HAVING A GREAT TIME

 Here I sit in Kathy's awesome cute little basement suite.  You can't make a place small enough for me.  I love them and this one is amazing.

It has absolutely everything.  Tiny kitchen extremely well stocked, coffee bar, my old stove from one of my houses, a beautiful queen bed in the bedroom and a laundry room and living room.  It's perfectly clean and has everything one could want.  I definitely could live here!

Graeme and I had a fantastic trip up.  The canyon was closed due to fires and we absolutely did NOT want to do the Coq so we took off at Hope and went up through Princeton.  It was fantastic.  He drove the whole way which was a real treat for me!

I spent Tuesday with Kathy.  We went up to Costco and Freshco...only the best store in BC!  In the afternoon Jo and the kids came over.  It was so good to see them.  Those kids are growing!!!!  Jo works in for the Health Authority and we had some extremely interesting convo.  I love visiting with her!

Then last night I had the most fun ever and a super special evening with my two old school friends.  OMG!!!  We laughed til we cried.  We got there at six and left at 9:30.  We could have stayed there another three hours.  It was one of the best evenings I have ever had with friends.  I have to make sure this happens more often.  It's good for the psycheeee!

Today I am meeting my daughter in law Dana for lunch.  She is married to Brad, Bill's second youngest kid.  He is now a Grampa!!!!  It's so weird to see someone you met when he was 18 and now a grampa.  They have a beautiful little girl.  I am really hoping Dana brings her mom with her.  When I was living here we used to meet up for lunch now and then and her mom would be there.  We would laugh and laugh.  I am so looking forward to that.  And tonight I am going to an outdoor play called Treasure Island with Kathy and the kids.  Fun all around!!!

And there are more plans afoot over the next few days.  Yesterday I also had lunch with Anne.  I had a wonderful catchup with her!

Now upstairs is calling.  Coffee is on!  Gotta bounce.  TTYL

'Lay this upon your breast:  old friends, like old swords, are trusted best.'  John Webster

ARYN'S BRADLEY DJAYING FOR THE VEIL PARTY

THE UPSIDE OF WILD FIRES...SUNSETS

A RIGHT GNARLY TREE

THE BEST PIC EVER OF ARNIE AND ME

HOT WEATHER AND DAHL MAKING DON'T NECESSARILY GO TOGETHER

 I am at April and Myles's place granddog sitting.  They don't have air conditioning.  I do have air conditioning at home and keep the house at a cool 69 F or 19 C all the time.  But....they have a tall floor fan and I have it blowing right smack on me at full blast and there are times I actually get chilly!!!  And it gets super hot in here.  I must remember this!!

I had a great trip over on the ferry.  Just before the little street to the ferry terminal, there is a gas station with a poke place attached to it.  I whipped in there and got a Hawaiian Tuna poke bowl and ate it whilst sitting on the tarmac in the line up for the ferry.  Thank goodness I got a reservation.  There was a two ferry wait!  And I was an hour and a half early.

So there was absolutely no need to get out of the car on the ferry.  I read my awesome Jodi Picoult novel and people watched and relaxed.  It couldn't have been better.

So now here I am.  The kids left at 5:30 am the next morning.  And I purposely didn't get Myles to show me how to turn on and use the tv or rabbit ears or the Roku.  I am told I am too addicted to t.v. which may be but....I grew up without tv due to being way up north and also the cult we belonged to didn't believe in tv or movies or music or reading any book other than the bible and dancing and alcohol (I was okay with that one)or playing cards or smoking.  Also women couldn't cut their hair, wear makeup or pants of any sort.  Men could do anything they wanted and as we have just found out (us kids, especially us girls knew already) included sexual abuse.  It was rampant amongst the workers (our male and female preachers).  So when tv became a standard in our life I glomped on with the vengeance of crazy glue.  And all the years I did live alone, tv was like having another person in the house.  I just liked the noise.

So no tv and I choose no music.  It is just too emotional.  Either I am hating it or crying.  I have zero control to my reactions to music.  I am sitting here listening to the washer going, the birds outside singing, kids playing, planes flying over and blogging.  I just finished making a huge pot of dahl...the worst one I have ever made.  I put salt in from a salt shaker I am not used to, so it is too salty.  So I added sugar to help bring down the saltiness, which worked but now it doesn't taste like my dahl usually does.  It will be really good served over rice.  (hopefully...shovel list)

As I mentioned before, Graeme is riding up to Kamloops with me!  I am so happy.  We have decided to go through the canyon.  I haven't been that way in years.  It will be pretty nostalgic, so many memories.

  When I first went over it in the fifties there were long parts not even paved yet.  The tunnels all were blasted rock and no lighting.  It was pretty exciting.  I think we are going to just take our time and stop whenever and where ever we want to.  We will stop first along the way to load up on drinks and road snacks!  Maybe at the Flying J, my fave truck stop just before Hope.  Also for the first time in ages I won't have a dog to think about!

Well I am too hot to keep writing.  I am tired tonight.  I made a massive batch of dahl today and I have bagged it and put it in their freezer.  I am also hungry but too tired to make anything.  I have a whack of raw cheap ass wieners in the fridge.  I think I will cut some of them up and put them with cut up tomatoes and my home made thousand islands.  My fave lazy dinner.  TTYL

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LOOK!!!!  I FOUND A PIC OF MY SUPPER MAKINGS

WIENERS HAD SKINS ON ?????

I CAN'T FIND ANYTHING.....EVER

 I am so freaking fed up.  I can never find anything in this stupid house.  And I have been trying to figure out if it's because my memory is going or if there is NOWHERE TO PUT ANYTHING.

If stuff had a home then fine, I would know where it is.  But if there is nowhere to make it a home, then thats like thousands of things to remember where you put it.

For example I put two tacks up on the wall on each side of the sink.  On the one side are the kitchen scissors.  On the other side are the oven mitts.  I always know where they are and I always get them hands on in seconds.

But half the groceries I just had delivered?  Even the ones going into the fridge I can't find one day later.  As for croutons, and taco shells, and baking powder etc...forget it.  I could spend three hours emptying the cupboards and after not finding it, putting everything back.  

I have had it with my clothes in my bedroom.  I have one drawer, so full I can hardly shut it, and two shelves, not big ones and a stuffed closet.  And today?  Three giant garbage bags.  One for clothes I am keeping.  One for clothes that are a maybe. And one for garbage or the diabetes pick up.  

I know this feeling.  It happens when I get too disorganized.  I am clearing out this house.  I am done.  Shits going.  I am going to start filling every box that comes into this house until there is barely anything left.  Purge time.  I want my house to echo.  I am going to pretend I am Steve Jobs.  It's all going.  And from now til I am dead I do not want birthday presents or xmas presents.  At least not tangible ones.

Sorry for the rant.  TTYL

ANOTHER DECISION

 Today is housecleaning day.  Caroline is due to show up here in about ten minutes.  I pay her either fifty bucks for an hour and a half or 70 for two hours.  Like I have said before she is the sweetest girl but she doesn't dust, empty the waste baskets or do the microwave.  Which is no big deal but....at 35 bucks a short hour you would think that would be part of it.  I have been spoiled by Milly and Alice before her.

I clean the house of all things that don't belong and clean the kitchen and bathroom every time before she comes.  Sometimes it takes me a couple of days...I have to sit down about every fifteen minutes to unpain my back and hip.  Thank Om (not using God any more...too many connotations) the pain DOES go away.

Now that we have Floppy I also have to do a cursory vacuum.  If she came every week I probably wouldn't have to but over two weeks?  Hokey Dinah!!!  There is a thick layer of dog hair all over the stairs and floors.  So I have hauled my vacuum up and I do a cursory vacuum as well.  And I let Ange have all my swifter stuff which I can borrow back now and then.  Over the three days I got a pretty good workout so I do believe I will be letting Caroline go and taking over my own housekeeping.  And to be honest, I will not feel lazy and guilty anymore.  I have to admit that at the moment I am sitting in a very clean house waiting for a housekeeper.  Seems awfully silly and indulgent.

I am trying to add three hundred dollars to my monthly income.  So firing her will add 100.  As soon as I empty out the storage unit in Kamloops that will be another 100.  And a call to Telus and a rearranging of all that will add at least another hundred.  Then I will start selling stuff.  I have some pretty good stuff...a four year old stove, a beautiful buffet with glass doors, a 130 dollar Roku still in the box never opened, two seven foot beautiful benches, and so on.  

To tell you the truth budgeting like this makes me more comfortable than not budgeting.  Over the past few years I have been uneasy being able to pretty much acquire what I want and need.  Not anymore.  Not cooking for three every night has certainly helped.  I miss the cooking though!  I also raised both their rents.  That really helps!

At the moment I am holed up in my room and I am cooking!!!  It is 36 today and MUGGY!!!!  And for some reason there isn't a register in my room.  Why I ask????  So it doesn't cool off like the rest of the house.  It is a lovely 69 F out there in the rest of the house but in here it is 34C.  That is getting close to 100 F!!!.  I gotta stay here til she leaves.  If this post doesn't get to you it's cuz I died.  Please tell someone to come look for me if you don't get it!

Well tomorrow is laundry day. (shovel list). I hate doing laundry.  I have to pack.  I leave next Monday, a week from today for Vancouver.  On the next Monday after that I go to Kamloops and then the Monday after that I head back to Vancouver.  Certain things need to be done before I leave.

And the two most important are...1.  car insurance, due by next Tuesday and 2...Monte has lost the keys to the van.  We cannot find them anywhere whatsoever.  We know they came into the house but they are gone.  We all have turned the place upside down and he needs keys if he wants wheels whilst I am gone for two or three weeks.  I even asked Caroline to keep an eye out for them while she cleans.  Not that she moves anything around at all.

Thats it for today folks.  I can't breathe anymore so I am going to just lay my head down for a while and hope I wake up in a while!  TTYL

'When I feel the heat, I see the light.'  Everett Dickson.   well holy hell, I am blinded by the heat!

ANOTHER KIND OF DOWN DAY

 Jeez I am turning into a real Debbie downer.  Honestly, don't tell Monte, but this town is getting to me.  I was looking back over my years and it's getting close to when I start thinking of moving.  Every five to seven years it hits me.

  I love moving, changing towns, changing my living accommodations.  I get restless mentally and physically.  And I am getting that feeling again.  I was hoping the last move was the last move.  But I just want to pick up sticks, get rid of everything and move...somewhere, anywhere but not here.  I have always been like this.  I moved nine times before Kevin hit kindergarten.  And I did the moving by myself.

I learned very early that due to always having a truck I was the go to to help friends move.  I didn't mind.  But when it came to ME moving....no one was there.  They were all tied up and busy.  Except for my friend Anne.  She was always there bless her heart!  She even helped me pack up a budget truck when I moved from Kamloops to Vancouver.

And that involved pushing a thousand pound heavy duty upright piano up a ramp to be tied to the very inside back of the truck.  And we carried a freezer into the back as well.  I would pack the household into scavenged boxes from the backs of grocery stores and used stored newspaper.  I don't know what poor people use for wrapping stuff now.  It was always so exciting.

But I have noticed the last move or two was much more difficult.  I needed help.  I couldn't sling stuff around like I did even five years before.  And now I know I wouldn't even be able to pack properly and move boxes around like I used to.  And my biggest problem is asking or accepting help.  I hate it.  It's a bitch getting older.  I am 7 and a half years from 80.  I gotta make the years count!!

I have used my new old stove.  OMG!!!!  What an amazing awesome difference.  I LOVE it!!!  It boils water in half the time than that other piece of crap out on the deck did.  And when you turn it down to medium or whatever, it turns down immediately and stays there.  None of this going on and off business.

But there is only one thing I didn't account for.  I have an over the stove microwave/fan combo.  And the canner is taller than the stove element to the bottom of the microwave.  Grrrrrr. (shovel list).  But......

About two months ago Walmart, online, advertised a sale.  Free Shipping and everything under ten dollars.  So I decided to look.  Needless to say I found a few useful things super cheap.

One of them was a single coil burner hot plate.  It was usually about fifty bucks, I got it for nine!!!  It's been sitting here in the box.  The other night after Monte moved the stove out of the kitchen I needed to heat up the dutch oven with the chowder in it.  I hauled it out of the fridge, plunked it on the hot plate and turned it on.  It literally had the soup boiling in two minutes!!!!  It was unbelievable.  And now after reading a bunch of canning sites, I see that a lot of people use hot plates!  And that little sucker works like a hot dam!!!  I am tempted to name it but I am not Arnie...who names absolutely everything.  I just name my vehicles.  And my enemies.  Not repeatable here mind you.

Floppy.  I have avoided discussing him.  I don't want to be 'that' person who talks endlessly about their new pet.

But....we have lots of people go in and out the front gate.  There are three of us in this house that shop almost entirely online. Endless deliveries. Consequently the front gate is always being left open and that spells trouble with a runner dog.

I need to get a fence built between the house and the fence that runs along the side of the property, blocking off the back yard.  It is huge.

That way we can kick the dog out the sliding glass door onto the deck.  He can go down to the yard and be outside some of the time.  It might cut down on the amount of hair building up in this house.  And my vacuum cleaner bags are 35 bucks a piece.  (Miele vacuum...great vacuum but super expensive parts). I find myself picking the crap out of the bag and reusing it.

I mentioned it to Monte.  I suggested that we find a fencer in town and just get them to do it or at the least get an estimate.  I was watching a soap opera the other day and their fence the person was getting done was fifteen hundred bucks.  Mine will only be about 30 feet so shouldn't be too terrible.

And guess what he said?????  His friend who makes music with him, the drummer, has a day job.  Guess what he does for a living?  He works for a fencing company!!!!  Boom!!!!  He is going to build it in two weeks, figures it will take four or five hours and will be about 500 bucks!!!!  The fairies are a'smiling down upon us!!!

Well this post is getting long and wandery.  I shall sign off now.  Take care peeps....I think of you all a lot and am grateful for you.  You guys are the best listeners in the whole world!  Teehee!!!  TTYL

'If your world doesn't allow you to dream, move to one where you can.'  Billy Idol