Author: greatwallstudios

You can tell a lot about somebody by the way they run their household, through one of the three main categories. There is a fourth, which given the current state of the world economy, and the sign posts we’re passing shows me we are headed deeper into that particular territory, well, those of us without six zeroes and several commas before the decimal place just might find ourselves. Forget Last in First out, or First in First out, you can bypass Just in Time and careen directly towards Don’t got it, Can’t have it. Oh what an ugly web the uncovered weave and catch is all up inside it. What a fun Wednesday mantra.

We are down to four full week days and the two weekend days left before school starts. I’ve personally seen three days of rain and it’s only September second! My grass is going to shoot up to my hips if 8 don’t cut it soon! Unfortunately I have plans for midday today, so if the weather holds I can do that tomorrow.

My body aches after erecting a backyard shed for five hours yesterday evening. It was so damn hot & humid.bbugs are the worst. Ugh! It’s nearly done. The kit was missing some parts, and we had to use an older set of plans from a different shed to get started, but it’s free standing and just needs roof panels now. Almost done. Strike it from the list!

Heading off to walk the dog. Have a terrific Wednesday. May the start of school be a smooth transition for us all next week.

**Editors Note: my original thought was not expressed clearly so I’ve rewritten it. The sentiment still stands but I think the logic has improved.

Also, why did my last post start with fig warning, when I wrote fog in the first place. I feel like these writing tips/hints and helping hands change my typed words to fit something I say more often, instead of the thing I actually wrote down. Just a quess. Anyway, with that out of the way the storage unit for behind the couch has been measured out. If I follow the store bought one to a t, it’ll be 11.5 inches deep, 34 inches high, and 44 inches long. But I have a full 68ninchrs of space to play in if I’d like to truly eliminate the wasted space, and take the dogs crate down. We use it to store his toys inside, but we don’t crate him, nor does he sleep inside it. It’s just a massive obstacle in our front hall. I’d like more spaces to put bins of hats, mitts, sunglasses and board games, plus have a surface to put a drink on while watching television. Multipurpose. Also not heirloom quality because it’s going to get dirty and heat up being by the front door. Wet boots, rain and a dirty dog will scuff it up right bloody quick.

Not that I can start the build today or even tomorrow, but I finally have it measured out, so I can start thinking about the order of operations I need to follow to get it completed. Planning, jointing, and cutting of box joints. Routering out shoulders for the shelves, and cutting tenons for those shelves. Sanding, staining and finally letting the finish off gas before bringing it inside and tearing down the dog crate.

No worries I’m sure I’ll remember to document the process. Ha! The project has begun at last.

Fog warnings. A Tuesday. The very first day of September. Officially one week out from the start of the new school year in our area. A day with far less driving, and fewer kilometers travelled than the last few days. My wife’s first really-real work day with all of the students and staff present. Also just another day on this current writing streak. A day much like any other.

I am tired. My hips ache. While I slept better at home in my own bed I feel fatigued, and would love nothing more than to just sleep the day away but we all know that doesn’t work. Plus I have parenting responsibilities, and a dog that needs walking, feeding, and general looking after. So out of bed I must get.

I was awake before seven, so if I can keep that up then the start of school next week won’t be a hardship for me, at least not the getting out of bed portion. The rest of the day is anybody’s game! While we were away my wife made some pretty drastic edits to the house and both kid’s rooms, and the living room, so that’s going to take some time to adjust to. The kids seem happy about the work station with full sized chair. But we’re less keen on their room reorganizations and closet clear outs. I was told there were three garbage bags of clothes that left here for donations. Which is good because I returned from Ottawa with three bags of clothes. Ha!  But I brought home more winter gear because I know our current supply has grown too small for my aging children. They’ve gotten so big so fast! Giant tall kids with ever expanding feet!

It’s hard to keep up with their footsteps needs. They are growing up in spits & spurts and leaving all manner of things behind. I’m both sad and happy about it. Just two more years until we have a fully fledged high schooler in the house. I’m not ready for driving lessons and part time job schedules. Life goes on.

The rains have come and we are cutting our secondary trip short, right at the knees so we are heading directly home instead of taking a detour to the cottage for a twenty four hour play date stay with additional cousins. I’m ok with it. I’m ready to settle into our drive and spend the night asleep in my own bed. The hotel room was perfectly fine, but now I want my own bed, sheets and pillows.

The extended family have also pulled out of the cottage visit so we are going to do so as well. I’m absolutely certain that we will be back there several times within the months of September, October and likely November too. So dropping out one single day is not some great offense! The kids want to see the dog, and bother their mother. Ha.

In other news that means I’ll be back at work by late afternoon, rather than starting up on Wednesday morning. It’s a good thing for everybody!

We had a lovely time visiting with family, and going off to have adventures. Now we look towards the start of school in a week’s time. My home these ten weeks have flown by. My-my. Never did ride my bike, roller blade or throw a ball around this summer. Maybe I can rectify that this week? We will see if the weather holds up or not. Time will tell.

Namely my kids, whom have very specific personal schedules and routines that absolutely have no bend in them, and cannot possibly deviate in any way at all. Managing these demands is a test of patience and will. I chatted a course through it and we did all get to bed finally, though the kids seemingly took turns bickering throughout the night. I for one am happy that our day isn’t set to start until 9:30 am because now they need all the sleep/rest that they can muster between them. We are a barrel of laughs over here.

The weather forecast for today reads as rain rain rain, so I think we will limit ourselves to indoor activities. Not a problem, I’m not much of a fan of getting rained on. Who knows maybe we will find someplace showing the new Coyote versus Acme Will Forte film and have a quick laugh at some cartoon silliness. The world is our oyster today.

We’re not in Ottawa for too long, just today and some of tomorrow then we have to decide if we go straight home, or make a 3 hour detour to the cottage for an outdoor adventure day, which adds miles, and hours to the drive home. Means we get home at nine o’clock in the evening instead of two in the afternoon. I’d prefer to go home since there will be cottage days not too far in the future for them anyway. This weekend coming I’d the last big hurrah for the summer break of 2026! Fireworks, bbq’s, pool swims, horse shoes, boat rides and bon fires with s’mores all looking for one last big push before school kicks in.

Which means we will get emails from the school for classroom placements, teacher assignments, and which doors they will be using for the year. It can all change by the end of September if new kids register, other kids leave, or the provincial funding changes. Sometimes they collapse classes and move kids around seemingly at random. The first month can be rather hectic and uncertain. Fun for those of us with “particular” kids. The threat of randomized changes don’t go over well. Especially if the initial placement is something that they really loved, only for it to change and become a much worse option without any way for them to salvage the situation.

All to say I do not know the level of quality sleep that these kids got last night in this hotel, so be weary & cautious of them. Think, don’t get too close to the enclosure at the zoo lest you get snatched up by a surprise extended claw from within! Ha. What I do know is, we are having a slow moving morning where we are gradually working towards getting up, dressed, brushed and organized to go have breakfast with extended family. If we begin the process with enough time the kids will not be a volatile mess. May still be grumpy, but less explosive in temperament. Fingers crossed.

Also can I just ask why do hotel pillows suck so much? I have yet to stay anywhere that has even halfway decent pillows. They are always way too soft, too thick, or too thin. I’m not a fan of these lowest common denominator pillows. I may have caught the sun yesterday and this made all sides of all my pillows hot, so it was a challenge to sleep. The room is cold (which I am thankful for!) But for whatever reason even in a cold room my pillows were all 98.6° regardless of moving around, flipping, rotating, stacking, and punching them repeatedly. I was not amused. I am a particular person myself. We were not amused.

I’m in Ottawa visiting family and we took the girls to the Calypso waterpark 48 minutes outside of Kanata,  great weather for it today. 24°C and sunny. A terrific way to spend five hours outdoors.

While I lament the coming of September for it means an end to summer break, I also long for the days of heading off to university/college/trade school and all of the excitement associated with it. I hope my children enjoy their days at school as much as I did. Since I am not starting a new job, or heading back to the classroom I merely need to adjust my schedule to waking up to get my kids to school each morning. I took the summer break to sleep in until about 8:55 am each day, because I don’t necessarily feel the need to be available before 9:00 am for work, unless it’s an extreme case in which I feel obligated to do so. So I took the ten weeks available this summer to sleep in, because we all know the kids stayed up later than they should have because it was summer time. Now I have under ten days to get back to being up by 7:20 am, which isn’t as hard of a shift for me as it once was. My kids don’t seem to be struggling to wake up — yet. They’ll make a meal of waking up once the responsibility of the school day makes its presence known. The real trick is getting them to gear down and be in bed by 9:00 pm. Luckily the sun sets earlier and earlier, and those hyper physical extra curriculars will kick in shortly!

Both kids were awake before eight, so that’s a good sign. A few more days of getting them up and at’em by seven will make the school mornings of six thirty, six forty five that much easier. At least initially. I’m sure the coughs, head aches, tummy aches and more will begin almost immediately. Ten weeks illness free and that’ll evaporate near instantaneously, I’d wager money on it!

Lucky for the kids out schooling here only goes from 8:30 am until 3:00 pm. I’m given to understand that schools across the world go far longer than that. In some instances I could see that being beneficial, most of the time it feels a tad harsh. It’s not my lived experience so I can’t really say. From the outside looking in a fourteen hour long school day seems… Excessive. But you cannot argue that there is a lack of education, nor  public spending on education for the population. That’s for sure. Maybe the average work day for adults is similar so it helps keep the children out of mischief, and looked after while everybody works such long hours. Like I said, my knowledge comes from news articles, IG posts, and random news segments regarding tweens in school somewhere in China. My knowledge is anecdotal at best.

It’s been twenty years this September since I last walked into a post secondary education institution myself. It took a really long time for my FOMO to die off, and for me to not actively desire to return to school for a fourth time. I could try yet another career change I suppose, but I think where art/design is concerned the big brands will come back to artisanal works created by people to differentiate themselves from the cohesive gloss of current AI slop. It all has that HDR, no space left unfilled, word salad, hyper activity to it all. Premium companies want white space, breathing room, elegance, nuance, and to not feel like drop down menu chosen featured. For mom & pop places hoping to spend $8.00 on a poster it works great. Use AI, I can’t work for eight bucks. I think people would be happier to see a word doc with clip art right about now anyway. But I digress, we’re here to talk about coming off of summer hours and reentering the real world and regular business hours.

Good ole 9 to 5, just like the dearly departed Dolly used to sing about. Of course being a freelancer my time is more flexible, and I work those hours, plus evenings, weekends, and holidays because I’m not always busy with a 40 hour work week. Some times it’s twenty, and other weeks it’s a hundred. Evens out in the wash come tax time though, so it’s all good. I get to be around to drop my kids off at school, to pick them up, and some days even run them through town to evening activities. I get to walk the dog when weather permits, and I have the time to get groceries, clean, and maintain the house so it’s not what we spend our weekends on after work is done. Freelancing has many benefits, but a steadily working spouse is required. That can be a tough piece of the puzzle to find.

With any luck, and ten days to do so, I pray the transition back to school hours is both smooth & painless for all involved. A week this coming Tuesday and nearly all parents in Ontario will breathe a sigh of relief. Ha!

Bring on the purge of household junk immediately after that!

Gotta love it when your family comes home! The dog was very excited to see the girls after six days apart from them, he was very lucky and waggy of the tail for a good ten, fifteen minutes at least. I was also very happy to see them, though the messes they bring, or incur are not my favourite thing in this world ever. Didn’t take long for wrapper, beverage containers, sellotape bits, and cardboard pieces to migrate all over the house upon their return. I spent a number of hours over the six days they were gone cleaning and tidying up. I even went so far as to cut out some shapes in cardboard that my youngest had asked for.

My restraint in not going through their bedrooms and ransacking the closets & drawers for our grown or damaged clothes was monumental! I resisted the urge. Instead I got in close to some lower stakes hiding spots for junk and cleared those out instead. It was garbage day yesterday after all. I seized my opportunity, small though that it was, and mounted a mighty spiritual war on our random stock piles of garbage. Makes me feel good to see items leave this house! Small and insignificant that those items may well be, I did it, and through such action I feel better. A catharsis derived from tossing away accumulated mess. It certainly is freeing of the soul. I smiled the whole time.

This weekend I’m taking my kids out of town to visit family and do some fun activities while my spouse returns to work. She notified me that she too has plans to adjust our children’s closets and wardrobes and hand it off to a charity pick up when we are out of the house. A smart plan. The kids won’t let anything go if they can see you taking it. Busted boots or shoes, torn swim caps, out grown t-shirts, holed socks, pants with no knees, the list goes on and on. Best to donate what is still wearable for somebody younger, and take the busted textiles to a drop off bin for recycling and/or repurposing. Much easier to do when the kids are gone for a few days in a row.

I could very well have done so myself, but in my wife’s words, I’m too thorough and ruthless, so she’s a more tender hand and won’t completely strip their closets down to the bare basics. Who needs sixty pairs of pants? Who needs forty sweaters? Who needs 130 t-shirts? It’s ridiculous, and that’s just one kids closet. We have all together far too many clothes in this house. I’ve pared my clothing items down considerably over the years, so I run a leaner wardrobe than ever before. Although I did just come into four new to me golf shirts, so that puts my overall closet numbers up a bit. It’s all good though.

I’m going to be sad when the majority of these toys get put away in the toy bin for good. But, today is not the day for that, so onwards & upwards. I see my youngest is crafting away in the dining room so I’d wager there is a good amount of paper chaff all over the floor under the table. Lucky me!

I sat down and played 90 minutes of guitar, about ten more minutes with my bass, and then did another 90 minutes of my own karaoke in the basement because I’m the only one home! And I enjoyed myself a great deal. Hell I even sat down to watch the second episode of Lanterns which was better than the first (or so I thought). I have spent all together far too much time looking at my phone and not “doing” things. I finally had enough of sitting on the couch watching other people do things. Up next, finish my Awesome-o painting, paint my Ork Boyz miniatures, sculpt, bake and paint my ceramic fair entry or dig an older one out of storage and get that up to snuff in its place.

The more I walk around the farm the more excited I am to get back to splitting wood in the mornings to fill those green wire bins. I also look forward to getting back to climbing twice a week as it’s been few & far between all July and August. Let these last two weeks of summer break be a lovely relaxing send off for our kids as we gear up for the start of school, and the lead off to potential October baseball, Thanksgiving, and Halloween (with all the work that that entails). By way of decorations, costumes, town events, the fair itself, and Halloween Haunt, and any potential travel plans for the fall. It’s a great season.

Hate to think about snow, but I do love me some autumn evenings. Comfy pants and sweater weather is pretty glorious around these parts. Closing down the cottage is kind of a pain but for how much we get out of it in the summer it’s not a major concern to devote a weekend or two to tidying up, and putting stuff away for the winter. Fall in the north is nice because you get the changing leaves of all sorts of colours, and far fewer bugs to contend with. That’s what I like, outdoor work without ten thousand mosquitoes, black flies, deer flies, wasps, hornets and shit. Plus the fire ban gets lifted as the rains return and we can clean up branches, logs, leaves and construction debris all at the same time.

Tending a gigantic fire is a tonne of fun. I really like gathering bits and piling them in as the flames rage on. Gotta be smart about it because the heat, danger, and metal bits make things a little treacherous in the fire pit. Don’t want a lung full of super heated black sooty smoke. No sir!

I think a small purge of the house might help lead us into the fall. We need to test shoes, rain boots, and winter boots. Not to mention all of the gloves, hats, neck rings and coats too. I’m certain we are harbouring far more stuff than what fits or is needed. Don’t get me started on snow pants right now either!

All I’m saying is, I’m basking in the afterglow of doing some hobbies last night after a full day of work. I did 23 pages on Sunday, and another 27 on Monday, and then I did a shallow soft proofing this morning and got my report off for a partial review. Plus I busted out the guitars and pedals, cords and cables and actually played. I think about it quite a bit. I really wanted to take my gear to the cottage this summer but with all the groceries there just wasn’t room for it. So I kept wanting to play but not be able to, so I just kept on not doing it once I came home. Same with the bass guitar, and with karaoke. Feels good to have at it freely after a long hiatus.

Just got to remember that sense of joy about painting, sculpting, writing, reading, climbing, wood working, and home DIY projects. It’s a weak point. I did a little tidy up around here but nothing major. I did clean out both cars so with today being garbage day I cleared out the house and garage too, and put it all at the curb on time. Even did the inlaws place! Go me. I woke up before eight and saw some texts this morning about going over to the inlaws and emptying the garage of junk. Glad I woke up early, as I’d feel bad if I missed the request. With the garbage man only coming twice per month you HAVE to make each opportunity count, lest you get stuck with too many bags and wind up having to stash some full bags to get rid of at the dump or at the farm. It’s a hassle.

Not a huge fan of the twice monthly recycling bin pick up either, but I can live with that. Cardboard doesn’t stink if it sits an additional two weeks. Garbage ain’t so much fun to hold on to for that much longer. But I digress. Today I am happy I got off my butt to do things I enjoy. At some point later today my wife and kids will come home, so that’s good too.