It's Always Something!

The hardest part is over

2012-01-17T18:37:00.000-08:00

Yes I am still talking about my damn house. You can't stop me!!

The dining room has been the hardest part to decorate.....only because there were no window coverings in there...and today I got em up...I got that done...and after that I could see what the room needed. It only took me three hours and a trip to the store to figure it out. So tomorrow I will be ironing them and probably shortening them as well. By the weekend I should have almost every room in this house done.

Then I can sit down ... and take a little rest. Then it's back to bookwork....Income tax time is coming again and I will have to head for the office. Fortunately that is just a room in the back of the house!!

I swear pictures will come...but everything always seems to be in such a mess around here. I buy so much stuff and keep it around to see what it might look like in here...and take most of it back until I know what I want. I kick my ass for giving some stuff away when we moved...because I could have used some of it....but hindsite?

I will carry on......

Hey blog you are getting a workout here...

2012-01-15T18:34:00.000-08:00

I just made the best joanie balonie...full of macaroni beef casserole dish evar. I don't know how I did it, but I hope I can figure it out again.

I had an epiphany today. I now know how I am going to decorate the rest of my house. Those lamps in the living room were the best thing that ever happened to me. I haven't put a decent pic of them up here yet but have been struggling....with a contemporary style .. and it just doesn't work here...even with the high ceilings. I have decided it needs understated eloquence...I think I just made that style up....but that is where I am going. I don't know how I didn't see it before. All the beautiful light fixtures seem to beg for it. But I guess I was so used to the old house which was very modern but didn't have any charm at all. I can't believe when I saw those lamps in the store...and just had a feeling that this might be the way to go...and when I got home and put them on the tables and saw how they changed the house. Now I know what to do with the windows coverings in my dining room....this has changed everything. My house will now be charming. I love that word.

I am on my way my friends... I know what I got to do .... and make it happen.

I lost a day this week

2012-01-13T18:28:00.000-08:00

I thought today was Thursday.

Jack ass.... I don't know where in the hell that extra day went. I want it back.

I bought a pair of PJ's yesterday....balonie doesn't wear PJ's as a rule...well these were fleece PJ's ...and soft as a babies ass....and were on sale for 10 bucks. So I took the plunge. I melted into them all night...along with our new electric blanket which was made from the same material and our sheets. I was sleeping the dream man.

Until....ummmm I am stuck I can't turn around because now my PJ's won't let me turn around in this mass of fleece. I normally wear a silky nightgown....yeah...because I am a sex kitten...or a person who likes to be able to turn around in bed without getting a hernia. So I struggled all night between the electric blanket, my sheets and my arsehole PJ's. I had me a headache in the morning.

l blame the 70's. I just want my mudder trucking water bed back. And yeah those PJ bottoms rode up my ass all night....I did not need that entertainment. Back to the nightgown tonight...a girl needs her rest from all the fuzzy stuff.

Lamps...I love em

2012-01-12T18:12:00.000-08:00

Give me a lamp and I will eat for seven days. I love lamps. Some people collect purses, shoes, etc...mine downfall is lamps. I bought two lamps for the living room yesterday....they look like Liberace should have them sitting on his piano...remember him? I fell hook line and sinker in love the moment I saw them. Let's remember that I have a very contemporary home...which I was going to decorate that way....at first. Then Gord wanted furniture that was not that contemporary...because his little feet could not touch the floor on all those fancy sectional furniture you see. The seats in them are so long. We sat on a hundred sofa's and seriously both of us could not reach the floor with our feet. Did we get shorter with age?...or are we shrinking..the latter I believe....anyhooooo.... we bought stuff that is cozy and comfy...feck the contemporary... so now I have licence to bring in all the the cool stuff that I love. Our furniture and kitchen cabinets are dark and I intend to make this place look like you just walked into a really comfortable place you can call home. I'm not there yet ....but I will get there. The lamps were the catalyst.....now I now where I am going.

Unfortunately you can't ignore technology...and you have to have the big screen TV's in the way...but hey...it's going to be a little of the old and a little of the new. I will try to make the two meet. This is so much fun right now.

I don't know where this came from...but I feel like posting again

2012-01-09T18:20:00.000-08:00

I really do.

This last year or two have been so scrambled I haven't had a minute to myself....it was "always something".....life for me has changed so much ...first with retiring when it WAS not my idea...let's not go there...and then the HOUSE.. and all it's challenges. This afternoon I emptied the last of 10 boxes stored in different closets. All the stuff was there that I was looking for...my stuff..stuff to put on shelves and pictures to put on the wall...tacky nick knacks...that make a home a home.. I found them all. They smell like home. All my books and photo albums. They all have a brand new home. The best part is that I don't have to go down two flights of stairs to enjoy them...they are now at my fingertips.

We will probably be in for one more set back with the flooring...but I'm looking at the big picture and if something drastic has to be done....I can get past that too. Everything else is almost in place. We got the coffee and end tables last week, so I rearranged the living room to accommodate it...

Sometimes I feel guilty for having so much. I know it took our life time to get to this point. We never spent any money on anything at the old house because we knew at one point we would be moving. Now that we are here it feels a little decadent....or maybe I will just enjoy the fruits of our labour.

I will get some pictures up soon.

PS.... I still can't talk.....the voice is gone...that balonie is still making house calls.

I still can no talk

2012-01-08T18:30:00.000-08:00

The voice she be gone. I can say four words...and then garble. The world will rejoice.

I bought a little blackboard for my desk here in the kitchen. It's cute. It has a place for chalk and a little teeney weenie eraser. I put up notes for myself and Gord. On the top I put up what we are having for supper...eg. NOTHING YOU WERE LATE....and other mental notes:

..buy coffee
...clean up dog shit on the deck
...do something about the hair on your upper lip...you look like a man
...get a hair cut and get your roots done.. you look like shit

That is all the room I have on my blackboard. But I had so much more to say and try to remember for next week. We have flooring issues as I mentioned on facebook..so hopefully that will be resolved. I can't believe we will have to remove all of this...and start again. If so, I will request carpeting be installed because I have just had just about enough about this. I am so freaking tired of this floor and the way it is lifting...plus the smudging...you can't even walk in here with sock feet...and it shows every foot print. I call Bull Shit.... And the company knows...they tried to screw us around. We paid for this...and we want it right....

Opps got a little mad there...heh....but hey sometimes you just want to sit down and not worry what the next disaster willl be.

Now it is time for me and mister to go and eat soup!!!

Knock knock ... anybody home?

2011-12-29T10:19:00.000-08:00

Who is the schlepper that owns this here blog? Yeah you know the one who didn't even wish everyone Merry Christmas because she was too busy with her damn house. Self absorbed beotch... that's all I can say.

The house and Christmas almost did me in. So, I apologize for my bad manners.

We almost have everything in place except for the coffee and end table .. and a TV stand. Now comes the putting up of pictures and decorating. I have bought a few new pieces, but still have a lot of stuff from the other house that will work well in here. I need some plants too. Soon it will look like home and be cozy and have all my stuff around me again.

I got a Kitchen Aid Mixer for Christmas so today I am going to try to make bread. Shut up and quit laughing .. it could happen. I have no idea where my loaf pans are..probably in the 3rd. garage behind the lawn mower.

I almost got killed this morning. I think Gord had something to do with it, as a matter of fact I know he did. She got this stupid rain shower head .. THAT..turns different colours when the water is on. I know...a disco shower ball if you will!!! He has been showing it to everyone who walks in here. It's gaudy as hell, anyway this morning I turned the water on to let it get hot before I got in and BANGGGGGG... the whole thing fell off the spout and on the floor. Don't tell me that wasn't intentional. He muttered something about the clips had come apart. Yeah... That's what you get when you buy shit that has "As see on TV" on the package. That would have left a nasty gash on my head had it not been shiny plastic instead of real metal like most people have in there bathrooms. Classy eh? We have 5,790 lbs. of metal stoves and fridges in the kitchen and in our bathroom we have a plastic disco ball rain shower head.

I just started feeding the birds and squirrels around here. Poor Penny...she has a dent in her forehead from banging it up against the window.

I call him fat ass he is here everyday now.

We had Gord's family over on boxing day for dinner. We actually all got to sit around the table at one time. Usually I just do it buffet style, so this was a treat. Gord's 96 year old Tanta Tina was once again in attendance. She slays me. She is as funny as she always was. She has a little trouble walking but other than that she can still hold her own. I helped her to the bathroom after dinner and when she came out she said " Joan"...as she turned around bent over and said look at my slacks....haaaa she had them on backwards! The pockets were in the back. She said they had felt funny all evening and after she came out the bathroom she went to put a kleenex in her pocket and couldn't find her pockets!! and realized she had them on backwards all evening. We had a good laugh along with her. This Christmas will be remembered as the one when Tanta wore her slacks on backwards!

Time to make bread...haaaa this should be funny.

I wish all of you a very Happy New Year! Thanks for putting up with my tardiness.

Just once more for old times sake:)))

Isn't this the cutest xmas template?

2011-12-06T18:17:00.000-08:00

I like it.

I am still in the midst of getting this house together. I know... you are tired of hearing this, but that's all I got these days.

Everyday is a surprise. So many different things to see outside the big windows...

I am still trying to adjust to the new hood. I lived out in this area in an apartment before we got married and I know the ropes .. like shopping etc. but because we are situated back in the woods about a mile away makes it so different. We are close to everything....hospitals..malls etc. It's like coming home sometimes when I shop in the old malls that I shopped in before we were married. I forgot how different it is here because the University of Manitoba is just down the road. When you shop in the stores you encounter a whole different mindset than where I lived before. It is so diverse...and interesting. It reminds me of when I lived here before when I was 28 years old. The old Zeller's department store is still there ....only thing that has changed is now... I can order the Seniors Special in the restaurant...without them telling me to take a hike..heh....tomorrow I am getting my "roots" done in the hair stylist shop that has been there forever. They now do tat's and ear piercing... so I might go for the whole package...because my ear piercing have been giving me problems of late...I don't wear my ear rings enough to make dem holes stay open. And the tat...hmmm

I love the small town feel of this area. We actually are on the tip of two areas..the one I just described and another older area called St Norbert. This area is mainly French Canadian...this is where I go to buy food you can't buy at Safeway...and the former owners were Mennonite.... and I can still get my farmer sausage fix.

Sometimes I walk in the living room and see the woods...and wonder .....how the hell did I get so lucky..... but I guess we spent a lifetime working for this moment.

Changed my template again

2011-12-06T12:23:00.000-08:00

Just popped in to put up a few pic's and test this template.

bbl

My Christmas Moose is up

2011-11-21T09:40:00.000-08:00

My ole friend Jaye was getting tired of looking at my lame furniture, so I though I might actually POST.

It's kind of hard to post in a unfamiliar place.... I used to post in my office at my desk in the old house, but here I am in the kitchen at my new little office space built for me. I no like. Creative juices just don't flow here. It's all too big in here, I am used to a small cozy space. My old office stuff is in the back company office ... and is where I will go back to once we get the new computer. Everything still echoes with these huge ceilings....I need a place that is cozy.

Life is moving on. Our new bed is hard as a freaking rock. But I guess that is to be expected after coming off the water bed. Everyday it feels a little better. It has a nice soft pad on top and I guess we just aren't used to it yet ... it will come. We are still waiting for our furniture and that should be here in a few weeks ... I cannot wait.

I hate dark hardwood floors....now aren't you sorry you tuned in..heh...just to hear me bitch. With all the big windows in here you can see every dang dog hair, dust, crumbs.. I loved living in denial when I had carpeting. Had I known that there was so much crap in my carpet I would have been crazy. Ahhh so what ..we lived. It was okay. I would like it again...because I can't take much more of cleaning this shit up. Special cleaners for everything here. You can't even walk on the hardwood floor barefoot because if leaves a imprint from the oil and sweat on your feet. What kind of shit is that? Let's not even get into doggy footprints from coming in and out of the house in winter.....feck..... When we had the first hardwood floor installed here it failed...and got too wet from the humidity of the house...and I had a choice then to go with another hardwood or carpet. I chose carpet....and our rep told me I was nuts....she said you have such a beautiful house ...why would you spoil it with carpet? Well guess what....I can vacuum the crap off...and don't have to see it when the sun shines...that's why. I will find a way to get rid of this...yes it is pretty...pretty annoying. I am so sorry I chose hardwood. Maybe once we get all the furniture in here it might not be so noticeable ...especially in the living room. We will have a huge area carpet in there...but I don't know. I'm thinking of sewing the dog a micro fiber type of cape that will reach the floor and she can schlep all the hair she loses and it will stick to the bottom of the cape. Pure genius, another problem solved.

Another solution might be is getting window covering. But the windows are one million feet high. And are angled...blah blah blah. And it would spoil the view in the forest. I pray for cloudy days because you can't see the dog hair and dust then.

I finally was able to take a shower this morning and get wet! Everything around here has some kind of energy saving device attached to it. The shower head has a water restrictor in it and the water barely trickles out of it, so Gord took it out and man do we have a powerful shower now. Where their is a will there is a way! We will beat those "go green" nutnicks at their own game.

Well that's all the complaining I have to do for now... and oh yeah...my new dryer broke. It is a month and a half old. It's one of those computerized jobs. I had my old one for 15 years!!! and it never ever broke. I sound like an old granny don't I? heh ... I guess I am.

Phew...I'm still trying to get my shit together

2011-10-27T18:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a long and winding road. We still haven't seen the end of it yet, but I can see the forest from the trees today. Speaking of which, I saw two young deer today, and later the daddy deer ...mit da antlers on...taking them for a walk in the forest later in the evening. I love when they start to run and their tails go up and you see the white fur underneath...it is so cool. They sprint. They jump. So darn nice.

Is this all we expected it to be? Yes and no. We expected the house to be completed before we took possession but that did not happen. It was 99 percent done...but all the little stuff that still needed to be done takes time to complete. So, I still have trades coming and going working out the little bugs. It's not really a big deal as I still don't have any furniture and we don't feel connected as much as we would if everything was in place.

I spent the first two weeks doing waaay to much. But...boxes opened...things put away and out of sight...even if that was not the permanent home gave me some peace of mind. So, that's where it is. We will be ordering our furniture tomorrow. I am a luck duck as my nephew is the manager of one of the best furniture stores here....and we will be getting a good deal. I picked out the sofa, love seat, chair, dining room and dinette tables yesterday. We also have ordered the bedroom suite I showed earlier....but my nephew sold us the ultimate mattress....remote controlled...soft as a babies bum...you go up...or down...or around..maybe not...but fudge....this is better than sex...seriously. Nephew said...auntie Joan...I knew you were coming down from a water bed...and this is what you need! YES. Anything would be better than the airbed we are sleeping in now. The sofa, love seat, and chair has a remote controlled chaise lounger thing that pulls out from underneath them for your feets. How decadent.

We choose a different dining room table....than before...but it is still glass. I will post it but just so you know the chairs are not white...I took it off the web site...they are almost an almond colour in real life.And the wood is a warm brown.

I found the neatest coffee table. It has four nesting chairs in it, so when you have guests coming around and don't have enough seating...this is great.

I don't have a pic for the dinette suite...but it is glass and round. You will understand when you see the area it has to fit in.

Our driveway is just being put in today. This has nothing to do with the house, it's our own project. It has been a huge project...as it is partially heated. They have just finished pouring the concrete and it's getting a little cold out there....they might need to get some heaters going.

Penny Loafer Martin...has been such a trooper though all this change. She hardly blinks an eye at all the goings on. She just loves to sit with trades and watch them work.

The wedding: It was wonderful. My bro lived to see it and participate in it like a dad should. That makes me so happy.

I will try to get on here more often....so hang on here with me.....

We don't have much in place

2011-10-13T18:22:00.000-07:00

TV is still sitting on the floor....

Penny is making here debut.

Only one counter chair has been built because we need sleep more that we need them dang chairs.

Windows were clean until a huge wind storm hit us last week...fudge...

One day at a time... I know...but I can't wait!!!

I went shopping yesterday and picked out the living room sofa....so that is done. All that is left is the kitchen dinette and the dining room. I already did the bedroom before we moved. But we haven't ordered it yet....because someone around here likes to second guess me....but it will be.

Thanks for hanging around this ole blog site. I know I am not half as amusing as I once was...but this building a new home and moving takes away from the funny. This is serious stuff....especially when your dog can't get out of any of your three doors to take a shit because of the mud. I bought 4 pieces of grass sod today. I lined part of my porch with plastic and topped it with real grass. No, she can't go running until they finish the driveway and we can't get out of here the easy way to the street....but she has missed grass so much since we moved and has had to shit on dry mud in the back ... until it rained and now everything is stinking ole red river clay. Until the rain we did a lot of walks through the woods...it was great...but not so much now that we can't seem to get off the property. So, I built her a porch lawn/doggie outhouse.

I hope I don't have to mow it.haaaaaaa

More pic's to come....

Hello

2011-10-12T18:26:00.000-07:00

I have not gone away.

I remember when we moved into our old house some 26 years ago and I had so much energy and great ideas and hey I am the queen of the castle....not so much right now...but I have been overdoing it. Surprise. heh

I need order. In order to have order ... you need to know where shit is. This is where the problem lies. If we would have our new furniture I could put stuff where it belongs...but I don't just yet.

The house is beautiful....but it is far away from being a home. It echoes. It has no character yet. It's like living in a vault. I get a little misty some nights. Penny is looking for a place she can call her own...just like me. We don't fit in. Just yet. Gord... he doesn't give a shit...because this was his dream.

Last post from this address

2011-09-29T21:13:00.000-07:00

I'm tired, but not sad anymore. I'm there. I'm ready.

Poor Penny Loafer is a little confused with all the going ons. All the stuff is gone! Well, not exactly gone, because we have sold a lot to the new owners (which I think is actually keeping her sane) because if it would be totally empty before we go tomorrow she would be a little cranky. But, she knows something is up. Even Gord and I found it a little odd tonight because we could not sit on our comfy chairs after supper and watch the news. We sat at the kitchen table (which is staying in the house) and didn't know where to go from there. Dog sat in the barren TV room waiting for some ear scratching time. Gord had a shower went to bed...I sat down at my makeshift desk to type to this post. Dog is still waiting.

We were 90 percent done yesterday, we would have been 100 percent done if my husband was not a hoarder...even the moving people could not believe the shit he keeps. Sure I kept some stuff....but OMG...a garage and two sheds of "what ifs"... he promised to go through it at the new house and purge, but once a tool junkie always a tool junkie. How many tools do you need? How many tool boxes do you need? Gawd. He loves throwing my shit away. I don't even have much anymore, I have done the purge. Every year in fall he goes through the garage (full of his shit) and his two sheds and re-arranges them. Because if they look neat you might not realize he has a problem. Snow blowers, snow plows, roto tillers, motorcycles...etc. the list never ends. But, it never fails....never ever....he comes across my old fishing kit and rod and says...well you never fish anymore let's chuck this! Seriously that is the only thing I store in the garage. The rod and kit takes about 12 inches of space. And every year I explain it means something to me because my dad and I always fished together and maybe one day I may or may not take it up again, but if I do I have the tools I need to do it. This has gone on for years and years. Today, as the movers were moving the last bits out of the garage...Gord called me into the garage and asked if I wanted to keep my old rod and fishing kit. WELL FUCK.... sometimes you want to take a bat and smack him. What part of what I have said over twenty years did he not understand. I guess he thought I would get over using 12 inches of his real estate. I just gave him the "look".... no talking was necessary... and on the truck it went. Sometimes I just have to shake my head. But...at least he build a 4 car garage to store the stuff he had in a double garage and two sheds. I'm wondering if there will be enough room for my rod and kit....or hey...maybe my car!!!

I am having a little fun at his expense to be sure...I will let you know when it's all done and said.

Looking forward to tomorrow and a new beginning in a new neighbourhood.

hey ho

2011-09-26T19:08:00.000-07:00

No whining here today. Papers all signed....it's a go.

I will have to admit that I have been a bit of a dink about this house. I was so scared we wouldn't be able to afford it and didn't trust my husband enough when he told me ... it was going to all work out. Well it worked out ... and more.....we will be just fine.

As you probably know we are leaving most of our vintage 1970's furniture here for the new owners, I went shopping for a new bedroom set. Yeah....no more water bed for us old hippies... this is one I choose.

This is the electric fireplace/TV stand that goes with it.

I think I can live with this. Plus we will get a chest of drawers to match....because we are cool. But if I can get a waterbed mattress for this set ... I WILL.

We will be living without a lot furniture for a few months, but I don't care. Our first priority is to put in a fence for Penny Loafer. I don't want to loose her. We have had a few visits to the house but I don't think she gets it yet. So I will have to make her feel like it's her home.

I am so pumped tonight after all has been said and done....and on Wednesday the movers are coming for what we have left.....then I have until Friday to actually move our office stuff...just stuff you don't want movers to move unless they lose it. That will be all in the back of my truck with my computers etc. Also I will be moving the stuff from our fridge and freezer...and all the dishes etc. I didn't pack. I bought an air bed so we will have something to sleep in until we get the the new one.

Phew... 4 more sleeps until we finally settle in.

balonie....making a new home.

ha

2011-09-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

I bet this the longest I have ever kept a template on my blog. This must be serious business we are plowing through. It is. It's hard and stupid. I would never do this again. But I never wanted it in the first place, but if I am stuck living in the bush in a beautiful house...so be it...heh.

The scoop

2011-09-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

Thanks for wondering what the heck happened to me. But we are in the final stages of packing and moving and the builders are in the final stages of finishing it off. It's fine line my friends, especially because the builders ran into problems with our wood flooring. A lot of it was put in three weeks ago or longer, but as time went by the installers were unsure about it. It popped when you walked on it. It cracked when you walked on it. First of all they said it would go away..... in time...just like when you buy a pair of shoes too small...."they will wear in".. in time. Yeah right. it didn't happen and we had experts coming from all over Canada testing the humidity levels in the house, and they decided that their product was great...it was the fault of the humidity of the house. Now you got a fight going on between the supplier and the retailer and the contractor....meanwhile we have to get into this house by next Wednesday. (insert the F word here).

Today we were told the old flooring that was laid down would be removed and new and better Engineered flooring will be put in its place tomorrow. So they have until next Wednesday before we move in to complete a lot of tasks. Not just this one. I am a little disappointed, but we gave them so much time to do stuff, but once shit came to shove...like when we sold our house with a possession date of Oct. 1...they had to move their butts. I am sure it will all work out fine, but I am really, really tired of building the fucking house. I just want to live there.

Our house is totally move ready. We got Gord's big work trailer in the front driveway and tomorrow my niece and her big man friends will be helping us move all the boxes from the house into the trailer. Because we were unsure of the timeline of the move our movers couldn't guarantee they could move the entire house the same day because they were booked up. So we got the trailer and we will move all the boxes in there and the movers can pick up everything from our house and take all the stuff from the trailer when we bring it there. Good lord.

I met the new owners on Sunday. They will be buying most of my furniture so there won't be much to move other than TV's, our bedroom furniture ...comfy chairs... AND the WATER BED. heh... I really had to laugh when the people were here to look over the furniture, and their younger boy about 10 I would think had a fit.....he wanted the waterbed. Haaaaa.. The Mom said ..no...we don't need a waterbed, and he said ..."it's so cool"... as he pressed his hands on it and watched it go up.. and down....then he cried a little and got over it when I promised to show him all the hiding places he would have in the lower level. He loved it. His mother will never find him!!!! He was one cute little guy. At one point when we were negoiting prices for the furniture...he said... Mom don't spent too much because you promised me guitar lessons this year. God bless his little cheap heart. He totally forgot about the waterbed.

So, yeah this is about all I can tell you. I think I have taken pictures of the house since the last time I updated my house file. I will look to see if I can find them. This shit takes some serious crap out of you. I am almost embarrassed by how long it has taken.

We have a beautiful house.....and the cutest taps in the world in the bathroom....I can't even remember choosing them...it was so long ago.

FYI...spell check is not working tonight some things never change around here.

I also tried to put pics up in my house blog...but it just kept on spinning the pics around before I could catch them....what's up with that? I will try again tomorrow.

My feets are tired.....cramping all night from all the walking I'm doing...need better shoes. Or ice-cream.

Yeah it's me.

2011-08-29T18:17:00.000-07:00

You know how much whining I was doing about leaving the hood....now I wish I could sell this piece of crap and get on with our lives.

I don't want to jinx anything but we got a good offer today and accepted it. We will know by Friday if it will go through.

Most people I talked to said building a house was stressful...I call bullshit. Selling your house is the most stressful. Keeping it clean...every fricking day. I don't mind being clean but everything out of sight clean makes me want to take a pitch fork and send it right through my brain.

Miss Penny and I have to vacate the premisses a few times a day when dumb fucks come through here. That entails (ha ha penny..tails...get it) getting her in the truck and going nowhere for an hour. We cruise...because we are cool...circumvent the hood, drop into the park where we take a very brief walk because in two minutes she has spotted another dog and is going into a dog fit. Untangle the leash...back in the truck and sit in it ...facing the our street...so I can see when the Real Estate Agent is finished showing it. Then we go home and she is happy because she thinks we went for a walk. Every.stinking.day. And the heat, it has been so hot here lately it makes me crazy.

So, that's about it for now, if all goes well ...

Hello

2011-08-12T19:07:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that I have not written anything in here for awhile. Nothing is really wrong ...yet everything is wrong.

It's the transition from one house to the next. I did not do well with moving on with my life from the workplace to retirement nor am I doing well with this.

Please do not tell me to you are sorry..etc.... It's okay. I am dealing with it every day. I just need to say some stuff. So don't be going ohhh Joan.... I'm not looking for sympathy ...just getting it off my chest.

I will miss my neighbours and friends in the hood. You knew that already....but as time goes by I get misty eyed. I know what to expect with the changing of the seasons...and today all the black birds (hundreds of them at different times) came by to visit my little pond reserve I made for them and descended on it. The sound was deafening with all of them enjoying the pond and all the bird baths. Today I had Robins, blackbirds and doves fighting for a bath. My neighbour next door has a huge pond....these guys fight each other for a bath in a bird bath...stupid birds....really... you assholes have a spa right next door.

Soon the Geese will be migrating. Our house is on their flight path. I will miss them shitting on my deck..or my head. Or in my wine.

I worry and I worry. Not only about this but will our house get sold. Right now it looks good. You damn Americans almost gave me a heart attack last weeks when you might have gone in another recession. Your economy affects ours and yet we are doing so well.

So... I will trundle on....and worry. YOU CAN NOT STOP ME. But if you know of any under the counter stress relievers.. my ears are open.

balonie............

If you were my Canon digital camera ... where would you be?

2011-07-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

A.) In my purse.

Wrong! There is nothing in my purse other than my wallet, grocery receipts and a used condom I found on the street.

B.) In my camera case on my desk.

Wrong! That would be the logical place to be, so it couldn't possible be there...and it's not. One possibility is that it my digital camera tripod (which is beside the camera case) grew to life and ran away with the camera and traded it to the natives for dried fish, ferret pelts, and budgie feathers. The tripod is still there, but I'm sure it only came back to put me off the trail. I tried to make it walk today, but it just stood there. Bastard.

C.) In the fridge.

Wrong! I looked. The last time I used the camera was last Friday night. Friday night is wine sipping and pizza night so looking in the fridge was not a stretch. I never checked the freezer, not that wouldn't be a stretch either but I can't bear the thought of seeing my camera freezer burnt.

D.) In my pantie drawer.

Wrong! I opened the drawer but didn't look directly inside of it. I just felt my way around for a medium sized metal object. I found none. All I could feel were all my panties trying to get away from my prying fingers. Apparently they are still a little miffed at me using their drawer to house other undergarments not associated with covering your ass.

E.) On the patio table where I often take pictures.

Wrong! It wasn't on the table, under the table, or beside the table. However, I do have a theory of what may have transpired. CROWS. Crows like shiny things don't they? We have a lot of crows this year and my neighbour lady found a dead one on her patio yesterday. My theory is he swept down and grabbed the camera by the hand strap and flew into her back yard with it. The considerable weight of it may have dragged him down and he struck his head on her very large and ugly stone statue of some Greek Goddess. I asked her if she had seen my camera and she had not. The rest of the crows in the yard all shook their head in agreement. Was this a conspiracy among the crows? Did one of the crows find the camera flung from the dead crows beak in the bushes and made off with it...or not? The crows and I have had a long standing feud going on and this may have been "payback" time. But at this point I cannot retaliate because I don't have my Canon to shoot them with!!

I have checked every nook and cranny of this house and it just isn't here. I finally searched and found my old Kodak camera but the battery was dead and I couldn't find the charger thingamajig. Finally after practically unearthing the house I found it. So, for the time being I will still be able to take pictures.

I am absolutely drained with all this searching!!

And no I don't think the dog "et" it...although lately every time she yawns I see a hear a click and a flash comes out of here mouth.

I have no new pictures of my house

2011-07-19T19:38:00.000-07:00

Because I'm not going there until it's finished. Surprise me when I move in.

Okay... I might drop in ... but I am preparing for an Open House this Sunday on our home. I have a lot of work to do in the garden because I bought 10 bags of chocolate brown mulch to spread on the surface. The shit is...it's 5,000 degrees outside. I don't ever remember a heat wave like this. It is supposed to cool off tomorrow. Our grass is crisp. It looks like hay.. I need a cow.

I still have so much to do before Sunday and yet I cannot get my ass out of bed before 9:30AM....and am grouchy until 10:30AM....until the coffee kicks in....then I read a few blogs...then make lists of things to do in the afternoon. By afternoon I mean 2:00PM because Gord comes home for lunch at 12:30/1:00 and by the time I get my ass moving the day is almost gone.

It's all fine tuning actually. The house has been painted, windows washed, garden pruned, carpets cleaned, it all about the little things. Polishing the cupboards downstairs, railings, try to keep the dog groomed because it is shedding season...and the hair!!!!! everywhere. Arranging all my cluttered kitchen cupboards ... because I tend to let things go there. I gotta wash all the bathroom floors, and kitchen... vacuum the rest of the house ... yawn....I can't take this shit.

I spent about one hour today looking for the survey certificate for our property. I could have done that anytime last winter...but noooooooo I leave it until the last moment. I seem to get some kind of thrill out of time lines and trying to make them. I have always been that way. Loser.

I would like to make the house smell better for the open house on Sunday. But as it is now we have to have everything closed up because of the heat wave......no fresh air. Just the A/C. It smells like us in here.. a little funky ... my dog doesn't have a dog smell that I notice like some dogs do...but others may. I have placed 4 unscented fresheners around the house because I don't want it to seem to be covering up my love of cooking with garlic and onions. Do I bake a nice banana bread in the morning before the showing? Would that be too obvious? And just say......oh yeah our home always smells like vanilla and banana .. you will love it here! Those smells are part of the purchase price.

I will at sometime have to explain why I laid sixteen floor tiles on top of regular flooring in my laundry room. At an odd angle. Experiment gone wrong. And those buggers won't come off...The flooring in the laundry room is beige...I laid sixteen tiles on top of that leading into the room. For no other reason than that I had them left over from tiling the entrance way to the house. They are dark brown tiles so I thought it might look like a little carpet. Apparently I may have over estimated my HGTV skills. Or... I am cheap. I have already carpeted over the tiling I put in the entrance way...because I was not good at it and the tiling separated and looked like sheeeeit.

By the looks of it now...we are in for a thunderboomber. I am not surprised with all this heat. I get so crazy with the heat because I am just not used to it. I am so thankful for AC.....

Just a note: Baby bro is still at home and holding his own. He is managing his diabetes quite well. Although many changes have to be made from taking med's to insulin. It's a new ball game. But he is loving every minute being at home instead of the hospital.

Okay...so I never post anymore and here I go and talk your ass off....only because it's too fricking hot out there to sit on the deck and play on my IPad. Kidding.... You know it's really crazy because I thought once I retired I would have all this time to blog. I wouldn't have to worry if it was late at night or would have to get up early in the morning for work. But it turned out I was pretty burned out by trying to do both. Or was I ??

I'm pretty sure I was just a jerk... because we all know I like the deadlines. I have no excuse for not posting other than my fingers like doing other things....like picking my nose, pruning a rose, taking a doze, ..yeah that's about right.

Time to get going........

2011-07-12T18:48:00.000-07:00

Picking up the pace around here...getting stuff done. We will be starting to sell the house next week. I arranged and rearranged rooms to make them look bigger. Especially the office here upstairs. That was easy and I don't know why I never thought of doing it like that before.

Cleaned all the woodwork in the kitchen...thanks Donna for the help. I'm glad I had it on hand. I used to use orange oil for my teak furniture but never thought to use it on the kitchen cabinets. duh... It's a wonder worker.

Tomorrow the living room gets a make over...it's almost empty because we threw most of the old furniture away....so that will be easy...and then down to the lower levels ...which have all been cleaned etc. but I have all our business records etc. and Christmas decorations all in one closet..which I will distribute between two closets so it doesn't look too crowded.

Then of course this has to be the only summer where we don't have any rain. Our back 40 is dried out. The lawn looks like my face....all dried up a wrinkly. Tonight I tried to take the nozzle off the hose and attach it to the sprinkler. nope. Gord in all his wisdom thought I might forget to turn the water off and our our leaking nozzle would pour 5,467 litres of water down the drain. And cranked that hose down tight. Fer fuck sakes. I could not get the hose out of the nozzle thingamadoo.

Things are going faster that I anticipated. Only because they we so slow before. Crunch time.

When you poo you move

2011-07-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

Just sitting out on the deck this morning having my coffee and reading a few blogs....UNTIL 1,456 kids jumped in our neighbours pool ... all under the age of 4. I have never heard so much noise in my entire life. All the mothers began to frantically give the little tykes directions.

... stay in the shallow end
... don't eat bird poop
... don't take off your swim suit
... where is your diaper...oh noooooooooo

and on and on and on and on. I'm sure the poor kids didn't even have a chance to get wet. They were just marching around trying to figure out who to listen to first. Between the Natzi moms and the screaming kids it sounded like a day care gone out of control. This lasted for 20 minutes...then silence.

I lowered my sling shot, and went in and got another cup of coffee and sat back down on the deck. Two minutes later .... two minutes people... and it all started up again. Apparently they moved the troops over two houses down to another pool!

I am pretty sure it had something to do with that lost diaper.

No soup for you!

2011-06-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is a meeting with the guy who will install the brick in the front of the house and around the fireplace at 9:00 fricking AM.

Since I have retired I have become the laziest tart in the valley. I go to bed at 11:00-12:00 PM and sleep until 10:00 AM. AND if it's a rainy cloudy morning I will lay there for another half an hour. Just listening to the rain and the sound of my pond tinkling in the back yard while I snuggle up in my really soft comforter. Who knew I would love retirement this much? I bitched about it for an entire summer last year because I didn't quite get it....but now I do. Sometimes I feel guilty that I should be doing more and at least go down to the laundry room to see if the dryer has quit and bring up the clothes....but most time I totally forget about it and have to restart it to get the wrinkles out of the clothes.

I don't try to make projects anymore. That was driving me crazy. I just let what has to be done and what I want to do lead me on.

I intend to get a little more motivated once we start selling the house, but for now I am enjoying this parcel of time I have left in this house to smell the roses. Actually I don't have any roses, but I do have hundreds of plants coming up in my garden that I thought had died. Yes, they chose this year to come up! They must be bidding me farewell. Or just sticking their tongues out at me for not taking care of them when I was here. I will have to do a little pruning because it has got out of hand with all their rage.

Made a pot of soup today. It started out as a normal pot of soup...until I upped it. I had a lot of left over spinach from the salad I made for Hippy Chicks birthday...plus some bok choy from a dish I made last week, and with carrots, onions, peas, beans, potatoes and a couple of slabs of smoked ham. I added some summer savoury...lots of black pepper ....and it still doesn't smell like soup. I added some chicken stock to it...and it still didn't smell like soup. Not the soup I am used to. Well at least I got rid of the spinach and bok choy I had left over. I love bok choy in a stir fry... but this was soup. Bok Choy probably recognized I was was trying to make a Mennonite soup with Chinese ingredients...and kicked the Mennonite out of the soup. Can't veggies get along? It tasted okay...just okay. The fresh buns we had with it were the best.

Gotta go...I have to get up at 9:00AM tomorrow so that means I have to be in bed by 9:00PM tonight.

Balonie...just making a pit stop on Joan's blog..

A real post

2011-06-26T13:03:00.000-07:00

I made this on Friday for Hippy Chicks (65th. birthday)

Salad It's a Asparagus Tortellini Salad. It was a big hit. I have a really bad habit of not following a recipe. I always manage to change it up to suit my tastes, but this time I stuck to the original recipe (and it was hard to do) several times I had to remind myself to STICK TO THE RECIPE! I'm glad I did. No wonder every time I try something new ... it tastes like something I had before. Of course it does because I eliminate half the stuff ... and add in the stuff I know I like. Control freak!

Haaaa... looks like she is trying to find her bi focal range while reading a birthday card....yup that shit happens when you git...65.

My nieces wedding social was last Saturday. Wedding socials are very noisy and I basically came home hoarse and deaf. Old people should stay at home. She was beautiful and very happy to see all of us old farts attending. Most of my cousins were there and it was good to see them all again.

Lisa & Jordan (almost newlyweds)

L-R Shane & Cheri (Lisa's sister) Jordan & Lisa, SIL Joan and bro Garry.

Some of my crazy cousins

My bro

So it has been a busy few weekends. I'm really tired of talking to people lol.

The house is coming along fine. They put in the granite counter top last week and it looks awesome.

They are just starting to put the trim on the windows and doors. I will have to take a picture of the rounded corners throughout the house ... they look really neat.

The blue jays and the crows are screaming at each other in the back yard... its sounds like a war zone. Time to get out the broom!!!

Hey ho....just another day in the life.

2011-06-23T20:59:00.000-07:00

Busy busy with the new house...lots of things to figure out and decisions to be made.

Gord is usually my stumbling block~~..head~~ Today it was the color of the baseboards and the window framing.......ohhhhhhhhhhh my god you would think this was the end of the world! I chose a very neutral off white color that was suggested by the designers....he saw the swatch and said it looked grey........it wasn't grey asshole...it was a neutral color that would look good with the window frames.

Our home builders are very good to us... and suggested we see one one their show homes that had that color on the baseboards and window frames. That meant another road trip...because this house was about 20 miles from our house...yay I love road trips...and having lunch at a greasy spoon after that. Excuses to eat grease is right up my alley.

We walked around the show home and saw immediately it was the right shade. Actually if Gord didn't want all the stuff he wanted for our house....this house would have been perfect for two retiring old farts like us. It was a small bungalow with a really nice enclosed patio. But he is determined to spend all our money before we die....thus the big house is where I will kill myself cleaning it. I want this written on my tombstone...

Her lies Joanie Balonie
full of macaroni
Gord killed me
And didn't give a shit
Cleaning the big house
Threw me into a fit.

I promise to be a better blogger after all this has gone down with my brother and then with the house...plus now we have to sell it. Lot's of shit still on our plate.

Bro was ambulanced to the hospital earlier this week. again....apparently the discharge doc...forgot to put his diuretics in his med prescription when he went home.. FFSAKES..... He has congestive heart failure for shit sakes...how could they have missed that? SIL was surprised that he didn't have a med like that in their regime...but thought perhaps is was a new med was taking care of that she didn't know about.

They took out 16 litres of water out of him. His is back home now. Sigh.......a little lighter.

I have a few pic's to post from my nieces social on Saturday...but I don't have them on this computer. I will post them tomorrow. Most of you will have seen them on facebook already.

Balonie...

Hiya...I am getting my mojo back..weaving in and out

2011-06-14T18:36:00.000-07:00

Gord went to a seminar tonight...so I made my own supper. I made potato salad with lots of eggs in it..the way I like it...and lots of sour cream and mayo...green onions ... some vinegar...and some sugar.....If I would have made it like I did years ago it would have had whipping cream in it. But of course I don't have that in my fridge anymore. I still need some meat with my meal...because that is what I still like to do...last week I went to Foodland...a store that still sells shit that is not good for you. I bought a canned chicken. I remember when we were young and mom had to make a quicky meal she would bring out the canned chicken. I loved it then...and I just sort of like it now. It's just like the canned hams. We used to have them all the time when we were younger...and I have to say...I still like them...BUT when you read the labels...FFsakes the salt in them is so high ...it could put you in the ground man. Way down.

So now I only eat a can a week.....kidding...

I was just thinking ...........I have a pressure canner, I could can chicken. .... if I could catch them...heh... I have a small electric stove in this house that is not good for the pressure cookering and it has a glass top...in my next life at the new house I have a huge gas stove. A stove that scares me, but could hold the pressure cooker and jars of nakid chickens. I have so much to look forward to. Like a gas stove. OMG....life might be a little shorter that I anticipated. When I blow up the whole famdamily.

Balonie.....trying to use her head. Without too much success just yet....

Road Trip

2011-06-14T12:08:00.000-07:00

We did a little road trip on our way to see the slab of granite. First stop was Lockport. It is a huge dam on the Red River where boats have to go through the locks to get to the other side.

We went to Skinner's for dinner here. Skinner's is supposed to have the world's best foot long hot dogs. SUPPOSED to! I used be really good...but our hot dogs were nuked...yuk...fries were still good.

This is part of the river running towards the locks.

This is the entrance to the locks...see that cement thingie on the right down behind that boat..it's fun going through them. We did that a lot when we had a boat. It's kind of scary because the locks empty and down you go until you reach the level on the other side. If you are good ... they let you out the other side. You have to be sure you got your boat secured because once you are in there it can get crowed with other boats and you don't want to be bumping into them....that has happened...wasn't my fault I thought someone else was holding the rope.

The Quarry ... all the granite lined up in a row.

We picked our slab.

Then we went home and drove past a bee field. The end.

Exciting huh? I burped that ugly hot dog all the way home.

Bro is home

2011-06-09T21:38:00.000-07:00

It's only been a few day yet but so far so good.

I have been so crazy busy with the new house....and am so glad he is at home because I don't know how I could visit as often as I did. We live a long way from the hospital.

I put up a few more pic's on my house website....it's on the sidebar.

Give me a few days and I'll try to fill everyone in on everything. I know I have been really shitty about posting lately. I try to read all your blogs in the morning with my coffee....and then it's time to get busy and get about my bussynes.. huh? I haven't lost my sense of humour yet... it was close....but I found it under a pile of laundry I forgot about. Tired ...yes..!!

I have a story to tell

2011-05-29T18:42:00.000-07:00

Garry told me about his roomie today. I was always wondering about him...something was off.

When Garry was in the hospital the last time he had the best roomie...and that made the time go faster and he had someone to talk to...but this guy was always ... a little off. He always watches me if the curtain is open when am visiting...so I close it.

Today Garry told me this guy jerks off all the time...day and night. It is freaking him out. He can hear him. Today when I was visiting the Aides put a tent up around this guys "bottom section" LOL...so nobody could see what he is doing. WTF?

But I'm not surprised because if you spend a lot of time in the hospital sick or just visiting you see it all.

You see the best and the worst of people. In the corridors, on the elevators or on the sidewalk outside. Everyone has a story to tell I am sure. We all come from different backgrounds and religions. Winnipeg is a melting pot of all of that. And I guess some guys that like to jerk off with a fucking feeding tube in their nose...I don't know.

It takes all kinds..

Hi there.......

2011-05-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

Sally asked for the link to the NEW HOUSE BLOG and I put it on the side bar but it's not a direct link. It seems I have had so much on my mind lately I totally forgot how do shit on the blogger side bar.

It is: http://heywhatdoyouwantfornothing.blogspot.com/

Don't ask me how I came up with that address...I tried so many and they were rejected I just decided to be an asshole. As you know I'm good at that.

All the insulation has been done...the drywall was put up last week and now the tapers are in doing there thing. I will be going in again next week to take more pics. Actually I have a few of the insulation but they are pretty boring.

Now we are in selling mode for this house. I have spent countless hours trying to get the back 40 in shape, but its hard this time of year because all the trees are seeding and making such a mess. As for the rest of it ... it has been painted inside and out in the last year or so. De cluttering was done last fall when we thought we might be moving in winter....so not much left to do other than get someone to do all the windows. I used to do them myself, but some of them are so high and need to be taken out to be cleaned. They made stupid windows 25 years ago.

I still have junk that needs hauling...but that will stay until we sell the house...or it would be empty..LOL.

We will start anew. Only keeping our family treasures, furniture, plants and accessories we still like...and the our Penny Loafer. And yeahhhhh all my computer shit. Even my old Dell. Gord says we don't have to take her and I can get a new one....I have my eye on the touch screen HP...(Dellie don't be reading this...momma is just making a joke).

Bro is still improving. He even went out for a wheel chair ride last night with his daughter in the hospital. He still has to be watched with food....because he was intubed for so long he has problems swallowing. But I think he will be on solids very soon. Because he has been bed ridden so long he has "lost his legs" so to speak and they do Physio on him now. He is in a room right in front of the nurses station with another man who are "runners." And have an Aide watching them all the time.

But I think he has figured all this out and realized that he can't just get up and go anymore. His has been tied down for almost a month because he was tearing off his tubes etc...we didn't think he knew that when he was so out of it...but he did. He talks about it. But he wouldn't be here if they hadn't done that. It's so hard to explain so someone who just wants to go home.

He asked me yesterday the date of his daughters Wedding Social. (we have pre wedding socials in Canada) and they are fun.......and I said June 18th. and he said ..I have to be there... So he is thinking positive and wants to be there for her. Even he he can't go home by then I think he will be able to get a pass to be there.

Our wedding socials are great....people buy tickets for about 10 bucks a piece ...All their friends and family are invited to go to a hall and dance the night away....with ole fashioned food...Winnipeg Rye Bread, Salami, Kobasa, cheese, chips, and pickles. Lets not forget the booze... Everyone pays for their own booze and then they have different draws all night for prizes. What ever is left over from this goes to the bride and groom. We had one when we got married... I loved it. It's done a little differently today. In my day it was supposed to be a surprise social....now the couple puts it on themselves. It helps to to pay for the wedding. And that is why it was done in the first place. It's just a start for them, as it was for us.

So I am looking forward to this...and hope all will go well.

Today he was himself

2011-05-26T20:54:00.000-07:00

He did that the first time he was in the hospital.

I went to see him today and he was his own self. He was my bro again.

Thanks again for all your stuff. This is getting so old. I can count the wrinkles on my face...that little bugger did to me..

We will just carry on.

balonie

It is what it is.

2011-05-25T18:37:00.000-07:00

I am taking a break. I have to get on with my life.

I may regret saying this but after talking to him on Monday when he was lucid...he was a total prick. He may be depressed but the things he said to me were hurtful. He is rude to all the staff in the hospital. He did that the last time he was in as well.

He kept on saying "we don't want him." He just wanted to go home. Nothing we said would help. But this time he said he just wanted to die because everyone thinks he is a mental case.. Then he told his wife to fuck off when she tried to explain to him that he needed to be able to walk and eat properly before he could be released. I think..he thinks he we will put him in a mental ward or something......

I don't know where all this is coming from....but if he keeps on acting this way..they might just do that.

I have to go back tomorrow...it's been two days off for me....

I'm not looking forward to it.

Just another day ...but another day is good.

2011-05-20T18:48:00.000-07:00

I wish I didn't have to write my blog everyday with sadness. I am not always sad. One of the days I don't visit my brother I am happy. Which is every second day. I get on with my life. But one the day I have to go and look at what's happening to him...is very freaking sad.

Today the entire ICU developed some kind of infection....I had to wear a gown and gloves etc. and he had a huge rash on his ass. Something to do with fecal matter....don't ask. It spread though the ICU.

WTF....if his big fat loving heart doesn't fail him....an ass rash just might. It never ends.

SIL spent a lot of time together today after we left the ICU and went to the park and just talked. I could tell she needed to get a lot off of her mind. We both did. We talked and it felt good to know how we both felt. She has a heavy load on her.

What I probably haven't told you was that she foster's little FAS babies for Child and Family Services. She had done that for awhile. Hmmm yes I think I did...but anyway.....

A few days after Garry was in the hospital she had Child and Family Services get her some respite so she could get to see Garry. On the Sunday when she went to pick them up from the respite home....little Noah had died.
There were ambulances and fire trucks all around the house and she didn't know what was going on. Apparently little guys like that are likely to die of "crib death"...I know there is a better word for that...but I can't think of it now. And that is what happened...on top of everything else. She loved those little guys. The other one is now in another foster home. How much worse could this have got......we were devastated. He was such a cute little guy ... and I got to meet him at Easter at our dinner at their house.

She is now missing her babies she loved so much and Garry....and has to go home every day after visiting hours to an empty home. Her kids are right behind her doing what they can.....but I could see today when we were talking how much her life has changed....and she is scared silly. And so am I.

It is always harder on the the family than it is the patient sometimes...because he doesn't quite get it...Sometimes I'm thankful he doesn't.

Hello

2011-05-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not posting for awhile... it's been pretty stressful. Bro went into cardiac arrest after he was released from ICU into a ward. Some how his food tube became dislodged and sent the food into his lungs...yeah. He was doing really good there, but something went wrong. He is now back in the ICU and we are starting this crap all over again.

Today they took him off the ventilator and he is breathing on his own. They had to drain all the that shit out of his lungs first. God only knows how much damage that did to his heart and lungs. He was awake yesterday and I got to talk to him several times ..but he is so weak and is still coming out of this second event.

Will fill you in this weekend....I'm so tired all the time...just from thinking. I just want to sleep and not think.

Joan

I have to write this quick

2011-05-10T22:04:00.000-07:00

Explorer keeps knocking me off here. I wrote the longest post yesterday only to find that blogger saw no need for me to keep in touch either. Bastards..

Quick update: Bro is still in limbo. He is awake, but still very tired. I have been there 3 times now and he has been asleep and I can't wake him up. I always manage to come after he has had visitors and that tuckers him out. For me..it is a long journey to the hospital because it is on the other side of city...so when he was stabilized I only go every two days. His family keeps me up to date when I don't go that day. It is so disappointing to just have to sit there and watch him snore. I left a message on our family board in his room that I have been there....but hey...I want to hear his voice. Tomorrow. Hopefully he will be awake...or I might have to set a firecracker under his ass.

In my long winded post yesterday I was telling you about Hospital Parkades. We call any parking facility over two stories a Parkade. So keep that in mind. Long story short:

In the last week and a half I have learned a lot of stuff .....

I have lost my truck and wandered around a parkade this very scary part of town trying to find it.

Elevators don't always take you to where you are going. And sometimes they don't even open up.

Always carry lots of change .. or a credit card because you will never get out of the parkade without it. 3 bucks for half an hour. Make sure you tell the person you are visiting you care alot about them in a hurry unless you want to hit the 6.00 dollar mark.

Always ... look around you in the parkade it's a pretty scary place. Especially downtown like this one is.

Parking is the pits my friends. On Friday I had to park on the highest level of the freaking Parkade. Level #5. The level of the devil. When SIL and I were in my Bro's room which overlooks the parkade I told her we could see my truck from there. I was all ..hey...look there is my truck! Garry was still sleeping at that time. So there was not much else to talk about.

I left before she did....and apparently she saw me on the 5th. level wandering around looking for my fucking truck. I'm sure she was laughing.... it wasn't there....the truck I was looking at from the hospital window was another black SUV...but not mine. To make this story shorter and a little less embarrassing...I found it on the 4th. floor. But that came at some cost. Okay the story will be a little longer...

While of the 5th. floor floundering around like a big ole beached whale looking for my beloved rusty ole truck ... I spotted an elevator at the far end. NOT the elevator I took up there. This was a new shiny elevator. I was a little sceptical at first but I hopped in and decided to go back to the 1st. floor and find the bread crumbs I had left on my path to the 5th. floor when I first started my journey. I entered #1 and as I started down I realized I must be at a different part of the huge hospital system....this elevator had windows and I could see the street below. (SIL saw me in the elevator too..haaa)...but when I got to the the 1st. floor the door would not open. Dear God....I was beside myself with all this bullshit...I just wanted to sit down and cry. But instead of trying to get help I punched all the floors from 2-5 and it went back up one floor at a time. My reasoning was it had to stop at least one of these floors and open... It.did.not. Here I was again...on the fucking 5th floor...and the door would not open. I punched #1 again ... and down I went again. As I was sitting on the ground level ... and thanking God for not letting me get thrown down the elevator shaft in the basement ... I was so upset I couldn't even find the panic button. I decided to punch #1 again.... and the DOOR OPENED. I ran out of the building.

I ran over a few people in wheelchairs...wiped out a few on walkers...sideswiped a few who were having a smoke in front of the building. I found the cross walk back to the Parkade...put on my thinking cap... and figured I was probably parked on the 4th floor. This time I did not take the elevator...I took the stairs. I found my baby in about 2 minutes. My SIL had witnessed most of this from my brothers room. I'm pretty sure that is why she never let me babysit the kids when they were young.

Went home and drank a bottle of wine. Smoked a pack of cigs's ...did some LSD...and yeah...just mellowed out. Actually it was more like 2 Tylenol and magic mushroom soup. heh.

Hospitals are stressful enough....but trying to figure out the system is worse. Just a note...next time I go I will write the parking spot number on my ticket. Oh yeah...it's fun getting out of there too. First you have to go to a pay station and present the ticket you got when you came in. (If you can find it) ...nutter story. You stick it in the machine and it yells at you....PLEASE INSERT ALL YOUR ?DOLLARS...and as you are inserting your 100.00 DOLLARS..it keeps telling you to do this over and over ...until you want to kick it's ass. The overhead camera is the only thing that keeps me from coming down the ramp with my SUV after I have paid and taking it out.

I'm going back for more tomorrow. Bro better be awake because I has a lot of stories to tell him. And tomorrow I think I might look for street parking ....which is at a premium.

Don't let me forget to tell you about how I put streaks in my hair today. Why get a professional do what you can fuck up all by yourself?

Anyone want to send me a hat?

Balonie...treading carefully....

Still touch and go

2011-05-05T18:20:00.000-07:00

They were still trying to get him awake when I was in the hospital today. He has almost been weaned off the med's that made him sleep to get all his stuff rested up. For the first time we were encouraged to talk loudly and touch him. And touch him and talk loud...we did. SIL and I went in early afternoon ... only to find my cousin...Garry's best friend was there and he was touching and feeling him...and talking loud. He got him to open his eyes several times. After he left we took over and Joan (yes my SIL is named Joan) not balonie however.... and we started talking to him. Joan took his arm and rubbed it and started talking to him and asked if he could open his eyes....he tried so hard and he got them half open...then off he went again. We kept on doing this for some time and finally his arms and hands started to move. His eyes would open occasionally but he would always drift off. The nurses were all ready for him because they said some people wake up FAST and they get agitated and start pulling out all their tubes so they tied his hands down ... just in case. They want everything to slow and smooth.

When I left I took his arm and rubbed it for awhile...then I asked him to open his beautiful brown eyes ... and he did. Just for a moment. Then I spoke Low German to him and threatened him that if he wasn't awake by tomorrow morning....I would make him eat rabbit shit like I did when we were kids. So I'm hoping that will work. He would have done the same for me.

So tomorrow should give us more news ... and we will proceed from there.

Somebody tape that kid's ears down....and I am really sorry I kicked his baby tooth out. We were fun fighting on the bed.

Not too much to report

2011-05-01T18:16:00.000-07:00

He is still in ICU. They put him on a ventilator yesterday because he was pulling the mask off every time he felt unable to breathe properly. Then they sedated him because he was very anxious. That helped immensely with his breathing and his heart rate. By the time I left on Friday he had settled down and was breathing pretty good. But on Friday night he started to get agitated again and they thought it would be best to put him on the ventilator. I might be saying this all backwards...but as of today he is still on the vent but of course he started a low grade fever....fuck! The prognosis is that he has Congestive Heart Failure. He has fluid built up around his lungs/heart making breathing very hard.

I pretty much figured that out three weeks ago when he was in there, but they were too busy trying to cope with the blood infection he got after his stent replacement. He had the same kind of breathing problems but they him some kind of drug ( I can't remember the name) to flush it out. And that worked and his breathing became normal. Now.... this time round... I don't know what is going on.

Apparently the best thing is to keep him quite and not to get him going. He has never really seen me there because he has been sleeping when I come and when I go. I would rather see that than what I saw when I got there of Friday when he was trying to catch a breath. It was disturbing.

I didn't go the facebook route with this ...this time ...because it was too serious and I didn't really want people that I barely know .. or are just friends of friends.. that are on my list to get involved. I wanted to keep it low key with my best friends on blogger who I trust and feel comfortable with.

So thank you very much for all your kind words. And to my friend Jude who has gone through this experience many times with her husband ... I keep the words you wrote when Fred was going through all of the same thing in my mind. And Fred is still here....so I take comfort in that.

On another note: It's freaking snowing!!! We have a couple of inches that came down today. Dog is very confused. But of course this is just gives her a reason to piss on the deck. Snow does not = lawn. Snow wins.

Thanks again for listening to my woes.....

Que Sera, Sera,

Whatever will be, will be

The future's not ours, to see

Que Sera, Sera

What will be, will be.

Balonie.......and Doris Day!

a note

2011-04-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

My bro is in grave condition in the ICU. I haven't said anything because when you type it ... it becomes real.

Joan

Just a note

2011-04-25T18:09:00.000-07:00

Those babies are scheduled to be reunited with their parents. Family services always tries to keep the family together. SIL takes them 3-4-5 times a week to their homes for visits. One family didn't even have a home until last week. The other one will have a home. But.......

My question is.....a normal baby is a handful...imagine a mother who probably is still struggling with alcohol addition trying to be reunited with her child that has FAS? How will she cope.

I didn't expect to see such normal looking children when I went there. Their outward appearance has nothing to do with their fucked up their iddy biddy brains. They are much slower to develop and when they get older they have a very hard time figuring out right from wrong along with a whole lot of other shit.

The one little guy took a long time to focus. He sort of looked spaced out. But once my niece had him on her lap and got his attention by making noises and putting her hair in his face .... he finally centered on her. It took awhile. Then we got a huge toothless grin. He has problems with his hands and feet always twitching and then he scratches his head ... so he still has to wear little baby mittens and be swaddled at night.

I just hope Child and Family Services doesn't give them back to the parents before they and the babies are ready to go. I hear so many horror stories on how people abuse little children with their addictions ..... and I saw the little one's first hand this weekend ... it hit home. The little guys name is Zues. I think I fell in love.

We had a really good Easter this year

2011-04-24T18:45:00.000-07:00

We were invited to share Easter dinner at my Bro's home...along with his wife's family. It was the best food I have eaten in a long time. Garry's wife Joan is Ukrainian and when they make a meal....it's the real deal. I counted 13 different dishes. Turkey, Dressing, Cranberry sauce, Pickerel (breaded fish), Meatballs with gravy, Ham, Mashed potatoes, then two different Ukraine dishes both were divine... one was rolled up pasta with a whipping cream sauce...and the other was a baked Perishky I think she called it...yum. Holubtsi, Perogies, Ceaser salad, coleslaw, and pickled eggs. I might have missed one or two....yikes....Cheesecake for dessert!!!

I wish I would have taken a picture of the dinner table before the vultures started to circle.

I love listening to Joan and her sister talk about how much their mom used to make for Easter on the farm....apparently they had huge roasters full of all that I just mentioned and more.

It was nice to sit down at the table with a large family around you ... and partake...very nice. I'm still dreaming of the Pickerel fish (walleye) to you Mericans...it was so good.

SIL also fosters little babies with FAS...and I got meet the two little 3 month old tykes yesterday. It is so sad that these beautiful children will never grow up to be normal adults because their mother drank too much.

That's my niece holding #1

This is # 2.....they are such good babies....but what will come of them. So very sad.

Happy Easter my friends.

Joan

It's raining...better than snow...

2011-04-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

It always starts to rain before Good Friday and into the next week. It wouldn't be Good Friday if it wasn't gloomy....so I will curl up with a good book and pretend I am still at work and this is a paid holiday. This was the last one I had last year.

You remember that....all my bitching about retirement etc.? Yup ... it has almost been a year now. My attitude has changed dramatically. I was just pissed off that they didn't let me stay until I was 65. It had nothing to do with performance ... only with the logistics that was happening with the company at the time. But I took offence. I was given a time line of my choice when I wanted to leave. I chose the end of April 2010.

At the time I did not realize I had made the smartest choice of my life. Timing was everything.

After all was said and done I have made more money this year that I have ever made in a year of my life.

Sitting here on my bony ass! Bitching about nothing to do..blah blah blah......colour me an ass hat.

Sometimes you just have to put stuff in perspective ...and thank the good Lord for looking after you.

That being said....Gord is spending money on the new house faster than I can cash my checks!! He got a stair lighting system to his Man Cave upstairs.... it lights up as you go up the stairs and when you come down. What will they think of next? Magic.

Just got the carpets cleaned today. They did an excellent job. The carpets look close to new. And it smells so good. All the dog smell and hair is toast. I was expecting their truck that houses the water and crap to explode with dog hair and all that has gone on around here in ten years. Yes...ten. The last time Sears did it they did a shitty job and put a hose through one of our walls. So we haven't had it done since.

I'm going to the new house tomorrow and will take some pic's of what is new there.

Happy Easter to you....and yours....

Joan

Busy busy week

2011-04-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

Got all the bookwork done for the accountant. Left it till the last minute again.. yes that is the way I roll.

My goodness I had let everything go around here until today. Did the laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, made a new batch of wine ( I was running short)..cleaned up all the winter dog shit off the back patio, cleaned out my fridge ...whoa...lots of crap in there...did some shopping and now I think I have crossed off everything in my to do list....until tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will be doing a big clean around the house. The guys are coming to do the carpets on Thursday and I want everything done before then. After that I will just clean the windows AGAIN...and it's time to sell. Oh and yeah...we have new guys coming over this year to clean the back 40. Last year they made such a mess of it I had to most of it myself.....I'll be out there with a stick in my hand if they so much as don't rake up a leaf. I will give them my balonie face!

The house is going fine. They put in the wall which holds the 3 sided fireplace and a shelving unit yesterday. I went to see it today, but Gord gave me the wrong key for the house....soo I had to shimmy up the front porch in my velvet pant suit (another story) to look in the window of my own house to see what it looked like. I liked it. I tried the key I had for the back door and it got stuck and I pulled the knob right off...LOL... I t still didn't open. I stuck it back in like I was never there.

Chances of floods in our area are slim.....so that is great.

I just looked out..............it is snowing again!! Shit happens. It will be gone by tomorrow. The birds have been singing so loud these days and making me crazy......and hitting my windows. Mating season seems to let go of their good sense. Most of them sit for bit...look a little dazed and fly off. You wonder if they can remember who their partners were. Or if they mate after that and have brain addled off springs that will hit your window again next year. Hey, what comes around goes around.

I don't let this keep me up a night.....

I had two guys in here to look at our carpets for cleaning this week...and Penny wanted to be their best friend. First she barked at them ... because they were intruders....and then she sniffed them....they wore plastic shoe covers over the shoes to come in the house ..yeah...nice...so she sniffed their plastic shoe covers and found they were not dangerous at all. She did every trick in the book to get their attention while we were discussing what had to be done. She laid down in front of them and looked cute with her belly exposed. Rubbing it was what she wanted but of course the carpet boys didn't want to get sexy with my dog. Then she brought them her fav ball....dropped in front of them 10 times and of course they didn't want to throw it in our house.....plus I was trying to have a conversation with them. Then she pulled out her big one..."sitting pretty".....they couldn't believe a dog could sit on her big fat ass that long. She is a lover that one.

I hope she gets me a discount.

Happy Friday!!!

balonie.............:)

Dat Red River ...she is getting higher and higher

2011-04-10T18:48:00.000-07:00

Here we go again in spring trying to fight the mighty Red River which runs through the city. But this time it is affecting us big time because we bought property very close to the mighty Red.

It has all been upgraded to the highest flood levels ever recorded....but still. I see the access road right close to the river is flooded which is about 1/2 a mile from our new house. Too close for comfort.

My BIL has lived on that street for 35 years and he told me to shut up.....heh...yes the river gets high but we are not in any danger because we have the flood way which diverts the water in some kind of system so no flooding will occur. Yes... some flooding will occur before they close the floodgates...and that is what happened today. And low lying properties will still be flooded. Hundreds of sandbaggers will be needed. We are expecting the crest here in about two weeks.

So just let's see what we done got ourselves into!

I'm sure it will be okay....it's just not something we are used to ... living inland like we do now.

Everything has started melt and the back 40 is looking good....except for the dog poop. OMG. Melted dog shit. Puddles of poop. The best thing is that she couldn't get off the downstairs patio bricks to poop because the snow was so high and all the shit is pretty much in one area. She did make a trail or two to the neighbours fence and did some pooping there too...but it is all confined. Tomorrow if all the ice is gone I will take my shit shovel and shovel the shit off the patio ... I can't put it in a bag because the shit has already seen the spring rains and has turned into runny old shit. Now it is old runny shit which I will throw on the lawn as fertilizer...and then she will run through the runny old shit and get it on her paws. But it's funny old frozen shit does not stink. I smelled it. Okay because it was on my boots! I didn't stick my frickin nose in it.

So my theory is: If your dog goes poo poo, pick it up and freeze it for a later date... and no smellies. But if you don't really want to have freezer full of dog shit .... step in it like I do. I put my boots in the freezer.

It's always a trade off ...isn't it.

That made no sense. I'm high on dog shit.

Happy Sunday :)

Just coming down

2011-04-06T18:26:00.000-07:00

My bro is safe and sound and at home again. All is well with the world for now.

We are getting busy with the house now. We met with the contractor on Monday and went through all the stuff we were concerned about ...shit that always happens ... to make sure all the electrical is where it is supposed to be because once they start drywalling it gets hard to change. I am confident we have chosen the right brick siding and the stucco colours for the house.

I have gone for long rides to different new housing sites here in the city to look at what is happening today. I have to say I hated most of them. They were all huge houses. Nothing like we are building. But I could see how they were using brick and stucco. It was very interesting.

So I went through it with our decorator and we made a decision. HAAA...then I came home and looked at the samples again ...I changed my mind.... The stucco was too yellow for the brick. I know... Lighting has everything to do with the way you see samples.

So I'm going with my gut feeling about the brick and the stucco. You have to make a decision sometime and right now I think I have got it nailed. I fell in love with the brick siding when I saw the sample.....it looks cottage. That was what I was aiming for. Rustic.

We will use the same brick for our fireplace inside the house.

Off to eat some chicken....

LTNSee

2011-04-01T19:39:00.000-07:00

My get up and go...got up and said....goodbye.

Just a mixture of my bro being in the hospital and now our house is starting to get built again. Now everything is in a rush. I understand the winter hiatus ...but now suddenly it seems they have just woke up from a long winters nap and we have to scramble with shit that won't even happen until June. It is annoying. I almost forgot about the house over the winter. I lived in my cocoon. Loved it. I'm not rushing anymore. Screw that. We rushed with everything in fall...and nothing happened. We chose everything inside the house except the paint colours .... well how long does it take to go the store and get a freaking can of paint?

Today they are emailing me about the brick siding and other exterior shit....when the house is sitting there with half the wiring and plumbing done. Screw that. Once I see drywall coming up on the interior I will let them know what I want on the outside. I will not be rushed. They told us to do this in fall, but we didn't even know what the house might look like until they put the shingles on ... and the next day it snowed...so I didn't even see the roof until last week.

Don't get me wrong...they are reputable house builders but if you are building your own home it is hard. I got an appointment with their interior decorator on Monday and we will go through the house room by room to see what paint colours etc. we can use. BUT still ... it is only framed...howinthehell can I see what has to be done.

So on Monday I will take the brick and stucco samples to her and maybe she can give me some idea on how to match it all up. I don't want people pointing at our house and saying....WTF are those people on drugs?

It was all so easier buying a house already built....and deal with stuff you didn't like.

I found a new sofa for the house yesterday... It was Corduroy....I sunk into that baby and called her my own....I haven't had a new sofa since we got married. We never had kids so our sofa never got worn out. And I guess I never sat on it because I hate sofa's... I like chairs....but I think I could sit on this one. Plus we will have to side chairs if I don't, Over the years my priorities changed and I didn't really care that much about furniture especially when I discovered computers and I gladly exchanged a new computer instead of getting a new sofa. But now that I have the opportunity of choosing between both of them I will get a new one and some really kick ass comfy side chairs.

Just a note: Bro is still in the hospital. He has a blood infection. They are now going through another 7 days of antibiotics to get this thing out of him. How he got that we don't know. Probably when he had his stent replaced. He lost a lot of memory and was crazy for awhile. Now he is doing better. They assessed him yesterday and attributed the memory loss to the blood infection and are giving him stuff to alleviate that.

I was there yesterday and he seemed so much better than when I saw him two days earlier. His mind is working much better. But he has lapses. I took him on a wheel chair walk ... he wanted to go through the hospital to the front entrance where he could see the real world. He was devious however...his idea I found out later was to find a store that sold cigarettes. When he found out that hospitals do not sell cigarettes he opted out for the vending machines that sold chips. He really really wanted them, and chose 4 different kinds but I told him I only had enough change in my purse for one and he could choose. He chose Hickory Chips. He had already forgotten about the cig's and ate them with much gusto as we went back to the room.

I know a guy who just had a new stent put in his veins should not have chips....but but but....he looked so damn happy.

They are treating him for that now.. I can't remember the name they called it...but it's like some kind of memory loss you get from the blood infection. He was the best I had seen for a weeks so I went for it. But the next time I take him out for a spin I won't believe everything he tells me...I have an inkling as we were going through all the corridors, elevators and stuff he was looking for a way out of the hospital. Well I got lost on the way down....so he will never find it.

I gave him a test yesterday. We have a thing between us: I say something stupid and he asks me to repeat it and I say it again....and if I do...he will say...I heard you the first time. Man we have done this since we were kids. I did it to him yesterday and he got it.

So lets see what happens.

Balonie...over and out....gotta family newsletter to put out by Monday.

Spring is in the air

2011-03-27T18:30:00.000-07:00

But it is coming very slowly. This is good. Because we have a major flood coming our way again. The slower the melt the better. Fargo ND got dumped on last week....so that stuff all comes intoour river network here in Manitoba. So I'm not wishing for really high temps right now. A slow melt will ease the situation and not cause major flooding on the Red River that runs through the city...AND right behind my new house!!

So you guys in the US quit wishing for spring if your river runs through us. .OKAY....let's do it nice and easy. Don't make me come out there and give you a knuckle sandwich..heh..

Yeah..I'm feeling a like a little bad ass today.

Bro is still in the hospital. Still on antibotics for the mystery infection. He seems to get spaced out every time they hook up that IV. His vitals are good...no problem...just this mystery shit. I have calmed down. I have stopped terrorizing his nurse and doctor when I am there or on the phone. It gets me nowhere. They are doing their best and I understand. But I just want them to understand that even if all of us cannot be there 24-7 ..we are taking notes ...and we care. I have seen a lot of people in the hospital and are just left without an advocate. Someone to speak in their behalf if they cannot.

That being said....I have a horrible problem with going to the hospital. It fucking scares me to death. My blood pressure must be over the top when I do go. I have to talk myself into it everytime. I did the same thing when my mom was in the hospital before she died, then Gordon when he had heart problems....I don't want to see them sick and I have to crank up everything in my mind to get there. I am wringing my hands as I am writing this. I am pretty sure that is the reason I got lost going home last week from the hospital. I was a nutcase. Plus it's in an area of town I am not familar with.

But I will go back tomorrow to see for myself "what condition his condition is in." ...even if I have a panic attack on the way.

This came from my good friend Jude .. it sums it all up

2011-03-25T17:55:00.000-07:00

Because more and more Seniors are texting and tweeting, there appears to be a need for a STC (Senior Texting Code.) If you have reached the magical golden number of 60 or above you qualify and these are the codes for you.

ATD: At The Doctor's

BFF: Best Friend Fell

BTW: Bring The Wheelchair

CUATSC: See You At The Senior Center

FWIW: Forgot Where I Was

FYI: Found Your Insulin

GGPBL: Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low!

GHA: Got Heartburn Again

HGBM: Had Good Bowel Movement

IMHO: Is My Hearing-Aid On?

LMDO: Laughing My Dentures Out

LOL: Living On Lipitor

OMSG: Oh My! Sorry, Gas.

ROFL... CGU: Rolling On The Floor Laughing... And Can't Get Up

TTYL: Talk To You Louder--

WAITT: Who Am I Talking To?

WTP: Where's The Prunes?

GGLKI (Gotta Go, Laxative Kicking In)

Haaaaa I can so relate. Thanks Jude I needed a good laugh.

Little bro is still in the hospital

2011-03-21T18:33:00.000-07:00

He was supposed to come home two days after the stint or is a stent? was put in but he now has contracted a mystery infection in the hospital. The suspect is the catheter. He has fluid around his lungs and it makes it very hard for him to breath. He also is very confused. I was up to see him again today and he could not stay awake long enough to talk to me. They had given him large doses of antibiotics and stuff to drain the liquid from his lungs. His breathing was very labored.

He knew me and greeted me as I came in but in an instant he closed his eyes and fell to sleep. I stayed while the nurses did all the stuff nurses do....he had just had lunch (which he didn't eat) and they cleaned him up. He has to wear a diaper because they need to know if he is peeing. He has heart problems along with type 2 diabetes so kidney function is a worry. It was kind of funny because when I came in and tapped him on the shoulder he woke up and said HI! We talked for a bit ...but he was mostly repeating what I had already said to him. Then he snoozed....I sat for awhile and then I went to the nurses station and had a talk with the head nurse and his doctor about what condition his condition was in. When I got back.... I woke him up again ...yes I pinched his cheek... heh... He had no idea I had been there before and said HI! and we did a little small talk. ... and he fell asleep. Finally I saw no point in staying there so I pinched his cheek one last time and said I'm going home.... and he said HI. I told him I would see him tomorrow and he was very alert and thanked me for coming.....so that's all I got.

Then I got lost going home. The Health Science Centre where is being housed is far away from where I live. It's downtown where I never would normally drive. Sure ... years ago I used to work in that neighbourhood but everything has changed so much I don't have a clue anymore. I have been up to visit him twice and always turned where I supposed to turn. Today I guess my mind was elsewhere and I missed the turn. Be damned it I could get back on track. I drove through the most seediest parts of town trying to get back home. On the horizon I could see the sky scrapers down town where I should have been, but be damned it I could head back to it. Winnipeg has a river running through it. When you end up on the wrong side of the river it's a bitch trying to find your way back to the other side. Fudge....People ... it took me 20 minutes to get to the hospital and 1 1/2 hrs. to get home. I saw a lot of stuff on the other side of the river. In fact I crossed the same bridge twice and two over passes. And the downtown sky line only kept on getting dimmer. Finally I came to a place I remembered being before.....and within 20 minutes I was at home.

I have a portable GPS system which was NOT connected because I think I know everything. I could have pulled off and connected it or called Gord for directions....but I was a little embarrassed that I could not find my way back home in my own city.

I guess I have my own comfort zone in the South part of the city and don't like to drive downtown. I now know where I made the mistake and that will never happen again. ..if it does I'm pretty sure I will drive around like an assehole and do it all over again. It was like a mini vacation. See the seedy side of town...and lock yer doors.

I apologize

2011-03-19T11:01:00.000-07:00

I signed up for the photo challenge this time around but forgot about it as my brother was hospitalized on Wednesday with heart problems and it slipped my mind. I put something together earlier in the week but I haven't finished it yet. I will work on it this afternoon and try to get it in.

Thanks
Joan

I'm in business

2011-03-19T10:57:00.000-07:00

Lap top, IPad and my big ole Dell who sits on the desk on the other of the room. I have been having a great time trying to figure out the IPad...and thanks to my friend Donna I finally got it wired up. You are god sent.

Disjointed thoughts.

2011-03-13T23:18:00.000-07:00

I lost track of time. The clocks Sprung up today!! Gord and I had just finished lunch ...ummm apparently at 11:00 AM when I went to do a little blog trolling and found out on Donna's (Texas) site the time change had occurred. Duh. Man... the day went fast after that. Dog still hasn't figured it out yet, she didn't ask for her supper until an hour later.

Wow, this will be the first time I won't have to drag my pathetic ass to work on Monday after THE CHANGE. I feel a polka coming on I'm that happy. Or I might just do some Old Time Rock and Roll. I have lived through both generations and part of the third.

I'm making a Pork Loin Roast. Smashed taters and corn. How original? Yeah I'm not even hungry yet.

Tomorrow we are expecting better weather after the mini blizzard this weekend. I am looking forward to the floods.. seriously ... it means this crap is melting.

Penny did a poop in the snow today in the figure 8. She is so smart. Tomorrow I going to tell her to do a number 3. That's a hard one to do.. I wish I had my video camera running. .She twisted and turned so many times and there it was ... like magic. A perfect 8. I could have put that on UTube and it would have gone viral. THEN Dave Letterman would have called me and asked Penny and me to come on his show. Where Penny would have been asked to do a number 8...and she probably would have done a normal #2. She is really good at #1's so I can't boast about that.

My friend Kat who left this planet last summer always loved a show called "The Trailer Park Boys." Now that I have NetFlix I watched it most of the afternoon. My sense of humour is pretty warped...but hers was even more so....so while I watching all the TV shows from series 3 ... I laughed and it almost felt like I was laughing with her because she loved that show so much. I knew what line in the shows would have made her piss her pants. Sometimes she would phone me out of breath laughing just waiting to tell me the antics of her Trailer Park Guys. I never really got it, because we couldn't pick up that show on our TV. But now I know.

I wish we could have shared that....because I really really miss her. We met each other on blogger about 5-6 years ago. She was tough, a little rough around the edges and had many stories to tell. She was an excellent writer. I still try to edit everything I write because she would catch my mistakes in a heart beat. She made me a better writer because at that time I poured it out without really spell checking anything. Grammar....nope she could never tame me...I write like I think. I drove her crazy...but for all my flaws she took me into her nest of bloggers. We were brought up in the same city...so that was a connection. Plus we liked to laugh. Really hard.

I was thinking about old blogger friends tonight. I decided I was lethal. I have met up with 4 blogger friends and three have died. So, if you want to keep on living...don't meet up with me. I think the first one is still alive but she has moved on and we don't communicate anymore..that shit happens. The second was Ellen who I met via friends of friends and found she lived in the same city I did. She had just recently married her husband Curtis after that she found out she had Kidney cancer. We became very good friends, but never met until she was terminally ill and almost unable to communicate. Before she got ill her husband Curtis started his own blog and we became good friends. After Ellen died Curtis almost stopped blogging because he was devastated. Slowly but surly as time when by he started up again. Just as he was getting back on his feet he developed a terrible blood disorder that took his life last summer. Also this summer my dear friend Kat died of cancer. Over a year and a half of pain and misery....she rallied and rallied. I will never forget a Facebook message she put up...she said.....I now have Stage 4 cancer ... I was always an over achiever.

I guess I didn't really kill them...they were all from Canada and Winnipeg was there home one time or the other. That is what brought us all together. The first blogger I met up with was from the USA...so apparently I don't kill Americans. Just my own people. Opp's I am wrong Curtis was an American who married a Canadian. He was a war vet from West Virginia and he met Ellen on the Internet and they both fell absolutely madly in love. It was real love. Two people later in there lives found love after bad experiences in their lives. And within 5-6 years of a wonderful marriage it all fell apart. They loved each other so much.

So, I guess what brought this on today is watching Trailer Park Boys....for the first time and trying to figure out why she liked that show so much. It's a really off beat show and it does make me laugh. I have four more seasons of it to watch and I will try to figure it out what about it made her laugh until she peed her underpants....as she called them.

She would yell a me if she saw this post.. so shut up...Kat ..she is still trying to boss me around.

Kat, Ellen, Curtis .. I miss you guys every day when I crank up the computer. While I am sad that you died I am forever grateful to have met you.

balonie

Net Flix came to Canada

2011-03-10T18:05:00.000-08:00

I'm just wondering how you guys in the "states" as we Canucks like to call you like it ... if you have it.

It was magic for me. In two minutes I was watching movies. We never rent movies, nor do we go to the movies...so I was blown away.

I can only watch on my computers right now because it requires Xbox or Wii to stream it in the TV...but I will worry about that once we decide if we want to keep it.

I have a month of free Net Flix to watch...and then will make my decision to keep it at 7.95 a month. That is cheap. And there are sooooooooooo many.....

What say you?

Dine in tonight

2011-03-09T18:33:00.000-08:00

I bought a frozen soup mix today at Super Store. After I got it home it seemed it was a little short of all the hearty veggies they promised. Carrots, beans, spinach, corn and pototoes. They were little tiny pieces of vegetables suitable for an infant. On the right you will see the huge frozen soup mix that was to be added mostly for weight.

Look at the tiny pieces of carrot that was in there. Not even a bunny wabbit would nibble on that.

Now the beans ... seriously you call these beans? There was 24 of them in the package ... 12 for each of us.

Spinach...yum... I counted about 8 frozen pieces ... 4 for each of us.

Cubed potatoes and corn. Have you ever seen such a small cube of potatoe? I didn't count them but I think they threw in a few extra.

I made the soup and didn't use all the those cubes of whateverthehelltheywere... but I added all the stuff I think soup needs...some farmer sausage...onion...left over spanish rice, real carrots and somemore veggies that aren't microscopic. Now we will have something to chew on. Damit. Plus we have chewy hard rolls to got with it....

Then I made a banana loaf. With walnuts.

yeah....it's been a fun day.

PS..we just ate it...it's tastes like ass............just so you know...it was horrible. Not the banana loaf... the poop soup.
Just a reminder to myself.....don't buy shit.

Score

2011-03-07T18:09:00.000-08:00

I ordered an IPad on Friday. I hope she will get along with my ancient Dell desktop and my refurbished Toshiba laptop. I have rammed all of them up, so they still have a life.

I hope I don't have computer fighting going on after I go to bed. My Dell is a big ole mother F*ker and has a lot of miles on her. She has recorded all my emails, blogs and face book for many years. She struggled in the years when I was just learning to do Digital Scrapbooking with various software. It took out every ounce of her ram to do that....and finally when I saw she was suffering I brought her into the shop and gave her some more ram. Ever since then she is like an old dog on meds. Very grateful and wagging her hard drive.

She wasn't too impressed when I linked in the Laptop, but hey...more nap time for her. Now with the IPad... I don't know how she will react. Another new kid on the block. Personally I think she will be like the mom and kick their asses when they try to mess with me.

Hey it's always a crap shoot when you introduce your computers to each other.

I'm so glad I have lived to see this day.

Balonie....tucking them to bed.

I thought I had lost my party ways

2011-03-06T18:19:00.000-08:00

But yesterday we went to my nieces engagement party ... that was fun. I, of course was very skeptical because I don't believe in leaving the house unless it's on fire or we need groceries. I spent the afternoon trying to be sick. I needed an excuse to NOT attend. It was way over on the other side of town....will I know anyone there? ... (umm it's my family shithead) and the new extended family... I was seriously troubled by this. UNTIL her sister emailed me and asked for ride because she had to work until 6:00 PM. She only works a few blocks from our house. I said ...hell yes!! It just took that little motivation to get me grounded.

You know, I finally took a good look at myself. I have sat here for eleven months whining about all the things I previously said I wanted to do once I was retired .. and I have done none of them. Yes I dabbled in some crap...but couldn't concentrate.

Last night was so great. Talking with real people..seeing new things. Making an ass of myself...which everyone seems to enjoy....the old Joan might just be back. I sort of missed her.

For some reason

2011-03-04T19:02:00.000-08:00

I am only getting one post at a time show up...and then older posts shows up to click on....

I don't like that. I went into settings to change it but can't find the trick ... it must be this newer template that screwed it up.

It's Friday night...just waiting for the other half of my life to appear. He should be here soon .. after all it's Pizza Night and he wouldn't miss that for the world.

I'm going to order the IPad tomorrow!!!!!!!! I just peed a little bit in my granny pants. Speaking about Granny stuff...I bought a grocery cart thing a ma doo today. Something which I should have done years ago to haul groceries up the outside steps plus the inside steps to the kitchen. It doesn't look like an old lady shopping cart. It looks like a back pack for the elderly..haaaaaa except it has wheels on it and you don't have to wear it. I put two 12 packs of cola and groceries in it today and brought it up my outside steps and into the foyer...and then drove it up the next 6 stairs to the kitchen. Easy peesie. Now... I think of this shit. In our new house we will still have to take groceries in from the garage, but it will be like two steps...but still this little baby will be mine forever.

This is a bad picture it looks like a penguin. But the top part flips over and there is a huge amount of space to put the stuff.

this is it's backside..mit lots of zippered pockets to put your drugs in while you shop. I especially love the big honking wheels. I might even put my laundry in it to take downstairs. Who knew somebody in ...according to the tag designed it in Germany and had it made in China???

I don't normally name stuff I own ... but I am thinking something skunky. Let's call he/she Flower.

My things own me

2011-03-03T21:03:00.000-08:00

I am at a loss of words to explain the weather, nor do I want to dwell on it at any length. But ... THERE IT IS... I'm getting a tad pissed off. It was cold last year too...but this year is different. We will be moving 4 miles further south this year so next year I should be basking in the sun by this time.....heh.

I was thinking about all the stuff we have that will have to be moved. Which is just STUFF, Then I read a favorite blog .....she, her husband and children spend their lives sailing around the world. They work and travel. There last stop was New Zealand to aquire more money to sail. She talks of travelling light because of their lifestyle, but I think it could be more than that. This is what she says about your stuff.

Toast Floats

Your things own you.

It is a mistake to believe the common myth that you buy things and then you own them. In reality, you work very hard at some task and then convert that effort into stuff which then consumes your very reason for being. You pile and store and stash. You organize and inventory and display. It lives in your basement and under the bed. It sits in the driveway or hangs on the wall. And every bit of that stuff has ties to your soul, your reason and your sanity. It requires effort to keep it and money to sustain it. It needs a place to live, and it builds friends and a following and a life of its own. Your things are alive in your life, influencing your behavior and decisions in ways that even your family frequently fails to achieve.

Now that my friends is someone who get's it and has the words to say it.

That's better

2011-03-02T12:21:00.000-08:00

I just gave the template a pop of colour ... it's drab enough outside we don't need it on here.

I got a hundred bucks burning a hole in my pocket.

I'm going out in this terrible weather to put out the fire.

I should have known better

2011-03-01T19:48:00.000-08:00

It has been warm for two days...by our standards! That means the dog doesn't have pee icicles hanging from her bum when she comes in from the cold. That was short lived. Back in the deep freeze.

March is just around the corner. This usually means we are going to get the crap beat up out us by that one last Colorado Low. It's always in the back of your mind .... will she hit or miss us.

I remember the worst storm ever in March 4th.1966. I lived in a small apartment here in Winnipeg with two other girls, one being Gord's sister Tessa. Tessa was to be married that Friday in our hometown about 75 miles away. Gord went home on Thursday to help out with the arrangements and I was supposed to follow on Friday after work with his brother and girlfriend.

I can't remember where the other roommate went to that weekend but she wasn't there.

On Friday morning when I got up it was storming. I made it to the bus stop. The bus almost made it into the city center where I worked but it got stuck. The driver told us to get out and try to get another bus going back home. It was storming so bad you could hardly see a foot in front of you in a open area. I crossed the street with all the others. We stood and waited. We waited...and waited until we were almost frozen. Finally we saw a bus in the distance and it picked us up and started to drive us back south to our area of town.

Within two blocks from my apartment he got stuck and were asked to get off.. I assume he was going to call for help but we weren't allowed to stay on the bus for warmth. Just get off! Lucky for me I was only two blocks from my apartment. I remember trudging through huge snowbanks and two blocks seemed like forever.

When I finally got to my street I realized I was stranded and didn't have any food in the house in case this was going to last any longer. We lived pretty frugal in those days. There was our favorite little mom and pop shop on corner that was still open when I got there. I still remember I bought a 6 pack of coke, a pack of smokes, some bread and balonie..haaa...how befitting. However, it was Friday and payday and I didn't have any money in my pocket. I asked to write a cheque and it was agreed to because they knew who I was. And then I trudged back to the apartment half a block away.

I was socked in.

We didn't have a TV. But we did have a radio so I could get updates on the weather. We lived in a basement apartment suite. The windows were covered with snow I couldn't even look outside. Every now and again I would go to the main level to look out to see what was happening. The snow banks only got higher.

But we did have a phone. So I could keep in contact with my family and Gord and his family. But is was used sparingly because it was "long distance." LONG DISTANCE .. was a dirty word in those days. You only called long distance if someone had died.

I spent Friday in seclusion listening to the radio, watching the snow from the door of the apartment block, drinking coke, smoking the odd cigarette and eating balonie sandwiches. Man it was lonely. The radio reports told me we might be socked in for a few more days.

Everyone that couldn't get a bus home or a ride was stranded downtown in the place that they worked or in large department stores which took them in. Eatons and The Bay...put a lot of people up in there furniture departments where they had beds and mattresses.

Saturday: I spent most of the day listening to the radio, reading books I had already read and was getting a little antsy about the wedding. Would it still happen? Long Distance ..... I was left out of the loop. Gord's brother Ron was still in the city as well with his girlfriend. He lived about three blocks from me and his girlfriend had left her job just in time to get to his apartment on Friday.

Around 5:00 pm Gord's bro and his girlfriend showed up and knocked on my half covered up, snow laden apartment window. I was never happier to see anyone in my life. They said the plows were out and the wedding was going to happen on Sunday.

We left for the country that morning.

My poor mother in law. She had all the food for the wedding supper on Friday prepared and it had to be redone. It wasn't a huge wedding .. maybe 40 people...and she had to try to save it. . She was able to save a lot of it but I felt so bad for her. She wasn't well at the time and she threw her heart into making a beautiful supper. She was able to save some stuff...but not the potato salad. We have a running joke about how mad mom was that her famous potato salad was ruined by the storm and had to be redone. Peeling potatoes was not her favourite pastime.

I remember going home that Sunday for the wedding and you could hardly see the ditches on the side of the highway because the snow was so high. If I remember correctly it was only one lane...and you had to be careful.

They did finally get married, the food was good and they made their baby to be Christopher legal. Trust me this was not a happy event for all the parents...as they were devoted Mennonites and Lutherans ....but that is a story for another day. After all this was 1966.

After the wedding I went home to my parents house to give them shit for not taking my "collect calls." Like I said they were getting a little tired of me calling collect...heh. But yeah they were glad to see me. And I was so glad to see them. I wanted my mommy. suck.

I tried to find pictures on the net of the storm. But no luck.

Hope we don't see another one like that. It was kind of fun looking back.

Balonie....backing up the truck..

I think we might be moving on

2011-02-27T18:20:00.000-08:00

The weather is warming up and just maybe the builders might get out of their man caves. Apparently the hugest glitch was our shower stall. It has to come into the house before anything else is done. They installed the wrong one and another had to be ordered. Fuck. It is here now. Now let's see if things will progress in a ordially fashion.

We are having second thoughts about the windows in front of the house and will be meeting with the window guy tomorrow. Have no fear...we won't be changing anything up until we know the change order price. I think we are over guessing stuff because it has taken so long.

If you want to follow along with building our dream home it's over here House.

I just want to live there ......NOW....but not just yet. Good things come to those that wait they say..... Yeah.

Balonie: Making faces at them. Gord found a button on the back of our Exlorer today we never knew was there. It opens the window without opening the entire back door. My ass fit there perfectly. I mooned.

Just so you know

2011-02-25T11:24:00.000-08:00

I transferred the cartoon from She said .. He said over here and am going to delete the blog. 3 times now I have written a blog in the wrong blog spot. I was so frustrated the last time when I had to do it all over in the correct blog. I tried to copy and paste but it didn't work. So in order to protect myself from myself I will have keep it simple.

I have our family newsletter blog as well. Twice I posted in there...yeah I know it was embarrassing heh. Those would have been the times I dropped the F bomb. Jeez.........

Now if you never see me again I have deleted the wrong blog.

Now go about your business.

I did a lot of photo shopping

2011-02-24T20:53:00.000-08:00

Like I said before I don't like these windows in the front they are too small.

I photo shopped the whole thing and came up with a plan we are taking back to the window people. Now we have a better perspective of how things might look like. Take note I didn't photo shop all the snow off the roof.. and the roof didn't have shingles on it yet at that time. There still isn't any stucco or real brick on the front. It's still a work in process.

Can you see the difference? All I did was bring all the windows up because one of them is a bathroom window, and the sink would not let us go down further. Plus I changed out the windows with panes in them.

I wish I could get a job playing around with pictures. I need to work on perspective a bit ... but I just do it by eyeballing it as you can see.

I'm sure the builder is going to roll his eyes and say....not you again!!! Heh

Balonie... getting back to her normal ... whatever her normal was.

Uh ohhhhh

2011-02-22T18:28:00.000-08:00

I downloaded Picasa yesterday and could not believe all the pictures in my computer. And thumbnails are large enough to see. I am still on windows XP and when I go to get a picture I have to put my slimy little nose up to the screen to see the details.

I have been working on house plans all day. We have made an error. An error that will be expensive to correct. But I will give up something else to correct it.

Let me tell you the story. When we went window shopping I did not perceive how small the front window of the house were. With the bedrooms and bathrooms facing the street we thought they should be small...well hell they were facing the street... right? nofuckingway. They are ugly. They look like port holes in a boat yet square. The front of the house looks wrong. I couldn't put my finger on it after they were installed...but now I got it. They gotta go and be built larger. Because some of them are bathroom windows you can't go down because the sinks etc. But I am hoping on going higher and wider.

yikes....

We are only in phase 1.

So today I took out my old "Picture It" software that I used to use for scrap booking and manipulated the picture of the house to look like I wanted it to look like. I'm still working on it. It should look much better.

Give me another day...for the before and after the rethink.

Saying goodbye a little at a time.

2011-02-21T18:33:00.000-08:00

If you are wondering...

2011-02-18T18:48:00.000-08:00

I am making a huge post about selling our house with pictures of each room as I get them cleaned up for resale.....and sometimes it makes me sad. I will just put it on the back burner until I get it all done and get back to the day to day stuff.

Have a good weekend.

Busy day

2011-02-15T18:15:00.000-08:00

Our window sills are in pretty bad shape on the inside of the house. Last year the painter sanded them before painting them, but they still looked old .. the windows are original to the house so I guess that is normal.

Today I got the bright idea to put some shears in between the existing curtains. ( so I could confuse the buyer and they would not see what I was up to). I have the kind of curtains that sit on a rod with holes punched in them...type of thing. It looks pretty cool now. Almost cozy. I have been resisting shears because I don't want to be labelled as old just yet...but by damn I love them. It's like fairyland in here. And now that all the window sills have been photo shopped with my shears...we should sell this house at a premium price. Unless they open them up...duh..

Now I need help with the carpets. They have stretched over the years...or the underlay has disintegrated. I have little bubbles all over the place in my high traffic areas. Any idea's. I want to get them cleaned but am concerned that will make the problem worse. I will have to call a carpet cleaning company.

I never looked at my house through other peoples eyes before and now the little things are becoming very obvious. Or maybe I just watch too much HGTV. I know I have said that before.

I redid the bedroom today. It looks like a picture on TV. But by the time we actually get to move it will look like a dog's breakfast. I'm getting really tired of this.

Hopefully they will schedule the trades this week. But I just heard it was supposed to get down to record low temps.

The most frustrating part is ...when can we sell the house and know what our move in date is at with the new one?

Meanwhile I will be glossing over the house inadequacies ... mit some paint ..shears... a little tears..

I was rather surprised to see all the wood in my background today

2011-02-13T22:01:00.000-08:00

I must have been chopping wood in my sleep. That is what I get for playing around.

I baked bread today....hey hear me out ... I baked bread today! No shit. I haven't tasted it yet, but it sure looks good. I'm waiting for Gord to get home to taste it.

........much later

We had the bread and it was really good. I wasn't even a door stopper...it was nice and light and good good tasting it only took a short while to make. I have been so ticked off at the bread I have been buying at the stores lately. And, yes I agree we should be using whole grains etc. but give me a break this is my first loaf..or loaves. I will try to incorporate all that stuff in there once I get a handle on the bread making.

I will be making some toast tomorrow AM. yummers...with strawberry jam.

I didn't do much this weekend. I held up a Dollarama...only because they wouldn't take my credit card. Did you know they only take cash or a debit card? Bastards.

This is the pic I took in my get away car as I was speeding off the parking lot. I didn't have a gun, all I said to the cashier was if my credit card isn't good enough for you guys... I'm taking my business elsewhere...so I did. Then I ran.

So by this time you can see the weekend was pretty much a bust. Other than making bread.

I went to the new house and nothing is happening there either. I took pictures but they look like the pictures I took the last time. I guess it's been so cold nobody wants to work. Or cannot because of the cold. I get that. But finally the temps have gone up so I could at least walk around inside without freezing my bum off. I walked around trying to visualize where my furniture would be. Hard to do when all there is ... is frames.

I am watching the Grammies as I am typing this. All I have to say is if they would put more effort into SINGING a song rather than trying to put on a light show with stupid crap in it...it would be worth watching. And the yelling! I have no words..it is so stupid. And to Lady Ga Ga....why do you dress in body armour? Like somebody would really want to get in.... and Mick Jagger....nice workout.

I guess I have become my parents...when they said Elvis had ants in his pants.

Now I have seen it all... Bob Dylan singing and doing a Newfie Jig. Has the world gone to hell in a hand basket? Janis Joplin must be turning over in her grave.

I morn the music of the 70's and the artists. I try to keep up with whats happening now ... and there are some really good musicians, but most don't get recognized.

Now they are doing "Country"...I'm not a real country fan...but at least they sing and have real lyrics and I'm a sucker for a "hurting song."

Have to hit the hay....been a long day of bread making, stoking the fires, milking the cows, and sewing quilts.

I'm on my third piece of bread a butter. I'm rolling to bed.

Hey

2011-02-11T18:13:00.000-08:00

The weather is changing and we might be a melting pot tomorrow. I can't wait.

I spent a lot of time shopping today. I had some smelly people behind me in line at the check out. They smelled like mothballs.

I tried not to smell them but they kept on smelling. I turned my head to the right and then to the left until I got dizzy and they just kept on making me smell them. It was a long line up. By the time I was in front I felt like I was going to faint. It smelled like the stuff my dad used to put in our outhouse in the the summer to kill the smell ...Creosote I think it was called.

I remember my dad used to spray DDT in the outhouse. Now it's a no no. Hasn't killed me so far. It was lovely going into the outhouse after he sprayed....no more spiders... and little creatures. You could just sit for awhile and enjoy last years Sears catalogue before you crunched a few pages up to wipe your ass.

I started a new blog

2011-02-09T18:09:00.000-08:00

Swimming with the fishes

Of course I will keep up this blog.

I thought I might document some of our most ridiculous conversations. And let me tell you we have lots of them.

Sometimes he is right and sometimes I am right...but mostly we are assholes trying find our own special way to communicate.

Join me there everyday.

Anyone got a light?

2011-02-07T18:33:00.000-08:00

I am making spaghetti tonight.

It's not going well.

I bought a jar of sauce. I never do that, I always make my own. This sauce promised that it was made of only the finest ingredients. It was a mushroom/tomato sauce. It had 4 different kinds of mushrooms in it, tomatoes from the finest vines ever invented, plus wine from the finest wineries ever invented. Before I forget it had olive oil from the finest olive oil factory ever invented. From the smell of it ... and the teeny taste I took of it so far I would give it 1 out of 10.

Unless you like the taste of the mould growing behind your bathroom walls. Or if you would cut a piece of the silicone off your tub and pop that into your mouth like fungus candy.

The olive oil they used tasted much like WD40. Are you asking if I tasted WD40?...hell yes! Not really I just smell it a lot because we are old and everything needs a grease job around here.

Let's just call it their version of "earthy."

What I call earthy is the smell of someone smoking a joint. Which reminds me...Cheech and Chong are coming to Winnipeg soon. I will make sure to get tickets. I have to outlive them. But after we eat the fungus spaghetti... I am not so sure. I threw some ketchup in it. Let's see if we can peel away some of that earthy flavour.

I hurt my back today at Safeway. I am too lazy to get a cart and always take the basket at the door. And of course I put a shit load of groceries in it. By the time I hit the checkout I had put it down and I shuffle it along the dirty floor with my feet. I felt the twinge in my hip a few times, but I just carried on. Because I AM INVINCIBLE. I am the old woman who used to "roar." Trust me, I can still roar....but now it's becoming more of a meow. I roar in my head. I don't want anyone to put me away.

They might find out about balonie. Then I will be goner.

My attention span needs an overhaul

2011-02-05T11:51:00.000-08:00

Put a load of laundry in the dryer on Tuesday.

Forgot about it.

Wednesday I turned on the dryer to get all the wrinkles out.

Forgot about it.

Thursday, I turned the dryer on again to get the wrinkles out.

Forgot about it.

Friday, I forgot I even had anything in the dryer.

Saturday, I'm just leaving to go downstairs and turn on the dryer.

Sunday ???

On my laptop

2011-02-01T18:07:00.000-08:00

My template looked terrific. It was blue. On my desktop it looks purple and ugly. Oh my, I guess I will have to spend another winter's day fixing that.

My truck must be in menopause ... because it worked fine today. She must have a few loose screws just like her mama. Nothing is more disconcerting when your truck keeps on trucking after you turn it off.

Nothing new in the "New House" to tell. It's too cold to do anything in there. It's almost impossible to get to it after the snowfall last weekend. It's all getting a little overwhelming. I feel like we are in limbo. I have almost lost all my enthusiasm. But I have to remember we are in the dead of winter.... and that ain't pretty in these parts.

balonie....makin do.

Something funny happened at Safeway

2011-01-31T18:55:00.000-08:00

I didn't foresee anything happening because my life has been so un-happening. I parked the truck with the big freaking plow in front of it in a handicapped spot. I consider myself handicapped with that big mother effer sticking out of the front of it. So there!

I turned off the ignition and the truck kept on running! Nothing much surprises me anymore ...unless you count the day Elvis died. This was bigger. HOW IN THE HELL DOES YOUR TRUCK KEEP ON RUNNING WHEN YOU TURN OFF THE IGNITION? Sorry for the yelling. I sat in the truck for a few minutes trying to figure it out. I could not figure it out. I have a remote starter for it, but it will kick out if I apply the brakes. Nothing helped....she just kept on running. So I looked around the truck and tried to figure out what to do. Do I lock the doors and just let it keep running while I am in the store?...

Then like the sleuth that I am...I got out of the truck and checked the tires. I pounded on the hood....while yelling TURN THIS FUCKING TRUCK OFF! Truck did not hear me. Apparently it does not have ears. Bastard. So I went into Safeway...really fast because I thought it might catch fire or something, and when I came out it had stopped. That SOB...was getting on my last nerve.

You don't have any idea how helpless you feel when your truck (car) doesn't stop running. I wanted to take a brick and kill it. STOP. Yes I could have lifted the hood and disconnected the battery and killed myself with jolt of electricity that would have made my under pants wrinkle. I however chose to go into Safeway and let nature take it's course. And it shut off. That is why I never tell the people on Face Book to quit putting the God messages on my site. I need all the help I can get.

Friday's dump

2011-01-31T11:55:00.000-08:00

The plows came in on Saturday and piled it all on the sides of the street. Some of the piles are at least 10 feet high.

Needless to say me and my brown hair (or is it my brown hair and I) have been staying close to home. I haven't done anything constructive with my time. My desk is piled high with paperwork, wool, candies, candles, pens, markers, rulers, and post it notes sitting here waiting for me to take some action.

I have become so easily distracted. I have a least 5 different web pages minimized, plus face book, blogger and twitter at one given moment. I bet I have asked google at least 100 inane questions in one day. "How do I"... do this or that. Someone take pity on me before I get another bright idea that ends up in the toilet.

However, I did bake a banana loaf. This time I did not forget the oil. The last one I baked would have not even been worthy of a homeless shelter. Instead of eating it they would have stuffed in their jackets and tried to keep warm with it. Tsk ... what a loser I have become.

I'm starting to twitch and my minimized pages are calling me .... balonieeeeeee come waste some of your time with us.

I am going to the store today so perhaps I will have some amazing adventures to tell you about when I get back. I hope I don't see that guy who hogs the roadway in front of the store again ... because I have the "snow blade" on the truck this time. If he is there I will spank him hard!

I dyed my hair today

2011-01-27T18:48:00.000-08:00

A nice soft brown colour. I really love it. I was so sick of the grey and blond crap. Most times when I go darker it gets red and I look like an old hooker in red hair. I have been blond forever, my natural colour was always brownish but as time went on it turned grey so...time for a change. I took some really dumb pictures and put them on flip book. Let's see if blogger will will make them flip. I have a funny chin. It looks like a little piece of fat hanging down from my lips. I checked out all my mom, dad and my brothers pictures any nobody has this chin. I am sure I was adopted. I'm not sure what you will have to do with this thing to make it work....but get creative.

Have you ever tried to take a picture of yourself in the bathroom mirror? It's a nightmare. You should see the stuff I didn't put on flipbook it looks like I had just got out of prison. I have a prison face.

The dog keeps looking at my head today. Does she realize my head looks darker or does she think I have just escaped from a wino rehab facility? Not sure.

I did this after I had my picture taken for my drivers licence yesterday. OMG. They make you take off your glasses and you can't smile. You just sit there like a turkey getting ready for plucking. You know you look like a 65 year old piece of shit .... but could you a least make my jowls go away if I smiled......NO. Your jowls will go into history.

What I should have done when I went in for the photo opp is worn a wig and weird glasses. If I ever get stopped by the cops or asked for photo ID I would show them the card ... oops no that doesn't seem like such a good idea because my jowls will still be showing. I think I will make jowls next year for Thanksgiving dinner. Someone get them off my face! Jello Jowls. Gravity is my enemy.

Ahhh, so it is with getting older. I dyed my hair and now I am not looking at my jowls so much. I have redirected my energy to my hair. That is something I can control. I really like control. But that asshat in the Safeway parking lot today almost made me loose it. What is it with you people who want to sit in front of the store with engine running while waiting for your spouse...you piss me off. I can hardly get around you..you dumb piece of shit....Get a parking spot just like everyone else. And if you see an elderly lady getting out her Explorer with shiny brown hair and a stick.....I suggest you move on. Because she just is going to loose it.

Balonie....on a good day!

I have been screwing around with my template again

2011-01-24T21:56:00.000-08:00

I can't leave well enough alone.

I have to get out of the house and do something constructive. I'm letting the weather get me down. I need to kick it's ass. Shovelling snow is not an option.

Actually I have been doing a lot of catch up work with our business and the bookwork that I never had time to do before. I have everything organized. Once I get caught up from last year ... this year should be a cake walk. It feels good to know where everything is and I can put my finger on anything that is needed. Before I knew where everything was "sort of" .... after coming home from work, making supper then trying to sort out paper work, writing cheques, making bank deposits, taking out the garbage, mowing the lawn and trying to annoy my neighbours was time consuming. So this is a bonus. Now I can do all the above at my convenience and much faster than I did it before.

THE DOG is giving me the puppy eyes. Time to go to bed. Well she isn't the boss of me so I will go to bed when I damn well want to.

She did it again...okay I guess she is.

Let's get together again when I don't have my boss looking over my shoulder...or my feet in her case.

Balonie .... my fate has been decided.

That bad ole Red River

2011-01-21T18:34:00.000-08:00

I have been freaking out lately with the flood predictions for this coming spring. It's pretty grim. We had the biggest flood in 1997 and our flood way just barely kept it in check in the city. All the farms from the North Dakota border to Winnipeg were under siege. All our neighbours to the South in Grand Forks USA got flooded big time. It was a disaster. They are saying that might happen again this year.

This is the year we are building our dream home barely a mile from the river. Since then they have made it mandatory to build up your properties to the 97 flood levels ... and ours is...but...as it was in 97 they did not get flooded on the river side...but could not get access to their homes because it was to dangerous. Ours would be in that area.

I remember that time well, because my BIL lived with us for almost 3 weeks ... and he only lives about half a mile from our new house. The Army was patrolling the whole area and wouldn't let him in his house. He never had to sandbag either because his property was well above the limit....but the river ..she is the devil... even though it didn't come up to his property level it could come back to it from a lower lying area and flood him.

I will never forget that time. We live about three miles from the river and I never thought about it at that time until we got a newletter in the mail saying we would have to be prepared. Because we have two rivers surrounding our city and now the other "little" river was now going to be a problem. I clenched my butt alot that month. What I remember was that everything was going to back up. Then they started to build dikes all over the farm lands to the West. Every day we had updates on the news on how that was going. I remember they had old school buses and junk all around the dikes. I don't know why. Or I can't remember. A buffer? I am not sure.

I'm just hoping that won't happen to us.

THAT my friends would be a "bummer." of all bums.

All is well.. they should have called it not bullshit accounting.

2011-01-20T19:40:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the advise...but I finally found a program that suits my needs. No bells, no whistles, just enter in your sales and your expenses. You can categorize them and it pulls out the taxes with having to enter them. All you have to do is tell it which one you need. Some of our taxes apply to somethings and not to others... Perfect. I can pull it all up and see where I am at anytime. Great Profit and Loss statements...etc. Absolutely great for a home type business.

I am so glad I have finally had time to find what I need. Normally at this time of the year I would be pulling out my hair (while working full time) trying to catch up in a year's worth of bookwork. This will be very help full. I will try to do it on a monthly basis now that I am retired. Let's hear a OH YEAH... but I will try, because it is so easy and interesting. Did I tell you how much I hate Quicken? (not Quick Books) I just know that it is too sophisticated for out little business . I call our business little but this has been our bread winner all our lives.

Update: Yesterday Gord was putting caulking around our bathtub. I knew it wasn't going to come to a good conclusion...and it.did.not. It looks like a guy was playing with silly putty. I told him 100 times to only smooth it out "one way"....he insisted on going back and forth on it with his finger until it almost dried up. Then when that didn't look good he put more caulking on it. I suggested using water to smooth it out...he tried but by that time it was too late....we have a large mound of silicone on our tub. You could could use it as a waterslide. WTF. So when he got home tonight and saw his handy work he suggested that I might need to fix it ...(because I'm so smart) smirk on his face ...ummm well I was smart yesterday buster...and you are stupid today..you might want to go for a time out. The couch is only 10 feet away.

Balonie....don't be fucking around with me.

Tax day is coming ...dirty word

2011-01-19T18:20:00.000-08:00

I've been searching for new software for a small business for two days. I hate Quicken....don't even get me started. I just need something very very straight forward. Yes, I know Quicken can be straight forward but it annoys the crap out of me. I need a program...or spreadsheet if you will.. that I can just enter my invoices and categorize them by Material, Labour and Rent, plus break out the taxes without me entering them in. Same with expenses. We have such a small business and I don't need all the bells and whistles. Last year I got mad and just made a spread sheet and did it on there, but I didn't know how to make a formula on Excel to break out the taxes without entering them. I tried a few, but they were a little iffy. I still need a little more smarts with formula's.

I know this is boring.

So go to bed. I just needed to write this after downloading so many programs today that were useless. I liked one, but it just sucked the resources out of my computer.

Google needs to get bigger. I will go on Microsoft tomorrow and try to figure out a spreadsheet that fits our needs in Excel.

Balonie....no crockpotting going on here tonight...chicken fried steak..seasoned rice and creamed corn.

PS...Gord's in the bathroom trying to fix a leak in the tub surround with the caulking gun. Nothing good can come of this.....mark my words.

Coldest day of the year and I smell meatballs in the crockpot

2011-01-18T18:25:00.000-08:00

And if I wasn't such an idiot I would know how to use a crock pot. Perhaps that is why my crock pot chicken didn't turn out that great the other day. Did you know that the markings on the front 0 - l - ll meant .. off - low - high? Not me. Why the hell don't they just say Off - Low and High? I was so crazy... I was comparing it to the stove... the burners go from high to low...yet the bake oven goes for low to high. So I didn't know which one to pick. Obviously I needed a clearer picture. Those poor meatballs have been sitting in there for 5 hours not knowing which way to go. Then I got on face book for some help and finally got my answer from some friends. I got them on low right now... I hope. By the time we eat them they will taste like a rubber band roll you save when the mailman delivers your mail... with some mushrooms clinging on them.

Crock pots always scare me. I'm going to make an effort to be friends with them.

Trying to pass the time

2011-01-16T21:38:00.000-08:00

I made a scarf with puffy wool. Not without getting really pissed off. You have no idea how many times I pulled it apart and started again. Try to ignore me...I'm in a mood. It's snowing for the trillionest time.

And just when I was almost done I found an easier way to do it. The wool is so thick and wants to catch on to your wool finger holder. So I cut off my little finger so it wouldn't interfere with the process. It was well worth it.

This is what is really pissing me off. Day after day after day. I feel like kicking the mail man.

And then I saw my mom's Christmas Cactus blooming ... and my cold heart melted.

Then I got the big idea to make crock pot chicken. Chicken should be baked...never crock potted. It tastes like boiled ass.

Then I sent my dog to jail. Just because I could.

So that is my Sunday wrap up. Stay warm.

The post I did on Friday and forgot to hit publish

2011-01-16T11:10:00.000-08:00

It's nice and toasty in the house today. I have not stepped out of it because of all the large snowflakes that have almost buried my truck. No need to go anywhere I have food, drink and shelter. Yeah... well I call bullshit on myself because when I was working this would just be another snowy day. Put the truck in 4 wheel drive and get on with it. Now I'm a little fraidy cat....ooooohhhh look at the snoowwwww... I can't handle the snowwwwwwwww.. Nah really I was just stinking lazy today and didn't give a rat's ass.

I don't know about you guys but I love me a sitcom that is funny.. The Office is my fav. . I missed most of it while I was working. Now I have been following the re-runs on our cable religiously I think I am closer to getting up to date. . Today Pam and Jim got married in Niagara Falls. My heart melted just a little bit. Because I have been waiting for this for so long. I especially liked the part when Dwight kicked the bridesmaid face in the dance coming down the isle at their wedding. And the parts where Pam and Jim were on the boat in Niagara Falls......it was so nice. Even this defensive old girl liked it...without any slapstick.

I have been accused of loving dark humour .... and I guess I do. Sometimes .. The Office does that in it's way. I love anything ridiculous...but it better be well written and get to that funny bone I have lodged in my brain.

My brother and I grew up listening to George Carlin, Bill Cosby and the likes. Thow in a little of Cheech and Chong and we laughed our asses off.

Sometimes I try to watch a regular sitcom.....and wonder why did they put so much effort to look and sound stupid.

These shows were before there time.

All in the Family addressed ....real family issues you would never have done in those days .. plus prejudice. They addressed black issues, woman's rights, and many more. I loved that show...and used that information while I was still a grasshopper.

Mash addressed.. the wars we have never seen in our life time. And doing it with humour. Taking what was a serious situation and still giving us a humorous yet human side to it.

Golden Girls addressed.. Aging. And how we could expect to live with it ...with humour.

As my dad used to say: "see you in the funny papers."

Now the fun begins...

2011-01-12T18:19:00.000-08:00

It seems like some of the tradesmen are back at work after the holiday. Today our ensuite shower was delivered to site. It was supposed to be a triangular one, but this one was round and it had a seat in it. Hey, the seat was cute and probably functional FOR A MIDGET. Gord said he could hardly turn around in it. FFsake. So after a flurry or emails we are trying to get that resolved ...let's just see. I know this is only the beginning and we will have a lot of screw ups all along the way.

It's slow going in the dead of winter.

Gord is trying to do all the little fix ups here before we move. Dishwasher, stove... leaky taps... all sorts of shit.

Went to Wal Mart today to return two kitchen mats I bought last week. One for the patio door and one for the sink area. When I got them home I realized they didn't have rubber backing on them....both the dog a me were doing a dance on them for awhile. When I brought them back to customer service... she asked me the reason for return... I said they didn't have any rubber backing and I was nursing a mild concusion because of that. I guess sometimes people don't get me ...she said she understood and went on in great detail to tell me about the kitchen mats she has. Her kitchen mats made grooves on her floor and she did not like them. I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. Did she buy mats that have steel tongs underneath them?... I don't know. Then like the stupid ass I am I keep the conversation going and told her I had tried to put non slip sheets underneath mine. She had no idea what I was talking about and continued talking about the ridges on her floor from the mat's she bought. It was like we were both on different planets. OY. Then after that I took a Tylenol and tried to get the computer voice of the 'Under 10 items'.. voice that booms out from the express line ....GO TO NUMBER ONE...GO TO NUMBER TWO.. GO TO NUMBER THREE!!!!!!!! Out of my head. Shut the hell up.

As I was standing in line in the return section this is all I could hear..........and I had three little kids in front of me repeating it. They were pretending they were directing traffic. Cute yes...annoying yes. They were actually quite engaging. But as they were bouncing around me trying to get in the pretend express line when they heard the message on the loud speaker ... they kept ramming into me on the railing .Then I had a change of heart. It was just a simple matter of putting my foot down..under theirs. One down, two down, three down....then my work there was done.

The mom appeared no wiser....kids fall don't they?

Balonie ..making a resolution for 2011...be kinder and gentler.

Comments

2011-01-10T22:14:00.000-08:00

I replied to all your comments tonight... they were very thoughtful...thank you so much. But blogger thought I was grateful enough to post them 20 times. WTF! Geez why can't I do anything right the first time....or blogger...

I wish I could peel my skin off

2011-01-09T18:44:00.000-08:00

I need some rejuvenation. It's a typical mid winter reaction I know. I keep on wanting to see the future and know it will be there when I get there. The house, health, finances...you name it. It weighs heavily on me.

I didn't really need the door locks on my truck to seize up again at the grocery store when it was 40 below. (It usually isn't 40 below) but I use that as a guideline here in Canada. At least this time I didn't have to enter it from the rear overhead door and slide around like a big fat whale out of water to get to the front of the truck. This time I only had to get into the passenger seat and try to slide over the stick shift into the drivers seat. Well that's the last you will see of my vagina.

She broke.

Like so many other parts of this 65 year old body I will have to kiss her goodbye...if I could reach her.

I pissed my brother in law off yesterday when he was over. Yeah that was fun. We got into an argument about ... of all things... the meaning of LOL. This is a no brainer to me, I have been online for a million years...I invented it....seriously..heh... He said it meant Lot's of Love....are you kidding me? Then he went into great lengths on his fancy I Phone to challenge me. He googled it...and I guess somewhere in the "olden days" someone said LOL was used to mean "Lots of Love." That would be akin to when I was a kid and wrote letters to my cousins in the big city... and followed up with ...

"Yours till I.D.K.

Fudge.......

Balonie Land is barren...nobody understands me.

I'm worried about my Penny too. She has a Lipoma on her shoulder. She has had it for for about 3 years but this year it has grown a lot. It's just a bag of fat. And it not dangerous, but yet it is very unattractive. She doesn't even know it's there. But I do. Some vet's will try to do liposuction...others will do surgery...most say leave it alone because even after a procedure it will come back. So, I checked out a lot of web sites today and from the information I got I will be changing her diet because just after the fall I changed some of her dog food....and it really started to get big. No more dog food bought from the dog food store.... I will make it myself. Let's see if it doesn't get any bigger.

Cooking for three now!

I have a meat loaf beckoning me. Slathered in Golden Mushroom soup, wth mashed potatoes along with carrots and peas. Perfect for a long winters nap.

Oh yeah...I forgot to tell you guys... I made Cherry Jello the other day... First time ever that I can remember. I put bananas and fruit cocktail in it as my ancestors did. It's still fun to touch. Still tastes a little like an eraser with kool aid seasoning. Cool Whip took the edge off of it.

Balonie bids you a happy day.....so be careful.

My family dinner

2011-01-03T18:44:00.000-08:00

We had huge Pot Roast, mashed potatoes, mushroom meatballs, creamed corn, mixed veggies, lots of gravy, flaky butter rolls mit lots of butta and cheese cake for dessert. I know it doesn't sound like a lot for a big family dinner, but I need to keep it simple or I implode when there is too many dishes going on. Lots of meat, carbs, and veggies....and it's all good. We all decided that Jello should be added to next years menu. I miss Jello. Actually I hear Jello is making a come back.. Not only in Jello shots, but the way we had it in the olden days...with a can of fruit cocktail in it. Top it off with some whipping cream...and Bob's yer uncle. Jello is now the new cheesecake. Sometimes my mom used to put bananas in it ALONG with the fruit cocktail for special occasions. We were always amazed to see canned fruit suspended in a flavoured coloured gelatin. It was magic. I loved touching it. Simpler times..sigh.

My niece Lisa got engaged over the Christmas holidays....and everyone was so happy for her. She is your typical bride to be. She has been a bridesmaid for two of her friends and she knows the drill. Now it's all about photographers...invitations.... bridesmaids (5) so far ..cough.. churches, caterers.. Here in Winnipeg the popular thing to do is have a social before your wedding. Tickets are sold for a huge party for the bride and groom... and then there is merriment and dancing. A very loud band, cash bar and each table is filled with Kobasha (garlic sausage) rye bread, chips, pickles and cheese. The couple then gets to keep the proceeds from the social to help them in there new life together. It's a tradition in our culture. Then you go home a puke it all up.

I can't tell you how many times in my younger years that I thought that was fun. The band is sooooo loud you have to yell to get heard at your table....and by the time you get home your voice is gone. And if you are a as mouthy as I am....you won't talk for a week. I have not gone to one of these for years and years. Now I will have to. I will also have the behave. After all I am her Auntie Joannie Balonie...I'm the adult here. Let's see how that goes.

When the kids were here at Christmas I showed them our wedding pictures I had scanned a few years ago. Everyone had a really good laugh at our expense. Fashion was different in 1972 you morons.....What is wrong with a man in a burgandy velvet suit.? Let's not talk about the bow tie. Today....he would have been considered gay ....Then...not so much ...just a guy who likes velvet I think. I can't believe I agreed to that. I think Elvis had something to do with it.

So, I have a lot to teach that little grasshopper.....because she is thinking about doing purple for her bridesmaid dresses and the guys will have purple accents in there tuxedos. Nothing good can come of that. So....what comes around goes around .... in 40 years she and her husband will look like jerks just like we did then.

I like that.

.

Look way down on the right side bar

2011-01-02T13:54:00.000-08:00

There you will notice I have been in the business of blogging for 7 years....and yes, I used my fingers to count them. 2004 doesn't count because it was New Year's Eve 2004 when I started.

At first I typed 11 years but that seemed like a long time. So I took my fingers off the keyboard for yet another count. I started counting 2005-6-7-8-9-10-11, you can see what an easy mistake that was to make. Ridiculous but true.

I'm just killing some time here because I was going to go to the store. But I forgot it's 50 fricking below out there and the truck will need to warm up. Guess who washed the truck yesterday in this weather...Gord!! and all the doors were frozen shut. I managed to open the back overhead door and had to climb/crawl through the back to get to the front of the truck. I am not happy about that. I'm just glad I got it open because I HAVE to go to the store ... we are out of coke. Important huh? Yes.very. I must have one coke a day or my whole day is shot to hell. I don't care what you say. I can't even type anymore I need a coke. So goodbye.

Why I was never an English major.

2010-12-30T14:40:00.000-08:00

I have great admiration for "Fussy" a blog that is so well written and funny and when I see her words I wish the words could be typed out by me. Writing well is the best revenge is her motto. I have failed her since I found her blog years ago...but that hasn't stopped me from typing out stuff that has been written with abandonment and without any real sense of structure. Just off the top of my head stuff.   I have never bought one of her T shirts that say "writing well is the best revenge" because I don't want to lie. I write from my heart and hope for the best.

She doesn't seem as scary as all the other A list bloggers, she is pretty down to earth.

Tonight she wrote a blog  that was special to me. She wrote words that I have been looking for forever. Everyone is dying before I finished loving them.   I know how she feels, because I have a lot of unfinished business myself.

So thanks Eden. It makes me feel better just to know the words. I'm sure she never reads my blog, but if she ever does I hope she knows how much that sentence means to me.

OKAY....OFF TO MY NONSENSE:

I thought I would go through my blog for the past year and pick out a few sentences I wrote for each month. I was more than shocked at the numerous times I have used the word "Ass." Seriously, what gives? What is the obsession with hind quarters? I must reevaluate my blog writing skills because this is down right repetitive and somewhat shocking. I seem to have a genuine interest in the lower extremities.

January:

My surprise casserole tasted like ASS. Like a donkey's ass. It was edible, but KD and real food should never meet. I should have just made stew. Damit.

Dumb. But we never saw anything until after Christmas...when Gord once again jumped out of the bed and thought he pissed himself. Then we had a clue.... Clue and Clueless then came to a decision that there was a hole in their waterbed. Children of the sixties... scary. You never know when you are getting a flash back

On inspection day, Gord will open the door of the house, I will follow and kick him in the ass. On leaving the house Gord will follow me and kick me in the ass. Fair.

February:

That's all I got. Time to go and eat a chicken. Not squirrel ... can't catch that bastard.

What is your name: Joanie Balonie
What is your real name: I SAID Joanie Balonie!..okay it's Joanie Balonie full of macaroni...are you happy now meme? jeez.

March:

You could make a nice roast with the big guys rump.

Bill Gates, I got you in my sites. Don't you move sucker. Nah...s'not Billy's fault.... just a FATAL ERROR. and my Libra side says....okay be nice ...but my dark side still says shoot the bastard.

balonie....taking time to make your life a better place.

April:

So, what's up with me? Not to much...just waiting until the end of the month. I'm looking into taking some courses this summer. You know the old lady shit. When I retire, such as synchronized farting.

Just when you are trying to be funny, it comes back and bites you in the ass.

Every time I write that I feel like peeing.

May:

She was facing my ass.

I could have spit on her.

Balonie...is going to blow some smoke up a few asses around here. Now that's she's got a few minutes of time.

June:

I think retirement is making me a little ..err crazy. I am enjoying fooling wildlife. I think there is something wrong with that.

They gave me strained smiles.

Update: I am still painting Gord's shop. Downdate: He is pissing me off.

July:

Hopefully there will be fresh piss and shit for you to smell ... little one.

So, here we are at Monday again, and I can't figure out what new thing to do. I think might draw whiskers on my face with my eyebrow pencil. I'll let you know how that goes.

I was a dumb fuck. Seriously.

August:

I thank all the family who came over last night for Attitude Adjustment Hour....... and gave her the cheese when I told them not to give it to her. I have saved the shit and will put it in a zip lock bag ....and they will all see it again at Christmas. I will rename it..Joan's Tootsie Roll Delight. I might even add some nuts. It will in their Christmas stocking.

Oh look, I have two legs. If I put one foot in front of the other I could walk to the store.

I am sitting on the cusp. And it's making a dent in my ass.

September:

I need someone to blow some good vibes up my ass....or I will never make it up those stairs.

I fried my feet.

I slipped right out of her car. Like a floppy old fish

Why did I think they would be pretend doors? Because I'm stupid, that's why. It hurts when you try to walk through them.

October:

Sometimes I want to reach up to him and wring his stupid neck...and say...go left you asshole.....but I let nature take it course.   I'm cool with that.

I really wish Gord would get friends that had better taste.

....I know I'm such a dink.

November:

I find it really weird that people who are retired get up early.

But I have been screwing around with laundry day...even if it means ..ya gotta wear the old panties in the bottom of the pantie drawer that don't have any elastic left in them...yes I get wedgies...and sometimes they fall down in my sweat pants...but they are clean. I have to admit that sometimes I don't realize they have fallen down until I want to climb the stairs...and my legs seem to be a little shorter than I remembered.

....but I think you could tie this pizza to the boots of someone in the mafia...and sink him.

December:

So I'm guessing we have to pray to a higher power...because this guy does not give a hairy rats ass.

I remember it was a Tuesday, you know the day that Elsie got her toe removed. Or was it a Wednesday? Well who the "F" cares weather it was a Tuesday or a Wednesday...get on with it.

Ho Ho...Merry Christmas to me.

Happy New Year to all my friends!

The day after the day after the day of ................

2010-12-28T18:23:00.000-08:00

A picture of the girls with the hats Auntie Joanie gave them. It's kind of hard to see because they are black. But they loved them...or so they said. Nahhh they like em.

I have other pictures of the other kids, but I dare not put them on here because ... some people have rules about publishing pic's of their kids. I will respect that. oop's I almost said Anal. Nevermind.

Yesterday I found a digital camera card in the snow while I was coming out of Safeway. I picked it up,brushed off the dirt and snow and stuck it my purse. When I got home I put it my camera to see if I could find any indication of the owner. It was a 4 gig card and there was a lot ... I mean a lot of pictures in it. I went through most of them and figured it was a Phillipeno family who lives here in Winnipeg. The first pictures were of a very sick older man with his wife at his side in the hospital. Lots of them as he seemed to be going through some kind of procedure. Then you saw his casket....and then the funeral and after that the commemoration at his grave. And after that there were hundreds of pictures of family etc. Graduations, summer activities and so much more. I felt so bad they had lost this. I'm not sure if they had downloaded the pictures to there computer and not deleted them from the card or not. I only had one clue on the pictures that they belonged to a Las Pinas Association here in Winnipeg. But I couldn't find it in the phone book. So today I emailed our local "talk radio" station CJOB and asked for some help in locating the owners.

I hope someone comes forward if the station does broadcast it. If not, I'm sitting here with Grandpa and his last days.. very sad.

balonie

What the heck?

2010-12-27T18:21:00.000-08:00

I just had 4 very wholesome teenagers at my front door. When I went down to answer the door I thought they were late carolers. When I opened the door, all four of them tried to give me pamphlets and wanted to know if Jesus was my savior. I was astounded, I stood there for a moment and didn't know what to say. I felt intimated. The leader of the group would not let me get a word in edgewise....she wanted to KNOW if Jesus was my saviour. I said sorry it's none of your business.... I closed the door. She said Merry Christmas.......well hells bells...They had badges on their jackets indicating they were from some kind of Holy Faith group...but so what. Religion is a very personal and private part of my life and I sure don't want to be discussing that with you at my front door. It all looked surreal...if I would have continued the conversation they would have probably tried to convert me to their church...or maybe sell me some Rachael Rae pots and pans.

Crazy...

Well Gord's family was over yesterday. We had the lasagna dinner. It was crappy. I burned the garlic toast...the salad was sloppy....Trifle dessert was good because my niece made it. I hope I can do better next year. Everyone was in my kitchen....which is very small and it makes me very nervous. GO AWAY people and let me do my stuff. Gord was the worst offender because he decided that the lasagnas were not warm enough and kept on putting them back in the oven .....when I needed the oven to make the garlic toast. By the time we got the fricking lasagna on the table I turned the oven on high...and burned the toast............

Then last night I had acid reflux for the first time. Holy moley that hurts. I woke up with this hot crap in my throat and thought I was going to choke. I had too much rich stuff to eat last night, which I am not used to...plus that "Trifle" which I ate just before going to bed. oy oy. A couple of Rolaids's did the trick, but I never will eat crap like that again. I put way to much cheese in the lasagna. Three kinds. And lots of it.

The kids had a great time again. Except this year their favorite place "the rec room" was empty because we have stored it all away. That meant they had to "be in our space." I had to kick them out of the waterbed twice...Nothing good can come from two teenagers and 3 smaller kids jumping on a water bed. We know that from last year when the old mattress sprung a leak. It's funny how loud they can be while each of them was staring at their I pods...everything is soooo funny at their age. AND LOUD.

I bought the oldest girls fur "Fargo" hats for Christmas and they loved them. The little one's were so jealous...so we decided from now on Auntie Joanie will be the hat buyer at Christmas for all the kids. That will make it easy and yet so much fun.

2010-12-25T13:30:00.001-08:00

A free greeting card by Smilebox

Wishing all my readers the very best of the season.

2010-12-23T18:58:00.000-08:00

That little fella up there represents part of me. I have had this on my hard drive for years and years and always fall back on it for some reason. It's a little pixilated already from so much use.. but it makes me smile. He has so much joy and love in his movements. This was once an animated picture as I remember and he skated up and down that rink a hundred times....or maybe it wasn't animated and I just made that up in my head. I can't remember, but let's not go there.

It's like "old lady speak"..... I remember it was a Tuesday, you know the day that Elsie got her toe removed. Or was it a Wednesday? Well who the "F" cares weather it was a Tuesday or a Wednesday...get on with it. Yup I'm getting there. Dates are becoming more important to me than those I am relating them to. When you see your friends eyes glaze over while you are trying to remember exactly what time and date an event took place ... you know...it's time to shut the hell up.

So I choose my words carefully. And sometimes I forget. So, if I have forgotten who the hell cares. Not me. I won't remember. Funny how that works.

I thank everyone who comes around here to read my crap. I wish you all the best of the season.

Joan xxxx

I put a candle in Santa's hand and he backhanded me

2010-12-21T18:46:00.000-08:00

I love this guy, I have had him for about three years now. He seems to always be looking at me even when he is down in the basement storage area in summer. I think he keeps me honest. Sometimes I go down there in summer and give a squeeze...because he is so cute. He is about 3-4 ft. high.

This year I bought a few battery operated candles and put one in his little plastic hand...and it fit. Then he started to fall... and hit me on the head. Perhaps I did not anchor him correctly...but for a guy that can ride a sleigh and guide reindeer...I didn't think I would have to prop the guy up...I know he is about 5 million years old...so I dusted him off gave him some milk and cookies and we had a good talk about what is is wrong with THIS world. We talked about politics, and all the diseases we have...heart, cancer etc..... and you want to know what Santa said...."shit happens"....So I'm guessing we have to pray to a higher power...because this guy does not give a hairy rats ass.

See that floor lamp behind him? I bought two of them to flank the wall unit in the living room. They are so cool. Best of all are the lights that shine up from the top of them and it gives more light in a room that has a catherdral ceiling ...without any freaking pot lights!! That will never happen again in the new house. I'm tired of living in the dark. They will also look good in our new house too.

I am all ready for Christmas...this has never happened before....I'm getting bored.... I just have to go grocery shopping and get all the stuff for the 26th. when all Gord's family is coming over. My family won't be able to make it until a week later, because my SIL takes care of kids in crisis. This is her first year doing this. She has always had a day care centre in her house but gave that up two years ago. Now she decided to work with Child and Family Services to take care of little children when they are removed from their homes. They will be "on call" throughout the Christmas season and never know when the police and Child Care Services will bring them children in need of care.

I cannot say how impressed I am with her and my brother. It takes special people to take care of others.. Yes, they get paid for it...but they also love the kids and try to make there stay with them a special time.

So I'm looking foward to it all ..whenever we can get together.

To my blogger friends....
"It's Always Something"....this is my gift to you.

I always try to stay in touch.

Balonie...Greetings from the other side.

Suck it up buttercup....

2010-12-19T18:52:00.000-08:00

I have started a vacuum fest in my house. La dog has been going into her last molt for the season and is almost done. This has caused me some grief because my vacuum cleaner broke. It was one of those upright kind where you can see your dirt and you have to empty it yourself and see the filth your rugs have produced. I don't like that. I like the ones that had bags and you are totally oblivious to what is in there. I love living in denial.

I have a central vacuum system in the house that I haven't used for years because the hoses kept on getting twisted around while I tried to vacuum. It did a wonderful job, but the hoses where so big and I kept on tripping over them and damn near killed myself. I got a regular one last year where you can actually see your dirt. It was made of plastic I think...it wasn't cheap either, but the plastic parts broke. It's good for nothing now.

Gord said he had a vacuum cleaner at the shop that "he had found in the back lane." He said it was the same kind that we had that broke. Stupidly I believed him. This is the guy who will pick up anything off the street that flies off the back a half ton truck. He brought it home yesterday. It weights more than an elephant. Or a ton of concrete...or ..... It's an upright...which is okay, but I have a ton of stairs and levels to clean here man....I would need a fork lift to go from one level to the next. By looking at it I would assume it is an industrial vacuum cleaner. I tried it, it works fine if you don't mind the noise. By noise I mean a high pitched noise that almost brought me and Penny to our knees.

Two down....last ditch effort was the old central vac. It worked, didn't blow your ear drums out, but it still was a very good "sucker." All I had to do was to make sure I didn't trip over the hose and the cord that plugs in a wall unit to keep the vacuum head working.... You see...you have to watch two things while using this ancient piece of crap. Imagine the hose and the cords in a small hallway. How does one NOT get tripped up eventually? I knew it was going to be sooner not later, but I keep on sucking up the dirt. Then when I was almost finished the hose got twisted and it stopped sucking....of course I took the hose and started to shake it all about to get the kink out of it....which in turn hit my glass side table and turned it over...then when that went flying it hit my plant and broke off some leaves.

Ho Ho...Merry Christmas to me.

Wanna see my Beaver coat? I wore it to Safeway today and no one tried to kill me....and yeah a picture of my new...yet slightly used teddy bear housecoat with a hoodie...

Nobody was at home to take a picture of me wearing this. So you have to imagine my head on top of it.

Spell check said I used the word Vacuum way to often.

Balonie...giving you Greetings of the Seasons...

The end of an era

2010-12-17T18:35:00.000-08:00

My niece Lisa said that today on facebook when she saw that we had thrown out our two Lazy Boy chairs. It's kinda of funny because they are older than she is. They are a part of her history with us. I feel kind of bad for them. They are sitting out in the front step topped on one another and laden with snow. Man, if those chairs could talk...oy what a story they could tell. They were our comfort zone every night after work while watching TV. Also they saw and experienced every pet we had. The cats loved them because they were heated plus they were made of some burlap material that make cats want to dig their claws into them and they did....the sides were messed up. When we first got the chairs it was so funny... we used to have to be so careful to watch the foot rest if we had it elevated..because ten to one...there would be a cat under the chair..and when we would put it down....yup...trapped cat! I don't know how many times we heard a MEOW....oops "what in the hell are you doing under the chair."

Yes those chairs saw and heard alot. Our happy days and our really sad days when we lost so many of our loved ones. This is where we would gather to discuss how we would go on. Plus through every life crisis we have had. We sit in the chairs and discuss our next plan of action. Lately it has been the new house and I don't think the chairs got it....they never saw it coming...they just thought...omg more bullshit they will never leave here. When Gord was putting the new chairs together last night I was thinking...hmmmm I hope they don't get wind of their replacements....or by morning we will a chair fight on our hands....but they went gracefully .... beat up, full of dog hair, beer farts, and sentimental memories. Bye Bye youse guys...we promise not to make any memories with the slack assed chairs we bought. The chairs we bought are just cheapies so it won't look like we still live in 1980's...when we sell the house. We will be able to use them in the new house but in a different capacity.

We sat in the new chairs last night. They swivel. And the back goes so far down you can almost sleep in it. While I was swiveling and making myself dizzy...Gord was sleeping. We know how to have a good time.

Buh bye...I love you chairs....but I have to go now...

The new chairs and ottomans look like they have Donald Duck feet. Or an upside down ceiling fan.

Hang in there

2010-12-16T20:39:00.000-08:00

I just made some changes to my template...and it's making me mad. Nevermind I love messing around with it. But yikes this template is getting on my last nerve....
Bye...

Penny Loafer

2010-12-15T18:43:00.000-08:00

I went to Petland today to buy Penny her Christmas presents....and what did I see ... a lovely little puppy jacket that just matched her colour. It looked a little big...but I thought she could probably grow into it. Ummmm she is 11 years old. Yeah..I know.

It was a really sweet one. Some of them are so complicated and the dog gets pissed off before you even start to get them into it.

I also bought her favourite squeaking egg balls for her Santa Stonking. Yes Stonking.. When I was a kid we wore stockings in winter. They were brown as I remember but what I can't remember is how we kept those suckers up. Probably jar rings or something like that. My mom always laughed at me because I could not say stocking....it came out stonking. So when I got Penny 11 years ago I have put up her stonking every Christmas ...and called it just that...stonking. She knows exactly what I mean when I say it and glances over to her stonking beside the fireplace hooked up to the stair case going downstairs.

When I got home from shopping she was crazy...she could smell I was at the pet store....so I opened up the bag with the doggie coat in it, but before that I hid the egg balls...because they make her go nutz.

I put the coat on her. It has a lot of Velcro tabs...etc. and finally we were done and I noticed that this coat was made for a dog about a foot longer than her...even with her tail extended. Penny is very laid back and I can do almost anything to her except cut her nails ( growling there).. so I just tucked that back stuff up. It was a little bulky ... I agree.... but after all this tucking and fucking around............ she could not walk. None of her legs worked. She did manage to get to the patio door and out on the deck....and it then was over.

She sat on the step...and gave me the "big eyes." "Mom help me feet's they can't move not ever..ever...and I got a big freaking pile of crap on my back. She would not move. I think the Velcro made a few squeaks when she tried and then she just gave it up. It was so pathetic. So I took it off of her. And she ran down the stairs like the devil was chasing her. Free at last!

So, that's 50 bucks I can spent on myself this Christmas... I don't think it will buy me the I Pad was drooling over at Future Shop. I swear I was fooling around with it for half an hour. And then they called security. How did that get in my purse?

I have a 25 dollar gift certificate for Future shop.....that would pay the taxes...let's see if Gord buys that.

Balonie is scheming .....

I do not own a housecoat

2010-12-14T18:27:00.000-08:00

I bought the best housecoat evar...today at our neighbourhood Salvation Army Store. I never have something to throw on if someone rings the doorbell before 10:00 AM LOL......yeah I'm joking...sort of..

It has huge teddy bears on it....a hoodie, and a zipper in front for fast action when someone rings the bell....and huge pockets in it for carrying all my pepper spray if it happens that the people that are ringing the door bell are of the Jehova ilk.

It's the best housecoat ever. I may never get dressed again before lunch.

Baby it's cold outside

2010-12-12T18:40:00.000-08:00

Went over to the job site to see what had happened over the week and was crazy happy.

A picture I took from our living room window.

The front entrance on the left and the dining room to the right.

The great room ..Isn't it great!

The back of the house....kitchen will be on the right.

Damn you just can't beat this.

I am one lucky girl. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remind myself this is really true.