Greatwall Studios Graphic Design

All three are on their way to a Guiding event at BMO Field downtown today. Due to the Go Train tracks getting some service done they’ve had to resort to the Go Buses which means a longer trip and no bathrooms onboard. The game doesn’t start until 1:00 pm so they’ve got a ways to go yet in travel time, and then sorting all the troops into their assigned sections with chaperones. Could be a mad house down there today. On a positive note it should be 17°C and sunny all afternoon for them. No rain this time, that’s got to count for something in an open air stadium with no roof or coverings.

I’ve just returned from walking the dog, and I’m going to have breakfast. I’m trying to work myself up to going into the garage to get my furniture build on the move once more. Or I could watch a movie or nap, or doom scroll for the entire day? Did I mention I finally started my sculpture project I’d wanted to get done for this year’s fair? Ha. Just ten days too late. It’s not even done, just started to bulk out some sections ready for a skin layer. At this rate I should have a new item for next fall though, so that’s good news. I do want this front entrance storage unit done. Ugh. Being productive is rewarding and all but so is vegging out! Decisions decisions…

It’s below zero in the wind but we all showed up to show our this Saturday morning in the pumpkin patch. From two years old up into their seventies the gangs nearly all here. Soon we’ll gather for pizza and drinks then toddle off on our merry way heavily laden down with our gourds of choice.

Looks like they’re celebrating the twentieth year of hosting a Halloween Haunt series at the park. A few factors lead to last night being a good night for riders. One, it was positively cold last night once the sun went down. Two, under the threat of rain midway into the evening. Three, the tragedy in Six Flags Atlanta meant both B&M giga-coasters were shut down for the remainder of the season, so no Leviathan and no Behemoth. Plus as a very loose fourth point it was a Thursday night with no PA Day on the Friday, nor any sort of holiday. All of these together meant it was practically a walk on coaster night if you weren’t doing the mazes or the Conjuring fright night events (which you pay extra for). So we got on six rides in about 2 hours, stopped for food and bathroom breaks, and walked around a little too. We didn’t quite make three full hours because the rain hit just before nine o’clock and we called it. That’s what’s so great about having passed we no longer need to try to wrong every single ounce of fun out of an admission to the park. We go for whatever is fun and leave when we feel like it. Great!

Now it’s an oddly warm yet very rainy Friday morning. I have sent one project out, and will start a new one shortly. I need to clean up around here because my youngest has a guest coming before volleyball this afternoon, and I promised to glue on, and primer/spray paint her pumpkin helmet so that she can actually get some colour onto it this weekend. So I’m going to finish my breakfast, get a jump on my display project, and then splash some primer on this helmet mask thing, and see if I can clean up a little, vacuum and mop before the school day ends. Never a full moment around here!

A new addition to our field of inflatable Halloween characters on the front yard, along with the hanging skeleton, and a glowing serpent. I think we’ve reached the limit on the two plugs on the one outlet now. If we ever go for more I’ll need a second timer and to start using another outlet on the opposite side of the house. The really little kids up the street seem to like it a lot, same with my own children. The new twenty footer is a surprise for them when they get home. It takes a while to fill and even longer to deflate! Such fun! The box for it is pretty sizeable so I’ll have to revisit the storage solutions I have in place.bi have room, just a matter of tweaking the order in which every item gets put away. The serpent and skeleton go over the garage door so this new massive inflatable can go there too I think. I’m in the process of using up nearly all of my cherry wood so I am thinning out the garage contents one project at a time to offset adding in new decoration storage boxes.

I wonder if the increased presence on the lawn will attract more trick or treaters this year? It’s feast or famine around here. I either get a long string of tots and toddlers or I get nobody whatsoever. And I have zero indication which it will be until the night itself comes. I typically stay home to keep an eye on the candy bowl, and to watch Alien and have an evening in. It’s Saturday this year so I wonder if things will be a little crazier than usual with no school in the morning. Sunday of the first the clocks change which is always good for a laugh.

I have a tiny skeleton for the front door I have yet to put up, so I should go dig through our Halloween box to find him/her/it. Once that’s done all that is left are carved pumpkins done much closer to the event day, and to buy the candy we need to give out. It’s best to wait on that because if I know it’s here in the house I will tear into those boxes and gorge myself on Twice bars, Mars bars and Snickers bars like the weak will fat man that I am. Look at me I’m a pear!

Looks like it will be a cool night for the Halloween Haunt at Wonderland, so we best dress warmly. I love the lights and decorations. We don’t typically try any of the actual scary stuff because I’m personally not a fan. But I guess I could try once my eldest gets a little older if that’s something she likes. Only time will tell.

Some of my older posts are doing real well in China right now. Seems to come in waves from different regions of the world. That’s cool. And this go around they are reading or at least viewing specific named articles and not just archives (which tells me nothing). Nothing much compares to that single 1,500 viewer day from Germany that lead to a 2,000+ month of July 2025. But a big regional jump is cool just the same. Those good days of 70-100 views dissipated and have come back down to the more easily sustained 20-30 views per day. I’d love to know where the lower limit is for those who can make money off of this sort of endeavour. I would guess that they need 20 to 30 thousand visits per day to collect ad revenue of any size to be useful. Here I am working towards 8,000 for the year of I can make that happen through sheer force of will and determination. Keep the writing streak going, and look towards the future!

I recently applied for a part time job here in town. I do not know what, if anything, will become of it. I’ll keep you posted if it turns out that I learn more. Ciao Bella!

Cutting in the box joint teeth by hand has been a slow moving process but today I finished section two. Now that these two bits of the upper most shelf are done I can transfer each side to the appropriate leg. That will require some rigging up of suitable clamps to position the pieces correctly so that my transfers are true. I need some painters tape, a fine marker, and then the use of a knife to get blade tight edges do it’s good and snug! I can pull off the tape where I don’t need it and clear our the receiving pins over the next couple of days. There was talk of snow on Friday or Saturday so those would be good days to stay warm in the shop making small cuts and doing chisel work.

While not the cleanest job I’ve ever done I’m getting better. The trick is to not rush. Once I get impatient it all goes to hell, so live to fight another day and all should go well! I hope.

I spent my morning walking the dog, cutting the grass, taking down the swing & slack line and erecting all of the Halloween inflatables and our (now hanging) skeleton. Add in a few loads of laundry and that’s been my entire morning. The decorations took just about 2.5 hours to complete. Welcome to Wednesday I guess.

It has been raining pretty heavily since late last night, so today’s walk was a little hurried and wet. It didn’t last more than ten minutes. Oh well.

In other news an anniversary with my wife is coming up and to surprise her I am going to learn to make a proper French Onion Soup, with yellow onions, unsalted butter, thyme, white wine (Sauvignon Blanc) , all purpose flower, chicken & beef broth (low sodium), salt & pepper, gruyere cheese and toasted baguette. All told it should take me about 90 minutes to prep and make (I hope!) I bought those very specific crockery bowls and they are in the dishwasher getting cleaned while I wash the kitchen counter and stove top before I settle in.

The ingredients list reveal!

If what I’ve read is correct it takes about an hour to caramelize the onions, the rest is pretty quick except while you wait to summer things, or wipe down the pan to deglaze it. I’m no chef so this could get ugly. To top it off I need to toast the baguette slices and shred the cheese and broil the lot in the oven to achieve brown bubbly goodness. So we will see how it goes. Hence why I will practice on my own before I do it for real for my wife. Lots can go wrong if I become distracted or impatient. Cross your fingers for me!

Had to make a call to figure out just how brown to let these onions get.

In the end it smells great and I just need to toast the baguette first so it doesn’t turn to mush. Tastes ok to me. I don’t know how authentic it is though.

It’s a long and physical process that includes removing a large tarp, deck boards, and adding guide wires back on to the aluminum frame, and shifting the pivot point into the air from underneath the composite deck boards we lifted off earlier.

You get through that and then it’s time to turn the crank to lift the whole gods forsaken lot up out of the water so that the freezing lake can’t crush it with ice floes coming down off the windswept main lake body. Getting the thing to hang right is a real process.

After that we need to untie the big do I from all three anchor points, separate the pieces, untie the gangway from shore, unbolt the main body from shore and then float the whole mass over into a secluded bay and rig it to shore out of the wind and coming ice sheets. That’s a long and tedious job too. Hopefully the last of the long weekend.

While a cottage is fun they are also a tonne of extra work. Once I got here I had to spend an hour cutting all the grass before we could even start on closing things down and putting our summer gear away. It’s a weekend full of heavy lifting, pulling, pushing and wrangling of unwieldy objects. Not for the faint of heart.

We had our fanciful holiday meal last night so today after breakfast we can get this dock off the list. Anything else is small potatoes in comparison. I pray for no rain/snow nor winds of any sort. Wish us well!

It’s cool, it’s extremely dark and it’s comfortable. Did I mention both fans go full tilt the entire time? It’s a little sleep oasis. While the pillows take a little getting used to, the length of my night’s sleep is extended because for one thing I am several floors down from everybody else, two; there are several other adults here and I am not top of mind to my children, so I get left undisturbed, and Three it’s a trek to get down to this corner and my kids HATE doing stairs into dark basements by themselves, so I am left alone because of that too. All together that means if I have no alarms set, and my bladder doesn’t fail me then I can sleep in until nearly ten o’clock in the morning. Fantastic! By then my bladder is fit to burst so I have to get up anyway. Glorious.

Pretty sure it’s Sunday of the long weekend. Forecast is for rain later today and tomorrow too. We shall see how long it holds off for. I smell pancakes and bacon so I’m going to get dressed and go eat! Happy Thanksgiving weekend everybody.

Inlaws are working hard to get their soya beans up asap so that they can enjoy the rest of the weekend once it’s all done. I am willing to bet that the roads were all a twitter last night as people head out of town to see family or go to events. It’s times like this where we don’t have access to a full line up of buses & trains, trams and shuttles so the roads get congested and it takes hours longer to get just about anywhere you’d want to go. Monday on the roads will be a nightmare because everybody has to come back. I prefer to move about on off peak weekends if I can help it. Save my sanity and a few extra hours of stress behind the wheel. The children’s programming last night was a touch lighter in attendance, so parking was a breeze. It’s like a non fatal Thanos finger snap. All of a sudden we have available seating & parking! It’s terrific.

Once the weekend is done we will clear the lawn once more then I’ll set up all of the inflatable Halloween decorations. That should put us in a festive mood.bi will need to take down the slack line and the swing to make room, but I think it’ll not be a problem. Neighbourhood kids don’t play on it much so it’s no big deal to put it away until next spring.