Me and My Book Ends!

There is a good chance I may have tipped over if Corrah and Diesel (a.k.a. Ben) weren't lazy as...well...Dogs!

My Daughter the "WHO"

Somehow Asha figured out how to make her hair do that for her school Christmas concert.
...ummm, awesome!

My so called life.

So things have been a little less than ordinary. No, they have been down right F*cked up. Christmas is just around the corner but there is very little, if any, holiday cheer oozing from me which makes me sad. This is why I need to rant so please excuse my bitching and complaining just this one post.
Something terrible happened to me, to our family and to our lives. What is done is done and though I told myself early on that I could 'suck it up, sister' turns out that is not the case at all. In fact that is so not the case that forgetting to put the recycling bin out Tuesday morning resulted in a temper tantrum on my part. Here is why I'm having such a tough time with life right now. Though I know that this 'thing' that happened will never go away and that it is likely to get worse before it gets better, I never dreamed that I was so vulnerable to just completely falling apart. They call it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I call it living hell. I have never felt so completely out of control of my body, my mind, my thoughts and fears, basically out of control of my life. What worsens this is spending so much time alone. To be alone is just as much my choice, or I guess my fault depending on how you look at it. If only we chose to live in the city then it wouldn't matter that we're down to one vehicle that Troy needs for work. If only we didn't live in a country with a climate that included 'snow season'. If only I felt in the loop and not so lost and alone in this whole ordeal then I would know what emotion to concentrate on feeling instead of flip flopping like a fish out of water, slowly losing the fight.
It's scary feeling like this. I'm scared. It's terrifying not controlling the thoughts that swirl in my head both when I'm awake and asleep. I see why people kill them selves. Now don't worry, that's not what I'm getting at but I think I'm seeing a glimpse of what it must feel like to lose control of your life. I though still have the vital 'Hope' and lots of it. Lucky for me there is help. Lucky for me I can start off by blogging to perhaps no one to vent and to get these thoughts out of my head, keep them from perpetually ricocheting off one another with no real solutions. Lucky for me a have a small handful of very good friends that will answer their phone at all hours and offer their kind and reassuring words.
"why you Amanda?!" she said to me this morning "out of all of the people in the word why did this all have to happen to you"
My thoughts exactly though my very next thought is 'it figures'.
Even when I think that I have had my fair share of Trauma and Drama what's done is done and now I get to run around my little life trying to pick up the pieces...again.
We also concluded that perhaps Troy's way of dealing with his inner demons is to slaughter goats and hens in the name of 'good intentions'. In the whole scheme of things he seems to be handling it ok.
Maybe my feelings are exaggerated because I am so very, very isolated on our farm. With few to none bouts of adult conversation I've not much else to do than to spend minute after minute after hour mingling with the dark corners of my mind.
At times I feel like I might not be able to take that next breath. I read things like that in books but never really believed that anyone could actually feel like that. I've also read about spontaneous crying and unwarranted spasms of severe anger which make parenting, at times, interesting but mostly very difficult. Having to continuously apologize to your children for such irrational behaviour is not how I pictured it.
"I'm sorry Mommy is being such a Bitch this morning. I'm not angry at you guys, maybe you should stay home from school to keep me company--nah, you should go...don't argue with me and no, I'm not sure why I'm crying...again"
The constant ups and downs that come with being judged, questioned, second guessed and even blamed are enough to make me physically ill, unable to enjoy anything, or if anything that I eat. Leisurely much needed afternoon naps are impossible and the involuntary shaking scares the hell out of me.
(...an hour and a half later...)
Speak of the Devil, or perhaps the opposite. The Jehova's Witness' popped in for a visit. First terrified from my paranoia to see an unfamiliar vehicle in my drive way, then relived to see a somewhat familiar face, I don't care if they want to preach to me about the laws of physics or the life cycle of a worm. There were people here to occupy my brain for a short while. Kind people, whatever their religious beliefs, smiling, validating, not judging. Thank God, no really. That was just what I needed.
I may not be religious myself but sometimes things are too hard to explain.
Ugh...I'll get through this...I'll get through this...

Why my car is the car for me.

Today while I was driving home from Walmart a strange thought crossed my mind. My little red 1987 Plymouth Sundance was nearly stuffed to the seams. I had two toddlers strapped in their car seats, both little heads drooping, on the verge of sleep. My Walmart purchases, bagged and piled on the passenger seat beside me and in the trunk amongst the usual mess was a big, heavy sack of chicken feed that the gentleman at the feed store very kindly placed there for me. Why this thought popped into my head I do not know and why ever, in my neutral state of mind that I sternly convinced my self to 'be in', took this random thought and elaborated is nothing short of interesting. Sometimes, well more and more lately, my little red car will stall while I'm idling at a red light. Troy said it has something to do with the timing being off, my sister suggested that it's the fuel injectors being blocked -- who knows. It just stalls. I discovered a while ago that if I put my car in neutral it usually prevents the stall. This take me back to the part about 'sternly convincing myself to not think too hard today...to let my brain coast in neutral to 'prevent a stall' in my own emotions. That part was kind of interesting. Because there really isn't much more to do when I'm driving I start to ponder other ways that my car and I are alike. My car and my self are trusty, we both have our bad days but usually we can work it out. My car is little but very, very solid. Nuf said about that if you know me well enough. My car is certainly not fancy and appearance wise its pretty safe to say that neither my car nor I give a damn. I tune into the country song that is playing on the radio. I like the song and certainly can't imagine a more suited genre of music to be played in the dust-covered car. The one and only bumper sticker plastered on the back of my car reads 'If I didn't own a horse, this would be a Ferrari'. My life is made up of that same theory and I've said many many times that I'm living this exact life I have because the things that are important to me are the things that I choose. Sure I could be living in some crumby apartment somewhere and have lots of nice new things but I choose our farm and a dusty, out-dated collection of our old things. My car has been hauling me and my family around for quite some time just as I have been hauling my family and children around whether is just running errands or moving us from one situation to another. My car might be small but it sure is a fighter and can kick most 2 wheel drives' butts when it comes to plowing through snowy driveways with its tires as good as a heavy pair or rubber boots. I own several pairs. Boots, not tires. My car is also fairly low maintenance - I guess in my case it would depend on who you asked, but I consider myself low pretty low maintenance! Anyway, this is sort of a silly blog but I wanted to write it anyway. It just got me thinking that I love my car and perhaps there is deeper reason behind that than just 'it runs' I can't picture myself driving a Pick up or a station wagon. Which has rubbed off on which? People say you take on your dogs persona or at least tend to choose a dog sub-consciously with the same persona, can you do like wise with your car? Is this why Troy doesn't like driving my car? Is this why Troy looks so funny driving my car, it's not just the size thing? It now makes sense to me why Troy had such a hard time selling his broken down Dodge Ram pick up. because if Troy was a vehicle he would, with out a doubt, be that pick up. As I got closer to home I wondered if I was maybe going a bit crazy or if I maybe had one coffee too many this morning or if I was simply 'that' bored that my brain spent almost 20 minutes thinking about this. While getting ready to sit down and write this blog I decided that I was not crazy or hopped up on caffeine but that I think I'm making sense. For those of you who know me, you know that my life has been a bit confusing and hectic lately hence the forced neutral mood I decided to put myself in this morning. So far today I haven't 'stalled' even once. I think sometimes just deciding to not think is the best option. Just as I unloaded the car I also unload my head, which was also busting at the seams and it worked. My car and I are both 'testy' on damp, rainy days so to both my car, and my, pleasant surprise it decided not to rain today! For now I hope we can both just keep rolling right along!!

Walmart and Livestock

So this is interesting and I can't wait to see how it all pans out over the next decade or so.
I'm not a gambling woman but I would put money on my guess of what is going to happen to the Ontario Livestock exchange, hell the whole St. Jacobs Farmers Market that we have all grown up to love. From where we live there are basically only 3 different ways to make it into town. 1 way we take if we need to enter on the south side, a second way if we want to make it dead center in the middle of the city and a third way if we need to do some shopping in North Waterloo. The third way I don't use very often but this morning I happened to need a few things from the feed mill which happens to be in North Waterloo. I thought too that I would also stop at the grocery store to pick up a few chili ingredients for dinner. I grumble because the nearest grocery store is known to be a little more high end = more expensive. Then that little light bulb over my left ear flickers on as I remember that they had just built a brand new Walmart in North Waterloo. Perfect! They carry everything that I need for my chili and lucky for Walmart, my saving a couple bucks is more important than worrying about the couple of bucks I do spend are going to 'rollback' directly to The U.S. of A.
I grab my chicken feed, spot Walmart (I know, hard to miss) and pull up the newly widened (from one lane to up to 4 in some spots) road noting all of the construction activity taking place around me. At a red light at the entrance to the parking lot I sing along to a Taylor Swift song and read down the long list of 'coming soon' store names to my left. Dollarama, Payless, a Gaming store, The Hilton (??). Hmmm. Then I turn my head to the right and I am looking at the several rows of barns housing countless numbers of horses, cows, pigs, chickens, goats, sheep and on the odd occasion even some more exotic animals like Llamas and giraffes (no, just kidding about the giraffes) but you get the idea. A big pot-hole filled, dusty parking lot sits between Walmart and about 400 tons of manure and cattle flatulence. Neat! I have been to the Livestock Exchange often, buying and selling horses, I've seen the poo! I wonder how long the sale barns are going to last in Walmartland. Also sharing the parking lot with the barns is the (what started out a quaint gathering spot for all of the local farmers to bring out their harvest, homemade jams and stewing hens turned HUGE, tourist attraction, amped up version of ) farmer's market. They hung onto the title "Farmer's" because "Made in China Market" wouldn't fit on the sign.
Anyway, Sorry I'm getting a tad vent-y here but can you see what I see. You could buy some hand-made birdhouse from the box of farmer Ted's pickup in the dusty parking lot or you could 'pick one up' made out of a lighter, more eye sore plastic for 1/3 the price at Walmart. Or hey, go one step further and pop into $1.25arama, they have got to sell birdhouses'!
So next time any of you need to pick up some hair conditioner, an area rug, some rabbit pelts, garbage bags, a rooster, some sharpies, a bike, a Holstein cow, some home-grown blueberry honey, and need to rent a room at the Hilton just let me know and I'll give you directions.
Someone sure had their thinking cap when they unrolled the blueprints for that one!! Way to go Canada!

Toddlers are so cute!

awww, This is why the other millions of hours of hair pulling, crying, barfing, fighting, diaper changing and temper tantrums are still worth keeping them at the end of the day!
This is Avalee's newest thing. (annoying but cute)

Avalee - "mommy?"

Mommy - "yes Avalee?"

Avalee - "ummm..." rolls her eyes in thought (her sisters often do that)
- "keyk bur lyeg daddy?"

Mommy - "ummm, you want to lick daddy?" (I have absolutely NO clue what she just asked me)

Avalee - (brief pause) "nyooooooooo" (frantically shakes her head back and forth)

Mommy - (confused but trying not to laugh) "would you like some tickles?"

Avalee - (brief pause of consideration) "lllyesssssssss" (frantically nods her head up and down)

You can guess where it goes from there.
I'm only so cute-ed out by this because its new and fun watching Avalee mimic her sisters as well as starting to understand verbal conversation. Awwwwwww! It would be just as cute though if she didn't spend her every awake moment having this same conversation. Avalee, mommy needs some uninterrupted blog time.
We moved up a step from eating dog food!

The Good Samaritan always gets back...

Lets start by noting that yesterday was my 30th birthday. YAY. Really I woke up to the same quaint farmhouse, same awesome hubby, same (slightly crazy) 3 daughters, Corrah the dog...no wait...Corrah OUR trusty dog, 1 horse, 1 lazy donkey, roughly 17 chickens (though I didn't do a head count) and two very disgruntled (once 'house cats' in transition to 'barn cats') cats. We had a normal morning. Anyway, lets start at last night, since, that is where the fun began. We ate veggies and hummus, cheese and crackers (thank you T & J), pizza, cake than drank tea (which in retrospect should have been a few glasses of wine) and it turned out to be my usual chaos. I pack my 3 girls in the tiny car along with some left-overs for Troy along with two households worth of dinner scrap for the chickens. I pull out of the drive way for my 25 min. trek home (it's after 8pm by then) and try to stop at the first stop sign and barely made it. I had mentioned to my visiting Mom not even 5 hours before how I thought the brakes in the car felt 'loose' but I would look into it in the morning, after all it is my Birthday and I am not a mechanic. Long story short, apparently I have a leak somewhere in the deep, dark under body of my braking system. Three kids, tired, full of sugar sitting in the car, we manage to prolong the life of my braking system until we pull into our dark, country driveway. I'm going to skip the part where I pulled up to Troy and his buddy shooting the sh*t in the driveway but will tell you that I hopped out of the car with a bitch face demanding that Troy get the baby out and put her to bed because I had just spent an hour with non stop little girl voices tearing through my brain. The rest of the night went smoothly. HAPPY BIRTHDAY (thank god) AMANDA! Today though, that was everything I needed to reground myself. Girls on the bus in time, house clean, animals fed and all I wanted was some...I don't even know what. For my birthday my mom bought me a wicker shelf (50% off, awesome!) at a goodwill store which needed to be picked up. After luckily evading several OPP officers (driving a van with ABSOLUTELY NO exhaust system that doesn't have its proper licensing 'sticker') I make it into town. This is when things take a turn for the better. We pull up to the second hand store and I no longer see the small dining room set that was stacked outside waiting to be priced. I know that's not better but just wait. As I unload my toddler and we stroll through the very small, yet packed, parking lot I over hear a very nice Asian man (sorry if that is offensive, I'm not up to date on the correct terms), with jumper cables in his hands, asking an uptight, ignorant woman on her way to her high-end SUV if she could give him a boost because his car battery was dead. Uptight woman in fancy clothes with her fancy SUV - "No, I'm on my way to a meeting" WTF Amanda (with baby and Mum) - "Do you need a boost? I can give you a boost" gesturing back to my farm road, dirt splattered, rusty, no muffler, illegal at this point minivan. Man with jumper cables - "Really?! Thank you, thank you so much, thank you!" As it turns out I had to drive all the way around the block (stupid one way streets) but we managed to jump his car squeezing both positive and negative prongs trough a chain wire fence, and his car started like a dream. This gentleman thanked me numerous times and gave me $5 for my time. I told him 'you are very welcome and if you ever see me on the side of the road be gracious enough to stop'. He agreed. Maybe one day. Probably sooner than later with my luck! So, the dining set that I was so worried had sold was actually set up in the 'showroom'. $50 price tag with a little red stripe stoked across the top of the tag. Strangely enough I happened to notice a Plexiglas sign behind an old oak chest that stated *50% of green and red tagged items*. Apparently it was a mistake that the sign was left for customers to see so after meeting with the cashier and showing her the unfortunate sale sign we got my dining room set for $25! It was a weird day that resulted in a lot of (sort of) in depth talk between my Mum and I. Strangely enough, as I was driving home with my new found treasure of a place for my family to meet, eat and be merry, I was driving through Up-Town Waterloo when some a-hole behind in a Nissan Pathfinder honked at me because I was respecting the bike lane on Caroline St. and then they didn't even signal when he turned one block later. I tell you, it all comes back to face you at some point and it's really not that hard to be a good person. I'm humble, I'm happy, I'm a good person and I'm 30 and loving it thus far. Stop and jump-start a car today. It'll look good on you.

Just wanting to test it

Just testing out the new blog link from Windows Live Writer.  I’ll Blog for real later.

Can't please a girl...

I'm sitting on my couch, again...well no, not again, still. I'm multitasking on some mundane level. I'm blogging, watching a fuzzy episode of F.B. Eye, chatting with a friend on Messenger (who coincidentally enough is also sitting on her couch on her horse farm in Coburg and who also is whining about how utterly bored she is at this exact moment), oh, and every now and then I change my position when I feel pins and needles in my curled up legs. Of course there are several things I could be doing. Probably even more tasks that I should be doing...but I'm just not feeling the motivation. Go figure. Here is how my train of thought progressed during the first half of my day. I managed to (once again) fit about 2 hours worth of regular morning tasks into 45 minutes before I shipped the girls off to the school bus. That deserved a coffee and a half of a cigarette obviously. By some strike of god the baby didn't wake up through the whole ordeal so I peeked in her door to make sure she was still breathing. Check. and crawled back into my queen sized bed. Ahhhhhhhh. I fell asleep for a bit but then woke up with this nagging feeling to check more thoroughly that Avalee hadn't slipped into some sort of coma over night, which she thankfully hadn't, This time she heard the door creek and proceeded to cram her tiny baby fist into her eyes sockets for a good 30 seconds, stumbled to an upright position and she was officially awake. My first response was to groan but at the same time I was pleased to see her chubby cheeks and bed-head hair and realized that I missed the little brat when she slept, especially since she had been away on the weekend for a sleep over at Grandma's house.
I'm getting off track here, point is it seems I just can't win, have the best of both worlds.
Another example is that for some god forsaken reason Troy woke up in a grump and sure enough we got into some half coherent argument about something so trivial and unimportant (this is at 4:30am, I might add) that I can't wait until I hear the noisy rumble of our mini-van pull out of the driveway. The second he is out of ear shot I wish he was right back there in the room with me, cutting me off with some pointless point or another.
So how this steers back to why I've been (and fully intend on continuing) sitting on my couch ALL day is this. I'm looking out my front bay window (well, around the 42inch plasma and Sue Thomas; F.B.Eye). I see such a beautiful blue sky, puffy white clouds, a typical warmish fall day. I'm thinking it might as well be snowing out. I might as well be sitting in some dive-y hole in the wall in the ghetto side of Detriot (I know, which side?!) and not on a gorgeous horse farm with animals roaming as they please. Nope. Me, my sleepy dog and this one pesky fly, that I swear to God I've killed about 8 times, are watching Local TV on mute, blogging and bitching to friends ALL about it.
I LOVE living in the country but I miss the easy access adult interaction of the city. I LOVE running a barn full of horses but just can seem to get the motivation together today to check that it hasn't burned to the ground over night (don't worry, luckily that same motivation was much more abundant last night when I fed and watered and made sure the animals had plenty of everything that they needed). I love the quiet peacefulness of the baby napping but had a weird urge to go wake her up just for the company (though common sense kicked in and no I'm not that nuts!)
My insides get all giddy when the school bus hauls my kids away but, well, I kind of wish one of them would develop a mild to moderate cold so I have a valid excuse to keep them home for a day or two. See, you just can't win. Blogging seems to be the only thing rational at the moment.
I blame it on Dr. Phil. He can, at times, be so captivating that sitting around all day with my laptop on my lap waiting for 3 o'clock to roll around puts some sense to the matter. Maybe all of my motivation is stock piling as we speak so that tomorrow I'll get laundry and vacuuming done while vibrating with enthusiasm! Mehhh, it'll probably snow tomorrow.

A Girl and her Dog

I realized something this morning. It began like this. We have a dog. Her name is Corrah and she is a 3 year old collie/shep. cross. There is nothing fancy about Corrah and, like most of the animals on our farm, she was born on a Mennonite farm. We picked Corrah out of a litter of 8, in a large country kitchen for $75, 3 years ago. Actually, almost to the day.
I like Corrah. She does what she is meant to do. She barks when an unfamiliar car pulls up our driveway, keeps all of those pesky squirrels and rabbits out of our yard, no longer harasses our cats and wrestles with the neighbour's dog. When we got Corrah it was somehow assumed that she was Troy's dog. Whether that was just because he was 'man of the house' or simply because she was mostly Troy's pick (I'm a LabX girl myself) he assumed responsiblility of training Corrah. I was simply the enforcer. Roughly $800 worth of leather boots and shoes later Corrah is very well trained. She will sit, lay down, shake both paws and roll over (in that order) and never needs a leash. I even took her to our new farm yesterday and after a quick sniff around the barn she had no problem sticking around the new yard with no supervision. She is a really good dog. Well, she has her flaws like we all do. She does bark at the stroller wheels (as you know) and the odd time will rummage through our kitchen garbage as a midnight snack (as you also know) but at least she doesn't touch my boots.
This morning while we waited for the bus I let Avalee out of the stroller to wander around. She seemed very concerned about Corrah's where abouts at all times. Avalees speaks only handful of words that are recognizable and "Orrah!" is one of them.
Corrah likes to zig and zag up our road in both directions. We live on very low-traffic street. She sniffs the air, the shrubbery in the ditch line and our mail box where the neighbour's dog pees on a routine basis.
Well, Avalee was having a absolute fit trying to chase and call after Corrah. In her mimicking way, of Troy and I , she stands and smacks her hands together shouting "Orrah!" over and over again. I can tell that Corrah is listening by the way her ears cock during her frantic sniffing spree. I have to keep asking Avalee to stay off the road but all she wants to do is follow the dog around. Not her sisters, not me, but the dog.
Once the girls are safely on their way to school we make our way back up the driveway (Corrah being her annoying 'freaking over the stroller' self which has Avalee thrilled and in stitches) After I toss some hay to the horses we go in the house.
Year round I spend a lot of time telling Corrah to 'Get outside!' This is exceptionally easy in the summer because our storm door no longer has a screen in it so Corrah can easily hop through the closed door in one graceful leap. This morning for some reason I let Corrah in the house with us. Even though the grass is all dewy and I know that she will leave wet doggy prints all over my clean kitchen floor. I go about my business, do the breakfast dishes, fix my pony tail and turn around several minutes later to see Avalee kneeling on the floor beside Corrah. We keep our dog food in a bottom drawer of one of those rubbermaid 6 drawer storage units. Avalee had pulled open the dog food drawer and Corrah was happily munching on her kibble. Avalee was also munching on Corrah's kibble. (After two years I've accepted the fact that Avalee enjoys the meaty flavour of dog food so this scene doesn't shock me.)
I take a glance at my kitchen floor and not only are there wet paw prints scattered everywhere but just as many wet toddler slipper prints. This gets me thinking. When my older girls were Avalee's age they had each other, 24/7. They left two sets of little wet foot prints on our old kitchen floor. Or muddy ones or sticky ones.
Avalee doesn't have a close sibling to play with 24/7. Corrah is her 'sibling' 24/7. Her 'someone' to play with, to chat to, to cuddle with, to share her sandwich with. That makes SO much sense to me now. So now I see Corrah in a bit of a different light. She's not just 'the dog' or 'Troy's dog' or another 'something' to have to clean up after. She is a very important part of our family. She protects us, she unconditionally loves us, she babysits for us and she does it all for little in return.
As the years go on I can only wish to have a connection with a dog like the one Avalee and Corrah share and I wish for the both of them a long and healthy friendship.

Kind of a random blog but one of those enlightening moments that brings tears to my eyes! Now go hug your dog!

This is exactly how I like to start off my week. Not.

Around rolls another Monday. Waking up under the heavy, gray sky never is a good thing in this house. We had been so spoiled all weekend with such beautiful weather that I think my brain was attempting to fool me into thinking that summer isn't actually over and that it didn't suck as much as it really had, and that we haven't been royally jipped.
This particular Monday morning, though I was prepared and on schedule, I roll out of bed, rattle the girls' cages and try to slip down the stairs without waking the baby. Half way down in my stealth persona I hear that cheerful little voice at about 10,000 decibels
yell "MOOOOOMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAA"

Morning has begun.

As we enter our kitchen we are met with a quarter-sized mouse stomach right there minding it's own business on the floor by the shoe rack. As to where the remainder of that little mouse is, I'm going to have to guess that it is somewhere lodged in Chai Chai's large intestine. I bet you didn't know that cats will eat an entire mouse but most wont (unless they're starving) actually 'eat' the stomach. Why? its really quite simple. What is on a mouses menu is much different than what is on a cat's. Any cat would turn up its nose to a lost fruit loop from under the fridge or some peanut butter licked up from of a counter somewhere which is likely what is half digested in the small organ that I was staring at.
I'm very, very appreciative of our pet cat's new found hunting ability but I wish she would take her breakfast to go and eat it on the front lawn.

Faster than a certified, qualified McDonalds employee I whip together three egg sandwiches, get the baby organized and kick the girls out the door with minimal drama on any of our parts. We stroll down the driveway, its chilly but the sudden briskness in the air actually was welcomed. Things are good, our move is progressing well, the girls are happy, I only had to kick our dog once for barking at the wheels on the stroller like a maniac. This is a good morning. I can deal with a few clouds. Yep Things are good.
We engaged in a brief conversation with our house-coat-wearing neighbour at the bungalow at the end of our driveway. Apparently her toddler grandson had lost her car keys somewhere along our routine path of travel, 'if we happen to stumble upon them, they are greatly missed'.
This is how you wait for a school bus in the morning. You stand. You wait. You wave to the dairy farmer from down the street as he whips by in his excessively humongous pickup. You check the mail box again just in case Canada Post got confused and delivered mail on a Sunday. You wait. Check your watch and wonder how late the bus is going to be. Our new bus pick-up time for this school year is meant to be 8:10am. a very much welcomed revision from last year's 7:30am pick-up time (if only I Blogged back then...groan!). My watch reads 8:18 at this point and I know school starts at a very prompt 8:30am (I was reminded on several occasions last year). I know it is still very early in the school year and I can understand that they have been having trouble with our bus/driver in particular but COME ON!!!! . 8:25 we return to our house and I call the school. After taking so much flack last year for our (really not that often) tardiness I was not taking the shot for this one.
The secretary sounded just as exasperated as I did with the buses.
Remembering that my minivan is still sitting in the garage waiting to have its guts put back together (but at least the tire leaning up against the van has no holes in it and the shiny new rotor is physically attached to the frame) there is no way to transport my kids to school.
Mondays are crap but at least I can usually have my peace and quiet when there is no one here to mess up the cleaning I just did. Today was like Sunday all over again but I didn't wake up to a face full of golden sun shine.
Needless to say, now that the chicken is thrown in the oven (which smells heavenly) and my relentless scorning in the lesson of 'this is how you clean up after yourselves' has paid off,, somewhat I find the time to blog.
Maybe it'll be sunny tomorrow. I fully intend to read an entire romance novel during nap time if its not!
Time to go out for a much deserved cigg.
...oh, and to top things, those dairy farmers decided to cut down their crops today so we are no longer that secret little farm hidden away from the rest of the world!
But, Meh, I'm still smiling!

Why there is a heap of junk in our backyard.

As some of you know our family is on the move, yes, again *sigh. As excited as I am to be upgrading this time around moving has got to be one of my least favourite ways of spending my time.
My other least favourite way of spending my time is entertaining Troy, with his sometimes - ahem - wacky ideas by agreeing to let him go ahead with some scheme or another. This is ultimately the reason why there is a heap of junk in our backyard.

It started with admitting that we had to start downsizing on the amount of junk, that by some story or another, had made it on our lawn. i.e. parked vehicles, Troy's scrap metal collection (??yeah I know), the transport trailer Troy brought home from his previous place of employment (jealous much?!), a few horses (well, they aren't junk per say) and the inlaw-suite (24ft camper trailer).
I am a huge fan of Kijiji and hopped right to it. Snapping photos from every angle of everything that needed to be outta here. A.S.A.P!
Early on it was practically a full time job managing the hundreds of emails I was receiving. Here and there, dropping the prices, and one by one things merrily found their way to their new homes and we were making some money. Yes, even the Transport trailer made some older gentleman from Orangeville very happy (I wish I could have seen the look on his wife's face when he pulled in with that one!)

Now, there are two things that Troy loves almost more than me ;). Flat decked trailers and riding lawn tractors. Coincidentally enough some guy offered a swap. His John Deere lawn tractor for Troy's 'retired' Dodge Ram. Troy almost hit the floor when I read that email out loud! Done deal.

Anyway, it comes down to The camper trailer and my brother-in-law's old van. Both asking $300, neither, rolling even one tire onto our new farm. Firm.

Troy - "but you know what old vans are really good for, especially Jan's, because its taller than most vans, is a chicken coop"

Amanda - (cuts him off) "Nope."

We're not getting much interest on either at this point.

Troy - "Hey baby? Why don't you let me tear down the trailer and then we can have a 24 ft flat deck (you guessed it) trailer"

Amanda - "but we have a trailer already and none of our vehicles could even pull a 24 footer if it had anything more than air on it"

Troy - "but you never know, maybe we'll pick up a 4x4 sometime"

(hahahhahahahahahah, doubt that, can't even keep the vehicles we have on the road.)

Not even ten minutes later I hear the sledge hammer banging, the power drill whizzing and a few hours later the circular saw which was quickly upgraded to the chainsaw. I smile to myself thinking he's upping the voltage, must not be as easy as he thought! I grab a beer on that gorgeous Saturday afternoon and walk around to the back of our house with a lawn chair.
I was actually quite surprised with how far he had come along. I sat my butt down and watched. I know that sort of seems like a bitch thing to do but if you've ever met Troy you know when he's doing demo work its best (safer) to stay the hell out of the way.

I asked him why he was being so careful with all of the appliances when they were all just going to the dump anyway his reply was "people will pay good money for this stuff!"
uh huh?
This trailer demolition took only one weekend shockingly enough! I did my own thing, entertained the children, cooked, cleaned and left Troy to it. At one point he came into the kitchen while I was making dinner with the strangest request.

Troy - "hey baby? do we have any crazy glue?"

Amanda - "yep, why"(as I dig through the 'junk' drawer)

Troy - "Oh, I smashed up my finger with the hammer, I just need to close the tear so no dirt gets under the skin"

Of course. I just hand him the glue and go back to straining my pasta.

So 48 hours later we both stand on our front lawn under a beautiful sunset on a Sunday evening staring at our new 24ft flat deck trailer (Troy, in awe. Me, in 'great, he pulled this friggen thing out with our minivan, no wonder why our vehicles keep breaking!) Can't say I didn't call that one!

The next day I got a call from a guy asking if the Camper trailer was still available and I told him no

Amanda - "actually we didn't have much interest so my hubby ended up gutting it and now its a flat deck, sorry"

Guy - "oh really, Does he still have the appliances? I'm actually just looking for the fridge and the convection oven to install in my hunting cabin up north."

He bought them both for $100. Go figure.

The Johovah Witness just changed my tire!

Oh man, this is a good one! You have NO IDEA how badly I couldn't wait for my friendly, neighbourhood Johovah Witness 'friends' to leave from this week's 'enlightening visit' so I could come in here and write this. In fact, I was in the middle of my last blog when I heard that familiar 'rap tap tap' on my door and so decided to cut that blog short because this definitely deserves its very own!

Let me give you a little bit of history here. For those of you who don't know us, we live out in the sticks, up a long driveway, nestled behind 9ft tall corn fields. We're practically invisible. So much so that, that from our Rd., our farm is completely non exsistant. Like, to the point where I have to make it very clear to my Kijiji purchasers that they have to drive RIGHT to the end of our driveway before they will see our house. If you didn't know the farm was here you never would have guessed it was here.
So you could imagine my surprise when, early last spring, I was sitting in my house, minding my own business and I hear a car pull in. The dog is freaking out (you'll be happy to know that she has warmed to them now!) I walk outside and am introduced to Bo (strapping young chap with a nice set of loafers) and his lovely wife Bethany (pretty blond). Let me be clear that we are not a religious family. Not to say I haven't read 'the book' but we are certainly non-practicing.
Ever since that spring afternoon, Bo and Bethany have been visiting my farm on about a bi-weekly basis, like clock work. Now let me explain something here. When the girls are in school and the baby is napping it can get pretty boring out here. Sometimes having an unexpected grown-up conversation (even if it is about how our entire existance is based on how we, as a whole, are damned) Apparently my yearning for adult chit chat had been mistaken for my interest which in turn had placed me in the 'very eager little student/project/prospect' pile. I must of passed the first few tests because I even earned myself one of those little books that the Johovah's Wittness' carry around which as far as I can gather is basically 'the Bible for Dummies' I was even considerate enough to ask for a second one for Troy so we could have 'his' and 'hers' copies.

Now I hope no one is taking offense to this. I'm not knocking the religion, hey, to each his own but I mostly keep conversing with them with these 'studies' because 'its the more you know'.
That is the back ground. THIS is the awesome part.

Back to my last blog, I was going to continue on and write about how I did end up going out this morning to scratch my head over the flat tire. Then I went and got the jack, propped up the van with a bit of a struggle (I think I may have broke something else in the process as crumblings of rusty metal kept falling from the bottom of the van). I got the crow bar or what ever you call it, gave two Amanda-sized hauls on one nut and then graciously accepted defeat, laid all of the tools in the grass beside the van and went inside to wash my hands. Blah blah blah, that part is boring.
Enter stage right, who else but Bo and Bethany and this time they had two other gentlemen with them (also strapping young chaps, also nice loafers). I greeted them with a smile as usual, we shot the sh*t about my horses, how the move was coming along and I must have mentioned something about the flat tire. Well, didn't Bo and his buddies chests puff up. I said, "oh no no, don't be silly, I just got off the phone with Troy and he's going to be off work early today so he can fix the vehicles" But Bo and friend absolutely INSISTED.

Bo - "No, no Amanda, it's not a problemo" and he started taking off his very crisp dress shirt and stripped right down to his slacks and standard whit t-shirt. Well well well, This is a part of the religion that I was unaware of, perhaps we can 'study' that chapter today!

Bethany - (who didn't seem at all disturbed that her husband was going to change my tire while she read me scripture) "Great!, this works out well, they can change your tire and why don't we go sit down on your lawn chairs over there and chat and let the boys do their thing" at which point she did that wrist flick thing ( you know the gesture I'm talking about) followed by a pffftt sound smiling all along.

O. K.?!

So, Bethany and I proceeded to the lawn chairs and discussed God (who's name is Jehovah BTW, see you learn something new every single day!), the evil serpent, that disobedient Eve, (that persuasive little Nelly) and so on and so forth while the 'pit crew' manned up and got each and every one of those rusty little nuts off. You want to hear a story, I got a story, talk about the helpless damsel in distress. It was like dinner and a show. Sweet!

We had an unusually long session today (did I mention that those nuts were really rusted on there) and in the end everyone was happy! Today I must have graduated up one level because I got the official 'invite' to a meeting. Like an actual paper that I was able to stick up on my fridge right under my "I like to drink, what's your hobby" magnet.

See, this is why Blogging is so important. First of all its nice to have somewhere to document all of these little, happy memories just in case the details start fading away and secondly some experiences are just way, WAY too awesome to not share with a few friends!!

I love my life!
Amen

Amanda vs. the motor vehicles. Part 1.

Ok, so this is fun. I'm going to start by rewinding a few days when I came home from grocery shopping and said

Amanda - "Hey, Troy, I think the van needs new front brakes or something, there seems to be quite a bit of grinding noise coming from the front tires when I brake.

Troy - "is it just when your braking or can you hear it while you're not braking too?"

Amanda - (considers for a moment) "come to think of it I think I can hear it too when I accelerate from a stop, why?"

Troy - "I think it might be the rotor, remember how last time we changed the rotor on the other side and you said that we didn't have the money to do both sides at the same time? It's probably that rotor now"

Amanda - (groans and sighs, swears a little) "it was only like $45 right?" (sighs and swears a little more) "K, well this weekend is going to have to be 'fix the van' weekend"

Troy - "While we're at it we should do the brakes in the car too, it needs fronts soon"

Amanda - (swears some more) "Didn't you just do the brakes in the car?"

Troy - "those were the backs, I didn't do the fronts" (watches the twitch worsen in Amanda's left eye) "ok, I'll make room in the garage"

Now fast forward to this morning remembering that as of yesterday morning our van has been sitting on our slope-y lawn like a beached whale. Ironically you figure, Hell, if we going to have tire off anyway to replace it we may as well gut the whole beast and do the rotor at the same time which is conveniently on the same side. I could almost say things are starting to look up...bbbuuuutttt I wont.

Now, Rewind to 5am this morning when I silently cursed Troys boss for expecting Troy at work for 6am. Who does that anyway?! I have to drive Troy to work so I can have the car so I can do the running around that needs to be done to fix the van. I'm exhausted just typing about it. This involves waking up my 3 children at 5am. which if you want my opinion, should be against some law somewhere. We all fold ourselves into the car that almost has enough room for everyone (which is why we bought the van) and barrel up the dark highway, half asleep. I'm not a terrible morning person but on this particular morning I wasn't someone you would want to sit beside on a bus. As we come to one stop sign after another I cringe when I listen to the horrible, probably spark causing grinding that used to be the front brakes. I bitch to Troy about how he had said 'the brakes in the car need to be replaced soon' Soon? are you flipping kidding me? I'm surprised the front wheels didn't catch fire on my way back home.

Sooooo, here I sit with one vehicle out of gas, on a slope with a flat. The other with only half of the braking system functioning and while my baby is napping I'm trying to figure out my action plan for this afternoon, well actually, I'm blogging but I will, soon, figure out that action plan.

TO BE CONTINUED...

How to instill the fear of 'mom is a psychic' into your 2 year old

It only took me three kids and 9 years to figure this one out.

While I was muddling around the kitchen this afternoon, doing my ongoing damage control, I happened upon a very curious toddler in the playroom. This room is 'titled' the playroom, however, because we are moving it just happens to be the first room I packed (which consisted of nothing more than going through with several garbage bags that all safely and happily made it to the curb!). The remaining contents are not much more than my internet hub, my router, and a few other electronics including an old office telephone. It is one of those really old-school kind with the multiple line buttons and decked out with the 30ish foot long coil cord. I paused for a minute, out of view of this curious toddler, and took a moment to smile. I watched her interested fingers stretching, tugging, folding and even tasting the long, springy point of interest. It was one of those moments, and if you're a mom I know you know what I mean, I suddenly felt the urge to cry from over-whelming love. Touching, I know! I watched for almost a whole minute, the dishes weren't going anywhere.
So picture this tiny child, kneeling in a nearly empty room, completely baffled, yet intrigued, by this strange, new contraption that just happens to be one of the first things this afternoon that has kept her occupied for more than a minute. To think that this same young child can recognize (and know not to touch) a laptop from across the room, runs to my purse as soon as she hears my cell ring and knows enough to gesture at seeing the display screen on the back of my digital camera after I've taken her picture...just wow!
Anyway, it was really cute and I'm getting off track, back to the fear and wrath and all that!
She didn't know I was watching her and eventually I made enough noise to catch her attention. As fast as a two year old can manage she dropped the cord and wore the face of a deer caught in headlights. She was not in trouble but she didn't know that (I cleared that up with her moments later). If I could put into words what, without a doubt, was going through her mind for those first few seconds it would sound something like this.
"I don't get it, how on earth did she know? I was being so careful to be super quiet. I even tried to hide out of view. I know that she is always telling me 'no touch! Go find your toys' and this is so darn interesting but..ohoh, Mom always just knows"

I didn't take any mind reading classes, I have no super natural powers as far as I know but I'm going to take this and run with it for all its worth!

My 'You have got to be kidding me?!!?' morning

So I've learned this morning that some days just aren't meant to happen as according to plan. There is nothing more frustrating than thinking that waking up three kids completely on schedule, tackling breakfast, diapers, the kitchen garbage that the dog decided to mangle some time last night and drinking instant coffee, 'today is a going to be a good day', Boy was I off the mark.

Next we load our selves into the van, only about 15 seconds behind schedule, mentally singing 'hi ho hi ho its off to school we go' and guess what? Thanks to my hubby's slightly untimely negligence I turn over the engine and there is nothing more than a sputter from under the dew covered hood. No Gas. All I'm thinking is why would he have not stopped to get gas last night in his attempt to drop off a trailer load of yard waste at the dump? Which, btw NO, he didn't make it before they closed, as I had predicted while he was hitching up the trailer in a mad rush. What he did manage to do, while the kids and I attended the 'meet the teachers' BBQ at the school last night -alone-, was to drain the $10 of gas that I had just put in the van.

We unload out of the van. The kids are silently ecstatic, afraid of their pissed Mom barking commands for chores that need to be done, since they don't have to go to school anyway. Instead I take out my anger and frustration on a more deserving soul. As I clench my cell to my ear, grit my teeth, and aimlessly wander around the yard and garage looking for that gas can that we're supposed to always keep extra gas in 'for emergencies', he answers. I don't often hang up on people, and certainly not the ones I choose to share my life with, but I did, however not until after I spent about a minute and a half bitching and complaining and blaming. I may have even cried for a split second. Oddly enough it didn't make me feel much better. I tried to call back to apologize but he didn't answer. Oh well. The 'emergency' gas had been used up in the dead tractor that is still parked in the driveway, hood open.
Deep breath in, ok, at least the kids are happy watching the final few minutes of the cartoon they had begun watching before the whole ordeal and the kitchen is still as clean as I had left it.
I walk back to the van to see if, as Troy had suggested in the two words I let him get in, it could be rolled forward in that hill-billy way which I spend a great deal of time trying to never have to experience. There is a slight chance that the slope that the van is parked on is causing all of the gas to pool at the front of the tank. Maybe, just maybe there is enough in there, as Troy swore he thought there was, to get us to the Pioneer gas station. As I get close I assess the tilt of the van, yes it is on a slope, I'm thinking I'll just throw it in 'neutral' and use my super-woman strength to...oh, wait, that is quite the slope to the front driver's side and it has nothing to do with the grade of our lawn.
It is a flat. Not just a 'we should stop and get air on the way'flat but a complete and absolute flat. I'm not sure whether to be more pissed, more frustrated or both. Gas or no gas, we were not destined to make it off the farm today.
Another angry/ tearful phone call later I make my self another one of those instant coffees.

What does any other mother of three do on a morning, such as the one I'm having, do? They sit down at their computer, tell the kids to bugger off for a good 20 minutes, and blog.

That didn't hurt too badly...

This seems like one more activity to take up more of the time I don't seem to have. How fun!
I shall add the Blogger site into the regular rotation of Hotmail, Facebook and Kijiji. Perhaps the crushing feeling the impending winter drapes over me wont seem quite as much a burden.
Blog, Blog, Blog...Ye' haw!