Saturday 2 June 2012

A Good Day

Today was a pretty good day all in all. 


I started cleaning and then decided a day in the yard would do me good. I had just about finished stringing my first garden box when my husband got home and came and helped me. We  got both the boxes planted, and with the help of my two youngest, we got some trees pruned and a lot of garbage picked up. We also planted two raspberry bushes and two blueberry bushes. I do hope they live. I planted blueberry bushes when we first moved here and they did not survive. 


When we were done in the garden I went over to the deck and watered all my flowers, i had just sat down and removed my boots when my husband called out that two baby robins were stranded in our window well. My husband got a latter and climbed down and put them back in the tree, while the mother flew around so upset with us that she couldn't decide if she was brave enough to attack us or just brave enough to fly around our heads screaming at us. I am glad she choose the latter.




By the time I got my camera and came around to the front of the house my husband has already rescued one of them and was getting ready to put it back in the tree.




The other bird, still at the bottom of the window well. Hard to see in the picture but he is in the plastic bag, which also got rescued today.




Pretty deep window wells, my DH needed a latter to get down there. The second one did not want to get caught.




Protesting his rescue. I think he was yelling, "Get them, Mom".




Second one being placed back in his home. 


We all came into thoroughly worn out and tired. Always the sign of a well spent day. How showers all around, pizza and tv to end the day.

Sunday 27 May 2012

Sunday Mornings and Expectations

It is Sunday Morning and everyone is still asleep. Most Sunday mornings we would be on our way to church by now, but today my DS1 is teaching at his church, which doesn't start until 1:30 pm, and we are going there instead so we can, both listen. and support him.

So here I sit quietly by myself, contemplating things. 

Yesterday, DS3, told me his girlfriend is expecting. Yes, that's right she is expecting a baby, I really don't know why we use the word, "expecting". she is not expecting a baby, she is having a baby. As if it could be a puppy! Pregnant! 5 months along! I see this girl everyday and I never suspected a thing. Anyways, ever since I got the news I have been, well I am not sure what, I mean, I want grandchildren, I am just not even sure what I mean. I just wish it was under better circumstances. So last night I came to the conclusion, it is what it is, nothing I can do to change it, so I might as well be happy about it. Let go and let God. I leaned that lesson a long time ago and really don't want a repeat. 

So, I am going to be a grandma. Not sure what I want to be called yet. Nana, I hate! sounds like an old goat, I hope I am not offending anyone out there. I told my kids I was going to be Grand-ma-ma, back when none of this even mattered, but now I am not sure. I am pretty sure my husband will be papa, but as for me, I am still open to suggestions. I love this baby already, even though I am not too happy with the parents at the moment. It does no good to harp on it though, it will serve only in alienating the mother, which in turn will alienate my grandchild. So here I am still trying to take it all in. My son just turned 22, this month, He is two years older then I was when I had my first and one year older then my husband, but we were married, not that it made it any easier, but at least the circumstances were a little better. I told him it was time to grow up, no more goofing off, he said he knows, and he is very excited, so that at least is good. 

All plans now have to be put on hold. What makes this more complicated then them not being married is that my DS3, got into some trouble about a year ago and is waiting for his trial. Right now he is out on bail, which is why he has moved back in with us, it was court ordered. In fact he is not allowed to leave our property without me or my husband. That is a huge complication. Means unless one of us takes him he is not even allowed to go to Dr. appointments. See how this is going to affect us all?  

Anyhow, time for me to get up and get moving, on with my day, on with my life. It is a good life, even if things don't always go as I have planed them. I learned a  long time ago to roll with the punches, and lets face it, a baby is not that bad a punch. 

Thursday 24 May 2012

Lazy Day.

I am sitting at my desk, listening to the wind blow and hoping  it will rain. My tomato plants are in and yesterday I bought some seeds to plant but thus far I have not planted them We worked in the yard on Monday and I got my husband to help me with a few things I could not do by myself, such as move a huge rock that needed the bobcat. 

I am waiting for a friend to come over, she is bringing me coffee, and I am thinking of all the things I need to do. I am the worlds biggest procrastinator. First off, getting dressed would really be a good start. 

Okay, I am dressed, load of laundry in machine, beds made, dishes done and now I need to vacuum and mop. My mother used to say, "As long as the dishes are done, the beds are made, and the floor is swept, your house will at least look presentable." Funny how things like that shape you as an adult. 

Today I was on pinterest and learned that you can paint upholstered furniture. I as so very excited about this because I have a burgundy couch that I love, it is in perfect condition, I just hate the colour, so now I am going to paint it chocolate brown. Can't wait! I also have a chair that I may paint for the spare bedroom, as well.

Friend has come and gone, coffee has been drank, and we had a great visit. Home is more then presentable and now I think I shall go out into the wind and get some planting done before it is time to go get DS4 from football. DS1, DS3, and DD are all playing basketball together tonight. I am so excited to go watch three of my kids play on the same team. All of my kids played sports growing up but none of them were ever on the same team. 

I think we shall go pick up DS4, go out for dinner and then to basketball. Sounds like a plan...and that is what we did.

Saturday 19 May 2012

Road Trip


On Tuesday, May 8th, my husband and I started our road trip to Texas. We left our middle child (DS3), darling son 3 home with our youngest child, darling son 4 (DS4), to look after things. We left home around 10 am-ish and drove to Great Falls, Montana. We had decided to depend on OnStar to get us where we wanted to go. Only by the time we needed it we discovered that it didn't work. We took it to a GM dealer in G.F. and paid them $70.00 to unplug the system and plug it back in again. That also wasted a good couple hours of good traveling time. So, with our OnStar working, and both the car and us refuelled we set out again. We drove from Great Falls to Billings and then down to Wyoming. In a small town in Montana we saw a place called, The Cozy Corner. I wanted to stop there for supper until I realized it was a bar. I should have taken a picture. I think that bars should not be allowed to call themselves, The Cozy Corner. That name conjures up visions of small antique stores or gift shops with homemade quilts and small intimate tables that are being served tea and sandwiches. At the very least tea with warm crumpets and jam. Not a place where people go to get drunk and forget all their troubles, with gas pumps out front. My big disappointment of the day.

We opted for salads from McDonalds and spent our first night in Wyoming. 

A small cheat, we didn't get a photo going in so we had to cross the road while getting Colorado and take this one as well. Wyoming was our second state.

Hard to get focused pictures when you are blind. I need reading glasses for this kind of stuff. Colorado was number 3.

We drove though Colorado and just south of Denver we went through a small town with an antique store. We stopped there to use the bathrooms and browse.

 The yellow one is the antique store we browsed in. Then we went to the little grocery store on the corner to buy water.



From there we drove right through to Oklahoma, which was the the fourth state we passed through, and into Texas to Vernon. 

While I went in to get a room, my darling husband (DH) went to pick up our darling daughter (DD). We spent the night at the hotel and then went and to DD'd dorm to pack up her things. She was attending school there on a volleyball scholarship, but has decided to give up the scholarship in favour of attending a school closer to home. 


A very full car, the reason why shopping would have to be put on hold.

While we were in the process of getting DD packed up, DS3 called to say that her horse had colic and was not doing well. A vet was coming out and he would let us know. 

DD a little upset after getting the first call from her brother.

We drove from Vernon to Amarillo and we were having a great time in a hoarders antique store, how I wish I had got pictures of that store, when DS3 called to say that the vet thought the horse needed to be put down. We hung up went back to the car has a small family meeting among lots of tears, called back my son and gave the go ahead to have the horse put down. Big damper on first day with DD. She cried for a few hours while we drove and we did our best to comfort her, but in the end she just needed to cry herself out. 


Texas was fifth. We missed the sign going into Texas so we had to cheat again. But it was better this way because DD was with us and this way she got to be in the picture, which was fitting, since she spent the better part of the last 9 months there. Good by Texas, hello New Mexico.



New Mexico was the sixth state we drove through, and the one with the best sign.

We drove to Albuquerque, New Mexico and spent the night there. The next day we started back on the road for our first destination, The Grand Canyon, west rim in Arizona.


DH and DD in Arizona. Seventh state and ninth as we passed through a different part going from Nevada to Arizona.

We were thrilled to discover we were driving along route 66. We got our kicks on route 66 and I can now cross that off my bucket list.

Stopped for gas at a fun little place along the highway and took a few pictures.

DD in front of a teepee standing on a piece of petrified wood. They had tons of the wood laying around and lots of old buildings.

The wood had lots of different colours in it. It was actually very pretty.

Spent that night in Kingmen, Arizona as it was too late to go the Grand Canyon. DD and I took a walk that evening and took some pictures.


The original, Route 66 Motel. I would love, love, love to buy this place.



The sign is being historically repaired.


I know all the fuss is over, but I have never seen one of these signs up close and in person. Had to get a photo.

Next morning bright and early we were off to the Grand Canyon Sky walk. 

I'm Back!

We got back from our trip late Wed. night and were immediately informed that a man my husband worked for had passed away on Tuesday. He was a wonderful man, and although I never met him in person, I had a lot of respect for  him. He was one of those people that everyone loves. He treated his employees like family and in turn they were very loyal. His funeral was yesterday at St. Cecelia Catholic Church. It was a wonderful ceremony. I had never been to a Catholic funeral before and I felt like I was attending a musical. 

Anyways, enough distractions. I am also Facebook free right now, which really feels weird. No more sharing thoughts or interacting with my 213 friends. Harder then I thought it would be even though I was finding it a bit boring. I love how people complain about people who change their Facebook status too often, and yet, if nobody does, what is there to do on there? Sorry, I go against the main stream, always have, probably always will. I quit Facebook because people don't change their statuses often enough. The only reason for Facebook is to connect with people, if you are not connecting why are you on there? We will see how long I last. I was meant to be a social butterfly and with nobody around me to socialize with, that was my window to my family and friends.


DH, DS1, DS3 went fishing today, they caught some fish and got some great photos. The first thing DS3 said to me when they got home was, "These are Facebook worthy pictures." Too bad. I will post some here instead. 


We have also been very busy getting garden boxes built and yard work done. If I can ever get caught up, I will post some pictures.







Sunday 6 May 2012

Spring

Today is so warm and sunny out that inspires me to want to get started on gardening and yard work. 


I went to Costco after church today and they have such lovely flower baskets, they were closing and I didn't really have time to do much looking, but I am leaving Tuesday on a road trip, to go pick my daughter up from TX. I just know that by the time we get back all those lovely flowers are going to be gone. 

I want to get my square foot garden boxes built and my railing painted and a fire pit built and a million and one other things, done. I want to have a yard I can enjoy this year. What I would really like, is to have the money, to hire someone to come in here, and design my yard for me. I can envision the heck out of the inside of my house but I have absolutely no imagination when it comes to my yard. I have twelve acres to play with and no real ideas as to what I want to do with it. 

Just in case anybody was wondering, this is what my house looks like today,


Christmas lights and all. My husband likes to turn them on all year round because they are clear and it helps people find our house when it is dark out. They are coming down this week though, even if it kills me!


One thing I want to do before we leave, which means tomorrow, is build a bigger dog kennel to keep my dogs off the lawn and porch. I used to think it was so mean to keep dogs in a kennel, but all my dogs want to do is lay in my mud room and sleep all day anyways, so they might as well sleep in a kennel. That way I might be able to have a front lawn that is not covered with brown patches where they pee and also much easier to pick up after them when it is contained. And the existing kennel is bigger then my mud room, so they will have way more room when we finish the new one.


Dog kennel as it is right now. That is Nana, in the kennel, my middle son's St. Bernard, that we inherited when my son moved back home. I want to move the kennel to the north side of the garage, closer to the house, and make it bigger. We have four dogs, so this, just does not suffice.

Things to do this month; paint the railing on the deck build a bigger kennel, build raised garden beds for my sq. ft. gardening, take down Christmas lights, build a fire pit. Make my deck pretty. And maybe just maybe make a nice little front entrance by my gate at the driveway entrance. After all that is the first impression people get, it would be nice if it was welcoming. Well we will see how much of this actually gets done. Especially since I am about to embark on a road trip all the way to TX. The plan is to get the the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone Park as well as whatever catches our attention along the way. I also plane to keep my eyes peeled for things that may beautify my home and yard. 

Oh, and I almost forgot. Take down the eye sore, of an ice skating rink. It was a lovely idea, but we had an unusually warm winter and I think it only got used like twice. 

I will blog along the way and post pictures of any great finds, as well as great places we visit. Hasta la vista everyone.

Thursday 3 May 2012

Feeling Sad

I don't know if I am suppose to blog about this kind of stuff, but since nobody follows me anyways, I am going to blog about this because it is therapeutic. 


Even though I did not want the Alpacas, I did not want anything bad to happen to them either. However our dogs got out and killed some of them. It made me sick to my stomach because they just did it for sport. To say that I was very upset with them would be an understatement. I locked them in their kennel and got my middle son's girlfriend to come pick up his dog, a St. Bernard that would not leave them alone. My husband is out of town and I had to have my 2nd son come over and shoot one of them that was suffering. Anyhow, I could not eat last night, and I felt ill over it all. Then last night after I went to bed I kept hearing barking and high pitched squealing and yelping. I thought it was the dogs, upset that they were locked in the kennel. I tried to sleep and ignore them but they were very loud and no matter how hard I tried, I could not sleep. I have a hard time sleeping when my husband is away at the best of times. I kept thinking they would tire themselves out and quit. They didn't!  Finally, about 2:30 am, I got up and went out on the deck to yell at them. That is when I realized it was not the dogs but coyotes. I had a flashlight and I turned it on them but they just kept barking and yelping. It was too dark for me to see anything so I got the shotgun and fired it in the direction of their yelping. They moved over to the the north end of the yard but kept yelping. I fired again in their direction and they shut up. It was late and I went to bed. 


This morning, when I drove my son to school, we noticed that the alpacas were missing. After I got home I found them all dead, up in the corner of the pen we had them in. I feel so sad and bad and ill and horrible. Poor little alpacas, not a very nice way to go. And I feel so guilty, like somehow I should have prevented it, although I don't know how. Life out here is not always what it is cracked up to be. Sometimes it is just lonely and sad.