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Took my eldest daughter out for dinner while we waited on my youngest to finish her Girl Guides session at a school across town. The food was terrific, but the service was lacklustre. However, being a brand new spot in a small town means it was most likely artificially busy, just from newness, and likely understaffed for a Thursday evening. In a couple of weeks it will settle into its own pace. And the staffing levels will feel more appropriate. But like I said, food was great, and the staff very pleasant. I think we just got lost in the shuffle of the steady flow of people coming into the restaurant. It doesn’t have a tone of seating, and I think that they will want to differentiate the meal eaters, from the bar patrons better to free up space for those whom would like a meal, versus those having beers with whatever game is on. Lots of TV’s in the place. Was clean enough from what I could see. My daughter used the washroom and said it was real nice in there. I’d go back because the prices were very reasonable. I think they could probably do with an additional 4 – 6 tables right now, and four more wait staff, but I’m not a restauranteur, so what do I know? Just an inkling I had. A designated host/hostess to seat people, and a proper busboy to clear tables, and servers that only bring food & take orders would likely help them out immensely these first couple of weeks while they are the “New Big Thing”.

Yesterday’s weather was pretty great, at least once the early morning fog burned off. I got rid of even more waste from the garage. I swear that cleaning up has become my new hobby for the space. But I can’t be blamed for doing some much needed spring cleaning somewhere! Have to start, might as well be the garage/shop space. We did send two jam packed full garbage bags worth of clothes out the door with the Diabetes people. Given a solid day of prep we could have made that four or five I’m sure. I’m happy with the two that we got. There is always more though. I have clothes for the kids in my closet, and stuffed in bins in the basement, as well as in all of our closets. Shoes, coats and more that could go too. It’s all a bit much.

Once it warms up a little more I might start my utensils holder project. Glue won’t set until it’s at least 8-10°C I find. So I’m waiting for that to happen. My guess is that by 11 am I should be good to start cutting and prepping for glue. Whee! Let’s go.

Rain, sleet, freezing rain, flurries, snow, bitterly cold, winds, and now fog & humid hot air. We’ve got it all down in southern Ontario. Come one, come all to see the sideshow that is early spring weather in Canada. Waterproof boots are a must, so make sure they are comfortable because you are going to wear them for about six weeks straight! Plus a warm, but not too hot, rain coat because between days you could have a temperature fluctuation of about 23°C from cold to warm. Plan your days around that!

The freezing rain clogged my eaves troughs so most of last night’s heavy rains poured over the side directly onto the deck and back of the house. So far, no penetration from all that excess water. I checked the gutters after we officially made it into spring, but the sleet, and freezing rains collected on the north side and froze solid. Thanks weather!

Others that I know we’re not so fortunate, as they did have water ingress into their basement living spaces. Which sucks. I offered towels, my wet/dry shop vac, and a dehumidifier. About as much as I can do at this point. Our air blowers are all at the cottage anyway, so I couldn’t offer a high CFM solution to his clean up problems.

I need to break down some garbage sheet goods and get them to the farm burn barrel and then walk the dog. Of course when I needed gas today the price has jumped by 16 cents per litre. If it hadn’t been so nasty out yesterday I would have got it then, at an historically low $1.23,9 cents per litre instead of paying $1.39,9 like I did today. D’oh!

So the carbon tax relief lasted all of a day before they jacked the prices back up anyway, regardless. Fun.

Yikes, and ouch! The CRA wants it’s portion and they are going to get by hell or high water. So best be prepared.

In other news today is Wednesday. I had more errands to run this morning. A very errands running heavy week so far. I went out to do a bunch of things every morning this week, and I still have a wood pile to drop off at the farm burn barrel. So not entirely done yet either. Fun.

I did set up my two new shop upgrades earlier in the week, so that has been sorted out at least. Yippee! Glad to have that done, and wrapped up. Now if only it would get a little warmer. I have two small projects I would like to start sooner rather than later. One for my office APC unit, and the other to organize kitchen utensils. Neither of which are particularly glamorous but would help out immensely.

I suppose I could load up the wood, and take my taxes over to the accountant, and swing by the farm on my way back to unload it, and get one outside chore completely entirely. Maybe I’ll go do that. Use my time more wisely. Yes. Yes I think I will.

**And… Now that’s done. Taxes dropped off to the accountant ‘s assistant and the cedar wood pile from my old potato box is resting in the burn barrel awaiting a warmer, and less windy day to taste the fresh kiss from flames lips. Burn baby burn. Once it dries out a little more those rails will go up fast, bright, and very, very hot. If only briefly.

It looks as though I will need to power wash the back deck before I can put any patio furniture out in it. So I need the general temperature to be above zero or else I run the risk of that outdoor tape and pipe rupturing with the fluctuations. That’s no good. Also the back hedge will require a pretty serious hair cut along the sides, front & back, as well as a long the top once more. Two or so summers ago I knocked between 6 – 8 ft off the top to make the hedge less unruly, but it has taken off once again. That’s a good solid days worth of arm, and shoulder punishing work. I think I nearly tore a bicep last time wrenching on my loppers to cut the top of the trees off. Good Lord that hurt, and then ached for weeks afterward. I couldn’t even lift my kids during that period. Wowsers, don’t want to be doing that again. Does tidy the space up a lot though. Makes it easier to sit around the table when the hedge isn’t pushing itself over the patio stones quite so far. Down-boy!

Nothing to do now but wait for questions from the accountant, and see how much I owe compared to my best guesstimate. How close did I get? Will have to wait and see.

Lots to do today, and the sun is up, but the cold spell is here to stay for a while. I have more errands to run with the dog in tow. Pick ups from multiple stores, and one walk, and potentially one wood waste drop off at the burn barrel. That’s if I can get the pile unstuck from the ground, and not stick myself with any of the stripped wood screws that stayed behind. I was trying to be good and take it apart piece by piece but the rotten section held on to the screws for some reason. Oh well. Nothing flames, and then a magnet can’t take care of at this point.

The new Google Pixel 9 phone is off to a good start. I like it. Not too big. Not too heavy. Not too much AI nonsense going on. I have those toggled off anyway. When the disclaimer says it will just make stuff up about people, places, or things I balked and am doing without. My only gripe is that my email is slow to come in. I’m getting delays of 2-3 hours on messages getting picked up and my push notifications going off. Weird. Plus the pixel absolutely will not run the Yahoo! Mail app. Force quits, deletes, reinstalls, and nothing. It hangs up on the splash page and cycles for hours if left undisturbed. So I route it through Google mail, or Gmail, and now instead of the 15 minute synch that I have switched on, it can take multiple hours to show me my newest emails. Weird. But not a deal breaker. Just means I need to check for emails on my computer more often since I’m not getting them straight to my phone in the morning. Once I’m sat down and working, it’s not an issue anymore.

The weather this weekend is supposed to be more reasonable, so we can be outside for a bit, and potentially open some windows, and feel the sun shine. I could pull out the patio table and bring some of the kids gear out from the garage/shed storage. Nice. Come on spring time!

Let us see what pranks get pulled for April Fools Day today.

Took the time to think on it and opted to upgrade both my compressor and my mitre saw. I now have a 20 gallon 200psi air compressor that allows me to use a spray gun for finishing furniture pieces. Also a larger, and more versatile mitre saw that can do dado cuts with a depth gauge, and far wider cross cuts. Noice! Go team.

And he wrought much damage to tree limbs, and power lines alike. No mercy but what was shown. Nothing like the major Quebec storms from the late 90’s though. Remember those? Absolute mayhem. About 4 full inches of ice on every single conceivable surface. They were without power for days, and weeks all across the province that time. It was so severe they called in the Canadian Armed Forces to help out. Wild

So in the grand scheme of things less than an inch of ice isn’t horrendous, more of an inconvenience. Gate won’t open, is about as much of an obstacle as I’m facing so far this morning. So I’ll move that wood burning chore at the farm to tomorrow. After my car’s oil change. That way the dog still gets his big walk, and I clean up the back yard just a tiny bit. Win-win!

The roads appear to be clear. I did a fair bit of traveling yesterday when they were threatening all of this freezing rain, and it didn’t really start to kick in until after I got home at 10:00 pm. So we were able to go climbing, and I went out to the inlaws, and I was able to watch the Leafs game in the evening. Side note: They WON! YAY.

In other news it is already Sunday, and I need to take my eldest child to a party up the road, walk the dog at the farm, sort & hang laundry, and remember the oil change tomorrow morning. So a light and breezy lazy Sunday after all. My youngest has a friend coming for a play date, so that’ll get loud, but otherwise a pretty simple day ahead.

We still have power, so far anyway, which is a good start. But I have to consider how the weather can change during the day if we drive to the west end of Markham for a ninety minute climbing session. No good going in clear weather and getting trapped miles away by freezing rain. Just you watch if we don’t go, the weather will be mild until later this afternoon, but if we do go it’ll turn to shit the second we park once there. I think we should just skip it for now, and save ourselves any headaches/dangerous road conditions. I like climbing a lot but not enough to endanger my children or myself. I can sit & read all day if I want to, no harm done.

Saturday is here! W00t-W00t! Nice. I guess I will catch up on laundry, but that will also depend on the state of our power. Heavy freezing rains cause a whole lot of havoc around these elderly neighborhoods. Mature trees are great, but aging power lines are delicate objects prone to trouble. At least to those of us whose homes were built in the 50’s and 60’s. Not quite century homes but they are nearing 65 — 75 years of age, with age appropriate wear and tear, and other such issues.

While we usually have a schedule for Saturday, that’s potentially out the window, so today is anybody’s game! Elbows up Canada.

Might have to put rock climbing on hold for the day as it involves highway driving, and a number of kilometers to get to the gym from our house. Limiting travel might be the smart play here. Shame, all three of us still rather enjoy climbing. No matter, we will be back there soon enough! I would prefer just simple rain, or another bout of flurries to the dreaded heavy freezing rain. The ice storms always cause power outages in our old neighbourhood infrastructure. Needs an extensive upgrade.

Oh well, no harm done by a localized stay at home weekend. Less gas consumption, less wear & tear on the vehicles. We can watch a movie, or play board games, or card games by the fireplace, power situation depending. We could fire up the switch bowling and take in a few frames as a family. That would be cool.

Welcome to Friday. Last night’s movie at the school gym went pretty smoothly. We had blankets and pillows so this time it was fairly comfortable. Helps they limit these things to a 90 minute kids film too. We had beverages, chips, and I bought one lone slice of pizza. I do hope they raised as much money as they had hoped to.

I would love for the spring time temperatures to finally kick in. I could do with less snow, and no freezing rain weather events. Bah. Terrible choice for weather. Bad option. Me no likey.

Whilst I do like this new Google Pixel 9, I do have some qualms about having to upgrade my old phone. Beyond the limits of the memory/space and the battery life I would have kept the phone indefinitely except apps were slowly dropping off, losing functionality, and stopped working completely in some cases. I am now in the lengthy process of becoming accustomed to the new phone, and all of its quirks. Also app placement is different so I have to memorize where I have put everything once again. I feel like Mr Peterman trying to memorize the TV guide after they swapped the channels on the television. First world problems. Am I right?

And it smells absolutely unhinged in here now because of it. Just vile. Been a long while since I last cleaned a dirty diaper, let alone an entire floors worth of loose bowel. Clock has just ticked over 2:00 am, so we are well into the thick of it now. Luckily from our summer run in with the skunk I have some nature cleaning supplies for heavy odors, and faeces smell to clean up in here with so I don’t have to spend the rest of the week sniffing the inside of the dogs colon. That’s a plus!

What else am I to do now. The adrenaline rush of hearing him spray fart in the dark, and the onslaught against my senses has left me wide awake. Dog seems none the worse for wear, at the moment. We will have to see if an angry bottom round two will rear its ugly mug. Best sleep lightly.

I do believe we are pulling a head full steam into Wednesday, hump day! If I can get my work email to synch up with this new phone I’ll be golden, otherwise I can only check emails directly from my computer. You would not believe just how long the process was to get all set up in my new phone. Ridiculous. Main reason why it was nearly eight full years in between physical unit changes. What a day it was, all spend connecting gadgets and accounts, passwords and the like. Endlessly doing two factor verifications, updates, and such. Bah!

The wireless transfer of contacts & such was pretty primo though, not going to lie about that. Last phone change over I had to go into my contacts and name them, and enter all details one by one. It was exhausting. Not the way it is now. No sir. All whizzing gadgetry now. The times we live in.

I wonder if I will see three am or if my body will slowly succumb to sleep. My acid reflux has made a cone back tonight, so I need to find my Tums before I burn a hole in my oesophagus. That shit burns and sucks the life out of a good night’s sleep that’s for sure.

I don’t know what I thought I was going to talk about today, but the dog messing in my room wasn’t a part of the top twenty five guesses that I would have put forth. Fun times. Floor got a good scrub down though, so that’s a plus, I suppose. Where are my Tums.