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Big Feelings – Tiny Little Baby Bodies.

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How do these furious & wild mood swings emanate from such small children seemingly from out of the ether? These two kids man. Woah! It’s like magic with these two. Pulling on endless streams of angst, anger, and histrionics. Not sure whether it’s all coming from frustration with video games, or the looming start of school, the end of summer, growth spurts, sibling rivalry or what. But it is here, and it is fierce. These two have a seemingly endless supply of “MOOD” to attack each other with. Enough  “BIG FEELINGS” to weight down an air craft carrier. Pray for us.

Here I was just 24 hours ago lamenting how quiet the house was without them, and now their frustrations, and anguish echoes off of every surface. It rings in my ears, rather literally once they manage to reach the fevered pitch of a tea kettle whistling indiscriminately. Did I miss their presence & smiles, and warmth of the heart. Yes. Do I miss the furious fighting? Yeah – not so much. My oldest, with less than ten days to go, has finally discovered the joy of sleeping in, but I’ll have to squash that in favour of waking up before 7am for school. Ha. One new set of issues to add into the mix come September. Glad for the hugs and good night kisses, could give the fighting a miss though.

So here we find ourselves once again, Thursday. With appointments to get to, errands to run, work to finish up, and an approvals process to observe. I think we are to have a few more days of rain, and if not rain then atleast overcast and cloudy. Temperatures more like mid to late September, than the dog days of summer like we are used to. Not that I miss the extremely hot stifling heat with no breezes that usually accompany the last days of August in southern Ontario. Perhaps we will once again wind up with a hotter November / December and on into January, with a wet cold October, and frigid February. Weird way to run things, but out of my control.

Hard to believe that we are almost into the ninth and final week of summer break. I feel as though we should be able to redo the two weeks in the middle, you know? I know we can’t, but that’s how it feels. Perhaps I over reacted by going and running a fundraiser to cover for being sad and upset. It certainly worked as a coping mechanism to get beyond the sadness I felt. Made it so I could sleep at night. Probably one of the more selfish things I’ve done in the face of emotional upheaval. Feeding on thanks & gratitude rather than wallowing in any sort of grief beyond the initial shock from the Monday night. Not a great quality, admittedly. But here we are.

I need to get a jump on a poster series for the upcoming Markham Fair 2023 at the end of September and very early October. So I best be about my business. Ciao Bella!

Home Alone – watching movies, reading, and working.

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Not necessarily in that order, but while the girls are all away for a bit this week, I tackled some minor cleaning, and watched some pretty violent movies at a reasonable hour. John Wick 4 was yesterday evenings attraction. Not a bad entry in the pantheon on Gun-Fu flicks. I liked it better than number three. But the first one is still the best. Sad to know now how the actor whom played The Concierge is actually dead, so no Continental Hotel of New York spinoff money for that guy. Too bad. Incredibly bad timing. But maybe they centre that set of stories around Winston The Manager now instead. Not sure how they’d do that. Writers strike will have to put a pin in it for now anyway.

I watched Scott Pilgrim vs. The World again on Monday night. Not really appropriate for the kids either, but less violent, sort of. No guns, but swords and fighting play a big role. So best to wait a few more years before I share that movie with either of them. I saw GOTG Vol 3 on my phone the day it came to digital, so I don’t need to rush to watch the Bluray. I’d like to share it with my wife, she sort of liked the first two anyway. Though, now we have this massively bloated roster of tv shows, specials, and other films in the universe that you have to have some (minor) understanding of, to enjoy the transition between movies 1 & 2, and the huge gap prior to movie 3. It certainly doesn’t play as an interlinked trilogy. Which spoils the overall flow just a little bit. Little bit. Little bit, you know? It feels as though someone cut out three hours of exposition between 2 & 3. Which they did. They smeared it over a bunch of other ‘content’, in hopes you’d watch that other stuff too, in order to get the whole picture. This film needed a prologue where they just straight up give you all that stuff up front. Would make it feel a whole lot more in line with movies 1 & 2 if they did. A Re-rerelease but with that upgrade would be beneficial. Oh well.

So here we are, Wednesday. Clean sheets, showered, house tidied up, and the rain outside is still falling. I have some projects to attend to, but otherwise a chill day is in store. The family is set to return today, in preparation for appointments tomorrow, and a child’s birthday party on the weekend. The house will come alive with noise once more! As much as I enjoy peace & quiet, I do miss the minions when they aren’t here with me. But I had loads to do, and I wasn’t much fun, so better to be with the rest of the family at the cottage to play with cousins, grand parents, aunts & uncles while I was working. Still missed them all terribly though.

So now we are down to the last 10 or 11 days of summer break 2023. Amazing how quickly nine weeks can pass you by. This summer will remain one to remember, not just for the tragedy, but for some other more pleasant memories. First time ever taking the kids to Wonderland! That was pretty awesome. Movies, parks, parties, pig farm, and sadly a funeral. Fireworks, shooting stars, fishing, paddle boarding, wake boarding, tubing, the fun seemingly never ends! The Bancroft Rockhound Gemboree! Finding a new route home! New roads, and books, and things to do & see. A very busy summer. Split by tragedy, right in the middle. Followed by the mad dash to fundraise, and then multiple funerals across southern Ontario. Sadly, at this point I think that will only start to happen more often, as we get closer to fifty years of age.

We are none of us left untouched by tragedy for long. May the long cold fingers of death not touch you until you are ready.

House cleaning…

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Dishes, floors, sheets, towels. The list could go on forever if you let it. Just knocking a few items off the list while the girls are all away for a few days. I was pretty busy yesterday, so I put cleaning off until this morning. Oddly enough I thought I would end up sleeping in until 10:00-11:00am, but I was awake by 7:00am, and had sheets in the wash, floors vacuumed, and dishes cleaned, and BBQ back under wraps before eight o’clock.

Last nights dinner was a little disappointing. I bought a fresh steak, of decent quality, left it in marinade for six plus hours, and misjudged my flipp and went too far over medium rare. Gah! My potato done with garlic cloves and olive oil drizzled over top became an over cooked roast potato that stabbed me in the gums on one side of my mouth. Had an M&M peanut that had gone bad, which also stabbed me in between two teeth, and that ended any desire to eat anything else. I did have a rather delicious rye and coke with dinner, which was ice cold, and rather tasty. I’ll stick with an oven pizza today. Skip anything extraneous.

I bought American Prometheous, and am now farther into that than the latest Adrian Tchaikovsky book. I want to go see Oppenheimer,  but my bladder won’t last 3 hours in a theater, it just won’t.  So I’ll watch John Wick four later today. I expect the kids to come home late tomorrow night, so I should watch anything violent, or gun crazy today, just to be sure.

I’m going to need to mop the kitchen floors today too. I washed the counters last night after making myself dinner. I should clean the stove top too while I’m at it. I’m thinking about all of the clothes we need to sort through in September. Bags upon bags, boxes, and bins full of the stuff. I love that we get stuff in for the kids,,but the pipelines gotta include pushing smaller clothing items out too. I need to drag a net through this whole house to get rid of all the broken toys, or the McDonalds plastic junk that accumulates every six months. Not that I want the house to be bare, but it doesn’t need to resemble the early stages of a house from hoarders, or a junk yard. Busted paper craft things litter the ground in the kids rooms. Random drawings, paintings and pictures are strewn everywhere, crumpled, ripped, torn, you name it. Stashed under boxes, inside drawers, used as bedding for stuffed animals. While I applaud their imaginative uses for non standard items, we do have too much of it absolutely everywhere. Ugh. So. Much. Stuff. It’s a lot.

I remember when I got both girls off to school together for the first time. I took three or four garbage bags worth of junk out of the house. Last year was considerably less than that. But I was also busier with work, so that hampered me a little. But I expect a good sized bags worth could once again come out of this house if I took the time to really organize, and triage the messes. That’s a September me problem. Ciao Bella!

Pulling muscles and exposing weaknesses.

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To say that my fitness journey has been rocky is a vast understatement. My goal of getting down under 200lbs has stalled, stopped, started, faultered, and sputtered more than it has actually delivered any results, and mainly because I haven’t been able to keep with it for more than a week to ten days at a time.

I was moving along at a fair pace during winter, until I caught Covid during March break. And since I’ve had EBV fairly recently, like late 2015, I wasn’t in a rush to have SARS2 kickstart that virus back up again, nor risk any Long Covid symptoms so I gave myself twelve weeks less a day before I picked up my weights, and actually got physically active again. Then we got into summer and our travel plans and I did not ship my weights, nor my bike along with us. And now I’m home, heading into the fall, and I have done only a day or two of exercise in the last month or more. I tried pull ups in the park the other day, and did a horizontal zip line type thing, and the muscles through my chest and abdomin are screaming bloody murder at me. So no sit ups just yet. No body weight hangs either!

I do fantasize about doing a proper free weights regimen, or getting into cycling, or Crossfit again, but ultimately I want to lose weight, get into better shape, but not spend much money at all to do so. So much like my writing, I need to convert action into habits, and fit it into my every day without fanfare or bluster. I know I will NEVER wake up early just to exercise, but I would stay awake 10-15 minutes more to fit in a quick jumble through some minor movements, provided I don’t make myself all sweaty after having showered for bed already.

Whatever – point is, my physical fitness is lacking, my discipline and motivation to get in and do anything is an uneven ebb and flow. I need to change it from an event to a habit, and that requires a mental shift I haven’t been able to replicate since 615 days ago when I started writing every day. And in most cases my blog post is more like an uneventful journal entry, and not the short stories, or long form writing I had intended it to be. Still going though! So that’s something.

My weight is hovering around 203-206lbs, and my goal is to reach 185lbs, and then possibly continue to 175lbs, and then remain close to that goal weight. Heavy enough to remain substantial, but not heavy enough to really harm my joints, knees, hips, ankles etc… take some pressure off of my abdomin, try to reduce my snoring too. Do my best to reduce all these new jiggly bits. Size down the stomach an inch or two so that my pants fit more comfortably. I don’t need to go back to a size 30 waist, but to be comfortable in 32’s would be beneficial for my wardrobe. That would open back up all the nicer menswear I had to put away as I got heavier. My dress shirts would all become wearable, same with my suits, sport coats, and jackets. All my medium t-shirts could come out of retirement too. Oh to dream. Ha. But I need to do it though. Wishing and wanting don’t seem to get me more than a day or two in. Going to HAVE to do things. Eat smaller portions, and be more active. Walk more. Squats, push ups, sit ups, lunges, burpees, running, cycling, swimming, lifting weights, stretching. Some, all, or a combination of the above. Consistently. For weeks and months on end.

Don’t worry, I won’t leave you hanging. I will be sure to report in regarding how things progress, or not. It’s a shame Fitbit’s are so pricey, a cheap step counter might be my best Avenue in. I like seeing a visual goal, and then reaching or exceeding something that I can see might work in my favour. Doubtful. Just an excuse to spend money. Though, I bet I can find my wife’s old first gen fitbit somewhere. Hmm.

Dial 614 for murder.

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How do I put this lightly? Heavy. Yes, you guessed it, another nonsense episode! How delightfully ridiculous. Have they come to be expected? Like a splash across the cheeks! I’d rather be doing a talk about a wood working project build, but I haven’t done anything like that in a few months now. Hard to discuss that which hasn’t been done. I think that once we get into September I’ll know more about what storage needs we’ll have.

It’s a known fact that we have more shoes, boots, sandals & crocs than we know what to do with. Same with coats, hats, and old jackets. Kids clothes that both kids have grown out of. Too many toys with no set place to keep them when they aren’t being played with. Closets full of junk. Basement full of baby stuff (think change table, crib, bumbos, and rubber play mats). So no shortage of need for storage space and solutions. But does it become a closet organizer, more shelves, toy trunks or toy boxes, a full set of lower cabinets with a butcher block top to cover one entire wall in the dining room, a new longer, but thinner dinner table, more individual chairs. It could be any number of things, or combination of items.

Once we decide what needs to be done I can order materials and draw up plans, and get things under way. But until then, no real plan has emerged for the content I provide. Just musings and nonsense. So that’s where we are at. Also I expect September to be busy, so I probably won’t be doing much wood working even if I had a storage project, plans, and the material at hand. So there is that to consider. Harumph.

I think that doing some deep cleaning in September might help me think a bit better too. All this clutter makes me anxious. I find it difficult to settle when the walls are closing in with stuff. Broken, messy, out of order stuff. Gah! I hate it. I hate it so much.

Happy Lazy Sunday to you all.

Travel is nice, but I do like to be at home.

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That’s where I get the best sleep, and feel the most comfortable. There are the people I care most about right here under my feet, and nothing much else to worry about beyond them. My hobbies are here, my best working conditions are here, my favourite snacks in my favourite quantities are here. My access to physical media is here, so I don’t have to use copious amounts of data to watch what I already own. Movies, tv shows, cartoons you name it, we have a pretty good library of stuff to read, watch, listen to, or interact with. My garden is here. I can putter around the lawns & trees and tidy up outside for our own benefit here. My shop and select tools are here to fix stuff, make stuff, or alter things are here. I like it here, not out and about. My bathroom is here, which I can reach from any point on the property in just a handful of seconds and foot steps. That’s a top shelf reason to love being at home! In my case anyway.

Only two weeks and a few days remain of Summer Break 2023. It has whizzed by unfathomablly quick. I feel like there is a two week memory hole right dead centre of it all to. Shame about that. But perhaps we can do some fun stuff, more so than usual, to fill up that void zone from late July/early August. We went to see the therapy pigs at Sweet Acres last night. The kids all had a blast. They ran, jumped, shrieked, and flew about like feral children for a couple of hours. We fed the pigs cucumber chunks, and participated in a watermelon smash. The kids all loved that, even if it did get a little messy. Outdoors, few bugs in the cool evening weather. The rain was even kind enough to hold off for us so that we didn’t get soaked.

Hard to believe that nine weeks can sail by so quickly, but here we nearly are, right. Slightly more than two full weeks left, and then the kids are back at it. Grades four, and one. Really real school for the both of them. Do I wish that they would bring back the OAC year? Yes, very much so. As handy as the two year full day kindergarten was for me, an OAC year would be for them. Take the training wheels off, mature for one more year, before you drop a fortune on college/university with out ever having free rein to fail, like you would get in your (FREE) OAC year in high school. The self reliance training you got from an OAC year was a real eye opener for some on just how hard being self motivating can be when you have access to all day parties, events, clubs, computer games, no parents, and more freedom than you’ve ever had in your life. You can’t shelter kids for 14 years of school, in a nanny state of mind, and then fob them off and expect anything other than a melt down or total disorder. The OAC year was the way to test those waters under ideal conditions. Not a new school, not new people, not a new town, not new living conditions, no major expenses for books/courses/food/entertainment. Just the last step off the dock ladder to float out into the water and see if you will sink or swim. And then make adjustments for the year after in order to be successful. But not now. Now it’s no failing, and handholding until you just walk straight off the dock, get soaked, shocked, panic, and flounder. Some kids from lower incomes probably already had to take care of themselves, so can do laundry, cook minor meals, gather themselves for time sensitive tasks. But those who were helped every single step of the way are now frozen, and don’t know where to begin. As the money rolls out of your account regardless of how well they can cope. I’m telling you, the cutting of the OAC year was a mistake. But I have zero facts, data points, nor sources to site here. Just my own experience, and the anectodal stories of the high school teachers I talk to.

Welcome to Saturday. We’ve got some early apple picking to do this afternoon down at the farm. A warm evening in the orchard. I hope the wasps aren’t crazy aggressive yet, as that may pose a significant hazard to my enjoyment of early season apple picking. Otherwise a quiet day ahead. Ciao Bella.

Why is it that…

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I can nap just about anywhere, but my body gets really picky about where I can actually sleep, and all the things I need to get a great deeper rest. Nap in a hot car, but absolutely have to have a gale force wind blowing on me at night to sleep. Nap wrapped in warm blankets. Have to have my legs exposed at night or else I overheat. Nap with no pillow beyond my own arm, or whatever is at hand. Can not sleep with incorrect pillows at the wrong neck height. Like what the hell is even going on here? Though i must admit, I usually only nap because my body battery feels as though it has dropped preciptously to zero way too fast and I’m drowsy anyway. Versus going to bed when i am still thinking about work, or tomorrow, or errands I need to run. After having EBV in 2015 I do tend towards physical fatigue even easier than I did when I just had to deal with the malabsorption from Crohn’s Disease. So there is that factor. Something to ponder.

Taking the kids to Sweet Acres this evening. It’s a pig sanctuary. We’re going to visit their two therapy pigs Wellington & Spartacus. My family has gone twice, though not recently. It’s a bit out of the way, off of Vivian Road, but easy enough to get to. It was an opportunity offered to our friend’s son. Yes, that one. The lone survivor of July’s tragic accident which saw fit to take both his mum and little sister. His father has tried to keep him active, busy, and engaged with friends to try to keep him happy during this difficult time. He’s my oldest daughters best friend (or one of the “Tight Five” core group she talks about, plays with, every school day).

Had some last minute late evening projects yesterday, but it has otherwise been a quiet week. Not going to complain about that! Allowed me to do a few things around the house for a change. Domestic Duties Mondays won’t start until all the kids go back to school in September. Plus – new wrinkle, my wife starts her year off officially on September 5th, 2023. So I need to work her continued daily presence into the cleaning schedule too. A helping hand? Maybe, or an additional obstacle to work around? More than likely. Fun times. It is going to be an adjustment. But we got through all of the school shut downs together, so we can figure out a plan for this too. Roll those sleeves up, and dig in!

I have some work to do today, so I best get at it. Ciao Bella! Take care out there on this random friday in August of 2023. I think it is the 18th.

Funny how things line up.

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It isn’t often that my wife goes out of town to visit a recently disabled friend from work, but when she does it’s usually right after a night out, and on the same day she has to spend another night at the sleep apnea testing facility. You can lie low all year and then BAM! Everything comes together over a span of just a few days. From what I heard Oppenheimer was good, but had a fair deal of Florence Pugh’s tits in it. Not a mark against in my book, but this is from my wife’s perspective. Robert Downey Jr plays an excellent bastard too. Coming out from under his Ironman shadow – good to hear. The visuals were neat, and that was about as much as I got out of it because my wife was really stuck on just how much you get to see Florence Pugh’s tits, and for seemingly so long at a time. Really made an impact with her. IMAX tits for all! Apparently.

Dinner at the Upper Canada mall was at some swanky pizza place, if such a thing exists. I don’t much care for arugula on my pizza, so no harm done there. I ordered from Domino’s for us playing the home game anyway. Had a tingle of nostalgia while doing so. Been a fair few years since I’ve run a pizza place. I always liked the crusts at Domino’s. Though I do develop heart burn from the modestly spiced tomato sauce, or the corn meal they dust the dough in. Fun times.

So I have the kids to myself today from 8:00am till 4:00pm, then 7:30pm to 6:00am. Going to be a long, long, long day here at the ranch. I’m not keen on yet another Zoo trip. Nor another zip to a local mall. But it might depend on weather. If it’s going to be a scorcher then an indoor destination will be my preferred target to eat up some of these hours. Youngest won’t sit for a movie, so theater is out. Both kids won’t, nay can’t, ride the same caliber of rides at Wonderland, so that’s out too. Watching the two of them myself at the pool is exhausting. Bike rides are out, too hot & youngest is not up to snuff on her big kid bike to go any farther than our own street. Street hockey’s no good, as in the mornings our driveway is too exposed to the sun. Trying not to melt or get burnt today.

Air Riderz or skilled theme parks are out because I can’t guarantee that the youngest will actually try new extreme events, or stand close by if we do (which I won’t do, because she’ll wander away while I’m 20 plus feet in the air, so no go). So that’s out. I wonder if I can find an indoor glow in the dark mini putt, or something low impact for my six year old to also enjoy. I’d love to try rock climbing or laser tag, but it’s hard to say if all three of us will give it the ole college try on the same task at the same time.

So what to do, what to do. First – eat breakfast. Second – gather the troops. Third – toss around ideas for something to do this morning, or possibly a little longer than that. I have no idea where we will wind up today. Could be awesome, could be lame. Just never know.

Going for results later on this morning.

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We have a couple of medical items today in the extended family. My nephew is having surgery in Victoria, and my wife is getting her sleep apnea/airway results this morning too. Fingers crossed for swift healing, and good news all around.

Us on the other hand will need to head down to the farm to pick cucumbers for pickling purposes. A quick one hour jaunt before the temperatures begin to soar again. The humidity has made a comeback after being really mild for 10 or so days. Unseasonably rainy in these parts this summer too. Lush foot tall green grass in august is unheard of. Not this year though. I can usually slow down to one cut a month come July, but I’ve had a go at it atleast once a week non-stop since May. At $1.73/L of gas that is going to prove to have been a very expensive maintenance item this year. Could always be worse, if you think about it long enough.

What is worse than non-stop growing grass you might ask, I’ll tell you. The all consuming growth of weeds. But I will say this, the rain has kept the soil soft & fluffy, so the weeds and their roots pull right out. Not that my back or knees care much for that fact mind you. Hunched over on all fours pulling several hundred pesky weeds and long grasses out of my flower beds is not my ideal way to spend an afternoon, nor a morning for that matter. Bugs are still really awful this late in the year tells me one of two things. Either the winter was too mild to kill off much of the winged buzzing bug population, or the avian flu has killed much of the winged bug eating bird types that would usually be out here keeping those pests under control. Hm.

Still haven’t read much of book #15. Had a bit of misfortune with a friends passing, funerals and a fund raiser. Then I was feeling really unfocused, and I haven’t managed to get the desire to read back just yet. I’m kinda leaning towards going to sculpt something, but my resin kit remnants is taking up my work bench. Scatter brained as of late it seems.

Cable box is shot.

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Roger’s really wanted us to upgrade away from the next box, so much so they potentially fried our box remotely. After a long morning of waiting in line in a physical store, to be told I needed to call a different helpline, I went home and did just that. Waited on hold & chatted for twenty plus minutes, and I think… I think I’m getting a new box, remote, and power cable under the ignite services? My hearing is shit, neighbours are doing tree work, and her accent & twitchy telephone line made it difficult to 100% understand. But it sounded positive, and that it would be fixed in short order. I’ll likely have to call again tomorrow if past issues are any indication. Wonderful.

In other news I bought & watched the BlackBerry movie, and it was really good. I enjoyed the whole thing. Great. Glenn Howerton should be super proud of that performance. He couldn’t be less Dennis Reynolds than that. Loved it. Up next is John Wick 4. Wish us luck!