A Mounties Wife

My husband’s career brought us to Newfoundland. It’s a strange place, really; it is good and bad. The landscape is magnificent, jagged, barren and angry; the people are generally very kind.  I like it here. If I could choose where to build my life of course I would choose my hometown in New Brunswick but Newfoundland has become home to me… at least until our next posting!

Even though we’ve only been here less than two years, life in Newfoundland has completely changed the way I embrace life. My priorities are completely different and I have a new found respect for the simplest things. I don’t come from a very big town but we had everything a city would offer. We had within a 20 minutes radius, movie theaters, decent shopping, bowling allies, bars, mini putting greens and golf courses, gyms, indoor skating rinks, outdoor recreational facilities, a wide variety of restaurants and so many other things to do! I easily filled the moments I had freed of school and work with activities; it was easy to be kept very busy. Life in my old community, and this might be an age thing as well, made me feel like if I wasn’t doing something structured outside of the home that generally costed money, I wasn’t having fun! Even though I enjoyed spending the quiet night at home with my husband (who would have been my boyfriend at the time) nights and days filled with these structured activities were desired more than those quiet nights! Life just had to be so busy in order for me to feel like I was living life to its fullest…it was perfect because the grocery stores catered to my busy scedule with their endless supplies of precooked meals. Life seemed great when it was jammed packed with what I thought was fun!.... Then I moved to rural Newfoundland.

The first time I went grocery shopping in Carbonear, where we lived when we first moved here, I was appalled at the quality of food at the grocery store! They had (and still have) a rack filled with rotting food that is nearly free for the taking because it is marked down so low. I understand having a produce clearance rack but this food was different than the produce clearance items that you’re thinking of. Nothing on this rack would have been edible unless maybe you were making banana muffins or jam out of the black bananas or liquid strawberries…. Anyways, it was shocking to me. Carbonear isn’t a huge town and by peaking in others carts I’ve realized the people here don’t generally eat very healthy. Not a lot of people spend a whole lot of time in the produce section and if they do they are usually getting turnips carrot and potatoes. I once had a pineapple in my cart, as I do most weeks, and a boy started screaming at his mom something about Sponge Bob Square Pants and my pineapple. Anyways, so the food selection sucks in Carbonear because there is really no demand for healthy food. Our stores don’t even have a health food section. Maybe this explains why all the produce is so rotted! All of the restaurants here are fast food or family owned businesses that serve Canadian Chinese food or just have a selection of foods that are mostly deep fried. There is one theater that has one movie playing each night it is open which is kind of fun! But other than that, there really isn’t much to do in our town. I suppose there is a pool… but I’ve been to the pool and it is usually freezing… and I’m afraid of pee lol. Okay fine, there also is riding horses… they are half dead and I don’t think they can even trot but they might make for a pretty fun trail ride! Anyways, for fun in the summer months my husband and I would usually go hiking and sightseeing but you can only do so much of that. Anyways, getting to the point, very quickly my husband and I started going into “Town” which is St John’s city just over an hour from Carbonear, to grocery shop and to find things to do. We certainly found entertainment there and we also found out how quickly our money flowed from our pockets.

When we decided that we needed to save money for our upcoming wedding I realized how fun it can be not doing all of those money costing organized activities that I used to fill my life with and that Carbonear is deprived of. As soon as we started not going to St John’s for dinner and cooking more gourmet meals at home, I realized how much fun cooking can be. Instead of going to the movies in ST John’s with our friends, we started having game nights and had way more fun! We have girls nights every Friday and we have yet to leave our homes because we don’t go to the bars, we do so much more! I never realized that by going to a movie or a bar with friends I wasn’t really interacting with them. We were just there together watching the same thing, or dancing to the same music. By reducing the amount that we go out and engage in costly organized activities, I’ve become closer to my friends and learned to live more simply! Life is so much better for me lived more simply. I feel like I have room to breathe and enjoy simple things like cooking, knitting and reading much more than I would have when I didn’t have the time to do it!