Oh It's You!   Of Course . . .

Well, it's the last day of school.  My final chance to get my house in order before the kids are home to destroy it.  My last chance, for two months, to see clean floors and rooms that don't look like the after-earth of a post apocalyptic Nerf war. Last chance to vacuum before the floors are so covered in dirty clothes we forget what the carpets look like.  Last chance to pee in a toilet without having to disinfect it first. Moms of boys, you know what I'm talkin' about.

I prepared for this day, like any other day of hard house cleaning.  I rolled out of bed, pulled on a pair of ratty, paint splattered sweatpants and my big, baggy, "May the Forest Be With You" T-shirt.  Once Marianas Trench was blasting from the stereo I was ready to begin.  Boom!  Kitchen clean.  Boom! Vacuuming done.  Bathroom clean, Bed made.  I was on a roll!  Yeah!!!!  I was a not so lean, cleaning machine! Nothing was gonna stop me!!!!!!

 . . . Until I got that e-mail.

Doesn't it just always happen that way?  Turns out, I was needed to deliver something to the kids school.  Well heck.  Fine, ok.  It would give me a chance to say goodbye and thank you to my favorite teachers.  But, I had to ask my self, "Self, are you really gonna do you hair and makeup and change your clothes just to drive one minute, (literally), to the school"?  Was I really busy? Yes.  Do I give a shit what anyone thinks of me? No today.  Have I shown up at the school looking worse?  Probably.  Fuck it.  I decided to go as was.

In my defense I have shown up at school plenty of times looking great.  It's always a little alarming when you show up somewhere looking good and everyone does a double take and says, "oh my!  Your looking nice today!".  Makes me wonder how bad I look the rest of the time.  Well, now I know.

But this story isn't about the school, or about my little side jaunt to Timmies to get a grilled cheese pannini with tomato and bacon.  No, this story is about when I came home.

As I turned the corner onto my street I saw a sight that made my stomach almost expel said pannini. A truck, with the logo for Spetic Supply Co. on the door.  It was parked up the street near the mailboxes.  Must be hear for someone else, I told myself.  Surely not in the neighborhood for me.  It can't be spring maintenance time!!  It's June!

I drove down the street and turned in my driveway and watched as the truck cruised by checking out addresses.  Yes!  He drove by.  Whew!  I got out of my car and started up to the front door when I heard something behind me.  Oh shit.  He was backing in!!!  Nooooooooooooooo!

Side note:  for those of you who do not know why I might find this upsetting, please refer to blog articles, "The Great Septic System Debacle, Parts 1 & 2".

And of course, who should pop his handsome face out of the truck, as I stand there in my stained, baggy cleaning clothes, with my hair all efed up, squinting into to sun, holding a huge purse and a Tims cup, but Sexy Septic Steve.  Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge.

He looked up at me and smiled.  "I'm here for your spring maintenance".

"Of course you are", I said, "because I look like hell, and that is always when you show up".  I really did say this.  I'm sorry, but I'm starting to wonder if he doesn't just love catching unsuspecting ladies at their worst, just for giggles.  He looked down at his sexy as hell, blue collar workman's trousers and said, "Well, I'm not looking that great either".  Wait.  Does that mean he agrees with me??  Dammit!

You know what?  I'm gonna let that one slide.  Ya know why?  Because I just looked at the Service Call Record where Steve checks off everything he has to look at to complete the maintenance properly.  Beside checking off the boxes for inspecting the aerator and the controls, he also checked off,  "Effluent Checked"(Ew!), "Effluent Quality", (it felt good to me?), and "Squirt Height", (not sure how he measured that!?).  Bahahahahahahahahaahahahaha!  Remember that next time your complaining about your job!

Well, until Fall Maintenance, peace out peeps!

Michy

We've Had Visitors!

Spring is still springing around our house.  There are so many cool things to see and hear and smell!  I swear, it just smells better out in the country.  You know, aside from manure spreading season.  First my crab apple tree was perfuming the air, now it's the lilacs.  It's lovely.  Things are blooming everywhere.

We have also had some visitors:

This little lovely has been hanging around for a couple weeks.  I think it's burrow is in a stand of trees out on the front lawn.  We haven't had as many bunnies this year as we did last year when they were breeding like, well, rabbits!  I think I'll name it, "Bunny".

This lovely Luna Month made an appearance!  You can see by the regular sized month beside it, just how big it was!  I think it was a female.  She hung out for the whole day and flew off sometime in the night.  Apparently sightings are pretty rare because they only live for about a week! 

I think I'll name her, "Mothy"

This unwanted guest also made an appearance.  Why was she unwanted?  Because she is a huge ass spider and is therefore terrifying.  Her body was the size of the end of my baby finger and her legs stretched out wider than a twoonie!

Now, I'm not a spider murderer, but there was no way I could relax under my umbrella with that hanging over my head.  Nope.  Now way. Not gonna happen.  So, I grabbed the broom from our fireplace set and swept her off.  We were three floors up on my balcony, but it looked like she had a soft enough landing.  Bleh!  I named her, "Holyshitwhatthefuck"!

And finally, this happened this week:

No, we were not shearing sheep.  I asked my husband to "Fur-minate" Bernie, our pug.  There is enough hair here to stuff a pillow!  The best part.  He left this hair all over the lawn.  Forever.  He never cleaned it up!!  Nice.  Then it rained!  Swell.  I finally went out yesterday and cleaned it up. Sigh!

So that's what's up around here.  Stay tuned for more news about our robin and her eggs!

Later!

Michy

My First Mamm-Ow-Gram!

So, I had my check-up last month.  All's well you know, other than the usual warning about my weight, (love hearing that), my complaining about my aches and pains and the embarrassment of having forgotten to shave my legs and armpits.  Nothing like having to strip naked for a thorough inspection when you look like Sasquatch.  At least I got to skip the PAP test.  Apparently the province thinks my ovaries are only worth a glance every three years now, so bully for me.

I did, however get some interesting news.  Turns out I am now, "of an age", when regular breast cancer screening begins.  That's right, it's time for my first Mammogram. Interesting.  Not sure how I feel about that.  Old.  Yes, that's it.  I feel old.

What I did not feel was particularly worried.  While the idea of having ones bussoms compressed down to resemble a pancake may frighten some women, my breasts are really not that far off from this aesthetic to begin with.  Take that all my firm, perky breasted friends!  Ha ha!  Who's getting the last laugh now!  Whhaaaaaahahahahaha!

OK.  I got that out of my system.  So, me and my sweet mammary-jammas showed up for my designated appointment without a care in the world.  I was checked in, waited 1/2 hour and, when my name was called, I was led through the labyrinth that is Merivale Medical Imaging.  I was shown to a changing room where I donned a lovely paper robe.  As I was changing I noticed the walls of the changing room were adorned with the expected posters giving directions on how to do a self-exam.  I was pretty sure I already knew how to do this, however, there seem to be a couple of tips I missed.

Arms up. Arms down. Circle left. Circle right.  Lie down.  On your side. Stand up. Lean forward.  One more move and we'll have some buck hip hop choreography!  There was also notes on what to look out for.  Lumps, (obviously), pitting, (like dimples?). Drippy nipples? (Ew!).  At that point I thought I had learned enough.

I exited the changing room and was then ushered aboard the Starship Enterprise. Oh wait.  It was the mammogram room.  Holy crap!  This stuff is seriously high tech!

Mood lighting and everything!

I must say, the technician was a lovely lady.  Very pleasant and straightforward. Explained everything well.  She even told me, "this isn't going to feel very pleasant".  Still, I was not worried.  What I did not expect is just how "handsy" the whole procedure was.  My, my!  My boobs got more attention in those 10 minutes then they have in the last 10 years! So much pulling and rubbing and flattening and aligning.  Goodness, she was thorough!  

So, squish number one.  Good ole' Righty was up and she performed like a champ.  Yes, she did get squashed.  No, I did not think it was possible for human tissue to be so pliable.  But all in all, no great problems.  Lefty was up next.

Now, if my boobs had personalities, Righty would be the happy-go-lucky, easy to please type.  You know, a real go with the flow kinda gal, (insert breastfeeding joke here).  Now Lefty, well, Lefty is like the bitter old crone that stands on her front porch and yells, "get off my lawn"!!!  Every month (wink), Lefty decides to get extra cranky and bitchy, aka swollen and sore, and just generally be a huge pain in the breast.  Today was one of those days.  She didn't appreciate all the manhandling and she let it be known, believe me! 

Righty                                                       Lefty

But she made it through and I thought we were in the clear.  All done!  Super Mamma-Jammaries!  Then my lovely technician explained that she was going to do a vertical scan.

Um, what?  You've mashed them flat, now you're going to crush them standing up.  The ef lady??  But what am I gonna do.  She literally has my tits in a vice.  I'm not goin' anywhere.

So vertically actually means on kind of a diagonal. I was once again smoothed and stretched into position and then she started compressing the two glass plates together. Dayum!  It's like she was pressing olives or something!  Even sweet little Righty wasn't having a super great time.  The technician tells me to hold my breath and not breathe while she takes the shot.  No problem.  She came back and released the glass plates and Righty sprung forth like a virgins corset on her wedding night!

Then came Lefty.  

Already unhappy with the previous procedure, I was sure Lefty wasn't going to be pleased with this new turn of events.

And I was right.

Holymotherfuckinghell!!!!!!!!!!!  When those plates smashed together I was sure, 100% positive that my boob was going to explode.  I was just waiting for it.  I was picturing in my head, this grotesque mess all over this high tech spaceship room. "Hold your breath and don't move", said the technician.  

Not.   A.   Problem.  

Pain was exploding all over.  Well, not all over.  All over my boob!  I couldn't move.  I couldn't breath.  Lefty was howling at the top of her nipple, waving her cane and drooling on her house dress and fuzzy slippers.  The pain was so bad I didn't know if I was gonna cry or full out panic, when the technician came over and said, "all done".  Thank you Jesus!

I cannot quite describe the relief I felt when she released me from her high tech torture device.  I felt like I had just survived something.  You know?  Like when someone says, "I survived a house fire", or "I survived the Titanic".  Well, I survived my mammogram.

I don't know how often I need to repeat this procedure.  I don't see why my breasts have to get any more attention than my ovaries.  Doesn't seem fair, does it?  And speaking of not fair, why isn't this the way we test for testicular cancer??  Only seems fair to me boys.

Until then, peace out and love your boobies!

Michy

So this is Happening . . .

So this is happening . . .

Awesome!!  A robin has made nest under our deck and three wee ones are on the way!  She built it on Uncle Matt's workshop heater which we had hung up under the deck last winter in an attempt to warm up the path too and from the hot tub.  It didn't work and I was gonna take it down, but I didn't get around to it and now I'll have to wait.  I don't think that the robin is super happy with the location she chose.  Every time I come out the patio door she bolts from the nest and flies across the yard.  Scares the crap out of me every time, even though, by now, I know it's coming.  The neighbors must think I'm some kind of super evangelical christian, because every time I come outside and the bird scares me I yell, "Jesus Christ"!!  Sorry Jesus.  I love your nature.  I'm sure this isn't the same robin that flew in my open car window and shat all over my dashboard.  Ya, that happened too.

This is also happening . . .

My crab apple tree is in full boom!  It smells so good. Look at that big fat bumblebee doing its pollinating thing!  There are so many bees in the tree right now you can hear it buzzing when you walk by.   There is also a bit of a nasty caterpillar nest on one of the branches.  That will NOT be happening.  It will be removed tomorrow.  Yuck!

And, my veggie garden is coming along.  I have my tomatoes, herbs and peppers planted.  my zucchini, cucumbers, peas and beans are coming up along with my arugula and beets, but, sadly, no romaine lettuce yet.

I'm gonna have to put my critter netting over everything soon or the animals will come eat everything before it even has a chance to grow!

Well, that's it for now.  I will keep updating regularly, so keep checking back!

Michy

Cue Noah.  There's Been a Flood!

So, spring is here and I'm as happy as a housewife in garden dirt.  Finally I can get to all those gardening and yard care plans I've been brewing up all winter.  The inside of the house is sparkling. Took care of that with a couple weeks of intensive spring cleaning, so, for the next few months my time will be divided between tidying, writing and working in the great outdoors!  That was the plan anyway.

So, how did fate, that bitter hag, throw a big ole monkey wrench into my plans??  Well, May 12th was cruising right along according to plan.  I spent the day bouncing between computer work in our basement home office and, when that got boring, working outside in the yard until the old back started aching.  Repeat.

I was working on a long computer stint when I looked out the window and saw the old compost bin sitting there under a cluster of evergreens.  This bin was created by the previous home owners out of two old doors that they cut in half and screwed together to form a big box.  It was starting to fall apart a bit and, like so many things they did in the garden that were just wrong, it was situated entirely in the shade.  Well, this would simply not do.  Time for a computer break!!!  Outside to the sunshine to relocate and repair the compost bin.

On the whole it was a pleasant enough job.  Took about half an hour. Got to use my power drill.  The bin is now in a much better spot and has been repaired so that it will stand up to many years of composting yet to come. With the satisfaction of a job well done, and a bit of a well earned tan, I packed up my tools and headed back into the house.  As I entered the basement I realized it was raining.  No.  Not outside.  Inside.  The inside of my basement was raining.  Check that, pouring.  Honestly it took me a good thirty seconds to even comprehend what was happening.  I dropped the drill and box of screws and did one of those Macauly Culkin screams from Home Alone.

 

Water was pouring from eight separate pot lights and the smoke detector.  Not dribbling or dripping.  Pouring!  It was running down the walls where they met the ceiling.  Paint was bubbling up and the window and door trim caulking was swelling and breaking.  There was half an inch of water on one side of the room on the floor.  I ran upstairs.  Where was this water coming from??  What the hell was going on??  The living room and kitchen where completely dry, which was very confusing, but the master bedroom floor had an inch of water on the floor.  I ran into the mater bath, and there I found the source of the problem.  The shower stall had filled up and the water was spilling out all over the floor, out the door, into the bedroom and down to the basement underneath.

Oh my God!!  WhatdoIdo?WhatdoIdo?WhatdoIdo?WhatthefuckdoIdo?????  Well, I did what every other pathetically unprepared woman does in an emergency.  I called a man.  Yes that's right.  I'm not proud of it, but in my haste to make our house pretty since we moved in, it never occurred to my to figure out stuff like, you know, HOW THE FUCK TO TURN OFF THE WATER!!!!!  So I called my husband at work.  The following is a transcript of our conversation taken from my very accurate memory:

Jake:  Hello

Me (bawling):  YOU NEED TO COME HOME RIGHT NOW!!!!

J:  Why?  Whats the matter?

M:  THE HOUSE IS FLOODING!!  THERE'S WATER EVERYWHERE!

J:  Whaddaya mean?

M:  (Getting shrill) Whaddaya mean "whaddaya mean"??  There's water everywhere!  The shower overflowed and there's water all over the bedroom and its pouring into the basement!  How do I turn the water off???!!

J:  How did the shower overflow?

M (running around the house like a mad woman):  I don't know!  How do I turn off the water??

J:  Well, how much water is there?

I have just run into the laundry room in the basement.  Water is pouring out of the ceiling through a trapdoor and filling up the florescent light covers.  The floor is underwater and all the laundry is soaked.

M: OH MY GOD!  HOW DO YOU TURN IT OFF!!!!!!!?

He did not seem to be understanding the urgency of the situation.  Since none of his myriad of questions were able to help me I decided to hang up on him and go get some real help.  I dropped the phone and ran for the neighbors.  Now, living on a two acre lot is fabulous, until your house is filling up with water and you don't know how to stop it and you have to sprint across those two acres searching for help.  I made like Usain Bolt over to Randy's house only to discover nobody was home.  Shit, shit, shit.  At this point I really wish I had taken the time, when we moved in, to meet more of the neighbors. I "Usain'ed" over to the neighbor across the road and rang the bell.  By the time I got there I was so out of breath I could hardly talk.  Really gotta work on that cardio.  A lovely couple answered the door.  I was literally bent over gasping for breath.  I looked up at them with tears in my eyes.

"Hi! (gasp, pant, pant).  I'm Michelle, (huff, puff) your neighbor from across the road,(huff, puff). Do, (huff, puff) either of you, (huff, puff) know anything, (huff, puff) about water? (pant, pant, pant)  Because my house is flooding (huff, puff) right now!!! (gasp, pant, pant).

Well, lucky for me Mike did in fact know something about water.  He grabbed his shoes and toolbox and we raced back to my house.  His first question to me was, "where's the water shut off?"  Well, Mike, if I knew that I wouldn't need you now would I?  He identified the water pump, but it had no on/off button and no plug so we didn't know how to turn it off.  Finally I yelled, "circuit board"!! I am a genius.  So, while we never did shut off the water, at least we shut off the pump so it stopped filling up the shower.  Then we dashed back through the rainstorm and headed for the bathroom.  Mike asked for a plunger and started plunging out the shower drain.  He was standing with his jeans rolled up, up to his ankles in cold water, in his bare feet, plunging away when the hubby called back. 

J:  What's going on??

M:  We shut off the pump and drained the shower.  You need to come home!!  

I looked at the bedroom floor covered in water.

M (sobbing):  I can't do this by myself!!!

J:  Well, I can't get a bus at this hour. (1:30 in the afternoon)

Well, I can see your problem dear.  It's not like the bus runs 24 HOURS A DAY!!!!!!!  My inner indignant black woman came screaming out.  

M:  What the hhheeeelllllll are you talking about?  You can't get no bus in the city, in the middle of the day!  YOU BETTER GET YO ASS HOME SO I CAN WHUP IT!  I cannot do this by myself!  The basement ceiling is frickin' raining!!

Then my loving spouse comes up with this super idea.

J:  Just get a little saw and cut a whole in the ceiling so all the water drains out.

Clearly I have not effectively communicated to him the scope of the problem. 

"There is no need, dear", I said, "to cut a hole in the ceiling.  The water is already pouring out of all the holes that are already in the ceiling!!!  Another one isn't going to help!!!

I hung up on him again.  I can only take so much ya know.

I ran back to Mike and the plunger.  We heard a big clog break loose.  Sounded like a groundhog was stuck in there.  Suddenly the water started to drain.  Hallelujah!

Mike and I stood there for a few minutes just watching the water recede into the drain.  It felt like we'd just disarmed a nuclear bomb.  Mike packed up his tools and headed home now that the threat was over.  Relief was flooding through me.  Until I looked around.  There was still and inch of water on the floor.  I could still hear it pouring into the basement.  How does a person clean something like that up.  I only had one roll of paper towels left, and I think this a little more that Bounty could handle.

I called the hubby for advice.  He offered this fine nugget:

J:  Get the dustpan from the kitchen and scoop the water into a bucket.

A dustpan.  And a bucket.  And just like The Champ I looossee it!  I aggressively suggested to my beloved that if he wished to remain my ever loving spouse, he would immediately take his person over to his friend Steve's desk and kindly request an emergency ride home so that he might assist in the clean up effort.

Turns out, the dustpan was an ok idea.  I used it to shovel water out the bedroom door and onto the deck.  I stuffed about twenty bath towels under the bed to soak up the water, and twenty pounds of dog hair and dust bunnies, that was pooling there.  I squeegeed water off the bathroom floor and back into the shower and I called a friend to bring me her shop vac so I could suck the water up in the basement.  My friend helped me drag all the wet carpets, towels and clothes outside.  She walked by me carrying a huge basket of soaking wet clothes and said, "it was very smart of you to put these on the floor to soak up the water".  Riiiiiiight.  That's why they were there.

All in all, by the time that my hubby got home the bedroom and bathroom were dry and the ceiling was only dripping a tiny bit.  He walked in, looked around and said, "doesn't really look that bad to me".  His funeral is on Wednesday.

Michy

It's Garden Season!!!!!

Sooo excited folks!  The sun is shining in my little corner of Canada.  The breeze is warm.  The frogs and birds are chirping.  Ahhhhh!  Best of all, I spotted my favorite sign of spring the other day.   Yes, they pop up all over this time of year.  The Garden Centre at the supermarket.  Yeah!  It's garden season!!!!

Last year I spent considerable time and energy on my flower gardens, trying to identify and move around everything the previous homeowners left in my flower beds.  This year though, the truly exciting gardening project begins.  My veggie garden!!

So here it is . . .

We went with a raised be design because our property sits smack on a huge slab of the Canadian Shield.  We have about an inch of soil on top of a huge slab of rock.  So, raised bed it is.  My hubby and I came up with the design after a good search through Pinterest.  He says it looks like a giant pair of Minecraft pants.  I can't disagree.  It's 16' x 12' and the bed is 4' wide so a shrimp like me can harvest easily.  ERMAGERD I am so stoked!!

So, what's on the menu??  Stuff we like to eat of course!  Tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, sugar snap peas, zucchini, summer squash, romaine lettuce, arugula, green peppers and herbs, basil, parsley, cilantro, thyme and oregano.  I also have two potato towers.  One for me and one for my eldest son who plans to harvest his potatoes and sell them at the end of the driveway.  Such a little entrepreneur! If I find I have room I may add a couple other things, but for now, this is the plan.

Stay tuned for updates on the planting, growing and harvesting process!

Michy