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Tag: Family

Banging out the classics like a tone-deaf seal.

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Some acts should just stay in the studio with the sound boards, and the mixers, and the editors whom can chop up useable chunks of caterwauling and turn it into a top 40 hit. Enrique, Axel, that fat dude from Motley Crue, those folks should all sit down and give their heads a shake. I know that drug habits and alimony are expensive, but sweet cheese bud, pull yourselves together. The leopard seal squeals are making those over inflated ticket prices a real cross to bear. Hard to enjoy yourself when the lead act sounds worse than the average karaoke lounge act in Korea Town. And that’s with folks singing across a language barrier, not old fat dudes forgetting half of the songs they wrote that got them there in the first place. Dreadful. I can not for the life of me impress upon you how disrespectful it is to charge these obscene ticket prices for near has-been musical acts of yesteryear, and they sound like these shrieked, half forgotten mumbled parody accounts on TikTok and IG.

In other news we will be in December by Friday of this week, how wild is that. Oh, and we did put up our Christmas tree on Sunday afternoon as I thought we would. My little minions came home from their overnight Zoo trip with the Girl Guides around noon and the first words out of their mouths wasn’t “hello” , or ” I missed you”, it was “can we put up the tree now?”. Good thing I had brought up all the tree lights and decorations that morning, and brought the tree in from the shed to warm up before assembly. I still had my hands and forearms shredded by the faux tree, as happens every year, long sleeves or not. It extracts a drop or two of blood to feed the holiday spirits. Thirteen years without fail this tree has drawn a blood sacrifice. Every. Damn. Year!

We loaded this bitch up with almost every bulb & ball we own. It’s a very full tree this year. I also added 400 new light bulbs to the tree this go around. In addition to the four hundred from last year. I might even go so far as to buy even more to add next year too. I still see far too many dead spots on the tree. I’m sad that all the blood taken over the years hasn’t resulted in the pre-lit tree remaining functional. Nothing another 1,600 bulbs of white or multicoloured lights couldn’t fix. I want this thing to light up the street! A Griswold Family Christmas Tree!

My minions posing with the newly decorated faux tree.
As much as I like it, I still see dead spots. My oldest blue bulbs are still the most vibrant on the tree, to this day!

Here we are, Tuesday. Snow squall warnings and all that jazz. Glad I don’t have to commute on days like today. Take it easy out there. Ciao Bella!

Ah, the holiday classics.

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Started the season off early while in Florida watching Elf with the kids, with about 12 minutes of commercials every ten minutes or so. Then while I had the night to myself I sat down to watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Always good for a laugh. About three days late for US Thanksgiving, but close enough for me. And now, this morning while I have the laundry running, the dish washer emptied, have showered already, and brought up the Christmas tree decorations, and fetched in the faux tree from the shed to warm up, I’m ready to enjoy National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. If the kids stay out for a Zoo visit after the group sleep over, I might even watch Scrooged too! Hard to know at this point in time. I may put the movies on in the background while I do something else. Trying to get back into the holiday spirit. We had a bunch of it rub off during the long hours of holiday cheer promoted at all three of the parks we visited for 11 of the 14 days of our trip. Trying to recapture the joy! Helps that there isn’t sweltering heat, and we are back at home in the colder temperatures, and have family & friends around once more.

Which reminds me I need to wrap my daughters birthday presents some time soon. Then I will have to do an about face and leap into Christmas shopping. Luckily I have five people off my list already with gift cards, due to distance. My kids have three gifts each already purchased. I have a few more to go get and i can call it a day, comfortably, i feel. Which is a load off my mind. This year I’m going to do a better job of keeping track by filling out lists of what i buy for whom. So i don’t panic shop, and wind up over spending like in years previous, because i forget all of what i already have picked up for the kiddies.

Spent an hour or so yesterday and added a second wrapped maple tree trunk with colourful lights, and then reworked my extension cord situation so that I could put the gecko & Christmas mouse out beside the tree. I think the Santa train can stay packed up this year. I need to get bricks or rocks to keep it from falling over, so that might be a random side quest to achieve next spring/summer/fall before another Christmas. I should draw up plans for how I want the lighting set up executed. I’m always having to switch & swap out cords, so a numbered diagram would alleviate that issue if I put in the effort to prepare one. Add it to the list of “nice to haves”.

Now I might make it seem like we do a lot of exterior decorating for Christmas, and that isn’t really the case. More than some, less than others, is where we sit. One string of lights along the eaves, two 4 ft lit wreaths, two partially wrapped maple trees, a gecko and a mouse. And if I can stand to constantly fix it, a Santa Train that falls over constantly. I’d love to have blow ups, and rows of candy canes, and even more lights up on the house, boughs with lights on the railings, but I don’t know how you’d work all of that in, or power it all up. That kind of display is for the independently wealthy, which I am not.

Later on today when the kids get home, I’ll put on some music and we can assemble the tree and decorate it as a family. I’ll give my wife a chance to have a nap after her girl guide outing with the kids last night, and this morning. Hard to believe we are back to Lazy Sunday again, so soon. Ciao Bella!

Second wood working job of 2023.

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I have been asked to build a Wooden Urn in three pieces. A base, a nested low profile tray, and a highly polished outer cover, that shows off some of the base. The base will have rubber feet. The tray will be lined in felt. The whole outer shell polished to a high sheen, and clear coated. It’s for an extended family member. At least they get to choose the specifications and fit n’ finish. Perhaps have it in their ownership for a while before they need to use it. I’m hoping this isn’t a race against the clock type of thing. There may be a question of stains, and wood type, but I think Spalted Maple or Ash would be classic looking, and stain nicely. Plus I have lots of it, and won’t need to charge through the nose for acquiring it either.

Some decisions to make before I begin: use the wood I have on hand (Spalted Maple or Ash) or purchase a darker hard wood (added cost) what colour felt to line the low profile tray: Burgundy, Yellow, Blue or Green. Any possible stain colour for the base portion, unless we go bare wood and a clear coat finish. Any additional details to include or forgo.

Some brief time spent doing research has led me to build something along the lines of the below. Classy without being obnoxious or ostentatious.

The three portions of the build. Outer cover, urn and low profile tray.
Where I realize the base is meant to show, and I need to order rubber feet.

The first project, is a moose fence topper I’m making for my mum. I have it all cut out, but I need to sand & paint it. Then ship it out to Campbell River in pieces. I’ve been really busy as of late with my day job, and the winter temperatures makes working in the shop less than ideal, but the Urn is a big deal, so I may just brave it. Plus we are getting ever closer to the February thaw, and I would like to spend some time in the shop again. Not certain what this will do to my VF-1 Valkyrie time line, but that can wait. This is a matter of death after all.

Cleaning house, and finding a cache of…

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Clothes, never bags of money, but girls clothing, hundreds of pounds of fabric, sequents, lace and frills of every colour you can imagine. We have enough clothes in this house that our two kids could wear something new every day for two to three months. Excepting of course, underwear and socks, both of which tend to get eaten or lost in between being worn, washed and put back in the drawer to be worn again. That mystery is ever lasting, and shall never reveal its secrets to me. But yes, clothes. Tote box after tote box found with great big piles of mix ‘n match clothing. Pants, t-shirts, long sleeve shirts, shorts and by god, even more sweaters. Are we all really that cold so often? I could run a business just selling the sweaters we have accumulated over the years. Once the youngest outgrows it, we pass it along to other younger family members. If we opened every single closet, drawer, cold storage room, and tote we’d find enough random articles of clothing to stock a JC Penny of considerable size. It boggles the mind, just how much we’ve managed to gather. I am amazed.

It is Friday once again. Bit of a weird week, with us having been off on vacation Friday through Wednesday. Two destinations, warmer than usual weather, and lots of water fun. More of a local destination in both instances, but really nice regardless. We all had fun. It has been a challenge to transition the youngest back into school life after five plus days of being out & about trying new things. Oh well. It is what it is at that age.

I’m waiting on a new project, so pretty calm at the moment. Could turn to mayhem at any moment, but I think it’ll come on Monday. I just have a hunch. Not a problem either way. It sort of sucks that Halloween falls on a Monday, but nothing we can do about that. The town has some outdoor programming tomorrow which looks like a fun time. The kids are looking forward to testing out multiple costumes before the big day. Once it passes all eyes turn to more birthdays and then Christmas. Oh lord Christmas! Here, again? So soon? Such lunacy.

Changing interests.

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I have spent a great deal of time, over the last three years watching people build & make things on YouTube. Everything from home remodels, to hand made furniture, slab tables and machining. I would like to think that attempting much of this would be fun. Not that I’d be any good at it, but rather to experience it first hand, noise, smells and all. I never cared much for machining as a kid, though my father did it as a tool & die maker, thus a skilled tradesman, before moving into consulting and being a bridge between the shop floor, and the white coat techies and their sales staff. Now I wish I had access to some machining tools of my own, and an ear to bend to help figure things out. I would have had a riot of a time getting some furniture building tips from either of my grandfathers. Both of whom passed away before I even thought about doing it myself. They made chairs and tables in England, before and after the second world war, of which only one grand father had to take part. I myself had a brief stint in wood shop at school for several semesters, built some sets for a university play I was in, and then worked in a cabinet makers shop for a few months making antiques repairs, and milling up baseboards and trim for twelve hours a day, and cleaning up saw dust endlessly. So the wood shop wasn’t totally foreign to me, but I didn’t know I was going to fall for it this hard.

Now that there is no way to get it, I’d really appreciate their hard won expertise (my grandfather’s more so than the German cabinet maker). They could have sat, tea in hand, and pointed and watched as I worked on projects, chiding me for silly mistakes, or making corrections to my order of operations. Those are things I could really go for now. But alas, the furniture makers are more than a decade dead now. No video or hand books left behind of things they’d learned or wanted to pass along. I do have a hand made T square from my Grandpa Holyome. A dense hardwood straight edge he fashioned. Which I use fairly often. I’m not Mr Precise, so it works wonders on eye balled projects. I have properly machined tools too, but those I bought, they weren’t built by my family decades ago. A life time ago now.

When I get to thinking about all of that lost experience and knowledge I feel a little sad. What do they say now, like tears in the rain, or a breath on the wind. Gone.

I’m sure there were some small but strategically important hints or tweaks to techniques that would have gone a long way to improving my skills which they might have shared with me. Not only that, but to have made better memories with them. In all honesty, if they weren’t dead, they’d still be in England, on a six hour time difference. Not living next door or just up the road from me. And they’d both be in their mid nineties by now, anywhere from 94-98 years of age. But the fantasy was, nimble of mind, comfortably close at hand, teaching as we went. Cup of tea to keep them comfortable. Oh well. C’est le vie.

Basking in the afterglow.

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What a weekend we had, two in a row of rock’em, sock’em outdoor adventure fun. The weather held out for us so that we could all enjoy the whole Saturday on the water experience. I cooked various meals for all of us who gathered. Mainly on the bbq, and stove top but nonetheless I didn’t set the kitchen on fire, or burn the house down. The bbq on the other hand may have let me down just a bit. Burned my bacon twice! Luckily that’s how my wife and kids like it so it didn’t go to waste. I went low & slow the second time, but failed to turn them in time and it went into over cooked territory. If I had a large flat top grill, I’d do it all together and nothing would get missed. But that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking with it.

Everyone who wanted to got a turn on the 3 person tube, plus the ski-Bob, and had a chance to attempt to wakeboard. We spent much of the summer getting out eldest to be able to reliably wakeboard, so she put on a show for her cousins. The other two had admirable attempts to get to their feet and stay up on the water. Which they both did, briefly. Golf claps and cheers for all! Well done. The water was rather cool this late into summer, bordering on Fall. So big props for swimming and going in the lake of their own accord.

We didn’t party much into the evenings, as the fresh lake air made us all sleepy by 10:00pm. Did watch the Blue Jay’s pull out an 11-7 win one night, which was great. Texas was really leaving their pitcher out to dry by bringing him back in after the second and third innings punishment. It was a weird one. Pretty early on it was evident they didn’t have anyone warming up in the bullpen. Kinda odd. But again, late in the season, I’m sure injuries and tiredness play a part.

I think I will mosey on down to my office by way of the kids laundry baskets and get some Domestic Duties Monday chores on the books. It’s two weekends we’ve gone away so there is lots to catch up on around the house. The sooner I get the shelf unit done, the sooner I can start cleaning the toy zone disaster area. I was informed some big projects won’t come until next week, so I need to finish up what I have now in preparation for those two or three items dropping next week. Happy Monday! Ciao Bella!

Reading old American Classics…

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And I could tell within a sentence or two that the me in my youth made the correct call in high school to read the Ancient Classics like Homer, the Iliad and The Oddessy, and 1984, and Animal Farm, plus a few others, rather than tackle the American Classics in Lit. That’s not to say that I’m not enjoying it now, but sixteen, seventeen year old me would have HATED every single apostrophied guttural spliced second word in The Grapes of Wrath, and it’s timely ilk. I hated eubonics, pigeon english, and phonetically written spoken dialogue (that was a mouthful). I know it adds authenticity to the speaker, and the times, but what a puddle mouthed bunch of folks they were huh, makes for disjointed reading. Doesn’t bother me much now, I get where Boomhauer was coming from, but as a hearing impaired youth, it had to come to my head clear as a bell or else I would just nod and smile and carry on regardless of what was said. Probably why people thought I was aloof, and kind of an asshole. Sorry love, just couldn’t hear you or make heads nor tails of what you were jabbering on about. Thank god for texting and e-mail. What a godsend that all is. Woah! Yeah buddy.

Once I make it through GoW, I think I’ll give Moby Dick or War & Peace a try. I don’t typically read anything that depressing, but I’ve written a number of sad, depressed short stories in my time. Maybe now I will have the life experiences to be able to appreciate the depth of the work. Or I’ll hate it, and that’s $30 in the toilet. Oh well. Not every piece of literature is for everyone. Know what I mean. Given the times, maybe I should read A Hand Maids Tale. Seems to be on point for the state of the US currently. Or I could try Gone With The Wind? I’m sure there are plenty of semi current literary classics that I’ve missed to choose from.

Today is Tuesday, if I have any sense of time left. Next week we really need to shift our sleeping patterns back to the day shift so we can all wake up and eat before school starts. These first two weeks of school are bad for early mornings. We either have happy kids, or get to school on time. Rarely do I get both in early September. Dressed, eaten, hair done, and teeth brushed. Tall order after nine weeks of zero expectations of that happening before 8:00am. I guess if the kids did day camp the whole summer then they’d maintain that schedule and wouldn’t (potentially) fight it come the first days of the new school year.

What a weird weekend.

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Due to a sudden onset of a child’s stomach bug we had a three day weekend, but I keep thinking today is Sunday, and that yesterday was Saturday, but in actuality we’re only in the morning hours of Saturday March 5th, 2022. I’m all discombobulated because of it. Though it was nice to have everyone home yesterday to play card games, board games and watch a family movie together, it wasn’t how I had been planning to spend the day. I had been building up my rest day for a few weeks, ever since I get heavily into the weeds on my In-Store signage projects and then the fairly large marketing audit report on top of that. So the day didn’t turn out how I expected it to, but it was awfully fun anyway, in an entirely different way, which is nice. With the kiddos home, an idea of a peaceful day withers on the vine, as they can only go so long in close proximity before they squabble and fight, and fists start to fly, and bad names get called. I will say this, they actively tried to separate rather than go at it full tilt as per usual. I’m blessed, as it were. Thank your lord for small miracles.

Given that the weather is suppose to swing quite heavily throughout spring in Ontario this year, we will venture out today to try one last family outdoor skate session. Tomorrow it’ll be plus fifteen, so everything will dissolve into slush before our eyes, and who knows if the flat pad of ice will survive until the next precipitous temperature drop, which will happen the day or two after the uptick. This wild swing reminds me of how hard it is to dress kids in May, where it’s only slightly above zero at eight am, and then in the early to mid twenties by three o’clock, and the kids are melting in their morning suitable clothing. Layers, zippered, easy to remove and re-add, layers. Breathable textiles, and multiple layers to be shed as the temperature rises. Then try to remember how many layers you used, and counting the articles of clothing as they come home to make sure you have everything for the next day.

Can I tell you how much aggravation I endure due to having to keep track of every item of my kids possessions, and both their indoor & outdoor clothing. Toys, books, socks, hats, gloves, mitts, boots, shoes, water shoes, running shoes, indoor school shoes, fancy dress shoes, rain boots, winter boots, wellington for out in the farm field boots, all weather jackets, snow pants, long johns, face masks, helmets, dolls, doll clothes, favourite spoons & plates… the list is endless, and they move, discard, and then swap allegiance to their ‘favourite’ toy on a semi-daily basis. It could lead one to absolute madness. Try to keep that favourite pair of jammies washed, and ready for bed time. Where’s my sweater. No the other white fluffy, cloud face sweater!!! Wah-wah-wah! Ugh. Some days it can feel like altogether too much. But you know what, if they listened to me and put their sweaters in their rooms when they take them off, and throw the dirty clothes in the hamper, rather than bury it under a pile of toys, I can wash it, and you’d know where it was. So we didn’t have to have a five alarm tantrum when they can’t find the item they all of a sudden have based their entire personality on that day.

I’d also love it if my kids could describe a toy, or article of clothing like a regular human being who understands colours, shapes, sizes and how to describe actual things that occur in our reality. Telling me how the item makes you feel, doesn’t help me search through the laundry pile for the item. Describing a t-shirt as though it was a night gown also doesn’t help. These kids. I could go mental. Heavens above! But we trudge on through, and make things work as best we can.

Why spend the money when they just want to play with the box.

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This is a lesson learned from every single Christmas, birthday and gift giving holiday that we’ve ever had over the last near decade. Kids love toys, certainly. But they are also consumed by the need to hang on to card board boxes to colour, decorate, modify and play around with for weeks after the toy has lost parts, fallen out of favour, or been ignored. You think you will remember this revelation, but it will hit you anew, every time. Luckily marketplace can get you some great presents at drastically reduced prices, so you don’t care as much if their initial excitement is about the box and not it’s contents. Let them have at it. They’re happy, giggling and playing well together, so that’s all I can ask for.

I couldn’t wait for Monday to celebrate Valentine’s day. Also the present I gave my kids this morning is to help them to ignore how much football my wife will watch today. Pre-game coverage, Cinderella stories on the Bengals, theory and strategy with pundits from all over the USA, the game itself, the commercials, the endless speeches at the trophy ceremony. It’ll take up the whole afternoon and well into the evening. I like the spectacle for the new movie trailers, and any funny one off product commercials that we catch here in Canada. But they always go up on YouTube, so I could easily give The Superbowl a miss if I wanted to.

Day 61 is here, and looking sunny, with blue skies and sub zero temperatures- again. I don’t have any data on this, but stick with me here. I ‘feel’ like this particular winter has had more blue sky sunny days than most winters I can recall. That’s not a scientific fact, but it feels true. Which means very little to anyone else I’m sure. I’m willing to bet that because of the Pandemic making business a fair bit slower, I’ve just been able to have the time and the desire to notice when the sky is blue and the sun is shining while it’s bitterly cold outside. Could be that the weather is mostly the same percentage of sunny vs. Cloudy year over year but my wistful glances out the window this season has noticed the ice blue and registered it, and forgotten about any drab grey I’ve seen. Not forgotten, that’s the wrong word. Taken no notice of, ignored? Ignored seems like the right frame of mind for what I’m talking about.

In other news we have family that have finally, after two years of complaining about it, gone to Florida for some R & R. I get it, we’ve been stuck in, mostly at home for two years, soon to start year three, and people with disposable income are getting antsy to get out and about. In October I made it to a single movie, which felt like a morsel of normalcy. Mask and everything while I watched. I was just happy to get to have that back, briefly. Different than international travel, sure, but I understand the desire.

Did you catch the story recap I posted a few days ago? Can you guess how things are going to end? I hope not, but if you’ve read all four sub sections of book one you might have an inkling for how things will turn out. I hope not, but you very well could. Which leads me to another question for those of you who write. If you thought people might guess at your initial ending would you feel pressured in any way to add in additional twists, or go an entirely different route to end it? I guess I’ll see how close to what I’m aiming for I get when the characters start to act up and act out! Happy Sunday Feb 13th of the year 2022.

You want me to do WHAT? In this gig-economy!

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You’re off your tits mate. And other such fun snippets of dialogue I either overhear at the school drop off, or television, movies and think. Ha. That gives me an idea. But not so much today.

It’s Thursday, my dudes. Not quite the weekend but it can be seen and felt from here. Although with working from home, and for myself, it all rather feels the same. Well, maybe now that my wife and kids are back to school (for however long that manages to last) the weekends will feel a slight twinge of otherness to them, with the house full from sun up to sun down.

In other news Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, followed closely by a week or so is Family Day, then we have March break, and the slow drag into springtime! Yay! Which is a lovely thought, but we have six weeks of horrible sub zero temperatures, snow, ice, freezing rain and slush to wade through first. Can 8 just say this though. I’ve enjoyed all of the blue sky sunnies days we’ve been having. It’s really something wonderful to be cold and yet have that gorgeous open blue sky overhead. What little heat we can feel on our faces directly from the sun is welcomed with open arms.

Rather than doing a grocery pick up like usual, or a delivery; I actually went inside a store yesterday. For the first time in a number of weeks. Good and empty, given our current pickle (pandemic obvs’) to grab a bunch of ready made meals for my wife to have at work. When it’s quiet, and no one else is around and you forget you have a mask on, it can almost feel normal-ish. I can’t recall the last time I took my kids to wander around a mall to just look at what’s new, visit a play place, or have lunch out together. I think we’d have still been using a stroller and rear facing car seat for my youngest the last time I did that.

That’s what stings right now. I was looking forward to taking my kids out of school surreptitiously to go to the mall and have an afternoon together and do something fun. But I don’t want to add even a scintilla of additional exposure over and above what they all ready face. In the years to come, I hope to be able to resurrect that mental health day time together. I miss that time doing something fun one on one with either of my kids. Lego land, Square One, The Bass Pro Shop, a Massive Disney Store, or Toys R Us. I used to love just going for a walk around, while the weather outside was horrendously cold. Get some excercise, mock youth fashion trends, because I’m older now, and I’m keen on my late nineties/early two thousands fashion choices that I made that suited my body type and wallet.

Trust in me – just in me… where’s my copy of The Jungle Book!

Also – the gig economy sucks balls. I don’t want to HAVE to turn every hobby into cash flow, that’s just part time work, on top of your day job. That’s no way to live. I get the Type A’s who are physically incapable of resting might be drawn to that option, but you have to have down time to recharge. You’ll burn yourself out. For what an extra couple of bucks, but no time to read, draw, paint, sew, play an instrument or relax. I get that wages sort of suck, and have done for ages, but that type of self deprivation isn’t sustainable in the long term. I hope you can find a happy medium. Or strike it rich! Or discover a wealthy patron who will fund you in the event of their death.