Sshhhhh...I'm hiding

I'm down in the basement.

The dogs are with me.

The house is dark.

I'm busy being a "rotten Halloween Apple".

Now don't go thinking that I'm a big time jack 'o lantern cheap ass. I'm not. I love Halloween. I'm the kind of person that puts the display in the yard, the Halloween lights go up, the move-able pumpkins and witches, all the window coverings. I buy a ton of candy to hand out to the 8 or so kids that will stop by and scream "Trick Or Treat" at my door. Sometimes I don't even let them get the begging call out as I'm so excited to see the little ones all costumed up in their princess or dracula outfits.

Back when #1 and #2 were younger, I would make their costumes. A pumpkin, clown, puppy dog...Poor #2, he always got the hand me downs as #1 was always privy to the newest creation. Then came the trips to VV Boutique to gather more complex items that were required as they got older. Try and find a size 12 pair of stillettos because #1 absolutely has to go out dressed like a "hot chick". He was pretty cute. But hot? Not so much.

But my most favourite costume by far was the Skunk costume. It was great. Made out of that long hair stuff that some people use for an area rug carpet thingy, you know, what's it called? Anyway, that stuff is a tough thing to sew, particularly with a sewing machine that was handed down to me, I swear, from one of my great grandmother's. But sew it I did.

The real kicker to the costume, and the thing that both the boys giggled hysterically about, was that SG would take a piece of cloth and soak it in this skunk smelling stuff that he uses to cover his tracks when he's out in the bush, doing his best to not be choosy and "wait for the big one", and get us some venison. We would then tie this cloth to the underside of the skunk tail and off they would go, begging for candy and stinking to high heaven.

It was great. People would comment on how the cute little skunk smelled like a big ugly skunk ... and the boys would laugh and turn around and lift the tail as they scooted away.

But now, here's the thing. #1 has a job and is working tonight. I asked him the other day if they were dressing up at work and he said no. Good, one less thing for me to do. Turns out that yes, indeed, costumes were mandatory. Desperate phone call to the cell on the way home requesting that I please please PULEEAAASE bring him his tank top and shorts, they needed to be in costume tonight. "Uhhmmm, okay, what are you dressing up as" I asked and was told that he and his "roman candle fireball really mom it landed in my shoe" buddy were going as beach volleyball players.

Yeah. Okay. That's really dressing up now isn't it? But I relaxed and said to myself that #2 still had a couple years in him, it'll be okay. It can still be fun, despite the fact that #2 had me running all over town trying to find a pair of those boots that guys used to wear that had the 4" solid block platform and 5" solid block heel and some bell bottoms and oh, don't forget, the afro wig. "And what, pre tell are you dressing up as" I asked. A hippie was the reply. Which was good. I liked that. It was fun scouring all the used clothing stores to find really cool stuff that was "hippie". I didn't find the afro wig, so he ended up with dreadlocks instead. A Rastafarian hippie. I liked it. So did he.

What I didn't like was when I was driving him to the school dance last night how it was suggested that the only thing missing from his "really cool" costume was the fact that he didn't have a big "doobie" in his hand.

THAT'S!!! when it stopped being fun!!!

And that's why I'm in the basement, with the dogs, hiding, in the dark with only the glow of the monitor to guide me. Oh, that and the light in the bar fridge! The image of all those cute little ones, almost whispering their "Trick or Treat" and they're then yelled out "THANK YOU!!!!" as they leave my front door, well, it's just too much to bear. I can see the future for those little ones....

He said he needed a "doobie"....

Please stayed tuned

I'm currently on a bit of "hiatus" if you will....

Yes, I'm yet again in what can be called the "swamp" of life and have my creative mind elsewhere. Two teenage boys and a rather delinquent life partner can do that to a person!!

But don't for one single minute think that I won't be back with something stellar!

I will be.

I'm just trying to figure out how to tell it all without incriminating those that think they are innocent!

See you soon....

It's that time again

I knew that when I decided to breed dogs that the female comes into heat about twice a year. And I knew that when you let a male dog near a female dog when she is in heat, it can get a little rowdy. And loud. And rambuctious. And messy. And did I mention rowdy?

And, while I knew back then, that if you don't want to let your male and female dog join together to bring a litter of puppies into this world, you have to keep them apart. And what I've learned is that this is not an easy thing.

In fact, it's downright torturous. It takes incredible creativity and ingenuity and diligence. Seriously, it does!

And now...well, that time is upon us once again.

And because it is really important to let the female "rest" between litters in order for her to bring forth into this world a good, strong, healthy litter, (in my opinion anyway, others will disagree) I have decided to rest the girl dog. Much to her chagrin. And mine. Oh, and boy dog too. He's ready, willing and able. And about to be incredibly pissed off and frustrated!

As will she.

I won't deny that I gave some serious consideration to letting her mate back to back.

I did.

But the thought of having a back to back breeding and what it would do to her was giving me a fair bit of grief. Oh, and not to mention the fact that having anywhere from 4 - 9 puppies living in my house for the two coldest months of the year and not being able to let them outside so they could learn and explore and crap and pee out there, rather than inside my house, well, I'm just not up to that! But then I thought about the possibilty of a a winter vacation if I did let her have another litter, you know, a nice escape to warmer climates, maybe around my birthday.

Then, I thought about the crap and pee inside my house.

Sorry, a winter reprieve in Cuba or Mexico just ain't worth all that crap (pardon the pun)!

So, the dance begins once again.

As for the little girl Nikki? she'll probably just cock her head to one side and think "WTF????" And then, she'll be ready. You know, for the mating thing. It'll probably be three to four months of complete and total hell..

I think I might want to be moving out.

Hello? High Speed Internet Provider?

As a lot of you faithful readers know, I'm on dial up out here in the country. Some of you know this more than others, having been on the receiving end of an email requesting that you please don't send 3.6 mb video clips of a dog sleeping next to a cat or of cake baking in the oven only to fall when the door gets slammed. And many of you have received the email asking you to please, please, PLEASE!!! compress your pictures from 1.6 mb to oh, let's say 53 kb. Particularly if your sending me 15 of them!

The other day, I was heading into our local town to do something, shopping for food I think, and as I headed toward the far end of my road I noticed that there were all these little pink flags stuck on sticks and the sticks were pounded into the ground. And on the little pink flags was the logo of our local telephone company. And then, right at the end of our road, there were 3 big coils of some kind of tubing.

So...my imagination being what it is, I began to conjur up dreams of maybe, just maybe, we were finally going to get into the 2000's and have us some high speed internet! And then it progressed to thinking about a bigger and better computer (and getting the lead out where it comes to building the custom designed thing!) and then the most incredible visions of watching every You Tube video that I've heard about, but not had the pleasure of seeing, began to dance in my head.

It was kind of pathetic actually. The thought of high speed internet and how excited I was about the possibilty of such luxury.

To add fuel to the fire, later that day my good friend down the road calls and said she saw the same thing and had the same sort of visions. Hers were a little bit different than mine, but I'm not getting what she was excited about! So I told her that I would make the call and see what I could find out.

I knew the minute I heard the voice on the other end answer that this had the potential to be a fairly fun conversation. (The phone person "Phone Dude" has been shortened to PD).

Me: Yes, could you please tell me if there is high speed internet being installed on "name of my road"?

PD: Where's that?

Me: It's near "name of small town", right by Highways "this one" and "that one".

PD: I'll check

PD: Nope, don't see it scheduled

Me: Well, is it happening? I see all the flags marking certain spots and there's tubing there and I know many of us have requested it be installed. It tends to look like it might be happening. I hope so...

PD: Well, I might be wrong. If there's stuff there, they might be

Me: Is there any way I can find out for sure?

PD: Sure there is

Me: And how would I find out?

PD: Call us back when they're finished and we can tell you what they've done

Me: Really?

PD: Yep. 'Cause it'll be finished and they'll tell us what they did.

Me: Oh...okay then. Thanks very much

PD: Is there anything else I can help you with today?

Me: No, I'm fairly certain there isn't. Thank you.

At this point, I don't know if I'm getting high speed internet on my road. But I now know when I can find out!

At least today I can breathe

When yesterday, it was a difficult thing to do. An essential part of existing, I thought for sure I was going to die.

You see, I did something to my back. My lower back to be specific. And I really have no clue what it was that I did that had rendered me literally breathless. Really. I mean, I know we all harbour our lungs in the top half of our bodies, so why was there this incredible pain in the lower half of my body every time I tried to inhale? Actually, not only was it hurting me to breathe in, it was excruciating painful to also breathe out, swallow, yawn, sigh...it probably would've sent me over the edge to laugh, but I wouldn't know. I was in so much pain that laughing was the last thing I wanted to do.

So, after a yet another trip to the bone cracker (yeah, I did this a few weeks ago and the memory of the lecture I was given about leaving things too long was still very fresh in my mind - I'm not stupid, I wasn't going to be subjected to that again!!) it seemed a little better. I mean, I could at least walk. Still had issues with oxygen getting in and out of the body, but I could walk. Which really didn't do me any good because apparently we need to breathe in order to walk.

When the good doctor asked me what the hell I did that warranted the lock up this time to be even worse than the last time, I said it could have been a multitude of things. I had, after all, spent last weekend being a domestic goddess and maybe everything that is required to pull that off did some damage. You know, scrubbing floors, cleaning toilets, washing down walls, all the things that make being a domestic goddess, well, a goddess! Maybe it the increase in weights at the gym. No wait, that wasn't this week....I was too busy drinking Spiced Pumpkin Latte's this week to even go to the gym... Maybe it was the driver's seat in The Cav and the fact that my 6'6" #1 son never puts it back to where its supposed to be in order for me not to hurt myself while I attempt to get into my car gracefully. Nothing like "falling" into the seat when you expect it to be where it usually is and find out that it isn't. Perhaps it was the dogs throwing me off balance everytime I come home and have them bestow the "happy, happy, circle dance" on me. They can get a little over exuberant and tend to slam up against me and push me around a bit. It's actually a pain in the ass (nice reference Jodie, but apparently true) and we're trying to get this under control. It was okay when there were only two of them, but now with three, yeah, we need to work on the choreography there.

In other words, I have no idea what I did. All I know is that I've never yelled "owwww!!!" at the bone crackers before. But I did yesterday. And quite loudly. And then he told me to call him at home this weekend. Because he was pretty sure I'd need to see him again before Monday.

But, my logic is, if you give the body enough painkillers and ice the injured sight and have someone around to continually re-fill your grape and serve you dinner all the while being propped up and supported by many, many pillows, you too can get out of bed the next day, breathe, walk and even sit at the computer to write a blog.

Just don't sneeze.

A couple of firsts

While I was away on my mini vacation I did a couple of things that I’ve never done before. Now I know you’re probably thinking “Really? Things you've never done before?" Yes, believe it or not, there are things I've never done before....

One of the things I did was go to IKEA. I mean, I’ve been to IKEA before and it was good. Very good as a matter of fact. I do enjoy myself in IKEA. Which is odd. I don't really care for shopping. As a matter of fact, I'd rather watch paint dry. Preferably paint that has been applied by someone else. And, to make watching paint dry even more entertaining, the ceiling paint that goes on pink and changes to white as it dries. Now THAT is more entertaining than shopping in my opinion.

But what I've never done in IKEA is not buy something. I didn’t buy a thing. Not one single item. Can you believe that??

It’s not that I didn’t want to buy stuff. I did. I really did. There is tons of stuff there that I wanted to bring home. But how was I going to get that big ass glass bowl with the matching big ass pitcher home in one piece? Or what about the set of dishes that I was absolutely dying to have but didn’t need? There was no way I could pull it off. So I left empty handed. And shed a tear.

The other thing I did that I've never done before was go to Starbucks. Don’t ask me why, I just did. Well, actually, I know why. I met some family members there and we all had coffee. After waiting in line for 10 minutes to make it to the counter, I was very surprised at how expensive it was. I mean really expensive. After getting over the shock of how much I was going to pay for my coffee I thought, well, go big or go home girl! And I ordered myself up a “Spiced Pumpkin Latte”. Venti size I do believe (the biggest cup they had anyway). I had heard that these Spiced Pumpkin Latte's were absolutely to die for and thought, why not? You're practically putting up the farm for this coffee tab, may as well enjoy what everyone else has raved about.

And I will tell you right here and right now, it was probably one of the finest things that I have ever put into my mouth. Really. It was that delicious.

So imagine my surprise when back here on the prairie I came across a Starbucks quite close to the place I spend five days a week. Turns out they’re all over the place here but, not being a big coffee shop kinda chick, I never noticed. I can tell you where every grocery store is (including a lot of the smaller "mom and pop" shops), but ask me where a Timmy's or Robin's, and now Starbucks, are and well, I just couldn't. Places to buy grape, oh yeah, I got that down. Wally's world, I'm on it. But coffee shops? Nope.

And, with this discovery, well...now we have trouble. Serious trouble. Trouble with a capital t. Particularly since this Starbucks is right next door to a really, really, really good Indian Restaurant.

In the amount of time it takes for the lunch order to be prepared for take-out, you can head next door, get yourself a Spiced Pumpkin Latte, come back, grab your food and head on back to the office.

Not a good thing.

Not. At. All.

Photographs

Only because what I have to say, I can't. And what I want to say, I won't.

I'm not liking this self-imposed gag order!

This is one of the boats at the Yacht Club where I had my recent mini-vacation. It's being put into the boat house and I'm assuming it was successful as I didn't hear any swearing.

The view from the deck of the Yacht Club. I know, I have these things nesting in my backyard in the spring, but I was kinda surprised it hung around right below the deck. Must of had something to do with the bread I was tossing down.

Doing a "dock walk" with my dad he pointed out the Blue Heron. I was zoomed in and tried to get closer but it decided that I was getting a wee bit too close and flew away.

Taken a few weeks ago (on probably the last sunny day we had until today!). See the bee?

I absolutely love this view. And I'm going to miss it. A lot. But that's for another blog.

Distracted, but it was okay

Just so you know, this post was intended to be an incredibly humourous look at what it's like in this house to prep the three males to leave for three days. And, as I was writing it in my head, I was laughing and smiling and giggling.

Yes, dear readers, it was going to be that! good.

But then I made the decision to, rather than log into my blog and write down the words that have been circling in my head since 8:02 am when the adventure of getting the boys out of the house began, I thought I would first catch up on a couple of my favourite blogs.

And I clicked here.

And I found this.

And, the last three paragraphs just about killed me too.

Public Service Announcement

I thought you all should know that this Sunday, Oct 12 at 8:00 EST, HDNet Concert Series is showing my all time favourite guy in the world, live in concert.

"John Mayer: Where The Light Is - Live in Los Angeles" will show in its entirety.

Now, for those of you who don't believe me when I say this guy is truly awesome, you best be checking it out. I guarantee you that there will be at least one tune that will smack you right in the chest and take your breath away and force you fall on your backside and go "whoa...." And then you'll know just what I'm talking about!

Make sure to mark your calendars people. And for my fellow Canadian readers, if you think you'll probably fall asleep after over indulging on the Thanksgiving bird, don't worry, you won't.

It's that good.

Let me know your thoughts after you see it.

It was a trip

This was originally posted from my mini vacation destination.

And a very good trip at that.

Apparently, there are mountains here. You wouldn't know it if you had been here this weekend. I know that there are because I've seen them before. I used to live here. And on various other trips I've taken out this way, they've been visible. But yeah, no, (wow, serious contradiction there, but whatever) you wouldn't have known it this time. Nothing but rain and seriously low cloud cover. You could almost reach up and touch the clouds they were so low!

But it didn't matter.

I was with my Mom and Dad. My brother and sister. I met my future sister in law. I took an escape from MY life and came into theirs! I was wondering if I would still fit in. I think I did. It felt like it anyway. Little buggers that they are, it didn't take much to remind them who the big sister was!!!

It has been wonderful reconnecting, giving long overdue hugs and kisses, dispensing unwanted advice, giving instructions and guidance on living life and just overall being a bossy big sister and the oldest daughter. Gotta love it!

I'm back to my real world a little later today. My reality. My life. And I am looking forward to it.

It's been nice to escape.

Goodbye...and Good Riddance

What a month! I am so happy to see this one get the hell out of town.

Between work and kids and dogs and yard and house and volunteering and all around frustration in just about every aspect of my life...yeah, so long September!!! Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!

Last week was particularly difficult to get through. And these last two days have been downright torturous...

But, now we're in October. One of my very favourite months. And that in itself is gratifying. It'll only get better!

So, for surviving September, I'm treating myself. Gonna take a little trip, have some fun, relax, reminisce, do some fine dining, drink some exquisite beverages, See some sights I haven't seen in a while, not to mention some people! I am rather stoked, can you tell?

And I'm leaving everyone and everything at home....(well, except my clothes... well, maybe not....) that's the best part. Just me, myself and I. It is going to be soooo sweeeet!

See y'all when I get back!