Mom is here! Things we have accomplished part one

My mom is here for about three weeks. I am so happy.

When I grew up we lived in a small town and I had two sets of grandparents, great grandparents, and aunts and uncles all in the same community. I spent weekends with grandparents, hung out with uncles and aunts and played with cousins. I loved it.

There are five kids in my family and four of us currently live in Canada, one in the USA, but we are still so far apart that we see one another rarely. We have kids around the same ages but they really don't know one another well. My parents have been living overseas for a number of years.

My mom has returned to Canada now and I am excited for many reasons, primarily because my kids will  have a better opportunity to get to know her than they would have otherwise.

She arrived this week (my camera is not working and I am SOOO sad about that, but we will figure something out). She is an insanely hard worker and we have already contemplated the "projects" we will be working on.

Yesterday we (I say "we" loosely - I only did one thing on the list) sorted and counted over 1400 cans and bottles for recycling which I brought into town today in the truck. Mom mowed the lawn (we have a LOT of lawn and it was completely overgrown because the mower was broken and then we had two weeks of constant rain) and then when I got home from work I fixed the dripping taps in the bathroom tub.

This morning before I left for work mom wanted to know what projects she needed to be working on today and so we sat at the kitchen table and made a long list of all the things we want to do while she is here. We both LOVE lists. We both LOVE to check things off the lists and we LOVE the "before" and "after" of projects - so we really need to get the camera into working order!

Shel would like her to visit more than once a year for all the things we get accomplished!


Mom put the list on the wall and then laughed when I added "build a treehouse". She thought I was joking.

Wordless Wednesday

When someone comments on your blog...

In 2008 I posted a short blog about synchronized swimming and the olympics. This week someone commented on my post. I will copy here both the blog post and the comment:

Here is my post from 2008:

The 2008 Olympics started today. I love the Olympics. I love to watch a lot of sports, and I particularly enjoy watching the Olympics. Some of the sports I take more pleasure in watching and I honestly don't watch them all. One sport which makes me laugh is synchronized swimming. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate the athleticism of these ladies (why are they always ladies?)



I once went to deep water aqua size and I had an asthma attack, swallowed water and almost drowned "WITH" a floatation device on trying to kick and lift my shoulders above the water. I know these swimmers are athletes. I laugh though because really - the glitter and noseplugs?

Here is the comment posted this week:

1. noseclips are necessary. how about you go and try to flip upside down in the water, see how fun getting it up your nose is for you. 2) ....? how does glitter make an incredibly difficult sport "funny". is it "funny" to you that these girls work their asses of? is it "funny" that they sacrifice all the normal pleasures of life to train? is it "funny" that, even while performing these incredibly difficult, taxing movements, they have the sheer control and willpower to keep a smile on their face and their eyes open to maintain the entertainment factor of the sport (because nobody wants to see gasping, grimacing swimmers)? i don't think it's funny, and moreover, i think it is highly ignorant and downright disrespectful of you to mock what these girls have given everything for just because their outfits sparkle and they put on a smile for spectators such as yourself. not so funny.


I don't know about you but I thought the reaction was a bit over the top. I certainly believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, however I thought my posting was pretty clear that I recognized the athleticism of the swimmers. I didn't think what I said was disrespectful and I stand by it - I remain amused by the whole event. Is being amused disrespectful? Has anyone else ever had a reaction to a post that you thought was "over the top"?

How do you react to them?

I think it's gonna rain today

It has been raining here for a few weeks. Literally. The forecast is for more rain for this weekend and next week.I don't remember rain like this, all day, all night. for days and days on end. In fact, there is a rainfall warning for us here today and tonight.
I don't mind it at all - except for the mosquitoes. I do need to mow the lawn which is growing and growing and may take a few weeks to dry out once the rain stops.
The temperature is still warm and it cools nicely at night and I know the crops need it. I just hope it doesn't rain so much that it floods everything and the farmers lose their crops.
I like rain.
The boys love the puddles and they spend a lot of time outside which means we have a lot of laundry to do and there is always mud on the floor tracked in by the dogs and the kids. Shel has them outside right now playing with water pistols. They are having a blast.
I do hope sunny days eventually arrive, but for now I am happy with the rain.

Summer

It is finally summer. I am thrilled it is here but the list of things I have to do is growing by the minute.
My mom is coming to stay with us for two weeks and I am super excited. The boys are also excited. We have been talking about it for a while with the boys and yesterday Cael wanted Shel to pretend she was gramma!
Today Max spoke to her on skype for a minute. She reminded him she was coming to visit and he said " I know. Mom is cleaning the house for you!" Thanks Max. Way to keep that on the down low.

10 year anniversary

Today is our 10th anniversary. My spouse sent flowers to me at work from her and the boys. They are beautiful.
YAY US!
I cannot believe it has been ten years since we stood and exchanged vows in front of family and friends at our commitment ceremony.
In a way it seems like just yesterday, and in in another way I am amazed at all we have gone through and where we are today. I know for a fact that if you had told me 10 years ago that today we would be LEGALLY MARRIED, living on an acreage in Canada with two beautiful children I would scarcely have believed you, and yet here we are.

Happy Anniversary my love.

Masterchef - and smelling food

One of the judges on the television show is Chef Joe Bastianich.
Prior to this show airing I had no idea who he was and so my entire opinion of him has been based on a few hours of television viewing and editing.
One of the things he does on the show ( I can't find an image of it to share with you) is smell EVERYTHING before eating it. I have never really noticed anyone else doing this in the way he does. Not a lot of people smell their food before consuming it.
This has had me thinking. I had never really thought of smelling everything "I" ate, though it makes sense. I have on RARE occasion put something into my mouth that has been bad and had I smelled it before hand I would not have had the experience.  One time in particular I opened a box of chocolate milk and drank from the carton and the milk was bad. NASTY NASTY NASTY.
So I decided to do it.
And I did it.
And I have to give one SMALL recommendation to anyone who decides to try this.
The time to decide to start smelling your food before consuming it should NOT be, I repeat, NOT BE, when you buy a hot dog from the drive through window of Dairy Queen.

Television: MasterChef

One of the summer season shows that started last week was MasterChef.  Shel and I were watching episode one and we laughed and laughed at the comments made by one contestant  - truck driver "Albert" . He served the three chefs a sausage and alligator jambalaya, with a fried alligator medallion on the side.

He showed the judges a tattoo on his butt (then washed his hands before serving his alligator!) and he recieved an apron  - meaning he can participate in the next round of cook - offs.
When asked what alligator tastes like Albert responded "toad!". Then when he was asked if there was anything he drew the line at eating he said that he would never eat possum.
I wonder why?
What has a possum ever done to Albert?
Why toad and not possum?
I hope to see more of him, he was entertaining.

Television: The Voice

We have been watching this new show "The Voice".

Basically it is a show about four accomplished "artists" (Christina Aguilera, CeeLo Green, Blake Shelton, and Adam Levine)  who listened to auditions "blind" - without seeing who was singing - and chose based on voice alone if they wanted to have the person on their "team". They then  coach their singes to compete against one another.

I think the idea is kind of cool - to judge someone based on voice alone and not on appearance, and some of the performers have impressed me.

This week at the beginning of the show, the "judges" or "coaches" came out and sang together.
(The above photo is of them performing.)

Really Christina? Really?
What the HELLFIRE are you wearing?

I'm not so naive as to think that you are out on stage representing all women. I pretty much think you are out there representing yourself. Which is great. Do your thing. Put yourself out there.
Just one small request please - next time put something on that isn't crawling up your crotch. It was gross.

I may not have even noticed your crotch except for the fact that the heels on your shoes were SO high that you couldn't stand up straight so you had to walk around with this "bent knee" thing - which pushed your crotch right into my face.

Not nice. Not nice at all. I could barely focus on the music your crotch was such a distraction - and believe me it had absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact I am a lesbian. There is a time and place for crotches, and primetime television is not either.

Wordless Wednesday

Snow In June

Blood - (NOT FUNNY!) and my dentist visit

One of my favorite youtube videos of all time is this one: http://youtu.be/-fVDGu82FeQ

Unfortunately I can't embed it and so you will have to check out the link to see what I am talking about.
I have to agree with this boy. Blood is NOT FUNNY!

Yesterday I went to the dentist.

I have horrendous teeth which I inherited from my fathers side of the family.
I have always had bad teeth and I have never had a positive experience with a dentist. I am extremely reluctant to visit a dentist which I understand makes it worse when I do finally go because I don't go until I am in pain and hence all interactions are painful.
I think they would be anyway - but that is my bias.
I also get tired of telling dentists why I have no enamel on my teeth - the result of illness when I was young - but I feel like all I ever do is tell the story and it is tiresome to me.

SO ANYWAY.

I broke a tooth. Maybe I broke it about a month ago or more, I can't honestly remember. It was a molar and I broke it in half vertically, with the exterior of the tooth falling right off, leaving half a tooth in my mouth.
I thought it was a tooth I had previously had a root canal on, because I thought that ALL my molars have had root canals, and so I did nothing. I just figured, whatever. It's a dead tooth and I will have to pay for a new crown and I couldn't honestly be bothered making a dentist appointment for that right now.

Well I was mistaken. Although I never actually had pain IN the broken tooth, my whole face started to hurt. I thought I had bone cancer or something, Not ONLY because I am a partial hypochondriac, but because there was serious bone pain in my face.

Finally on Wednesday I was ready to pull a "castaway" and cut things out of my head with a skate blade if I couldn't have someone do something about the pain in my face. I started to take advil sometime last week for the pain. I estimate I have been taking pain killers for about 10 days. I think what actually clued me into how serious the pain in my face was, is the fact my gut hurt so bad from all the painkillers - which weren't working.

I was in a meeting at work on Wednesday morning. I could barely pay attention to the meeting I was in so much pain and I was sending Shel text messages asking her to please get me in to see a dentist. She was calling all over and having no luck at all. I was starting to feel like I was going to go insane from the pain.
She FINALLY was able to get me in to see a dentist in the next town first thing Friday morning.
I have been to see this dentist before and he is a decent dentist. I stopped going to him because he is VERY RELIGIOUS, and he acts in all these plays - always in the role of Jesus or Moses - and I was tired of being stuck in the chair listening to him rehearse his lines. I fondly refer to him as "Dr. Jesus". I didn't even care one iota that he was the only one available, I was in that much pain.

Thursday morning I drove to the dentist. I will spare you the gag-o-rific intimate details of the experience but I will say this. I was wrong. The tooth I broke had a root and I needed to choose between a root canal and an extraction. Let's see here.
Root canal.... $2500 bucks, three more dentist visits, and lets not forget - THE ROOT CANAL.
Extraction.... $200 bucks, no more visits to the dentist for this tooth in my life EVER.

Guess which one I chose?

The broken tooth has been removed.

There was excess bleeding. There was some puking of blood. There is some pain.

And so, If you have one more minute, please visit my favorite video of all time on youtube.

IT'S NOT FUNNY!!!!!!!

original song - get it right

I know for some people the thought of watching Glee is as painful as pulling teeth. (getting teeth pulled is painful as I can attest to today)
Knowing that there are people out there who wouldn't normally check out Glee, but still have an appreciation for good music, I am posting this original song, written for the show, which I think is worth a listen.
Check it out!

Http://www.youtu.be/Mb7dyVtdRlg

Dang house ..... part one

When we were renters I always felt like we were paying money to benefit someone else. On the other hand it was sure nice to be able to call the landlord when something went wrong and request that it be fixed.
I know of nightmare stories of renters who have trashed houses and really left the landlords in a pickle. I also know - and this has been our experience - of landlords who don't really care much about keeping the house in top shape and who are reluctant to respond when there are issues.

For instance, in the last house we rented, we had a problem with the heat. It was winter and bitterly cold and we simply could NOT get the house to warm up.

We called the landlords to let them know we were without heat. Because our rent included the cost of gas, the landlord simply told us to turn on the oven and keep it open to heat us up. Not the most ideal scenario. After many complaints finally we had someone come out and check the furnace and it was in BAD shape. There were birds nests and an old beehive and all KINDS of junk in the furnace which was not in any kind of working order.

At that time I felt as though I could not wait for the day when I was the homeowner and responsible for keeping up our own house and responding to issues as we saw fit, and in a more timely manner.

HA!

HA!

What I have found to be the reality of owning a home is completely the opposite. It has been an exercise in frustration from the outset.

To start with Shel wanted to live out of town and I wanted to live in town. One of my strongest arguments for living in town was water. Most of the houses outside of town limits have dugouts, cisterns or wells for water.

In the house we rented we had a cistern.To fill a cistern (if you don't have a water truck of your own) you must hire a water truck to deliver water. You have to gauge how much water you will be using and plan in advance to get the truck out for delivery. You don't want to pay when you have a lot of water left because the cost is the same regardless of whether you take a drop or a couple thousand gallons. ( The price increased from 60 dollars per load to over a hundred dollars per load in the time we lived in our rental house). The cost is for delivery, the water is free.

In the winter the water freezes and so it is very difficult to determine how much is in the tank because you can't see - AND you have no idea how thick the ice is.

We ran our of water once, and we had to call the landlord to come out and prime the pump for us because we had no idea what we were doing.

Another time (and this gives me chills just to think about) I opened the lid of the tank to see how much water we had. The water was frozen. I sat on the edge of the tank and pounded the ice with my feet to try and crush it so I could see how much water was in the tank. It didn't budge. I STOOD on the ice and jumped to try and break it, but it didn't break.

I discovered later that someone (probably more than one person, but at least one person locally) had died by jumping on the ice in the cistern. The ice broke away from the wall of the tank, tipped and allowed the person to fall into the water, and then went floated back to it's original position, trapping the person beneath the ice, out of sight and unbeknownst to anyone until much later.

I would not buy a house out of town if we had to haul water...

let's run

"Come with me, I need to run to town quickly" I said to Max. He looked at me and responded; "Run with our legs? I will be too tired!"

We didn't run with our legs, but the day has been tiring just the same.

We rented a truck so we could take as much stuff possible to the dump in one run (which has turned into two...) but we have been going like mad since first thing this morning. A lot of the stuff we neede to take to the dump has been stuff that was left here by the people that lived here before us - or stuff that no longer works (like our dryer). We managed to get to the dump two dryers, two mattresses, couches, loveseats, and other HEAVY things! I wish I was a strong as the days I loaded trucks for UPS. I could have used some of that energy today.

The dryer we ordered a month ago arrived in town at Sears for us to pick up and I absolutely wanted it this weekend rather than next week so we had to go and pick that up before the outlet closed at one pm.

We had some friends who picked up the fridge (which we have been without now for over a year) and brought it to us because I am too cheap to pay the 70 dollar delivery charge that The Brick wanted to drop it off for us.

We mowed the lawn, we pruned some trees, we cleaned out the playhouse - (well it has never been a playhouse, but it will be after this weekend!)

To get the fridge into the house we had to unpack it on the front step and remove the front door and the jamb.  We got it into the living room but once it was there we realized that the door from the living room into the hallway is smaller than the front door. This house can be SOOO frustrating. Not one thing in the whole place is built to any kind of standard. I never even thought to check the interior door widths, I knew I needed to check the front door because we couldn't get the old fridge out, but I didn't think beyond measuring the width of the front door. For now we have a fridge in the living room and it will have to do for the immediate future. We did so much today and I was shattered by the time we got the front door back on, and I was simply not prepared to start figuring out how to remove fridge doors to try and fit it through the hallway.

In the meantime on one of the trips to the dump as we came back through town Shel stopped and bought a bunch of stuff that needed to be refrigerated because she was so darn excited by the thought of having a fridge in the house after a year without one. (We have had a bar fridge but that's all). We had stuff on the counters in the kitchen that needed to be put away and I was ready to call it a night. For now the fridge is plugged in - in the living room  - and we will make do with this crazy house for a few more days.

Brotherly Love

The boys are 27 months apart. They sometimes, but not always, play well together.

Cael is going to be three this summer and he is asserting more and more independence (much to my chagrin).
He is more adventurous than his older brother, but less destructive.

It USED to be that Max would never go anywhere and so we always knew exactly what he was up to because he was within a few feet of us always. He took things apart, for sure, but we were always fairly aware of exactly what was being stripped to pieces.

Then along came Cael. The kid is a wanderer. He is more social and more confident than Max, but less destructive. Unfortunately he will go anywhere and now that Max has a partner in crime, Cael leads, Max follows and destroys!

Cael will go outside alone. Max will not.
Cael will play alone. Max will not.

More recently Cael has wanted to be the boss of himself and this has not gone over well with Max - who likes to be in charge of EVERYTHING. Max wants Cael to go with him, but then wants to boss him around and life has become a little more complex between them.

The other morning they were on the back porch. I thought they were there getting boots on to go outside in and thought nothing of it. They were getting along, and I have come to cherish these moments when one (or both) of them are not screaming for mothers intervention.

The next thing Cael walks into the kitchen and with arms raised says "TA DA!" - which is what he says when he has something to show off.

It took me a moment to see what it was that he was showing off...

Max has climbed into the top of the bathroom cupboard and got the electric clippers and opened Salon Maxie.

Cael was not the only one sporting a new "doo"...

The third member of the little trouble trio - Hugo - also got a haircut.

 

I thought the day was over.

Every now and then I work a really long day. I am in charge of supervising a student function one day a week that requires me to remain at work until after midnight. Unfortunately this supervision does not mean I can neglect other duties - for instance I am on a committee right now that is under a time crunch to do a lot of work in the next few months. Committee members have committed two full days of working almost every two weeks until the project is complete. Today was one of the days where I needed to be in a meeting from 9 am but still had to supervise a student function until 1am.

LONG DAY. LONG.

I left the house this morning ( I guess yesterday already) with Max at 7:45 am. I pulled into the driveway tonight at 1 am.

I don't carry any kind of a purse so I loaded up my arms with everything I needed to bring into the house, and decided I DO need to start carrying a purse - camera, camera charger, phone, phone charger, laptop, laptop charger, wallet, work keys, car keys, e-reader - in arm load number one. I let the dogs out and kept the cats in, put the stuff onto the table, took some advil for my headache and let the dogs back in - and kept the cats in. I tiptoed upstairs so I wouldn't wake anyone - this time my arms were full with only phone and phone charger, laptop and laptop charger, drink and e-reader!

As I got to the top of the stairs I could hear the tv on in our bedroom. I chuckled to myself. I thought Shel had fallen asleep with the Disney channel on - I could hear "Little Einsteins" on the tv.

I had to just segue here for a moment and say that in the instant that I heard and identified Little Einsteins on the television I had an instant but comprehensive conversation with myself in my head - wondering when it was that I became able to identify the voices from a child's cartoon without a second thought - and did I ever think in my lifetime I would have such a skill? "I'll take animated children's television show voices for 200 please Alex....." " What is Backyardigans?"

ANYWAY.... As I walked into my room I realized that my spouse had not in fact, fallen asleep listening to  The Little Einsteins playing Rachmaninoff, instead MY SON WAS AWAKE and in my bed watching television!

And I thought my day was over......

Wordless Wednesday (Slave Lake, Alberta)

This image belongs to Sun Media. Link to the photo as posted on Sun Media Website by clicking on the photo.

How to salvage a day

What do you do to salvage a day when it seems to have been a write off?

I had one of those days today. By the time I was finished with work I was convinced that I needed to come home, climb into bed, forget the day and just hope for a better day tomorrow.

When Iw as finished with a hellacious day of work I had one errand to run in town. Yesterday we went to a metal fabrication place and asked them if they could make us a new piece for our garden swing. Somehow over the winter we lost a hook for the swing and couldn't find a replacement anywhere. They said they could make it for us and that they would call when it was done. This afternoon I got the call that the piece was finished.I thought I would stop in and pick it up and surprise Shel by hooking the swing up tonight. So I stopped in and got it and they gave it to me free of charge. I thanked them and told them how much I appreciated it. I really was grateful for that small act of kindness and I got back into the van I wondered  if this small act of kindness had maybe started to turn the tide of negativity that until this point seemed to have overwhelmed my day.

I got home and hung the swing before I even went inside, hoping it would be a nice surprise for Shel - nicer than just having me home from work!
But when I made it inside Shel had some more bad news for me and I had to remind her that tomorrow I work a double shift (meaning that she has the boys alone until after midnight).The day seems to be stuck in this vortex of negativity.

I went and sat with the boys on the swing while Shel started dinner. I sat and looked around at how perfect everything appeared to be. The sun was shining, the boys were playing together nicely, we were enoying one anothers company. The dogs were laying close by and supper was on the stove.  I couldn't help but wonder how my whole world disintegrates around me when on the surface nothing changes at all. It's as though I am living two lives.  I'm looking at the exterior of my life, thinking that nothing "looks" wrong, all the time wondering how thin the veneer of normalcy really is. How close would someone have to look to see that all is not well? How are Shel and I holding it all together?  How do we get up and keep doing this day after day - and how long can we keep doing it until something cracks?

I thought I needed to do something to change the momentum of the day. I just couldn't be "in" it any longer.
I came into the house and took a shower and shaved my armpits. (You wouldn't think this small act could change anything, but then you have no idea how long it has been since I shaved my armpits!) After I got out of the shower I hoped that in addition to a cleaner body, maybe the act of moving might be enough to change the energy sucking vortex I was in.

We fed the boys  but I still felt like I needed to get the boys into bed so I could write off the day and head to bed myself. I use sleep as an escape (I know). Unfortunately there are not enough hours in the day for me to sleep all our problems into oblivion.

The boys didn't want to come inside after supper and I was frustrated. I went outside with the intent on dragging their dirty little boy bodies inside and into the tub. When I couldn't find them in the sand pile or on the playset and I realized they were in the quonset I was mad and went storming after their busy little bodies. I went tearing into the quonset ready to ........ ( I don't know what I was ready to do. Count to ten? Haul boys inside? I'm not sure.)

Max was putting together his kite. He asked me to help him  - and what could I do but join in?

We spent the next hour flying our kites.
I came in and got a kite for Cael and even got my own kite out.

Kite flying heals the soul.
It doesn't pay bills. It doesn't meet deadlines. It doesn't change the fact I have to work a double shift and massively inconvenience my spouse and my kids.

It makes the boys smile and laugh. It thrills them. It connects us to the wind, connects us to something so much bigger than we are. It makes me BREATHE.

Flying kites with my sons salvaged my day.

when to start projects

I just have to say that the time to START putting together a trampoline for the very first time is NOT at six pm on a Monday night - especially when bedtime for the boys is seven pm.
Just saying.