Month: May 2023

There are a few things that I know my wife loves, Spa Day type creams and face masks, fancy cheeses & a fresh baguette, grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup, and Europe vacations, and fully functional house hold items. A few of these things I can do, and happy to do so, others, not do much. It’s the BIG 4-0 this year. She doesn’t want a party, and I’m ok with that too. I spent a lot of money, time and effort last year into getting a party up and running for my wife and all bar two people flaked, so it looked really desperate, which made her feel bad, and I wasn’t too keen on a repeat of that. I had ordered pizza, fancy cheeses, charcuterie food stuffs for 12 guests, and their children, so when only 2 people came, it looked really weird. And no, I didn’t leave the invites to the last minute, nor forget. I called, texted, and emailed to get dates, times, and kids programming ready, six weeks out from the event, and still they ghosted us. I was not impressed. So no party this year. Immediate family only. I also picked up a sash, head band, and ribbon for the birthday girl. 40 in candles, a banner topper for the cake, sparklers, and pink balloons. It’s not a party, bit I think it shows we care!

I’m done grocery shopping for today, and I’ve cut the grass all ready this morning. Just having breakfast before I tackle my work day projects, and also send out invoices for the month of May. I’m annoyed now. Having thought about those people flaking on my wife’s birthday party at the last minute on the day of, or just not showing up at all. Argh!

You know what, I think I’m just hot and hungry, and a touch dehydrated. I’ll chill with a cold drink and a bagel and will even out in a moment. Gah!?!

Because being angry all the time just ain’t worth it no mo. Put out nothing but love and kindness and you may find yourself surrounded by those you care about, and those whom would feed upon your kindness like a leech. Taking, and taking, until you feel all used up. Have to find the middle ground between being cautiously guarded and free spirited. Balance. That’s what I’m talking about. Finding balance. Moderation. Trust & respect. Trust that there are those who would take advantage. Respect yourself enough to put good things out into the world knowing you may have to keep it away from those whom would seek to take it all for themselves. Whee!

Tuesday is upon us. Still here in the month of May. Just barely though. Tomorrow the month is O-VER! And along with that switch to June, comes the last weak days of school. Looks like a long dry summer ahead. I will need to prepare invoices tomorrow and send those out as we completed yet another month in this year of 2023. The Tax-man did take his chunk, his pound(s) of flesh, and now I need to work hard to rebuild in preparation of next years bite. Save save save, wherever possible. Tighten that belt up. Cinch it tight.

I’m just talking nonsense. I have a project to start, and I’ve been wasting time instead of starting. Hard to not want to sit here in the shade with the birds singing, a slight breeze, and lovely warm (not yet hot) temperatures. Back to it. Yehaw!

Summer is just about here. 20°C at 8:00am on a sunny Monday morning, means we are getting so close to summer time. Shame the kids school will become a sweltering cesspool of sweat dripping concrete walls, and humidity before the week is out. Although we saw a significant reduction in temperatures from the BC wild fires, and now that Nova Scotia has a significant burn going that smoke will reach us here in Ontario in the coming days, giving us vivid red/orange sunsets, and cooling the daytime sunshine by 5-10 degrees potentially. Will it taste of smoke, soot, ash outside? Probably not, but both sides of the country being on fire this early in the year is a terrible sign of things to come.

My youngest was bitten by a black fly on Saturday morning, and now the ete brow is swollen, and very pink. Doesn’t seem to be causing any pain or discomfort, but troubling to look at. Something we will need to keep an eye on over the next few days. Make sure the eye doesn’t swell shut, or develope any strange illnesses, like a fever, fatigue, or nausea.

We took a very sunny Sunday morning and did a bunch of tie dye t-shirts out on the front lawn yesterday. We made five shirts in total. I tried a newer (to me) method of folding up a shirt in rectangles, like a set of Venetian blinds. Looks cool. Will need to try squares, triangles, and anything else we can come up with. The kits are microwaveable, so the dye sets in two minutes, instead of having to leave the wet shirts somewhere in a plastic bag for a few days before rinsing, drying and wearing. The kids have some of those shirts on today at school. A good way to kill an hour or so. My hands wound up looking as though I had murdered a unicorn or smurfs. Some magical creature which bled out all over both of my hands. We have a very colourful patch of grass under a tree out front where the rinse water went after we were done. I’m certain we have pink dyed rocks out front as well. The dye gets everywhere. Drip, drip, dribble, dribble, drop. Happy Monday all. Ciao Bella.

That’s my fault. I’ve gotten out of shape and I don’t wish to blow out a knee chasing the birdie all about the end of my driveway. Near perfect weather for it this morning. Hardly any breeze, sunshine, and warm but not sweltering hot. We’ve taken a shine to Badminton over the winter, playing it for brief stints in the hall or living room. It’s a stunted game when we play indoors. Low ceilings, narrow halls, pendant lights. It’s a whole thing. But now! Now we can play outdoors. So far we can comfortably manage between 4 & 7 returns in our rallies. We have no net, and keep no score. Just trying to get to a point where we can just pass the birdie back and forth, before we worry about things like nets, court sizing, and the ultimate conditions needed for competitive play. Hell we are also trying to get out basketball dribbling down pat, before I invest in a hoop, or whole rig for the front driveway. On occasion we’ve even spent some time bumping and volleying in preparation of playing volleyball come grade four (4). Trying to stay active without over doing it. We played a couple games of road hockey in January when we had oddly hot weather for two weeks, and again in early March, prior to getting the ‘Vid.

I think going on a bike ride will be the next big thing. I should get a wider & softer seat for myself, because… ouch. I’m also 10lbs shy of the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life, and all that extra weight on one tiny seat will leave me walking funny for a day or two. Too much pressure over such a limited amount of area. A fuller seat would alleviate some of that, or so I believe.

The mosquitoes and black flies have been unpleasant so far this spring. I can only imagine how bad it is at the cottage. My sibling in Ottawa has been swarmed by them in Ottawa, so cottage country must be horrendous right now. Yuck.

I finished off our back hedge row yesterday, and gave myself all new scratches on my arms that sting and throb. Cedar and me don’t get a long. Not as bad as a Juniper bush, but enough that I look as though I attempted to hug a badger. Strike that off the honey do list. Now I need to find a way to dispose of three fairly large piles of brush consisting of Maple limbs, Lilac limbs, and the top 6-8ft of my entire Cedar hedge row. It still stands 10ft tall, so it’s only noticeable if you knew how much taller it was to begin with. I have let it grow untouched for 8 years. And this winter’s heavy snow & ice storms caused them all to nearly bend in half. Hopefully this way, now they will thicken up along the trunk and not be so susceptible to bending during inclement weather. I need a trailer to get rid of these three enormous piles. Not like farm enormous,  but suburb enormous –  piles. Couple hundred pounds of dead and dying wood, brush and leaves. Too much for a mini van to lug around, unless I took five or six trips, and even then, might need a few more after that. I still need to clear out over the top of the back of our shed, but I hurt my biceps using the loppers, and didn’t feel like doing more damage to my left arm. Both shoulders are sore today anyway. So glad I called it off when I did.

Yesterday was a very long and productive day. Only one more month with the kids & wife out of the house until summer starts, and then things will get really crazy. Ciao Bella!

Beauty of a morning, up early, and the kids are out on the ice. Looking at a short week next week with the Friday PA day for report cards. Hope the weather holds up on Friday and we can spend a good chunk of it in the pool – for free! We’ve opted not to choose day camps for the kids for the day off. A morning in the pool would be a welcome change I think. I’m sure the kids will agree.

The Saturday morning turn out is as strong as ever for Ringette. Happy to see it. I hate when things fizzle near the end. I do wish it were a few hours later into the day, but this way the whole day is before us, and our obligations are done right as we all get up. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy sleeping in, but I have years of that to look forward to once these kids become sullen teenagers, or just get fatigued from high school life, home work, extra curriculars, work, and life in general. Top of the morning to you. Ciao Bella.

What I was saying the other day regarding Marvel movies, I sat down and watched Wakanda Forever, Black Panther 2, and I enjoyed it a great deal. A real tear jerker regarding the untimely death of Chadwick Boseman from bowel cancer (IRL), and a mysterious illness in the movie. It was a decent enough follow up. I guess that’s the Iron Heart girl from the comics filling in with a Tony Stark-esque way with machines & suits etc… cool cool. I can dig it. He left a void which needs to be addressed in one way, shape or form or another. The visual effects were still good enough to not annoy me, or stick out for feeling rushed and unpolished. I’m now kicking myself for not seeing GOTG v3 in AVX, but I’ll still watch it on blue ray at home. I should watch the holiday special and catch up on the characters too. I’ve been really tired as of late (Covid after math most likely) and had to wait to watch my back log of stuff. I’m none to keen on Eternals just yet. Maybe on a miserable rainy day I’ll give it a whirl. Just thought I’d add my addendum in, given I spoke of Marvel movies just a day or two ago. Ciao Bella – again.

The HST bill came in yesterday, and all I can say is – Ouch! Not quite as bad as the Income Tax bill, but enough to leave a lasting mark on my account. Yeesh! Not a fun two months paying these bills. Now I’m going to need those invoices to start pouring in left & right. On the plus side I do have some to go out in the next few weeks, so I’ll puff up a tad. Which just means more woes for tax time next year – Ha! The never ending cycle.

I should give more thought to going full time in-house somewhere, only the thought of a commute, and being around other people for 60 hours a week, makes me feel queasy. Not to mention the added cost of pre & post school child care, travel costs with gas and the train, I’m not certain how much further we’d come out ahead. Not to mention only seeing my kids for spits and spurts in the evenings, or on weekends. I love’em too much to not see them every single day, and be there for pick up & drop off. Maybe a part time job to keep money flowing inbetween my busy sessions might be worthwhile looking into. Manual labour to keep me from developing RSI on my wrists from being at a computer 24/7. Who knows. I’ll look into it.

I may just need to pick up a new client to fill some gaps. Or talk inactive clients into doing some new & exciting design work this year.

Well I gotta go cut my jungle of a lawn. Chat again soon. Ciao Bella!

I know I was a little taken aback by the revelation that dementia and multiple strokes ran in my wife’s side of the family also. Not a terribly cheerful late stage of life for our kids to look forward to, if not regarding us, but more so themselves. The brain meltiness runs on both sides of the blood lines. Both rails of that double helix are cursed! Do what you can to steer clear of environmental factors that might tweak it, twig to it, or add more fuel to that type of fire. Not the kind of legacy one wishes to leave to their kids. Brain melting illness that you can do nothing about. Wonderful. Such is life I suppose. Can’t enjoy the highs without also experiencing the lows. Though to be honest, I’m perfectly fine on an even keel, but that might just be me. Perfectly cromulent. No massive wins, but no catastrophic losses either. Like I said, cromulent. Adequate. Reasonable. Acceptable even.

In other news I need to make some phone calls regarding this malfunctioning water softener, and I’m not too keen on sitting on hold for two or three hours to get no where with it. The gloom outside isn’t doing much to assuage my reticence to make those phone calls either. I’m sure the local water table is happy for the recharge, and refill. Sitting in my living room and looking outside the difference of a week or two is remarkable. The leaves are almost all out in full force now. There are a few hardwood trees late to the game as per usual, but damn. This town looks really great with all that leafy green goodness finally here.

Maybe I should take this time to go pick up the birthday presents for this Friday’s movie party my kid is going to. I’m just not in the mood to do much of anything right this second. I’m glad I came home from drop off and went right to work on a couple projects earlier this AM, as I am losing all ambition to do… anything, really.

Oh, I finally saw Ant-Man three a couple nights ago. Now i did watch it on my phone, so that could be a factor here,but it was, meh! Ok, nothing spectacular nor a total abomination. I have fallen off the wagon here recently. Well since Covid i guess. Dr Strange 2 MOM, Thor L & T, Black Widow, Ant-Man 3, none of these have been particularly amazing viewing experiences. The Disney plus shows were better. Hawk eye, and Winter Soldier, even Wanda Vision were really fun. The films seem lacklustre in comparison. I have yet to see Eternals, nor Black Panther 2. I want to get out to see GOTG V3, but don’t think i have the energy to go tona late show just yet. I haven’t seen their holiday special yet either. Falling behind. Falling out of the demographic most likely. Worse things can happen.

I really had a taste of that with the first two new Spiderman movies with Tom Holland. Playing to the youths. Great for them, less interesting for me. Heavily laden with responsibility Peter, now that i can identify with, but it don’t track with the preteens and the kids of today. Nor should it. Let them be hormonal children with deep emotions, and grade school problems.

But, as I was saying, I saw Ant-Man 3, and it was ok. More of the same. Funny when you think that Paul Rudd is into his fifties, and doing all this stuff. He was great. Funny & charming as always. Hard to go wrong there. The MODOK stuff felt like a shoe horned stretch, but, I mean, I guess? Ok. He didn’t seem pivotal to the plot, just a way to kill ten minutes or so of screen time. I don’t know where they go with Kang. Is this all simultaneously happening along with the Loki show? That was a good one too, far more so than a good portion of these films. I could do with less scene starting hair flips though, that affectation from Loki wears thin real fast. Tie it back, shave it off, or do something else. I bet there is a jump cut of all Tom Hiddleston’s hair tosses from Loki, and it’s probably a full eight minutes long. Chill out with that. You’re going to hurt your neck. Will much of the Kang story line be wrapped up with Loki season 2? I feel as though they are painting themselves into a corner here. But I’m no movie maker, I don’t know what they’re going to do. Invest in some quality control would be a start. The VFX are sliding hard core into the bargain bin with less polish, fit ‘n finish. But I digress. It’s like, how does the original iron man have better cgi than Dr Strange 2 MOM? they are 10 years apart, or close to. Jeez.

Anyway, enough whining from me. Ciao Bella.

In the last few months it has become increasingly apparent that my wife is getting more & more forgetful of things. Now it’s only minor stuff that I know of at this point in time, but it feels very much like a return to ‘baby brain‘. The exact kind of short memory loss she suffered when sleep deprivation set in from the immediate aftermath of the birth of our children. Am I concerned? Yeah – a little. But given how close we are to the end of the school year, which means the high school kids she teaches are going mental as they attempt to try to pass their classes last minute, or come to terms with summer school enrollment or failing for another year, things get hectic. Add in her year off, and planning to make her replacements life easier, and you have yourself a recipe for things getting missed. Like water bottles, lunches, keys, etc… small stuff to be sure. At least for now.

My MIL had a potential mini stroke yesterday where she became confused, and forgetful and spoke gibberish for a short period of time, but tests at the ER said she was fine, and in no imminent danger. Turns out this sort of thing runs in their family, both sides, so that’s good to know. My grand parents all died with dementia, cancer, or from strokes, so yeah. That’s something we all know now. Add in bad hearts, but issues, deafness and you’ve got yourself a real party! How can you not smile at a time like this?

Tuesday today. Nearly forgot about the trash & recycling. But I caught it. Seems like today we’re at the end of the line and not the start of the route. Those guys either get here at 7:01am, or not until 5:30pm depending on which direction they start their routes from. Never the same time twice in a row. Trash can roulette. My favourite past time. Haven’t had that chunky raccoon by since he pulled my garbage bin cover apart. Added close to forty new screws the secure it, and tie it together, along with some additional cross braces, and wood glue. Seems to be holding up, but I won’t really know until that fat little fucker tries to break his way in again. For all I know he may waddle through my repairs without a second though. Little shit head. Not to mention our squirrels are still pulling the blooms off of our tulips to eat them fight in front of us. If I had a pellet gun, oh I’d show those little monsters a thing or two. But alas, I don’t, and thus I cannot.

Opened my inlaws pool this weekend. The kids all swam. I opted not to. The pool heater was on, but the air temperature was a tad low, and windy, so not my ideal conditions. We did take in some very rainy fireworks on Friday with a good portion of the town. That was fun. Kids were up until almost midnight. Slept in the next morning for a change though. That was unexpected. But welcome. First time in ages we didn’t go to the cottage. Our understanding was that the bugs were horrendous, worse by far than usual. So we stayed home. The 1 year anniversary of the Dericho storm came and went. Luckily without a repeat performance. I have a generator on hand because of that 26 hour long power outage. Live and learn.

I need to go swap over the laundry. So chat again on day 526 (a.k.a tomorrow). Ciao Bella!