It must be spring

Last night, we slept with the window open. No, not open all the way (are you NUTS?), but still a few good, solid inches of open window bringing fresh air and sweet breezes to our dreams.

Today, we were able to rake the front yard for the first time, it was too wet before. We picked up six huge bags of leaves, sead pods, etc....you'd swear we hadn't done a thing last fall! I will not be keeping any of the bags from today for my compost pile, I know how determined those bloody maple seeds can be and I am not interested!

Didn't get around to raking the backyard (Husbandly One's back was starting to bother him, mine is still okay so far) but he did build me another raised bed.

I spent some time planning my companion planting.

I have also spent the last four hours making homemade pizza. Not as complicated as it sounds, most of that time was simply to let the dough rest.

I have done two loads of laundry. (another two to go)

I have ALSO killed six ants in the living room. Sigh, ants so soon? They come in the house on the dog's fur, we don't have an infestation in the house (Thank God) but they still gross me out.

It is a quarter to six, the sun is shining, laundry is beckoning to be folded, pizza is begging to go in the oven, and I am happy.

So grateful

Today Husbandly One built the wooden frames for my new raised vegetable beds. I have gone to my bedroom window about a million times tonight, just so I can look down on their naked glory.

Hopefully tomorrow we will get them filled with soil, compost, peat moss and other delicious yummies. Then next weekend I can plant.

I am so happy.

First barbeque of the season?

Priceless.

In other news, the snow is finally out of my yard. Yay! But now we have to rake up all the mess and deal with all the dog poop in the backyard. Boo-urns!

My garlic arrived in the mail today, and I was forced to face the ugly truth: I have no place to PLANT it. So tomorrow Husbandly One and I will head of to our local DIY warehouse and buy what we need to make the beds, so that I can plant them next weekend.

Oh yeah, next weekend. Husbandly One is flying to Detroit with StepSon on Thursday for our grand-daughter's First Communion (I couldn't take the time off work as I am in my busiest season) and so I will be alone. Heady stuff, believe me... to me, there is nothing more relaxing and soothing than a chance to be completely alone, with no chance of interruption. This is a very, very rare thing in my life, but when it happens? Bliss. I imagined myself dropping them off at the airport, and then hugging myself on the way back to our truck to begin my four days of silence, housework, and gardening. (I actually love housework when no one is around.)

Anyhoo, it turns out that the Men in My Life aren't flying out of our city, but out of a city three hours away from here. Bye bye, Men. Bye bye, Truck. The reality of the situation is, instead of four days of utter freedom, I now have to beg rides to and from work on Thursday, Friday, and Monday, and will be stuck at my house all weekend without wheels. Gah!

So, yeah Husbandly One, you are sooooooo taking me to a gardening centre tomorrow!

In love

So a few months ago, I won a "contest" on Pioneer Woman's blog. Her family would sponsor yet ANOTHER child in a developing nation, but did not have time to write to any more kids, so I do the writing, they do the paying, and the kid receives both benefits.

Today I received my first letter from Mekuanent, and I am in love.I have never been one of those "sponsor parents" before, but based on this one, solitary, first letter? I plan to sponsor a child in my own right (which was probably Ree's motivation in the first place!).

I am in love.

Remind me again

whose dumb idea it was to have so many pets??

Oh.

Right, I forgot that part.

I am an animal person, I am an animal lover, I am all about animals. In theory, apparently.

Dudes, if I have to pick up one more pile of cat puke this week, or sweep up one more entire bushel of dog hair, or break one more nail to the quick trying to drag in the insanely barking dog, I may lose my mind.

I did NOT sign up for this. I signed up for romps on the beach with a dog, and cuddly evenings with purring kitties. And none of those cuddly evenings involved my bare foot in a pile of vomit.

We're number two! We're number two!

Well, poop. Canada lost the world curling championship to Scotland. It was a great game, but obviously did not end the way we wanted. This photo was taken just before the game, when Canada was still the world champion. Sigh.

I can't believe how much I love this game. I can't believe that, less than two weeks ago, I didn't understand it in the least and thought it was stupid. I ALSO can't believe I told that to Mark Kennedy (one of Canada's curlers, the one in the black jacket). Well, that would be me, I will say any fool thing that enters my head.



(in the background of the photo, on the right? One of the Chinese curlers. A friend mentioned that all they seem to do in their off hours is sit at their computers for hours on end. I reminded him that, in China, they don't actually have access to the internet and so I don't blame them for surfing to their hearts' content!)

It is now 1:20 am, and I need to go to bed as I work in the morning. Husbandly One, on the other hand, is on is way out to go party with ALL the curlers in their private party room. It doesn't hurt that Husbandly One both provided the room AND five cases of beer for the event, but still! I want to go party, too!!

Three years

If my mother was still here, maybe I would be visiting her this weekend. She would bake some "English muffin bread", and when we were ready to eat breakfast, she would clear off the table and put the stainless steel utensils down on the place mats. I would eat until I couldn't anymore, and then she would try to put something else on my plate. No, Mummy, really, I can't.

If my father was still here, he would want to spend those first moments of the visit with Husbandly One.... I have no idea why he fixated on My Love so strongly, but he did. (Did I ever tell you that the last phone call my father ever made was to Husbandly One? And that he had never ever telephoned Husbandly One even once before?) Then Daddy would have hugged me and my son, then gone back to his book while his harem (me, my Mum and my sister) made dinner. You must understand that my father wouldn't leave the dinner to us girls because it was Women's Work, but because he loved to sit back and listen to His Girls, loved to know that he was surrounded by the loud mouthed, yappy chicks he loved. Eventually, he would have wandered over to the stove, and pointed out something we were doing wrong. Whatever it was, he would have been RIGHT, the bastard....

Oh, how I love my mother and father. And oh, how I miss them. I still believe they will walk in the door and tell me there was a huge misunderstanding, that they are sorry we had to go through so much needless pain, but they are home now and we can stop being so silly as to grieve for them. I still believe.

Curling ROCKS

(see what I did just there? It's punny but it's also true. I know, I'm a literary genius.)

At various times over the last few years, Husbandly One would put a curling game on TV and enjoy it very much. Me, I would look up from my book periodically, look at the guys with rocks and brooms trying to whack some other guys' rocks, shrug, and go back to my reading. The whole thing was pretty lame if you asked me.

My city is currently hosting the World Men's Curling Championships, and curling fever has been increasing around here exponentially for weeks. Me? Mheh, still could not care less about the rock people. And then I went to a game.

Man, I had fun. I understood only 17% of what everyone around me was oohing and ahhing about (or groaning and moaning about, depending on what had just happened), but it was fun. The next night, we watched another game on TV and, determined to understand what was going on, I even created my own curling rink on paper, marking out wide circles, using pennies and dimes to represent the stones. As the game on TV progressed, Husbandly One would touch the corresponding coins on my paper and really explain what I was seeing. Huh. This game is pretty cool.

Well, we went to see another championship game at the Coliseum tonight. I understood what I was seeing. I understood what a sophisticated, highly skilled game of complicated strategy the game is.

It is possibly the coolest sport ever. Who knew!

(See look, I did the punny thing again.)

(Don't worry,no more puns next time.)

Off to make pickles

Hey, it's what all the cool kids are doing.

After my last attempt turned to te Dark Side because I couldn't process them in a water bath, I decided to grab my Mum's big pot so I could do it all up proper.

Of course, this meant that I had to call the young lady who is house-sitting for her and explain my mission. "Yeah, it's Irma? I need to come over and grab some stuff out of the basement. Bye!"

After work, I let myself in to the house using my key -- just to prove I DO belong there-- and yelled "Helloooooooo!" She came in to the kitchen, and was very friendly, and very co-operative as I explained to her what I was taking from the house, but I DID catch her glancing in to the livingroom a few times, I assume to check my appearance against all the photos Mum has displayed. She relaxed visibly once she decided that yes, clearly I am well known in this house.

Still it made me chuckle....if I was going to rob the place, I don't think it would be for the $15 pot in the laundry room behind the fabric softener. I thought about messing with her and saying, "Oh, and I'm just going to grab some jewelry out of her bedroom", but that would have just been mean. So I took Mum's car instead.

Bwah ha ha.

In a convenience store

On the way home tonight, we stopped at our local corner store so I could jump out and buy a lottery ticket with our favourite numbers.

The sixteen year old youg lady working the counter brightened when I told her what numbers I wanted. She knew those numbers! "Wait, this is totally for your dad, riiiiight?"

"Pardon me?"

"Those numbers? This is for your dad!"

"Umm, my husband."

"No no, your dad, that gray haired guy."

"Yeah, MY HUSBAND."

"No, the old guy."

"MY HUSBAND. Can I just have my ticket???"

"Fur sure. Hey, tell your dad I said hi."