I AM JUST PISSED OFF WITH EVERYBODY AND EVERYTHING

I am mad.  Just mad.  I can't get everything done that needs doing and I gotta tell ya I frigging hate dealing with details.

In the last hour, when I need to be doing anything but this, I have got our seats on our flight in Sept to Heathrow confirmed, I have arranged for appliance guy to come in and fix our fridge and dryer (which means I have to clean out the fridge tonight when I would much rather be visiting with my sister who is coming), I have spent a half hour on the phone with LG because they don't let regular appliance repair people fix their stuff, I have sent an email off to Elliott in the hopes that he will come and fix all the things that need fixing in this house, I have made arrangements for our real estate lady to get a wood stove inspector into the house to inspect the wood stoves so we can get insurance, I have packed up the room Kathy is going to be in (three boxes...two to go for today!) , walked three dogs twice, and one still peed on the floor (Molly...stupid dog) and did three loads of laundry...downstairs because the one upstairs is broken.  Oh and I found a private transfer company to meet us at Heathrow to take us to Portsmouth...looked up all the flight info etc and emailed them and then answered all their questions in an email back...check!  And I just remembered that we have a 3 o'clock appointment, one last one, with the lawyer to hand over money for the house.  And I am not dressed and its 2:30.  DAMN!!  Back in an hour................

Okay back!!  Before we left I tried to put Kenai into the kennel.  He is still young and can't be trusted to not chew things....like table legs etc....  Well there was absolutely no way was he going to go into that kennel.  I suppose I could have force forced him to but I just could not do it.  What is with this dog to me?  I don't even like dogs.  But I seem to have a soft spot for this guy.  He is such a gentle sweet pup. So I decided to trust him and left him roaming in the house and when we got home nothing had been chewed and he was so happy to see me.  Yay!!

I went to take the sheets off the guest bed for Kathy and wash them...and there weren't any on the bed.  None!!!!  Monte has been sleeping on a blanket and there aren't any sheets.  And I packed, actually wrapped breakables in all the bedding as I packed so there are NO sheets for that frigging bed.  What the hell!!!  Stuff like that drives me nuts!  So I have sent Bill off to Costco (laaaaaaaaaaaaalaaaaaaaaa) to buy some new ones.  We need them anyway but still....was the kid raised in a barn?  NO HE WAS NOT!!!

Since my last entry I finally have a timeline.  I talked to Dane, our real estate guy, and he said we have to get this house listed by Oct. 15th, which means I need to arrange a moving truck for Oct. 10th.  We get back from England on Oct 7th.  So, I am frantically arranging for all the renos, fixits. painting etc and cleaning to be done while we are gone in September.  So.....before we leave on Sept 5th I have to have this house completely packed and all appliances up and running.  In light of this we bought our first round of boxes and bubble wrap yesterday.  Living room is pretty much packed, Monte's bedroom is pretty much packed, tomorrow will be purple room and Sun. will be my bedroom.  Now I am about to go unload and clean the fridge.  I shall take a break tomorrow and blog if anything momentous happens!  TTYL

CATCHING A QUICK SNOOZE...I USED TO DO THIS SNOOZING SITTING UP WHEN THE KIDS WERE LITTLE

MY NIGHTS ARE OVERWHELMED

I used to like lying in bed, either when I woke up for a while in the night or early in the morning.  I would take that time to organize my day or go over things that had happened in the last couple of days. Not any more.  I start to think about everything that has to be done in this house before we can list it and then I move over to Victoria and think about all the crap that has to happen in that house, then I come back here and think about the totally badly timed Sept. trip we have to go on, then I think about Christmas and then I start to freak.

I think one of the best things about this move that is showing up is how we don't have to give a hoot about the crap that goes down in this awful city.  The main highway out of town is STILL being constructed and creates traffic havoc beyond belief..but we just don't care anymore.  After October we will not have to deal with it any more.

The insane traffic bottlenecks that take crazy amounts of time to get through, here on the north shore, will be irrelevant to our lives very soon.

The total lack of shopping on the north shore, which I have been so bitter about for years, won't matter either.  The tiny community we are moving into, Langford, has more stores, including COSTCO (I just heard high pitched beautiful music) which is literally a fifteen minute walk from our new house (which I will never actually walk  but take a five minute drive)...and there is a shopping centre, McD's and Starbucks....all within a five minute drive, or fifteen minute walk for those energetic relatives and friends that may come to visit.

And...best of all....we are on a dead end road.  There are no houses across the road from us, just a cliff and trees, there are houses on each side of us but the one to the west is hidden behind trees and the one on the east is a beautiful log house that I don't mind seeing, and it isn't visible out the main living windows.

The only downside is that April will not be moving with us.  I think this is really good for her.  She really needs to be on her own completely for a while.  But I am going to really miss her.  I love having her downstairs.  But...Monte will be able to come down to visit more often, although none of his friends are there.  Oh well, it will sort itself all out in the end.  Happily we live right beside Bear Mountain golf course, which apparently is  a very desirable course, so Aryn and Bradley will be visiting!!

I have put some real estate pics of the new house here.  I think they are going to be small but it gives an idea of the new place.  I now have to go get dressed and get ready for the next round of appointments.  TTYL

THE MAIN FRONT ROOM LOOKING TOWARD THE KITCHEN AREA

OUR BEDROOM..WITH THE CRAZIEST ENORMOUS BEDROOM SUITE I EVER LAID EYES ON

FANTASTIC HALF ACRE BACK YARD

THE DECK..WE ARE CONSIDERING MAKING THIS INTO A SOLARIUM

BILL'S BATHROOM (ENSUITE)....BEST PART OF THIS MOVE, I GET MY OWN BATHROOM THAT HE WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO ENTER......EVER

WE GET POSSESSION OF THE HOUSE ON THE FIFTEENTH OF AUGUST...ARYN AND BRADLEY ARE COMING OVER ON THE 16TH TO GET RID OF THAT AWFUL GREEN

THIS IS THE FRONT ENTRANCE TO THE HOUSE..THAT WINDOW ON THE RIGHT IS A LITTLE BEDROOM RIGHT OFF THE FRONT ENTRANCE...I WILL BE PAINTING IT PURPLE AND I SHALL BE BLOGGING FROM THAT PURPLE ROOM

THOSE AWFUL LIGHTS WILL BE THE FIRST THING WE CHANGE...WE ARE GOING TO GET BRADLEY AND ARYN TO PAINT THE CUPBOARD DOORS  AND I THINK WE WILL ADD A RIVER ROCK BACKSPLASH

TODAY I AM DETERMINED TO GET DRESSED

I have spent the last three days in comfy 'can't go out in public' outfits.  Its just too easy.  But then I can't just drop everything and go out for coffee or whatever.  So today I am going to wash my hair, get dressed properly and straighten up.  If I were a hermit I would only need one shirt, one pair of jeans, one set of crocs, and a bottle of shampoo that would last me a year.

Monte has been going out every night with his buddies.  A few of those nights he has been drinking.  Which is normal but I hate it.  I do not like it when my kids drink.  None of them overly drink, its just me.  I think it may be because I was raised in a cult religion that didn't allow drinking, smoking, make up, women cutting their hair, women wearing pants, no tv, no movies, no books other than the bible, no music other than hymns (and country...go figure), no card playing, no divorce (you were excommunicated if you did), no christmas tree, (presents were fine, just no pagan tree) etc....

Now I have no problem with smoking (in the past),  make up (in my youth), hair cutting, wearing pants, tv and movies, playing cards etc.....I do it all.  But I have a problem with booze.  I just can't handle people that start to slur and wobble...it freaks me out.  I am not sure why.

As a result I have been ragging on Monte to not drink.  Plus he is taking a medication that liquor doesn't mix with.  I understand that he only drinks now and then, he isn't here very often, but still...so last night he was going out again to hang with his friends.  He planned to be out all night and home in time for a truly important appointment at 11 this morning.  He said he would be home by 10:30.  I tried to convince him to be home earlier.  Nope.  Finally (keep in mind he is 23, old enough for me to just shut up AND he is really responsible, this is just me) I told him that for every minute earlier than 10:30 I would give him a buck...half joking but we pinky swore..guess who walks in at 7:13 this morning.  Jeez!  He calculated it and it works out to 190 bucks or something, but he said I didn't have to pay.

Andrew left yesterday.  We all gathered out by his car for the final good bye (kind of symbolic because he will be back on weekends to keep packing up his stuff) and it was so flipping sad.  We love that boy.  April just couldn't be here so she took off on a giant hike up the mountain just before he left.  This is probably all for the good, the two of them going their separate ways, but it

I CAN'T IMAGINE HIKING 12 K THROUGH THIS

SHE SENT THESE PICS FROM HER PHONE

s sure hard.

April planned to hike from here to Deep Cove on the Baden Powell trail.  Somewhere along the way she got lost a few times and had to use her GPS and finally she was climbing climbing climbing up Seymour and her knees gave out.  And she ran out of water.  So she texted us that she was coming back down and would let us know where she would finally pop out of the forest and we could pick her up.  We did.  She hiked about 12 kilometres...a lot of it up up up.  She came home exhausted but feeling accomplished.  She had taken Parker with her and he seems to be just as exhausted!

It is so wonderfully quiet right at the moment.  It is still early, but I hear Bill astirrin' in the bedroom.  Sigh!  With him will come NOISE!  Clump clump of his noisy slippers (how can slippers be so noisy), harrumphing as he clears his throat, talking way too loud to the dog, gets all the dogs up and milling about with their noisy nails on the wood floor, starts sneezing, drops two or three things, turns on  the tv....oh well, the day has started.  TTYL  (blogspot sucks....pics just go where ever they want and if you try to change it everything just gets screwed up...there must be a better way than this to blog)

MOLLY ISN'T THERE....THATS A LOT OF DOG IN OUR LITTLE HOUSE

HUSTLE AND BUSTLE!!

Wow! the house is humming with activity.  Andrew is leaving tomorrow for his job in Victoria.  He will be staying in a hotel until the fifteenth and then he will be temporarily moving into our house as soon as we get possession.  He has been here each day, sorting, packing, cleaning, dividing stuff.....so difficult and sad.

Aryn and Bradley have been here painting the outside of the house.  So they have been in and out and up and down.  Along with them came another dog.  And Andrew, who has taken temporary ownership of Molly, added to the doggie mix.  The house looks spectacular!  I can't believe how good it looks.  Lots of times when you paint an older house it just looks like an old house with new paint.  This paint job they have done is amazing!  Our old house looks new!

I wish you could see Bill right now....we have a problem getting Kenai to eat.  He just doesn't eat...not even canned dog food.  But he does mooch...big time.  So I gave Bill the bowl of food and he is hand feeding him...and the silly dog is eating!  But he will only eat out of Bill's hand, and he ate his whole bowl of food, all of it...crazy dog.  He acts like he is afraid of the bowl, he backs away skittishly if we offer the bowl to him.

I made an enormous pot of chicken soup today.  ENORMOUS!!!  Aryn and Bradley came in for a lovely lunch.  April sat at the table and painted another wonderful painting.  Monte showed up with two of his friends and they hung out here for a while.     Now I am going to hit the hay!  Its getting late and tomorrow I am determined to get purple room done.  All my clothes and stuff from the trip are all over the couch in there.  Laundry time for sure.  TTYT  (sorry this is so quick and boring)                                                    

HOME AGAIN HOME AGAIN JIGGITTY JIG

HOLY CRAP!!!  So much has happened in the last couple of days.  And there is so much happening and so much about to happen.  I think I am going to need to be three people in the next while!

Firstly:  April and Andrew, sadly, have come to the decision to go their separate ways :(  This is such an unexpected turn of events.  When we left on the trip at the beginning of July we were all excited to be moving to Victoria and now here we are with the two of them going on their own paths.  I know this decision is totally for the best for them but I am still sad.  Right now they are coming to terms with it all and trying to forge forth as friends.  It will take time but knowing them they will succeed.

Secondly:  Our house.  When we bought the place in Victoria we made sure it was a house that we loved and would be completely happy to live in ourselves.  And it looks like that is what will be.  I am sooo flipping excited about the move.  I LOVE MOVING!!!  I love packing, I love unpacking, I love organizing the house, I love waking up to a new picture out the bedroom window...I love it all.  And it is the one time you know where everything is.  That thing you have been looking for forever?  You either find it happily or you get closure forever.

Thirdly:  When we got home, Tandy and Kevin and the kids were here.  They just left for the Okanogan, but it was so good to see them.  The kids are growing up sooo fast.  Tandy and Kevin are kind of at a loose end right now.  They can't get into their condo until Sept. so they are floating around a bit..going camping for a long while.  And canoeing.

Our trip ended well I think.  Although I was getting tired of people and food,  really!  And walking sooooo  sloooooooow to pace Bill.  Honestly he is the slowest walker on the planet and I am always 100 feet ahead of him, tapping my foot waiting for him.  And then he has the gall to get mad at me!  Then I tried walking behind him, trying to figure out just what the problem was.  And it boiled down to him just plain meandering, slowing down when having a thought, stopping now and then to just gaze into the mystical distance...JEEZ!!!

So something really really funny happened, I am still laughing about this.  We were in the parkade waiting for Monte to pick us up.  I was sitting on my suitcase which I had laid down on the luggage cart.  Bill had upended his suitcase and was sitting on it.  Suddenly, and I mean in a flat nano second, the wheels shot forward on Bill's suitcase, flipping him backwards and down flat onto the top of his bag.  It happened so fast it took a second to understand what actually happened.  There he lay, like a beetle on its back, arms waving, legs pedalling, completely unable to do anything...but lay there.  Well I started to laugh, and I couldn't stop, I laughed til I thought I was going to die!!!  Every time I looked over at him I would start laughing all over again.  I laughed til the tears slid my glasses off.  Honest to God it was the funniest thing I have ever seen.

Well he started to get mad at me because he needed help to get up.  I finally pulled myself together and went over, helped him roll off his bag and over onto his knees, but he could not get up.  And for the next five minutes we tried every move under the sun, to no avail.  What the hell??!  I thought I was going to have to make him sit there til Monte got there.  Fortunately for us a wonderful couple stopped, saw, and hopped out and came over and between us all we got him up on his feet.  I am laughing right now at just the memory of it!!

We arrived home to a chaotic happy messy family household.  I was so happy, except for my poor little doodlebug downstairs.  It was so good to see the Kevin family!  I love those kids!  I just love it when the house is full of family right down to someone sleeping on the living room couch.  So for the rest of yesterday until noon today, when the family left, I got to watch the children play and read them stories and just give them hugs.

Just as they were leaving this morning, we weren't paying attention and Kenai, Monte's runaway dog, snuck out the open door and poof! was gone.  Kevin, Tandy and Monte took off and scoured the neighbourhood for about half an hour and finally came home empty handed.  We all love this dog to pieces and we were just sick with worry.  As we stood around making plans for posters, phoning the pound, talking to neighbours, I glanced out the window to see a giant white dog come steaming down the road, around the corner and into the back door...happy as hell and ready for a nap.  Thank goodness!!!  And now we know that even if he does get out, he will come back if he is able.

Now its time to sit down and make a plan.  Over the next few weeks we have so much to organize and execute. I foresee many lists!  I bought a spiral notebook to get started with that....I shall be back on here tomorrow..TTYL

THIS IS BILL READING 'TUNDRA' A CARTTOON BOOK VERY SIMILAR TO THE 'FAR SIDE'  THEY TOTALLY ENJOYED IT!

READY TO COME HOME NOW

I am so tired, in a good way.  We spent yesterday combing the side streets and back alleys of Skagway.  What a pretty little place it is.  We just strolled along all over the wee town looking for interesting ideas for our new house and things to take pics of.  The weather was amazing.  I am turning brown again!  Quirky and quaint...that describes it perfectly.  And, thankfully, the great masses of people that swarm off the ships don’t venture past the busy main street.  We could hear the birds singing, and children playing and lawn mowers humming.    It was perfect.

Last night we went upstairs and had pea soup and mac and cheese for dinner.  It was delicious!

Today we hit Juneau fairly early.  We leave here at 3:30, fairly early.  We were going to try to do the same thing today but its a whole different type of place here.  Not so pretty, but certainly interesting.  

There were only two ships in port when we arrived at six this morning.  We got off our ship early and walked down to a coffee shop that we like.  We can sit on the sidewalk, have a blueberry something or other and mozie on in good time.  As we sat there three more ships, with approximately 2500 people per ship (or more) arrived.

Its really something to watch.  This little town simply swings into tourist action.  Up pull fleets of buses and hundreds upon hundreds of people of all sizes, shapes, colour and ability, squeeze onto them and off they go to be carefully placed in tippy canoes, or get stuffed in kayaks, or be pulled by sled dogs over iffy tracks, or strapped into zip lines, or helicoptered onto glaciers, hike up into forests and have salmon bakes, or visit native villages, that are carefully planned out so you won’t miss a thing, or get onto boats and go off in search of the whales, or get taken into the ‘ancient rainforest’ to go walking on a tippy rope path high up in the branches, or get stuffed onto trams that whisk you up to the top of the mountain, or transport you to rickety old steam trains that take you impossibly high up a canyon.....and all of them have irresistible gift shops you must pass through to get out to go back to your ship. 

 All along the main street a full fleet of good looking young men from the middle east, dressed in beautiful dark suits with impeccably crisp dress shirts, dark hair slicked back, shiny black dress shoes, stand at the ready in the doorways of many jewelry stores, all claiming to have the best ammolite, or diamond or opal or whatever piece of jewelry you really really want.

All the food trucks fire up and pretty soon you can smell salmon grilling, halibut deep frying, seafood chowder heating up, sourdough bread being baked, fish tacos being hand made and that one falafel truck, which always ends up with the longest line up of all.

Later on, as we were sitting on a bench we watched all those hundreds of people, a good deal of them truly old and a lot of them truly overweight, dragging their butts back to their respective ships, carrying giant shopping bags full of t-shirts, alaskan blankets, everything moose, kids’ stuffed whales, smoked salmon in pretty wooden boxes, fudge from the Alaskan Fudge Co., ulu knives by the dozen, train whistles, pj’s with bears all over them, smoked salmon flavoured vodka (really) and a thousand other useless but fun crap.

And now, a lot of us are sitting in tired stunned silence as we watch gorgeous Alaska slip by our windows, where ever we happen to be on the ship.  Whales are spouting out there but everyone is too tired to care too much anymore.  I think even the crew were tired because dinner was really crappy tonight.  Oh well, like we need more food!

Tomorrow Ketchikan.  The Captain came on the blower at dinner and told us that it actually wasn’t going to rain there tomorrow.  I will believe it when I see it.  TTYL  I see the font is tiny again, Dammit!!!

MOOOOORE GLACIERS AND CRANKY PEOPLE

Well another day, another glacier and another trip or two to the food trough.  I have very little to report.  We floated through glacier bay...again...and I heard about blue ice...again.  Made me laugh!  We saw a million whales, and otters, and seals.  The glacier was calving tremendously.

I went upstairs first thing this morning and had my hair done.  And this girl was amazing. My hair looks about the best it ever has (not saying much).  On my way back to the room I heard a holler from across the whole middle deck swimming pool...”Hey Fannie!!  Give us a line or two!”  Man alive!  I couldn’t believe it.  I will never live that stupid show down.  I think if I cut my hair off it might help, people only recognize me because of my ridiculous hair.

One other thing happened...I was down on a lower deck in the middle of the atrium in the middle of the ship.  I was yet again getting a new key card.  Mine demagnifies every three days or so.  On my way back through the middle of the atrium, I heard a yell.  And right before my eyes an old man was tumbling head over teakettle right down to the bottom of the stairs.  He landed awkwardly at the bottom and we all just froze for about five seconds (and thats actually a long time) we all thought he was dead.  In fact I had actually got to the “Damn, another helicopter delay!!” thought when he suddenly sprang to life, leapt to his feet and said “Thats the fastest I have moved in a long time!”  He chuckled and hobbled away.  Seriously!  We all stood there, first in shock and then in total admiration.  Wow!!  If that had happened to me I probably would have popped open and gross spillage would have happened.  What a guy!

At lunch today something annoying happened.  Because its a day where no one gets off the ship, the buffet upstairs gets super busy.  We didn’t have breakfast and it was getting on to 1 or 2 in the aft.  We headed upstairs.  One thing I will not do is get my food then look for a spot to eat.  We find a spot first.  It took several rounds of the whole eating area and we finally found a couple of seats at a table for six.  Lovely table mates from Minnesota and Pittsburg.  I went to get food first.  About half way through the mob, holding an empty plate I headed down to where the soup is.  Suddenly a man, also holding a plate gets loud  and says, “we don’t like budgers around here!!”  All of a sudden I realized he was talking to me!  I took a quick look around and noticed a line had formed at the other end of the food area.  I had no idea as I had come in from the other way.

He was getting quite loud and belligerent, much to his poor wife’s horror, when I finally had had enough.  I leaned in and very quietly told him that it wasn’t against the ‘law’ to come in from the other way and line ups were for stupid people.  I then shoved through and got my soup and bun and left the area.  What is with these people?  Everybody seems cranky.

And now we are back in our stateroom.  Tomorrow is Skagway...our favourite town.  But...if its raining, and I don’t think it will be, we are staying on the boat.  If its not then we shall head into town and walk some of the back streets. TTYL