Greatwall Studios Graphic Design

Smells as though one of our immediate neighbours must have had a raging fire last night, as the distinct odours of wood ash is carried on the wind straight through all of the open windows of our house. Smells like the cottage if I’m being honest. If I could hear lapping waves, or the extremely loud caw of black birds I’d be up north.

Since dance season is finally over I thought I would trim my daughters hair to even it out. I took a palm width worth off the length for my oldest daughter. And it looks lovely. Contrary to popular belief it does not appear as though I chopped at it with a weed whacker. I took my time, lined it up. Brushed it out, and started by taking just a little in case I was being too aggressive to start with. It still ponytails with ease, and looks even, and is currently knot free. Bonus!

The youngest is another matter. She doesn’t spend any time of her own maintaining her hair. At all. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. The older one just this year started to tame her own head after nearly a decade of fighting with us about it. Thank the gods! But the young one is mostly feral, and has more hair than she knows what to do with. And, since the restrictions from dance, about drastically altering their appearance prior to the big recital weekend have been lifted. Time to cut, cut, cut that mop. But! She has to sit for a detangle first. Which will be her mother’s job. I go too fast, and tend towards roughness. I don6have three hours to tip toe through it, and still not finish. I’ll take 15-20 minutes, cause tears, but will get done, and can move on with our day. I get why I’m not the first option, but rather a last resort. Ha. But I will be wielding the scissors! I cut a fair ole chunk off last time I cut her hair. It looked fabulous, and plenty agreed. I think she should go for a Bob, or pixie cut. But the Bob is a stretch of my acumen, and the pixie is beyond me. I don’t think I could achieve it with clippers, scissors and YouTube. Maybe with a few additional heads to practice on. But likely not.

Saturday is finally here. Sunny and warm with the sweltering heat to follow on Monday. I spent a good portion of yesterday doing some tidying up as we’ve got family visiting next weekend. Plus I have two years of school work to sort through & recycle that which doesn’t need to be kept. Old toys to organize. Junk to throw away. Same as always. Looks like I’ll need to wait for September to do any real damage around here. Kids are too attached to crap if you ask me.

I cannot stand the overpower stench of sauteed mushrooms. Yuck. What a stink. Makes my stomach turn just thinking about it. The smell is so oily, and cloying. It winds it’s way into your nostrils and camps out there making you gag repeatedly. Ugh. I hate it. Worst part of steak dinners at the inlaws. I stay outside to grill the steaks, and avoid the wretched cloud of mushroom steam. I grill a mean medium rare pink, and just a touch bloody bit of steak. Seasoned and/or marinaded for several hours, they slide down without any trouble at all. I love bbq season.

Friday is here. I’ve run my errands already. Just munching on some breakfast before I head into the studio to work on some conference materials. Weather is sunny and mild. A lovely breeze is blowing. Can’t really ask for more.

Nothing like cleaning up spilt stale milk from the bottom fridge drawer. A full sacks worth of 1% pooled in amongst the juice boxes and various cheeses. Just lovely. Otherwise it has been a peachy morning for us here.

What else can I say? Had some new news about my parents health yesterday. Still waiting to hear about my father’s TIA situation, and need more clarification about my mother’s tumor(s). Not much I can do from here, or even if we were out west. My wife found some information regarding hospital patients seeking a place to stay for the duration of treatment. That’s about as much as we can do, besides order Uber eats for them once they get settled somewhere. Luckily one of my brothers live with them, and can help with their dogs and the house itself. Another brother lives one town over, so we have eyes and ears on the ground nearby.

I’ve started to develope headaches now when we have strong enough inclement weather, which make me feel nauseous. So that’s fun. Nothing debilitating, but not a whole lot of fun.

That’s Thursday June 13th, 2024 for you. How about that?  I’m rewatching The Orville from the very beginning. I don’t know if I saw any of the third season at all. So looking forward to it.

It’s not that it is hot per se, but rather I’m building up a good sweat from walking fast, pushing a heavy mower, and ducking tree branches, traffic, angry robins and the occasional wasp. Taking a few seconds inbetween laps of the property to wave at the neighbours and try to be a pleasant individual. Also keeping straight(ish) lines on the lawn, or an eye catching pattern takes effort.

My exercise goals faded into the background once again. I had a two day running streak which ended with a rain storm, and then we only did a little additional training for the area track meet after that first spurt. My daughter performed admirably, but did not progress to regional, nor provincial meets. Nothing to be ashamed of there. She tried her best. We could either train for next year now, and really give it a go, or pick it up in mid April and see how she fares. I’d love nothing more than for her to find a focus and aim towards it with conviction, but she isn’t built that way. And I don’t want to leg lock her into a years worth of training for her to hate both it and me.

Had a weak moment the other day. A bit of alcohol industry nostalgia. Saw some openings at breweries and decided to throw my hat in the ring. I do not expect any kind of call back. I’m too senior in years to qualify. Not my age, so much, as being 18 years into the industry, jobs looking for 5 yrs experience will pass me over as too expensive, regardless of if I’d take the listed salary. It was a weak moment. I have them once a year when I’m in a quiet stretch. Save your money to weather these patches and you won’t get all hyped up like I did earlier this week.

Covid and the recession, and price increases have left many of my clients hanging on to survive, rather than push ahead with new products, or marketing campaigns. I can’t blame them for it. This to shall pass. Both the good and the bad. Nothing lasts forever. It can’t rain all the time.

So, lawns done. Laundry is in the wash cycle, and needs to be moved over to the dryer. I should go grocery shopping at some point soon, if only for milk, and some bread. If I hit the floors with a sweep, a vacuum,  and a mop I’ve hit the cleaning trifecta. I cleaned out the kitchen sink, and bathroom sinks not long ago, so I’ll have that to do again in a couple more days. It is a never ending cycle of household chores to do. Forget washing the cars, or windows. Laundry, dishes, and floors keep me busy almost daily. I prefer to do a Domestic Duties Monday/Tuesday, depending on schedule, but I was in a funk and put it off until today. Those chickens have come home to roost, along with taller grass, dirty dishes, and an even higher pile of kids laundry, and an emptier fridge than usual. Fun times.

It’s not the office life I’m nostalgic for, it’s the steady pay cheque. I guess I need to work harder at networking and drumming up business. That’s a side I neglect in favour of doing the design work itself. Oh well. C’est la vie! Ciao Bella.

I recently started book #7 for this year. It is Don Winslow’s finale go the Danny Ryan Series, “City in Ruins”. I started it the other day, mind you I am only forty some odd pages in, and I like it so far. I’m just taling longer than usual to get over the ending of the fourth Dune book, God Emperor of Dune. I really feel like that series took a sharp left turn right after book one part three finishes, and it goes elsewhere from where I would have wanted to take it. But alas, I am no great science fiction author, and I don’t have the inclination, nor skill to fanfic the sequel(s) I would have hoped to have seen. Lots of build up and an oddly unsatisfying ending.

I just completed three of the Dune sequels in a row, and I’m coming off the sci-fi high, in order to read the crime drama, and I’m not changing gears internally as fast as I’d like. I just read nearly 2,000 pages of Dune related materials, and going back to the 90’s Las Vegas scene is a tad jarring. I know I said I wasn’t trying for twelve books this year, but I kind of am. In a weird sort of way. I feel like finding the time to read one book a month isn’t too much to ask of myself. Not all the same genre, or length. It’s for fun, so I’m trying to keep it fun. No stress.

I thought I had a James S. A Corey book coming at the end of May, but that’s not until September now, so I don’t know if I have misremembered the date, or if it was pushed back by the publisher. Either way I do have two more Dune books I can get back into reading for this summer. Though I’m not totally sold on option, that given how far afield the story has drifted, and  gotten away from the characters I know and/or cared about. It’s a problem I have. Petty I’m sure. But a real concern.

So I know of at least four books which I can read to finish out the year. I have a substantial TBR pile that I can supplement my list with. Anyway, that was what was initially on my mind last night, but I totally forgot about this morning, until I pulled the book out to read for a bit. Those slow moving wheels ground together and it twigged my memory. Late but not never!

House Hunters International and yelling at the idiots on tv is a national pastime around here. Fools looking for too much with too little on hand. If it didn’t make me so mad I would laugh the whole way through. My favourite are married couples looking for the exact opposite from their location, and potential accommodations. They say opposites attract, so that tracks I suppose.

It is now Tuesday, and we are still in a very cool patch of weather. I’m told that next week we are looking at temperatures in the low thirties Celcius. Which is a pretty wild temperature swing. Can’t wait.

Gets a second day out of their bouncy castle rental, such luck! Although it did pour last night and we’ve spent considerable time mopping up the puddles to make it suitable for all the kids. Still a fun sunday morning surprise. Just waiting on the rental group to call/text to say they are coming back for it. Hopefully we get an unfettered hour out of it until they come to collect.

And right after a very full P.A.Day full of outdoor type things in the pouring rain. So it feels like Sunday to me, but the weekend has not well & truly even begun. Four shows over two days, all in Vaughan, and with limited parking. Going to do more driving this week than I had done over the last month combined. But the kids are smiling, if a little nervous, and I’m looking forward to see what another year in dance has taught them.

The two have been training for this very weekend since September. They spent most evenings this week learning the last big choreographed dance number with the entire cast. That was about five hours Monday & Tuesday, and then a combined three hours on Thursday doing lighting cues at the venue in Vaughan.

They both try very hard, so I hope it all goes off without a hitch later on tonight. I don’t get to see them perform until tomorrow evening. Then it’ll be time to shower and go to bed ready for school in the morning.

Between field trips, pa days, track & field, and dance, plus the girl guide camps, events, and trips down town it was a very busy May, and early June. By Monday everything is done, except school, and gymnastics on Wednesdays. We have this massive build up and then ‐ PAH! the air goes out and it’s all over for the year. Peace & quiet. Well, that is until the groans of “I’m bored” start up just in time for summer break. Should be a blast. My wife is down to her last few official weeks of time off, and then summer hits, and she goes back to work the third week of August. Man how time flies.

It’s raining, cloudy and busy on this particular York Region pa day, so I’m going to keep this short & sweet. Have a great weekend, stay safe out there. Ciao Bella.