Moving On

It's funny how news travels. I am beginning to hear from people who I have not heard from in a very long time... they are wishing me well in my future... they are commiserating with me and saying how sorry they are to hear that I married an asshole. I haven't told them anything so I am assuming that the few that I have told are passing the news on.

Today is the 7th of August and a week of the last month of summer has come and gone. Life, in all its nuances, is moving on in some good ways and in other ways not so good. Two months ago I was reeling and in a state of shock and still hopeful that I could make my husband see reason. Eight weeks later, I am embarking on this new life and looking back only to see that the hounds of hell which have been chasing me so diligently, seem to be backing off a little. Sir Arsewipe comes and goes daily and seems to almost be looking forward to seeing the end of us... certainly he is looking forward to seeing the end of me but it is not so apparent how he feels about the girls going. This past week, he wanted a day with the girls here in this house without me as part of their exchange and so I said fine I would go to my parents for an evening and he could have the evening with them. He did and when I got home at 10 p.m. he left.  It all seemed so civil. I asked the girls how it went.... they said fine but then proceeded to tell me that they had watched a movie and they had played on their iPads but really no interaction had occurred between them and their dad other than the usual. I thought that was sad.  He had had a perfect opportunity to connect with them, but didn't.

We will be leaving here in a little over a month and time for them with their father is limited.  It's not like they will never see their dad again but they will not see him frequently and while summers will be spent with him they are old enough to hold down jobs and I suspect that though they have summers with him they will be working and not seeing him and enjoying him as young girls anymore.  Life with their father will change vastly. I really felt that it was important for them to spend as much quality time with their dad now before we leave. So I was only too happy to leave them with their dad that night though I do have to say that it was inconvenient for me. I went to my parents house and had a nice dinner with them and stayed till 10 p.m. at which time I returned to my house so that I could go to bed. As I said when I walked in there was a definite lack of communication going on between them. I certainly didn't interrupt anything big. The next day the Daughters and I had a heart to heart about all the crap that has been going on and I was trying to feel them out about leaving their dad.  There are going to be sacrifices in our household and things will never be quite like it was. I am trying to get them to see that and make them aware of the fact that life is going to change drastically. Daughter #1 is not happy with the fact that she and her sister are going to have to share a room in Newfoundland. She is going to be giving up her brand new mattress and giving up her double bed, and downsizing to a single bed.  Daughter #2 it so down on herself and worried about being shy.... and she is terribly worried about fitting in. She is not a person who likes to put herself out there and she is dreadfully concerned about how hard it is for her to go among strangers... this is a worry for me because it tells me that Daughter #2 has issues that I am only becoming aware of and Sir Arsewipe doesn't seem to know about or care enough to ask. I realized that it was time to sit down and talk to Sir Arsewipe about these things. We sat on the steps outside and I told him that he needed to spend more quality time with the kids because they are blaming him for the huge losses and changes in their lives.  That if he didn't spend quality time with them and try to get to know them more and actually talk to them about their lives instead of going along in his nice little bubble that they would leave here very bitter and not at all well adjusted.  I told him that if I were camping out in a tent trailer I would invite them to come and spend some time with me and have them camp over and put in a fire and have marshmallows and talk about anything and everything.

He did as I suggested. It turned out alright apparently, which is good. I do not want to fight with him. I do not want to fight with him about anything... but this whole thing where he shows up at will, and he doesn't know when to leave and I have no control over what happens in my house, (because it is my house) is irritating. Yesterday Pops invited me and the girls to go to supper. I asked that he leave when we did. This turned into a huge fight.  I lost of course. I lose all the time. I am the big loser in all of this. I have lost my family, I have lost my husband, I have lost my self respect, and I have lost my faith in a loving and caring partnership... I have now lost control over my comfort level of who is in my home... I have lost everything... And in order to move forward and take some control of my life there needs to be some parametres. Today I go to the Fairway Divorce Solutions office for the seminar that I have to take. It is called the "What Is The Law" seminar. I will find out what my rights are and if needs be I will get something rolling because what it comes down to is that I do not trust him... that disappeared and has been disappearing over the last few weeks slowly but surely. I do not trust him to leave my things alone. He has already broken a teapot that he had given me... he says it was accidental but when he explained the circumstances I feel sure that it was not all that accidental. Besides there are personal things... papers etc that he has access to... things that I do not want him aware of.  There are private emails on the computer that he could readily access... there are diaries that I keep that I do not want him reading.... and I'm not sure he would do that... but I am not sure that he wouldn't either. He doesn't seem to understand that the day he moved out he made this house mine and that I am no longer his wife... he does not have entitlement to be here unless he has been invited. He is, to me, like a hired carpenter except that I don't pay him because we do not have our money situation worked out yet. I should by rights have a separation agreement in place. And that is what I intend to do today when I get to the Fairways Divorce office. I will talk to the mediator and I will get her to start us off negotiating that process.

I am trying to be as fair as is possible in an impossible situation. But what it comes down to is the fact that I have moved on and wrapped my head around the fact that I have no say over what he does... he can go and dip his wick nightly... I can't control that (nor do I want to anymore). I can't tell him what he can and cannot do. I have made suggestions to him about his relationship with the girls only because they talk to me and don't talk to their dad. I get that we are now separate..... I get that... it's pretty resounding how I get that. But he does not. He still thinks that because he is paying for stuff that he has a right to treat me the way he always has. He doesn't have that right anymore... that's why he tried to lean on me when the people were here the other day... he is in for a shock... I realize that he knows we are leaving but I don't think it has really hit home... because of the bubble he has surrounded himself in. Right now he has access to the girls and me whenever he wants but that is coming to a very quick ending and once I leave here he can go f--- himself (sorry for the nasty expletive) when it comes to him telling me how I should run my life or interfering or being privy to anything to do with me. If I want to take a trip to Spain he has no right to be involved in that decision at all... and he doesn't get that. Not that that's going to happen! But you get my meaning.  If I want to go back to school he doesn't have to know about that choice at all... if I want to have sex with the man down the road (yeah I wish!) he has no control over that either(that's just an example by the way... I'm not going to be jumping in and out of bed with every one I see!). It is my life and he is not a part of it anymore.  Moving to Nfld will make that break easier and cleaner and it can't happen fast enough now. But if I were staying here I can guarantee you that I would be trying to move on with my life and he would still be trying to interfere.... he just doesn't get it. He has moved on with his life but he doesn't think that I should.

Sir Arsewipe is a most fitting name for him.... really!

Well I'm sorry that this has become such a rant... I really hadn't planned on talking about this at all... I was going to talk about the call of the ocean... and how I was so looking forward to moving home... but other things happened and this is the crap that shot out of my brain instead.

I'm not sure when he plans on showing up today... I am working in the sunroom going through all of our personal files. Income tax etc.... and I am beginning to pile all of my stuff in there so that when the movers come it will all be sorted and ready to move. We have formally accepted the offer on our house and the paperwork is in place. I have made a verbal offer on the house in Nfld. The other party is discussing it... I expect to get a decent deal.... and hear today if it will go ahead. Then I will have paperwork of my own to take care of. Our closing date is August 31st.  My closing date is September 4th. The earliest I can leave here would be the 10th of September.... and I might not be able to get that date either, unless I book in the next few days.  In all, there seems to be an inevitability about it now. I will move forward.... one step at a time... one day at a time....and I'll be darned if I'll let him interfere with that.

Tea With Teapot

I'm just sitting down to a quiet breakfast.. I am having two fried eggs and two chunks of watermelon and a nice big cup of coffee.  I've always enjoyed a good cup of coffee even when I was in University. I would take the public transit to the University and head for the Arts Cafeteria for my first cup of jo as soon as I got there and usually swished it down on my way to class. Tea was something that I only drank when mom had her friends in and she was serving it with them... no a nice cup of jo was always my brew of choice.  

In my last year of university I developed a stomach ulcer that wasn't really bad but it was an aggravation and one of the things that I was told to give up was coffee. I had just met Sir Arsewipe and he was a tea drinker and so I began to drink tea too... for the last twenty two years since I met him, I have become one of the biggest tea drinkers that you could possibly imagine. On a cold winter day there is nothing better than a nice tall cup of tea with a little sugar and wee dram of cream. But I still like a good drink of coffee and every now and again I like to put the coffee pot on and brew up some of the stuff for a quiet morning drink. Over the years though more and more I would rely on Sir Arsewipe to make tea because he always made a really good cup of tea, plus I was busy getting breakfast for everyone.. and it seemed the only time of the day when we really shared something together.

Of course you all know how Sir Arsewipe came to be known as Teapot... it seemed like such an apt name for him because at the time since he was such a heavy tea drinker and especially because he had had that dream... he was chasing off the devil in his dream by singing "I'm A Little Teapot". (In hindsight, I wonder if seeing the devil coming after me in his dream was actually some kind of premonition... if you believe in that kind of stuff is could be extremely spooky!) Since our separation I have begun to notice that I really am not craving tea anymore. I think I am beginning to get turned off tea altogether. I wonder if that is possible. All things associated with Sir Arsewipe, (formerly known as Teapot), are more and more a huge turn off. A few days ago the people who are buying our house came to discuss things and while we were standing chatting in the garden, Sir Arsewipe put his elbow on my shoulder and began to lean on me... I couldn't believe the nerve of him. Later, after they left I asked him what the hell he had in his mind... and that he had some nerve treating like I was his personal leaning post. He told me that it was the habit of twenty years... some habit! I had gently shrugged out from under his weight in front of those people because I didn't want a confrontation with him but he just doesn't think... and I don't think he has fully wrapped his head around the fact that we are no longer together and that he doesn't have a right to treat me in anyway other than circumspectly... besides quite frankly I don't want to even brush up against him. It disgusts me.

Yesterday I came home from a visit with a friend and discovered that while I was gone Sir Arsewipe had made arrangements to take the girls to the campsite where he is living so that they could have a night out camping in the tent trailer with him. They left around 8:30 p.m. and I had the rest of the evening to myself. (Yes I did feel a little bit lonely but then I guess I'm going to have to get used to that.)

One of the casualties of getting a divorce is trying to figure out who gets what. For me it has not been terribly difficult as is the same for Sir Arsewipe. I think neither one of us has been overly material throughout our lives. There were certain things that I was totally not willing to give up like the memory foam mattress (for practical reasons you understand... wink wink nudge nudge) but one of the things that I gave up without any hesitation is the Christmas village that Michael and I collected together and painted together. I do have to say that I painted a whole lot more of them than Sir Arsewipe (mostly because he found them to be too fiddly faddly) but still I don't want that stupid thing in my house... it will be too much of a reminder of his faithlessness and meanness.  Last Christmas a friend had found a couple of the unpainted pieces at a garage sale and she asked me if I would like them and I said yes. When I got home I discovered that they were smaller than the set that I had been working on. So I set them aside... the other day I discovered them under my bed as I was cleaning out boxes that were in there. Last night after the house was quiet and Sir Arsewipe had left and taken the girls with him, I got out those two houses and started painting... I am doing a little Nfld Christmas village and I will try to get suitable mummers to fit in there and light it with fairy lights at Christmas time... it's funny how things come together and it's not the having of the village... it's the doing of the village that tickles me pink...the village itself is nothing more than a cute reminder of the fun you had painting them and deciding on the colours.

Today was the first time since the whole Divorce/Affair thing happened that I have felt a real sense of creativity. I have had out all my acrylic paints for the two wee houses and so that has ignited a little spark.  I have a painting that I am not happy with and have been wanting to paint over it... I think today is the day that I will do that... turn on some really inspirational music (right now I've got Diana Krall on) turn it up loud and just get into the feel of the paint sliding across the canvas.

But first I think I will finish this cup of coffee... and think no more of tea with Teapot.                                                   

Survival For Now

I try to understand why people will do stupid things. The house that I so wanted was once again a problem... when I had the contractor look at it he discovered that the crawl space has a spring in it and that there is a good foot of water on the floor and that the sump pump has been turned off for the last six or so months. That the water is now up so far that the electrical to the hot water tank has been compromised which would mean having to replace electrical and a hot water tank. That blows my mind. How can people even put something like that on the market. It is about the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. Honestly it is a perfectly good house which is being left to go to ruin. As a matter of a fact it is way overpriced... The two houses that I have gotten really serious about have both had major issues because the owners are positively stupid. They have closed up the houses because for one reason or another no one is living there and when they closed it up they did banana cake things so that now the house is worthless!!! Why people do these things is beyond me. So now I am getting serious about one other house which has a beautiful lot... absolutely gorgeous. The house itself is sound... good basement, no rot, excellent siding. Nice amount of space. But it has issues for me in that it is a weird layout. I have once again been talking with the contractor to decide about a few things that will need doing. For one there is no bathroom on the main floor and that is no good for Pops. He has to have facilities where he can get to them easily. That means putting in a small bathroom downstairs. Cha ching,... expense number one. There is no way to get to the kitchen from front foyer where the steps to upstairs are, without going through the living room and dining room which is a problem since I really want to have a space that is identifiably mom's and dad's and a space that is identifiably mine and the girls with both of us having access to the kitchen. That means punching a doorway through to the kitchen and building a wall between the dining room and living room. Cha ching expense number two. It has been rented out for the last few years which means that the carpet is nothing but filth and dirt. We don't know what's under the carpet so the expectation is that there will have to be new flooring. Cha ching expense number three. There are only three bedrooms which will mean that the Daughters will have to share a room... and while there is no expense there... they will eat each other alive I am thinking.  Oh lordy... how do I make that work? I am going to make an offer though. Hopefully when I sell moms and dads house here then I can make some of the changes that will need to happen there. When everything comes together you will see where I am going and the place I will be living because I will be posting pictures. The nice thing about this house is the land... it has an absolutely beautiful waterfront piece of land with a view worth a million bucks. If I can just get this one... wow! But it is all about negotiating a price that I can afford now.  We shall see.

Life continues in this long black hole headed to who knows where. I am hopeful that when I come out on the other side... there will be peace. I continue to write poetry and had a go at one yesterday... but I was not satisfied to post it on Feathermist.  Sir Arsewipe still comes and goes as though he has a right. Daughter #1 feels he does have a right and we discussed breaking points and setting boundaries and I know she doesn't understand that as long as he is coming and going from this house there is no healthy way forward for me. He has moved on with his life and uses the truck at will, going back and forth in the evening between where he is living and his chit's dwelling. Meanwhile I am stuck in a limbo with no vehicle after hours. I have to leave this place... and the sooner the better, and I seem to be the only one who understands that. We will sign a offer on our house today and that will be hard and fast. As a result, I am beginning today to clear the sunroom out and then begin to put the things that are going with us back in here... that way we can begin the process of getting the rest of the house ready for our big moving sale. It will also be easier for the movers to figure out how much it will cost to ship everything.

Everything stems on this move now and getting our house in Nfld. I wake up each morning with my stomach doing flip flops. I am excited about going there but I am also scared poopless. All night long the "what ifs" party on my bed and keep me awake.  But then I think about my house on the shore and the icebergs floating past and I think, "wow, it's really happening!" This will work... it just has to.

There are still mixed emotions about Sir Arsewipe, I want him to suffer as horribly as we have, I hope he ends his days a very old and lonely man.... I want to bat that (insert nasty word here) with which he is fraternizing up the side of the head... and that's mild to what I wish on her sometimes.... but then there are times when I don't give a damn and think the stupid (insert another nasty word here) can have the bugger.

As an exercise, and in an effort to wrap my head around the fact that I am now single and owe him no faith... I have begun looking at men... I check them out regularly.... and what I have concluded is "scary"! Oh dear... but then they are probably thinking the same thing about me. So for now, I am content in my own skin... which more and more, I seem to be treating as a bit of an art canvas. The girls and I are contemplating tattoos... wee ones in inauspicious places. But there will be more on that later.  Also for now, we are having the fun of paying attention to our appearances and buying inexpensive jewelry etc... it is a release from our former careful selves. We do our nails regularly in whatever colour suits our moods. We put make-up on when we go anywhere and we are not shy about eating lunch out. This will not continue for long I am thinking, but for now it helps to fill the void in our lives.

Yesterday I actually managed a decent conversation with him... except he at one point cut me off and tried to shut me up but I didn't let him. I finished my sentence and then got up and walked away... because you see it doesn't matter to me anymore... One of those days and probably in the not too distant future, I will tell you the end of Sir Arsewipe's and my story and then you will all understand why I am moving through this the way that I am. Till then I will ask you to bear with me as I survive the only way I know how. Hopefully at some point I will do more than survive... hopefully at some point I will live.... and so will we all.

Writing About The Things That Concern Me

I have been told that what I write here on this venue is too raw... that I might not want to be so open with my emotions online and, to be honest, that has crossed my mind. I do try to keep the names of the people around me to myself and even though I have used Sir Arsewipe's real name here a few times, I've never used his last name in conjunction with it. I know it's not much but I have such a hard time referring to him in any way at all that I finally settled on Sir Arsewipe as the best solution to a problem that concerns me.

In retrospect I realize that almost from the first day I felt that being open about what happened to me was as much for me as it was for anyone else. I have always maintained that this blog was my very own record of life and when I first started writing here four years ago... never in my wildest imagination did I think that something so cataclysmic would happen to me. I wrote because I wanted to keep a record of my farm and my business... which didn't happen because shortly after I decided to start a business I decided that the Master's Spinner program was an essential stepping off point in order to find success in my business. At the time I thought I knew a fair bit about spinning.... wrong! It is only in hind sight that I realize just how little I actually knew.  As a matter of a fact I still feel like I could study for another 6 years and still have lots to learn.

The blog quickly became a jumble of farm life, my spinning and weaving projects, and family life though I did try to keep the family stuff to a minimum. I wanted to let people know about living in the north country on a farm and spinning and weaving as a artistic outlet but I also knew that I couldn't talk about anything here without my family coming into it.... they are an integral part of me. It was also a way for family members living far away to know what was happening in our family. I also wanted to have a little humour here as well. But somehow this blog became more. It became an entity onto itself and I found more and more parts of the inner me were being exposed through the poetry I write on Feathermist, but also through the writing that occurred here too. Soon I had a following... not a big one but a consistent one. There were people who dropped in sporadically and then there were people who went to bed or drank their morning coffee with me here on this monitor screen. They became silent friends and some not so silent... (I like comments... really : ) and you can be as unsilent as you like....)! People worried about when I went a long time and didn't write anything... people were concerned when I burnt my level 3 binders. If anything big happened in my life I had people who knew and wanted to know. It felt like a whole circle of friends had come into my life.

When I discovered that Sir Arsewipe had been cheating on me at the beginning of June, I knew that people would be wondering what I happened if I didn't write anymore... I wrote a blog post about big changes in our lives.... but I knew this wouldn't satisfy for long. I was right... Sir Arsewipe procrastinated about informing his family about our separation and eventual divorce and all the while I knew people would be wondering about what was happening with us. Daily I would ask him if he had informed his family and daily he would reply in the negative. I did not want to write anything on the blog here until they had been told since I did not want them finding out that way. Eventually he told his family and I by that time was getting emails asking for more information... most people expected such good things to come from the changes of which I had spoken.... little did they know what was coming.

When I finally knew that he had told his family... I started in with a post.... I wasn't sure what to say... Should I be cryptic or should I be open...or should I say anything at all. I started writing and somehow it all seemed right to be open and honest. I haven't looked back...

Each day I write here I try not to dwell entirely on our divorce... I try to talk about those few good things that are happening too... but I'll be honest, a divorce is a consuming thing and so every word that passes through your mind, lips, and fingers is somehow controlled by the big "D". It has been not quite two months and I expect that it will be a long time yet before I am over this... I hope though that as the weeks pass and as my move to Newfoundland gets closer I will begin to talk about other things.... I have been trying of late to be more rounded.... but it is hard.

Meanwhile I cannot help but think that if a person is going to talk so openly about things that affect them then the writing will be raw and hopefully powerful. Anything else would be disingenuous. So daily I write and I am hoping that at some point I will peter out... and I will find a new world to write about... and my heart will be less affected. But that day is not today.

This morning, my lovely alpacas left me for the last time. I am glad they have a good home to go to.... I am sad that I will not see them again. For the last six years I have watched them and taken care of them and been proud to own them and learn their ways.  So it was with great regret that I watched them as they rolled out the driveway in a stock trailer headed for parts unknown. I know they will have a good home because the lady who has taken them has a lovely farm with cattle and turkeys and chickens and now alpacas. We have her references and I know she will see that they are cared for. When I saw them rolling out the driveway my face crumpled and once again I headed for my now familiar pillow to grieve one more loss on the steadily growing pile. Sir Arsewipe, who was there to help us load them up, never showed a sign of regret... not one.  I have never seen such a hard person... he is concrete. it took me a while but I am ok now.

I am glad to be able to have a place where I can come and pour out my heart. I thank you all for coming and visiting and I thank you all for your helpful and thoughtful comments. I will remember to be careful not to say anything that might severely hurt anyone... and I will remember to watch closely for the person who is worried about me attracting a stalker....  but I will not stop being me and writing is a vital part of that.

The Future

I am looking down the tube of my future and what I am seeing is worry, worry, worry. I look around and see that my level 3 homework has been put on the shelf and is sitting there neglected... I see that I will have most of the fall taken up trying to get my family settled in a new town and a new home... I am so close to being finished my Master Spinning program but I am not there and it frustrates me no end that I get no time to work on it. Every day I am planning and packing and sorting and waiting and planning but I am getting nothing done on my homework... I can't even seem to wrap my head around it. I have my 25 shades of logwood done but I can't seem to get myself motivated to put it in my books and I really need to do that since I am afraid that it will all go missing in the move. But day by day nothing gets any closer to being finished.

I am also worried that I will not be able to make my spinning and weaving my main source of income... that is my goal... but somehow I am worried that it will not be enough.

My goal when I decided to move to Nfld was to find a house in which I could live and not owe one blessed penny on it. No mortgage would mean that my living expenses would be just the day to day expenses, with insurance once a year and property taxes once a year. I also am aiming at owning my vehicle outright. But vehicles are one big flippin' expense anyway and if I am not making payments on a car then I will be saving money for a new one when the one I own wears out. That's pretty much assured. Mine and the daughters basic needs will be met in the food I can provide us with, heat and light, and the clothing which we will need. I do realize that Sir Arsewipe will have to pay child support and some spousal support but when the girls turn 18 (which is not in the too distant future all obligation ends). There are laws that say that he has to pay me for longer than that because we have been married for 20 years but for all intents and purposes he can renege at any time and unless I am willing to haul him into court at my own expense that means that I cannot fool around and play at anything... I have to find something that pays me and pays me well and I have to do it by the time the girls enter university.... that's three years away.

After all that I have been through with him I can see that trusting him to do the right thing after the girls are of age is not an option. The first few days after this all blew up in my face I really felt that I could trust that he wouldn't see me hurting... but then I started to notice little nuances in his behavior that set off alarm bells. He talks about how he won't see me hurting... but I am thinking that he is only concerned in so much as he doesn't want to see the girls hurting... me, he doesn't give a s**t about. The other day when we had our early morning confrontation, that was driven home in a way that I knew was coming. When I told him that he was nothing more to me than a paycheck he said that he didn't owe me anything... that I could have had a career at anytime during our marriage if I had put my mind to it... and that I had been the one to choose to be a stay at home mom. (That's not true... we both decided that the girls needed one parent at home with them even as teenagers because that is when they can go so wrong.) It didn't really surprise me because I had seen little inklings of it in the last few weeks and my friends all warned me not to count on his money to support me. I didn't, ... so I have been making my own plans.

What does a 47 year old woman who has never really had a job much less a career do to keep herself fed and cared for. I mean if you had a 47 year old woman sitting across from you applying for a job and you asked her what her experience was and she said very little... I raised my kids... I paid the bills... I made sure that everyone was cared for, I made up household budgets... I was a lay preacher for 10 years and I worked as a temp for Northern Lights College filling in for the Continuing Education Co-ordinator for two years. I have served on all sorts of boards in volunteer positions... I am a spinner and weaver and artist and I know a lot about the construction business and have great ideas for renovating homes, I can figure out my way around the internet and a computer... but I have no real training,  you would probably laugh me out of your office.

I fear that my Father... already has me branded as a failure since he informed me yesterday that I had better make sure that whatever house I buy is solid and will not need loads of work every year since I will not be able to afford it... and I thought to myself... well that says it all, when my own father thinks that I won't succeed. I mean whose to say that I won't make my way through the world with a career that pays equally good as Sir Arsewipe's and whose to say that I won't be able to fix my house constantly.... but you know, this world we live in is not fair... or just... it simply is. And the way it is, is a school of hard knocks for most women.

The whole mess I find myself in makes me cringe.... and scares the bloody hell out of me. Some nights I lie awake, and wonder what in the hell I am going to do... because the reality is I have no usable skills in the workforce...

Am I doomed to failure before I begin....

The one thing I know is: have a good look at me and teach your daughters about me because you can say to them, "see sweetheart, there's goes a lady in whose footsteps you should never follow."

So, where do I go from that?

*By the way... the painting at the top is called, Best Find A New Way. I couldn't find the name of the artist.

I've Got Bigger Fish To Fry

The Alpacas are going... hopefully on Saturday. I had an interested party come and have a look at them and decide right off that she wanted them and so she is coming to pick them up on Saturday or Sunday depending on when she can get help with them.. so that's one thing taken care of. I'll be so glad when they are gone since hay is now an issue. We are down to our last half bale and I really didn't want the headache of having to haul in hay for those ruddy animals. Daughter #1 has decided to sell her horse too. I look out around the paddocks and think back to only a short while ago when I thought this was all so ordinary. Who knew then that I would be selling off our stock and making such monumental changes in our lives. It feels in some ways like the world has come and gone... like it has been eons since this all started to happen and in other ways it feels like I've blinked my eyes and there is something else in front of them when they reopened. I keep asking myself how I could have been so blind to have not seen this coming... I guess I was too busy living in my own little world of spinning, weaving and my little world of wedded bliss. (snork)

Michael still comes and goes at will, though he has not arrived yet today. He has moved the trailer to a friend's property and does as he pleases. I assume that includes all that goes with having another woman... I try not to think about it and since I don't have a vehicle... well I'm not going back and forth and I don't have availability to find out. That's probably a good thing since I still have wonderful visions of chit a la flambe.  He has managed to finish the paneling around the pantry and is now working on the stairwell. It's amazing what one can accomplish when one has the incentive. I guess his incentive is me gone and him in the pants of his chit.

Anyway, I guess that's enough of the bitterness for one day... it will only turn me grey and wrinkly anyway. Who wants to be an old dried up prune...

The weather has definitely changed to more fall-like temps. This morning the crows that nested at the end of our property in a very large pine tree returned for their last visit before moving on. As you know for the last few years I have watched the comings and goings of a particular pair of crows. Each year they return to our land early in the spring around the end of March. They spend the next few weeks courting each other by picking up sticks and straw and bits of wool from the ground and displaying their wherewithal for making a really nice nest. Then they disappear for a few weeks as they are busy house keeping and laying and caring for their eggs. Then I start to see them again once the eggs hatch and they start to find food to feed their newly hatched babies. For the next while you see them sporadically as they raise their babies and get them ready for their inaugural flight. Sometime around the early part of June there will come a day when if you are up early enough you will get to watch the proceedings as their babies take flight for the first time. I have watched this each year for the last six years and it has never failed to entertain. This year they had one youngling that took a full extra day to learn to fly after all the others had successfully taken to the wing. That meant that I was able to see what happens in that case.

Each year, usually the parent crows will fly to a high tree close to the nest and then they will begin to call to their young encouraging them to take a leap of faith. Slowly each youngling will dive off the edge of the nest and try their wings for the first time. They will fly to the tree of one of their parents and then join their parents calling to the others remaining in the nest. Each one will take their turn and once all younglings have flown to a nearby tree the parents will once again move off to another tree and begin the process of calling to their young again. Things generally go smoother once they have all taken their first flight, and soon they are swooping from one tree to the next. The whole process takes about two or three hours. Then the whole family moves off and disappears for a few months. At that time there will come a day when the some of the family members will once again return to where they were born and spend a morning flying about and looking at the old digs. Then they leave and you don't see them any more until the next year.

This year the process was slightly different... this year we had a reluctant youngling. All the younglings took their inaugural flight except for one, who made it abundantly clear that he was just not ready to take such a leap of faith. And so he was left in the nest while all the others were flying from tree to tree until they were so far away that you could hear them calling in the distance... finally they disappeared altogether and let me tell you that did not please the one that was left behind. He called and called frantically and I felt so sorry for the wee bugger that I almost wanted to climb a tree nearby and act as his parents would have done. I was tempted to at least makes some cawing noises to encourage him... but I didn't I decided instead to wait and see what would happen. Along about mid day I noticed that the mother (or father) returned to the nest to see how her youngling was doing. There was a great ruckus in the branches when she returned and then all went quiet. I never heard another sound till the next morning and then finally the mother (or father) started the process again... She/he flew to a nearby tree and  began the process of calling.... it took a long time but finally the reluctant youngling took his leap of faith and sailed through the air to the tree next to his mother and then you could hear them calling back and forth fit to burst. They sounded like they were laughing and yelling and shouting for joy. I watched as slowly that mother/father coaxed and cajoled the youngling to fly about and once he was strong enough they flew away not to be seen by me evermore.

This morning I was sitting at this computer quite early and I heard a great ruckus outside the house and when I looked I noticed a pair of crows swooping and swirling around the house here moving from tree to tree and looking all about them... I'm sure it was the mother and father who came back for their last visit. They are gone now... they stayed around for about a half an hour and then moved on as they do each year. I will not see them again.

Next year there will be another family living in this house. They are a sweet family and they have two young daughters and they remind me of us when we first moved here. I hope they will be kind to the family of crows... I'm sure they will be.

Meanwhile I am consumed with finding a house in Nfld. I have two houses that seem like they might be ok. One in particular is an older home in need of some TLC... it is full of nooks and cranies and is exactly the kind of house I like. It is a sweet little cottage that was owned by a fellow who lived there until the day he died. You can see that the house was not just the house of an old bachelor, there had to have been a Mrs. too at some point since there are frilly things and niceties that men don't think of. But from the looks of it, it is in dire need of some upgrading and that is just up my ally. The only thing worrying me is the crawl space which my guy wasn't able to get in to see and he thought there might be some moisture but wasn't sure since he was looking through the windows. There is also a possible problem with wiring... older wiring requiring some overhauling.  All things that might be able to be dealt with if not too problematic. The wiring would probably have to be redone no matter where I went unless I am buying a newer home. But somehow that does not appeal to me since that negates the whole concept of living on the coast in an older style salt box type of traditional Newfoundland home. I mean that has always been something that I wanted to do... maybe because I have such great memories of my grandparents home... actually this house looks somewhat similar to their home. As a matter of a fact, it was probably built about the same time as their house. Still the work that would need to be done to get it up to the standard that I would want might be prohibitive.

There is another house that needs less work and has a gorgeous piece of property but has not got the layout inside that says "interesting". It also does not have enough bedrooms for all of us to have a bedroom each... that means that the daughters would have to share... an unhealthy prospect for sure. Either that or I would have to give up my bedroom and sleep in a closet under the steps like Harry Potter!!!! : ).... I can't see how to make it work for us... so I will have to wait and see what happens. Today I have a contractor meeting the real estate agent to look at all the things that I have questions about on house number one. He will look at the basement and the attic and the kitchen and the wiring and he will give me a call later and let me know what he finds. That will be the deal breaker. If he comes back and says it is a crap hole then I will have to get serious about looking at sleeping like Harry Potter or coming up with an alternative idea. If he says house number one is doable then I have to get an idea of how much it will take to upgrade the house. Then based on that I will make an offer... and go from there. I may have to fly down toward the end of August to finalize the deal and get the ball rolling on the improvements... then fly back and get the daughters and mom and dad. We have decided that traveling via train is the best way to go... We will take the train from Edmonton and travel across to Nova Scotia to my sister's house where we will stay long enough for me to buy a vehicle and then we will drive to Nfld... and on to a new life.

So the alpacas can go... the horse can go... the crows can go... and Sir Arsewipe can go to la chit a la flambe. I've got bigger fish to fry.

Oh!!... Here comes Sir Arsewipe now.... 

All In The Past...

I have had three great romances in my life. The first was with a young fellow who I have only recently reconnected with after many years. I was 14 years old when I first met him and really was far younger than that in my emotional journey.  I look back on that great romance as many do on their first romance. I look back on it with kindness and generosity. I look back on it as my walk into adulthood.

MG on the right with his great friend KG and me looking through the window at them in the background.

 They say that you never forget your first great love and for me that is true... actually I have never forgotten any of my great loves and hopefully never will. It is funny how in hind sight I can safely say that each great romance in my life has walked me forward by leaps and bounds in terms of personal growth. For me the time of MG was a time of such innocence.... such sweet innocence. He was quite a bit older than I but he never took advantage of my innocence. I know this will shock you, but I was, at 14 years of age, going out with him who was.... well, you see, he was 18.... a virtual adult, while I was just a child. I grin as I say that because for years Sir Arsewipe was horrified that my mother and father would let a mere slip of a girl go out with a young man who was so much older. I also remember at one time that Sir Arsewipe was jealous of my first great love. He felt that he would have liked to have known me before... before I became the jaded and worldly adult of later years. (snork)

I think back on that now as pure nonsense and I see it for the selfishness that it really was. As our daughters got older and came closer and closer to dating age he would say to them, "well, if you bring home boys I am going to make them dig holes in the back yard so that they can wear themselves out before they go out with my girls. And you can forget going out with someone who is three or four years older than you, like your mother did... it's not going to happen... I know what teenage boys want." (Apparently its the same thing that men who are suffering a mid-life crisis want.)

My relationship with MG lasted for 11 months and was exactly what a first romance should be. He wasn't my first kiss but he was the first kiss that was meaningful. He was sweet and kind and never twisted me up inside and when we finally broke up, it was because he was honest enough to tell me that he had found someone else. I was devastated... for all of a week or two. In those days and for a 14 year old that was a terribly long time. I dated him for almost a year... a year that was so much more than my first great romance. It was the year during which I was going through all the changes that had to do with my back. I was going through surgery and steel rods and spinal fusions and all that went with the loss of my childhood. I look at it now as one of the most poignant times of my life... I look back on it now and see that while I was going through the horror of being stretched and and opened up and hammered and chipped... I had this one sweet thing that blossomed in a pit of stone. And when I came out of that pit I left that blossom behind and learned to turn the pit into a whole valley of blossoms.

There's a funny thing about that year though... He and I shared a long distance relationship for most of that year, he in one town and me in another... but he would show up unexpectedly and stay with us because the work he did for his dad took him to my home town regularly. It was an odd thing though because when I was going out with him I had no idea how life's twists and turns would bring us together later on. After our relationship ended, my father was transferred to his community and I ended up living two doors away from where he grew up. By that time he had met and married his wife and they were well on their way to having a family of their own... we became friends. Later I met my second great romance and he knew MG as well and I was able to continue our friendship. It was only after I went away from home and moved to St. John's where I went to University that I lost contact with MG.

As I have said it is only recently that I have reconnected with him and it is almost as if it was meant to be... I was on Facebook looking for another friend... a girlfriend from my school years... when I came across MG and the business that he runs now. I contacted him and we have had several funny, odd, and wonderful chats. He has been reading here a little... (Hi there if you read this.) I'm sure you are wondering why I think it was meant to be that I reconnect with him... well it is because at the time I was spending a good portion of each day going through all of our/my personal stuff and boxing and separating my stuff from Sir Arsewipe's and I came across a box of MG... there was a photo album that dates back to the weekend I met him, and a stack of photos from the time we were dating, and a diary in which I chronicled our great romance.... and I'm sure he will be shocked to know that there was a stack of love letters tied with a blue satin ribbon that he wrote to me as we went through our relationship. They smell of old paper and time... but they are filled with the thoughts and doings of a young man who is just starting down the road of adulthood. And they are full of hopes and dreams.. I am glad to have shared that year with him.

Let me tell you that reading the sentimentalities of a fourteen year old are so... funny... and I guess a little poignant. How innocent I was... we were. How good the world was to have everything before me.... us. And I will tell you this... having gone through all of those albums and letters has taught me something... that life goes on and things happen for a reason... and I will carry that with me into this new future that I am facing...

To MG I thank you... I'm glad you were a part of my growing up. And I thank you for your kindness now too... : )