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Then I would know how to potentially stop it, or avoid it at all costs. That being the three days long intestinal cramping that started to go off every hour, then half hour, quarter hour, then just full tilt non stop for sixteen or so hours. Now i did eventually fall asleep last night, and it has hit pause, or maybe stopped. I don’t know which. But, i am exhausted as i only really fell asleep a couple hours ago, and it is now 10:00am. So that’s fun.

I don’t know what is on the schedule for today, so I cannot just hang around here, in bed, waiting. So, now what? Get up, I suppose. Brush my teeth. Take my self up to breakfast. See if I’m hungry at all. Hope that whatever I do consume doesn’t kick off my intestinal distress. Sounds like a plan.

Happy Lazy Sunday to all of you out there!

I’m not an outdoorsman, as I detest bugs, heat, and the open water. Never been much of a fan of fishing either. It always struck me as too quiet, isolated, and dull. I guess if you usually have a big catch with an effort to reel it in, it could have been considered fun. But I’ve never caught anything over 4lbs, and the mosquitoes have always been brutal. Not much of a draw as far as I’m concerned.

My kids, however, love it for about 15-20 minutes at a time. So we give’em what we got so as not to spoil that for them. Hence, entry into the derby. Woke up early on a saturday, had the plans changed on us by the flake (as per usual), so that I had to drive the kids, kicking & screaming over to the never before visited marina, later than I’d like because the flake requested to not have to take them before 8:45am, and then backed out “for reasons”, leaving it to me. Got in to registration just under the wire. Now have less than two hours to get all three kids to catch a fish, change shirts, head back over to the marine to have catches weighed before 11:00am cut-off. Whee!

Once again, not my idea, but it is now my problem. Thanks for that. I’m just lucky I suppose. I set an alarm for this morning, only it was set for week days and not a Saturday. Had to get up to pee and saw the time. Overslept by five minutes! Yikes! Kids were slow moving so it wasn’t a big deal, luckily.

Anyway, how is your Saturday morning going? Mine is fun, fun, fun. Big smiles all around.

Cutting, splicing, and building out some old school renders today, with predetermined products on each shelf. Going to be busy, so I’ll keep this short, and sweet.

Today is Friday. We were originally given the impression that we would be going to adopt Graham on Wednesday or Friday of this coming week, but it was pushed up to Monday evening. So that puts a wrench into some plans, but no matter. I’ll need to drive out to Barrie to grab the wee fella. I need to bring him a new collar, and a leash too. So I’ll need to stop off at the pet store on the way. I’d like to know what food he currently eats so that I don’t change every single thing in his life at all once. Seems kinda mean to do that to him.

I best get back to work. Ciao Bella.

**EDITOR’S NOTE: Adoption agency texted to ask if we could push pick-up day back to Wednesday, which we are in favour of. That works far better for us, and hopefully for the wee man Graham too. Besides building various display renders today I have been doing some heavy lifting out in the 36°C heat, and humidity. Most unpleasant, but!, he says most hesitantly, with each chore completed we all get one step closer to being able to enjoy the summer. Farming responsibilities have pushed all the fun stuff well into the hot “time to enjoy the fruits of our labour” times, instead of getting done in May or early June in time to just (enjoy) the things. C’est la vie! Such is life.

It’s a real hot one here today though boy, I tell you what. Sweat, sun screen, and bug spray are all grimed up on my skin. Add in some dust, sand, and common debris, and you have yourself a real gross body soup mix. A salted powdered donut of oils and chemicals. Mm-mm. Now that’s summer living.

In other news my current projects are to carry over to Monday, so the afternoon is clear of tasks of the paid sort. No harm done there. My assumption is, right or wrong, that corporations have instituted their Summer Hours schedule where Fridays can knock off anywhere between 2:00 – 3:00pm, unless it is something dire.

And you know what?, I’m fine with it. Go enjoy the weather before the weekend storms roll in. Glorious outdoors all work week as the average person is sat at their desk, and miserable, wet, and storming once the weekend comes around once you have the freedom and inclination to head outdoors. Ain’t that a bitch? Come on!

Have a terrific weekend wherever you may be. Stay safe out there.

My arms are fried, and my trigger finger is acting up after a couple hours of sweeping motions, side to side, to knock down the waist high grasses, and weeds. Thankfully I had some ear phone on hand as the older Echo machine is loud AF. I’ll lose my hearing how I want to, at a concert, not from household lawn machinery, thank you very much!

The passing of uncle Fred in Feb has left a few items uncared for. Thus here I am, getting around to it now. Both May & June were too busy to help, so now that it is officially summer break, I can pitch in. Hence the sore arms from waving around the line trimmer across several portions of grass.

Found a sink hole near the shop on my travels too. Opening is roughly 6″ in diameter,  but the hole itself is likely 10-12″ in diameter,  and at least 24″ deep. The sand and fill is washing away somewhere, but I can’t locate where. No lower lying plots look disturbed or bulged. So maybe we fill it with rocks and gravel, and a lot less sand. Mark it off, and keep an eye on it. Oh, don’t park your truck or tractors there either. As it could develop over time into a real nasty hazard.

Now that I am covered in grimy wet weed chaff, mud, and sand, I feel as though I’d like to step into the creek, or a pool to get a bit cleaner. The only thing stopping me here are the nasty blood sucking bugs near the waters edge. They got my legs while working in the ditches, and I’m done with that, for now. I’ll go inside to the AC, and will just rinse off in the laundry room sink. Not as glamorous, but still effective.

Now I wish I had of brought my burnable stuff down here. If only to get it out of my way in the garage. I have a table to refinish, and new walnut legs to build to make it all the more stable. Then I’ll chuck it in the basement, so that we have more playable surface area for Lego, and board games alike. The tiny white folding table can remain in use too, if it has to. Might be a September project, once everyone is back to regular schedules.

We are scheduled to meet a potential new member of the family. A 6 month old German shepherd named Graham. I think we do a meet and greet on Wednesday or Friday, and if he’s ok with us, we’ll bring the lil man home for good. Which means I need to register him with the town. Get him in to the vet’s office for heartworm pills, and get him an appropriate collar/name tag/ ID. Oh, and go buy food and such for a dog. We got rid of the old stuff’s our former dog has been dead & buried for more than three years now.

It’s Thursday now, and a pretty major US holiday, so I’ll bid you fare thee well.

I dug deep into our secondary pantry and found (8) eight full unopened boxes of Ritz bits crackers from 2021 & 2022. From the pandemic lock-in days. We never did get so bad as to need to eat them anyway. That was when you could buy four boxes for $8.00 CND. Can’t do that now. The oil and cheese had gone off, because of course they had. But, on the plus side I can now see all the way to the back of our lower cabinets in that section of the kitchen. I reorganized a few things while I was at it. Sad to see so much food go to waste, but it’s inedible, and thus not donation worthy. I think even the squirrels and raccoons would give it a miss.

So that’s the fridge, pantry, and secondary pantry sorted. I took yesterday’s garbage take away to finally throw away some busted/broken water bottles, themed cups, and various opened and messy kinetic sand bags. Plus very old halloween goody bags, and some Wendy’s toys. It wasn’t a lot, but I made the most of it while the family was out & occupied elsewhere. That is Covert Purge Ops 101. And no, I don’t feel bad. Nothing I tossed has been looked at, asked for, utilized, or thought of since it entered the house and got “stored” way up high where nobody ever looks for things – ever. So on that note, we’re golden.

We have a meet & greet with a potential new rescue pet today. The wee man is located in Barrie so rather than do all that driving for a site visit, the foster people will get a virtual tour via WhatsApp. So I’m told. Hopefully it all works out for what is best.

Happy Wednesday everybody.

Not that I don’t like having a clean(ish) house most of the time, but I find we don’t rotate through our canned goods particularly well. I buy some almost every time I grocery shop, but some cans are getting pushed to the back and forgotten about. Why just now I had to dispose of 3 cans of chicken noodle soup, 3 mushroom soups, 1 pea soup, 1 tomato soup, 1 celery soup, 1 potatoes and sausage soup, 1 can of cranberry sauce from 2016 (I might add!) And a few other items like rancid chips & popcorn where the oils had gone off. Spoiled cinnamon goldfish crackers that were both too crunchy & too soft in one unsettling combination of unpleasantness. Far easier to do these types of things with my spouse and children out of the house. Same with disposing of ruined coats, and ruined sneakers. The less than can see and thus pine sentimentally over these lost items, the better. Why keep ruined shoes? We aren’t cobblers. We can’t mend mesh wore running shoes where the soles are also worn through! Looks like the great purge of 2024 will have to happen in September once all parties are busy between the hours of 8:30am and 3:00pm.

But I digress, as I was talking about the pantry. Not that I like to see good food go to waste, but if we can’t eat it, no point in keeping it. I can move fresh items from under the counter to up into the pantry at eye level. Way better there! I have random cereal bags, and crackers to move too. Best get nibbling before that goes off and become bird food, or totally inedible for anyone, or any “thing”. Ugh. Sour oil smells so, so bad. Rancid is a great term for it. Clings to the nostrils. Lingers on everything. Blargh!

The blue bin & sink are taking a beating today. Lots of cleaned up cans in the recycling today. Cardboard boxes, tissue papers, and everything else I can reasonably get out of here, absolutely has to go! Go on now, get! So much wet food to clean up too. Yuck. Cold, slimy, smelly old wet food stuffs. Reminds me of working in all of the kitchens underneath the universities residences. Climbing into massive kettles to scrape out the left over bits from boiled bones, and over cooked soups. Scraping the grill tops, and washing the grease traps. Those are smells you don’t soon forget. Do not miss those days at all. But! It did give me the mindless paid work where I could talk/think my way through any papers I had to write, before I ever had the chance to sit down and type anything. Got harder as the essays got longer, but for first and second year classes it was a doable exercise in mental gymnastics. Pays to be an over thinker some times.

Anywho. It is Tuesday July second of twenty twenty four. Our holiday was yesterday, and I’m sure the US will occupy the 3rd/4th/5th to their advantage by closing down to celebrate. Losing fingers and hands heavily on one particular day per year at a time.

Take care out there. Ciao Bella.

Hard to get the kids to bed when everyone and their neighbours are firing the bright and crispies off at all hours of the evening and well up to eleven pm, or later. Had to go around and shut all of the windows to limit the sound intensity inside the kids bedrooms. Not that we don’t love fireworks, because we do. But the town does it up really well, for free, and puts on a hell of a show, with professional “Big Kid” explosives, so why,? oh why? Do people play around with so many of the dinky dink ones themselves. Glad we haven’t replaced out pet dog yet, as I’m sure adding another fireworks hating dog into the mix would have made the last few nights intolerable.

Such as it is, the big flash event is tonight. I do hope the food trucks make an extended presence so that I can nibble while I watch in awe this evening.

Anywho. It’s monday, so I should do some laundry and grocery shopping, or find something to do this holiday Monday. Can always pull weeds/rocks at the farm if I want to kill an hour or three.

We are all set to keep this a fairly quiet one today, as we’ve had far too much prolonged excitement every weekend, and most days throughout May & June. So, with that in mind my youngest has chosen to build her Lego set(s). I commend her for this decision, provided she doesn’t try to build all of them, back to back to back. I mean that if SHE can build them, go hack to back, but if I need to sit on the floor (yes she is still at the age where she is more comfortable on the floor and not seated at a table) then for the love of cheese don’t ask me to spend all day sat cross legged, my feet will go numb and I’ll not be able to walk for a few days in a row. If I could convince her to build on the coffee table atleast, a compromise! I would be more inclined to help out for longer stretches. Truth be told she got through 90% of the first two and only needed my help to pull a few stuck pieces apart, or to help with piece orientation. I do have the same gripe again about missing pieces, and poor QC by Lego. For what these Mine Craft kits cost, multiple missing bits where we had to pillage our own supply of loose bricks to complete is a god damned joke. Not cool. The sheen is wearing off on a number of brands lately around here.

Did I ever tell you about the Disney Star Wars merch I bought for myself and my daughter, where the seams across the back of my rebel t-shirt disintegrated after one wear, and two washes. The stitching on the front patches has come off too. A $50.00 USD shirt, ruined in a matter of days from two washes! Two. And I only wore it once, and that was to bed at the hotel. The next time I tried it on after doing the laundry upon our return home and the back 8 to 10 inches was hanging open. Gah! Not impressed.

Anyway, Friday is here. The weather for now is lovely, sunny, and a bit cooler. Should I cut the grass or tackle some garden bed weeding? Yup, I should. Will I? Who knows!