Greatwall Studios Graphic Design

Dehydration usually leads to some level of constipation. Yes – you’ve guessed it! Yet another insightful look at living with Crohn’s Disease, and IBS. A behind the scenes look at what living with malabsorption really looks, feels, and smells like. TMI warnings for everyone! Get your splash guards on, wash your hands, and turn on the ceiling exhaust fan because we are going live on report from the basement bathroom with our special guest – Crohn’s Ileitous! A round of applause if you would all be do kind. **brief half hearted applause break**

So happy you could join us in studio today folks, have we got a treat for you all…

That’s how my Monday feels. I can also hear my youngest freaking out about going to school this morning, so I best hurry about my business and get back upstairs, and into the fray. Ciao Bella!

Around our house we try to not let holiday fever kick in until after Remembrance Day. It’s not much of a reprieve, but that cuts two weeks off of the earliest portion of the build up. The kids will have an assembly to practice for, poems to memorize, and drawings of poppies to complete. That covers enough crafting that they aren’t left itching for something Santa Clause related to do – yet. Plus it helps that we also have two family birthdays in early December, so that becomes a partial focus too. It isn’t that I don’t like Christmas. I love it. If I were wealthy I would decorate the house like a pro with holly boughs and lights, additional trees, and all sorts of streamers and knick-knacks. But I’m not, so I don’t.  Plus our kid’s stuff is everywhere and the type of decorating I’d want to do would require a spotless showroom look to the house. Not ideal for kids under nine years of age. Once the kids get older I might actually be able to decorate for the holidays how I’ve always wanted to. Our pre-lit Martha Stewart Christmas tree is on its last legs. None of the pre strung bulbs light up anymore. So a new tree would be in order at any time in the future. I just loathe the idea of spending $500.00 as the base price for what appear to be less than stellar trees. I’ll just buy more light strands and try to hide how shabby the tree is. Can’t go wrong with more white and colourful light strands on the seven foot tall tree. We also like to overload our tree with every single decoration we own. I used to decorate with a colour coordinated scheme, but as the kids grow up and help more, we’ve moved away from a motif in favour of total coverage. So it isn’t a dislike for the Holiday season, I just find that too much build up places far too much pressure on the actual day. No matter how prepared you are, nor how thoughtful the gifts, a straight two month build up will leave the kids underwhelmed on the actual day. That’s the part I don’t like. So we try to shorten the building up period by observing other events and birthdays so that we really only have three full weeks of intense Santa Claus present delivery worship. That’s the best I can offer.

Still lots to do around here today. Need to dig up all of the Dahlias, and the Glad bulbs too. If we leave them any longer they are going to die in the cold. Plus I would love to put the exterior lights up on the house. It isn’t freezing rain, nor extremely windy today, so a great time to do the lights. They don’t have to be connected to the timer right now. Just up on the eaves, and not on my to-do list. I’m going to start further back on the far side of the house to avoid having to go behind the giant Lilac Bush on the opposite side. I just hope I have enough plastic clips left to do it all. UV rays wreak havoc on those little clips. They become brittle little shrapnel bombs when you have to torque them to get the light strand into them. Such fun!

I need to eat breakfast. The time change is upon us. Kids chose not to sleep in at all. As though that were actually an option. Ha. Psst! It really wasn’t. These kids would run amok twenty three hours a day if you let them. What’s this, what’s that? Like two smaller Jack Skelingtons all day long, every single day, without fail. Tireless little whirl winds of chaos and destruction. Luckily we’ve been training them to do various chores so that they contribute to the running of the household. Sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, and washing windows. I’d be just as happy if they could put their dirty laundry inside their hampers, and not on the floor, or hang up the clothes they’ve pulled off of hangers accidentally. But that’s just me being wishful.

Have a great lazy Sunday. Ciao Bella!

Was out until just after midnight having drinks with friends and I haven’t been that tipsy in a very long time. My friend pours like the Legion. Heavy on the alchohol. Light on the mixer. Wowzers. Barely finished the second and was finding it challenging to stand up to go pee. Ha. Been a while since I’ve been there. Gladly went to bed without the spins, and awoke with no hangover. Thankfully. I thought we were going to have to go finish planting 7,500 bulbs of garlic, but the rains have put a kink in that plan. Glad I utilized the sunny day yesterday to do all of the outdoor chores, except mowing the lawn. That I can do in the next couple days if the rain stops. I managed to mulch up about eleven bags worth of fallen leaves. And put away all of the patio furniture too. I was a very productive person yesterday.

Even got out to return an oversized piece of luggage and grab a bag full of tacos for my wife and I. Which doesn’t sound like much, but a freshly made authentic taco is so, so delicious. Mmmm. So good.

Tried to get the updated Covid/SARS vax yesterday but had the appointment canceled by Shoppers when I arrived because they don’t have any on hand. They straight up lied to my face about having called me and leaving a message. I said you know our phones log all calls, AND my voicemail box is empty. Plus – no text messages to show I missed a call while out of network range, nor a speech to text message of the spoken voicemail. Liars. Just own up that you forgot to call, apologize, and move on. Don’t repeatedly lie to my face when I have the call logs on my phone, and no VM messages, pings, alerts or notifications for the day beyond my calls to my wife. Moronic. I keep receipts on things like that. Don’t embarrass yourself. Not a good look.

Anyway – have a great Saturday. Ciao Bella!

Stressed about an upcoming event? Why not try misplacing a packing slip for an important item you need to return, so that you can purchase the right sized item you need instead. Do you need aggravation in your life? Try forgetfulness. Do you have the perfect, super secret hiding spot where you place things of supreme importance, but can only think of it that one time? Do you have a portal into an alternate dimension where you can store anything – once & for all? Try aggravation, it really tops things off. Makes a great add-on to an already tense situation. Can be greatly impacted upon by finding multiple items have been hidden away! Fun for the whole family. Aggravation – By Design. Those guys are everywhere!

See that? That’s a call back. A reference to a silly bit I did a week or two ago. Follow along closely enough here and you just might get rewarded with silly shit like that. An Easter egg which nobody cares about. That’s called being “Elite“. Or asshole in French. Isn’t language beautiful.

Happy Friday to all my peeps putting their patio furniture away while it’s still sunny and above zero this weekend. Dig out those shovels from the garage or shed, the white terror will be here before you know it. Also get some ice melt, and book your tire change over soonish. Words to the wise TM.

Man I miss some aspects of my college/university years. Namely going out for a drink in a crowded bar with lots of friends. Being a shameless hermit the last four years has had some lasting effects on some of our friend circles. Nobody is dead, that I am aware of, but we are all hiding away from Covid and aren’t getting together for board games, drinks, dinners or movies any more. Rather isolating, especially since I work alone, from home. Though this year is better as my wife has the year off, so I do have one person to talk to regularly between 8:00am and 3:00pm, roughly speaking. So that has been really pleasant. Going to be really quiet next year when she goes back to work again.

Yes, my lede was about the first scene, of about 4 minutes of the movie where Rooney Mara dumps Jesse Eisenberg in the local pub. Made me remember having family and friends up in our college town twenty some odd years ago to eat and drink in a ritzy pub downtown. Plus I had just watched a YouTube video essay on the writing and directing/editing of The Social Network. It’s been a while since I’d seen it, so I grabbed my dvd copy and sat down to watch it last night. Still has the $6.99 price tag on it from when Blockbuster liquidated all of their on premise assets. Which is going back a few years too. Lots of clear memories pre pandemic, and a muddled puddle of memories here during. The whole 2020-2023 stretch has flowed together into a great morass of overlapping memory holed incidents. Panic, fear, and high stress will do that to you. Or so I’m told.

Had to begin the process of discarding all the rotten gourds and pumpkins today. The recent frosts, and rains have done a number on all my exposed legume decorations. Mushy, stinky pumpkins are a whole lot like russian roulette. Will it come apart in my hands and drench me in the stink? Or will it last until the compost pile? Nobody knows! Step right up, but don’t wear your best clothes or you’ll regret it.

Also means I’ll get more pumpkins next year as the seeds ride out the winter in the heap, and sprout up as any number of vines come late Spring, early Summer. That’s a crap shoot too. Are the vines for pumpkins, or tiny gourds? Which kinds? Yellow, white, pink, orange pumpkins, or striped long necked gourds? The vines all look the same! Whee!

Speaking of gardening, I’ll need to transplant at least two saplings in the spring as I don’t want to keep them near the house/foundation where they currently reside. I attempted to move a Walnut in the fall, but we were in a 21 day drought and I do not believe the sapling survived the move. We’ll see for sure next year. I moved an Oak the year before and it was really rainy, and that one didn’t survive either. So, who knows what will work when moving trees around here in late September or October. I sure as hell don’t.

Happy Thursday, we are now into November! Ahhhhhh! This year is moving so quickly! Best try to finish the last two books on my list. My Adrian Tchaikovsky, and a new Murderbot book coming later this month. Which, I do believe is to be the last book in the series. I hope it is both long and exciting. Cheers to what I hope will be a great finale to a wonderful set of novels, which are on the shorter side. May all the last books of a series you follow be great! Ciao Bella.

Didn’t even get to see the kids in their costumes, or go visit all the pumpkins we spent hours carving out in the damp rain the last few days. I spent that time wrapped in blankets, hydrating a headache and napping. I woke up and caught a few episodes of Friends randomly, but otherwise not how I intended to spend my Halloween night. All that build up to feel like absolute dog shit on the day, and then miss it all. Boo-Urns! Hiss!

So I guess I’ll leave the blow ups out for atleast another night to make up for missing the big day. I didn’t hear too many people outside with the bowl of candy. Must have been a quiet night. I didn’t see flash lights, reflectors, head lamps, glow sticks or anything of that nature. Well, I say that, but I did see one kid in a light up costume, so I guess that counts towards the tally? Yeah. It does.

Now that we’re into November I need to do invoices and look towards putting up the exterior Christmas lights while it isn’t snowing, or freezing rain. I’ll give that a day or two more before I do any of that. Take care of yourselves iut there. Ciao Bella.

Gearing up for the Halloween spectacle by spending several hours gutting, cleaning, and carving up pumpkins for the “Happy Halloween” display on my inlaws front lawn. We recently erected a brand new 13ft tall Jack Skelington that lights up, sings, and moves it’s head side to side. It is pretty menacing when you get right up underneath it. Wasn’t too hard to assemble either, which is nice.

Our house has five blow ups, a light up pumpkin, and about 100 gourds laying around. Oh, and some bloody hand prints on the brick work as a final touch. We’ll have those well into the new year I imagine.

Best of luck to you all with kids in your lives, for a cold night ahead walking around trick or treating.

Fundraising for Prom is in full swing and the glazed donuts will start to flow by the dozen around York Region in the next few weeks, so act accordingly. Those sugary melt in your mouth, land on your hips donuts will be sold by the dozen, and eaten by the dozen too. They won’t last long. So you might aswell buy two boxes of them. Just saying what we are all thinking here folks.

Back again to Monday. A rainy, cold, breezy Monday morning at that. Dim light, puddles and an icy wind that cuts right through you. I should go throw some kids close in the wash, and head over to do some grocery shopping today. But – with Halloween tomorrow we will likely spend a few hours today decorating, and carving messages in pumpkins for my inlaws.

Then all eyes turn to Christmas, and the last few birthdays in our family before the new year. The last party of the year is booked, planned and waiting to move ahead in early December. Then the kids will lean full tilt into winter break and all of the holiday parties, meals, gift exchanges, and the big day itself. We’ll need to find the tree, and decorate outside, and clean up all these loose toys to make room for Santa Claus. Great time of year. Can’t wait.

And it was not me. I did however win one of the draws, but one very famous family in our town won about 50% of all of the prizes. Call after call of “I won!” From the same lady at the same table. Funny at first, then not funny at all, then back to being funny again after a few other folks won some stuff too. Had to be there.

The Greek food for dinner was excellent. I ate until I could eat no more. We had four whole glorious hours with no kids, and some friends nearby. I had a couple of stiff drinks, and enjoyed myself. Do reccomend,  and would go again.

Here it is at a quarter to nine in the morning at the light from the window is very dim, and dreary. I think we lucked out with yeaterdays surprisingly sunny day. I tackled several of the outdoor chores while I had the chance. Still need to work in the patio furniture to the shed, but I did everything else. Place a check mark squarely in the win column for me! Best be up and about my day now. Ciao Bella!

Kids are being taken to do lots of programming today because we are going to have a date night for the first time, in several months. So first thing today my wife took the kids who are in costumes to the Zoo, to see the animals maul the pumpkins we delivered one night earlier this week. Then I’m taking them trick or treating along main street for an hour to ninety minutes, and tonight my sister inlaw is supposed to take them to go do a drive through light festival to help kill some time while the kids are with grandma and grandpa. As far as I know tonights event is a dressy affair. So hair cut, shave, and real clothes are required of us. Proper shoes too, I’d imagine. Looking forward to it.

We finally closed the inlaws pool last night, so of course my knees, my hips, and my back are less than happy with me about all that bending, and kneeling on the paving stones. They didn’t add much slack at all to the pool cover, so if it isn’t 100%, it will have to be undone, shifted/rotated slightly, and reattached. It’s an hours long process and can come down to just being a few millimeters off, and needed to be corrected – again. It’s rather unfortunate. Should have been created with 4 to 6 inches of slack to avoid that issue. Or be able to stretch just a couple of percent. A 2% or 3% ability to stretch would really come in handy when you’re off by just enough millimeters to warrant a tear down to have to start again. Aggravating to say the least.

I turned the dishwasher on a while ago, but as I look around the room I’m seeing plates, cups, and bowls lying about that weren’t brought to the kitchen, and were just abandoned in situ. Lovely. I just love having to clean the same messes seven days a week. Fun!

I think I need to buy some burlap to wrap our cedar trees in, as last years wet snow caused them to bend and distort under the added weight. I retrained them with string and rope tie downs over the spring and early summer, but it seems means to just cycle through that type of thing year after year. I need to wrap the AC unit. Pull up all the lights, and patio furniture, and tidy up the hoses, pressure washer etc… lots of exterior chores to do. Take down the swings, pull the slack line apart, and store that carefully for the winter. Pull up the dahlias and the glad bulbs. Much to do outdoors still. Check the rain gutters for leaves. Clear the down spouts. Dig out the snow shovels, and salt bags. November can either be sunny and warm, rain soaked, or a snowy winter wonderland. I have no idea which it will end up being. I’d like to get the Christmas lights up while it isn’t bitterly cold, if I can help it. They won’t get turned on until after Remembrance Day, that much I can do to hold back Christmas. I used to want to wait until after all the birthdays were done to focus on the holidays, but that leaves us perilously little time to feel festive! So now the last two birthdays in the family prior to Christmas have santa overtones in the background. Which is fun when you are nine, less so at fifty.

Putting away the outdoor furniture is an endeavour. I need to pull the shed apart. It’s a whole thing. I really have to be in the mood for it. No walking away in the middle of the job. Makes me wish that my shed was twice the size, so I could clean up and not have to pull everything out to reorganize and manoeuvre around. Rah-rah. Yeah I hear it. It needs to get done. These last few 16°C sunny days would have worked out great for it, but other tasks took priority. Now I’ll wind up doing it all in the rain. Such is life.