Month: September 2024

Hey man it’s Monday, and you know what that means! New illnesses for the week. This go around it isn’t a twenty four day long cough, but an ear infection that is affecting my jaw muscles too! Yeah boy. I should be thankful that we have (at least monentarily) moved beyond the inner ear pressure build up stage, and are into the constantly weeping ear goo stage. Neither is much fun. Wet ears feel weird. Wet ear goo that leaks out every 2-3 minutes is even weirder. Something I could do without. So that was a massive chunk of my sunday spent gobbling down pain killers whilst the pressure behind my ear drums built up, and now it is releasing – constantly. Went to an outdoor party saturday night, woke up at 4:00am sunday morning with intense inner ear pain, and a painful jaw. The pain killers are affecting my innards too. So that’s a fun twist on current events.

Party was fun. Lots of children there. My kids had a great deal of fun. Listened to live music, danced, ran around, made crafts, built a little house from corn stalks, rolled about on the grass, ate too much candy, and finally crashed around 10pm that night. It was a blast. I do wish we had driven ourselves so that we didn’t have to wait on others. But that’s an entirely different rant, which I’m not in the mood for.

Today is to be spent looking over our fair entries to make sure everything is where it should be. Double checking that glued on pieces have remained stuck in place, or fixing missing bits and bobs. Shouldn’t take to long this year as we aren’t trying to enter every single category imaginable like they’ve done in previous years. One, maybe two boxes of things to take over tomorrow should just about do it. Last year it took me five or six trips back and forth to the car to take all of their stuff in. It was kinda crazy. Too much. What’s worse is trying to sort out what’s ours on pick-up night the next sunday. That’s absolute mayhem. Pure madness. Should be less so for us this year. As for myself I am only entering one item, a painted sculpture. That suits me just fine. One item which I put a lot of time, and effort into to showcase my various hobbies.

Every year I think I should enter this, or that, or the other, but when the time comes I’m just not interested in making those things. I like what I like. I build only what I like. I’m not much moved by whether or not others like it too. I’d be pleased as punch if people liked it, but I’m not doing it for them. If I’m happy with the results, then I’m happy. Go me!

Wet drippy inner ears is an odd sensation. Not one I’m really comfortable with. It’s a warm, wet tickle. Very strange indeed. Better than the pressure build up stage, by far. I would like this to end at some point prior to the fair kick off night for volunteers. I don’t fancy feeling as though my heads three feet under water the whole time. Sounds are muffled, and feel far away. For myself (all ready being hearing impaired) this additional barrier to sound/hearing really sucks. No phone calls today! Text or e-mails only.

By a rather unpleasant ear infection/sore jaw combo pain. Didn’t really know what to make of it so I put drops in that ear, and took pain killers and went back to sleep. Not much I can do on a Sunday morning. I can’t hear much of anything at the moment, so it was a perfect time to vacuum the shop. Get as much of that pesky saw dust as I can. Make it less of a choking hazard to hang out inside the garage shop. Not that I have anything on the go right this second. I checked our tire pressure first because I’d need to run the compressor, which would also allow me to blow off hard to reach areas of the shop. Would be great to have a heavy duty extraction fan for this type of chore. Or use a leaf blower. Though, blowing all that dust up the street would likely not be appreciated by my neighbours. Powdered donut cars aren’t a look they are going for. These people spend money on their grass, so a dirty vehicle isn’t a way into their hearts. Ha. Anyway, done now.

I do sometimes think of getting some dust collection installed beyond my shop vac, but if I’m not also going to install hard tubing across the shop to funnel the dust to the collection unit, it’s not really worth it. The ribbed flex tube cuts the CFM down by a huge percentage, and I’m not in a place to add hard duct lines in, nor blast gates, not an air cleaner either. I’d prefer heating/cooling & insulation so I could work all year round comfortably. That or a flat pock-mark less floor so my wheels don’t catch every few inches when I want to wheel tools around. Those would be my first go to fixes if I had money just lying around.

Speaking of wheels and tools I got around to adding the workbenches wheels yesterday. So handy! Now I have an additional item I can move about freely. I could have moved a bunch of stuff out of the shop to clean, but that slipped my mind until just now. The wheeled workbench was such a new addition to the shop infrastructure it didn’t even cross my mind! Ha. Oh well. The thing is, I got it done, and that’s what is important. Let us focus on the positives here.

The house is the cleanest it has been in a long time. The Markham Fair starts this coming week, so we’re about to make a crafting mess on all the surfaces I spent last month washing and keeping tidy. Then it’ll be Thanksgiving, which will likely involve travel of some sort. And then Halloween kicks in which requires more crafting, decorations, and the installation of several inflatables on the front lawn. I actually love Halloween a great deal. I just wish the lawn was finished before I have to decorate it. Leaves get into everything! Blocking the fans from being able to draw enough air in. It’s a battle to keep everything in working order. But it looks cool, and adds to the holiday spirit. Makes my kids happy to see it all too.

Waiting on my second set of pain killers to kick in so that my jaw stops hurting, and my ear aches a bit less. Not the optimal way to enjoy a lazy Sunday, but eh? What you going to do about it.

Our friends rescue dog from california got skunked last night. First time in the year that they’ve had him. Full throated adult skunk sprayed point blank range right into the barking dogs mouth. Yuck! It smelled so strong from the street, like a mound of burning plastic. Just awful. Luckily we had just gone through this recently so we had supplies on hand, and an action plan. Hydrogen peroxide and baking soda for a fizzy reactive slurry, and Nature’s Miracle skunk off soap to round off the edges, and clean any hard surfaces that might get touched.

I said to put the dog on a leash so he won’t run into the house. Put an old towel over the dog. Carry him into an unused secondary tub/shower so that nothing gets touched (floors, carpets, dry wall, couches etc…) that will pick up and hold the stink. Place pet directly into the shower. Rinse them down completely. Add 250ml baking soda to copious amounts of hydrogen peroxide until it fizzes. Slather onto affected parts of the dog. Reapply/wash, reapply/wash. Use every ounce of slurry, and do everything except the eyes, mouth, and inner ears. Then move on to the gentler Nature’s Miracle shampoos and cleaning sprays to wash the dog some more, and spot clean any places the as of yet unclean dog had come into contact with. Tub, walls, tile on the bathroom floor etc… then wash the towel with the skunk off shampoo rubbed in real good immediately after all that bathing. Should – hopefully be good enough to sleep / exist indoors without irritating your eyes, nose, lungs with that burning plastic biological stink from the skunk. It’s about 90 minutes worth of concerted effort, but it pays off.

We were happy to help. It happened late in the evening to us too, but I had to send my wife out to criss cross town looking for what we needed. I didn’t have a friend to call to supply drop us everything we would need. Or give us a battle plan that would eliminate secondary contamination from direct contact by the dog. If I recall I was so put out by the spraying I hopped into the shower to start cleaning my dog and I still had my phone in my pocket. It spent the night in a bowl of instant rice, and was luckily serviceable by the following morning. Since we didn’t have supplies on hand, and I had to do something I washed the dog with head and shoulders ten times while I waited for the real chemicals to arrive. It was stressful.

But now it is Saturday, and the first PA Day passed without incident (for us anyway). We walked the dog at the farm. Had lunch & a swim at grandmas. Walked the dog again. Watched Inside Out 2. Walked the dog once more. My wife came home and the school day was done, so we went to dinner and another swim. I took down one old swing, and disassembled the slack line out front. Soon I’ll have to take down the second platform swing, the Noma lights, garden decorations, hose, and patio furniture, and gear up for winter time & snow. I’m glad I cut the grass the other day. The growing season is a little stunted this September. Usually now is the time the lawn takes off again after a dry June-August. Not so this year. Wettest summer ever for amount of precipitation, intermingled with really dry periods. Lawn never died or stopped growing. I even made special trips back here just to cut the grass before it was a foot tall! Crazy town. Now it’s acting like a lawn should in mid June.

I had thought I might need to rake leaves, but the mulcher on my new lawn mower made short work of them all. I don’t see that as an actual option once more than 5-10% of the leaves come down. It’s fine for a modest sprinkling of leaves, but not when those tree tops dump every last leaf. Have a great pre Markham Fair weekend. It’s photography drop off day today, so get your entries mounted, labeled, and dropped off to the fair grounds!

It has come to my attention that my children have NEVER knocked on a friends house’s door and asked if they could come out and play. It’s all done via text, and scheduled, and monitored by one, or both parents. I couldn’t imagine my childhood without wandering town knocking on doors, asking, and either having another kid join me on my rounds, or moving on by myself, or at the very least with one of my brothers. My kids however, they would be too scared to approach a house, talk to an adult or older sibling of their friend. Possibly face rejection (for various reasons) and have to move on like that was just one of the many possible outcomes you’d get. Sometimes no one came to the door. Or an elderly foreign grand parent came forth whom didn’t speak any english. Or an angered sibling answered and shooed us away. It was anybodies game those days. What a life. Would I walk the rounds for an hour unsuccessfully looking for a friend to play with, or would eleven of us disappear into the woodlot for eight hours, and run home muddy, bloodied, and hungry/thirsty. It was a gamble each and every time. Oh life in the 80’s. No cell phones. Answering machines were for the well to do. Spending $279,000.00 on a house meant you had more money than sense, and people talked about how frivolous you were with money – money bags McGee over here! Weird times. The house was clean because we weren’t allowed to stay inside it on weekends, or evenings, or any time it wasn’t convenient really.

Today is the first PA Day of the new school year, and back in my day (I don’t really remember PA Days, and don’t know what we did with ourselves), the street would be full of kids and we’d be ushered outdoors to find one of the random assortment of roaming child groups to go play with. Pray the teens weren’t also out looking to pick on someone, or your group as a whole. It was the wild west! Positively chaotic. Barbaric even.

If someone had a toothpick bat, and atleast one tennis ball we had a choice of games to play. Baseball, horse, handball, four squares, mini soccer (could be done with a crunched up can too, but that always led to shin cuts). The list of games was nearly endless. Rocket the ball up towards the sky and fight to see whom could catch it bare handed. Practice ground balls. Monkey in the middle. Oh my. We got inventive back then. You had to. We all had to kill eight or so hours outside of the house. Might as well make it fun. Some games ended in brawls. We were kids, that was always going to happen. Some kids made their fun pushing your buttons and scraping. It was after all the eighties. We called each other horrible, terrible things. Sometimes in jest, other times to wound. Not maliciously, or so I believe. But if you had an off day you might say something a bit extra, that just bit deep, and really hurt someone. Again – stupid kids. You could usually tell who was looking for a brawl. Tended to be the same kids usually. Now that I’m older you start to realize why that was. Oblivious kids we were.

I’ve had no calls for play dates for today, so we’re going to run the dog at the farm for a bit. Watch a movie, grab some lunch, and call it a day. I really can not for the life of me remember what we would have done on PA Days (as I have no recollection of a specific one, I can only guess based on what we always did). I’m guessing my two eldest brothers were tasked with watching us. Or at least being near home while we were turfed out into the streets en masse to roam, play, occupy ourselves sans chaperone/adult involvement. It wasn’t until I was twelve or so that day camps were nolonger a thing, and we could plop down in front of the tv to occupy ourselves. That summer when we moved to the large house on Cherrydale Court is the first I can remember just watching Mash, Leave it to Beaver, things of that ilk,  and Mighty Morphing Power Rangers. We played the original Baldur’s Gate on the Atari 1600 that whole summer. Sat on the floor cross legged, dungeon crawling in our basement, with no visible sunlight. It was awesome. That devolved into a few kick boxing fights too. Spent that summer wearing a shirt the whole time as my closest brother in age had turned my left shoulder black, yellow, green, purple and red. So rather than show my mum and get in trouble I kept a shirt on for months until all the bruising was gone. It was a hot summer too. But I digress.

I hope my kids get the chance to knock on doors and ask their friends if they can come out and play. It was a fantastic part of my childhood. Offered me some personal freedom to go and make choices, friendships and bonds with my fellow children. Any who – Ciao Bella!

Though we didn’t get as many days in a row of rainy greyness, it was enough for me. I do believe there is more instore for next week, which is Markham Fair time, so that is future me’s problem.

Today’s the Terry Fox Run at our public school so the kids are dressed appropriately for that. I hadn’t planned on making lunches, but rather sending them with Lunchables, but those Lunchables as it would turn out had hazle nut dessert candies in them, and nuts are a no-go. We weren’t late, but I was rushed as that took me ten plus minutes I didn’t plan to have to sort out food for them in place of my original idea. Oh well. Also trying to find one specific t-shirt in our house the morning of the event was needlessly stressful. I now have to clean drawers I emptied looking for a large enough t-shirt for my eldest child. Fun.

On the upside I got to be outdoors a bit cutting the grass and mulching down the earliest leaves to fall down. From here on out I will need to bag & mulch them and stow that yard waste inside the front garden bed. It’s partially sheltered out of the wind by our front porch, so if you set something back into the bed it won’t (for the most part) blow down the road, or onto a neighbours yard. Which makes them happy. They all seem to care far more about the state of their grass/lawn than we do. If it’s alive, I’m happy. Ours is mostly weed colonies, crab grasses, and such. We don’t hire lawn people to cut it, aerate it, spray it or nothing. I have that money ear marked for better things than the “look” of our lawn. That’s where the dog pees, and poops. No need to make it a fancier toilet.

Thursday is here. The big run happens this afternoon once lunch is over with. Hopefully they don’t go crazy for lunch recess and tire themselves out before the big dash about town. I think the Cross Country team are expected to complete seven full laps if they wish to remain on the team for the races in the next couple weeks. All practices this week were canceled due to the rains. Could be a hard cut off for some of these kids. Hard lessons learned in situ. Giv’er!

Tomorrow is the first PA Day of the new school year. Our Zoo passes have lapsed, but that’s ok because it’ll be mental there tomorrow anyway, especially if the weather holds near 20°C, and is sunny. I think we should watch Inside Out 2, and have a lunch date, dog walk session at the farm. Nothing too crazy. Low key. Or we can blow it out and go nuts, just have to include the dog in it for a portion of the day. I don’t want him stranded in his kennel while we’re off gallivanting about town.

It’s fair time which means I need to run errands, like pick up printed photos from a not so local Walmart Photo Centre. Then we will need to sort out frames, backers, tags, and hangers etc etc… I best be about my business then. Ciao Bella.

My guess is it is the amount of noise the tools generate, both individually and cumulatively. If I’m running the table saw, planer, or jointer then odds are the shop vac is running too. That’s a whole lot of decibels for a dog that didn’t grow up with it. We got him at 6.5 months old, so he hadn’t been exposed to it during the most formative portion of his puppy days. Now I have to put him on a long line so that he can hide outside the shop, under the shade of the variegated maple, beside a sturdy rock. Which is fine in August through October. He may not enjoy the rainy grey grimness of November, or the first snowfalls of December. I can’t heat the shop very well as it isn’t insulated on three walls, so no work goes on during the height of winter. Once we get passed that first week of December everything has a bone chilling iciness to it that my little portable heater can not seem to dispel. Could be worse!

I have my eye on making a wall mounted set of shallow cubbies in a tic tac toe pattern for either the living room, or my youngest daughters bedroom. We can always use more storage! If I don’t start/finish soon though I may not get the chance to complete it before I have to wait for next April/May. That’s a long wait to sit on something and have it left undone. Boards will twist, cup, and move around in general. All of my hand cut joinery will no longer match up. It happened with the screen door project, and most recently with the bed frame! So I speak from experience.

I have settled upon using one of my most recent sculptures for my fair entry this year. I can’t seem to get into making anything new. I have great ideas over the four days of the fair, but life and everything else gets in the way. My saving grace is that once I do find the spark I churn out two, three, four or more so that I have options down the road. Plus I can try out new painting techniques, and explore colour schemes I might stray away from if I only made the one sculpted bust/figure. This method has its ups and downs.

I have some cookies to enter this year too. Gingerbread! Mm… that’s a good one! Don’t mind if I do. Yum-yum. Get into my belly. Speaking of food, I should have my breakfast and then get to work. I sputtered about in the shop reassembling my shop vac, so that s ratched my shop itch – briefly. So take care out there. Ciao Bella.

No, not particularly, but you know what I do like though, results. A marked difference in states. The before versus the after. Walking around my house and portions feel brand new because they’ve been organized, cleaned and are now more useful, or less unsightly. That I do like. That is something I can get behind.

Now if you recall there was some talk of a bedroom getting cleaned this weekend. I took the liberty of moving all the Dirty clothes from the floor into a hamper and left the rest up to the occupant. It does appear as though some cleaning was done. Not as much as I’d like to see, but it’s a start, and I’ve started to just keep that door shut so that I don’t need to see it. It makes me anxious. It makes me feel ill at ease. Not a fan. But shy of pulling every item out of every drawer, and emptying the closet to re-hang all clothes properly I’m not interested in bandaid fixes. But that’s my hang up not hers. So I need to sort my own feelings out about that. Because as a kid we weren’t allowed messes. No clothes on the floor. No piles of dirty laundry. Nothing left not hung up, that was supposed to be on a hanger. Clean or it went out with the trash. Toys, clothes, artwork, whatever. If it didn’t mean enough to you to keep it clean, stored away, or up on a hanger then it must be trash, and is thrown away. I’ve come a long way since then. I’m far more lenient, and forgiving. But I do have my limitations, (common living areas being one of them) that I just can’t abide a long standing mess. Not minutes or hours, but I can last weeks to months (think – the summer break). Where I can put up with a mess. Nine weeks. If you can’t clean up after repeated requests to do so then it will go out with the trash. Nine weeks later you moan about losing your paper napkin dress for your dolly after I requested weekly it should get moved to your doll house/room, and not the floor in the living room. Darn tooting it’s out with the trash first Tuesday you go back to school. Bah!

Otherwise it’s a very quiet rainy Tueaday here in southern ontario. How about yourself?

You can now see most of the island’s counter top, which is nice. The placemats for the dinner table are clear, so you can eat free of glitter, paper confetti, paints, and brushes. I can walk around the table without tripping on blocks and toys. It’s about as clean as it will ever be. Just in time for the fair entries to start getting made, and my progress lost. I don’t wish to think about Thanksgiving or Halloween decoration creation right now. My soul can only take so much clutter regression.

But on the other hand, they are little kids and I love the enthusiasm and dedication they have towards the spooky season. Kids after my own heart. Just clean up the paper clippings and markers, glue when you’re done! And I’d be over the moon to play along. I too like skeletons, ghosts, ghouls, and Milk Steak. Magnets. Things of that nature. A jest – to be sure. That’s an IASIP reference for those not in the know.

Spent four hours at Wonderland yesterday afternoon with some friends, and met another friend group there aswell. It was a lovely time. At first it was hot a humid, then as the sun set and the clouds gathered it was damp and chilly. We did have a few sprinkles of rain, but nothing like what it did over night. So a good day with no ride shut downs from storms.

I escorted my eldest child about the park so that we could ride some bigger stuff. And towards the end we took one set of friends to try the Wonder Mountain Guardians interactive ride that is inside the iconic mountain. We waited in line for thirty some odd minutes and once we got our assigned cars those friends walked straight through. It was weird. It’s not a fast ride. Not a ‘thrill‘ ride, and not a giga coaster by any means. But they panicked and balked last second. We rode it and had fun, they watched from outside and looked it up on YouTube and realized the mistake they had made. Oh well! Live and learn I suppose. If I were going to bail I’d have done it prior to waiting in line inside a hot, stuffy man-made cave with little to no air movement to speak of, and terrible lighting. But that’s just me.

Afterwards we ate some dinner at a hot dog stand, and waited to catch up with our other friend group to do one more ride and then head home together. It was very pleasant. But, it was a lot to do after a nearly four hour play date with three other ten year olds, an eight year old, and a seven year old. Nerf battles are fun, but tiring. Same with a round of grounders at the park. I was wiped out, and had a 30 minute nap afterward. Lights out! Snooze city. I had thought we might get around to swimming (I’m glad we didn’t) but the Nerf battle(s) plural took too long, and took a lot out of me physically. I’m still recovering from a nasty cough. Might have over done it just a bit. But only by a little. Ha!

So here we are, back to Monday. It’s raining here, should do so off and on for the rest of the week. We are officially out of summer and into the early stages of autumn. This is a short week with a PA Day on Friday. Which means every conceivable  option in York region will be crowded with youths looking for something to do to occupy themselves for regular school hours. I wonder if we could find a matinee to go see a movie, or if I can find one to rent here at home. I’m not sure what we’ll do with ourselves. The Zoo will likely be full. Wonderland will be crammed too. Likely driving range, mini putt, batting cages will be elbows to assholes as well. Maybe a walk round, and lunch at a mall will be enough to occupy us this time around. If I could trust the van I’d go to Square One and kill the entire day, but I’d be scared the van would give out on the highway leaving us stranded. Plus, leaving the dog crated for that long seems cruel. I bet a farm walk with the dog and kids, then a lunch date, short wander around the mall might be our best option for something light to do. Most likely, yes.

The Halloween Haunt decorations are almost all up at Wonderland now. Bit of advice to you. If you hate crowds go on the Sat/Sun early in the day, as the teens and youths tend to come out after 5pm for the spooky stuff. Depending on how late in the month you leave it to go, it can either be 23°C, or snowing ever so slightly when you’re on a roller coaster. Hard to dress appropriately for both ends of that spectrum. Good luck to you! Ciao Bella.

First off is a three hour playdate for my eldest daughter held here at home with four friends, plus her sister too. Her best friend recently switched schools to s town thirty mi utes away, and being ten they can’t just hop on a bike to go visit one another. No city bus transport between towns either. Rural ontario and all that. So since I have home coming here, and I know the entire friend group took the loss hard I thought a group playdate would be fun for all of the kids. I may have chosen poorly, time will tell.

Then less than two hours after that concludes we are being whisked off to Wonderland for six hours of coasters, drinks, and sunshine fun. I for one think we will all be exhausted and will want to come home well before closing. Just a hunch. I’d love to go without the kids just once, so that I could enjoy a bevy,  or an edible and ride for an evening with no responsibilities for other smaller human life. Probably just being selfish on that one.

I need to run the vacuum around in the basement, make sure the toilets are clean. Close the doors to my office & bedroom. Set out drinks, snacks and get some pizza ordered for later on this afternoon. I hope this goes over well and doesn’t devolve into a mosh pit / fight amongst them all. We will see.

Netflix has randomly stopped working on my Roger’s Ignite cable box, and wouldn’t you know it happens so often that there is a specific trouble shooting mode to specifically reset Netflix under the help menu. I’ve gone ahead to reset it twice but it has not yet fixed the issue, so that’s not cool. I was trying to finish ‘Only the Brave’ but I’ll have to do that on my phone, or try the downstairs tv box instead. First world problems.

It is Saturday! Praise all that is good and holy. Very slowly this house is coming together. I cleaned walls, took down decals, hung framed photos/paintings, and moved the kids art gallery collection into their own portfolio books for safe keeping. Makes the room seem bigger with more bare wall showing. The hall looks longer/wider now too, that it doesn’t have all those letters and numbers plastered all over it. I got onto my hands and knees and scrubbed the walls, and baseboards because they were so grimy. Yuck!  Positively sparkles now. Much nicer.

I am debating cleaning the upstairs master bedroom, but it’s going to take several hours, and requires me emptying drawers, and probably putting a massive amount of unworn clothing into donation bags. My wife has told me every week for fifteen months that she would do it, but now she is back to work, I think I will need to do it myself. I’m just not sold on what items she is ready, or willing to part with in order to clean up the space, and to make it more functional. If she has aspirational clothes hidden away, I don’t want to spoil that by finding it, and donating it by accident. Also I don’t know enough about brassieres to know which are ones she’ll want down the line, and which ones are junk, or painful to wear. I know underwire fatigue & breaks are a thing, but are there other issues regarding that garment to look out for, beyond size, style, cut, and wear patterns – breakages? I don’t know. Another bandaid fix won’t cut it. Space in the drawers and closets need to be opened up. Can’t do that without removing contents from storage. I had a dresser down stairs that was full of clothes, untouched in the thirteen years we’d been in the house by that point. I removed much of it, but not all. I’m no monster.

Also, I can close the door and just not look at it. Alot quicker for me. Fewer arguments and stress for me too. If she says she’ll do it, I have to believe that she will follow through, right? Right! Case closed. Otherwise I wait until Monday and do it myself unchecked. Ha! Devious plan, and all that jazz.

On the other hand Amazon Prime, Crave TV, and Disney+ still work just fine, so I’m not short on things off of cable to watch. I can only purge, clean, organize, and sort so much before we’ll end up in a nearly empty house with only the minimum required things left to live still in it. I can get carried away it seems.