,”Well, duh. You just yelled at me.”

“What am I doing there hanging from the tree?” I didn’t really want to hear the answer I expected to hear. However, I couldn’t understand why my seemingly sweet baby was wanting me to die a horrible death hanging from a beautiful cherry tree. (So ironic, because I love cherries.)

“You’re swinging,” she said, innocently. Swinging? So, I’m not dead yet. I am lingering and suffering. She must really hate me.

“And I’m swinging with you,” she continues.

Huh?

“It’s a tire swing,” she points to the drawing. “That’s you sitting on the swing holding me. It says: ‘Me and Momy.’”

Well, of course, I knew that all along.

My husband was at work and preparing to leave for the airport for a business trip. I called him as soon as I saw the news and begged him to stay in the office and not head for the airport. Never one to get overly excited about things, he told me he would check it out and call me back. Of course, his trip was postponed, but Mothers’ Day Out went on as planned. Already dressed to go and excited to see his friends, I didn’t want to disappoint my little boy by keeping him home. I remember it being really hard to leave the school that morning with our world in such a state of confusion and grief. However, I knew he was in good hands with his amazing teachers. And I knew I would spend most of the day glued to the TV and computer, trying to get more information on what was happening. I didn’t want him to see his mom cry.

I am so grateful for the 10 years I have had with my beautiful boy, husband and, for the last eight years, my sweet daughter. So much has happened in the last 10 years in our family. My daughter was born. My sister got married. My grandmother passed away. We moved to Canada. We’ve made countless memories and have met so many amazing people. On Sunday, I’ll be thinking of those who died in 2001 and praying for their families, who were robbed of so many experiences and memories.

Please read this touching post at Go West Young Mom, recounting my friend’s experiences in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. Thanks, Tara, for reminding us to be grateful.