Greatwall Studios Graphic Design

I had a surge of creative activity last afternoon and I had hoped to use it for today, but I’ve had misfires before with automated times releases of prewritten materials. It all counts towards the day it was written, and not the day of release. So my streak gets nullified if I do that. That’s no good to me. I am attempting to get back to my 831 day streak, but it’s going to take time as I haven’t even hit 275 yet. An awful lot happened over the first few years of creating that streak. I do not know if I have it in me to better it at this point. So, for now I will have to take it day by day and see where things take me.

All it took was for me to remember which two books I had forgotten about to complete my 12 book challenge. Forget that I only made it through eleven and three quarters of those twelve books, but still. Not only that but I finished reading the first book I have picked up this year yesterday afternoon. And much like I predicted, I skipped the .25 of the lingering Alien novel in favour of the new James S A Corey hardcover I ordered months ago. I’m about 50 pages in, and so far it’s great. Love it.

I have a fair bit of paid work to do today, so that will take 100% of my time for at least the next three days. One big report, plus various other smaller items for different clients have come in. Things could get intense around here for the next little bit. And on that note, I had best be about my business then. Ciao Bella.

A whole lot of nothing if I’m being truthful – ha! I ramble and rant/rave about whatever the day has brought me, or not. I talk about raising my children. I talk about freelancing, graphic design, and being self employed. I talk about my new puppy Graham a fair bit too. Can’t forget about the weather, or Domestic Duties Monday’s, Hump Days/Middle of the Week Days, and things going on from my childhood. I don’t personally know who reads this stuff other than me, or why they would do so. It’s a bland account of my daily life, hobbies, stressors, and on occasion pop culture. A mish mash of random ideas floating around pretending to be a coherent narrative.

Yesterday we went back to rock climbing after taking a few weeks off for the winter break. I found my first pair of climbing shoes! And they were cheaper than expected, and also on sale for 20% off. Score! Now I have everything I need to climb. Shoes, a harness, and two types of chalk (that’s not really a requirement, but a nice to have). Once I get my harness reviewed by the front desk, and get a tag out for the auto belay, I will nolonger need to rent equipment to climb. A savings over time of about $20.00/visit. I rented each of the six visits I did, and the kids have rentals included in their session fees too. So now that I’ve gone a bunch and the continued rental fees would exceed the upfront cost of the harness, and the shoes I opted to buy my own. The only issue I encountered was that climbing shoes do not adhere to standardized sizing across all available brands. Not only that but the toe tip shape, and arch vary widely between makes, and models of boot. It took a few attempts to find one that suits me. My initial thought was to buy top of the line, but I resisted that urge, since I’m a noob, and uncoached at this point. And instead for a reasonable “first” pair of like basic introductory climbing shoes. I still like them. I hope to get a few tears out of them if I can!

A new report came in yesterday early afternoon, which is terrific. Got a jump on that by building my templates, colour palette, and starting the first three sections right off the bat. I hope to put another 2 hours or so into it today, and maybe knock out the comments section, and one more subsection before Monday morning when I will need to dig into it for real. From what I can tell there may be a few early in the year reports coming. 2025 is off to a healthy start work wise. I’m well pleased by that news. I have no qarauntee that work will flow straight through the whole year, but atleast for Q1 I know I have work coming in, and payable invoices going out! BAM —BOOM! Business, yeah I speak it. A little, like a two year old learning to add a little something to the conversation.

Hope you have a lovely Lazy Sunday.

It’s a saturday which means rock climbing session at The Hub in Markham to fill up three plus hours of my late morning, and early afternoon. The kids are in separate staggered classes this time around, so I need to rest more and climb over a longer period of time.  Now that I own my own chalk bag, chalk dust, liquid chalk dispenser(s), and a harness, I am now in need of a first pair of climbing shoes. I think I will need to get professionally fitted for those because I don’t really know how much toe squeeze is acceptable. To me it would be zero, zilch, none, nada. But according to the coaches here I should feel some. Not a crippling amount, but the shoes should feel more than “snug”. I don’t go in for cramped toes. I hate it in hockey skates, work boots, and roller blades, so I’m not really with it for climbing. But I understand the need for a mightily fixed sturdy shoe so you can leverage out/over on a single toe point. Maybe I’m just a weenie with foot/toe pain. Years of losing toenails from soccer & rugby makes me loath to purposefully crush my toes any more than is absolutely necessary. Makes sense right? I think so.

Anyway, it’s a sunny and cool saturday. My eldest is feeling much better. Her fever broke mid day yesterday. She is eating and drinking, and has no fever. I think her throat was a bit off was her only minor complaint. We’ll wait and see how many of us come down with it this week coming. Hopefully none. I’ve had the hepa filters running to clean up the air and save us from catching it.

Have a great weekend!

Threw up once last evening, and awoke with a fever of 38.9°C this morning. After three additional hours of bedrest, tylenol, and several bottles worth of water she looks a little more lifelike. More colour, better demeanor, and a lowered temperature of 37.7°C. Not in the clear just yet, but let us hope a quiet stress free day lounging about her bedroom moves this thing along. Could be a 24 hour bug, in which case she’ll be fine by tomorrow. Then the trick becomes who gets it next? Ha. Such fun! But in all reality, I’m glad she is feeling more like herself. She was rather subdued and muted yesterday after school.

It is the first Friday of 2025! The Leafs lost their first game after a five game winning streak. If they could keep up that ratio they will finish the season in a great spot for the play-offs. I’d love to see a real hardy play-off run, but I don’t know if that is really something I want to set my mind on at this stage of the NHL season. That way lies madness, and heart ache! But, he says… I am going to potentially go see five  at home Leaf games this season, so getting riled up this particular year makes more sense than any year previous. I’m a little closer to it than ever before. Going to see them play in Tampa Bay last April really set a bug in my ear. Hell I bought a jersey for the first time ever this Christmas for myself, and one for my eldest daughter. I even went so far as to buy a named/numbered Matthew’s t-shirt from.the arena. I’m feeling the white & blue!

Rock climbing is set to start up again tomorrow morning, but this time around their sessions aren’t together, but staggered by 30 minutes. Means I’ll have longer to climb if I want. Means my wife will get a longer stretch of time to herself on saturday mid morning, through until early afternoon for the next seven weeks. She can read, or sleep, or watch a movie uninterrupted by the three of us.

Have been trying to trim my dogs nails for the last week. I have done his two front paws thus far. Mostly positive. Trying to get him comfortable with the clippers, and tapping his toes one by one without cutting the nails, and praising him, and giving treats after/during each session. Not working as quickly as I’d like. It’s at times like these where I wish we had got him at 8 weeks, instead of seven months old. But with a lot of work hopefully we can make it less of an issue. I hope!

Well I have paid work to get back to. I was just up here checking on my daughter, and fell into the trap of sitting down, and writing a blog post. Luckily I didn’t pull up YouTube or Reddit and lose myself for a bunch of time. Ciao Bella.

Just a sweeping deep cold blustery, sunny blue sky day. Back at it again with temps down in the minus twenty two range. Two whole degrees warmer than yesterday if you can believe it. It’s that stinging, pinching, knife straight through you type of cold. It’s funny when you find blast furnace heat it makes the outer most layer of skin too hot immediately, but it doesn’t feel like it cuts through you, whereas the deep cold feels as though it finds the gaps in between cells, and goes in the front, and right through, and out the back of you. Very unsettling sensation. Like a ghost has passed right through your core. Horrible.

Have you seen the latest news on the California wildfires? Just horrendous. A wind storm kicked off, the Santa Ana winds if I recall, and whoosh, the Palisades have gone up in smoke. I’ve seen video of people in their house watching the racing flames whip by. The poor dog looked petrified. I have to assume given the proximity of the flames that that whole family were killed after taking that video. I don’t know how a home could withstand that kind of heat, and assault and not catch fire too. Or boil the air, and everything inside it. Leave them gasping as the air further ignites as the blaze passes over them. Horrible. Just a ghastly way to die. Caught unawares by the speed of the oncoming flames, trapped in your home, watching, and waiting for it to do the most horrible thing you’ve ever felt until you die. Chilling to the bone. God speed.

We are in the midst of a real deep freeze so the idea of an out of control forest fire seems so foreign to me. Now come summer, we are no strangers to smoke clouds, and the smell of ash on the air from northern fires. But what’s going on in California in January just seems so alien to me. Not that snow or rain would do much to help them at this point, both would sizzle away before reaching the fires anyway. And the blustery winds we are having would only make things worse. A tragedy.

Today is Thursday. I should go fold laundry, and put stuff away. Take care out there. Ciao Bella.

Yes, yes it is cold. So cold in fact the kids could walk straight into the school without having to line up for the bell. So cold that recess, and probably lunch too will be held in the gymnasium along with their classrooms for kids that need to run, and exert themselves in order to remain productive members of society. I for one made sure to wear thermal underoos, and the cold was still biting at the edges of my body. This is an unkind, uncaring level of cold. This type of chill usually doesn’t appear until February when we are all lost desperate souls, depressed by the lack of quality sunlight, heat, and vibes. This kind of cold is usually the norm for Family Day long weekend, and Valentine’s day, not so much single digit January days. However, it is most definitely sunny, and bright blue skies above today. Win some, lose some I suppose.

It is after all Wednesday, Hump Day, Middle of the Week Day around these parts. This first week back has come as a shock to the system. How easily we adapted to the holidays, and it’s lack of structure, schedule, or expectations. Sleep late, stay up later, eat too much, drink a little more than normal, hang out as a family, and just be. So easy. Now we have places to be, things to do, responsibilities to take care of. And I’m so tired. The kids haven’t really adjusted their sleep schedules successfully just yet. Still staying up too late, which means I’m up too late. Can we go back to putting the kids in bed by 7pm? No? You don’t think they will go for that.

I’m going to go vaccum the floors again. This puppy sheds like crazy. They say German Shephards only shed twice a year, six months in summer, and six months in winter. Ba-dum-tss

Last night was the last class of the early puppy training session, and graduation ceremony all rolled into one hour long event. Afterwards the puppies all got together for some hands on play in the training ring under careful scrutiny. Graham here being among the biggest (and oldest at 1 year) was monitored so as to not be too rough & tumble with the tiniest tea cup pups in his class. They all played very well together. It was a lot of fun to see. Graham was pooped after all that running, rolling, and bowing towards his friends. He went through quite a few treats during the training sessions, and is a little less rough around the edges. Still a ways to go yet, but I hope to put any further organized training on hold until the spring. Road conditions are so unreliable this time of year. I prefer to be a hermit and not have to face the roads out of town if I don’t absolutely have to.

So for now we will just be reaffirming what we’ve been taught, and trying to build up from there as we go. I’d like for him to not try to knock down smaller children in an attempt to play with them. It’s not malicious, but it does cause friction and dismay among extended family. Especially those with the small kids he likes to knock over with his chest or bum. They cry, I laugh, it’s a bit of a thing.

Tuesday is here. My my how time does fly.  It’s going to take me all week to get used to going to bed earlier, and waking up earlier for the school run in the mornings. Tomorrow I’ll go grocery shopping because I’m a tad off schedule at the moment, but it’s nothing I can’t overcome in another 24 hours time. Right the ship, get on course, that type of thing.

I got the crafting pieces set up for my youngest daughters Girl Guides group today. That’s done ahead of schedule, so it’s not all bad news. I found the pine cone stash in the basement so that’s another part of the craft sorted out. Hopefully some of the other leaders have paints, hot glue, and glitter and such. Sounds like a chaotic riot, and a mess is about to go down at Guides this week.

I have toyed with the idea of going back to bed during the day, but then I won’t want to go to bed around 10:00pm if I do that. Counter productive. I’d like the kids in bed by eight, so that I can chill for two hours with my wife, then go to bed. Not have the kids finally asleep by 9:45pm, and then I still go off to sleep at 10pm. That’s not fair. We’ll have to figure something out.

The sun is up & shining today. But it’s a cold one out there. Something like minu eighteen with the windchill. Brrr. That’s uncomfortably cold. Stabs right through you when it gets like this for long stretches. Going to get colder as the week progresses too. I will have to wear snow pants or long johns to pick up. Too damn cold not to.

Well it’s just about noon, so I should go feed myself something reasonable for lunch. Ciao Bella.

The official first day back after the winter break, and holidays. It’s a somber time of year. The weather is grey, snowy & cold. The children not do full of laughter as the bundle close together lined up ready to go back into school once more. Schedules are starting to wind up once again. Disturbed sleeping patterns, and eating habits have to be reset. Outbursts, tears, tantrums and fatigue are here for the next week, possibly two while everybody adjusts back from the pre holiday season hysteria. I imagine a number of conversations regarding santa claus, toys, and what kind of haul they all came away from Christmas with. In our case, less stuff, more Hockey Games downtown! Booyah! Second game watched, second game won! Nice.

This was the first Christmas in a very long time in which I didn’t have to bust out a large card board box to house all of the other smaller cardboard boxes from kids toys in order to get it to go in the recycling. Besides some lego boxes, and a remote controlled gecko, not much mess to be had. Glorious! Now there are more unopened Lego boxes, but they are all relatively small, and in the kids rooms. Not currently being stored on the island or dining room table like years before.

I was given some grief for taking the tree down on New Year’s Day, but it’s tradition, and I put the tree up, and I take it down, no one else will do it, so it goes on my schedule. The kids helped to decorate it, but were busy playing on their tablets and didn’t want to participate in the dlower, and more meticulous tear down process. I wasn’t upset. Each set of ornaments has to go back in their respective boxes, and aligned just right to fit. It’s slow going, and can’t be rushed. Untangling lights from the tree, and reclaiming fallen hooks, and hangers takes time. It let’s me process the holiday, and transition into the new year with a few early accomplishments. I also use the day to tear down the ground light elements, like tree wraps, inflatables, and free standing characters from the lawn. I also pulled up all of the extension cords before they froze to the ground in a big block of ice. I can now scrape the front walk without fear of electrocution from a forgotten (but live) cord running to a random tree out front. Good for my health! It was cold. I had wanted to do some of it on New Year’s Eve, but even to me that felt premature (even if my fingers would have appreciated the few extra degrees of heat the day before afforded). I got it done regardless. A second stroke for the win column. All we do is win-win-win no matter what!

Last nights Leafs game was a success. Went into overtime to do it, but we caught our train, and got home before 11:30pm, so that was really great. A hard night before going back to school probably was a poor choice on my part, but it’s about making those memories folks. Two more games later this month to look forward to. I have to imagine that either my father inlaw, or brother in law will take my daughter to one of those games, as they are during the week, and won’t interfere with any weekend plans they might have. I’d be very happy to take her myself, mind you, as I enjoy watching hockey in person. I went to see the Peterborough Pete’s a number of times when I was in university. If Oshawa wasn’t so sketchy I’d go see some local OHL games to.

But here we are on Monday January 6th, 2025 and that silly mr Trump is heading back to the oval office in two weeks time. What a shit show that’s going to be. Funny how things work out.

Take care out there. Ciao Bella.

Here I was at the end of 2024 thinking I hadn’t done any meaningful wood working this year, when in actuality I had done several things. While it was classified under shop infrastructure I still think it counts. Plus one glaringly large error on my part. After all I did repair and refinish one entire table. Converting it over from two spindle legs to having four separate Ash legs which I could bolt in place, and remove at will. That was one. The other two items were wooden carts on wheels for my jointer, and my planer. I cut the old singular cart into pieces, and rejigged the whole lot to save space, and make it so that I could use each tool individually without the other tag a long tool making my life more difficult. I also got around to putting heavy duty castor wheels on my main workbench so that I can move that about the shop freely too. Was more of a build & attach session than a wood project, but I still got it done. I also had built my big wooden tool chest/box this past year too. That’s on wheels, holds my paints, and adhesives, plus my Ryobi power tool selection, safety equipment, and all my hand saws, chisels, and straight edges. It was a fun build. Ugly as sin, but it works. I couldn’t find a paid option with the same capacity for less than $600 pre-tax. Besides the castor wheels everything else was from scrap, or repurposed old furniture items. Oh it looks rough all right, but it works!

Also uncle Fred gets to spend the rest of his time as Ashes inside the Urn I made for a different uncle whom passed on final purchase. So I could make a new one if need be. But I’ll have to see about that.

The dog and I are having a lie in this morning. We were up late watching Gladiator after the hockey game. Leafs won! Let us hope that tonights game is as exciting, and also a win for us too. I’m very excited to go see our second ever Leafs home game. We’ll be just about half way through our games after tonight. I have both my jersey and t-shirt washed and ready to wear! Go team. Ha.

In other news I had to bite the bullet and purchase a new computer for my business. Slowly, but more so over the last six months my computer has been showing signs that my older operating system isn’t compatible with the constantly updating software I use. Programs were no longer updating, and I was having real issues once shut down logging back into things like Microsoft office, word, power point, and my Adobe suite of tools. I bought my current computer in Feb of 2015, meaning it was a late fall 2014 model. And a desk top not meant for boxed travel in hot/cold vehicles, on bumpy side roads, or in humid cottage conditions. So now, finally, I have an equivalent laptop computer coming so that I can work when I travel should I need to do so. I don’t want to be that guy whom works all through vacation, but I like being able to take my business & wips to meetings with me, as nobody reviews emails of pdfs in advance anymore.

Either way, I have a big company purchase for the 2025 taxes I will do in April of 2026. Here’s to good record keeping so that I can remember that factoid come next year’s tax time.

I should get myself and the dog up & out of bed for breakfast and a farm run, but the peace and quiet of the empty house is keeping me in my toasty bed covers. I should think about better blinds for my room. I could do with just a touch more darkness when I sleep. Neighbours high beams, and tail lights constantly bleed across my far bedroom wall illuminating my room at all hours of the night. I know we have fire fighters and nurses living on this street, so late night comings and goings aren’t anything new. I’m just tired of the light penetrating my room, keeping me awake when I’m trying to fall asleep.

I still have yet to discover a totally fool proof way to get a decent nights rest consistently. If any ody ever figures it out somebody give me a shout. Ciao Bella.