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Tag: rain

A good nights sleep can be so elusive.

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If there was one thing (among many) that I would change in my life it would have to be the quality of sleep I get on a consistent basis. I’d like more nights of restful slumber, and fewer spent restless, tossing & turning, or hot, and awake watching the seconds tick away on the clock. I think that that one particular change (if I knew what change to make) would have positive knock-on effects throughout the rest of my day, and thus improve my life just a tiny bit. As it stands I do get ok sleep off and on, but I’d rather have a 70-30 split of great nights sleep to bad, than say a 51-49 split. Is it the mattress, pillows, air quality, temperature, air flow, sound, the amount of ambient light in the room at night, stress, illness, my evening routine? I don’t know what factors into the good sleep nights versus the bad ones. I know that acid reflux contributes to some of the bad ones, so now I try not to eat after 8:00pm if I can help it. I’m also not shy with the Tums if I have any inkling that my stomach is going to wreak havoc on my night. So many factors to consider. Also, do I have sleep apnea? I know that I snore. I have to sleep on my side or belly to really get any rest at all. Things to ponder as I get older still. Fun times. Deserves a more thorough exploration. Perhaps some documentation, a list or spreadsheet of trial and error tactics to try. I don’t know, I’m not a specialist nor a medical professional. I’ll put a pin in it and will have to revisit.

Fear not, today is Wednesday. You’ve made it to the middle of the work week. Congratulations. I know that some weeks sort of suck. But fear not, you are closer now to the end of it, than the beginning.

We have a weekend full of birthday parties to look forward to. Hope the weather cooperates between 10:00am and 2:00pm each day of this weekend. Otherwise it can rain or storm all it wants. I need to wrap my kid’s gifts at some point soon too. I kept it fairly low key this year. There isn’t much that they don’t already have lots of. Also, on a side note, can you believe that schools out for summer by next Friday before noon! That’s insane. Funny how a school year that feels like it never ends suddenly creeps up on you and just ends. What a weird phenomenon. But I bet that comes from focusing on the end date and nothing else beyond it. I recently read that Buzz Aldrin was so focused on walking on the moon that after her accomplished it, he came home empty and devoid of purpose and became deeply depressed, and an alcoholic. I get that. You see it all the time with people who have Fairy Tale wedding dreams for The Day Of, and nothing else planned for the hours, days, weeks, months, or years after. We are weird that way. Blinders on for this one thing – get it, or do it, and then…. nothing. So odd.

So this whole DIY submersible thing, what a shit show eh? They were not selling it with that unserious NBC/ABC reporting they did on OceanGate a few months or years back. I’m not a big fan of massively open water, so the idea of going into somebodies cobbled together burial chamber seems foreign to me. I don’t even like the idea of the glass bottomed tour sub at Sea World that was just 2 ft from the surface. I hated that ride with a passion, and you could have just stood up and touched the surface. So 4000m down… nope! No. Nuh-uh, never, nada, nein, nyet. But then I don’t much like snorkeling, and wouldn’t bother with scuba gear either.

And not only that but now you have organized pods of Orcas just having at it destroying yachts, and other seafaring craft by attacking the rudders. Madness. Stay out the water. Let us all collect our thoughts and regroup. That’s all I’m saying. Those things in the water have several millions of years of evolution on us, so best to leave them be. What a week! Ciao Bella

The Inevitability of Changing Tastes.

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I’ll give you one example, that came up just today. The idea of a massive bowl of candy for breakfast was once ‘The Dream’ to have at my disposal when I was eight. Now the idea of a bowl full of sugar makes my stomach turn. If I’m going to bother to eat breakfast now, it will be Raisin Bran or some kind of Nuts n’ Honey type thing, with granola in it. Still sweet, but not primarily sugar based. For a very long time I couldn’t eat breakfast because I always woke up feeling like I would throw up if I ate anytime between 5:45am and 9:00am. Never found out why that was.

But nowadays staring across the island at a bowl of Sugar Crisp, Lucky Charms, Coco Pebbles, or Count Chocula would probably make me want to just pour it in the green bin. Can’t do it. I’m not more conservative, I’m just not interested in sticky sugary teeth, and ultra sweet cereals any more. Grown out of it. Can’t point to the exact date and time I switched, but I switched nonetheless. Funny how that happens.

I still don’t drink coffee, tea or any sort of wine. Though!, I will say this. Yellow Tail makes a delicious sparkling white wine called “Bubbles” that I will mix with Orange, Cranberry, or Grape juice on Christmas, Boxing Day, and New Year’s Day mornings along with a piping hot cooked breakfast. That I will indulge in. Otherwise I don’t really drink any type of wine the rest of the year. I’m more of a Rye and, or a Rum and, type of guy. Usually with Coke. Not the sniffed version, but the red can.

Last year I bought all the spirits I needed to make Sex on the Beach, a rather involved mixed drink, by my standards. And I found it to be exceptionally good. It takes far more work to produce than I would typically care for, but when I bother to make a pitcher of the stuff, BAM! I’m into it, like a dogs nose in a crotch. Which reminds me, I need to buy more orange juice, Cranberry cocktail, ice, and some Sprite/7Up if I’m going to make myself some for Father’s Day next weekend. We have some fancy cheeses I bought for my wife’s birthday that we have left over, I’ll grab some fresh bread. Watch a movie, drink(s) in hand, cheese at my side, and maybe play a little guitar while I’m at it. The rest of the family have a sleep over for Guides that doesn’t involve me. A quiet Friday night to myself.

I’m saddened to learn that the new animated Spiderman has been bumped out of imax/AVX theaters for yet another Transformers movie. I’ll need to wait until I can buy it on bluray now. I really wanted to see that in imax 3D for the full experience. I had intentions of going to see Guardians Vol 3 too, but just couldn’t find the time. That’ll come to Disney+ at some point later in 2023, so I’ll still get to see it. I may just buy it on disc anyway. Never k ow when these streaming sites will go bust, or simply pull the content you like and it’s all gone for good. Modern problems.

Today is the big day, both kids perform in their respective dance recitals. Will have a frantic afternoon doing hair & make-up while we dress them in their expensive (yet overly small) costumes. We need to then get them to the venue 90mins prior to showtime, which seems like way too long, for kids this young. Sign them in, then kick rocks in the parking lot for 90 minutes until the doors open and the show starts. Their photos looked really good that they had done for the playbills. Professional and everything.

This is a longer Sunday post that usual. It looks to be drizzling a bit. Roads out front are wet, with standing puddles, agood sign! Take care out there. Ciao Bella!

If I followed the stats…

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Then yesterday was a dog shit day for viewership/readership numbers. Interesting. I still have no clear idea what “brings all the boys to the yard” as it were, but I certainly didn’t have whatever “It” is in yesterday’s post. Though I will say this, on the whole a post with at least one photo usually does ok, for me, that is. But that photo is usually placed within the post, and not a cover image (unless it’s a short story). Yeah – so I have no idea what turns people’s heads or makes them sit up and take notice. I don’t intend to try and formulate a metric of things to tick off in order to garner more readers though. That sounds like it would suck all of the fun out of the process. Chasing stats has never, ever been fun. Talk about turning something fun into an Excel Spreadsheet time vampire of dreariness. Shoot from the hip, keep it loose, and aim at the broad side of whatever barn you like.

We took a brief family car ride to the Richmond Hill Go station last evening for their Halloween light show. It was pretty good. Tuned in to a radio station for spooky music. Had a photo op station with candy for the kids. And one ticket let’s you drive through twice. Which we did. It was about 30 minutes of lights, music & fun. A great time. Also if you search Facebook you can find codes for 50% off the ticket price. So a bargain! Here’s a few images from the event.

I have the kids at an indoor play park (masked obvs) and we’ll be here for at least an hour, possibly two if I can help it. Tire the kids out, and get our money’s worth from the entrance fee. Laugh out loud to the rescue on a cool, rain soaked Saturday morning. I even have some time to myself to both read and do some writing. Also answer the kids questions when they run on by to check in. Life is good, even if the quality of my writing isn’t.

I also broke down and ordered myself some air brush paints for my baked bust sculpts. I am currently working through a bust of Hellboy. Trying to take my time with this one. I have two very svelte looking Walnut bases I am looking to display with a quality hand made item on top. Once the clear coat went on the other day the Walnut absolutely just POPPED! Bam! So, I want to display them front & centre. Also I shaped them on the lathe, so I’d like to highlight that feature as well, once they are completely finished. I was going to do a copy of this Don Lemon bronze Viking bust I love, but then the red sculpey was shouting for Hellboy instead. I can’t fault it, red is red. Do someone red with the red stuff, not rocket science.

If you are wondering what I am reading, it is “Shards of Earth” by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I’m little more than 100 pages in, and it seems pretty good. Aliens, war, destruction, abject fear. It’s all there. I bought the second book too. That’ll be four of his books I’ve read this year. Next year the last book of the Portiid series comes out, so I’ll nab that one too once released.

I think that keeps us all up to date. The rains have started up again, so I’m going to go back to reading & watching my kids get dizzy on a mini tea cup ride inside the park. Ciao Bella!