Greatwall Studios Graphic Design

Tough crowd out there today. Early morning chill in the air, and all that jazz. Summer hits real different when the thunderstorms suck out all of the humidity. Got us all searching for sweaters and long pants as we sit in the shade with a cross breeze. You think you’ll never be cool again when the heat waves roll in, but once they move on, you start thinking about “This feels like the fall and October” – again. Very strange.

Spent a good chunk of yesterday (when not at my desk working) pulling thistles from the lawn. I hate thistles so, so much. Stabbed in the fingers and palms over, and over again. Usually if you pull a scotch thistle out just above the root, where it meets the ground you can avoid the worst of the prickly bits. But the midsized ones haven’t softened at the base yet, and shredded my gloved palms. I need to find a manufacturer that builds really tough gloves. Nothing I own can truly deal with either a thistle or a rose bush. It’s really very irritating.

Now you may ask yourself, why do the titles of these posts have so little to do with the actual content? And I’d say, I’m merely staying on trend with National newspapers, who post inflammatory head lines that are misleading vs. What was written. So I take the next logical step and write odd titles, and then fill it with stream of consciousness blathering. Fun stuff huh? Yeah. Yeah it is. Take that money to the bank. A cool 6 cents worth of advertising dollars! Look at me rolling in the views & exposure!

For most a Sunday evening is full of trepidation and concern for the work week ahead, but for us it was overwhelmed by a massive thunder storm with lightning that was close enough to be nearly instantaneous with the booming thunder clap. Very exciting. No tornado that we know of anyway. Which is good. The humidity was sapped which is fantastic. At least for the moment. A real fresh start for a Monday. Lovely.

Let us see if this work week is as busy as last week, and the week before that. Either way, with the break in the weather for this week, might as well get out and about with the family to enjoy the summer while it’s not a complete scorcher. A day here or an afternoon there where it’s hot is great, but bot for multiple weeks on end that have increased year over year.

Most evenings I think of a really funny title or topic to write about, and by the morning it’s completely erased from my memory. I think to myself, oh this is so good, I can’t possibly forget. Then I promptly forget after I fall asleep. What an idiot!

So you’re stuck with whatever else pops into my head the day of. It’s not to say I won’t spontaneously remember at some point in the day, of course I do. But it becomes a matter of whether I now feel it worth to write down after already having posted something else. You can see the bind that puts me in. My hands are tied, really. It’s company policy, nothing I can do. (No, on all three counts, but still. I don’t wanna!)

Took the kids for a late evening swim, which continues to get a little earlier than the day before. I can’t believe we are only a week away from August. Where does the time go? Well, besides sleeping, working & the family that’s all the time we had today kids. Come back next time, remember to hold on to your ticket stubs and receipts and we can validate your parking for you.

Lazy Sunday today. And I’m feeling the delayed onset of muscle soreness (doms) from a couple big work outs, and weeding the pumpking patch in the intense heat. My calves and hamstrings are singing today, believe you me. The thing is squatting in the sun to pull weeds leaves me more sore than lifting the weights I have at home. I’d like to go buy a few more heavier dumbbells, but they’re not cheap. Even at Walmart, that shit’s expensive. I guess it’s more of an investment in myself/health, but $100 or so per dumbbell is a bit rich for my blood. At least until those invoices start creeping in with cheques attached. But to be honest, I’m more interested in buying hardwood in September than I am buying free weights.

The furniture building bug is still with me. I’d like to build a quality bookshelf/cabinet for my office, so I can display some items I’ve had in storage for about a decade or more. Free up some closet space at the same time. I want to make a slab coffee table too, but my attentions and needs have shifted a bit recently. Once the kids are a bit older a larger wall unit for storage will need to be built around the fireplace in the living room. Gotta get some quality hand made projects under my belt before I tackle something with that much exposure.

Had a bout of insomnia last night thinking about the execution of a print ad I’m currently working on. I think we’ve nailed down the concept, and I’m creeping up on the execution. We’re going to get there, of that I’m certain, but it will take another hour or two of dedicated focus on contact shadows, spilled ambient light, and reflections to achieve. So expensive, is what I’m saying in a round about way. I started off with a functionally easy execution that was cost effective, and a new more intricate design was requested, so now it’s on! Invoices out means money coming in.

I’ve never enjoyed dreaming about work, that usually means I’m stressed out, but it actually gave me a good idea on how to fix my problem, so begrudgingly I will accept this small offer of subconscious help. Not that I want much more of it. Woke up with a sore jaw, so I know I was grinding my teeth from stress. Good times. I had to wear an acrylic bridge for years because I was doing that constantly in my teens. What an awful appliance that was to have cemented in. Cracked a fair number of my molars when removing it too.

We are all still alive and well. Three down, six to go. This minor heat wave is making outdoor time a bit stressful. Not do much fun playing the farmer wannabe when the temperature goes way up. Had dome minor rain last night here, along with thunder & lightning. Not much though, as it didn’t last long. Ground was very dry when I woke up, so that’s not an ideal sign of much precipitation.

The TelMax people have begun to drill in order to run fiber optic cable in our whole town, so those Vermeer drilling rigs are all over the place along with huge reels of orange and blue fiber optic lines. The vacuum trucks are y far the loudest aspect of the operation so far. According to the spray paint, flags and guide holes, we should end up with four new holes on the front lawn, to match all of the streets water shut offs, and gas main shut offs, road signs and lamp posts that we all ready have. Marginally less grass to mow I guess. I flagged down our homes water shut off, so I hope they don’t hit that either.

I am mostly done with report #2 of (6) six, for this busy season, which ends in late September, possibly spilling into early October. Good to get the work in, and done before the weekend comes. I like to swim and hang out with my kids guilt free on weekends. God damn why can’t we get passed Covid, so many things I’d like to take my kids to, and to go experience together. Theme Parks, indoor go cart rides, movies, bowling, indoor rock climbing, a mall for an air conditioned stroll. Gah! So dull with those things stricken from the list of potential day trips and fun family time. Not that with this heat we’d ever turn down a swim, or a splash through the creek at the farm looking for fish, toads, minnows or crayfish. That’s always an adventure!

It was a busy week to ten days or so, four sell sheets, various print ads, one big report, five can labels (355ml & 473ml), icon illustrations and logo creation, and some compositing, as well as a 3D rendering for an updated product package. A solid ten days of heightened workload, followed by?… who knows what. Maybe some retail signage? New business development from another micro brewery? Packaging projects? Definitely more reports, that much I know for certain. Joy’s of freelancing I’m sure.

You all know well enough that if I had of cancelled plans for yesterday evening, the clouds would have immediately parted and the sun shown through. But as it was it stayed blustery and tried to dribble on the walk down, but nothing much came of it. That was until around 9:45pm when it was time to walk home after a round of adult beverages (I’m a light weight, so no driving). And within a handful of steps the rains began to fall. It was more of a mild annoyance. The rain felt fine in the dark, but looked way worse in the light of the street lamps, or the cone of a head light. Then it looked pretty awful. My main concern was the flashing of lightning in the sky. But no rumbles, so I was confident it was all fairly far away. It rumble a good crack once or twice when I was within five hundred meters of home, so all together not awful. Could have been a whole lot worse. It wasn’t a completed downpour, and the lightning was far away. I could have called for a ride, but it wasn’t that bad. Plus it had been so hot and humid that the coolness of the rain on my shoulders was welcomed.

Now did any of it hit the farm? Given that it lasted roughly twenty minutes and was by my estimation blowing north east, I think it passed over the up and coming vegetable crops. So back we’ll go for our turn at watering. Nothing screams fun! Like lugging dirty hoses around the gardens.

Should I have been surprised to see so many restaurants in town that were packed to the gills last night? I visited a covered patio with a high ceiling, open all four sides, with only a few scattered guests. So I think I’m ok. I had my N95 on me, and kept my distance, but who knows if that’s enough with BA.5 at this point.

Ends in one of several ways. You’re either really rested and ready to get up and go (unlikely!) Or you feel groggy and then get the best six minutes of sleep you’ve ever had in your life (yeah baby!) Or it’s some kind of emergency and you get up in a panic, feel both awake and exhausted and then crumple into a heap once the shock of being awoken early has worn off.

We are heading off to harvest garlic under a stark and uncaring sun, in the sizzling morning heat. With any luck the rain we had recently will mean we don’t have to fight every single garlic clove coming up out of the ground. Given how sweaty and grumpy the first crew was about it yesterday evening, I think it’s going to be a bit of a slog to get through. Just a thought anyway. I give my kids about 30-45 seconds of work before they desire a swim, or just up and leave the garden we’ll be working in. This is when a big portable 10x10ft tent would come in handy. You could work under it out of the sun. The heat will still suck, but the full force of the baking sun would not be scorching my back the whole time. Things you realize far too late in the year!

So, the other day I milled up a couple of old reclaimed boards, and now I need to decide what to build with it all. It’s not much, so a book case or cabinet are out. I have enough for a box, or open vessel of some sort. Unless I tackle more of the reclaimed wood pile. I need to leave some in a rustic state to make a sign for my wife’s side of the family. Something that will go to their cottage at some point. Our living room desperately needs storage space. Like a big wall unit of asymmetrical shape, to fit the odd space, but gives us shelves, and drawers in which to place… stuff. Kids stuff mainly. Not that the 3ft x 2ft toy box I built helped all that much. You have to put your stuff BACK into the toy box for it to be a long term solution.

So take care, and stay safe while the heat and humidity play out over the next two days. Stay in the shade. Sit in your tub submerged in cool water. Turn on your AC if you have it. Go walk around a mall with AC if you don’t have it at home. Drink lots of water. Try not to over exert yourself in the open sunshine. Plop yourself infront of a fan. Hit up a public pool or splash pad if available in your area.

It is Tuesday, and July is nearly 3/4 done. Crazy how time flies when there is no escape from anyone.

Go stand in line at a Service Ontario office for two hours to renew your plates, and exchange those plates for new ones where the numbers and letters have not come off the metal. Surrounded by hot sweaty people in a humid office building hallway. Some masked (yeah!) And some not (boo!).

Watching crowds of people wander in off the street, take one look at the lineup outside of the office and then reverse course. There were, what I thought, nine people ahead of me, not great, but not awful. That was until I saw into the actual room itself to see fifteen or so clumps of people waiting patiently for their turn at the counter. Intermingled with countless car dealership folks floating in and out in a near constant stream. Blargh. Not a fun Monday afternoon treat. But altogether not that bad. Seventy five minutes of standing and waiting, followed by a very quick ten minutes of action, and then going about putting the plates back on and getting my paperwork sorted into the appropriate spot. Near painless. But one vehicle is done until 2024, so go team!