SAD BUT OKAY

 As promised I shall update.  It turns out that Kevin and family cannot join us at Xmas.  We, the family, are so so sad and disappointed about this.  We haven't all been together since.....you know what?  I can't even remember.    Maybe we never have.  I am not sure.

They are having issues...that are not mine to tell.  They will be fine but it's going to be a struggle.  Those two never seem to get a break and it isn't fair or right.  Eventually one needs that easing up of worry.  I feel so bad for them....and us.  We were all so looking forward to spending some fun time with them.

Well something happened to Ange that I live in fear of!!!  LOL!!  Actually it isn't funny.  Her one pair of ancient glasses broke.  Irrepairably (is that a word? the red line says NOOOOT). Her eyesight isn't great.  It isn't as bad as blind Bob here, but bad enough I am glad she doesn't drive and attempt it anyway.  I have often dwelt on that thought of broken glasses.  If that happened to me I would be totally hooped.  I do have old ones around but I can't see very well with them.  Now and then I try them out and no...just no.  Instant nausea.  Yikes!!!!

So today we are heading over to Walmart to look at reading glasses.  She can't get new glasses til January so she thought she would give readers a try.  Could work, you never know.

Got my tree up finally.  It's been laying on the floor since the beginning of November.  But now it is all decorated.  Lol!!!  All I did was wrap 300 colourful lights on it. Keep in mind it's only three feet tall.  And those lights are not LED's.  They are hot.  Oh well.

If the tree catches fire I think I would get peeps and animals out, grab my technology and let'er rip.  I am so tired of stuff stuff stuff. I have three sheds. a large area in the laundry room and one bedroom full of crap.  I would attempt to sell some of it but that is such a chore.  I have no trouble selling April's stuff as her stuff is desirable.  Mine not so much.  And a lot of my stuff is big and awkward to get unburied.  I remember clearly feeling this way four days before our big house burned down.  It was the fastest easiest downsizing ever.

Today is housekeeper day.  I spent the day yesterday preparing for her, in other words cleaning the house.  I want her to not only spend her very expensive time actually cleaning, but I want her to see it, not junk laying around.  She is booked solid and she makes 35 bucks an hour.  That's more than the educated and trained friends of April...a lot of them in the medical field.  Doesn't seem right.

Well before I head into a rant I shall stop here.  TFL andTTYL

'The only time I enjoyed ironing was the day I accidentally got gin in my steam iron.'  Phyllis Tiller

OUR AMAZING KEEPER OF OUR VILLAGE

TELUS HELL

 Honestly Telus is endless trouble that follows me around.  Plus they are robbers.  It forces you to read your bills super carefully.  I am constantly having to phone them (I say so easily ....  shovel list) for bill fixings or optic (worst thing to happen to tv) or screwed up tv due to power outage or whatever.  They are going to send me a new pvr box and I just got an email with a mile long list of what I have to do with the old one.  And...there is a flipping mail strike.  So no tv in the other room til the strike is over.

Speaking of...I have decided to hold off on the xmas cards.  If the strike goes past mailing time for people to get their card before xmas, then I am saving them for next year. I loved my last year's cards so much I bought another box of them..on sale.  They aren't exactly xmas cards per se, so maybe I will send out Happy New Years cards instead!

I started this post yesterday then crap happened.  It seems to be like this a lot of the time.  I got a pretty disturbing text from one of the family with their promise to call me back. And they haven't yet.  Now I am operating with a rock in my stomach.  It's hard to think when that feeling is weighing you down.  In fact I am going to sign off here.  I am sorry to be so obscure but I don't know any more than you do.  If it isn't too personal, when I find out I will tell you what's up.  Sorry about this not so interesting post.  TFL and TTYL

FOR ME

 If there was one phrase in our arsenal that I would remove it would be 'for me'. Whatever in the world  you are going through would make you think you are the only person out of eight billion humans on the planet to have the negative experience you are suffering through.

Oh I know there will be times, positive times, or taking responsibility times, that the two words are appropriate. I am not sure why it bugs me so much.

  Our mother raised us so so strongly to not ever be a victim. (shovel list..I am making myself a victim of two words...lol!!)  Like Monte taught me, it's a choice.  And 'for me' at the end of a whine is so narcissistic and....well whiny.

 Eg: In an unhappy group situation, ' This is so painful and it is so uncomfortable for me.'  Well what about everybody else in the group?  Everyone is in pain and uncomfortable.  If you are one that does say that phrase, next time instead of  saying 'for me', substitute  'only me', because that is what you sound like you are saying.  How can you tell I am watching  Naked and Afraid?  lol!!! In the words of Tim Conway, 'STOP IT, JUST STOP IT!!!!!"

Well now that that rant is done, on to happier thoughts.  My housekeeper is back!!!!  I am sitting on my bed, drinking coffee and blogging whilst my house is getting cleaned.  I do go around and completely put everything away, clear off the table, do the dishes, super clean every inch of the whole kitchen and get the floors ready to be vacuumed and washed.  She cleans and scrubs the sinks, stove and microwave.  Then lastly, after scrubbing the bathroom, she vacuums and washes the floors.

Right now Floppy is locked in the other bedroom.  He is NOT happy.  But he is shedding so extremely it is kind of shocking.  He is my ninth shepherd but he is by far the worst shedder.  They should call them shedherds.  Its ridiculous.  One run of the vacuum through the house and my thirty dollar Miele bag is full.  In his defence he is blowing his coat.  They do this four times a year so the worst of it will end soon.  It's so difficult for me.  hahahaha!!!!

Monte doesn't sleep at night. He sleeps during the day.  He has been like this since he was a baby.

Last night around ten he went out for a coffee and then to Canal Beach/Park to practice swording.  (we don't know the proper word for that).  Eventually around two am he parked outside the house and cleaned out the car.  Then he exercised in the front yard.  I was afraid the cops were going to show up, called by a neighbour, thinking something nefarious was going on at the ugly shit box house on 11th.  It was almost pitch black so all you could see was a super huge hulking man lurking and moving about.  If I saw that at a neighbour's house I would be inclined to think nefarious stuff was going on.

Ah jeez, I am rambling on about nothing you guys could possibly be interested in.  I'm hangin' her up.  TFL and TTYL

BROTHER TIME

We had a fantastic visit from Stan and Antonia.  I managed to get the house free of dog hair.  Floppy is blowing his coat right now and it is shocking how much hair can come out of him.  He spent the entire time stuck in my bedroom.  I think he would have been fine with their dog, but he is way over enthusiastic with people.  He goes nuts, trying to climb into their laps and jumping up.  If we had people here ever, I would be able to train him with a shock collar. He has ADHD and I think I will sneak someone's Ritalin and put it in his food.

I made a massive stew the day before.  It was delicious!  I don't make them too often but it was a miserable day out when I made it and now it is cold enough at night outside to put it out overnight.

Monte does runes.  It is kind of like tarot but he uses stones with symbols on them.  Antonia was super interested in rune reading and Monte and she were going to do a reading.  Unfortunately there wasn't time.  So on Nov. 27 we are going to make a trip up to Campbell River for lunch and a rune reading.  Should be interesting.  He is super good at it!

I am looking forward to going out to the shed with all my storage unit boxes.  I need to make sure rats aren't getting into any of them.  I am anxious to get my native statues and my lamp for the kitchen.  I don't even remember what is in all those boxes. 

 I do know that Bill's giant fifty pound salmon, mounted on a board, is leaning on the carport wall out back.  It needs to be either hung up somewhere in this house or put into the shed.  Maybe I will hang it over the fireplace.  It would fit perfectly!  At least it's mouth and head don't move as it starts to sing 'Take Me to the River".  Jeez...kill me now!!!

Right now my current project is Monte's bedroom.  There is so much piddlyass stuff in there with nowhere to put any of it.  I also have a zillion dollar store containers that I think I will start sorting his stuff into.  Then I will stack them in the corner.  I really don't know what else to do.  We aren't dresser people. I know that the drawers would remain empty.  (shovel list)

That is it for today.  Got stuff to do!  (not really.  I just want to watch an upcoming episode of Naked and Afraid!). Take care...TFL and TTYL

OUR AWESOME COFFEE SPOT. 'STEAMPUNK CAFE'

BUNS ALL READY TO BE BAKED

WINTER STEW

WHAT WE SHOULD BE DOING ON A GREY RAINY DAY

THE GREY FOGGY DAY OUT MY WINDOW

 

WHAT THE HECK? THE NINTH? OKAY I GOTTA SET A BLOG ALARM

 I apologize once again.  I haven't even been all that busy til the last four days.  Company is coming and all you normal folks will understand, leaving out the ocd anal clean freaks, its frantic cleaning time.  And I am finding it tougher than years ago.  I can't use my right arm properly and my balance is crap.  Plus I am half blind.  How good do you think my cleaning effort is going to be?  lol!!

I think you all know by now that Monte was diagnosed with high functioning autism/aspbergers (sp?).  Probably how he can play the piano like he does.  But I tell ya life with him is very interesting and unexpected.  But I am learning!  If it wasn't so targeting I would write a humorous book about antics and life with Monte!!!  Here is an example.

Stan and Antonia are coming for a couple of nights tomorrow night...thus the frantic cleaning.  I decided to make a proper beef stew for dinner tomorrow night.  I actually did something I never do...I looked up recipes for stew.  I mean I have made a million in my history but I thought I would just read some.

 Of course I found one with some interesting quirky differences and decided to try it.  It calls for tomato paste, horseradish and root beer.  I will leave out the horseradish.  But I asked for Monte's opinion on the root beer.  We had a discussion...pros and cons.  He is all for it, says it would be good.  He convinced me.

This was yesterday.  So I popped into the store and bought one bottle of sugared barks root beer.  I am excited to see how it turns out.  I am making that stew today as per the recipe.  It says it needs to sit in the fridge overnight for better flavour.  So following the recipe exactly I came to the root beer step.  I reached over to where I had put it yesterday and....it's  not there.  (shovel list). I have a habit lately of losing EVERYTHING!!! So I hunted and hunted and finally found the empty barks bottle, beside Monte's chair.  Jeez!!!!  We discussed it just yesterday for heaven's sake.  I should have hidden it!!!! 

He has a memory like a sieve.  It isn't really his fault.  he was highly overdosed with lithium by a dr. in Kamloops, who by the way no longer has his licence due to too many screw ups. 

 One of the unfixable side effects of that overdose was memory problems.  Another example we took a load out to the dump, one being my kitchen garbage container.  This was a few days ago.  Well guess where that garbage container still is...I have asked him repeatedly to bring it in with him when he comes back from wherever he has gone.

  What I don't like most though is how he beats himself up every time he forgets stuff.  Mind you it's only short term things.  Anything past a week or two he NEVER forgets, even when you would prefer he would. 

I rehired my housekeeper.  I just can't keep up with the dog hair on the carpet.  I can't vacuum properly with my right arm giving me grief.  She said she didn't have a spot anymore so I put it out there on our local fb page that I was looking.  Eventually, after a couple of interesting responses, my last housekeeper got hold of me and said she could come back.  But before that....

I did hire one lady who sounded really great.  Until she told me she didn't have a vacuum cleaner!  What the hell?  I went to her fb page and I feel I escaped a potential disaster. 

 She has seven kids, all of which she just got custody back after a long stint in rehab.  She has a very scary looking boyfriend, a fairly new one.  She just moved into a new housing place and she doesn't have any beds, or any furniture for that matter.  Poor thing but I really need someone with a vacuum.  My Miele bags are like forty bucks a piece and fill up too fast.  My housekeeper has a big dog herself and understands. I am going to ask her to dust every time and do the microwave.

Well enough.  I have to go cut up potatoes, parsnips, carrots, onions, turnips, golden beets and peel shallots and garlic.  I will take a picture.  I bought a new giant Brown Betty bean pot to put the stew in.  The buns I will be baking in the cast iron frying pan.  And it will all go with Kathy's amazing awesome pickled beets!!!  I think Antonia is bringing a cake for dessert.  It is Stan's birthday tomorrow.  I bought him a book that is supposed to be delivered today.  It had better!!!!

Til next time (hopefully a little sooner than nine days). TFL and TTYL

I DO NOT LIKE HALLOWEEN....NEVER HAVE

 Do you remember when we were kids how intensely exciting holidays were?  The anticipation was beyond bearable.  Then we grew up.  And when I say 'we' I am talking about women.

Birthdays in families always end up being up to mom to make happen.  We clean the house, go shopping for endless food, we bake the cake, clean up the mess again, go to the dollar store and get all the paraphernalia one needs for kid's birthdays, get the candles, find the lighter, plan the games.  Then when the dust settles and everyone is gone, who is it picking up all the trash, getting over excited kids into tubs then bed (and the little blighters still want stories), standing at the sink washing dishes, then doing the night time routine, feeding the dogs, making sure all food is in the fridge, finding the aspirin for your aching back.  What the hell is exciting about all that?

Thanksgiving, Christmas, road trips, beach days, over night(s) company.  All exciting.  All exhausting. And all not as fun as when as a kid you slept somewhere strange in the house, giving up your bed to company.  

It's great seeing the joy on your family members face..for sure!  But does it make up for the utter exhaustion at the end of the event?  For your family yes...for myself?  I am not so sure.  The real excited magic is definitely gone and it's due to the colossal amount of work it takes to make a super successful dinner, party, Christmas or day trip to the beach.

And that brings me to halloween.  I can admit it now.  I absolutely hate halloween.  I mean think about it.  What is there to be excited about?  Costumes?  I think NOT!!!  Either the kid wants something impossible to conjure up or impossibly expensive or the 12 year old wants to go out on this most dangerous night with his/her friends...sans parents.  Then a damaging fight ensues when you say no.  And the younger ones bring home an obscene amount of candy...judging the neighbours by how big the bars are.  And face it.  No matter how you spin it to your little offspring how one shouldn't negatively judge according to the size of a freaking chocolate bar, in their head they are still judging, the greedy little critters !  (shovel list).

I do love Christmas though.  I absolutely love the tree and the lights.  I put them on the beginning of November and don't turn them off til spring.  I am a light freak.

I already have my xmas cards and my address list out ready to do my cards.  I love planning the tacky gift party we all are going to do instead of presents.

  I love the xmas carols in commercials and random stores and radio stations.  This time of the year I super use google just for Mariah Carey and Elvis Pressley and sometimes Frank Sinatra and for sure Boney M.  But the real crazy core excitement isn't there anymore.  I guess we just grow up and reality kind of kills it a little.  And for sure the massive amount of planning and work and exhaustion.  The xmas tree makes up for that though!!!!

I think I have mentioned this before but my favourite xmas memory is one year when my Arnie was still tiny enough o be rocked in the rocking chair and  Kevin was eating mandarins and popcorn over on the couch.  The tree was beautifully lit up and the tinsel icicles were shimmering in perfect rows on the branches.  And on my mickey moused together stereo Abba was playing and I was singing and rocking my little one and occasionally Kevin would climb up too.  Life was perfect.  I love this memory.  Soft and dark and shimmering xmas lights, my babies, a rocking chair and awesome music.

I hope you all have a wonderful xmas this year.  Some of you are attempting new normals or dealing with scary health diagnosis's or losing a loved one.  Reach out.  There are lots of us out here with open arms ready for you.  Now I am going to dive behind the couch and haul out my tiny but loved xmas tree!  Hibiscus gotta moooove!!!!!!  TFL and TTYL