Month: January 2025

You won’t find any of that here, pfft! Jog on. No, around here I write about such niche things as: working freelance, parenthood, rock climbing, lawn maintenance, raking leaves, car troubles, finances, coming to terms with why I am the way I am, child rearing, video games, movie reviews, book reviews, and general talk about the weather. So very niche. I’m so uniquely me. Or you know, whatever.

I very much enjoyed the free wheeling approach to this blog that I used in 2024. I had started the year off wanting to plan individual posts, and assign myself topics to cover, but I’m not much of an academic, and this was far more pleasurable, and cathartic. Made a couple of good strides towards knowing myself a bit better. Sorting out how/why I react to the things my kids do has been eye opening. Good to know. Gives me reason to pause and breathe a second before getting angry, or deciding to be nicer about some issue that has come up. That’s for the best yeah? I think so.

I don’t talk much politics here, whether that’s Canadian or American. I’m most obviously a canadian Liberal/NDP fan, but I don’t wave flags, or wear hats. I have had to help out our local PC party person as a personal favour to my father in law- a farmer. So the blue goes with the agricultural territory for some reason. Not like Doug Ford cares for the farmers around here at all. Polievre doesn’t either, the little wastrel. But I digress.

I haven’t been out to see too many movies as of late. Been playing a fair bit of Nintendo Switch with my kids though. Mainly bowling, tennis, and golf. I prefer mario kart, but that’s because I’m better at it.

Day two of the new year. Lots to do. Ciao Bella.

First things first I got outside took the wreath off the front door. Then I took down all the floor mounted lights, inflatables, and anthropomorphic animals doing Christmas type things. Then I pulled up all of the extension cords from the ground. I unwrapped the two trees that had light strands on them. And I pulled the two oversized light up wreaths off of the garage. I dried off the inflatable, and put everything back up into the rafters of the garage. Once the inflatable was dry it went back into its box and stored away with all the others from Halloween. I won’t be taking the lights off of the house until April, unless I get an oddly warm day with no work, and no winds, rain, or heavy fog. The house lights are up for months most likely.

Inside the tree came down, along with all of the ornaments which required organizing by type, size, and colour. Then the tinsels, and then all of the interior light strands. I also packed away the hats, tree floor mat, Elf from the Shelf, and any other child made holiday item we break out for Christmas. Also all of the stockings and their fancy fire place hangers get put away too. It’s about 90 minutes of work, and the tree going hack into its storage container always leaves me with forearm cuts, scrapes, and scratches. Such fun!

But once more the house is brighter, and less cramped. We can now play Switch Sports without fear of decimating the tree, lights, and all those hand painted ceramic ornaments we’ve made over the years. Definitely a step in the right direction for day one of the new year. Cleaning house, reorganizing closets, and putting things away. One thing that helps is that I bought less “stuff” for Christmas so the kids don’t have a tonne of junk just lying around in the living room this year.

I saw an interesting short on IG the other day about how I have living room children, whom keep their toys out here, and play out here, where I was a bedroom child, and my things & playtime was spent in my room. I like their presence out here with us, but an occasional bedroom playtime wouldn’t go unappreciated either. At least as far as keeping the common areas tidy. I could do with less “stuff” out here, but I like having the kids nearby, so I’ll not make too much of a fuss. Ha. Right.

Laundry was done. Dishwasher has run a session. Floors have been swept now that the tree has been out away. Now I see that the blinds could do with a wipe down because they are caked with dust. Ugh. It never ends. Baseboards, walls, trim, cabinets, door handles, ceilings full of cobwebs, you name it. A near constant rotation of additional cleaning that always needs doing. Not to mention all the new dog hair accumulation. Never ending!

I’ll have to look and see how much writing I actually did last year. I’m guessing somewhere around 115,000 words. Perhaps more, perhaps less. I’m none too concerned.

Anyway, Happy New Year to you all. Ciao Bella!