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It’s like being in a whole new country when the wind, rain and low temperatures dissipate to reveal blue skies and warm sunshine. What a day to be alive. Have to find what joy you can in the stuff that is in your midst. Life is short. Too short sometimes. Find peace wherever you can find it.

Has been a busier week than usual. Not surprising since I had to miss a few days at the end of last week. I’ll get progressively more busy as we lead into fall. The summer events have to all happen first, and then we build the reports after all those surveys are done.

Not much to say today. Ciao Bella!

As hectic as an all indoor day can be, they atleast sat still to watch the Super Mario Bros movie in the late afternoon. We did don our rain gear to venture outdoors a few times, but nothing like we’d do on any given sunny summer day. Nobody got hurt (that I know of) and no major fights among the kids. We did swap one child over to a big kid bed which caused a fuss, but that was to be expected. Kids and change go together like fire & ice. Otherwise – all good.

We have officially passed the halfway point of summer break. Five weeks down, with four (mostly) left to go. Almost into double digit days of August. Where does the time go. Some fairly major changes have occurred too. A summer to remember, for all the wrong reasons.

Looking to next week we start having appointments again. Friends to see, and in my case work to be completed. I believe I have four new sizable projects to do for the rest of August, and into early September. I wonder if all my projects will taper off in early November, or if I’ll go full tilt right up to the new year. Difficult to tell at this point. Last year there was a mad dash for events to get some marketing surveys done before the year was out. I have no idea if that was a one off, or if that is usually how things go now. The times, they are a changing.

Soon we’ll need to go and buy new indoor & outdoor shoes for both kids. Backpacks, paper, pencils and markers. Scissors, erasers, rulers and so much more. Glue sticks, and hole punches, white out – oh my! Those “See you in September ” back to school ads will roll out on the television. Radio ads announcing tech & clothing sales will start to dominate the airwaves. Preroll ads for Staples with Howie Mandell chatting to mom’s about backpacks will be unskippable before every children’s video on YouTube. Much to my kids dismay. Tis the season to send our kids back to school. I’ll need to order more masks for the kids since nobody does anything about Covid anymore. Especially not the school. While good hygiene is important, and I appreciate the hand washing focus, cleaner air, and reduced airborne pathogen transmission would be greatly appreciated too. But I digress.

Happy Tuesday.

So much for the holiday Monday, it’s rainy and miserable outside. Kids are going to feel all cooped up indoors if it continues to storm. Blargh.

Finally saw GOTG Vol 3 last night. It was decent. Nothing out of the ordinary though. Music wasn’t the same draw as the first two. But, oh well.

So I am going to post both PDF’s for Part One & Part two of my interconnected Short Story Series, just for schnitzels and giggles. I’m in the middle of catching up on work I missed while I was out of town with the funerals late last week, and over the weekend. I am not sure who is or isn’t working on tomorrows civic holiday, so I thought it best to get ahead of things in case my family wants to be out & about, but other folks decide to work. Best to have something for them to look over and discuss if I am not going to be manning my computer exactly from 9:00am – 5:00pm. I’ll check in, I always do. But perhaps a BBQ, or a quick run to the local beach might be in order, you know.

And because i’m feeling lighter than usual, probably an after effect of attending two funerals very recently, I’m going to post nearly 200,000 words worth of my work for you all to peruse should you feel like it. I’m not tagging this to draw attention to is, so only the few who look will get them. Cool? cool.

Also, I should add, if it isn’t all ready apparent, this is my 600th day of uninterrupted writing. That feels pretty good. A treat for us all then!

And that’s that for today. All the best to you out there. Cheers!

As tough as it was yesterday to pay respects to my dead friend, today will be far worse. Today we go to remember the feisty five year old. I expect to see parents and children at this one. You could have heard a pin drop yesterday during the service, excepting for a few sighs, sniffles, and an occasional soft sob. Today, who boy, I think we might hear wailing, moaning, and all sorts of histrionics. Not going to lie this weekend has had a difficult and exacting emotional toll. Although rather than be alone, but fir friends, this time I will have my whole immediate family with me. I expect them to only remain a short while before they make a quiet exit. I will stay for the visitation, service, and for a brief stint at any social afterwards if it is on site. This one will be hard to bear. It hits far to close to home for comfort.

So that has been my August Civic Holiday long weekend 2023 experience. I realize how selfish that sounds. One need only to imagine briefly the grief the affected family feels, and you will know how good you’ve actually got it. For us, a sad brief brake from summer vacation. For those suffering, a life time of changes and lost memories. The consequences of our actions are felt long after we leave, by those who had no way to change them.

By all accounts today is August 5th, 2023. A sunny, blue skied Saturday. The first Saturday of the month. And a holiday weekend at that. I think I’ve shared this before, here, that the week immediately after the accident is a total blur to me. I cannot for the life of me distinguish the actions of any one particular day, except Tuesday morning. I recall feeling very distracted that I could not work. And yet I still had enough rolling about upstairs to locate relatives to ask permission to begin the fundraiser. Wait for approvals, and then build, manage, update, thank, and execute by myself. It was one of the few things that kept me from wallowing in sadness at the loss of my friend, and our daughters friend/classmate. Between expanding the posts reach on various socials, answering related emails, fb chats, messages, phone calls, texts, and journalists inquiries (only 3, luckily). Plus I think I wrote out over 250 thank yous to all who donated. I realize that should I ever decide to do another one, I need to organize a full team, and delegate tasks to others. I will say this, the GoFundMe people were a pleasure to work with. My interactions with them were brief, concise, and courteous. It was a simple platform to use, and I didn’t find their service/transaction fees to be outrageous. I give them 5/5 stars. With more than $27,000.00 dollars Canadian raised, they took less than $900.00 in fees. Which I felt was reasonable. You don’t get service rates that good from a bank. But what do I know. I’m sitting on my floor dreading going to this second funeral in two days. So maybe my judgement is clouded. Hard to say.

Less than 2 hours away from the start of the next service. Showered, shaved, and clothes set out for all of us. Remind me not to let my kids swim the day before because the hair we laboured over for hours to get detangled is a mass of knots once more. Pixie cuts all around I say! Or a far shorter summer Bob needs to be instituted if my kids won’t handle their own hair, nor let us do it daily. Grr! Buzz cuts would make things just that much easier for summer. I’m rambling now. We need to eat before heading off. Don’t need hangry kids running about getting emotional. Ciao Bella. Take care of yourselves out there.

Not feeling physically well on the lead up to the first of two funerals this weekend. Guts are all tied up in knots, and I feel pressure in my chest, and pain 8n my intestines. The glory of having Crohn’s Disease I suppose. Here’s hoping I can keep myself in order throughout the visitation & the service itself.

Then I turn my eyes toward tomorrow ordeal. Atleast in tomorrow’s case I’ll have my entire immediate family with me. I hope there is a park near by. It’s ok though, we will deal with whatever comes up as it happens. I know my kids will need to take a few breaks, and maybe even call it off early. It’ll be a hard time for all of us.

The stress and worry, as well as sadness I feel is taking a physical toll on my body right now. I do not reccomend. Zero stars.

At no less than two funerals this weekend. I need to travel a fair bit this afternoon on top of it all too. But as ugly as it is, I will most likely fare better at my friend’s funeral, as she was 42, than say –  her 5 year old daughters. I am not in the appropriate head space for either of these things just yet. I need to wrap my head around revisiting all the grief & pain. Not only of my own, but just how much of it I’ll be witness to from other people. I just know I’ll come away from two days of this with a sore lump of a throat. Although that usually stems from not crying, or trying not to cry which hurts my throat. So maybe I’ll let go and will walk away physical pain free.

Emotionally, yeah that will be a different story entirely. I do have the knowledge that I helped just a bit after the fact, so perhaps I will have the wherewithal to focus on that rather than the fact my friend is dead and gone. It’s a long shot, but I’ll give it a whirl.

So that is what is swirling around in my head right now. Trying to psyche myself up for an emotionally charged couple days. We are bringing the kids to their friend’s funeral. I understand they have an activity center, and there is to be no small coffin, nor open casket. Just an urn and photo collages, and flowers. As the wee one was cremated prior (or will have been so) prior to the event. I can not speak to my friend. I hope not. Open casket that is. I’d prefer to remember her as I knew her.

Happy Thursday to all whom celebrate.

For such a great country as we have here in Canada, our cell service sorta sucks if you spend any time right outside the large city centers. Or maybe that’s just me, and my phone carrier. Important calls dropped. Speech cut up into unintelligible chunks. Echoes and buzzing. Gah! Just awful. We need to do something about it. Sharpish.

Had friends by for a visit which was a welcome respite from last weeks emotionally charged mad dash to raise funds for a friend’s son. Swimming, chatting, bbq lunch, and even ice creams for everyone. Great to see all the kids laughing and having fun. The sun was out, and it wasn’t boiling hot, so a win for everyone. I was really glad for the mid day interruption. Felt good to focus on something a little different for an afternoon.

In alternate news I haven’t read much of book #15 for ten days or more. I don’t actually remember much of last week. It was a bit of a blur. Heightened emotions washed out what little I remember of any individual day. Funny how that works.

Pretty sure today is Tuesday, not only that but August first to boot. Halfway into the summer break. How wild is that. Chat again tomorrow.

I’d love to boast about my experiences, but the truth is there are factors out of my control that need to be settled before I’ll feel comfortable reporting on my campaign. I will say it has had a net positive effect.

Hopefully by next week all the details will be ironed flat and I can say more, if I still feel like talking about it. Just know that I am proud of all of you for making it such a resounding success for Erik’s future wellbeing. I cannot thank you all enough for that.

– M