O Give Me A Home

So what did you all think of my poem... I had a good laugh writing it because though I exaggerated, the story itself is not made up!  Mmmmmm... fish and fly soup...still in the fridge if anyone wants some. : ) I have been noticing that the grasshoppers though not as bad as some years are still pretty darn bad... the flies... well you can't leave the door open at all and you had better make sure that food is in air tight containers. Hornets, the darlings... they are all over they house and I can't close the doors because Sir Arsewipe is still working on getting the house done so he comes and goes with wood or tools at will. As of today he hopes to be finished. I hope so too because quite frankly I'm tired of him being here and having to watch every thing that comes out of my mouth.  Daughter #2 took off and went to a friend's house last night but Daughter #1 and I sat around and had custard and cake... (made with corn flour and potato flour...it was ok I guess ... but the custard was good). I think I am looking forward to the end of this day.

I am out of boxes and have to go to the grocery store to get more today. The packing continues and while I didn't get all of the stuff packed on the deck that I had planned on doing, I did get some of my kitchen stuff done. Some progress is better than none. I still haven't tackled the fleeces in the shed because I don't want to go at that while there is sawdust everywhere. The last thing I want to do is have to pick fleeces in Nfld because they are full of sawdust that they got contaminated with here. the shed remains a dreadful mess. Still, slowly but surely there are fewer and fewer things in the shed to come out. I am glad of that. I can't wait to get the shed cleaned out because once that's done then that's when we are going to have a huge garage sale. Still the 31st which is our closing date is looming closer and closer. It scares me how quickly that date is creeping. Today being the 20th of August means that in terms of daylight we are equivalent to April 21st. I'm not sure why that is so daunting but it is.

I've been wanting to use the above painting for a few days now but since I have been so focused on going back east to the shore and the ocean I really couldn't find a good reason to use it so today I am using it just because I like it. And well it does remind me a little bit of Farrel Creek which is a farming area close by to where I am living now. It is something that I will be leaving behind when I go. I've always loved to pass the fields of buffalo because it reminds of the days when bison roamed this country freely. No fences and no boundaries. There's something appealing about that.

Freedom is an intoxicating concept... I'm not sure it is a real thing but still I like to think that somewhere there is true freedom. I have contemplated the idea many times and I often wonder if it is possible to find such a thing. I know I have never found it and never will that is because my family are far more of a priority to me than freedom. If you have even one person relying on you then you cannot have true freedom... not if you take your responsibilities seriously.

I also love the above painting for the colours. As soon as I saw it, the sky reminded me of a Kaffe Fassett piece of knitting. I wouldn't mind designing an afghan based on these colours.

This morning I woke to the sound of the chickadees swarming the last of the Saskatoon berries in the bushes between the house and the old chicken coop. there were quite a few berries this year but I didn't pick them for one because I'm not dreadfully fond of Saskatoons but also because I will have no reason to store any this year and picking them and just eating them is not to our liking. Normally I would freeze them when I got them and make pies but since I can't eat gluten in wheat pies kind of seem pointless.  anyway I loved the sound of the chickadees... i wonder if they will be around in Nfld... Now I know you're wondering about that since of course there are chickadees in Nfld. But they do tend to be further inland than right on the coast and you did see the pic of my (hope-to-be)property in yesterday's post... not a bush to be seen anywhere... but lovely grasses. There will be shore birds I'm sure... but what else I don't know.  Definitely the sea... the sea oh the wonderful sea...

So let's see... today, as an ending to this post, I will post a couple of paintings of birds... those that I am leaving behind and those that I expect to see.

Poetry again...

Here to read the latest... this one's funny!

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

I've been thinking... with being so close to the water, if I get this house that I have made the offer on, perhaps it is time to buy myself a wee dory.

Row, row, row your boat,
H'up and down the bay,
Don't stand up and rock the boat,
'Cause that's a big mistake!

I am not a person who has a lot of prowess when it comes to boats but I can paddle a canoe pretty good and I can learn to row a dory.  Now I've seen dories that look like this....

But I think that would be more than I can handle....

I'm looking for something more like this...

I think that if I could find the right boat, I might just be inclined to go for a row up and down the shore a little way or at least around the harbour on a regular basis.

You see the house on which I have made an offer is right next to the shore..... perhaps I can allow myself the luxury of at least showing you all the view without jinxing myself....

Daughter #1 wants to kayak out to the wee island to picnic from time to time. I'm inclined to agree with her that it might be fun to do something like that... thus the idea for the dory.

I have been watching the weather in Newfoundland like any good Newfoundlander would do... I've packed my Great Grandfather's brass barometre and it shall hang in my living room and help me gauge the weather systems... I expect to watch many interesting storms blow up out on those waters. It is important for anyone who uses a boat around the shores of Newfoundland to be aware of the weather... it is so easy to run into problems that are weather related and many a person has had accidents because they were too complacent about the weather.

By the way, can't you see lupins and iris' growing in among the wild grasses in the picture?  I think  it's just lovely.  And I can almost smell the salt air and the briny seaweed that I'm sure abounds... and there will be plenty of fires in a ring of stones... or on a rock, as the case may be down by the shore. I look forward to it, I really do.

At this point anything uplifting is much appreciated so visualizing a home of my own that doesn't have Sir Arsewipe in it is a powerful thing indeed. He comes and goes daily now and is down to the last little bit of work to be done. I expect that he will be finished with the renos by tomorrow. The sad thing is that according to his Facebook status apparently he thinks that he will be able to sit back and relax and enjoy a few days of doing next to nothing but I will not be packing anymore of his crap and so he has to know that the work actually will only have just begun. He will be packing what's out in the shed that belongs to him and he will have to get the JCR and Ranger stuff that has been stored in the shed for the last umpteen years. Suffice it to say that if he expects me to do his stuff too then he is sadly mistaken and if he doesn't do it then I will go in with the help of a few friends and I will throw the whole lot of it in a pile in the yard and after pouring some gasoline on it I will light a match and that will be that. Problem solved.

We barely tolerate each other now... and since I have found out all the dirty stuff that I have found out, I can't bear to have him brush up against me.... I feel absolutely soiled when that happens.  Two nights ago Sir Arsewipe's mother called... I didn't get the call at the time because I was making my now famous fish chowder in the kitchen but she did leave a message on my phone.  When I heard her voice... it was so full of anguish... it really broke my heart all over again. The problem with divorce is that it doesn't just affect the wife and children but all the extended family too. My parents are so completely horrified by all of this... my poor mom, who thought the sun shone on her son in law and continually talks about how he stayed behind in the parking lot of the church on Christmas eve to make sure that she got her van started and got home alright and how he would come at a moment's notice to help with her computer and how he would shovel the driveway for them... and all the while he was bearing resentment in his heart.... I know that because sometimes it would come out with me and while he tried to make a joke of it with me I realize now that that resentment went far deeper and he was doing those things out of obligation and not willingness. Then Dad is horrified to know that Sir Arsewipe was being cruel about his illness behind our backs... illness is not something you can control and you take help when you need from whatever factor as you need it because you have no other choice... but I think if Dad had known how much Sir Arsewipe was resentful of having to lift Dad and help him when he was really sick last winter, I think he would have never allowed it... Mom is reeling in shock but Dad bears a bitter hatred in his heart toward the man who so thoroughly let me, and indeed all of us, down and lied and cheated so completely.  So I know that his mom is hurting too... how can you not hurt when you see someone you love being so destructive.

Anyway our moving date is looming closer and closer and the need to pack and work continues and so we must tolerate each other for a while yet.... I will be so glad when it is all over and I can put this place, this person, this life behind and see the rocky shores for which I long. A balm to my soul, and hopefully a place of peace I am hoping that this community by the shore will become for me.

And so I plan ahead.  I look at paint colours and I look at types of flooring and I look at boats and I think about flowers and trees I can plant... and I plan and I hope and I pray....  and I thank God today for a good imagination.

  

Getting Closer

Yesterday I took the girls into town so that we could go to the newest Bourne movie... it was awesome. Totally loved it. I had my doubts that the director could pull off a new Bourne movie without Matt Damon but he did it and wow... what an awesome job. I came out with my expectations exceeded.  Wouldn't it be great to write a book that so captures people's minds that a series of movies are made based on your ideas.

When I got back last night the fellow who is buying our house showed up with a swing set that he wanted to set up for his kids. That's awesome. That means that things are looking really good that everything will go through. He told me that he has met two of the three requirements including getting the financing, in order to fill the bill with our contract. The only thing holding us up now is the sign off on the inspection after Sir Arsewipe finishes the renos. He is two or three days away from having that done. At that point the buyer will come and have a look and if he likes what he sees then he will sign off and we are that much closer to leaving for Nfld. I want to post pictures of where we are going but still I fear jinxing us. So I will wait and continue with my ocean/coast paintings which are all  similar images to the ones I expect to see either once we get there or on our way there.  I haven't heard from my real estate agent in NL and so I will contact him today to see if everything is a go there. When last I talked to him, they were sending my offer to be signed by the vendor of the house that I want down there. I haven't heard anything since. So I am waiting patiently but I think it is time to find out more.  My real estate agent is on vacation so that may be some of the problem.

I have gotten an estimate for the movers to come and pack us up and move our stuff across Canada... ouch! $17,000.00. So I will be selling more of our stuff. Daughter #2 has decided to give up her big double bed but perhaps she can have one of the ones down there when we get there. the house that I am buying will have some furniture that comes with it. Thanks heavens for that. Still, I will have to buy a washer and dryer almost as soon as I get there. It is a fearsome prospect... all the bustling activity that will be ours for the next few months scares the living daylights out of me. I am still hoping that everything will fall into place and that we do not have any hiccups. If you believe in that kind of thing... for heaven's sake say a prayer for me.

Yesterday I finished clearing out my bedroom and the balcony which I had been using to store wool and my spinning and weaving supplies. Now all that's left to pack in there,  is my clothes that's not coming with me and my personal stuff in the bathroom. Next job today is to tackle the bags of alpaca and sheep wool in the shed and see what's worth taking and what's not. My sun room is now choked with boxes and furniture that we will be taking with us.  I am also planning on boxing up the deck decorations today. So things are moving along and each day brings new things to do and new things to think about.

We have our train tickets and we are booked to go out of Edmonton on the night of the 10th of September. I am not sure if we are leaving here on the 9th or the morning of the 10th, but we have to be in Edmonton at 10 p.m. on the 10th. I am beginning to think about the train trip... this is something that I have always wanted to do.I am so glad that we have decided to go across Canada on the train. I am sorry I am not sharing this once in a lifetime trip with my husband but then he won't be my husband by then and frankly he hasn't been for a long time. I am bringing my suitcase with my spinning wheel and my spinning paraphernalia and a good supply of wool so that I can sit on the observation deck and spin as the country goes by... it will be a phenomenal experience I am sure.  I am so glad that the girls are going to get to do this too since Sir Arsewipe and I have not given them many traveling experiences over their lives. Mom and Dad and their health worry me but I'm sure it would be better than driving for two weeks that would put us all in a really bad frame of mind. By the time we got to Nova Scotia we would be ready to eat each other alive I'm sure.

So things are starting to come together... I just hope that I am able to get everything packed and ready for the movers.

Faith

As a child I had a vehemence for God that only the young can bear. I really believed that God was all around me in everything I saw and did (and I still believe that).... that He was a personal God that would come to my aid and pick me up when I was down. He didn't disappoint... at least not then.

In recent years God and I have had a more subdued relationship.  Until three years ago I had been given a calling to reach as many people as I could through the practice of lay preaching. I had even begun to bring the reserve sacrament to shut ins. It felt like something that I should be doing and more importantly something that I wanted to do. But there came a point when the church decided in their wisdom (little bit of sarcasm there) to take away the power to take communion to those who have need of it. I lost the ability to offer the reserve sacrament to people though no fault of my own, and I began to get weary of the preaching because it was taking it's toll on me and I felt that I desperately needed a break. And so I stepped down as a lay preacher at St. Peter's here in HH. For the first year I put my feet up and didn't even bother to go to church because I felt that I really needed to step back from the church and relax for a while. I felt that God knew I had given as much of me as I could and that He would forgive me some indulgences. Then after a year I started to feel the inclination to go to church once again but as a parishioner and not as one of the movers and the shakers. By then we had visiting clergy coming in the form of a south African gentleman who preached for the Lutheran church. Our church is four denominational... Anglican, United, Lutheran and Presbyterian. I had been brought up as an Anglican but I began to take great pleasure in the sermons of this Lutheran Minister and found so much to learn and benefit me.  For the first time in years I felt that I was making progress again in my faith.

Since my separation with Sir Arsewipe I have looked around me and struggled with my relationship with God.  How could He have let this happen.... how could He have not intervened on my behalf... how could He not be with me.  I have begun writing, sometimes two or three times a day, a prayer to God.  It is my own book of Psalms... psalms that I write myself.  I realize that He is with me... all the time... but God and I have become like an old couple. We sit in our rockers on the front veranda and watch the sun setting but we really don't have much connection anymore. I reach out to Him but he is not listening.... He reaches out to me and I cannot give Him what he wants. He has been too demanding... and as a result I have become too resentful.

I have struggled with that... I am struggling with that.

But human beings are nothing more than a dichotomy of challenges and complex characteristics. We are fickle.... one of our greatest sins. I think it is better to sit in the rocker and be together than to turn our faces away from each other. God would never turn His face from me... but as a human I have faults enough... I am sure I could be lured.

So, where do you go from that?

Some Days

Some days I have a hard time... a really hard time.  Yesterday was one of those days. I can't help thinking that some strange world has merged with mine and reality seems almost like something from Star Trek.  I used to think everything in my world was beautiful and good and how could anything go wrong. I realize now that things can go very wrong in the blink of an eye.

I get up each morning and I automatically put my hand out to feel.... air. It is a lonely world I am living in these days.  I liked this painting this morning because it makes me feel better knowing that for every old sock there is an old shoe... and hopefully that is the case for me. Hopefully I won't always be this lonely. It is the loneliness that makes you stupid... it is the loneliness that draws you to the flame.

Yesterday the movers did their assessment of all that I want to take with me. Based on my list and the growing pile in the sunroom it will not be cheap. Today I will get the results of their pricing and depending on what they come back with I will have to start axing more stuff as needs be. Two days ago I, silly girl that I am, put out a PSA for some things that we have decided to sell... I got a really good response.... better than I was expecting. So much so that I was crazy busy for the whole day. I had to take apart and put back together the old futon couch and while I was working on it I ended up screwing up my back. I very quickly decided not to take chances anymore and took some meds yesterday. I cannot afford to get a really bad back now. There's too much at stake. Today I will be packing up the deck and although the wind chimes are something that I love like you wouldn't believe... I will not be taking them with me. They were a wedding gift... they will stay with Sir Arsewipe. I don't think I could handle listening to them but then I might change my mind.

I also have a plan to paint the upholstery of my big armchair... the one that I have used for years in front of the computer. I know that sounds weird but I have done quite a bit of research on this and have seen it done quite successfully. The chair is a good chair and a very comfortable chair... a few years ago when I got sick of Sir Arsewipe's pointless and unthoughtful gifts to me for special occasions I decided to buy myself a rocking chair for my birthday. I searched for the right one and came across a fairly inexpensive chair that was like a wing back but with rockers instead of legs. I love it but as the years have gone by I have noticed it deteriorating in looks because of the usual wear and tear on the fabric. It looks old and dirty now but still not showing any sign of rips or tears. So I will paint it. Apparently it is supposed to give it a leathery kind of look when painted. I hope it turns out ok because I would hate to leave my old chair behind.

Today I am waiting also for the results of the buyers inspection. The day that I put out the PSA to sell all of the unwanted and more importantly unneeded items, was also the day of the official inspection on the house here. We will see if they are happy with everything or if they will require further changes. Hopefully not. That worries me. You see I have been so focused on getting on with my life that I have forgotten to look over my shoulder and watch for danger creeping up behind me. Anything could twist things up and make life an unalterable hell for me at this point.  So I sit in limbo for a few more days and wait for Sir Arsewipe to get the renos finished so that the financing will be approved on the house and we can move on with our lives. I just know that it is not healthy for me to stay here. I need to have a new setting so that I can put the whole hell that my life has turned into behind me.

Pray... really hard... I need all the help I can get.

Love the blues and greens of this painting... so peaceful.

Stupid...

It never ceases to amaze me how stupid one person can be.