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The first day back to school! It has arrived with a flash, a bang, and nary a whimper. I took their photo to commemorate the moment, and then we found the lines we needed for each class, and the bell rang, and BOOM! home alone for the first time in more than a year. I ran a couple errands, and have mowed my lawn. I’m about to walk over to the in-laws to put out their recycling, and that’s my day. Perhaps some laundry. A bit of a tidy up. But nothing major. I’m going to save the driving range for tomorrow. All of last weeks organizing, and cleaning has paid off. I’m several weeks ahead on inside stuff. I’m not totally ready to start the table just yet, but that will start soon enough. Just trying to bask in an ever so slightly decluttered, and quiet house. TV isn’t on. Radio isn’t playing. Dogs asleep at my feet. It’s all good.

Lawn is done. I cut down yet another small tree that my wife wasn’t too fond of to clean up the front of the house. If I pull up the tomatoes that will go a very long way in tidying up the front yard too. This year it’s not the pumpkins being a problem, but the tomatoes! Gardening, what a hassle it can be at times. I took a few outlier branches off of some ground cover shrubs near our front door, so they are longer a tripping hazard. You can clearly tell where the step ends now. So nobody should twist an ankle by over stepping it anymore. Not that it has happened. But it could have, due to the poor visibility due to the branches. Either way, it will make shoveling snow there just a little bit easier.

I do have a fair bit of exterior maintenance left to do. The back hedge needs another trim up, along the sides, and top (if I can reach!). The patio space feels crowded in by the hedge growth. I have at least one full bag of weeds to pull out from the back alone. Some neighbourhood cat is using my front, and back flower beds as a litter box. Not a fan of that. I deal with my dogs poop, I don’t need to deal with somebody else’s cats bowel movements.

We got home later yesterday than I would have liked. When we did venture off the traffic was lighter than usual (a nice bonus!) But the sky grew dark way too soon. Far too soon for my liking. Well, I best venture off to the inlaws to catch the blue box man. Ciao Bella!

That’s the benchmark I just hit, and I’m not sure whether to be excited to have hit that number, or sad it took so long. I imagine some sights do that kind of traffic in less than an hour. But you know what? I’ll take the win. Ten thousand individual views of my various forms of content. Images, video, audio, and written posts. Even my interconnected short story series has a chunk of those views contained within it. Yes – yes I believe that I will be happy about what I have done, and not compare it to other things. I choose to take the win in the spirit in which it was given. Congratulatory. With animated fireworks even! Go me!

I’ve had this cough now since Thursday, and it isn’t accompanied by a runny nose, fever, tummy troubles, or any other major issue. Except that the sudden explosive bursts of coughing has caused my throat to become sore in spots. I can (as of this moment) still swallow without issue, and I can eat/drink without trouble. Gets worse when I lie down, or recline, otherwise it just kind of bubbles up every so often.  It isn’t constant, and feels like more of a nuisance. Quickly running out of cough syrup here though. Wish I’d have though to bring more.

It is the holiday Monday, Labour Day to be exact. This is it, the last possible day of summer break 2024. Soon my phone will start to blow up as other parents try to figure out if their kid has any friends in their newly assigned class. It won’t be set in stone until the first week of October,  so no cause for celebration just yet. Lots of shuffling/juggling of kids left to do between then and now. By this time tomorrow my wife will be at work, and both of my kids will be in class.

I’m going to celebrate with a visit to the driving range. And possibly a bunch more cleaning around the house. The gardens, and the leaves coming down will take up a bunch of my time soon enough. I need to cut my grass too. We never did reach a point this summer where the grass stopped growing. Really strange (read : wet) summer this year. Rain fall for the record books if I’m not mistaken.

Funnily enough a big draw, and portion of the 10K views was due to the images, video, and play by play of the war gaming terrain I built during the height of the Covid lock downs of 2020/2021. I still have all four boards displayed in my basement. I did however get rid of the secondary buildings I’d made. Four “stores”, and the bad guys hide out which was just too large, and too similar to the Inn I’d made first. So now that Inn is loaded to the tits with all the 3d printed interior terrain items, like beds, boxes, chests, and sacks of coins. I have an itch to build more, but I don’t have anywhere to keep it at the moment. Isn’t that the story of our lives.

It’s a well worn pastime of every single dog I’ve ever owned personally. Doesn’t matter what make or model of toy it is, they are going to back chew it to death and extract the frosted white gold inside. Super tuff, unbreakable, extra hearty, nothing much matters as my dog is going to get down into the juicy, squeaky heart of it, and RIP it’s stuffed guts out. I spend a good deal of time picking up puffs of dog toy stuffing from the floors all over our house. The garbage can is currently full of it.

I managed to declutter the living room, and the basement bookshelves in one fell swoop on Friday. I got two large tote bins full of stuff. Giant floor puzzles, colouring books, baby/infant toys, Peppa Pig brand mini figs & houses/vehicles, Barbie dolls, their vehicles, and clothes. Plus every single low end Mc Donald’s toy that I could lay my hands on. I’m so far ahead of schedule that I can start my table project on Tuesday of this coming week. I managed to clean out the toy box in the living room, and the associated bins of Barbie, LOL, and Shadow/Rainbow/Monster high dolls, and all of their accessories too. Bins of blocks, and all three wooden stacking toys which my two year old nephew is very excited for (as I knew he would be). All of this cleaned not only my living room, some of the dining room, but opened up shelf space on the basement bookcases. I do still have some totes on that bookshelf to look into. We have an awful lot of broken WII guns, steering wheels, mats, and paraphernalia. I’d like to toss all that, plus some other broken technology that is taking up space.

I know I’m on the right track because on Friday, while I was purging the house, two new bags of clothes showed up on our doorstep from our friends whom have an older daughter. That’s why I had to move stuff out, as more was coming in! Can you believe it? Ha. I do appreciate it, a great deal. I just have to be the one to keep the cycle moving. If it were up to my wife our basement would still have 20 bloody great bags of baby, infant, toddler, small child clothing, plus all the cribs, change tables, swings, exercise circle thing, and floor tummy time mats etc… I had to be the coldhearted SOB who removed it all.

I think a trip to the driving range to celebrate is in order!

It all wraps up come 11:59pm on Monday night. Tuesday is the very first day of school. Which means meeting new teachers, and seeing which of the kids friends are in their classes. They’ll be entering & exiting the school from opposite sides once again, so I’ll need the oldest to run to find me at the end of the day. Same as always I suppose. Hard to believe that all nine weeks have come, and gone already. I guess with my wife’s fourteen months coming & going so quickly, the mere nine weeks of summer break disappeared like a fart on the breeze. Poof! Gone.

The early setting sun in the evenings is a real clear sign that fall is looming large on the horizon. That and the amount of leaves that have dropped already. I’m going to have to start vacuuming up leaves and mulching them into our garden beds. I don’t think I’ll get any pumpkins this year, nor gourds. I pulled up the vines in May, and those few which I left in the compost pile have not flowered or produced a single fruit/bloom. Which sucks. Could spell the end to my free  ongoing pumpkin supply. Instead my garden is over run by tomato plants with no ripe tomatoes on it. All the small green ones you could ever need, but no ripening fruits. Was it lack of water? Lack of a trellis so it spread outwards too far, for too long, instead of growing tomatoes. I don’t really know. I didn’t water them in July or August, so that probably contributed to some stress on their part. Oh well.

I took a moment the other day to use my hacksaw to cut the old hose nozzle off the end of the hose. Now I can actually attach the hose to my power washer to clean our exterior windows, garage door, and back deck. I didn’t want to cut the nozzle off, but even with vise grips and a vise I couldn’t get them to unwind. Too much gunk on the threads some how. It was a new nozzle from a year or two ago. I didn’t think it would of welded itself together so quickly, especially since I never turned the actual water on this year. Just goes to show how many minerals and things are in our water causing things to seize together.

I used my dremel originally, but it got gummed up by the melting plastic. So I switched to my hacksaw, but had to cut through horizontally, then attack the threaded portion from two sides and split it with a heavy mallet. I did not test the threads, so I may find that I’ve warped them and it won’t hook up to the pressure washer anyway. Time will tell. I plan to go to the driving range to celebrate another successful return to school start next week. I have one new club to try out. A new to me sand wedge / pitching wedge, 64° and multi-purpose to me. My collection of second hand clubs is missing a few numbers, but since I typically only golf using a nine iron, driver or putter I should be ok. Now I have a dedicated club for sand traps and height obstacles. Not that I get to play much golf. Mini putt and driving range are far more accessible, and better priced. Less time intensive too. I’ll see if a buddy can join me for swinging a club about early in the week.

I paid for my daughter to start Taekwondo once again as of September 9th, so now I need to look into Good Life Fitness for myself. I’m looking for a decent elliptical, and quality free weights. I like the idea of getting back into doing olympic lifting to build muscle, and bone strength.  I’ll need to look at pricing, and the equipment.

I love that some listicle on Facebook says that Zoey Deschanel lives like she’s poor, with a net worth of approximately $25M, and only $22,500.00 a month spent on expenses. What ridiculous bull shit is that. Twenty two grand a month spent is living like the “poors”. Are you mental? If it were $2,250 a month I’d say bravo on your restraint, and not having a mortgage payment to make, or at least not much of one. But $22K? Ah – no. In what world is twenty two grand a month spent being poor? Who are you? Tom Segura? Do you perhaps not use a wash cloth when you shower and/or bathe in general? Yikes.

In other news it is Friday. And I have two full tote boxes worth of janky toys to go up north with at some point in September. Oddly enough the living room is not bare! I sorted the Barbies, from the LOL’s, from the Rainbow High’s, and the Shadow High kids, one or two mermaids, and some Frozen characters. I cannot take all of the credit, at least 80% of it was done by my spouse with some help from the kids. I tackled the toy box, panda chairs, and inside the ottoman storage cubby. Unfortunately if I go any harder then that will cause major problems. But, on the other hand the kids will have a wide, and varied selection of toys to enjoy in the playroom at the cottage. That’s a big plus in my book. Should make next big break a bit easier if they have toys to sort through and play with. It’s hardly empty here. Their bedrooms are still full of toys. The baskets are now better sorted and stocked with dollies of all shapes, sizes, colours and Brand IP. Doll houses are intact, and still upstairs. I get ahead of next weeks purge. Toys don’t get thrown out but rather get moved on to a better location for all the littles to enjoy. I feel good about it. Again, the bulk of what I toss is garbage, random plastic packaging, Kleenex blankets, pipe cleaner bundles just strewn about the toy box, and hidden behind things on our floor.

I would be happy to throw more of this stuff away, but that’s cruel. More gentle to retire unused, or infrequently used items to the toy room at the cottage. With four kids under ten, I makes sense to have ample goodies available up north too. Ones that don’t have to get packed up and brought back home every single trip. Our vehicle is small, and with the fog now space is at a premium. My efforts to clean aren’t to harm any one, or hurt their feelings. It’s just that there is so much STUFF constantly underfoot that I’m breaking toes, and hurting my feet trying to avoid stepping on the overflow. I can also sense the kids being drawn towards phones, tablets, game consoles, and that sort of thing. Still very big into crafts, but not so much the toys. Or – better yet, toys are taking a back seat to technology, but when they want to play with toys, the go toos are not the Peppa Pig, Playmobile farm animals, or blocks, and stacking rings. We’ve aged out of that stuff I think. Barbie house, cars, jet skiis, and snowmobiles still have their place during play time. But a lot of the Blaze and the monster machines, Truck Town, Troll dolls are becoming a thing of the past with my kids. Not a problem.

I do think that taking the art off the walls to hang my wife’s framed Peru images, and Paris painting might cause a bigger stir. Those drawings have been up on our wall for atleast eight and a half years now. Since Tot-Spot in late 2015.

And, here’s the kicker, I’m not throwing it away, we just want the kids to curate their own works in a portfolio we have for each of them. It has lots of room for drawings, paintings as, and flat lying crafts. I just don’t think drawings from when my eldest wasn’t even two yet still need to be displayed so prominently in our living room / dining room. Especially now that the newer stuff they make is so much more inventive and indicative of their new interests, and skills. I enjoy a good scribble, but I now also really appreciate a Hatchimal character study with fine details, and colour matching done by my youngest. I love to see what draws their attention long term. To see where, and with what they will devote effort to. I can’t frame 63 different minecraft worlds unfortunately. I know they spend hours making castles, houses, and such digitally.

Yeah. So. Don’t take any wooden nickels or whatever.

Whilst it’s a great way to kill multiple hours, enjoy the sunshine, and be active, there is a formidable downside to so much swimming. The ear ache. And my youngest has had a number of them this year. Never before, but now we are on instance #3 for the summer. Once from lake water, and twice from the pool. I think it comes from how much more diving, and time spent underwater in the pool versus the lake. So she has had a low grade fever, and lots of ear pain. One time the ear pain made her jaw hurt too, so that’s a new one for us. Drops of medicine in the ears, rest, and keep an eye out for the need for Tylenol for pain/fever.  It hasn’t lasted for more than 3-4 days, so luckily not a massive problem for my little one. Still uncomfortable though.

Yesterday’s rain brought the overall temperature down by nearly twenty degrees. The roses appreciated the break from the heat, and the additional watering it provided. My tomato plants, while sprawling and large, have only produced two ripened tomatoes. One that was eaten into by ants, or some other bugs, and one which my kids harvested, and is currently sitting on my kitchen counter. I had plans to make salsa or sauce, but one ripe tomato, and 100 green ones just won’t do. That’s the issue you run into with my brand of “set it, and forget it” home gardening. I’ll either end up with more than I could ever eat, or next to nothing for my troubles. My grape vine is set to have a banner year for grape production. My tomatoes? Yeah, not so much. Well, if all the late in the season green ones live to turn red, and grow to full size I’ll be able to make both Salsa and Sauce. But I shan’t hold my breath for it.

Now we are on to the last Thursday of August 2024. It is also my mother’s birthday today. She is not home right now though. She will spend six weeks at a cancer ward in a Victoria, British Columbia hospital having a second tumor radiated five times a week over the total length of her stay. Last year it was for the tumor on her right side bundle that was causing eye issues, and Aphasia. This new growth is on the upper most portion of her brain stem. So that meant a new facial cage be moulded, and built to suit. 45 mins a pop, bolted face down on the table. I’m told she has a sedative to help remain in position. Happy birthday! Will any of these ease the increasing number of migraines she has? Doubtful. Was told that the two things, cancer & migraines, were unrelated. I know very little about it so I couldn’t say one way or the other.

The last long weekend of the summer is almost here! Summer Break 2024 is almost over, can you believe it? Doesn’t much feel like nine weeks have gone by. But then last November’s trip to Florida doesn’t feel like it was nearly a year ago either. Time has felt weird this year. 41 days of vacationing will do that to you. Same with visiting the same four spots month after month, after month makes it hard to distinguish one trip from another. I can hardly believe that the 14 months I spent with my spouse at home has already gone by. Wild. How did we do both so much, and so little over the course of fourteen months. Boggles the mind. Yatzhee!

I am saddened by the thought that we can’t have our standing lunch dates anymore. Or run errands together, child free, during the day, like we were back in our twenties again. That was a lot of fun. Watching movies, and reading side by side, just enjoying each others Company, whether we spoke or not. Now it’ll be just the puppy and I. Not the same! He’s not much of a conversationalist. Neither am I, but you get what I’m driving at here.

I am excited to start the tear down of the house to clean it from top to bottom. That will give me purpose, and an objective to aim towards. My table build and fair stuff will fill in any gaps. I have new books, so between paid work I should be all set between now and Christmas. Wow.

I know my kids pretty well so taking on a multiple hour project is a non starter for what is the last official week of summer. My wife has returned to work already, so it’s just me, the kids, and the new dog. I honestly thought it would take all week to get through the closets, drawers, garbage & junk in their rooms, plus the basement closets, and taking my books to the Care & Share at the edge of town. Now it’s only Wednesday morning and I’ve run out of dimple, but effective chores for us to do. We’ve also been swimming four times already, gone to the mall for a lunch date, and gift card shopping spree. They had $80.00 between them so it wasn’t this awe inspiring moment or anything like that. We’ve done dog walks, park visits, farm runs, and I’ve let them play on devices a fair bit too. Running short on ideas. They’ve done a bunch of reading, though not as much as I would like. I’ve even done several hours of paid day job work inbetween, so yeah. Very productive, and successful, but now I don’t know what to do with them that will produce results that are meaningful.

My big projects require the kids to be at school so that I don’t have to fight over what toys (that they don’t use) get packed up to go north to the cottage. I know of a tall pile of puzzles that should go. Old colouring books, and probably three full tote boxes of Barbies, Peppa Pig scenery, Mc Donald’s junk toys, and several other baby oriented items like blocks and playmobile mini people.

It won’t make a huge difference but every square inch of space we can recoup will make Christmas, and other holidays all the more bearable.

I refrigerate my butter, mainly because I use it for cooking, and not for toast or sandwiches. But I like my beverages, beer or otherwise to be room temperature and not refrigerated. Go figure. It only comes up now because my girls are finally at an age where they want to make themselves breakfast, whether that’s a bowl of cereal, a fiber filled brownie, or toast (I don’t much care which) to fill themselves up in the morning. Cold butter doesn’t spread. So now I’ll leave my “cooking” butter in the fridge and will keep out a 1/4 or 1/2 pad for morning toast consumption. No need to be a prick about it. Tearing up the toast with cold butter isn’t a nice way to start your day, especially if they are sorting themselves out, so that I don’t have to. I can focus on lunches, back packs, agendas, homework, and outdoor gear for the day. At some point they will become responsible for those items too, but today isn’t that day. I believe in layering on the new responsibilities as they move up a grade in school.

Had a very, very productive day around the house yesterday. Both of the kids bedrooms, and closets got cleaned out, and the ruined, permanently stained clothes got removed, and outgrown items became hand me downs. All together we pulled out a garbage bag and 3/4’s from both rooms combined. That’s alot of wrappers, boxes, busted toys, and plastic junk. I do have a bag of shoes to look through. And a bag of socks to go on to my niece along with other clothes items. Coats of all sorts can go too. I give them credit, they helped out a lot, but also didn’t fuss about pitching the junk that was eating up space unnecessarily. Now you can see their floors, and e everything fits in the closets – for now. I fear we left a lot of clothing at the cottage which will need to be worked into the program too. Back to overflowing drawers that won’t shut, and piles on the floor that don’t have hangers or space to fit into the closet either. Ugh!

I would be more ruthless, but I can go overboard at times. I’ve gotten better about not doing so with my kids stuff. I can take it if I get overzealous about my own things. Clothes, books and what have you. I don’t want to hurt my kids by being too callous about trinkets and whatnot that perhaps mean a lot more to them than I know. I will go after the common areas with more vigor once everyone is back to school, as that’s something i have to look at, and walk around daily. I’m going to move quite a bit of the accumulated toys to the cottage. Open up the shelves on my display unit for baskets of sorted play things we’re keeping here. But out of sight inside the bins, and not on the floor where they stab me in the heels, or balls of my feet. Lego injuries are a real thing! One day in the future, three or so years from now the doll houses will go downstairs, and we will have to decide on if we’re going to keep any of that kind of stuff for potential grand kids, foster kids, adopted kids, or just sell it off along with our collection of hundreds of different dolls. No need to ponder that question now. Both kids still use both doll houses in the living room.

Tuesday August 27th, 2024 is here, and it’s going to be a hot one! High 30’s Celcius if what I’m hearing on the news is correct. Another day fit to float in the pool unbothered by life’s quibbles. I have approximately 35 books to take over to the care and share in the next hour or so. That will lighten my book shelves just a hair. I think I took nearly 60 books over in the fall, and had given away another 50 to schools and such prior to that, so I am making headway on thinning out my collection too. Every four months or so I can look at my books as a whole and figure out (after living with the reduced numbers) which are the next ones to go on the chopping block. Those two I held on to, did I even crack the covers to read them. Did I think about reading them? Do I feel like reading them right now? If the answer is no, unequivocally no, then I should get rid of them, along with any others that fit the same model. I only want the books I loved so much I would read them a second or third time without hesitation. Meh! Books, and mediocre books can go too. If I had to move again I don’t want 30 plus tote boxes full of books to lug around. Cut it down to 10 totes full of just the best stuff I absolutely love! Reasonable compromise I think.

I love the idea of tiny house living, but I also know that I love lots of things, rather than experiences. People whom go do “stuff” don’t need to load up on things. But I like to make things. Paintings, drawings, sculptures, model kits, war gaming terrain, wood furniture. I need room for these things. Not to mention books because I can’t read long term from a screen. I need the physical book in my hand. The smell of their pages filling my nose. Power cut or internet outage be damned, I’ll have my book(s) please.

With finite space available inside our home, all we can control is how we utilize that space, and what we choose to fill it with. The best stuff we love, or mounds of junk. Two things cannot occupy the same space at one time. You might miss out on something grand because of holding on to waste/junk. Shame too. “We don’t have the room!” is a popular refrain around here. New stuff in means older stuff needs to go. It’s a constant battle, and not one I am always up for fighting for/over. Hence the need for a purge every couple of years. I get worn down by tears and tantrums, so we start to get closed in by things, papers, wrappers, boxes, cardboard crafts, drawings, paintings, used canvases, lego creations, on and on it goes. Just to start the cycle once more. Whee!

How is your last Tuesday in August going? Ciao Bella!

I cleared one full garbage bag with of junk and debris out of my youngest daughters room. Mainly the closet, and a half a cardboard box that was full of overflow toys. Which ended up being mostly broken plastic egg shells from Easter, and plastic bags, clothing tags, and old bits of Kleenex & towel fragments. Dolly bed sheets would be my guess. I placed all the real toys in the drawers below her bed, and made room at the top of her closet for hand me downs two sizes too big for right now. And you’d never know the difference. Unless you are me whom sees it all day every day. The fact the closet is clearing up is a huge sigh of relief for me.

I still see a bag of shoes that likely needs going through again. I didn’t look at it, as I didn’t want to get waylaid by sorting & sizing shoes instead of cleaning the room/closet from start to finish in one go. It is altogether far to easy to slide from one task into a subset and drift off course. The shoes still need to get done, but the bulk of the clearing up can be done without sorting one single bag of shoes. I could do that after. Or tomorrow.  Or on a rainy day.

I looked through two closets yesterday for coats. I have hone through my kids clothes for the most part. I need to check sweaters for both kids. We have nearly 100 between the two of them. Ridiculous. I may pull back one raincoat I found, as it is nice to have a dry spare in November when the rains start, and seemingly don’t stop, like – ever. Until it turns to snow that is.

If I had my way I’d be ruthless, but I can’t.  So I’ll do what feels reasonable. Which is probably extreme in my wife’s family view, but no where near enough according to mine. Ha-ha. Family dynamics. So weird. What is really going to test me as a person will be the kids “art” from childbirth until now. We have two storage portfolios for the kids. One each. And they are supposed to curate their own work. What fits in the portfolio can stay. But they make gigantic cardboard things endlessly, and want to save every scrap, every scribble, every si gle splash of paint on paper. Can’t do it. No room. Something has to give! Argh! Kids. Gotta love them.