PHWOOMB!

What a weekend that was. All three dance recitals are now completed and we can sit down to rest for a bit. Lots of stuff going on this weekend along with traveling to & from the recitals. My niece had her 5th birthday party. We had a pa day where we watched a friends kids for the day, and we got rained on a whole bunch. Madness. And now I am exhausted. I’d love nothing more than to skip Domestic Duties Monday and just go back to bed for another three or four hours. Skip the laundry, skip the dishes, skip the floors and grocery shopping. Put them off until tomorrow and just lie in bed all day long.

Driving on the highways in torrential downpours is not my idea of fun. White knuckle driving is not my favourite. Though what’s with so many drivers using their four ways on the highway? Keep your day time running lights on for sure, but four ways seems a bit much, unless you are in distress or going to pull off the highway onto the shoulder. I’ll be the first to admit that driving with wheel splash and heavy rains is very unpleasant, and makes it extremely difficult to see. But if people have their daytime running lights on (which many do not, I might add!) Then you don’t need the distracting flash of fourways. Initially it looks like they’re all trying to change lanes, and then you notice it’s both lights going off intermittently. Odd behaviour. I don’t want odd behaviour on a highway, I want routine, predictable actions. Wild Cards need not apply.

Flowers for the last performances (shows #5 & #6) of June 2024.
Heading out on Saturday for Show #3.

We saw lots of examples of Ballet, Hip-Hop, and Lyrical dancing this weekend. I’m happy to report that their classes paid off, and their respective performances were rather good. Considering how much time we missed traveling for nearly a full month out of this training season. 15 days, 9 days, and then 16 more days. I didn’t notice any ill effects on their choreography.

It was a proud parent moment getting to see them do their thing, and to do it well. Lovely. Just lovely. Though, I could do without the senior classes bawling their eyes out on every performance because they’ve graduated out, and are moving on to college/university or other dance groups. That was a bit much. Poor taste to cry mid show, if you ask me. Use those feelings, for sure. But don’t bawl & whimper through your act. A bit much. But a talented bunch nonetheless.

So here we are, back to Monday – again. Next week is going to be a busy one aswell. Field trips and family in town for a visit. Ciao Bella!

Wrapping up our Fair entries for the year.

This whole weekend will be spent painting, crafting, sewing, baking and running around town to get the last few fair entries finished, and in some instances started & finished ahead of next Tuesdays drop off deadline. Could get rather tense! I need to grab pumpkins with my BIL to deliver to the fair grounds too. Lots to do around here in the next four days.

We need to review our photography and get those printed off, mounted, and ready for display come Saturday. We picked up our badges, ribbons and parking tags, so that much is taken care of so far. Probably need to go shopping for rice crispies so that I can make my last project on Sunday/Monday. Don’t want to make them too far in advance as they’ll go stale when it’s time for judging on Wednesday of next week.

I love fair time. If the weather holds out we always get some terrific photos of the midway and the kids smiling & having fun. Blooming onions, funnel cakes, burgers and ice creams, the occasional candy floss, or candy apples thrown into the mix. It’s great. I hope we get to see the horse pulls, demolition derby, and the monster trucks too. I’m pretty partial to wandering around the home craft building looking at all of the complex quilts and art work. My sculpting never wins any prizes but I enter them anyway no painted ceramics this year, so I have to go in for the “Technique Not Mentioned” open category. I just like having one thing to show to people.

The food trucks and the Smashed Burger folks have really good food. I’m sad that I can’t eat more of it in a day. I’ll be searching for their blue banner again this year. As much as I usually enjoy the chicken tenders and fries from the fair, the Smashed Burger really piqued my interest last year.

You should come out to see it. Parking is free, and there are nightly fireworks shows. It’s a really fun agricultural experience. Ciao Bella!

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.