Month: May 2024

It certainly is a scene. Very quotable. An acquired taste for some of the excesses of patter. Funny, awkward, cringe, and entertaining all in one. It’s early work, so the newer show Shoresy has refined itself a fair bit. Enjoying it a great deal.

Since yesterday didn’t feel like enough we went back to the track again this morning to get in some running practice before the full sun came out to greet us. Once more we started with stretching and added a few core exercises from Taekwondo, which we both know that we can do. Then we did a 400m walk, followed by an 800m jog, and then my daughter ran a 41.89 sec 200m sprint. We did another 400m walk, and then I convinced my daughter to try a second 200m sprint, with the goal of staying as close to her original run time. Me, expecting her to be spent, was hoping she’d stay within 2-3 seconds but be a tad slower. Nope. She beat her time on run #2, coming in very close with a 41.87 sec. I think that on the day of the race, with nerves and adrenaline she’d be able to hit a 37- 38 sec time without trouble. Either way, we’re staying loose, having fun, I’m getting some much needed exercise, and time spent doing something fun with my eldest. Wins in every column as far as I am concerned. Plus, I didn’t nearly black out this time, so that’s great!

Was far less enthused to mow the lawn upon our return, but what can you do, this is mid spring, and we’re at the height of grass growing season. By June it’ll crisp up and I can go back to a once every seven days routine, in preparation for a once every two to three weeks shape up. Which lasts for most of July & August around here. Once you get back into September the rain comes back and the lawn takes off once more. Right up until November.

So while two days is technically a streak, it isn’t anything to get too excited about. So I don’t think we’ll have the chance to run again until thursday afternoon. Who knows if I’ll be able to move later today, let alone want to try and jog anywhere.

I greased and prepped our bicycles yesterday, and determined that my daughters front innertube is shot. I have one coming tomorrow, so I’ll need to get the tire off the bike, and the rubber off the rim so that I can fix it so that we can ride once more. We also recieved a second, smaller skateboard, so perhaps we can try that out along with my long board some time soon. Swimming will be a thing we do more soon too. I like that.

This time we spent a bit longer on the warm up stretches, and the cool down stretching. Maybe, just maybe I won’t need to be in traction tomorrow with DOMS. I have my Voltaren at the ready just in case. Plus a ten year old jar of icy hot in my downstairs fridge for emergencies. Fingers and toes crossed I don’t need to bathe myself in it.

As previously mentioned my eldest won her 200m finals to advance to areas in the coming weeks. So what better for a sunny sunday morning that to head over to said track and get in some practice. We started off with a 10 minute warm up of stretches and leg/hip swings, then directly into a 400m walk, followed by an 800m jog (which nearly killed me. So out of shape). Then a 200m sprint, followed by another 400m walk, some additional stretching and then a ice cold water, and the trek home.

Nothing too crazy. Not trying to introduce an injury before the big day. Just trying to add a touch more activity to keep her loose and ready for the big day. We’ve talked about how great it is to get the opportunity to go, and that’s a win, in and of itself. No need to get too upset if you race against the best in the local area and come up 1/100th of a second shy. Of course we’d love to have another win, but the work to getting there is more important than the 49 seconds of the race. Focus on your personal best, and growth in skills, and knowing what to expect next year. Enjoy the spectacle of it all. Take it in. A lovely sunny day outdoors with friends, interrupted by foot races and field events.

I on the other hand need to get more serious about exercise as I’m terribly out of shape once again. I gave up on the regimen back in November because we went to Florida for 15 days. I did swim and walk a bunch then, but not an actual work out. Then two more trips, one in Jznuary which was shorter, and the longest ever in April. So besides the interminable heat in Florida in April, I didn’t do much of anything physical to raise my heart rate, or develope a sweat. Thus, I’m tired, out of physical shape, and carrying a spare tire around my middle. The scale says 208lbs, but I feel larger than ever. I have my weights, and exercise mat so I should just get back in the habit of using them for 10-15 minutes per day. I put the writing on hiatus for 15 days straight after an 831 day streak, so I know how to build a new habit. Little by little consistently. That’s it. That’s all it takes ultimately.

Was in the orchard picking up busted and discarded sapling covers. The white mesh wraps used to stop deer and whatnot from peeling off the bark, and/or eating the little trees and all of their early leaves & buds. Luckily there are only nine rows of apple trees, and we didn’t have to look at the peach trees, so about an hours work. Grandpa came by with the side by side to gather up our piles, he did that with the kids, so they had some fun atleast. I however have a nice quarter sized burn on the top of my right foot, and at the back of my left leg, on a dollar bill sized patch of skin. So not great. No ticks though, which is nice.

The town had their opening long weekend holiday firework show last night. It was a blast. Both literally and figuratively. Got a tad smokey with no breeze present, but then again we lucked out as the rains stopped before, and a hefty portion of the town showed up. I’d make a few suggestions, if I could. One; invite two or three times as many food trucks, those lines are a real damper on the festivities. Two; station an icecream truck at all four corners of the event so that there are more treat options, shorter lines, and those frozen treats stay frozen. Otherwise the music was good, plenty of seating. The play structures are always a hit with our kids, and nearby parking isn’t too long of a walk away. Event parking is a nightmare to get out of, so we parked a block or two away, and walked the rest of the way in. Got there and home without incident. I’d call that a success.

As I get older, the worst impediment I have from a good lie in is a full bladder. No matter how well depleted I feel as I head to bed, by morning I am full to bursting. Now I do have the capacity to fall back to sleep after a brief visit to the facilities, but that sleep is never as good as the overnight kind.

But first I had to pull up several hundred weeds that have popped up during early spring. My legs and back are going to complain to me about it tomorrow. Thorns, thistles, grasses, dandelions, and all manner of other weeds have landed a foot hold in our front, side and back garden beds. I cleared the front and side, but haven’t the desire, or drive, to also tackle the back yard beds. My wife was out planting six more Dahlias in the back garden. I thought they should go out front, but we focus so much attention there as is, that all the other facets of our property look pretty bare in comparison. And I’m fine with it. Loads of curb appeal when you see the front of the house, and everything else is secondary. I don’t devote that much time to our plants & trees once we get into July & August, so I’m ok with limiting my attention to just the front that is visible to everyone on the street.

Also I haven’t done much fruit wise either. I trimmed back the dead portions of the raspberries and that’s about it. I don’t fuss with the cherry tree or the apple trees beyond making it so that I can cut the grass around them without getting stabbed in the face by low lying limbs. My blueberries died ages ago, killed by freezing over. My grape vine has taken off with a life of it’s own, which I’m fine with. I run it along the fence top when I can train it to do so, but otherwise I’m not doing much of anything with it. The strawberries have claimed one whole bed for themselves amongst the ferns and a now deceased ivy shrub. I wish it got more light or water as we rarely get more than just a quart tub of berries all season from that patch of ground. Mind you I don’t feed them, or water at all

I’d love a couple peach trees, and some pears, or plums too. I like the idea of having our own fruit growing here. Nice to have some food that I’m not paying grocery store prices for. May have difficulty getting my wife on board with us having even more trees on the property. I tried to get a Black Walnut to grow over by my shed, but the neighbours lawn guy cut it down and killed it, even though it was on my property by several feet. Was not impressed. But after saving several other trees very early on in the spring I was less concerned about it. C’est la vie.

I think the farm will be planting new raspberries and blueberries shortly, so maybe I don’t need more here anyway. Very lucky to have access to the land at the farm for doing that sort of thing. Any way, happy friday. Enjoy the long weekend if you get one. Ciao Bella!

Had a nice meet up with fellow parents of our school aged children to watch the kids run their respective races. My eldest placed second in her 200m heat, and finished in first for the 200m finals. Off to the area trials in two weeks time. Nice.

She opted not to run either of the 100m, 400m or 800m races. Instead will do more sand pit jumping events, plus shot put, or “ball throw” as they now call it, since having all that weight as a little kick is too dangerous on their elbow joints. Since kids (apparently) were trying to fast ball pitch it, rather than the up on the shoulder/neck area technique to push it out as far as they can, and thus hurting themselves grievously in the process. So no more of that until high school.

I don’t think she’s taking on high jump or hurdles at this point either. Not problem there. Far more work, and potential for injury. I’m good with that choice. I’m not able to be there all day, but I did witness both races, and could cheer on my girl’s other friends. Yay!

Didn’t take any photos as it’s a school event, and I don’t want to deal with parents getting angry.

Now I don’t know if that qualifies as a good score or not. I have yet to pass level 14, and most times I play it I crap out between levels 11 and 13. I have had the luck of doing a handful perfect clears, which is nice. But I can’t seem to find a solid plan of attack that wields great results. Planning my moves doesn’t go any better than just randomly finding the first groups of three that catch my eye all across the screen. I wish I knew of a way to eliminate the black rocks in a more efficient manner than just hoping they get caught in a flashing jewels explosion. I have limited myself to playing once per day. I get bonus points for doing so. Maybe twice if I have a long empty part of my day. I know it’ll kill 20-30 minutes if I let it.

I was off the gaming fixation for roughly nine years until my lovely wife reintroduced next gen gaming consoles back into our lives. Bought one, borrowed another. Now it’s nearly inescapable. I am not too involved in any one game. Trying my hand at some Star Wars content, as well as Gears of War, Diablo 4, and a DreamWorks racing go kart game. I leave the goat simulator and Dreamlight valley to the kids. They seem to have fun in the non linear open world mayhem.

Best be off to drop the kids at school. Breakfast upon my return then lawn Duties and blood work appointment go follow. Should be a day. Oh, Dune Part Two showed up last night, so I may tuck into that this evening while the kids are out doing their extracurriculars. Score!

Now don’t mind me, I am appreciative that no droughts have kicked up here just yet. We’ve had years where the water table gets real low real early into June, and all summer long until September rolls around. This year is a bit more wet than that one, as far as I recall. Green grass and very leafy trees all say thank you! Sir. As always I need to wait for the Lilacs to bloom with their patented aroma before I can go trimming them back. I’m prone to cutting away the low lying branches to try and stop skunks from hiding in them. And to dissuade other things like rodents and rabbits from taking up residence on the property. I did however triple check that I could trim back our hedge row earlier in the season to allow more light to make it down into the garden beds below. That seems to have gone ok. Last year I did the top 6-8 ft, but cutting them off, as the heavy snow & ice caused them to bend over, and lean down significantly. Now I’m just trying to contain the width a bit more. Next year, or the year after, I’ll go back and line up the tops once more. I like to alternate so I don’t cut too much off any one tree at any one time.

Tuesday is here. The rains are plentiful. Thunderstorms have started to make themselves known. I mean we had a weird one in February. A thunder and lightening with heavy rain fall storm in February. It was odd. Very, very strange. Not a usual occurrence around these parts during the winter atleast. We will soon come up on the anniversary of the Djericho storm, leading edge tornado that whisked through from Windsor to Montreal. 800 kilometers of savage winds and blown down trees, rooves, sheds, and barns. It was wild. Followed by a 26 hour long power outage.

Reminded me of that summer long ago, like 2001/2002 where that New York power grid went down and a huge portion of Ontario went full black out because of it. I remember waiting for my one brother whom was down town to drive back to the shop in his DZ water truck. Took him hours. Every intersection a four way stop. Our drive home took forever aswell. Into the black with no street lights, no traffic lights, no nothing. The skies that night must have been something else with no light pollution to interfere. It was hot too, so no AC. Fun times.

I best get these kids off to school. No lunch boxes forgotten on the counter today! Ciao Bella!

Seems my mind was off wandering this morning while packing my kids lunches into their back packs. I made two lunches, and two drinks, signed their agendas and I thought, I thought I put all the drinks, lunch boxes and agendas into their bags. Turns out I did five of the six items. So a quick call from the school to let me know I forgot my youngest’s lunch box, I had to jet over to the school to make sure she’d have a lunch. Wee! Oops. My bad. Not sure where my head was. Atleast it’s the first time I’ve done it in a number of years. Could have been worse. I could have had to go out of town to run errands or meet potential new clients for a meet & greet.

Otherwise we’re back to a rainy, cloudy and somehow still sunny Monday. I’ve sent off a partially completed brand standards guide for review and comment. I require some written portions from the committee to finalize certain sections. Still a few days worth of work left to go on that document believe you me.

At least I assume that my random US visitor whom racks up the view counter is a dude. Could easily be a woman/lady/she/her/xhe or whatnot. But my guess would be 95%-5% Male vs female reader if I had to guess, given my tone, sense of humor, and general topics covered. But I could be misjudging things, as I don’t really know what, exactly, they were looking at under the category of Archives.

Made it through most of the weekend with just the little one and myself. Got her to bed for 10pm, which is why better than midnight, but not quite the 8:30-9:00pm I was aiming for. Did run her through the tub, so that’s a win. Couldn’t get her to eat more than a few bites of any one meal served at the appropriate times of the day. I’m sure she will be glad to see her mum & sister once they get home in the next hour or so.

Happy Sunday to you all. Suns out, sort of. Tad cloudy, but I can see sun shine on the trees outside the windows. It’s all good bruh.