First day back in the really real world.

Vacation is done, flight landed around midnight, got through customs by one, and our ride home got us in safely just before two. By the time we watered, brushed, and consoled our kids we were in bed ourselves by three this morning. It is lovely to be home in our own beds. The Florida Keys are a wonderful island time kind of place. But being home is truly where I am able to relax. However, swimming, boat trips, and a face full of sunshine with heat is hard to beat. A very nice get away to ring in March Break on my wife’s year off. We don’t typically travel over peak times like this, but leaving early, and returning midweek was very cost effective.

I swam out in the open ocean with my kids for the first time in five or so years. Very clear blue, and not as warm as the pool. Thankfully. Pool was hot, almost bathtub temperatures! Taking the kids with our SPF 50 sun shirts to swim two or three times a day was really great. Over the winter I really miss the outdoors.

We even ventured down to Key West for a hot day trip. Had some Cuban food, wandered a few museums, and walked down by the gigantic cruise ships along the water front. Finding parking in Key West was a challenge. Didn’t help that we were in such a large vehicle. Key West was not built for extended oversized SUV’s, and 10,000 walking cruise goers at the same time. Was nearly three hours going down, and two and a half hour drive back. The kids were champs and held it together fairly well. It was hot, bright, and tiring.

Somewhere out in the Atlantic.
Being brave, but ultimately second person in after I jumped in first.
Me absent mindedly burning both legs on our last day.
Calm waters by the route markers.
The canal we called home for the eight days in Key Largo.
Treasure hunting for gems, crystals and coins of any sort.
Carnival cruise ship down in Key West.
A random Mc Donald’s with a fantastic view.
Kayak collection down on the beach.
An alternate view of the canal from our portion of the dock.

Back to the real world now. Work to start/finish. Groceries to get. Mail and packages to go collect. Kids to keep occupied for the remainder of the break. We had a few tears when we had to leave the vehicle once at the airport. The youngest wasn’t ready to leave grandma & grandpa behind for a few days by themselves. After she ate she perked up. We flew in a fairly sizable 787, with three rows of three seats and two aisles. Tonnes of overhead space too. First time I’ve done a Duty Free run in ages.

Best eat some breakfast and get back to work! Ciao Bella.

Bacon on the grill.

To make the house smell less, and to consume more bacon more frequently we have taken to cooking our bacon out on the BBQ grill. I can also wait for the pan to cool, and scrape off the grease outside so as to not have to worry about that either. Straight into the green bin, never to have been inside! Far less tasteable smoke, and hanging grease in the air, or particles on the stove top, and upper cabinets. I also don’t seem to get spattered anywhere as much out by the bbq than standing over a frying pan at the stove. Far preferable if you ask me.

I think today is Wednesday. Atleast I hope it is otherwise I may miss a fairly important event. Or could miss one if I lose track of Friday. I’m supposed to grab my inlaws from the airport when they come back from the Florida Keys. Can’t forget about them! They are a tad important to next months plans! Crucial even.

Finding something to eat which doesn’t upset my delicate balance.

I bought a bunch of cereal recently  ut I can’t eat it because the dairy and fiber will both set me off in equal measure. Perhaps some plain toast with nothing on it would help. Although I did have a nice bit of chicken & fish yesterday which don’t seem to have had any after effects. Noice!

I recently sat down to watch the Austin Butler, and Tom Hanks led Elvis movie, found on Netflix. Besides hating Tom Hanks’ character and voice (choices were made) it was a tremendous film. Like a biopic on lsd. Hyper saturated colours, frenetic pace, cgi transitions of a zany sort, and incredible music. Tip of the hat to them both. To Austin Butler for doing a truly tragic rendition of Elvis with all its heart and soul, and to Tom Hanks for making me hate him with a passion. Bravo.  Well done. I might just watch it again some time soon. I’m a fan.

Otherwise today is Tuesday, garbage day, and I have no plans to be anywhere today. Did a lot of running around yesterday. All told spent nearly six hours in the car driving all around. The kids were champs about it. I give them props for being so well behaved for so long.

March Break is here, and all the things are busy. May need to rethink the Kung Fu Panda 4 experience, as I fear it will be rammed full of sickly kids with coughs, colds, sore throats, and runny noses & fevers. That’s how I see crowds now. Not as people, but as vectors for pathogens I don’t want to catch or track home with us. Yuck. So gross. And I used to sit elbow to elbow with these people and just roll the dice on catching a flu, cough or cold. Craziness. Ewwww!

A week today and I get my MRI results! Take care out there. Ciao Bella.

You know what’s really handy…

Those long sleeved SPF rated swim shirts that are Wick dry and all that jazz. I hate how it feels to be slathered in sun screen, so it’s lovely to avoid that with a shirt. They apparently make them with hoods now too. I don’t know if I’d go that far. Maybe if I was a fishing kinda guy and spent hours looking down at the water from a boat. Neat idea. I can spray my neck, ear tips, nose and cheeks. That’s not a problem. I just hate the bodily oily feeling. Dust and grit sticks to everywhere. Yuck. I wonder if our summer with have a high UV score this year, as that’s what will get you. Sun burns that hurt for days on end suck. Best to avoid those these days. Welcome to Monday after the time change! Boy 9:00am came around awful quickly huh? Nice to have sunlight until almost 7pm though. March Break is here! Rejoice.

Trying to catch a sunset when…

My innards have other plans. Story of my life as of late. Had to skip two day trips because I knew I’d desperately need a rush pitstop every 15-30 minutes and the destination were atleast 90 minutes away. Grr. Thanks rotten guts, I love you too. I even missed a spectacular sunset because of my intestinal distress. I hope to catch the next one with my camera in hand, and not a roll of toilet paper instead.

In other news I get the results of my MRI in another week, so perhaps that will shed some new light on my current predicament. We’ll have to wait and see.

And Later On In The Land Of Nod…

The WFH movement proved without a doubt just how superfluous most supervisory and management positions actually were, and that fact threatened a lot of people who derived their power from lording over the lowly worker bee a crumb of institutional power, and turned that into a multi billion dollar leash that higher ups were convinced they had to keep. But when productivity increased, and worker happiness increased as those supervisors were kept out of the lowly worker bees lives, management panicked and tried to tighten their grip, but that’s what weak ineffectual people do, and it rippled about the world. They tighten their grip because they shall soon lose it! Rejoice for they shall soon join the ranks of the lowly worker bee or perish.

Happy saturday.

Day Dreaming about those Blue, Blue Skies Above.

Though our winter has been mild I do constantly day dream about going back to visit my inlaws place in the Keys. Beach side, near the mouth of a canal. The “NoSee’ems” are a bitey pain in the ass, but the weather and sand are hard to beat. March Break starts tonight. A week alone  with the goblins should prove to be fun. Let us hope the weather continues to hold out. No skiing or snowboarding this year. Although, saying that, we could bust out the bicycles and skateboards, or even free up the hockey net and play some road hockey! Score.

Hard to not think about fun vacations when you are in & out of the can with distressed guts. If flying didn’t also upset my innards I’d be out and about to the beaches as much as humanly possible. I do love an all inclusive resort with heavily poured Rum daiquiris, white sand beaches, and king sized beds. 

Have a great Friday. I hear that Kung Fu Panda #4 is out this weekend too. I imagine I’ll wind up taking both kids to go see it once this weekends crowds die down just a bit. I would think it’ll be a popular destination for folks with children off for the break. So even the off times next week will probably still be full.

Take care out there. Ciao Bella.

The Clock Strikes Minus One!

Late Saturday night, early Sunday the clock will go back to day light savings time and the first week of commuting will be very dangerous, full of tired and weary travelers who haven’t gotten through a cup of coffee yet. Although I immediately enjoy having sunshine later on in the evenings, I’m none to keen on being more tired than I already am. Getting the kids out of bed for school after the march break will prove to be an aggravating challenge aswell. Initially they won’t be tired enough to fall asleep, but conversely will be too tired to wake up and get ready for school. You see how that works, how it sucks so much on either end? Yeah? Whee! Kids are a lot of fun. Kids and time changes, jet lag, travel, and different beds and night time routines, are all kinds of crazy, and interesting fun.

Lots to do around here in preparation for our march break plans. Things to do, people to see, vehicles to shuffle around, and lots of stuff to clean. Should be a fun week ahead. Ciao Bella.

How do you frame your week?

Do you think of your week as a Sunday to Saturday much like the lines on a calendar, or do you start on Monday and end on Sunday? Or do you not frame your weeks except by holidays or time off? I would wager a guess that much of it depends on the type of work you do, and the schedule imposed upon you. Rotating shifts, and odd numbered days on and off might throw everything for a loop. I know from experience working nights that keeping track of days gets fuzzy at best if you start at midnight, or work from one evening and over across into another day where you book end four hours each side of 12:00am to complete a full shift. Mucks with my brain a little. Then you track your life via shifts worked and not the 24 hour individual day. Gets screwy.

So… Tuesday March 5th, 2024. How’d we get here so quickly. It was plus twelve yesterday and 98% of all the snow is gone. We’ve had massive dumpings of rain and a thunderstorm already. Spring while nearly two more weeks away feels like it’s been here a while. I fear the late coming of a new snow storm will negatively affect all the plants and trees. This is unseasonable weather we’ve had this winter. Not good. Not good at all. Just think of all the bugs and snakes that will migrate here if our winters get too mild. Horrible stinging things, and wretched venomous snakes. Yuck. No thank you.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah – framing of your week. Sundays have a different vibe than Wednesdays, Thursdays get mistaken for Fridays a fair bit, Friday and Saturday tend to be the best days for doing fun stuff, and casting off the yoke of work to go party or see friends makes for a memorable feel to a day. I do a lot of the same things each week, so there is Domestic Duties Mon/Tues, Hump Day Wednesday, Thursday is usually busy, and Friday leads into the weekend and seeing friends outside of the house. The kids do lots of programming Monday through Thursday, so we keep the weekend clear. I say that, but soon rock climbing will start on Sundays for eight weeks, and then we have dance recitals, and kids getting wings to move up in Girl Guides, and summer & swimming and, and, and… easy to get carried away into looking through the calendar instead of living the days as they come. Funerals have a good way of refocusing my attention to here, and now. Rather than gazing ahead across the calendar to more exciting times.

March break is next week after all, so the second half of the school year really picks up speed. I think getting outside and having more sun and warmth helps to move the needles on the clock a bit faster. Certainly nicer being outdoors when it doesn’t hurt your face or lungs. More brightness and more day light hours, with more to do outside. Swimming will pick up again come middle of May. I always look forward to swim season.

Given this odd weather I wonder if there will be any sap left for next week or if it has all run while we weren’t looking! I know we have wood to split for the boilers too. Lots to do in Hope’s of the sap running.