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Tag: summer break

Big Feelings – Tiny Little Baby Bodies.

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How do these furious & wild mood swings emanate from such small children seemingly from out of the ether? These two kids man. Woah! It’s like magic with these two. Pulling on endless streams of angst, anger, and histrionics. Not sure whether it’s all coming from frustration with video games, or the looming start of school, the end of summer, growth spurts, sibling rivalry or what. But it is here, and it is fierce. These two have a seemingly endless supply of “MOOD” to attack each other with. Enough  “BIG FEELINGS” to weight down an air craft carrier. Pray for us.

Here I was just 24 hours ago lamenting how quiet the house was without them, and now their frustrations, and anguish echoes off of every surface. It rings in my ears, rather literally once they manage to reach the fevered pitch of a tea kettle whistling indiscriminately. Did I miss their presence & smiles, and warmth of the heart. Yes. Do I miss the furious fighting? Yeah – not so much. My oldest, with less than ten days to go, has finally discovered the joy of sleeping in, but I’ll have to squash that in favour of waking up before 7am for school. Ha. One new set of issues to add into the mix come September. Glad for the hugs and good night kisses, could give the fighting a miss though.

So here we find ourselves once again, Thursday. With appointments to get to, errands to run, work to finish up, and an approvals process to observe. I think we are to have a few more days of rain, and if not rain then atleast overcast and cloudy. Temperatures more like mid to late September, than the dog days of summer like we are used to. Not that I miss the extremely hot stifling heat with no breezes that usually accompany the last days of August in southern Ontario. Perhaps we will once again wind up with a hotter November / December and on into January, with a wet cold October, and frigid February. Weird way to run things, but out of my control.

Hard to believe that we are almost into the ninth and final week of summer break. I feel as though we should be able to redo the two weeks in the middle, you know? I know we can’t, but that’s how it feels. Perhaps I over reacted by going and running a fundraiser to cover for being sad and upset. It certainly worked as a coping mechanism to get beyond the sadness I felt. Made it so I could sleep at night. Probably one of the more selfish things I’ve done in the face of emotional upheaval. Feeding on thanks & gratitude rather than wallowing in any sort of grief beyond the initial shock from the Monday night. Not a great quality, admittedly. But here we are.

I need to get a jump on a poster series for the upcoming Markham Fair 2023 at the end of September and very early October. So I best be about my business. Ciao Bella!

Home Alone – watching movies, reading, and working.

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Not necessarily in that order, but while the girls are all away for a bit this week, I tackled some minor cleaning, and watched some pretty violent movies at a reasonable hour. John Wick 4 was yesterday evenings attraction. Not a bad entry in the pantheon on Gun-Fu flicks. I liked it better than number three. But the first one is still the best. Sad to know now how the actor whom played The Concierge is actually dead, so no Continental Hotel of New York spinoff money for that guy. Too bad. Incredibly bad timing. But maybe they centre that set of stories around Winston The Manager now instead. Not sure how they’d do that. Writers strike will have to put a pin in it for now anyway.

I watched Scott Pilgrim vs. The World again on Monday night. Not really appropriate for the kids either, but less violent, sort of. No guns, but swords and fighting play a big role. So best to wait a few more years before I share that movie with either of them. I saw GOTG Vol 3 on my phone the day it came to digital, so I don’t need to rush to watch the Bluray. I’d like to share it with my wife, she sort of liked the first two anyway. Though, now we have this massively bloated roster of tv shows, specials, and other films in the universe that you have to have some (minor) understanding of, to enjoy the transition between movies 1 & 2, and the huge gap prior to movie 3. It certainly doesn’t play as an interlinked trilogy. Which spoils the overall flow just a little bit. Little bit. Little bit, you know? It feels as though someone cut out three hours of exposition between 2 & 3. Which they did. They smeared it over a bunch of other ‘content’, in hopes you’d watch that other stuff too, in order to get the whole picture. This film needed a prologue where they just straight up give you all that stuff up front. Would make it feel a whole lot more in line with movies 1 & 2 if they did. A Re-rerelease but with that upgrade would be beneficial. Oh well.

So here we are, Wednesday. Clean sheets, showered, house tidied up, and the rain outside is still falling. I have some projects to attend to, but otherwise a chill day is in store. The family is set to return today, in preparation for appointments tomorrow, and a child’s birthday party on the weekend. The house will come alive with noise once more! As much as I enjoy peace & quiet, I do miss the minions when they aren’t here with me. But I had loads to do, and I wasn’t much fun, so better to be with the rest of the family at the cottage to play with cousins, grand parents, aunts & uncles while I was working. Still missed them all terribly though.

So now we are down to the last 10 or 11 days of summer break 2023. Amazing how quickly nine weeks can pass you by. This summer will remain one to remember, not just for the tragedy, but for some other more pleasant memories. First time ever taking the kids to Wonderland! That was pretty awesome. Movies, parks, parties, pig farm, and sadly a funeral. Fireworks, shooting stars, fishing, paddle boarding, wake boarding, tubing, the fun seemingly never ends! The Bancroft Rockhound Gemboree! Finding a new route home! New roads, and books, and things to do & see. A very busy summer. Split by tragedy, right in the middle. Followed by the mad dash to fundraise, and then multiple funerals across southern Ontario. Sadly, at this point I think that will only start to happen more often, as we get closer to fifty years of age.

We are none of us left untouched by tragedy for long. May the long cold fingers of death not touch you until you are ready.

Travel is nice, but I do like to be at home.

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That’s where I get the best sleep, and feel the most comfortable. There are the people I care most about right here under my feet, and nothing much else to worry about beyond them. My hobbies are here, my best working conditions are here, my favourite snacks in my favourite quantities are here. My access to physical media is here, so I don’t have to use copious amounts of data to watch what I already own. Movies, tv shows, cartoons you name it, we have a pretty good library of stuff to read, watch, listen to, or interact with. My garden is here. I can putter around the lawns & trees and tidy up outside for our own benefit here. My shop and select tools are here to fix stuff, make stuff, or alter things are here. I like it here, not out and about. My bathroom is here, which I can reach from any point on the property in just a handful of seconds and foot steps. That’s a top shelf reason to love being at home! In my case anyway.

Only two weeks and a few days remain of Summer Break 2023. It has whizzed by unfathomablly quick. I feel like there is a two week memory hole right dead centre of it all to. Shame about that. But perhaps we can do some fun stuff, more so than usual, to fill up that void zone from late July/early August. We went to see the therapy pigs at Sweet Acres last night. The kids all had a blast. They ran, jumped, shrieked, and flew about like feral children for a couple of hours. We fed the pigs cucumber chunks, and participated in a watermelon smash. The kids all loved that, even if it did get a little messy. Outdoors, few bugs in the cool evening weather. The rain was even kind enough to hold off for us so that we didn’t get soaked.

Hard to believe that nine weeks can sail by so quickly, but here we nearly are, right. Slightly more than two full weeks left, and then the kids are back at it. Grades four, and one. Really real school for the both of them. Do I wish that they would bring back the OAC year? Yes, very much so. As handy as the two year full day kindergarten was for me, an OAC year would be for them. Take the training wheels off, mature for one more year, before you drop a fortune on college/university with out ever having free rein to fail, like you would get in your (FREE) OAC year in high school. The self reliance training you got from an OAC year was a real eye opener for some on just how hard being self motivating can be when you have access to all day parties, events, clubs, computer games, no parents, and more freedom than you’ve ever had in your life. You can’t shelter kids for 14 years of school, in a nanny state of mind, and then fob them off and expect anything other than a melt down or total disorder. The OAC year was the way to test those waters under ideal conditions. Not a new school, not new people, not a new town, not new living conditions, no major expenses for books/courses/food/entertainment. Just the last step off the dock ladder to float out into the water and see if you will sink or swim. And then make adjustments for the year after in order to be successful. But not now. Now it’s no failing, and handholding until you just walk straight off the dock, get soaked, shocked, panic, and flounder. Some kids from lower incomes probably already had to take care of themselves, so can do laundry, cook minor meals, gather themselves for time sensitive tasks. But those who were helped every single step of the way are now frozen, and don’t know where to begin. As the money rolls out of your account regardless of how well they can cope. I’m telling you, the cutting of the OAC year was a mistake. But I have zero facts, data points, nor sources to site here. Just my own experience, and the anectodal stories of the high school teachers I talk to.

Welcome to Saturday. We’ve got some early apple picking to do this afternoon down at the farm. A warm evening in the orchard. I hope the wasps aren’t crazy aggressive yet, as that may pose a significant hazard to my enjoyment of early season apple picking. Otherwise a quiet day ahead. Ciao Bella.

And coming in straight out of left field is…

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A ruptured right ear drum, complete with a bloody, oozing mass from deep inside the ear. Wonderful way to wake up before 6:00am today. So far looks like no associated pain. Waiting for a potential fever, or any other signs of illness. Whee!

Today is Friday, of all days, so here’s hoping you all get those weekend plans you wanted. Whether that means they are cancelled, or actually moving ahead this time, is up to you. Your fantasy, your choice. Stay bundled up in bed in a blanket watching whatever you like with a cup of something in your hand, or out crushing it in a bar with bottle service, you enjoy yourselves.

This week has been a pretty good one as far as Summer Break 2023 is concerned. Visited a mine where we found all sorts of Amethyst crystals, went to the lake for a brief 3 day stay, swam in the lake, hot tubbed, went tubing with the kids on what ended up being the windiest and roughest day on the lake. Shipped off the wooden moose on Monday, and got that out of my shop after months of looking at it every time I went in there. Kids even went to the zoo twice this week. We need to pace ourselves a little better. Or else we will be run ragged by the end of week nine. Will need to nap all day the first week the kids go back to school if we keep this up!

In other news, I have started book #15 on my 12 book a year challenge. I was disappointed- again, by Mo Hayder. **SPOILERS AHEAD** The Treatment was well written, well paced, but the ending contradicts the first pages of chapter one, so I don’t know if she had written herself into a corner, or used the wrong name/character in the end to be the big bad, but it was a let down. I don’t understand why said big bad would go about trying to expose their own misdeeds. As it made no sense for the early iteration of the character, nor for the big bad version of that character at the end of the book. I don’t think that a very late stage admission of schizophrenia solves the problem either. And a split personality was not mentioned, nor played upon as a theme either. Sad. The Ritual was a bit anti climactic in the end also, so 0 for 2. Shame she’s dead, the author that is. There were loose ends I’d want to see tied off, but no such luck now.

But what do I know about writing eh? Not much. She made a living at it, had the book made in to what I can only assume was either a sterilized white wash, or a horrendous book accurate car crash of SA trauma by child predators of both sexes. Either way, no thanks. Not watching that.

Haven’t picked up my children’s book to finalize my last handful of drawings yet. I can feel the weight of the languishing project on the back of my shoulders. I fear it will take another 8 full hours or more to complete those last few pages. I need to break that into smaller chunks and try thinking of it as just a page at a time. Story is written, edited and finalized. Just being a slow hand with the artwork. I’ll post the pdf here once it’s done for all six of you to see. Ha. Or maybe I will add it, and Book 2 to my amazon kindle unlimited library, and see if I can sell one copy of each book to be consistent. Though I did scratch that itch when I wrote and published the first book of collected short stories. Far more people followed along and read them here for free than have done so on Kindle Unlimited. Go figure.

Keeping the minions occupied…

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Is always a far more challenging task than anybody thinks it will be. You have to keep a balance in mind. If you go and do too many wild, crazy, zany expensive things up front the kids’ll expect that to continue through all nine weeks. So you gotta give them a lull, some down time in order to be feet in the air up a wall off their beds bored, and then pepper in a swim, a farm visit, a zoo trip, Wonderland visit, a movie in a proper theater, a play date with friends. Sounds mean, but if you do it all up front you get nothing but grief for the rest of the summer break. Eek out the extraordinary fun at a manageable pace. Keep the expectations for a typical day on a level you can handle. Will we go wake boarding, yes. But not so much that it becomes blasé. Just like cottage visits, beach visits, going to the gemstone mine, or visiting a national park. Go do it, but not with the expectation that this is an everyday occurence. That’s the gist of it.

Plus, he says, go read a book. Play with your toys, draw something, paint a picture, play in the back yard, ride your bikes, bounce a basketball, practice your serve and volley technique with a volley ball. Run some soccer drills, play catch, use your scooters, play a video game, watch one of the thousand movies we own. There is no shortage of things to do here at the house without also needing to drop serious coin on extraordinary outings. Go read!, especially go read. Between the four of us we own a libraries worth of texts. Fiction, science fiction, historical, romance, fantasy, horror, suspense, thriller, crime, sports related, space exploration, theocracy, communism, business admin, weather and geology, geography. Our interests are wide and varied. Humour, illustrated, technical manuals, wood working, you name it we have it or something adjacent to it by one or two steps.

Also, I think today is Tuesday. Only the second week in and losing track of time. Very peculiar sense to not know where you are in a given week. Calendars are your friends! Sleep in, stay up late, forget what day it is. What am I, fourteen again?

Sick insomniac children make the worst dance partners.

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Usually by throwing up all down your back whilst you’re swaying back and forth gently in an attempt to soothe them when having night terrors, a fever, or general sleeplessness. Either way, fun times. And a change of wardrobe later, I’m up with the sun and the gooey, sick child that never, ever sleeps in on weekends. But, I will say this, since both kids have recently started to occupy their time with mobile ball balancing games, they are able to keep to themselves for an hour at a time before the rage quiting starts. Baby steps. I’d prefer them do console stuff, fewer ad interruptions, by far, and easier to monitor.

I guess this is Saturday July first. Day one of my wife’s year off, and also day one of nine weeks worth of summer holidays for the kiddos. Around these parts this is considered Strawberry Festival Season, and usually there is a big fair set up in town, fire works, food trucks, vendors, stalls, and live events. But due to a scheduling conflict, no rides this year. And the weather forecast calls for rain, and thunder storms from now until Tuesday. Welp! Not much we can do about that. I always have my eyes open for funnel cakes and fish tacos, so I don’t doubt that we will mosey over at some point if the rain holds off, or remains fairly light.

In the back of my head I’m glad for the rain. I can’t recall us heading into July with green grass before, so a couple of extra rain days should do us some good as the hot, humid parched earth of July settles in. The corn will like having some rain, especially if it’s followed immediately by several days of heat, and unfettered sunshine. We don’t irrigate our fields, so very dependent on rainfall. Eventually we’ll get back to a drought situation, and will have to hand water all the vegetable plots, and pumpkins, the peach trees, and apple orchard, cucumber patch, and all the tomatoes and pepper plants. Hundreds of feet of hose to move around, cans full of water, wagons with cisterns, or a full on water truck with pump and fire hose. It’s loud, messy, and hot physical labour. And that’s the easier job there is. Weeding, and pulling buckets of rocks out of the field are much harder. Both on your back, and how much time it takes. Well, correction. Rocks suck, but a few good passes might do it for the season, but weeding last forever. Sprays work on some things, but going in with a hoe, or trowel, and spending hours everyday cleaning up rows works the best. But is highly physically demanding. Tiring, hot, thistle filled work that stains your hands funny colours, and leaves you with dirty feet, bug bites, and a sun burn. Thankless work. Easily the biggest reason I would never own my own farm, or be interested in living off my own land. Awful, hard, soul crushing work. Owning land is a dream, but exclusively farming that land?, myself?, no chance. One acre plot for veggies I like, yeah sure why not. But a whole working farm. No way. Although the commute would be great, the most ever ‘work from home’ job you could ask for. But rigorous and hard living. I’m far too soft inside to weather that hardship.

Both kids are now up, and it has just gone 7:00am. Going to be a long, long summer.

The gift card boom…

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I’m sure anyplace that sells gift cards has seen a dramatic uptick in purchases lately. Priming the economy with $25 vouchers for teachers all over the country as we hit the very last day of school. After having to telecommute the kids in for classes for several months over the last three years, I’d say the gift cards are warranted. So, thanks to all the teachers for keeping our kids alive between the hours of 8:25am, and 3:00pm each week day. Throwing in an education is top shelf utilization of their time. Round of applause!

So summer officially kicks off at 12 Noon today, when the doors fly open and the kids run out into the mid day sun. Soon cries of “I’m bored” will be heard around the province. Unless you’re a farm kid, then you’ve got chores, and duties to perform sun up to sun down. If I hear my kids belly aching I’ll drive them right down to the farm to pull weeds and rocks on their hands and knees for a few hours under a very unforgiving sun. Pass around the hand trowels and hoes, and set them loose on thistles and crab grass to eek out the boredom complaints into the hard baked soil. You wanna act like your toys, books, games, and movies ain’t no ‘thang‘, then I’ll put you to work to save grandma’s back out in the fields of pumpkins and vegetables. Tell me again that you’re bored, I dare you.

This summer everything is open, so we can try a little bit of lots of stuff. Bowling, mini putt, movies, rock climbing, arcade, go karts, wandering a mall, the beach, Wonderland, the Zoo, Air Riders, Laser Tag. Have a better set of experiences this summer, or at least more varied this time around. Weather dependent too though. This forest fire smoke, bad air quality might force us indoors with crowds, so higher quality masks are going to be a thing for us. Batting cages, driving range, swimming, bike rides, these can be thrown into the mix aswell. I am positively giddy thinking about all the new experiences we can choose between. Price may very well be a factor too. We already have a Zoo pass, and Wonderland seasons passes, so those could shoot up the ranks as our go to, since parking and entrance is paid up for the year. Splash pads and water parks abound!

Alas, it is Friday, the last one in June 2023. How quickly it comes at you! Six months of the year done, and in the books. Wowzers. Both kids will be in numbered grades come the fall. Hard to believe time has gone by so fast. Don’t get me wrong, we had some slow as molasses days and/or nights, but man oh man the years start coming and they don’t stop coming.

The ninth and final week of summer vacation is upon us.

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You knew it was coming, we all did, and it’s happening, right – now. Woah. All those weeks ago this felt miles away, and now that it’s here, we’re already on Tuesday. The youngest had transitional night terror episodes about doing something new, and last night was no different. The camp was full of smiling kids faces, so I knew that they’d have fun, dancing around to music, doing crafts and acting like pretend animals all day long. They even get outdoor time in the a.m. before it gets to swelteringly hot in the late August sunshine and humidity. They practically bolted from the car when they saw a field full of kids their own age, and hula hoops, and kids doing cartwheels and… yeah, they had a lot of fun on day one. Four more days to go until another long weekend. Then a random Tuesday at home, then school.

For as long as that lasts while York Region does nothing preventative about Covid or Monkey Pox. Could be a short lived return. But, this is all next weeks worry. I want the kids to enjoy camp right now, then focus on having one last great summer long weekend before we have to tackle the gods honest truth about the state of our school, school board and all the inherent bs contained within thanks to our MOE. Ugh.

Spirits up, smile on, keep this train a rollin’. The last vestiges of summer are shining that late day amber coloured glow. Trees are starting to turn, or just shed crumpled leaves due to the lack of rain in July & August. The sun sets earlier and earlier, and the evenings have grown rather chilled. You’ve got only four or five more weeks of comfortable sweater wearing evening patio drinking weather ahead of us, before coats will become a necessity. That was a mouthful.

I spent much of last night dreaming about the shelving unit I’m going to build for the front room. Asymmetrical to fit the space, yet maximize the utility. It has to be short to fit under the windowsills, but have playable surfaces for the kids toys. Stained dark and polished to a gloss, even though the kids will most likely scratch the surface immediately. Oh well. I’m using pine, so it’s not like $2000.00 worth of Walnut lumber. I have the pine here. It was to make HP Trunks, but I’d rather use the resources on the family room at the moment. I’ll still have all of the hinges, handles and coloured felt if I go back to making them again. I need to make a 2ft long trunk for my youngest. She only has a novelty box I made that’s 12x6x6″h. Looks the same, but significantly smaller.

I’m going to use lap joints, butt joints and dowels for the utility shelf unit. No dovetails or box joints or mitered corners of the boxes portion. Any kind of panache can be shown on the legs/base portion of the unit. The top box will be pretty straight forward. No funky angles, or design touches. Plain Jane! I need to check and see if my planer still runs, as that might be the defining factor for using my stock of pine, or buying pre laminated boards in a paint grade state. Will look into it later on this morning. Ciao Bella!

Engineered Hardwood: or plywood as I like to call it.

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Plywood tongue and groove boards with a one ply hardwood face that is slightly thicker and can have that “hand scraped” texture. Not really hardwood, more of a fancy veneer on your laminate board flooring. People look down on laminate floors in favour of the exact same thing, but with a slightly nicer (and a whole lot more expensive) veneered top face. Ludicrous. Pure malarkey. The best con perpetrated by the flooring industry upon us all. Here have the same thing, but more expensive, just use a nicer more posh sounding moniker for it. Insanity. You want to know how I know that engineered hardwood isn’t real, nobody reclaims it to build furniture with it. We’ll scavenge pallet wood, boxes, other old furniture, rotten trees and old building materials like barn boards. But there’s no craze for building furniture with engineered hardwood, and that should tell you something. As us cheap wood workers will build out of just about anything we can get our hands on. Even 2×4’s. So, yeah. Think on that for a second or two.

So Friday, yeah? Yes it is. Week eight closing out with some loud cracks of thunder in the early a.m. Summer is most definitely drawing to a close. Sad to see it go, but bring on autumn and Halloween ! Decorations, costume building, lights, smoke machines, music and scary movies! It really is a whole thing if you lean into it hard enough, and have the funds to do so. I see how privileged it is to be able to go all out during any season or holiday that you really love. I hope to one day help my kids make elaborate costumes, like ring wraiths, or Master Chief, or Ironman or something like a Transformer or Gundam Robot. A chance to build all summer long, paint and fabricate parts in foam, cloth and cardboard. It could be awesome! I choose to believe it would be awesome.

Still a few weeks away from pumpkin carving. Can’t start too early or else they rot before the big night! Gotta time it just right, so you’re not rushed, but it doesn’t turn to mush with rounded soggy edges! Carving shows will be on tv very soon! I for one am very excited. 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.