Summer vs Winter

Aaaahhh... lovely!


Blah, Ick, Ugh.... Brrr!


The results are in:
3489 to 1
You know who you are!

Oh Me Achin' Back

I started exercise class on Monday. It is a class for seniors. It is called Fit For Life. My very good friend started teaching these classes last year and was worried she wasn't going to get enough people coming and that's when she asked if I would be interested in coming and getting in on the deal. At first I was insulted thinking that I'm not a senior... but then I had no place to walk at the time and I wanted to walk in doors where the threat of slippery ice was not a consideration... Fit For Life classes are mostly walking. And so it began.

I haven't been going to exercise class since the Renovation began.... my life was not fit for exercise but instead my life was fit for renovations. But since Fit For Life classes are beginning again and the weather is beginning it's tumble into depressing cold I thought I had better start the year off right. And so I am hoping to be Fit For Life.... well at least fitter for life.

I walked my a-- off today and did a little kick boxing and some weights.... how about that! Now my back has not been the fittest for years and so it is putting up its own protest. I will need a shower preferably HOT, and then I will need to sleep.... yeah that is a good remedy. Argh!

Back To School

Yesterday Hubby and the girls got up after a nasty lack-of-sleep night and headed off to the great institution of education. Let me tell you the reaction was diverse as usual. Daughter #1 was not impressed and Daughter #2 was excited and Hubby... well he was just his usual annoying self. Me I'm not sure how I felt. I think I was sad to see my girls go off for another year knowing that they are one more year closer to graduation.

The day started with it's normal fiasco self. I had to go to the shed to find something for Daughter #1, who was having difficulty getting herself motivated to get out of bed, and discovered that Hubby had forgotten to close the shed door and Duff (that's the big outdoor dog) who has been having trouble with the back door trots, had gotten into a bag of garbage and there was garbage everywhere. I gingerly stepped over the garbage and thought Hubby can clean this up since he left the door open. Just then two chickens tried to scurry past but in their panic they slammed into my legs in a last ditch effort to reach the safety of the outdoors beyond my legs. All I could think was, "Great! Chicken poo on everything." But as luck should have it I must have caught them early enough that there was no chicken poo to clean up except for one blob by the door. (I knew they were up to something).

Back in the loonie bin... uuuh... I mean house, everyone was up as Hubby had started to sing in a falsetto voice very loud, "Oh What A Beautiful Morning"!!!! I gave a sigh and started getting breakfast. Daughter #2 came down first with a big smile as she had been anticipating the first day of school and couldn't wait to get there so she could see all her friends again. Then Hubby came down and started annoying everyone who was up.... last came Daughter #1 with a sour look on her face and the worst possible cloths on. She had on jeans the were too small and showed the crack of her hind quarters and an old jacket the didn't meet the top of her jeans and had a stain on one boob. Her head looked like it had never seen a comb. Ok... how to bring up the topic of her appearance without having all hell break loose???

Mom: "Um sweetheart, you are not wearing those jeans to school and your top is dirty. Where's the nice new clothes I bought you last spring?"
Daughter #1: You never bought me any pants... just culottes. I'm not wearing culottes to school."
Mom: "I thought I had bought you nice pants! And I know I bought you nice tops."
Daughter #2: "Yeah she got you that nice red one... I'll lend you some jeans or pants if you want."
Daughter #1: "grunt!"

Breakfast was eaten with a barrage of conversation about the nasty dreams they had all had about the first day of school. I only wished I had slept at all... which I didn't by the way. (certainly to God the werewolf thing should be over by now... we are almost at half a moon!) Finally we got Daughter #1 sorted out with her clothes... and she is right. She does need some jeans. One more thing that I have to put on my list of things to get. Argh!

We went out on "My Deck" and took the obligatory first day of school pictures and everyone put on false smiles.... and then we headed off to town. Here's what they look like...



Afterwards I asked the girls to pose the way that wanted to that would show how they felt about the first day of school. Here are those pictures....



When we got to the school, Hubby gave me a kiss and headed into work. Daughter #2 gave me a kiss and headed off to stand by the door until the school door opened. I saw her as I pulled away towering over all the elementary kids. Looking very grown up. Daughter #1 gave me a kiss and said, "Mom, should I take my binder with me or just leave it behind? We aren't going to need it today since it is just a half day."

At this point I realized that Daughter #1 was nervous. You see, this was the first day for her entering the high school end of the school. She didn't really know what was ahead and she was looking for a way to prolong her life in a safe zone (our truck) before stepping off the abyss into a world of the unknown. Daughter #1 has never been the most adventuresome kid on the block and so just changing the entry which you go into the school and having a different way of doing things has the power to overwhelm her.

I gave her a hug and said, "take your binder it will give you something to do with your hands while you wait and then when they assign you a locker you can leave it there and that's one less thing you have to take with you tomorrow". She got out of the truck squared her shoulders and, I called out as she walked away... "Have a good day." I pulled away from the curb and as I drove away I saw a lovely young lady with black dress pants and a red top holding her binders under her arm enter the front door of the school and thought I can't believe my little girl is so grown up.

Why can't I stop them from getting any older, and from growing up..... it's just not fair!

When I returned to pick them up later in the morning, Daughter #2 was still towering over everyone in the elementary end.... she is starting to tower over everyone in the whole school. She looks very grown up but at least she still acts like a kid.

Hubby was grinning as usual. I think he is looking forward to getting back to the grind as 'renovations' has become his new dirty word.

Daughter #1 was opening her locker.... and helping her friend open hers since she was having trouble. I asked her how it all went and she looked at me very disdainfully, "Mom, you worry too much. It was fine... except I have to have gym class with my sister."

I thought if that's the worse thing that could happen then I can breathe a sigh of relief.

I hope they will do me proud. Most important of all is that I come through this with well adjusted, happy girls. Of course 'As' are always welcome too.

I wish I could have had the camera close though because I will never forget the image of that tall girl by the entry door towering over the little kids and the lovely young lady in red with the binders under her arm, getting the door held open for her by some fellow with a back pack slung over his shoulder.

Where did my little girls go?

It Good To Be Alive #42

It is good to be alive...
when you have been having a well earned sleep in and a noise wakes you up and you realize that it is Geese flying over and your window is open so you can hear them really well. You turn your head and you see your Hubby (or wifey) heard them too and is now having the exact same reaction as you. You grin at him (her) and doze off holding hands, for another few well earned moments of snooze time.

Moon In My Room

Daughter #1 has a moon in her room. It is pretty cool actually. She got this nifty moon for Christmas last year and basically it is a model of the moon with a light behind it. When you turn it on the moon moves from crescent to quarter to half to quarter and then back to crescent again. It is surprisingly realistic. She looks at it nightly before going to sleep and eventually it turns itself off. I can't understand why anyone would want the full moon in their room....

The werewolf syndrome is hard upon me. Last night was the full moon and once again I couldn't sleep. I checked my back this morning to see if I had any hair growing there, but I couldn't see very well! I sat at the computer last night and stared at that huge honkin' white globe in the sky. It was lovely and the blue cast of shadow and light was affecting everyone, even the alpacas who were fighting at midnight and got the scare of their lives when Duffy, our big outdoor dog, went running to investigate what all the squealing was about. It disturbed me at the computer, and I went to see too. Once everyone had settled back down, I was seriously tempted to go out and light a fire in the fireplace on the deck, and sit in that blue light for all of eternity. But somehow I just didn't have the energy. That's what a full moon does to me. It makes me not able to sleep but meanwhile my body needs rest. So I'm not sleepy buy I am tired.

Hubby and I have been at it hammer and tongs all week, especially Hubby. He has finished all of the paneling in Daughter #2's room and is currently working on our room. Last night I helped him finish the ceiling in our room. Today we will carry on with the ceiling in our upstairs bathroom and then out over the stairs. Once we have this done then we will work on the walls in our bedroom. There is a little plumbing to be done and then we have to wait till payday to buy some more materials. But it is good to see progress.

Hubby and the girls are back to school on Tuesday. We are gearing up and nobody is happy. We are all grouchy and cranky. We snap at each other for the most stupid reasons. Somehow we can't seem to help ourselves. How can the summer be over that soon? It doesn't seem possible.

I've had very little time to blog this week, but one of the things I had to do was to go to the dentist and while I was in that town I went shopping for the Daughters school supplies. It is hard to buy things for school because it just makes everything that much more real.

The dentist did save my tooth and now I have this very smooth white lump in the back where there was a nasty hole. He drilled and hammered and grinded and generally did nasty things and I thought I would be there forever. Let me tell you my knuckles will never be the same. They are permanently white from the stress of it all. But the most embarrassing thing happened while I was on that chair.... I had to pee. No I didn't wet my pants. But OH MY GOD did I ever come close. I left the house early in the morning and never drank any tea or anything at all for that matter as I was seriously scared of this very possibility. I invariably ended up peeing in one of those desperate "find the bathroom quick" scenarios. I seriously thought I had it under control, because, when I first got there after driving an hour, I politely took off my coat and hung it up then asked where their bathroom was. I knew I should pee as it was grossly early in the morning when I left home. The receptionist was polite about it and gave me the key and told me their bathroom was down the hall. I was back in short order and I waited with Daughter #1 who was there to have her teeth cleaned and get a referral for the orthodontist. She got called first and I went in 45 minutes later, but I felt pretty good. There were no fore warnings that the bathroom would be calling me in short order.

The dentist got down to it right away. Now, I am claustrophobic and I hate dentists chairs and I can't stand those nasty contraptions that look like they are a mini rubber hammock that they hook over your mouth to keep chunks of tooth falling down your throat. But there I lay in an uncomfortable position with a little blue sheet over my mouth and my mouth stretched open so wide that the dentist could have driven a bulldozer in there! Then slowly I started to notice that there was a definite uncomfortable full feeling in the bladder region. OH NO! I was sure I would be in that dratted chair for another eon and I needed to pee. I crossed my legs and my knuckles began to turn whiter as I was determined to outlast the dentist. 15 minutes went by and then another 15 and then every minute after that felt like one of the ages from J.R. Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings (which we have just watched on TV these last few free nights of summer vacation). Finally I admitted defeat and raised my right hand to the dentist indicating that I needed a sec. I managed to say "bathroom" which sounded more like "atoom" but he got the picture... That's when I discovered the evil mindedness of dentists. The bugger wouldn't let me up to go.... he said, "I'm almost done." I felt like saying, "so am I", but I didn't. No matter it would have been really embarrassing to walk down the hall with the rubber sheet draped over my mouth and my mouth open wide enough to drive a bulldozer in.

The dentist finished but by then I was cross eyed and my Uvula was floating. I wonder if he noticed? I hopped out of that chair, let me tell you and passed the receptionist, grabbing the key off the hook at a run. I couldn't get the annoying key in the lock of the bathroom door fast enough, and worse I thought I wasn't going to get my pants down fast enough either. Daughter #1 thought there was something wrong with me as I passed her so fast too....

Anyway, that is the kind of thing that happens when the moon is waxing. This week the moon is waning.... hmm... I wonder if things will go wrong or right.

Update On House Renovation

Yesterday the electrician was back for a day of work. At least now we are able to turn on lights in the downstairs bathroom and Daughter #2's bedroom and the studio. This is important since the days are shortening and by 8:30 p.m. lights are good. Being able to see where you are going is always a bonus and relying on starlight just doesn't cut it in our house. But with the electrician came a problem.... he tore stuff up that we had just finished putting together. Two steps forward and a whole bunch back again. Hubby and I have spent the morning trying to rectify the mess that the electrician made. Argh.

This is Hubby's birthday and while we really wish we could spend the whole day off in the bush picking berries we really can't afford the time. We have opted to work till 3 p.m. and then head off for a late afternoon of berry picking. Hubby has chosen this as the activity f his dreams for his birthday. Go figure... I like berry picking but that's not my idea of fun let me tell you.

Work on the house has been progressing slowly. I do what I can but I can't lift sheets of plywood and I can't climb ladders too high. I have an unbidden fear of ladders. I tend to stick to trim and paint work and a little framing. Hubby is working on Daughter #2's bedroom today. The goal is to get her into her room before the end of the week and try to get one of the bathroom's finished. I'm not sure this will happen.
Up to date we have the toilet in the downstairs bathroom working and the shower is in place but is not hooked up to any water source or the sewer. The vanity is in and the plumbing is good but the sink was too large and so that has to go back to the store and we'll pick out another. There is a door in the downstairs bathroom and it and one wall has some paneling. Left to be done is hooking up the sink and tub to water and sewer and finish the paneling in there, and then put in the new flooring.

Let's see... the upstairs bathroom has all facilities working but doesn't have any paneling done on three walls and has no door and no flooring (just sub-flooring). It also doesn't have any lights but the electrical boxes are there they just have to have fixtures attached. The closet off the upstairs bathroom is not touched. It needs paneling, electrical, lights, shelves, and door.

Our bedroom has some paneling and the pocket for the door in place. That's it, so we need to install the ceiling and finish paneling and build the closets and that's no small task, then we need to put in our door and the door between the bedroom and the bathroom. We need to cut the door to he balcony and install the window in it, then reinstall the door.

Once all of that is done we need to install the paneling in the studio, install the strapping on the ceiling and install the ceiling tiles. Then we need to panel the stairwell and install the ceiling up over the steps and finish the wall and doors for the laundry closet. Somewhere in there I am hoping to strip the floors in our bedroom and restain and clear coat them. Then back downstairs we need to level the floors and install the new flooring. I have to finish the doors for the pantry and strip and finish the doors for the studio. Outdoors i need to stain the deck (the front one) and stain the facia boards. I also need to install tongue and groove wood on a small portion of wall above the logs under the veranda cover and then stain them. Then we need to cut the office exterior door and install a small door light and it needs a good door knob (the one that is there now sucks)!

In the kitchen we need to install the old shelves and place new counters in there. I think new doors for the old pantry closets are needed.

After all of that is done we need to install all the trim and believe me that will be huge. I'm woodburning and trying to do some as we go but it will be many hours of work yet.

Hmm I think that is it. I wonder if we will be done by Christmas. Forget the fact that we haven't mentioned the stonework on the outside of the house. Scary eh? But what is done looks terrific. We just have to keep going. Eventually it will all be finished and we will be wondering what all the fuss was about. In the meantime have a look...

The newly installed downstairs bathroom door... from the outside looking in..


And from the inside looking out...


The paneling in the downstairs bathroom...


Here's the trim work that I installed in the bathoom..


The recently refixed pantry....


We closed in under the steps so that dust from upstairs wouldn't drift into our food...


This wall needs to be done in the upstairs bathroom as I had to put in the shelf to give us privacy...


We are currently working on our bedroom...
This is the door to the top of the steps with the laundry area which still needs to be enclosed.....


and this is the door way into the upstairs bathroom... my next job is to build the closets there.


The dining area never looked this good....


Neither did the living area.... guess we are getting somewhere with the reno after all...

All Beautiful The March Of Days... again!

We have had two weeks of wonderful weather. Each morning I rise and take my tea in hand to sit in front of this monitor and there I tap away in that early morning, low slanting sun. Hubby sleeps in and so do the Daughters and eventually I will return to bed for a nap before really rising for a day of work. It is my quiet time. It is the time when I get an opportunity to think about what lies around me both outside the house and inside the house. I watch the animals to see if there are any problems and that includes all that animals from cats and dogs, to sheep, chickens, alpacas, and Honeydew. I watch birds and I watch mice scurry through the brush and I watch chipmunks and squirrels. I check out the spiders like Agnes and Waldo. Agnes is the big spider living outside the front door. And I kill flies that pester the daylights out of me.

It is also my time to notice the changing season. The shade of gold that is in the grass today is usually a little richer than the day before. The leaves on my tomato plant are a little drier and a little more curled. The flowers in my basket are not producing new buds they are just trying to support the flowers that are already there. There are fewer birds singing in the morning and more dead flies in the humming bird feeder. The sun is a little weaker and the east face of the poplars is a little whiter and brighter. The pines begin to drop about 50% of their needles as they too prepare for the winter snows. Everywhere there is scurrying and you can be sure that the little guys are storing grain and cones and whatever dogfood they can glean from Duff's bowl. The bumble bees are a little more bumbly and the honeybees are sleepy while the hornets are desperate for something to eat and a lot more dangerous than usual.

The crows have flocked and are starting their trip south and the warblers and hummingbirds left a week or more ago. The sparrows are around but fewer and fewer all the time. No robins hunt worms in the mornings and the owls are quiet in the evenings. Last night I sat out on the deck with our friends and I didn't hear one Night Hawk. The Asters are blooming and the Fireweed has turned to fuzz and those are the last flowers of the season. It is fall for sure. Last night once again I sat out under the stars and watched the great and glorious night sky. It was a perfect night for star gazing.

While it is sad to see the birds leaving, the motion of the seasons feels right somehow... like you are being carried by a current that drifts along lazily. It is like amniotic fluid that feeds you without your even knowing you are being fed. It fills you and lifts you and keeps you sustained. It makes you feel nostalgic and hopeful at the same time. The year ahead is pregnant with possibilities. It is up to me..... and to you to to make the most of them.