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Mainly because it was terrible, and because she was a nepo baby with zero talent, and she was something like twelve years old at the time with no real reason to be making music, or music videos. We all recall the awkward back seat arm roll wave combo she did off beats 1 & 3. Too good y’all. Nice. Chef’s kiss!

I say that because, today of all days is Friday mutha fuqqa! And it’s getting hotter, and we are going beyond two weeks with no rain. It’s scorched earth out here folks. Withered leaves, dropping leaves, and tinder dry twigs for lawns. It’s a ghastly sight to behold. I fear for my over laden fruit trees. Those apples are small and dropping like malformed flies. Pity.

I had a weird dream that I was interviewing for my last job from ten years ago, and they were super proud to offer me the same wage I left at, and I was so disappointed. Killed the whole vibe. Which is weird I know. But things were really cooking, and I was all excited, and then I just stopped dead. At least I haven’t dreamt about being late to class, or sleeping through an exam in a really long time.

I also know that I am old because I no longer yearn to head back to university when September rolls around either. That desire took quite so time to get over. Longer than I’d care to admit. If I had lots of money I would go back to school, and take classes about stuff I’m interested in. Hands on with design,  ceramics, painting, sculpting, metal working, pottery, life drawing, animation, wood working. So many things I would like to brush up on, or get to the next level with. Not a reinvention of myself, but a further exploration of what I already enjoy. Maybe even an intro to manual machining, like milling and lathe work. Plus a stop off at fabrication too. Would be a tonne of fun, I think.

This short week has felt very long, extraordinarily long. Ciao Bella!

Having spent a good long while trying to suss out a fun new first micro short story for my interconnected series, I thought it was going to trigger a cascade of new ideas, or plot points that I could explore. Instead I struggled to capture what I wanted to say in any meaningful way, and that’s about it. No new material made itself apparent. Which sucks. On the upside it’s been read only once by someone other than myself, so I don’t feel all that terrible that I cannot seem to follow it up, or fill in any part of the extended universe around it. No harm, no foul I guess. I really thought that by scratching that itch, and doing the work to bring this lucid day dream to the written page that I might find a new source of inspiration to tap into. Maybe I need to find some autobiographical micro shorts to write about to really open myself up more. I am particularly more guarded now. Not sure if the Covid infections from previous years has anything to do with that. Neurological rewiring, and brain fog after effects. I don’t know. I do know that I have struggled to partake in a bunch of my old hobbies. Seems like a rich vein to explore if I feel like being more open about it.

Nevertheless it is Thursday, we are well into August, and Summer Break 2025 is more than half way done. The kids have done a fair amount of reading, running, and swimming. I am trying to organize a second round of eighteen holes of golf with my wife, and a couple friends. Given the lack of rain I think we might have the bonus of a higher than usual carry from bounces on the fairway. Not a fan of a serious run on green, but beggars can’t be choosers, right? I hope it materializes for us all. I don’t day drink, but I do like to venture out in a zig zag across a golf course every now & again. At best it’s all four of us, and second best it’s just my wife and I. I think it’ll be a lot of fun. I’m not all that serious about it. Best ball, scramble, three puts, worm burners, I’m there for it all baby!

I suppose in September I could start to explore some executive 9 hole courses nearby, as a four hour jaunt seems a little self indulgent for just me. Shank enough balls into the woods and I’ll get bored pretty quickly. I could just venture over to the driving range, and play mini putt afterwards. Samesies! Ha.

Hope you are all being safe this summer. I hope to see everyone back in the school yard come September 2nd, 2025. Ciao Bella!

I could surely solve the world’s problems, and totally not become a power mad tyrant, I swear! I could house, and clothe people, feed them even. I’d be so good to you baby. Just gimme a chance. I could do so much good with even just a Billion dollars under my belt, and at my finger tips. I could save so many of us,  it would be damn near miraculous. I believe in me, don’t you? Don’t you want to be safe, and free, and more prosperous than ever before? Come over here, get under my covers, succumb to my warm tone, and inviting charms. Give me everything and I swear to you you’ll not live to regret it. I promise.

That, and other such things take up my Wednesday morning thoughts as of late. We have seen no rain going on fourteen or fifteen days straight now, and I fear for both the state of my lawn, for wildlife, and for my trees & flowers. I can only imagine how hard packed like concrete my soul is currently. Not going to play football on there until we have a day of steady rains to soften it all up. No sense getting a concussion from hitting the ground after a tackle — ouch. Take most of the skin off a kneecap or thigh too. Road rash from our brown, crispy lawn is just as bad. Still stings when you step into the shower!

Next week I have family coming to visit for a few days so I’m sure work will get very busy then, but just for those couple of days, and no others. Ha. That’s always the way of things as a freelancer. Can’t say no, just make it work! And you know what, my not being a surgeon, or a mission critical portion of any body’s operation means I have a lot of freedom around work. That’s a good thing. Means flexibility, and a certain level of autonomy that I have grown accustomed to. Hard to beat those perks!

What’s a little bit of volatility when you have all of these perks! Freelancing isn’t for a weak stomach. Also being able to budget well, and manage your time is a must. It’s not the life for someone whom has difficulty starting things on their own. I’m lack lustre at networking, and I hate soliciting for work with new clientele, so I could step up in that arena if I’m being honest with myself. I’ve done well for myself with word of mouth, and repeat customers, and brand management team members going elsewhere and coming back to me with new work. I’m loathe to meddle with what has worked well for the last few years, but I do know I have to continue to adapt or I will fade away. Best to do something on my own terms, and own it!

Trying to keep my feet while the boat sways heavily in the waves, as I feel in the wakeboard tow rope. Coming around to pick up my eldest daughter as an interloper got too close causing massive waves which caused her to fall. She’s all good though. All smiles after her epic bail out. Not her fault. This was her first outing on the wakeboard since last October. No harm in losing your feet after a heavy wake takes you out with some humongous waves. She has managed to get up & out of the water rather effortlessly after each stop and start. Good times. I just need to center my weight to weather the bucking boat platform on all these waves, turns, and evasive maneuvers! Ha. I’m getting better at throwing the rope out farther from the boat too. To much more of that bobbing up and down and I might get seasick though.

Welcome to Tuesday everybody.

It’s playdate Sunday so we opted to hit up the Princess Sodalite mine in Bancroft to get some sun shine, fresh air, and exercise swinging hammers, and moving rocks with our hands, and feet. The kids spent seventy five minutes going ape on everything they could get their hands on. Worked up a good hunger, and a need for a brief rest. We even ran into some other friends with a cottage nearby, which was unexpected, but pleasant. Their year old Boxer Bentley was there too. He is always good for a wrestle!

Busting up quartz and anything else that they could find not nailed down! It’s a great place to go if you want to sprain an ankle on all the loose screed. Fun times! I personally find a patch of ground and then pick through all the bigger rocks to uncover smaller more precious stuff that might have gone unnoticed in-between. Some days it works, and other times it’s all effort with no pay off. Such is life!

My wife’s friend and her husband, and children were there too. They have Bentley the boxer. She was one of our bridesmaids way back when. They looked to be having a good time. It wasn’t too hot, and all their boys could swing hammers, and smash stuff for however long they could stand it. Perfect for Minecraft obsessed kids I think. Here she is picking through some finer shards of rose quartz, or selenite (I don’t recall which).

We have our guest until 5:00 pm today so we started at the mine, and then grabbed lunch, and have driven to the cottage for some water sports, swimming, paddle boarding, and tubing fun. I want them to be active more so than being indoors playing on uncle Andrew’s PS5. Not that Goat Simulator isn’t a riot to watch & play, but they are supposed to be active! Not sedentary.

So not much of a lazy Sunday, but should be a good time anyway. I know my eldest daughter is happy to see her friend during the summer. Take care out there.

I’m a little out of it. I have not slept very well as of late, and the side effect of that is my being a bit on the spacey side. Not much, just a bit off. Ha. Hard to tell really. Like operating at 98% instead of one hundred. Not much, but I feel it.

I don’t know whether I need to revisit the mattress, or the air temperature, air quality, or moisture level. Something is off, which is impacting my sleep quality, as well as my sleep quantity. Had night terrors recently too, which ruined one night’s sleep this week via stress response, and lying awake afterwards for quite a while before returning to sleep. The dog has been restless on the bed lately too. I could do without that nonsense, that’s for sure.

I do believe it is Saturday now. The temperature is going to start to climb once again. Yet another prolonged heat wave to muddle through — yay. Not to mention that it hasn’t rained in more than a week, so everything is tinder dry. I pray the fireworks tonight don’t set off a major blaze in the park, or surrounding housing. Fireworks aren’t worth a major community fire that takes out a subdivisions worth of houses.

It’s not often you get to discover something that really makes your dog’s day, but figured out it’s boat rides with the family, so now Captain Dopey here gets to tag along on the trips not headed directly to the marina, and he is all smiles, and waggy tail because of it. Happy Friday to you and yours.

Walked into the grocery store with my daughter yesterday to grab a few odds & ends while we were waiting for her session of flag football to start. And when I approached the deli counter the two employees were engaged in a friendly chat, and the younger one was sending the elderly one a text with some information. I smiled at them both upon approach and nodded politely which they both saw, and we stood quietly beside the digital weight, and ticket printer to ask for the items we wanted. And the bell was right there, within arm’s reach, but so were both employees whom we had indirectly interacted with via smile, and a partial nod. Only for the younger one (whom was working the counter) to wander away. The older woman called out to the younger one three times before the younger one came out. Now I feel as though had I walked to the counter, nodded & smiled and then rang the bell for service, right in their faces, that that would have been a “dick move”, so I did not. I could have I suppose, but I felt the smile & nod was courteous and an acknowledgement that we would like service. Perhaps I am wrong. Now if nobody had been standing out front talking I would ding the bell. No problem there. We were served, and only waited an additional fifteen seconds or possibly more, and that’s not the issue for me. My issue was the bell. It feels icky to ding the bell right in someone’s face. Like hello, I see you, I acknowledge you, I’m walking over to… DING!,  it feels both impatient, and rude to ding the bell when workers are present. I know I would hate to get dinged while present at the counter I worked at. Oblivious employee walking away or not.

But, here we are on Thursday and both of the library programs are done, but the late swimming sessions have begun. So not out of the woods yet. We had people around for a swim, lunch, and a visit yesterday. It was nice, if a bit busy of a day to have three big things going on. All of which were very physical for the kids. I broached the subject of finding more similarly married with children friends for us to golf with, but with the caveat that they must like golf (but not too much), be ok at it (but not too good) and be loosey goosey with the rules enough to keep pace of play moving forward because we are all kind of terrible! That’s my kind of golf buddy. Not a rules stickler. Not a faux PGA tour miser taking every stroke ever so seriously. Those folks can eat my ass. Not my tempo!

So far I think I have found at least three people of similar interest level whom we can golf with as a couple. These are $45.00 courses, so we aren’t flying anywhere, or doing multi day road trips to get to another province to play. Not that Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick or PEI aren’t lovely, but I don’t golf enough as it is to justify that kind of cash layout, when I have not tried 99.99% of the courses near me. Maybe if I had exhausted all public and semi private courses that would make sense, but I have not, so it doesn’t.

Today is the last of the month so I will need to send out invoices. That’s a good thing. That means work being done on the regular, and in this economy, with this much uncertainty, that’s fantastic for a freelancer like me. Do I wish my book sales had taken off (sure I do) but I wrote those books to fulfill a dream I had, not because I thought for a second that it would get me anywhere but satisfied I accomplished a childhood dream — twice! Boom! Which is why I’m making the effort to play my guitar more often, to get my fingers dirty with clay once more, to paint & draw, and to work on assembling my resin mecha kit too. I’m just a cleaning, purging, artsy fartsy machine as of late. I have parts laid out for a Taekwondo belt display for my eldest daughter. Spent a whole lot of time on the table saw, and belt sander prepping those bits and pieces. I’m in slow work, high creative energy mode. Trying to do everything I have on the go, and not rush out to spend money. Tighten the belt just a notch or two, and work on what I’ve got. I have some painting to do in order to finish my children’s book. I’d love to get that published up on here by the end of October. In all honesty I think I need to redo almost all of my illustrated pages, except for just one or two that I still like, and am happy with. But that’s alright. Self doubt will make you try a little harder, get a little more creative. I hope! Add another tick to my list of childhood dreams made real. Releasing a music album is going to be a tough one. But! He says, I do have audio tracks available here, but it’s just me talking. So kinda sorta, but not really applicable? I’m not proficient enough musically to make my own songs, as of yet. Watch my YouTube channel and you’ll see that very quickly.

My list of childhood dreams also requires me to release a comic book I created myself, and that shit will go hard, if it goes at all. I’ve sold a painting, and a sculpture or two before. It’s just that the scale of the thing is greatly reduced. I call a one off a win, rather than having to make hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars doing any one thing on the list. The intrinsic value of accomplishment is what means something to me at this stage. Sure I’d love for any one thing to just take off or what have you, but that’s not the driving force of why I need to do them.

Wow look at me getting long in the tooth here today with this lengthy post. Have a great Thursday. Temperatures seem more reasonable. Touch grass! Ha. Ciao Bella.

I read all three of the books quite some time ago so I don’t remember a whole lot of the finer points, and so far the first season is just working through the first book. I am liking it from what I have seen. I don’t remember them swearing so much in the book, but I didn’t have kids yet when I read the first one at least, so… Differing priorities, or sensitivities are at play here now. Almost makes me want to go back and reread it to see how faithful to the source material they are, but not quite. Ha.

Today is Wednesday, and I have some work to go do. Ciao Bella!

Here we are nearing the half way point of this wonderful, if overly hot, summer break of the year 2025. We have gone to Canada’s Wonderland, Vaughan Mills, Bancroft Soda lite mine, the cottage, the beach & surrounding swamp, to sleep overs, birthdays, library programming, summer flag football games, played 18 holes of golf, saw a friend give birth to a beautiful bouncing baby boy as a surrogate, and gone to parties, and even some town events with other friends with similarly aged children. It has been a blast.

With the August long weekend approaching we might venture to drive the kids up to see the Bancroft Rockhound Gemboree one day if we can convince the kids to sit quietly to drive all that way for a day. Bit of a trek at the worst of times, let alone when they are excited about seeing fancy gem stones, and attempting to do some shopping for said gem stones, or gem stone adjacent fancy rocks/fossils. It can be a bit much! Ha.

But here we are on a fine Tuesday morning. The dog and I have the house to ourselves for a bit while the kids are at swimming lessons. I pruned a few shrubs so that my office has a view of something other than a wall of leaves for a change. Behind those leaves is a hedge, but I now get sun light into my workspace. Score! I have put some feelers out to see how my late summer, and fall look to be shaking out work wise, and it’s looking a bit quiet. Now things might change if the tariff situation settles, but it’ll take 6 months to a year for that to realign itself, not going to be an overnight thing, unfortunately.

So if I’m going to have time on my hands, then I’m going to continue my mini purge sessions, and really whip the house into shape. Besides the girls wardrobes & closets I don’t want to attack their things, so I will focus my attention on the shared spaces, broken toys, hidden junk piles, cupboards, closets, shoe & coat piles, under counter storage spaces, and open/disintegrating/dissolving/dried out crafting supplies. It will be enough to keep me occupied for at least a week. Plus, I could start whisking those paint cans out from under the basement stairs, and taking them to the house hold hazardous waste dump in allotments. I don’t think I could get all of it gone in one trip. I believe they have rules about how much can go from a single household at one time. I will need to look into it, because that information pertains to our predicament.

My wife was kind enough to go through and sort much of her Girl Guide crafting mess back into her clear storage bins. We had many, many Walmart bags filled with individual craft projects that had gone out, and returned. But not sorted back into the appropriate container. Plus more beads than you could shake a stick at. So many, just so, so many of them. Different colours, shapes, sizes, mediums, and themes. It borders on insane. But now it is organized, and we have cleared some shelf space by tidying it up. I got some crap out of the laundry room, so we have shelf space if we want anything put in long term storage.

As promised, when I took the broken tech away to the dump I did not fish out my wife’s old (and not broken) home theater apparatus, even though it has sat disassembled since 2005. We still have all the speakers, receiver, subwoofer, and cables needed to run the CD/DVD player. I did however toss all of the busted Wii stuff she picked up several years ago that not once got played, except when I personally had to go through and test each item (much of which did not work). Plus I got rid of my old Xbox 360 console, but I kept the hard drive from the top, as it was removable. Nice! The karaoke machine that smelled of burning electronics when turned on for more than 30 seconds went, my old printer, a dehumidifier, an electronic drum set of pads, an old PC tower, an old monitor, an old clock radio. It wasn’t a tonne of stuff, but it was enough. In the fall I will likely scour my books once again and send some more off to donation. I will go through my t-shirts and either transfer them to the cottage so I never, ever have to take clothes up there again, or they can go to the textile donation bins in town to be recycled into who knows what.

The older I get the less keen I am on just holding on the “stuff/things” that have no value to my day to day life. I found some twenty year old markers from my college days. All dried up. And I finally tossed those. They had sentimental value, but I can’t just keep holding onto 50 dried up markers because they remind me of a good time I had at Sheridan College back in 2000/2001. I mean — come on. Gotta live what you preach! I spent a considerable amount of time cleaning brushes a few years ago, so I can keep my paint brushes, because I was able to salvage them, and rehabilitate them after two decades of abuse! Dried paints, and markers, and pastelle boxes can all go in the trash. I do have two bottles of film developer from that same time (unopened of course) that I just can’t bear to throw out. Next to my first ever point & shoot film camera. It’s crazily terrible against even my phone’s camera, but I can’t think of throwing it away. I never use it, but I see it inside my art box every time I go in my office. Hell I still have my first ever digital camera from 2006, and as far as I know it still works. Also has terrible picture quality compared to my phone. I should toss both, plus the crappy mini tripod I have, but not yet. Not yet. I know my kids would immediately bin them if I passed in 5 years time, so I know deep down all three items are pretty much junk. I wouldn’t keep them if I was offered them from a friend passing. So yeah, in September I will likely purge those items too. I had a good time wandering Guelph with that digital camera. I bought the point and shoot film camera when I was in high school, so it might be nearing thirty years of age sooner rather than later. Holy cow! That’s messed up. If it were a Pentax or a Canon with removable lenses, and flash bulbs and stuff it would be worth keeping, and preserving. But the point & shoots were self contained, and would take no upgrades. So… Yeah.

I recently took some time to sit back down and try my hand a sculpting again. I found a cool picture of a goblin king that I was going to draw inspiration from. Didn’t get too far into it. It reminded me that I need to get a move on my sculpted & painted ceramic Markham Fair 2025 entry. So I might shelve the clay bust once more, in favour of doing something new in ceramic. We will have to see how that shakes out.

I’ve rambled enough for today. Ciao Bella!