Author: greatwallstudios

Somehow yesterday completely got away from me. I slept in until nine fifteen, and then took the eldest climbing with me, because the youngest wanted to walk the dog with her mother instead. We drove out there, climbed for what felt like only an hour or so, went across the street to fetch lunch for all four of us, then drove home. Ten seconds later it’s well after three, then it’s four thirty and starting to grow dark. I didn’t really do much of anything. I didn’t read, I didn’t draw, I spent five minutes painting, and perhaps ten on my goblin King sculpture, and poof dinner time. No hours long guitar practice session, no movie watched, no resin model kit progress, a couple loads of laundry done, but nothing to show for my entire day. It was really weird. I probably scrolled on my phone, or watched YouTube for a really long time without much notice. Bad habit! Terrible habit. Wasting my days watching other people do “things”, like cleaning out and organizing their shops, or machining items, or wood working. I could just go do that myself and feel better about my entire day. Rookie move.

Youngest has gone to a play date with friends, and the other will go later this afternoon. They should be happy about that, for a few seconds anyway. Wife says she might take the little one to go see the new Spongebob movie at the theater later on today. Might have some more opportunity to purge the house if everybody is gone for a few hours. That should make me feel like I used the weekend appropriately.

I have some winter gear to take for donations, and books to be rid of too. That plus a dog walk on Monday should fill up my morning. Maybe get some gas for the car before I head to the farm. Yes, a quality Monday morning awaits. Ha!

There is a hard balance to strike between doing nothing, that feels good, and doing something that feels productive, yet doesn’t interfere with being tested, yet doesn’t make me feel as though I completely wasted forty eight hours. The urge to do nothing, versus the desire to do something are always at odds with one another. Do too much — tired. Do too little and I feel guilty for wasting so much free time. It can be exhausting just trying to fit something into the nothing, without either over doing it, or doing too much of nothing in particular. I blame my phone for that. Also, the weather. I hate winter, so I’m not outdoors keeping occupied with the yardwork, trees, or wood splitting.

I should dig out my resin model kit and start that up again. It needs sanding, priming, painting, assembly, water slide decals, and panel lining too. Lots of work to keep me busy there. I could get my goblin king sculpt finished so that I can start the sculpey version that needs to be both baked, and painted for the next Markham Fair. I have a wood working furniture project I’d like to undertake for the front hall of the house. That would let me disassemble the gigantic dog crate which dominates our front entrance. Plus I do need to clean out the gathering waste that has collected in the garage. But that can’t go until later this coming week, or early February. Patience is a virtue they say. One I have very little of.

Sunday is here! Act accordingly.

Looks more like late March, early April outside today with all of the exposed green grass, blue sky, and perks of sunshine through the grey lined clouds. Also above zero degrees Celsius, so the roads are good and clear too. The rain drained off the streets over night, so it was a pleasure to drive across Markham to get us to the gym.

The girls both got new climbing shoes of their own for Christmas so now I can just head over and climb without paying anything extra. Nice. We have not yet tried out the new larger padded harnesses I picked up for us over the holidays. We don’t climb for that long so the free for kids under twelve versions are good for now. The padding only really makes sense if we are going to go and actively climb for a few hours. The ten seconds you spend descending isn’t enough time for the belts to dig or upset you. Plus, I need a much larger bag to hold three pairs of shoes, three chalk bags, and three padded harnesses, as well as my original basic harness, and our water bottle. Without ropes, helmets, or repelling gear we still have a tonne of equipment with us. It can get unwieldy.

It’s Saturday right now. Mid day at that. Had a couple of new projects this week, which is nice. Nothing major. I have started to ask around about part time work with the Town. Nothing too serious. Just looking to fill some gaps inbetween client work. Waiting for late payers can be taxing, so if I can start to see a small, but steady stream of wages from week to week, that would ease some of my anxiety around finances. You never know I could get a huge project come my way, or has an old client reach out for something substantial and all these concerns go away again for another year. No point taking on stress about money, if things can go from empty to overrun with a handful of emails one morning. I don’t want a massive amount of obligations on my plate because when I do get busy, it can last for months at a time.

I know I get like this when I’m in the midst of a slow period. Things will pick up again, just need to hold on until then. Stay positive. Keep on keeping on.

In other news I read an additional 30 pages of a book I started last year. I’m almost halfway through the whole novel now. I still feel the same way about it. I think I want to find large print format science fiction, because my eyes are not getting any better, and going for my glasses is a hassle. Important thing is, I did some reading, and not just cleaning while doom scrolling.

Everytime I go in the garage all I can think of is how I desperately want to get rid of the waste wood from the garbage bin box, and the train table, plus some old bird houses, and tool trays I made many years ago. We have garbage in there now too because my inlaws missed our garbage pick up while we were away visiting family in Ottawa over the holidays. Not to mention the two old blue boxes that need to get picked up by the GFL folks in early February. Makes me feel unsettled that all this junk is back in the garage once again.

Oh the cycle of life!

Woke up extra early today to take the new van to the dealership to have some rear impact airbag modules replaced due to a recall order. I guess the originals are more faulty than useful, so I am without wheels for four to six hours today, while the service techs dismantle my car interior to get at the two to four tubular inserts that need to get swapped out. The notice we received in the mail says it’s a two hour job, but the service desk tells me the folks that wrote that notice must do drugs because it’s a long tedious process, and could take up to six hours to do. Sounds like fun.

I was under the impression that I was going to have to wait at the service desk for the whole operation to finish, but they have a shuttle (which I was not aware of), so I opted to get a lift home, and then once the job is 30 minutes out, they can call me, then come bring me back to the dealership. Much preferred this route. I have the ability to work, eat, sit comfortably, and use my own bathroom for the six hours. Nice. Much appreciated. The other option was to find a corner to camp out in, and slowly sip my Gatorade, and nibble on snacks from my computer bag while I read, or watch stuff on my computer/phone. Being home is the far better option.

It is Friday January 9th, 2026. Almost double digit days into the month. I have had some new work come in, which is always good. I am waiting on one slow European client to pay an outstanding invoice from November, but we knew they were slow to pay going in, and I can sit tight on that for several weeks longer if I need to. I’ve had discussions about it with my primary client whom subcontracts me the work, so we’re on the same page, and I don’t direct my ire, or dismay towards him. If I get short, we know whom it is we are actually unhappy with. Managing expectations saves us a whole lot of animosity. Open communication!

Speaking of which, it’s early January so word is getting back to me of the small pockets of divorces, and trial separations that have been initiated. Made it through Christmas for the kids, and now they are parting ways. I guess this gives you the longest amount of time to get sorted out before the next Christmas season rolls around. It’s a thing. I brought it up at school pick up earlier this week, because I found it interesting. It’s legit a thing that people do. Quite common actually. I asked friends about it, and had an enlightening discussion. Informative. I’m not looking for a divorce, but it’s good to know the signs to be on the look out for, or to take this time to have a sit down with my spouse to make sure we too are on the same page, and are both getting what we need out of our relationship, and circumstances.

I see there is this “grass is greener” phenomenon when people see others get split up, and start to live “their best lives”, and people get drawn to it, and upend marriages because the single, mock twenties lifestyle seems more appealing than the daily married grind, with work, kids, life, beating on you 24/7. The appeal is having your kids only 50% of the time, so you can have date night(s), dance, drink, go clubbing, or just get out of the house child free with friends far more often. But then you have courts, lawyers, assets to split, losing your home, disruption to your kids lives etc… in some cases it’s for the best, you know with DV, or infidelity. But because you are envious of your circle of friends having new found freedoms, seems — idiotic. But I digress. I know life is tough, and having kids which you are actively engaged in parenting is tiring, and uses a massive portion of your daily lives. But as the kids get older, and more self sufficient, we get our time back! These last two years my spouse and I have actually had the ability to date one another again. Private meals, shows, movies, and it’s really great. We did go years without that, and it’s tough. Not particularly pleasant at times. Felt like roommates. But we worked through that, and now we are seeing the benefits. In another year our oldest can start to babysit legally, and we can try to go out a little more, like once a month, rather than once a quarter, or twice a year. Like I said, it’s getting better. Twice was better than none, four times better than twice, twelve better than four.

We aren’t real big on concerts, or the bar scene, but to be able to do a movie together, or a dinner once a month is going to be so much fun. We can try new restaurants, because we will know we can try again next month, instead of playing it safe on the two nights out we got in a calendar year. That could prove interesting.

Now I sit and wait to hear from the dealership. Two hours down, two to four hours left for the job to be completed. Let us pray it is finished, and I can pick it up, and get home in time for school pick up this afternoon. I’m hoping so! I took the time to empty out the van to make their lives easier. Wonder if that will pay off!

In my humble opinion Count Chocula is the number one chocolate based children’s cereal to beat, and you know what? Cheerios has delivered a verifiable second place with this delicious banger right here. If it had had chocolate marshmallows I might have placed it at 1.5, instead of at number two spot. My reasoning being that Count Chocula has sat in first for so long I don’t think anything could dethrone it, but you could sit at its right hand, ever so slightly below. Ha. Don’t come at me with Cocoa pebbles, because that slop is disgusting. Oh maybe you have a home town brand from Timbuktu that you think is hot shit, but if it ain’t widely available nationally, then that’s your little secret, and I’m glad for you. Gobble that shit down while you can. But for us outside of your zone of influence with the hometown value brand, we have The Count, and now this new Cheerios spin off flavour. If it takes off I hope they don’t water down the chocolate taste, in favour of some cheaper option, because as it stands, right now, it’s pure money! This stuff is great. I’m a fan. I have two more boxes in the pantry, that’s how much I believe in this stuff. I picked up their fruit flavoured option too, but I’m weary of that not being much better than Fruit Loops which I don’t care all that much for. I mean, I’ll eat it, but I’d go for Raisin Bran as an option before I reach for the Loops.

Well that’s my little cereal diatribe done. Finally hit the grocery store for a restock today. Had been holding off because Christmas got a little “spendy” and my wallet feels a tad lighter than usual. New budget restrictions means we eat more of what we’ve already got, instead of just picking at the goodies and letting everything else go out of date. Also with these looming actions against NATO allies I wanted to have a full pantry in case shit goes sideways. Now I wish I had taken my gun courses to get my PAL. Not that a 30 ought six would do much against a foreign military trampling up my road, but at least I could feel as though I had done something. If it comes to that perhaps they would pause PAL restrictions in favour of us all defending ourselves from the invaders. Get that Geneva Checklist warmed up for those who would trespass against us. Guerilla warfare and all that jazz.

Not a fan of having to think about that, but the world will never be like it was just a decade ago. That ship has sailed. They’re talking about three zones of influence out in these streets, and it’s not a good thing. Russia/Europe, China, and the US. Doesn’t sound like there’s much room for anybody else. You’re either with them, or crushed under their heel from what I’m reading, seeing in the news. Won’t take much for this to get ugly.

It’s Thursday today.  The dog is currently asleep by my feet after his third consecutive play date with Gracie-Mae. They are evening out at around 30 minutes of all out running, chasing, snarling, and teeth clacking before they want a drink, and a lie down. Keeps them pretty immobilized for the remainder of the school day, I can tell you that much.

I need to clean out the van in preparation for tomorrow ‘s airbag replacement work over at the dealership. I could get stuck there for up to six hours. It’s not going to be much fun. Compared to what else is going on in the world, it’s not that big a deal. I’ll bring a book, my headphones, and my computer if I feel I absolutely have to. Best be off about my business.

Once his sweat girl arrived they were little more than a furry blur as they ran about, chasing each other, and playing together in the snow. They took a brief respite when “Bobby Biscuits” turned up, and the dogs fled to the farm house to get a treat, then immediately afterward resumed play like that didn’t just happen.

He is a funny pup, all of his girlfriends are larger than him, by a non trivial amount. They are all longer than him, head to tail, and taller, toe to shoulder. He gets rolled quite a bit by all of them, whether it’s Gracie-Mae, Ivy, Lainey, or Grainger. All of them manhandle him and he lives every second of it. What a goofy little fella.

It’s a bit warmer today, so all the ice and snow has turned to slush. My boots are soaked, and the dogs wet too. Stinky wet boy! Of course that means coming home to shovel the snow, ice, and slush off of all of our flat surfaces. Trying hard to keep water out of the basement! Takes a good amount of effort to shovel the walk way, driveway, side of the house, and entire back patio. Occasionally I will take heavy snow off the deck too, but I figure the rain will do most of that for me, as we have a short warm spell coming for two or three more days.

Yesterday was the new blue bin day. It went off without a problem, but the green bins on our street are still curbside, and full from yesterday morning. I guess the freezing rain, snow, and Christmas tree disposal added too much work and we were forgotten about, or given up on. Oh speak of the devil, here they come, GFL to empty our bins… Finally! No need to worry about that anymore.

Have a good Wednesday.

The kids got off to school with a little excitement surrounding the potential freezing rain storm that’s heading our way later today. Might have to walk down to get them at three o’clock this afternoon if the weather does as they say it’s going to do. If that makes any sense. If the weather actually turns up then the afternoon activities are cancelled too. No tutoring, no Girl Guides, and no climbing either. It can be so hard to predict what’s coming that at this point we’ll believe it when we see it. That’s not a knock against meteorologists. We all know how chaotic the weather has gotten within the last five years. Too many confounding variables!

Luckily the other dog has arrived on the farm, and the two maniacs are running free tiring themselves out with little effort on our behalf. This is the life! Exercised dogs and a nice chat. The farm is a fantastic resource for those of us with dogs. They can be let off leash to just run, and run, roll around in the snow, and play chase unfettered. If I had to run him on a leash to get this much energy out, I would probably pass out from exhaustion myself. I still need to be able to work, clean the house, and be awake enough to chauffeur my children about town for extracurriculars. No good if I need a weeks worth of sleep to get over walking the dog. Best to let these two puppies run each other ragged, scoop up whatever is left, and go home to some peace & quiet. Work smarter, not harder!

Today is the first day with the new 360 L recycling bins. I even went so far as to carve out a little stoop for my bin down by the road, so as to not block my ever shrinking driveway entrance. We keep getting more snow, and I am quickly running out of places to put it. Now when I shovel I have to throw it several feet up, and over the current mounds, so that it A.) doesn’t tumble back down onto the driveway, B.) Doesn’t create a standing pool of water once we get some sun light or slightly warmer temps, C.) leaves myself more room to use for snow clearing since I do not want anymore snow, but that doesn’t mean we won’t get any! It’s early in the season, we could get up to 2 feet of more snow over the coming month, then again in February, and potentially more accumulating in early March too! Do the hard work now so you aren’t totally boned in a few weeks time.

Oh, the plows are here now, so my bins going to get buried in road slush, fun, fun, fun. Have I said how much I detest winter yet? If it isn’t already noticeable, I hate the snow, I hate the cold, I hate the ice. The only thing I do like, and it lasts for about a week, is how much nicer the holiday lights look in a fresh blanket of snow. But even that is fleeting, and could leave me in peace come January first.

The dogs have had their fill of one another, and look about ready to collapse in a fluffy heap. Best get them off home for a snooze. The windshield is showing rain droplets now too. I guess it is going to arrive earlier than the predicted one o’clock start. Could make things interesting!

Happy Tuesday January 6th, 2026 from southern Ontario Canada.

Did a little reconnaisance of the blog for 2025, and some fun stats are:

I wrote 376 posts over all for the year.

I wrote a whopping 157.9 thousand words on the blog in 2025.

I had 2,800 plus unique visitors

I had 4,750 plus viewers of my content

Both my books combined had 146 downloads for the year as well.

Let us see what 2026 brings!

First and foremost is the van’s oil change across town. 8 had to bump my dog’s playdate by a day because of it. We need one as we’ve gone slightly over due to extended holiday traveling, and my not recalling the mileage correctly. Second thing is to take the tree down. I started on the ornaments. Will tackle the tinsel and lights next, then boxing up the tree and putting that away. Third will be to shovel all this new snow we are in the middle of accumulating as we speak. Then after that I can look at the laundry, floors, and kitchen. It’s a domestic duties Monday! First day back for everybody in our household anyway.

Sad to put the tree away, but it’s nice to have it packed away neatly, and at my own pace. I was going to listen to music, still might. But I have to get the car across town for an appointment shortly, so I didn’t want to get carried away, and forget about the oil change while working on the tree. Still have a way to go on this, so I’ll leave it be, for now. And will come back to it upon my return.

Filling my bins neatly!

The third bin is for ceramic ornaments, tree skirting, tinsel, and the light strands. Perhaps some stockings etc… to keep the ceramic stuff intact when moving them up & down stairs. Shame to lose them all in one ill timed drop. I say this from experience because I dropped a separate container that had the only remaining paw imprint ornament from our previous dog, and an infant hand print from our eldest daughter, and I could not save either one. The medium was too brittle and shattered into an untold number of pieces. Unlucky.

So the van is done, the snow has been shovelled at least once (still actively snowing though) and I have eaten breakfast, and I am set to take the rest of the tree apart. I even brought our tree bag inside to warm up a little before it goes back out to the shed for another ten or so months! How thoughtful. I will set the dishwasher to run first, get some kitchen issues settled before I dig back into the tree. Wandering minds make for chaotic housekeepers. I eventually get to what I wanted to do, I just find other tasks along the way!

Enjoy the remainder of your Monday January 5th, 2026.

Savouring the last hours of the warm colourful glow of my tree, tinsel, and various coloured lights in my living room. The four foot diameter, seven foot tall tree is going away later on today, and I’m going to miss it. Usually I would have it down and stored away by lunch on January first, but I feel a little sentimental about it this year for some reason. Could be the possibility of all out war coming to our southern neighbours the US for striking Venezuela, or having their eyes on Mexico, Panama, and Greenland, and potentially us in Canada too. So I’ve kept the tree because who knows just how bad the next few months, or years are going to get. That’s a real downer, I get it, but… Shits fucked yo!

So while I’d like to have the front window unblocked to allow in as much sunlight as possible now that we are into January, the calm normalness of the tree, with the associated excitement of the build up to the Christmas holidays is a pleasant warmth that I don’t really feel in the pit of my stomach right now. It’s at times like this where I envy people who don’t have children. It’s one extra layer of existential dread that I hold about what future my children have on the horizon that eats at me when things go sideways from circumstances outside of my control. Love my children, hate worrying about how fucked their potential future is. Not cool.

It’s going to take me some time to pack it all away later today, but it’s likely for the best. Eyes forward to see the new year with clear sight, and a level headed gaze.

I need to go shovel the new snow we got last night. School begins on the morrow! Back to seven am wake ups, drop offs, pick ups, and extracurriculars! Onwards and upwards.

Oh it feels good to know that our regular schedule is returning soon. I have emptied all the garbage bins in the house, and cut down the cardboard, and placed all the recycling in the new giant bin out front. I have piles of waste wood to go to the farm for burning, and new logs piled up for bucking into splitting rounds. I might take a moment one morning to sharpen my old axe. The original, very first one that I bought back in 2006 for my landscaping side hustle. That would give me three options for wood splitting should I desire to chop, rather than spend some time sawing rounds.

I know I have potentially three reports for the winter season to contend with. Two long ones that take a while to complete due to their complexity, and the shear volume of data involved. One new report for a place, or event that I have not done before. That’s always exciting! Building resources for a new client from the ground up. Could be a good time ahead!

I am contracted for a number of hours for the new year, so that’s good to know too. Slightly less uncertainty is a good thing. I do need to put in some leg work to try and add one more mid sized client, or two small ones to even out those whom shut down due to the pandemic, or were bought up by competitors and the work went in-house instead of to me. Knocking on doors, or advertising, or networking sessions are in my not so distant future. I primarily work off of word of mouth from former colleagues, and the ever changing roster of marketers I interact with, but things have slowed considerably since the last US election. May not be a way around that while uncertainty is so high. Best to budget well, and focus on what I do have, instead of what I “want“.

I was going to take the kids climbing this morning, but I slept until ten, and now it’s snowing rather heavily. Not ideal for highway travel, and being gone for several hours. A recipe for unintended consequences I’d rather not face with my kids in tow. Different if I get stuck in heavy snow on a major highway. Bit different of a  scenario if both my children have to suffer through it with me too.

The tree is coming down tomorrow, and I will try to take down some of the smaller, and more easily accessed exterior lights too, if I can. Namely the two light up wreaths on the garage facia that are on pegs and nothing more, so I can take those down with no ladder needed. Get them stowed away inside the garage. Maybe try to take up the extension cords from off the ground too? I don’t know, the previous ice Storm might have welded them to the ground for the foreseeable future! Ha. I think we will leave the tree wrap lights on for another few days or weeks. It can get so bleak around here, a little light can go a long way.

It will be late March or early April before I get the lights off the house, or out of the trees, so we might as well enjoy them. I think that next year I might start even higher up in the trees, and get a couple more lights into them too. They do make a statement when done properly I think. Not too showy, but also a really exquisite feature to have tightly wrapped trees full of lights. I aspire that such a high level of illumination showmanship! Not quite Griswold level, but I near third place. Ha!

I took some time this morning to cut down all of the cardboard boxes we’ve gathered since before Christmas. We missed garbage day because… Well let’s just say those left in charge got their timing muddled up, and it affected just us. So now we have additional two weeks worth of garbage to be rid of, plus all the Christmas waste too. Going to be a tight fit when garbage week rolls around again in ten days time. Oof! Nobody buy, or open nothing! We can’t spare the room in our bins!!!!