I’d love to boast about my experiences, but the truth is there are factors out of my control that need to be settled before I’ll feel comfortable reporting on my campaign. I will say it has had a net positive effect.
Hopefully by next week all the details will be ironed flat and I can say more, if I still feel like talking about it. Just know that I am proud of all of you for making it such a resounding success for Erik’s future wellbeing. I cannot thank you all enough for that.
– M
Over the last month or so the new normal is feeling fine, followed by an emergency broadcast to use the bathroom which has roughly 30-60 seconds to comply before calamity. No other sense of impending doom is given. No thirty minutes out tummy rumbles. No bloat. Just all’s fine, then Go!, go, go, go, ahhhhhh shucks.
So that’s a fairly perfect snap shot of my life over the last thirty days. Living with intestinal issues has been challenging to say the least. I’m nothing if not adaptable to the realities of my new normal, as it alters and fluctuates every so often, year in and year out. I’m far better off now than in my teen years, or even my early twenties. So don’t shed any tears for me. I am accustomed to taking very seriously the realities of my particular brand of illness. It cares not one whit for how things used to be, or any markers or indicators I used to use to gauge my internal gut health. Not knowing your bodies signals right away is weird. I have to live through it enough to be able to piece the new way together. Do I get cause and effect, coincidence, correlation jumbled? Yeah – yes I do. But if this new way stay stable long enough you can narrow the signals down to what is random noise, and what are the new big sign posts I should pay very close attention too.
Acid reflux and heartburn aren’t new, but the increased frequency with which I deal with those is new to me. Drinking pint glass after pint glass of water has helped out. Eating less dairy per day is usually a smart play. Finding the right balance of veggies and fruit that doesn’t make me feel as though I have swallowed broken glass. Needs to be enough to keep me healthy, but not enough to trigger my ulcerated bowel.
Anyone with intestinal issues has probably internalized a certain (***TMI WARNING***) personalized colour chart, a sense for the sickly sweet smells our bodies produce, and a Richter scale for intestinal rumbling that we use to chart out and/all travel plans, or how far from a restroom we’re willing to be and for how long. In my youth I had to plan out my routes to events or places by what bathrooms were on the way, and whether or not I had to buy stuff to access those bathrooms, and if the owners / operators were ok with a running in and blowing ass all over the insides of their toilet stalls. I never left a place looking any worse than I found it, but I can’t say the same thing for anyone else.
So how is your Lazy Sunday going? The weather has had the humidity drained off, thankfully. Yesterday was rainy, but it opened up into a lovely Saturday afternoon & evening. Sunny right now. Somewhere around 18°C, no visible sign of a breeze. I have dome quarterly meeting this evening for the Non-Profit whose board I sit on. That should be about 60-90 minutes of my evening planned out.
The fundraiser for Erik was a success, we raised the $25,000.00 goal in roughly 72 hours or so. As the goal was met, and now exceeded, I plan to close it down come Monday morning. I have toggled my intent to stop accepting donations, and will finalize those plans tomorrow. With the expectation that all funds go into a trust for Erik to be used for his grief/trauma counseling needs until he reaches eighteen. I have faith that it will be enough to last the full eight or so years. A massive thank you to everyone whom donated, and made this fundraiser possible.
Let us just leave it at that then huh? Whoo boy what a freight train of a week. If I didn’t have the fundraiser to sink all of my available time & energy into, I think I would have sat and wallowed in my sorrow. It was good to be busy. A net positive for a horrible situation. I truly believe we have come together to do something great for Erik. And that is all I ever wanted it to be. One sliver of hope in a terrible time in his life.
**BREAK**
In other news, it’s Saturday. This last week has been hot as balls, and humid AF. Doing any work outside has resulted in dripping sweat and sticky clothes. I do not envy outdoor workers, nor miss my time as one of them. This rain is unexpected. My laen is lush and green still which is weird. My yearly trend of yellow brown, tan crispy grass hasn’t turned up yet. Still have to cut the grass once a week. Better than the twice per week it can be in the spring & fall though. Lots of continuous weeding to do in all of the beds too. Be nice if the weeds would take a mid summer hiatus. But no. Still springing up and keeping my hands filthy, and my back sore.
Swimming lessons have begun anew. Kids are upset that they have to swim the whole 30 minutes because the classes are so small. Big feelings from my two. Lots of hot & humidity fueled attitude too. Could do without that. I think much of it stems from being hangry. Kids aren’t fond of eating a breakfast. And then get over tired from swimming, and refuse to believe that their moods are affected by the lack of food and energy in their system. Such fun!
The two funerals are next weekend. Going to be a tough few days leading into the civic holiday. Ciao Bella!
** Funeral Announcement for Michelle Bader **
Family and friends are respectfully invited to attend the funeral service for Michelle Bader, which will be held at Skwarchuk Funeral Home at 30 Simcoe Road, Bradford, ON on Friday, August 4th, beginning at 2:00 pm.
** Memory Book Contributions **
I am assembling a memory book to commemorate Michelle Bader’s life and to provide heartfelt messages and memories to her family. A printed copy will be presented to Michelle’s parents at her funeral. Submissions can be made using this link (Google Form):
https://forms.gle/vDaYGVJBQbzcCEFF6
***UPDATE****
** Funeral Announcement for Heidi Bader-Shaw, on behalf of Jarrod Shaw **
Family and friends are respectfully invited to attend the funeral service for Heidi Bader-Shaw which will be held at Low & Low Funeral Home, Uxbridge Chapel, at 23 Main Street South, Uxbridge, ON on Saturday, August 5th. Visitation will be at 1:00 pm, and a service will be held from 2:00 – 3:00 pm. Children are welcome to attend.
It’s not about me. Don’t make it about “you”. I can see it clear as day how tantalizing it would be to put yourself at the centre of it all. The attention, engagement, messages, tweets, DM’s, phone calls, and the dopamine hits from watching the counter climb. It’s all very tiring and yet deeply intoxicating. But it’s not about me. Not about me. Stay out of it. Don’t heed the siren’s call. Avoid the rocks yo!
I’ve been quoted in more news articles in the last 48 hours, than the previous 43 years and several months combined. Not about you bro. Stay on track, keep the campaign running but stay in the background. Do the leg work. Build on the ground swell, for Erik. For the scared nine year old whose whole world has just been tipped on its end. Make it count, for Erik.
I have learned a few things, some terrific, others less so, while running this campaign. The best thing I’ve learned is how passionate our community is in providing long term mental health care for a child in need of a helping hand. People are generous, kind and supportive. Love that. Then there are the hangers-on, seeking to build their own personal brand, or networking connections, even a pay-cheque for their efforts to glom on to something that looks as though it could do numbers. That I wasn’t prepared for, but should have been. A tad naive in that respect, that my dear friend, is entirely on me.
There are other things I’ve learned, and am still learning, so I’ll leave it at that for now. Perhaps after the campaign is done, and I get the accumulated funds off to Erik so that he may continue on his long journey to healing I’ll have more to say about my experience. But, it’s not about me. This blog is, mainly just me talking out loud, but you get what I mean.
When we put this campaign together, my wife and I discussed it at length thinking what was the best possible thing we could do, when what you really want to do is not possible. We can’t raise the dead. Sad as that may be. But with a smidge of objectivity, borne out of a distance from the tragedy, and my wife’s working knowledge of therapy costs from working with at risk youth, we felt a longer term approach was the path to take. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work. I’d hope that someone would do the same for my family.
I spoke with various people to ascertain if I was stepping on toes, or competing against wishes or what have you. Once I was given their blessings I just got the ball rolling. Really the bulk of this gift of longer term mental health & wellness comes from you all. I don’t have $12,500.00 to give, so this is a massive community win. I am so glad for the support. My heart swells thinking about what an opportunity this is for Erik in his time of need. Thank you all so much.
For the surviving child of our family friend. Please go check it out.
We are raising money to help cover the out-of-pocket costs for a decades worth of trauma counseling for Erik.
Tragedy struck on Sunday night when our family friends were killed in an accident. My friend, and her five year old daughter in one fell swoop. My kids adored them both. We attended the five year gold’s 5th birthday party a mere two weeks ago. Hell, we met up at Wonderland in late June so that our eldest kids could have lunch together, and ride a few rides by themselves while we chatted under the shade of the carousel. We are absolutely gutted. My wife and I have been in tears for much of last evening over their sudden departure under such tragic circumstances. But now comes the hard part. We need to delicately pass along the news to our two kids. My heart goes out to her son, the only one to survive the accident. I cannot fathom the grief, and potential survivors guilt that will plague a nine year old boy after an event like that. Truly heart breaking.
I’m not much looking forward to giving my two such heavy hearts. Tact is not my strong suit. Nor is delicacy. Looking into their faces to tell them their friend, and her mum are both gone so suddenly. Ugh! They need to know right? Can’t hide it. It’s on the news, in the paper, and all over the parents Facebook groups. If we don’t break it to them someone else will. Not going to like it, but I feel it must be done. To honour our friends. To Michelle & Heidi.
Been doing some detail oriented work recently, and am finding lots of unusual mistakes. Stuff that I’m not seeing when in the moment I compare what I’ve done to the brief. Is it a case of myopic tunnel vision where I see what I think it should be, because of my intent to do it correctly, or is the ole brain misfiring as I miss these details even after a lengthy review? Am I rushing, absent minded, or is this a new post Covid symptom I need to keep an eye on? Challenging to say the least.
Perhaps I need to lay off the work, and come back to it for soft proofing to catch these errors. Seems like I need to add some new steps into my process to catch this stuff, and not further embarrass my self. Some food for thought. Atleast I’m not driving distracted, as of yet. A good sign of covid induced brain damage. Or I need to slow down, and go through my work letter by letter as opposed to word by word. Time to reset the proofing stage I guess. Happy Monday everybody!
I am just itching to get into my shop to build some new furniture for the house or cottage. But, and here is the big “but”, I’m not certain of what else we need. I do know that storage never goes unused, but where, and in what form? If the kids no longer used their massive doll house, I could break down their art station too, and build a multi tiered sit down desk, storage unit asymmetrical to the other unit on the opposite side nearer the front of the house. We’d like to bring the antique side board up to the cottage, and just have more lower cabinets with a but her block top all along that far wall of the dining room. With shelves galore to hide all of our random crafting supplies, spill over toys, and household things. Get the dining room table cleared off so that we can eat on it once more.
Alas, both kids still use both doll houses, and the art station, and all our toy boxes ate full to overflowing. Have tried taking stuff to the cottage, but then more stuff turns up at the house, so I can never seem to get out in front of it for more than a day or two. I need a viciously ruthless clearing out in September. Garbage bags, dump trips, garage sales, give away, donations, you name it, I need all the excess “things” gone. Feels as though the walls are closing in with the accumulation of unneccesary stuff. Can only haul so much of it to the cottage as a stop gap measure.
So once we sort out what it is we want built, I can get some nicer materials. Perhaps not Walnut, but a Cherry , or something hardwood but not crazy expensive. A little nicer than pine, if I have my choice. I’m rooting the bill, so it will depend on pricing once I go wood hunting. If I can buy direct from a small time shop and get a good deal, I might try for nicer, or more exotic woods. Won’t know for sure until I commit to going and looking/buying.
I saw life jackets were on sale so I got myself a new one, one full size up. My old one is uber tight, and uncomfortable to wear. So now I won’t be so crushed when I actually get out to the lake in August. Yeah!
Happy lazy Sunday to all of you.
I once went in on a very expensive doll for my now oldest daughter, who was many moons away from being born, and then my second child was born two and a half years later (also a daughter) before that particular campaign was finally fulfilled. So now it sits hidden in my closet because I only have the one. Also it was expensive, and not that many comparatively were made. And if I give it to one of them now, they’ll fight over it, and likely break/lose pieces to an expensive art piece. So in my office it shall remain, boxed up, in mint condition. Untouched. And out of the sun.
I say all this because I am now two years plus, deep into waiting on nearly two hundred D&D minis from Blacklist Games, and their Lasting Tales Kickstarter from April of 2021. I have held off buying any additional mini figures to paint & base while I wait for this massive box of bits to arrive. Well, I say that. But I did buy a small jar full of 3d printed minis so that my kids could paint up some on their own on a rainy day. I took half of the jars worth, and split the other matching half between the two kids. And no, we have not painted them yet. That’s like a Nov – April kind of hobby. Same with my Resin kit. Can’t be a hermit during the summer. Fine to hide away during the winter, but not when it’s blue skies and warm out.
Some people however have not had to wait in excess of three or more years for an item to go through production, and then a prolonged distribution phase. And it shows. I get it, waiting sucks. But for many this is their first kick at the world wide mass production can, and shit gets scrambled, lines crossed, language barriers abound, and shipping prices fluctuate, as world wide pandemics hit. Fun times I imagine. I wasn’t hoping to run a big game so I’m fine to wait another six months to a year. After a while you sort of give up on it, and if it comes in you think, hope restored! Otherwise you carry on and try to do better research on who you trust with $100.00 USD. Live and learn.
Or you move over to Gamefound, or some other such private crowd source firm, and buy your games there, as they have a better track record for successful completions on new IP. Awaken Realms runs off of Gamefound, and they have been very reliable. The Nemesis game, Lock-Down, and Kings of Ruin all went off trouble free. There were more than those three but that’s all I can recall off of the top of my head. Plus their games are super well packaged for international shipping, and I’ve had to issues with my stuff. I realize my experience is anecdotal at best, but I have one more game coming from them around Christmas of this year, I think. They update us all the time, so I’m not concerned about the shipping date. I appreciate the transparency, and the community involvement in designing portions of the game/characters.
Welcome to Saturday. Week three is officially completed. Nearly halfway through summer break. Days are flying by. Crazy! Have a great weekend! Ciao Bella!
Greatwall Studios Graphic Design 
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