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Nothing spells out the weekend quite like waking up just as, or more exhausted than when you went to bed the night before. I even slept in until 9:00am before crawling out of bed. The extra two hours of sleep did not do much in the way of helping me out, at all. Possibly made it worse. Yay.

Good morning Saturday. How are you all doing? Just walked up the road to pick up my eldest from a sleep over. Nice that it’s so close by. Just over my in-laws fence, and up the way from us. She had a fabulous time, sounded like non stop fun and excitement when she explained it all to me in a flurry of hand gestures, partial dance steps, and “um, actually” as is her current affectation. The youngest however howled about having no sleep overs, fire side play dates, or parties to attend. She carried on that way until about 10pm, when she crashed, hard. So our evening with one child out for the night was a bust. No movie date night for us. Glad we had lunch together earlier in the day, otherwise that time would have been sorely missed. Hard to plan with two living chaos machines in the house. Little whirlwinds of destruction, and mess making. Are they friends today, mortal enemies, enemy combatants, best buddies joined at the hip? Or mortal kombat avatars looking to score a near fatality? Spin the wheel, take a guess, it’s anybody’s game!

What are the rest of todays plans you ask? Well, my wife and youngest child went to the Zoo for a walk about. My guess is to go see the poison dart frogs and snakes which my youngest likes so much. Reptiles are her jam, right now anyway. Used to be chickens(?) for some reason, then hamsters in mazes, and now snakes and such. The oldest is going bowling for 2 hours mid day, so I’ll be off taking her to that, then wandering the nearby mall to occupy myself.

If the weather holds I wouldn’t mind doing another Halloween Haunt at Wonderland before it gets really really cold at night. But truth be told we did go seven times this year, and I got one of my big wish rides in, so I’m pretty good on the thrill ride front. I’d love to ride Leviathan next spring if my oldest is finally tall enough to join me. And then Behemoth too. That would mean we can ride all of the largest coasters in the park height restriction free! Giv’er!

Made the effort in yesterdays surprise sunshine to start the leaves in the yard. Managed nine full bags of mulched up leaves. I’d much prefer to do it once on a long day, but only 30% of our leaves have come down so far. Enough to be noticeable compared to our neighbours whom pay people to maintain their property. But not enough to be a major problem. We need another one or two big wind/rain storms to bring the rest down. My vacuum bag mulcher needs leaves on the dryer side of the spectrum to work without clogging. So I need a storm to bring them down, and then two days of sunshine and breezes to dry those leaves off so that I can work them over and dress my front bed with the resulting mulch. I prefer it to hand bagging, by a very wide margin. It also requires less raking, which I also prefer. Very little leaning over or bending. Hardly any squatting so my thighs don’t scream at me for days afterwards. Plus I keep all the leaf moisture and biomass here where the trees are. Works for me. We used to have this toad that spent the spring/summer/fall in our garbage box, and he liked the leaf cover. Didn’t see him much this year, but we’ll keep it up in hopes the wee guy will come back. Keeping the leaf mulch is good for butterflies and helping acorns, walnuts to germinate. I like having trees on the property. I’d turn it into a small scale arboretum if I could! Rotating trees through as I need them. Mainly I want to keep the trees for 10-15 years, and then harvest them for wood stock for my furniture projects. I have my eyes on a saw mill, or chainsaw mill operation of my own to process the few logs I will have over the coming years. To dream a dream of wood. Ha.

Not sure why but it doesn’t feel much like a Saturday to me – yet. Hard to describe how a specific day of the week feels. But they certainly have one. I know that much. I’m just having difficulty putting the “feel” of it into coherent words. Maybe some other time. Have a good one. Ciao Bella.

A day much like any other, except I’m putting in an hour or so puttering about the house tidying up all of our “stuff”. So much. Just so much stuff, crap, garbage, things, accumulated possessions. Filling up every corner, piling up on top of each other, hiding table surfaces, chair seats, floor space, wall space, closets and nooks as well as crannies. Too much! The physical NEED to purge is growing stronger every time I pass by a mound of things left untouched for days or weeks, even months on end. Gag! Fit to burst I am.

In other news it is Friday yet again. Today is the day of the 13th. Kids ate at school, I’m cleaning up, family are moving about in various stages of health care treatment. It’s been a lot. Lots going on with the extended family here health wise. Not too sure what’s what at the moment. Those who are in the lead probably should not be. Not out of spite or malice, but… ineptitude to put it nicely I suppose. Failing to ask pertinent questions. Not passing vital info along. Unwillingness or inability to perform much needed tasks. It’s a lot, as I have said previously. So we sit and wait with a whole slew of questions left unanswered, or just don’t know the answer to because… inept person at the lead. I feel bad. It is a lot to take on. Stressful. Worrisome. Hard on the soul, I get it. But, on the other hand… I digress.

Birthday parties are all a flutter now that we are into the school year, and the social lives of our kids are starting to emerge. Happy to see it. Sleep overs, play dates, birthdays, so much going on. The manned coverage is proving useful with all of our scheduled extracurriculars. Getting gired by always being on the go. I am hoping that we can tone it down a bit in the new year as this has been a lot. Have a terrific weekend y’all. Ciao Bella.

That’s quite the unusual hobby you’ve picked up. Oh, you’re an arsonist are you? Name five great fires! Rome doesn’t count. I knew you were just a poser. Fake fan, fake fan! Do you even have any third degree burns, huh? Didn’t think so. Go play with fire crackers and come back once you’ve felt a thing or two, ok, bud? Right. Oh! You wanna go? Giv’er bud. Take ‘er for a rip!

In other news today is Thursday, just in case you thought it was Friday like my kids did. It’s a short week, but not that short. Also – next Friday is yet another PA Day, and short week. That makes three or four all ready, this first semester alone. Maybe breaks in the second half of the school year are few & far between. No matter. Wife’s off this year, so it doesn’t all fall into my lap this go-around. Going to be hard to see it return next school year though. House will feel empty again with just me working here.

I think we are closing the inlaws pool today. So that’s always good for hurting my knees and lower back. Just what I always wanted! More aches and pains. Take a ticket and wait in line. I’m still reeling from the cottage clean up last weekend. Composite planks are good for not rotting away, but they weigh nearly three or four times as much as a regular hard wood board. Screw some of those together and you have some fairly hefty chunks to haul around twice a year. Setting them out in the late spring, and putting them away come early fall. My two least favourite activities.

Cottages are fun but the upkeep, maintenance, and setting up, tearing down really sort of suck. I think we should pare a bunch of it back, but I’d be in the minority on that point. Although getting voted down by those who don’t help to set up or take down doesn’t sit right with me either. But, eh! What are you gonna do. If you want to play with the toys you have to clean them, store them, and take care of them in the off season. Once these kids get older you better believe they’ll be out there with their strong vibrant back muscles lifting & moving stuff around in my stead. Count on it. Bet. Happy Thursday. Ciao Bella.

The number of the beast! What a momentous day! Probably why I was able to work like a man possessed earlier this week. Might also explain the back pain! Ha. No. I know exactly why my back hurts, it’s from heavy lifting at the cottage, and stacking cords of wood. That part isn’t a mystery. Get old, get sore doing physical labour. Duh! Just had to call out and mark the date! Six hundred sixty six days of unbroken writing streak. Take it all in. That’s it, breathe it in. Take a lap. Now carry on. Bon soir!

If I thought the work I had lined up was going to carry me through until the Christmas break, I was mistaken. Greatly. Turns out, the more you do something, the better at it you get. Pre planning, working smarter, batch processing. All of these things meant I did Q4’s work in about three very dedicated weeks. Not too shabby. Glad I’m paid by the project and not by the hour on some instances. I’m not free and clear entirely, but in Nother day or so I should have the fifth of six reports off of my desk. The last one will take some time coming to me, which is to be expected.

Means I can turn to the leaves, and Halloween decorations. Possibly the purchase of a new fridge, as ours is so temperamental of late, it has lost all amusement. Fighting with it was funny, at first. But do that every five weeks or less and it becomes entirely aggravating. Oh well.

I imagine the invoices will get paid closer to the holidays, so no worries in spending all of those Q4 proceeds ahead of schedule. I do hope there are a couple more projects, but I’m ok if there aren’t. As we get closer to Christmas and another birthday I’ll have lots to occupy my time regardless of paid work.

You ever get the sense that you are losing time? Or did way more than you thought possible in a brief, but narrowly focused period? Hm. Maybe it’s just me. Had a power focus session monday evening, followed by a hard day and poof! Got through a bunch of pages. Very strange. Hope I didn’t just forget a bunch of stuff you know? Weird. Ciao Bella.

Tables by Design, pies by Design, curtains by Design, I do not know who By Design is, or what it wants, but it must be an enormous conglomerate trying to take over the world, one niche item at a time. Insanity.

Happy Tuesday October 10th, 2023.

Ah… smell that? That’s the smell of not having to work today. That’s the smell of the kids being home too. We had a large, wonderful family dinner yesterday after completing a solid number of winter prep chores around the property. My back is feeling the strain of the physical exertion, but better to have more things done, than not. I have my work set out for me for tomorrow morning after school drop off, so I have a game plan ready.

With tomorrow’s big report in hand that will put me in place to have finalized three reports, be waiting on final edits for the fourth, and starting the fifth. Report number six isn’t due to come in for a few weeks. Which means leaves, patio furniture, deck washing, covering & oiling the AC unit. Taking all of our tree clippings to the farm, and pulling up plant bulbs to be saved for next spring. Lots to do at home.

Possibly look for a new refrigerator. But will have to measure out the space properly. Could require taking doors off of hinges to get the new one in & the old one out. So that can run us anywhere from $800-$2,700 dollars depending on size, number of doors, cubic feet, electronic add-ons, water functionality (dispensers, ice machines, front door pouring spouts). Top or bottom freezer, warming tray, you name it. Not sure why you would ever need a wi-fi enabled fridge, but they have that option too. So there is that to look forward to. Fun.

Happy holiday monday. Gobble – gobble. Ciao Bella!

That’s where you’ll find Schneider, thrown there by the dynamic duo of Atkins (already) and Shapiro (forthcoming on Thursday, just you watch). I’m sure we’ll find out the decision to pull Berriois was Schneider’s call, and had sweet FA to do with the front office, analytics et al. Beeps beeps, thump. The only question is will they reverse course in order to drive over the guy a second, and third time, given how poorly the Jay’s offense was as well. As a Manager how can you possibly stay on after the SLT throws you to the wolves in such a viscious market as the likes of major sports in Toronto? Show some spine my boy, contest that bs in public. How do you go to work knowing the higher ups are ready to put you on the firing line whenever they cock something up. He didn’t HAVE to swap out the pitchers, but behind the scenes we’ve made it known that it absolutely HAS to be done, but totally his call on the day, for sure, wink wink. Such baloney. Bah!

I think it’s Sunday. We have a short while before the rains start up again, so I gotta get some leaves done outside. Ciao Bella!

We are well into October and the trees are showing all of their vibrant, beautiful colours. Hard not to stare when you catch a face full of colours with a brilliant blue sky behind it. Last evening the clouds were lit by the setting sun, and all of that pillowy softness looked like a painting. Those brief moments where you see something that makes you feel really good about things, is hard to beat. Like the first sip of coffee for some in the morning. The cool crispness of an ice cold beer on a hot day. The startling rush of cool lake water when you first jump in. Brief. Exhilarating. Makes all the other shit float away for a moment. Hard to beat.

One of my hardest life lessons was realizing that those were the moments, few that they can be at times, that really make everything else worthwhile. Having career wins, family life wins, hobby wins mixed in means you can get more of the good stuff, if you know where to look, and what to place a priority on. But I’m getting sentimental.

Saturday is here. The rain has stopped. The sun is peeking out through the clouds a tiny bit. I see a whole lot of leaves I’m going to need to get to. I’m glad we finally had all that rain recently, as it knocked a bunch of the leaves down. If I had my way I’d make all of our leaves fall over a single week so that I just had to do one full day of leaf mulching, bagging, and spreading onto the gardens. Instead of every few says over a months time. Bah! Plus I need dry leaves for my mulcher vacuum to work properly. So the rain means I have to wait. Oh well.

I will have to dig up the Dahlias and Glads before too much longer. Dry those off and store them in the basement for next spring. That’s when we will get a true sense of just how many the squirrels and chipmunks have dug up and eaten over the course of the year. Bastards.

You have to figure that 20 plus days of no rain in September will affect the quality of colours in the leaves. But, miraculously enough, I’m still seeing all of the usual colours out in the wild. I was sure we’d get mostly browns this year. But a very rainy June, July, August seems to have solved that for us this year. So what do I know. The grass looks how I thought the trees would be. Crunchy. Brown. Ugly. Anybody’s guess at this point.