All is quiet on the southern front.

I don’t hear foot steps, screaming, or any kind of action upstairs, so the kids are either sound asleep (highly unlikely) or watching netflix in their mother’s bed. Which is usually punctuated with squeals, screams, kicking and slapping, as they jostle for position on the pillows, and for duvet coverage in the warmth of the king size comforter. None of which I can hear. Doesn’t mean that none of it is currently happening, just that I can’t hear it over the drone of my floor fan, dehumidifier, furnace, and the ceiling. Also – mic check, I’m hard of hearing in my left ear, so that adds a layer of difficulty to spying from the basement guest room. I can imagine, as I break the plane by crossing the upstairs threshold that it is absolute bedlam up there, and my sonic white noise bubble just does an excellent job of hiding it all. Or, now hear me out, because it’s still dark out until 8:00am or later on cloudy days, maybe they actually slept in? I doubt that, but it could one day be true. Right? One day they will both want to sleep in? Won’t they?

Yesterday’s PA Day wasn’t awful, the kids were fairly well behaved throughout the day. We even spent 2 hours in the frigid park. All of us wound up with bright rosy wind burned cheeks. It snowed a little, but nothing like what we were hoping for. I wanted four to six inches so that they could go tobogganing in the park, but it was mostly just frost glazed grass. Not ideal. Lots of freezing rain, drizzle, fog this year. I have to think that there will be more of it to come with how weird our winter is this year.

Shout out to my niece who turned fourteen today! Happy birthday Ava Jane! Hope you have a great weekend! Ciao Bella.

The “TIME” change.

I was going to avoid writing about this but given how tired I am all ready because of it, I figured that meant it was fair game. The kids you see, they don’t respect the time change, so they get up at the old seven am, but still want to stay up until the new 8:00pm, which usually means closer to nine, after teeth brushing, hair brushing, repeat bathroom trips, stories and cuddles etc… which means I’m now very tired as a matter of course. (Chronic Fatigue sufferer). So while it isn’t a major shift, like timezones across the country, it is enough to put me off my game, so that I want to crash around 2:00pm every day. I will eventually get over it, obviously. Just one more hassle to come to terms with. Ugh.

On the up side I do not commute, so I’m not dragging ass about town behind the wheel of a vehicle for extended periods of time. 5 mins to school, then back, then bam! I can eat some breakfast and then start my work day.

Except today, car trouble. Could be a baring, a brake caliper, or the rotor again. Who knows. I’m sure it’ll cost us a good sum to have it looked after this week though. Puts us down to one vehicle, and multiple extra curriculars tonight too. Going to be a fascinating game of hot potato with the kids to get us all where we need to be. Or call it a night and forget both. I don’t see that going over well, when both kids seem to really enjoy their separate things. Other people do it constantly, we just need to get creative. May involve a fair chunk of sitting and waiting for stuff to start/finish, but it could be worse – right? Exactly. We did it with swimming lessons, and we can do it this evening, just this one time.

I’ll grab our wagon out of the shed, and we’ll walk home from school for a change. Or I’ll carry the backpacks in the wagon as the kids take turns helping to push/pull it home. Could be in for a long day. Again – glad I don’t commute. The car mess would have been so unhelpful.

We definitely started the frosty car window morning routine this week. Two days in a row with it being scraped clean. Will have to start using the auto start feature to clear the windows in another couple of weeks. That, and adding boots, snow pants, heavy coats, scarves, hats & mitts in the mix will mean we need to start getting ready even earlier. So much fun to look forward to over the next five months or so. A solid 26 weeks of icy cold bleak grey weather. But no major snakes, or nasty spiders here. It’s the price we pay to keep vermin like that away from our lives. Just have to keep reminding ourselves of that, and we’ll all make it through the late days of autumn and then all of winter too.

What a Monday it is.

The big day is here, gather round, as we get dressed up to parade around town for freebies & goodies in the rain and/or snow! It’s a tad drizzly outside, but that’s more of the rule than an exception at this time of year. And what luck, it was lovely and warm both before, and after the big day. Perfect for setting up decorations, and then tearing them down. I the midst of getting the house ready I also did about 3 hrs of leaves yesterday. Still have one full Maple left to drop its rusty brown treasures. I’m sure we’ll have snow immediately after it does so, just to mess with me.

But, tonight! The big kahuna! A night to watch a scary movie at home with no kids, while they hand out treats at the grandparents. Or so I thought. Change in plans. *record scratch*. Grandpa has surgery this week, so no kids until he’s out. Gotta stay healthy for the procedure. So looks like an actual night of walking and trick or treating with the kiddos. Bundle up, and walk around with a flash light, and reflective gear on, as the wee ones terrorize the neighbourhood. Should be fun. I will miss my viewing of Alien, or Bladerunner, or some other non-child friendly film, but I can make up for that later this week.

My assumption is, is that things will quiet down a fair chunk as we angle into the Holiday Season, and people run about tying off loose ends before they go on Christmas break/vacation.

It’s a Monday, so I’ve got laundry going, dishes are out of the dishwasher, beds are made, floors vacuumed. Trying to decide if I want to mop today, or wait until tomorrow as the kids with their wet boots and costumes will make a horrendous mess later tonight, and I’ll need to start from scratch on the floors again anyway. So I’ll take the executive decision to hold off for today. I need to fix the main bathroom sink again. Three long blonde haired family members continue to clog it up! Blargh! Nasty. Seems like every other month it starts to drain poorly, and I have to undo everything and pull out globs of hair, goo and muck. Not my favourite task, but it is indoors with music, so could be far worse.

Tomorrow I’ll take down the inflatables, and dry them out. Store them away for another year. I’d love to not get all the stakes, and tie down lines tangled, but inbetween putting them away neatly, and pulling them out of the box a year later, the knot faery comes by and works her magic. Bitch. Ain’t nobody got time for that. If the weather is as nice as they report it will be, perhaps I’ll put up the exterior house lights tomorrow too. Depends. If I feel motivated to get it done, then Bammo! Lights on the house. Otherwise it can wait a week.

As always, stay safe out there. Ciao Bella!

123 – easy as do ra me, simple as ABC…

What a funny looking number. Looks fake to me. Or oddly staged, as though someone were trying to find a random number. But here we are on day 123 of writing every single day. Yesterday I sort of completed my story arc, and now I’m trying to decide if I need to add an epilogue to fill it out a bit, or just leave it be. I could easily fill book three with the whole thing in greater detail, but I’m not sure at this point if I want to. Feels a bit rushed, but that’s the thing, building up to nothing is how life tends to feel. Blink, breath or loose focus for an instant and it’s all over and done with. Like studying your whole life for an event, having a sneezing fit that obscures the brief pinnacle moment and you’re left wanting at the end. Tragic, I suppose. Inevitable? Not sure. But that’s how I write. The fiction in my writing is that nobody gets off scott free, they all die in the end. Not so true here, is it. Awful, horrible people shrouded by money, privilege and power can do as they please and languish in luxury until their natural deaths. Fuck that, I say. Treat them as you would any, and every throw away character. Boring, work a day deaths for all involved, hero or not. A stubbed toe that gets infected, and they die of blood poisoning even though they were set to ascend the power structure or live forever after one more minor detail was completed. Nope, not on my story arc, fuck face. You die, no pomp, no circumstance, no banners or lying in state for you. Left to rot and decay in a random unlisted room someplace. Maybe the janitors turned off the environmental controls after cleaning, and didn’t realize you had a panic room back there, but were so cheap you used Company environmental facilities instead of paying for your own separate supply, and it’s constant maintenance. Ha. Eat shit.

I’m thinking that as the weather gets better, I want to focus more attention outside at the house. Windows, tree pruning, the lawn, the gutter blockage, driveway, vehicles. I’d like to start the screen door or coffee table build soon. I’m thinking about sculpting more again too. Playing the guitar and/or piano is somewhere I’d like to focus my attention as well. Same with teaching the kids about baseball, soccer and bicycling. We got out yesterday morning and played some ball hockey which was a lot of fun. So much to do, and try to focus on. Easy to get paralyzed by it all and wind up doing nothing at all. Except write. I’m pretty good of late about doing some of that every day.

Oh-oh, Spiderman No Way Home arrived this week and I got to watch that with my wife one evening for a date night. I ended up having to work for forty minutes in the middle and missed a chunk, but I liked what I saw the first time around. Watched the middle portion the next day, and liked it even more! Was pleasantly surprised by it all. Made me tear up in a few spots too. Not that that is particularly difficult as I get older. I’m sad that some major plot points were spoiled for me on Twitter, but I still enjoyed the whole movie anyway.

Hope you enjoyed all (41) forty one parts of book two, The Ghost of the Dirty Starling, as much as I did writing them. It started out heading one way, and moved around a bit, and was ultimately a fun little novella to write. Maybe now that it’s off my shoulders I will write some one off’s about my dad life experiences. Or not.

Eighty six bottles of beer on the wall, eighty six bottles of beer…

You take one down and pass it around now everyone’s in on the felony charge. Misery loves Company, but the inmate game loves a rat.

Thursday! Can you believe it? What a week this day has been huh? Wow. So they’re gonna drop mask mandates every where eh? Including in the entirely unvaccinated kindergarten class rooms and day care centers. Whose bright fucking idea was this? Gods be damned idiots run this province I tell you. Idiots, of a low class caliber. So now what? I gotta make my wife and kids sleep outside because my immune system isn’t up to snuff? Odds being what they are, I’ll have to be the one to move into my own private bubble, with the med’s, and the chronic illness, and the lingering, compounding sickness it brings with it. Triple vaxed or not, I don’t want COVID-19 in this house, for any members of my family. What’s a guy to do, eh? Sweet Cheese & Rice! Motherfucker.

So I had ordered the new Spiderman movie, originally slated to be out on March 15th, now bumped back to April 12th. My new book arrives next week, so it’s been a book less couple weeks. I tried to start another book, but my hearts not in it, so it’ll have to wait until I am done with John Scalzi’s new monster book. Looking forward to it, don’t cha know!

Almost Friday, then the weekend, and then kids are home bound for the March Break week. I forsee some zoo trips, skating, tobogganing (if we hit a temp trough, and not a heat wave!) We got out to play ball hockey in the driveway on Sunday, which was pretty awesome. Fourteen degrees and sunny! Sweaters only! So nice. Then we had a wind storm, then freezing rain, then hail, then snow. Holding around zero, with tilts up into the single digit positive numbers by 3:00pm some days. Clocks also leap forward on Sunday, so we have that to look forward too – again.

Anyone out there want to share some writing tips? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

And still I have one frozen solid in the ground.

A few weeks ago we had a mild spell. Actually I remember it well, it was the day of the fourteen hour power outage, and the kids were home all day, and it rained because it got up around eight degrees above zero. Anyway, it was warmer than usual, as a part of the mid February thaw that we always get at a random time in Feb, so I took the time to remove as many of the exterior Christmas lights as I could, that weren’t directly attached to the eaves on the house, which require a ladder, and would need me to move a bunch of stuff in the garage, which I didn’t want to do. Anyway, unwound the lights on the trees, removed the inflatables, and free standing light displays, and the wreathes that hang off the garage door, all in one spurt. Then tackled all of the cords on the ground, which is where I have my problem. All bar one came up without a hitch, but I have one twenty five foot extension cord with a one foot section frozen solid into the ground behind my steps with no way to get at it until it melts on it’s own. So we cleaned up, but I have one random yellow/orange cord hanging off the front porch because I am unable to remove it yet. Argh! However, today’s forecast is in the mid teens, so I will uncover the ice as best as I can without killing the ground cover shrub near it, and will attempt to pull it up and out of the ice today. I will make this attempt several times throughout the day if need be. We also have to watch for flooding in the back yard, but that’s it’s own issue.

Lazy Sunday is here, I wonder if we will watch a third film we haven’t seen yet? We watched the Mitchell’s vs. The robots, and the live action Dora the explorer film this weekend. I don’t know what else is out there that is for a whole family. I don’t know where or if we could find Sing 2, or something along those lines.

My wife and I have started to watch Parks and Rec in order starting from the very beginning. I didn’t realize; one, how short the first season was, two, how many times I had seen all of the episodes on tv recently without knowing it was season one, or in chronological order. Weird.

**Editor’s note: Got the cord out of the ground on the third attempt. Consistent sunshine and an average temperature of 14° Celcius helped to work the damn thing loose. Happy man! – 1:27pm.

The last Thursday in February.

It holds no special meaning beyond its proximity to March, and thus March Break and the foretold lead in to spring. The winds are bitter and cold, but carry slightly more moisture than weeks passed. And are therefore more biting, and cut deeper toward the bone. A listless jab to the body on the way out for another year.

Almost two months down into the new year, and once again the threat of war looms low over the headd of Eastern Europeans, and eventually the world. Let us not forget that West Taiwan wants to attack Taiwan proper for similar land grab and control reasons. Colonialism at its worst, and therefore also its finest. Because that’s what the machine does best, slow roll over everything and everyone in order to enrich itself and crush that which stands in the way of ever increasing expansion, and the industries created to maintain it. Weee! Splat.

Perhaps the sanctions will be enough to send the incursion packing after they’ve done a few days of random, yet targeted shelling in Ukraine’s “contested” territories. I used quotes here as the only one contesting it is Putin, and his Colonial over reach across borders. Eating up another country bite by bite, like he did with Crimea. Carving up a smaller neighbour for the sake of expanding a border and reclaiming some semblance of the USSR’s control over the region. Talk about boomer energy. That’s some rose coloured, nostalgia heavy talk of returning to the past. But with heavy casualties, death and dismemberment.

On a lighter note, who wants icecream? Hard to make a segue into any topic after talk of war in Europe. But I tried, an attempt was made. So – big picture talk here. What to do with the house come Spring & Summer? I think i want to tackle the screen door again. Build one from scratch. The basement needs to get more reasonable air flow. I also invested in a bigger and better table saw late last year, and think i can do a much better job of it now, that how i did it before. Still going to be a challenge, but i think i can get it done this year! I’d also like to challenge myself to build either a table or a chair this year too. Just one chair, not a set. That sounds tedious to me. One off items are way more exciting to produce, as far as I’m concerned. Spring will also bring a new round of heavy cleaning, decluttering and a broken toy purge. Have tackled the girls closets for ill fitting clothes. Bigger kids stuff if not ruined goes to the youngest when she’s big enough for it, and clothes from older cousins & friends filter back into the older ones closet in a seemingly endless cycle. Glad for it too. Besides pant legs much of this stuff doesn’t see enough action under one kid to go into a landfill. What we don’t use/need goes to other family members in the surrounding area. I’d love to do one in one out, but sometimes that’s not the case. Swim suits get destroyed by the sun and chlorine and heavy use, so we couldn’t donate as many of those as we actually use. If you swim two or three times a day, as is the case with us during the summer, then they (swimsuits) disintegrate pretty rapidly. Girls get duck bum, as the elastic goes in the rear and a saggy duck tail appears in the fabric as it settles. Straps wear out, and whole thing sags, and then it’s just trashed after several months. Wouldn’t want to give that mess to someone else, that’s just rude.

Will need to look at my mower again this spring, see if I can convince the old girl to give me a sixteenth cutting season! Wash and clean the filters, new oil, blades sharpened, clean the spark plug, oil it up and hope for the best. Bought it in January of 2006, and has started by the second/third pull every single year since then. Doesn’t owe me much, but I’d be thankful if it kept going a few more years yet.

A taste of earlier today in this dad’s life. Sorting out laundry loads five and six. Which was the last scraps of the kids stuff, and my wife’s clothes. Then sorting out all the one off socks we seem to have accumulated. Stacks upon stacks of singular socks. Now I don’t know if the opposites have been lost, left behind places, developed holes and were thrown away, eaten or sacrificed to the washer and dryer, but I know this. One day I will go and buy bags upon bags of plain black and white socks, that fit my wife and daughters, and then I will never sort another sock again. You get 2 lbs of B&W socks, so do you and you too. I don’t want to pair, fold, stash another sock after that happens. Theme socks seem like such a good idea until no one can keep them together to get washed at the same time, or sorted and paired again after wearing them. I’ll wager good money a fair few socks are under beds throughout the house.

The last frigid Saturday of January 2022.

We are all nearly one full month into the year now. Heading into an equally cold February, but with paid work on the docket, and a healthy family – thus far.  Had a morning with cartoons and helping to dress the kids dolls in new clothes. Attempting to trouble shoot a doll whose eyes no longer open when it sits up, and making everyone scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Doing a lots of nothing, looking at memes and thinking about how to approach some new work that came in yesterday afternoon. I have all the ground work laid out, templates, tables and colour palette, and a new design based off of their supplied brand style guide. It’s going to be a real looker when done. I just need to give it a good think so that I reads properly and I don’t have to adjust it a tonne later on. Think it through now, will save a lot on revisions later. Is my thinking anyway. Doesn’t always play out as planned, but I think I can do a little extra on this one.

As a freelancer I work as the projects come in, so my days vary wildly in regards to how busy I am. When it rains it pours, and then I get streaks of quiet time in between. Allows me to do alot with my kids that I wouldn’t have been able to do in prior roles. All the better for me!

Come on springtime sunshine, green grass, warmth, and flowers.

The long January begins with a – whine…

Once again we have come back to online e-learning for the kids. The long grey bleak winter has finally settled upon the ground around us, and we are house bound. Which is both a blessing (greatly reduced Covid exposure) and a curse, cabin fever with two very socially starved kids. It could very well be far, far worse. I mainly bemoan the situation because I detest the cold and dreary Canadian winter, and much prefer the sunshine and warmth of summer. We also prefer biking, walking, swimming and other far more fun warmer weather outdoor activities. In all actuality we are very protected here in our home bubble, and we shouldn’t be put out by the actions required to flatten the curve and bring the numbers of cases back down to a reasonable level of infection. We have masked up, socially distanced, hand washed, and avoided going into more than one store per week for almost two years now. We were very fortunate that we qualified for a 3rd booster dose, and my older child has had her first dose, but our youngest isn’t eligible for six more months. I work from home regardless of the situation so I’m not impacted much work wise. I can put the bulk of my work into the evenings if need be in order to help my two kids navigate online school, home work, lessons and finding pages or web sites for classwork. If both of us were full timers things would get ugly, but my work is flexible so we have that going for us. The only real impact is to my cleaning schedule which I can’t properly do with two young kids underfoot. Hobbies are on hold until cases come down and schools can safely open for the educators, admin, cleaning staff as well as all age groups of children. The next however many weeks of us all together twenty four seven could get ugly, but it is definitely for the best.

One of life’s simple pleasures…

In a time of chaos and panic, or when you are just starting to find yourself feeling a little off, is taking a quiet moment to close your eyes and lean your heated forehead against a cold pane of glass and shut your eyes for a second or two. It’s brief, but aren’t most of our adult moments of splendor brief and fleeting. That momentary flash of cool across your brow, and perhaps also your cheeks and nose. The calming blackness from your closed eyes, the fading out of the background noise from your life. Taking in one, or two rich, full breaths. Then leaning back and carrying on with your day, evening, nights activities. Stay sane out there. Try to stay healthy if you can.