Month: July 2022

A thought occured to me the other night while I was reading an article on the internet. I no longer suffer the pangs of missing out when it comes to back to school season. I really enjoyed both college and university, so I used to feel really anxious once I had started working, about not getting to start something new and exciting every September. I felt that draw for a very long time. Much longer than I would have deemed necessary. It was really bad when I lived in a university town. Watching people move in, meeting new friends, joining clubs, taking exciting classes, going to parties and having freedom for the first time. Brings back a lot of great memories for me. That time of my life was a blast. Not all good, but generally positive.

I’m very happy with where I am, and what I have going on so I no longer feel that draw. If they ever build a uni or college near us I could see myself taking a night class here or there of something interesting. Or learning video editing to aid my freelancing credentials. Revisit web building, or learning some new fangled 3d sculpting program. Who knows, the future education I take on is my oyster, as it were.

I used to read those university ranking articles religiously, but now, not so much. Oh well. To freelancing, building furniture, playing guitar & piano, model kit building, D & D terrain building, and DIY’ing at home for the family. I have a lot going on right now as it is. My learning is gradual and unending, rather than condensed and hyper focused like in my previous youth state. My needs and those of my family are evolving. As the kids get older, more self aware, and less reliant on us for everything, time will open up for both of us to do more outside the immediate family. My wife is out of sorts from not having taught summer school / night school this summer. So I know she feels slightly adrift without the work to keep her anchored. The days man, they blend together and they just don’t stop coming!

Something about the crispness of the air, the changing leaves, the days being hot and the nights cool. Great for patio drinks and dancing the night away under neon lights with a sloshing beverage in your hand. Walking around looking for an open late night pizzeria or hot spot to find food to soak up the booze. Walking home in huge groups, or crowding onto a bus and meeting other friends who’ve had a wild night alongside your own. Rose coloured glasses and nostalgia abound with these sorts of memories. Evenings with threats of violence get shunted into the wild night stories bundle and cordoned off from the block of “fond memories”. To err is human I guess.

I don’t quite know what the allure is here with these things, but I do like to look at all of the shiny polished rocks when I get the chance. Saw a very intricately speckled Sodalite sphere which was particularly interesting. My youngest was drawn to it too, so we purchased that item for around $15~ . I’m sure it’ll only take a day or two for them to loose interest in it, and I’ll scoop that up and put it away somewhere safe. I hate when my kids loose stuff, that really irks me, you know.

It’s the Civic Holiday Long Weekend here in Canada, so I am going to put my work on hold for a short while, so that I can do more outdoorsy stuff with my kids. My changes won’t get viewed until Tuesday as it is, so I can do them tonight or tomorrow morning, and still be ahead of schedule. Which is a good thing. Don’t want to leave anyone hanging if it can be helped.

I heard on the news today that the heat and humidity are on the rise this weekend. Heading into the dog days of summer! Almost August, can you believe it? The days can feel long, but the weeks are short! Take a minute to stop and smell the roses, look at that view, take a sip of your drink. It’ll all be past you before you know it if you wait before acting. You know what scares me, waiting until retirement to do big travel things, only to be too ill or unhealthy to do those sorts of things by then. A bad knee, a tortured back, sore neck, Crohn’s flare up, anything could derail those retirement plans. I hate that. We are making plans to travel sooner, so we can mitigate that fear. Spending money on family experiences is preferable to filling the house with even more stuff. Ciao Bella!

Managed to get just about all of my current projects off my to-do list this week. All bar one long term project have been approved and sent off. Glad to hear it on this Friday of the Civic Holiday long weekend. Now I can focus on being with my kids for the next few days, before new projects begin on Tuesday. I’m more than happy about that!

Glad I cut the grass the other day, I hate wasting holiday time with household chores. Maybe I’ll crack a beer or two with lunch! Ha. Not likely, but it’s an interesting thought. Gotta keep my wits about me if the kids go swimming under my watch. In general I don’t drink until after the kids have gone to bed. I like to be able to rush anyone to a hospital or treatment centre during the day without being under the influence of anything harder than cold medicine.

Still in the midst of The Children of Ruin, the follow up sequel to Adrian Tchaikovsky ‘s Children of Time. I far prefer the second novel, seems to be ever so slightly faster paced, which I appreciate. Not that the first was slow, but it builds upon a new civilization from the ground up, and that takes time to do. Not time wasted mind you, just – it takes time. I am eagerly awaiting the release of the third book some time later this year (November, if I recall correctly). Looking forward to it!

As we get closer to the fall, I think I might start up writing more short stories again. They tend to fall in and out of fancy with me once I can get outdoors and enjoy the nicer Canadian weather. I hate the cold & snow, so staying warm and writing is far more pleasurable, than missing a swim under the warm summer sun. I have written one or two in the last few months, but nothing like I was doing earlier this year. I like to write short one offs until i tap into something i like a lot. Either a setting, a theme or a character i can really get behind. I’m pretty loosey goosey with the actual stories. When things start to fill out, that’s when i will write up an outline of points or events I’d like to touch on, otherwise I just wait and see where the dialogue and characters take me. Fun way to write short fiction. I never set out to write 100,000 words of connected short fiction, but it happened somewhat organically. Great feeling to have accomplished it. That was a private milestone I was very excited to have met head on. Ciao Bella!

Dialing in on the final product with a couple of clients this week, which makes me feel good. It’s always nice when a project comes together in the end and everyone is satisfied with the outcome. I am expecting final fixes/edits for a report at some point this week, so I’ll be happy to scratch one more item off the to-do list. Perhaps another report will surface in the next two weeks or so. Not certain, but it’s possible.

We hosted a couple of cousins (outdoors of course) for some swimming, trampolining and lunch. A slight miscalculation lead to a second party being invited on the same day, but seeing as we were cooking for so many already, and the yard is spacious, what’s an extra five into the mix. All bar one is vaccinated, and that particular individuals family had Covid two or three weeks ago, and have been on the mend for ten days or more (or so I was told). No fights, no bloody wounds, so all around a good visit with friends and family. I’ll take it as a win.

The kids are on day two of their outdoor swimming lessons. I’m not sure how much a three week course can do for them, but they soak up stuff they enjoy like sponges, so maybe getting both kids to swim using their arms and legs simultaneously will be worth it in the end. The youngest is more confidence than skill at this point. So any help from a swim instructor will be greatly appreciated. If it’s not me teaching them, or my wife, the kids will actually listen and follow along. It gets to be like pulling teeth with them if I’m the one leading the instructions. Gladly pay a certified specialist to get them water safe around the pool or the lake.

Heading into the last days of week four. Five left to go, and the temperatures are set to go up! Going to need to think about the state of their back packs, pencil cases, consumable stock piles of paper, erasers and pencil crayons & crayons. Look at sizing indoor and outdoor shoes. Do coats and hats still fit. Sort out all the ruined school clothes from the still viable pieces. Late August, and very early September will see a flurry of activity regarding the children. Of course my wife will be back at work before August is through, so that will fall to me. I have the kids in a dance, music, acting camp the last week, so I can tackle that stuff unimpeded. I’ll get through it a whole lot quicker if left alone to tackle it with music playing as i work.

Early September will see me ramping up my house cleaning. Cabinets doors, walls, baseboards, waxing & polishing the floors, after sweeping and vacuuming thoroughly with ever chair up turned and off the floor. Moving the couch and tables to get every last scrap of crud off the floors. Windows will get washed inside and out. Laundry piled as tall as I am in preparation for the first day of school. All the new clothes will have to get washed and sorted. Closets upturned and decluttered. The toy box actually used to store toys that I don’t throw away or ship off to the cottage.

Once all that is done, then the leaves will begin to fall and the lawn, exterior will be an area of concern. Plus I’d like to go buy some hardwood lumber and make a few more furniture projects before winter hits and the shop becomes too cold to use. That’s getting months ahead of myself. Best enjoy the sunshine and family time now, as it really is so fleeting. Getting darker earlier and earlier the further into summer we get!

Tough crowd out there today. Early morning chill in the air, and all that jazz. Summer hits real different when the thunderstorms suck out all of the humidity. Got us all searching for sweaters and long pants as we sit in the shade with a cross breeze. You think you’ll never be cool again when the heat waves roll in, but once they move on, you start thinking about “This feels like the fall and October” – again. Very strange.

Spent a good chunk of yesterday (when not at my desk working) pulling thistles from the lawn. I hate thistles so, so much. Stabbed in the fingers and palms over, and over again. Usually if you pull a scotch thistle out just above the root, where it meets the ground you can avoid the worst of the prickly bits. But the midsized ones haven’t softened at the base yet, and shredded my gloved palms. I need to find a manufacturer that builds really tough gloves. Nothing I own can truly deal with either a thistle or a rose bush. It’s really very irritating.

Now you may ask yourself, why do the titles of these posts have so little to do with the actual content? And I’d say, I’m merely staying on trend with National newspapers, who post inflammatory head lines that are misleading vs. What was written. So I take the next logical step and write odd titles, and then fill it with stream of consciousness blathering. Fun stuff huh? Yeah. Yeah it is. Take that money to the bank. A cool 6 cents worth of advertising dollars! Look at me rolling in the views & exposure!

For most a Sunday evening is full of trepidation and concern for the work week ahead, but for us it was overwhelmed by a massive thunder storm with lightning that was close enough to be nearly instantaneous with the booming thunder clap. Very exciting. No tornado that we know of anyway. Which is good. The humidity was sapped which is fantastic. At least for the moment. A real fresh start for a Monday. Lovely.

Let us see if this work week is as busy as last week, and the week before that. Either way, with the break in the weather for this week, might as well get out and about with the family to enjoy the summer while it’s not a complete scorcher. A day here or an afternoon there where it’s hot is great, but bot for multiple weeks on end that have increased year over year.

Most evenings I think of a really funny title or topic to write about, and by the morning it’s completely erased from my memory. I think to myself, oh this is so good, I can’t possibly forget. Then I promptly forget after I fall asleep. What an idiot!

So you’re stuck with whatever else pops into my head the day of. It’s not to say I won’t spontaneously remember at some point in the day, of course I do. But it becomes a matter of whether I now feel it worth to write down after already having posted something else. You can see the bind that puts me in. My hands are tied, really. It’s company policy, nothing I can do. (No, on all three counts, but still. I don’t wanna!)

Took the kids for a late evening swim, which continues to get a little earlier than the day before. I can’t believe we are only a week away from August. Where does the time go? Well, besides sleeping, working & the family that’s all the time we had today kids. Come back next time, remember to hold on to your ticket stubs and receipts and we can validate your parking for you.

Lazy Sunday today. And I’m feeling the delayed onset of muscle soreness (doms) from a couple big work outs, and weeding the pumpking patch in the intense heat. My calves and hamstrings are singing today, believe you me. The thing is squatting in the sun to pull weeds leaves me more sore than lifting the weights I have at home. I’d like to go buy a few more heavier dumbbells, but they’re not cheap. Even at Walmart, that shit’s expensive. I guess it’s more of an investment in myself/health, but $100 or so per dumbbell is a bit rich for my blood. At least until those invoices start creeping in with cheques attached. But to be honest, I’m more interested in buying hardwood in September than I am buying free weights.

The furniture building bug is still with me. I’d like to build a quality bookshelf/cabinet for my office, so I can display some items I’ve had in storage for about a decade or more. Free up some closet space at the same time. I want to make a slab coffee table too, but my attentions and needs have shifted a bit recently. Once the kids are a bit older a larger wall unit for storage will need to be built around the fireplace in the living room. Gotta get some quality hand made projects under my belt before I tackle something with that much exposure.

Had a bout of insomnia last night thinking about the execution of a print ad I’m currently working on. I think we’ve nailed down the concept, and I’m creeping up on the execution. We’re going to get there, of that I’m certain, but it will take another hour or two of dedicated focus on contact shadows, spilled ambient light, and reflections to achieve. So expensive, is what I’m saying in a round about way. I started off with a functionally easy execution that was cost effective, and a new more intricate design was requested, so now it’s on! Invoices out means money coming in.

I’ve never enjoyed dreaming about work, that usually means I’m stressed out, but it actually gave me a good idea on how to fix my problem, so begrudgingly I will accept this small offer of subconscious help. Not that I want much more of it. Woke up with a sore jaw, so I know I was grinding my teeth from stress. Good times. I had to wear an acrylic bridge for years because I was doing that constantly in my teens. What an awful appliance that was to have cemented in. Cracked a fair number of my molars when removing it too.