Missing Season

I am lamenting again, the non existent spring here...we have, in spite of slightly milder temperatures still 2 feet of snow covering every inch of the ground. Every few days it flurries just enough to cover the deck and then that melts but never the 2 feet of compressed snow underneath...ugh...Everyone is depressed and grouchy...it has been a long miserable winter and it looks to last right into full blown summer...one day there will still be snow on the ground and then a big wind will blow in over night and whammo it will be summer with balmy =20 temps and flooding everywhere. Lucky for us we live on a big hill...hahaha 

I have been chronicling my health issues since being taken off all the meds...and  ah hell I don't want to even write about it anymore...soooo sick of it all.   so I won't..

we heard crows for the first time in months just the other day but no sign of any geese or ducks yet.  soon though I would imagine.

I am busy doing nothing...reading, pulling my hair out over the income tax scramble again this year...Robert has such a willy nilly way of leaving the invoices laying around the place...that I have to go with a bag in  hand and walk through all the buildings looking for receipts...I have found invoices for salt, equipment parts and fuel in the barn, the garage, the truck and his bathroom...It pisses me off that I have to go on this Easter egg hunt every year to make sure I have all the receipts for stuff we bought...Oh yes, I have bitched at him and he gets that whipped puppy dog look on his face as if butter wouldn't melt....and then a week later he's doing it again...the man has a short memory.. or is a glutton for punishment...so I had to do the same thing with his crop insurance premiums and payout things...even the accountant was confused....and I had to come home with a big fat F for fail on my head because the numbers weren't right....and spent the next day and a half digging through Roberts files...(I use that term loosely) so I could redo my work and fax it to the accountant.  I resent the extra time it took...and I may make him take me to a movie in payment.... But I once again shake my head at how I got stuck doing this job..I hate accounting...and definitely don't remember volunteering for the position.  I do believe it was a matter of assignment by omission...I omitted to say NO so it was assumed I would do it.... or something like that...

I never thought I would crave grass to mow so badly...but there you have it...I miss mowing grass and weeding flower beds sooooo much...

It's a noisy day here to day....there are 5, yes five female cats all in heat and no Tom Cat around.... the snow has kept the Tom's bound to their own yards and they have not done much wandering this winter...I was tempted to shovel a path to one particular neighbours yard so that their orange tabby Tom would make his way to our place since I love orange kitties...and it has been years since we had anything but grey or black...but now we are limited to which ever one owns snow shoes...hahahahahaha Not sure how I will get to sleep, with the horny sluts yowling up a storm out on the deck all night. I chase them away but it doesn't last and before long they are back.   Maybe one of the bunnies hopping around the yard at night will service them...hahaha had that happen once...the kittens were all born looking like normal kittens...but they never reproduced themselves...

Well it's a slow news day when I start talking about horny cats.  Let's hope I have more to write about next time.

One Project finally Finished

I finished my latest painting today... I have, I am embarrassed to say, been working on this one since last July...I had the background completed but was procrastinating about adding the people...since I have never painted people before...I did deliberate as to what position to have them in to match my skill level and chose to put them walking away...less features to worry about I thought... so all in all it didn't turn out too bad...

This painting was finished in early July, but with the work on the murphy bed taking place just after that I wasn't sure if I bragged about this one or not...so I am adding it today...they both, of course still need to be varnished, which will enhance the colours and brighten them up considerably. but the they have to cure for a couple of months before that happens...well the one does anyway.

It is blowing and snowing a veritable blizzard out side...but luckily the temperature is at 0... but there is still a wind chill...

The new meds for bone growth is a drag.... there was purging  and now a general feeling of nausea....bloating and blah......blah blah blah....  

I had a humiliating thing happen to me a couple of days ago, while filling the prescription for the Fossomax (bone growth drug)... while the pharmacist asked me to list my health issues...(she was updating my file)...I became overwhelmed by all the things that are happening to me and broke down...yes...the ugly lip quivering cry and tears...I believe there was even sobbing... thankfully there was a bit of privacy..since they do have a small cubicle that you can have pharmaceutical consults with the pharmacists in... I was surprised by my emotional state, since I thought I was handling it all fairly well...hahahahaha.... I guess I will have to send Robert to the pharmacy for a few weeks until I get over my embarrassment...

Any way enjoy the paintings...and to see others check out my gallery at flickr...just click on the link on the right side of this posting...c u at my gallery.

Random Thoughts for the Day

 Yesterday, while preparing breakfast, Robert and I were watching some news on TV and it just happened that Stephen Harper was on the tube, talking about Lybia...We both chuckled to ourselves...after Robert said, "there's helmut head".  Now anyone knowing Robert would find that hilarious because he very rarely says mean things about people...but we find STEVIE's hair style horribly annoying...it looks like it's painted on...never a miniscule hair out of place...no movement what so ever....which always reminds us of a line by one of our favorite comedians...RON JAMES...while he was doing a show in Calgary...he was talking about politicians...and since it was Calgary he spoke about Harper...and this is what he said, hahahahaha " and hey what about that Stephen Harper....man, I've seen more hair move on a plastic KEN doll..."  OMG that still cracks me up...because it is sooooooooo true... the mans hair never moves...doesn't he know that looking a little mussed or letting his hair blow about a bit would only make him seem a bit more human and a lot less robotic....just saying Steph...

The MRI went well, but I won't hear the results until next week...it was funny though...they set my appointment for 9:30 pm but I was there by 8:30 and they took me in right away...they strapped my lower left leg into this plastic channel with foam in it...it was pretty tight...then they lift the bottom panel until it has forced your foot to be at a perfect 90* angle from your leg...they then strapped your leg and foot in with three straps and velcro...to completely imobilize it...the other leg and foot lays unattended on the bench...the nurse loomed over me and placed a hair net on my head, followed by an ancient set of ear phones...she then shouts in my face...that I am to lay perfectly still and DO NOT MOVE YOUR LEG, the machine will make a lot of loud noise but I was to just listen to the music from the ear phones, through which they would also communicate with me...they both then left the room and the music started....

Blaring loud, 70's music...disco, the kind that makes ya wanna DANCE.....for god's sake...why would they chose that type of music...classical would have been a much better choice...the machine starts up and boy, they weren't joking about the noise....the bench I was lying on vibrated...as the machine inside the cone started spinning...there was loud banging noises and after a few minutes it would stop...the nurse would say, another 3 minutes....and it would start again...then it switched to a syren noise....beep beep beep beep...like an alarm...and I am wondering...uhhhhhh hello, is thing malfunctioning or what...but the said nothing..and soon the banging started again...but that was all the least of my problems...because the moment my mind became distracted by the noise my bloody foot wanted to move....no kidding it was like it belonged to someone else and if I didn't focus on it 100 % the damn thing started twitching and the muscles started to tighten and ready for movement....by the time it was finally done...I had broken into a cold clammy sweat....hahahaha and to add injury to insult, when taking my ankle out of the brace...the nurse gave it a yank and hurt the f'ing thing.... I yelped and she gasped...and then apologized profusely but the damage was still done...and so after walking in there without limping, I hobbled out holding the walls...got my jacket and shoes on...down the short hall and opened the heavy sound deadening steel door between that lab and the waiting room where Robert awaited my return...only to have the thing (heavier than I expected, thus when I swung it open it didn't go as far as I had thought it would) start shutting on me before I was all the way through...it hit my left shoulder with a thud...and jarred me so suddenly that my back spasmed...and I doubled over from the waist down...frozen...while the 400 lb door was squeezing the air out of me...Robert jumped up to get the door...but I yelled don't touch me...I still couldn't move, my back was still locked up...the nurse behind the reception desk started to come over...and I choked out..." I'm fine...it's just my back... I'm fine".......and soon the muscles relaxed and I could straighten out again...I was horribly embarrassed...and Robert was furious...because I have  had this problem with my back for nearly two years now and none of the doctors seem to take it seriously.  He said I should have screamed and fell to the floor and they would have taken me to emerg...and looked at my back....maybe I would have got some results from these Edmonton doctors...  I didn't think of that at the time...the spasms happen so suddenly and unexpectedly that you don't have time to plan...ahahahhaha  I thought that the extra excersise  I am doing was helping but the problem is still there...

I also got a call from my fam. doc about the results of my recent bone density scan I had done... not that great...I am at a mid to low risk of bone fracture and am considered osteopenic....which is the level below having osteoperosis... thanks mom...and I would take this moment to give a shout out to all my sisters: OUR MOTHER HAD OSTEOPEROSIS,  it is highly hereditary on the female side of families...so you should all be taking calcium suppliments and drinking milk...and having bone density scans done periodically...

So the doc started me on some crap medication to help build up the strength in my bones, I took some shit a few years back but it made me deathly sick to my stomach...so I quit taking it...this new drug is a better class....allegedly..and I only have to take it once a week rather than daily... so the vomitting and diahrea will only be once a week...anyway...you have to get up early in the morning, take this pill with a full glass of water and no food for at least 30 minutes...preferably 1-2 hours...since the longer you can go with out eating afterwards the less stomach upset will occur...but being diabetic...and having just awoken after an 11 hour fast...waiting another two hours to eat is not working so good for me this morning...my stomach feels like a toilet bowl at the moment of first flush..when the water starts swirling around and around and a definite downward momentum begins....ugh....my hands are shaky now and I feel a bit light headed so I think my waiting is over and I am about to eat my first food of the day...before I pass out from low blood sugar...hahahaha  not a laughing matter either... 

Yes, It's THAT Day again

March 16 th.... baby David's 32nd birthday...seems odd to still think of him as a baby...when he  would be a full grown man...

Today is a momentous day for me...not just my deceased sons birthday but my lovely sister Leslies birthday as well...

and the day I finally go for the MRI of my ankle...I am scary excited about going because I have all my hopes pinned on it showing something the matter with my ankle that they can fix....I  am sick to my stomach thinking that it won't show anything... so wish me luck...

I am determined to make this day a good and memorable one... so there....

It's a SMALL World

Foggy as all get out here this morning..and I had a hair appointment. I am really lucky that my awesome hair dresser still does hair from her home now that she is a young mother of two...she used to have the studio in town and a manicurist and the whole nine yards but overhead from leasing the building and the birth of her first child made her decide to move the salon to her basement. Her hubby helped her do the place up and it is like being in a very comfy, cape cod cottage, with a fireplace and her home made quilts hanging off the back of the lounging chairs and on the walls...She has a great sense of fashion...being a young, gorgeous amazon type woman...her hair is always cutting edge and she dresses for the part even though she is just at home in the basement...I love going to her...we are good friends, since Robert and I bought her first 4-H calf project for our freezer...and her Dad bought bulls from us...so we go way back... and I pray to God she never quits cutting hair because I will weep...seriously...

I have only told you a bit about her...and to get to the point of my story... she is a brilliant colourist...as many of my younger friends are examples of her skill...and she was selected as one of two colourists for the province of Alberta to go to NEW YORK for the launching of a new colour line product and demonstrations...Her trip was the end of January and today was the first visit with her since she returned...so when I asked her how her trip was she was nearly bouncing up and down with excitement...as she was selected to teach colouring techniques at the Edmonton Hair Show....which is awesome...so while she was washing my hair I mentioned that my niece had also been at that New York thing for hair colourists and asked her how many were there all total, so when she told me about 42 were in attendance I said that perhaps since it was such a small group that she might have met my niece after all...and I told her my nieces name was Natalie....there was a seconds pause and then she came around where she could see my face and said....Beer, Natalie Beer...and I said ya...and then she said OH MY GOD....we friended each other on facebook and spent a lot of time hanging out while in NY...we laughed our asses off....is how she put it....hahahaha 

Isn't it amazing that in all the millions of people there are in country..that that would happen... Okay, I grant you that them both being in the hair business did narrow the odds out a bit but still... freaky....  sounds like they really hit it off...and I was just a little proud to be a so-so aunt to the cool chick Natalie...

I want to CRY

Waaaaaaaaa  I want to cry...I have to say good bye to an old friend today...my first digital camera...has, I am horrified to say, gone to the other side...in a blaze of glory...yes that's right...he caught on fire....hahahaha, well acrid smoke slithered out of his crevices..and there was the stench of burnt toxic plastic in the air...and now he won't respond...Oh my God, what will I do without him....

It's not a matter of just buying a new one...I did that in November, for a much "better" one that I hate...that's right a $489. dollar camera that I loathe....yes, I feel that strongly about it...and I should have taken it back, but I worried Robert would get angry since the small pocket sized one I tried first didn't suit me either and I returned it to get this bigger one..and I hate it....so now what do I do... my first digital camera, when I bought it was the most expensive one on the market..and it took awesome pictures and AND (that's a big and) it was soooooo simple to use...lots of pixels, big zoom and I loved it...ohhhhhhhhhh I am heart sick....Fuji  what will I do without you.....whaaaaaaaaaaa

I can't buy another camera...so I will be forced to use this over the top complicated piece of shit I bought...that for the life of me I cannot get it to take a decent picture..and I have read the manual from front to back...and tried every setting...they are grainy and dark...  SHIT.... I am upset...it just happened this morning so I haven't had time to come to terms with the loss yet...

I got all tarted up this afternoon, cause Robert said he was taking us to town and would buy me supper at the casino....whoooo hooo a big deal for us since we don't even gamble...but then I remembered he had got these cards that you swipe there and it gives you half off the cost of your meal...hahahaha I knew there had to be a catch...oh well , I will think this annoying tight fisted habit of his is a good thing when we finally retire from farming and have to live on a shoe string budget....cutting coupons and shopping on tight wad tuesdays at SAVE-ON foods...hahahahahha

The sun is finally shining here and a bit of snow is melting...it may take until may 1st though for it to all disappear...

We bought another bull on Saturday...and full Simmental one to get the cross back into our seriously angus cow herd...he's not the bull I would have chose as my first choice but since it's partnership and Robert liked him way more than I did, I decided not to bid on my favorites waited for him to come in the ring... still cost us $3,000. plus 450. for insurance...but at least the price of our commercial cattle is up in the auction marts this spring so we might make that money back when we sell a few of our old herd bulls...The Lagenegger Logan bull for sure and our old heifer bull...out of Chief...and one of our hybrid bulls that threw some pretty hefty birthweights this spring...I am happy now.... a new simmental bull and three new red angus bulls to put with the cows...I might find calving next year a bit more interesting with some new kinds of calves to look forward to. 

Well the man himself has finally come in to smear on some deoderant and a clean shirt, so I guess that means we are still on for DATE NIGHT....sigh....

I go for an MRI on wednesday in the city at 9 pm...ya, not my choice of times but it will give us a chance to visit Robs aunt....she's a card...and her annoying jack russell dog cracks me up....

so gotta go... talk later ya....

The End has Finally Arrived

A rather Ominous title I know but it seems fitting, for I thought that calving season this year would never end...The last cow, calved yesterday morning, thank God...We discussed why this calving year seemed to go on and on and decided that it was a combination of weather and a bad breeding bull...after all we had only one black calf born this year out of a hundred cows. There was of course suppose to be more, but he wasn't doing his job...

I have to admit that the end seems rather anti-climactic...somehow,  I expected angels voices, fireworks or at the very least some sort of trumpet sounding...after the great effort we both expended to get through it all unscathed and still married. Oh well, just another disappointment, and in spite of all the dead calves at the beginning every cow, it appears, has a calf en Teat...hahahah  even if it's not her own...thank god for twins...again this year..

There is another storm blowing through today...temperature wise it seems mild...only -9 but there is a heavy wet snow falling and fairly brisk wind making the day quite miserable.... again... so our being free to leave home again after being held virtual prisoners for the past 8 weeks...is a bust...since it is so miserable out that Robert has to bed the cattle and keep the home fires burning if you will...besides the highways being treacherous...

We did slip in to the city on Tuesday while it warmed up for our usual one day per week...We drove like maniacs to arrive in time to catch the early matinee movie of "RANGO" starring Johnny Depp's voice....hahahaha it was hilarious...the first animated movie I have gone to see since my son grew up but I enjoyed it very much ...and wow have they come along way.... The humour in this movie is very adult...and subtle...so you have to pay attention and not just to what is being said but what is happening behind the main characters in the background...cracks me up just thinking about it...hahahaha

We dared the whole Costco scene and managed to escape with only minor bumps and bruises....but is it just me or is it a more general disease, that grocery packers just don't give a damn about your stuff.... I mean if they don't want to do it, why the hell won't they let me pack it all back in the cart myself...after all I packed it in there, neatly and it all fit...so why the hell can't they get it back in the cart the same way... honestly, at Christmas we had one very full cart but when we left the store...we were pushing two carts because the moronic twat that repacked the cart couldn't fit it all in one, like I had....IT REALLY BURNS MY ASS, that I pay very good money...as in not cheap...for exceptionally nice produce, or at least it was until it went through the check out...take Tuesday for instance. the check out experience started off on a bad note when I was trying to put back on the bottom of our cart the 5 L jug of dish soap I had removed so that the other girl could scan the product code, but the older ethnic lady who had a hold of the front of the cart kept jerking it because she was impatient to move it past the check out and start packing the smaller stuff back in...but the jerking was making it harder for me to return the jug...and she finally just pulled it away with our jug of dish soap half in half out of the bottom rack of the cart...it later fell off of that rack and landed in the road in the parking lot and Robert, unaware of it's falling just kept on walking...it wasn't until he moved the cart to his side of the truck to finish putting the bigger things in that I had a chance to go around the back of the truck and spied our Sunlight dish soap laying out where the vehicles were driving, it is amazing it hadn't been squished...I picked it up and took it around to where Robert was just finishing up...and asked him where my dish soap was...he looked confused then peeked in the truck and the look of perplexity that passed over his face was priceless...I handed him the jug then and he groaned...I didn't even have to say anything...hahaha but that was just one small part of the story...so.. I bought a lovely big cantelope...as well as other produce...she ( being this older ethnic lady,  packed it in a box in which some taller jars and pasta boxes were at one end and my BIG round cantelope was at the other end...she then drops the box holding 8 loaves of 12 grain bread on top of it, making me wince...but to add insult to injury she then stacked a second box on top of it...and proceeded to throw, and I mean throw as in TOSS flat packs of chicken breasts and pork chops, plus a half dozen packages of hot dogs and a 2 kg container of Becel and box of 32 Silhouette Yogurt into said box....I am sure my mouth was gaping wide while I watched her...but I had, on another occasion in which I was irate, promised Robert to never chew the packers out again...so I bit my tongue and moaned the whole way to the truck..because to rescue my cantelope from the very bottom of the cart would have meant unpacking the whole thing...I was livid by the time I was sitting in my seat again....but you ALL would have been so proud of me... I just leaned over turned the radio up loader and said not a word....but next time...ohhhhh I can't make any promises....

Ha Cha Cha...

I have a confession to make.... when I was younger I used to be very eccentric...hahahaha (some of you are rolling your eyes and thinking, Only when she was younger)...hahaha  okay, I'll reword that...when I was younger I used to much more eccentric.... In fact when I arrived in Alberta to join my parents and help them in a move back to BC... I got off the bus wearing an ankle length tapestry type hippy dress, with an empress waist and short sleeves under which I was wearing a faded old "STONES" T-shirt... a jean jacket that had seen better days and one that I had obviously out grown as it was quite tight...I had hair down to my shoulder blades..and frizzy...no make up, no jewellery and underneath the dress unseen, I was wearing long underwear and knee high leather boots that laces up the sides...I might at this time disclose that it was January 3....hahahahaha and about -25....I had Zsa Zsa Gabor style sun glasses holding my wild hair out of my face...a very tattered back pack slung over one shoulder and a canvas LEVI'S carry on bag... that held every thing I owned...and the back pack was the same one I left home with and used to carry my books to school before that... I had one pair of button up jeans to my name, along with a few T-shirts and of course my favorite Tee of all time, my Kermit the Frog one that I bought for my 16 th birthday....I wore until it was so thin it was indecent and after that wore it as a sleeping Tee.  I had a pair of running shoes with holes in the top of the toe area....and a pair of steel toe bush boots that I had spent one whole paycheck on to be able to get hired on at a cedar shingle camp in the wilds north west of Lumby... I loved that gig...living in camp with 5 other girls most of them from Quebec...another from Manitoba...we had a trailer to ourselves...and there was a common camp trailer where the kitchens were and us women and the men hung out, played cards, made music...It was very strictly run by a logging company...with camp chaperone's and bosses...there were rules out the ying yang....no sex, no booze, no drugs...and no fighting...you did two weeks in one week out...which we usually spent in Vernon......I didn't like the youth hostel scene..so I got a cheap motel room...where I took advantage of the running HOT water and showered a few times a day just because I could...I would call home rarely...but enjoyed watching TV, which we didn't have in camp... I loved that job....in camp when the days work was done, I went hiking...and had made friends with two of the girls so they often came with me...we sometimes washed our hair as a group...two would wash while the third one stood watch...not for the guys...spying but for cougar and lynx...bear, when hibernation was over... We layed on the deck of the small wooden forestry bridges that forded the many creeks and streams...and this one, was particularly handy because it was low enough to the rushing water that with a jug we could scoop water and pore it over our heads...admittedly, the water was brain numbingly cold....I mean FRIGID....but it felt so good to have clean hair.  I wish I had had a camera in those days because some of the scenery and wildlife I saw on those solitary walks were stunning...and the stumps....oh my god.some of them were huge...the guys actually set a picnic table on one of them and had lunch...ancient trees...hundreds of years old...makes me cringe now to think about them being cut down...but we made good use of the giant stumps left behind...the area had been clear cut by the logging company in the winters and a few years after they sent in these shingle camps to cut the stumps, which were often over 8 feet tall because of the snow when they were logged, we cut them with enormous chain saws, drug them to camp with  an ancient skid steer and CAT  they were cut into smaller blocks and then chopped with axes and wedges...into manageable blocks where they were split with a shingle knife and mallet...the girls usually did the bundling...but I got bored to death of that job and soon convinced the elderly camp boss to let me try my hand at splitting...which I turned out to be awesome at...if I do say so myself...the girls got paid for bundling by the hour but the splitters got paid per bundle...there was  card stock on which we wrote our ID number on and they were stapled to the bundles, the end of the day, the boss tallied up the bundles each person split and made note of it...man did I make good money...which was good, because when I went back to picking fruit the next year I lived all that winter on the camp money I had saved up... I loved that log camp work...but the politics were stupid....you know, that many people living together..there was bound to be shit going on...I never had to worry about that because I was boyish enough to not be bothered by the younger guys...but the pretty girls, well they worked there way through the camp...oh not while they were in camp of course or they would have got the asses fired...but on their week out they hooked up with the current guy and never emerged from their room the whole week...hahahaha so then back in camp...guys would be shooting daggers at each other across the table...shoving and pushing....childish shit...

I have, ever since that job...loved the smell of cedar...wet, dry or any way at all...the smell of rain and foliage...salmon berries right off the bush, wild raspberries and blackberries there for the picking...the switch back roads and riding in that rat trap old dodge fargo van....with 10 other people crammed in on our way to Vernon for our week off, buying fruit and chocolate bars to take back to camp for the next two weeks and the food we got served in camp...oh man the elderly couple who were hired as camp cook and maintenance man were so nice and man could Ellen cook...Eli spent his nights cheating the young guys out of their money at cards...winking at us girls across the room, all night...and before he turned in he would always give the money back...hahaha the guys would be just livid...but the next night they always played cards with him again..hahaha   I loved that Job...

So I don't know where that eccentric hippy chick went...I wish I could find her again...because she didn't care what people thought of her...or worry about her looks...she took care of herself...did a good job of it...except for the summer she lived on Chef boyardee...ravioli and free fruit...exclusively...oddly enough I still crave that crap...every time I see it in the store...I am sorely tempted to buy a tin..... that odd summer was what prompted me to look for a better paying job than picking fruit all summer and staying in youth hostels for the winter...that's when I got the shingle job...hahaha

So when I stepped off that greyhound bus in Alberta...I was a free spirit..never smoked pot...never had a boyfriend and never finished high school...and became a different person...married, kids, buried in responsibility and burdens..

Just no fun anymore, man... would I love to take Robert into the bush and split shingles...I know he would love it...but our old bodies would miss the comforts of home, so I guess that past life is best left in the past..for the young.. 

so ya...I used to be a sort of hippy...in the Seventies...hahahaha

What makes A Mother

I got into a bit of a rant yesterday while Robert and I drove to town to restock our fridge with yummy vegetables and fruit. It all started with Robert asking me about my weekly chat with Jen, the Highlight of my week, I will admit.

I know what you were thinking...Oh here she goes again....poor Robert..the man is so abused... (and you'd be right he is abused... in a way...because he is forced to sit here and listen to me go on and on about how I wish I could experience more in my life and how much I hate doctors and what have you...and there is no where for him to go...oh he can delay the inevitable by going outside but sooner or later he has to come back in...and I'm usually waiting...)  Actually that's not completely true...I do make a concerted effort to not harp on him all the time..even when I am feeling overly frustrated...that's what this blog is for...it's suppose to be benign venting...in my first marriage, before I had a computer...I used to bite my tongue and split wood...and boy did we have a lot of fire wood...I mean a LOT....

Anyway, I digress.... so we were driving into town...and he had reminded me about something I had thought of last fall...and have been ruminating on ever since...the topic of crappy mothers... I know I have talked about this subject before...but this is coming from a different angle...this is from the perspective of being one of the crappy mothers... because while I was not a "Norman Bates" kind of mother... I certainly could have done better...but a lady whom I respect very much, Mia Angelo, once said... "As a mother, you did what you knew best to do...and while not perfect...when you knew better, you did better"

So I did the best I could with the knowledge any 18 yr old could have of raising a baby without any support circle around her ( a husband who was more interested in getting his work done that helping with the baby).
And let's face it I never had the greatest role model to mold myself after as far as mother hood went, and that brings me back to my subject.

I don't think being a kind nurturing mother is genetic, I mean it's not something we are born knowing...I think it is learned behavior, imprinted on us at birth by the experience we are exposed to in our very own mothers...be she good or bad or in between. My question is, does that experience then translate itself into how we interact with out offspring... I think it does...well actually I know it does.  

What I am about to say is not meant to offend anyone it is just something that I have been thinking about for a long time and am finally putting down in words.

I do not have a memory in my head of ever being spontaneously hugged or cuddled by either of my parents...I do remember once, my father meeting at the airport in Powell River and I was shocked to see how much weight he had lost and how ill he appeared to me...and I became emotional...he hugged me and kissed the top of my head, he said he loved me and had missed me (it had been a few years since I seen him last)  but my mom, well I'm not saying it never happened, I just don't have any memory of it...so it couldn't have happened very often..if ever... My parents just weren't made that way...and why should they have been, when now as an adult I have learned by asking distant family members what they know about my Dad and Mom when they were children, a sad story emerged for both... My Dad... whose father was a mildly abusive womanizer, and his mother was a shy, wallflower type young woman with a heart defect from birth, had a fairly volatile marriage. My grandfather flirted and cheated on my grandmother and she was very jealous...and surrounded with her quite large French Canadian family, who were apparently very vocal in their dislike of her husband, there just never seemed to be peace in the home...When my father was two and half, his mother was found lying on the floor dead, he was sitting beside her crying and his father was no where to be found...he disappeared and was never heard from again...the children were shifted from family member to family member and eventually divided up...the older boy Leo going to  live with their mothers parents, who ran a small hospital in the town of Turner Valley...and thought a six year old slightly easier to look after... Ethel his sister was taken in by their mothers sister who had four boys of her own but no daughter...but no one wanted a two year old still in diapers who cried all the time so his fathers family took him and he spent years being moved from one home to the other...he started that life with his grandparents but his grandmother died after only ten months of his mothers death, and his grandfather was devastated...so Dad was sent to live with his fathers sister pearl...but she had six kids of her own...and things were getting tough just before the 1930's.. so some of the other aunts and uncles took him in for a few months at a time... until he was old enough and ran away..when he learned his brother Leo had joined the army..he lied about his age and joined as well... so how could he learned how to be a loving father with that experience as his model....and for that matter respect for women...the only experience he had with love was when it got hard, you walked away...or quit...

My mother, grew up in a family where the girls were basically ignored until they reached an age where they could be of help in the home.  Her mother was a strict disciplinarian, and her father was the kind, Daddy who winked at his kids behind his wife's back when she was scolding them and bought them candy... but he escaped every day to work at Dominion steel and had been having a long term relationship with one of the women working in the office there...His wife was horribly jealous and lots of disputes took place over his infidelity. My mothers mother had one great accomplishment in her life and that was her son David...she lavished, it seemed, all her love and attention on him and the four girls, while not abused were definitely not afforded the same attention. I learned this, not from my mother, who rarely spoke about her mother...but from her older sister Bessie...and her brother David and his wife...(who by the way grandmother hated for not being good enough for her son and taking him away from her)  Uncle David even confronted his father about his affair...and it was not denied...and he ended it not long after that. That woman had a son, but it was never determined whether it was Grandfather's or not...and no one pursued it. So while my mother's mother was not a cuddly or lavisher of affection it is easy to understand why...when I delved a bit deeper I discovered that she herself had been raised, along with a sister, by their father, after her mother when she was only 1 month old. The girls father was a master boilermaker by trade and spent long hours at the factory, leaving the care of his infant daughters to hired care givers living in the same tenement building with children of their own... so they never learned love and coddling from their mother, the went on to have children to whom they did not lavish affection either and my mother did the same to her children... so I see a cycle...a very unfortunate one at that... because how can you show love ...and nourish when you have never experience love or nourishment from your own mother...you certainly don't learn encouragement, to show affection or the simple human contact with someone who loves you because you are a part of them, from a neighbour lady with a half dozen kids to look after all day.. or a mother who has no time to cherish her daughters because she is obsessed with making her only son someone her husband could be proud, with her then becoming deserving of her husband love and undivided attention... Her son was her one great accomplishment in life...Once her husband ended his affair she became calmer...and appreciated her grand children very much, but the damage was done by then...my mother was the homely little middle child..with the bad complexion and the weak bladder..who was neither a genius or dull witted...but somehow easily overlooked... and those are not my words...but her brothers, who in spite of being spoiled rotten as a youth...was a wonderful caring man with an easy smile and love enough for all his family.

So if you don't grow up feeling loved or cherished, what becomes of you, and how do you raise children of your own....

I have, over the years determined that there are many forms love can take...and while some mothers are not capable for what ever reason of showing love physically... they show it in other ways...  By cooking your favorite dinner, collecting all year long things that she knows you like so she can include them in a gift box at Christmas... or surprising you by having every photograph of you she has ever been sent in an album and arranged with thoughtful care...

She might have made bad choices in her life, she might have made some serious irreparable mistakes, but don't ever doubt that she loves you....

She loves you, she doesn't know how to show it....

Forecast is for Rain

Stuck in a perpetual frozen wasteland...no  really... we are...it is -27 with a howling wind that is strong enough to make the wind chimes ring all afternoon, snow, heavy at times. The cattle are huddled up on the sides of anything that will block the wind...I hope the calves don't get trampled...

Robert, poor bastard, slave to his own unsympathetic mistress farm....was out this morning for a bit to feed grain and came in with the end of his nose frozen and his hands and feet nearly so... but lucky for him I fed him hot homemade soup and a hero sandwich...and sent him back out....nice wife hey?   I did, of course, dress him better than what he did this morning...with a new pair of wool socks covered by heavy arctic socks to wick his sweatiness away and keep his toes toasty dry...clean long johns from the dryer (still warm)...his perenial sweats, of course and two hoodies...then his -50 sub arctic coveralls and what we term "the cement shoes", because these boots while rated for -50 temps, weigh a bloody ton and feel like your shoes are filled with cement... I have a pair too but have avoided having to wear them for a couple of years now...Robert says this is the first time he has had to wear them for over a year...Lucky again....any way to complete his blizzard blasting outfit...I generously donated my "Good to -40, leather goose down filled mitts...that cost me $50. last fall but In my mind were worth it, as the few times I have had to wear them in -30 temps they kept my hands toasty...Robert refused to buy himself a pair because of the cost...and forbade me to buy him a pair too...

so I have been checking on him out there with the binoculars, and he is still wearing my mitts, and my fleece face protector that I made and his "cement" boots. It's been four hours out there now and he should be coming in any minute...so I will go and put the kettle on for hot chocolate and start making the homemade pizza I planned for supper... although I feel badly that there is no salad to go with it...as he enjoys a good salad...(gag me ) but the roads have been so bad and the weather treacherous that it's been nearly two weeks since we have been to town for groceries...we are reduced tomorrow to using the powder milk stash...we keep for emergencies... they say the weather might improve early next week....but man that seems like ages away...and to make matters worse...some of the calves are scouring inspite the cows being vaccinated for scours...and so the drug company wants to send the vets out to do some testing and sample gathering...tomorrow....in this weather...I am livid, I think Robert has more than enough crap to deal with with the weather, not add to his work load...if they insist on coming I will be forced to go out to the barn and babysit them while Robert continues doing his chores...I hate it when he gets delayed and is out there until midnight...for christ's sake, he must really love this shit... and I find as I age, that I have way less tolerance for shitty weather...and I don't even have to be out it in for very long...although I do go out every day... to feed the dogs and help Robert a bit, it is never for as long as he is out there.

So off to the kitchen I go to spoil my hard working man a bit with something hot and yummy to fill his cold void...and warm him up... Let's hope the weather breaks soon...

Squeezing the Pimple

I bet you are intrigued by the title of this posting...well don't get your hopes up..it's just another purge on my part.

I noticed something funny about my hands the other day...for starters, they weren't swelled up...like they usually are and as I was sitting enjoying a cup of tea...I noticed that the skin is very loose...I mean really loose...I suppose from being so badly swollen most of the time the skin has stretched...and at odd times when the inflammation goes away...the skin is left, loose and wrinkled...in fact...it is so loose that I can, with my other hand push all the skin to one side of the hand, into folds, I guess you could say... and those folds stay there...until I move my fingers and then is slowly, like in slow motion, become evenly distributed over my hand again...wierd...does any one else have that ? ...

I am becoming very resentful of living so far away from everyone in my family..it's horribly inconveinient...because another party has taken place that I was, sadly not invited too, and I am assuming it was because I live so far away they just naturally assumed I wouldn't make the effort to come...but still, some members of the family still invite me even though they know I won't make...just to ensure I won't feel left out... (boy do I have issues)...but humour me...

The party was to celebrate my sister Pam's 50 th Birthday that takes place in just a few days... Jen and Ayla were making a trip to Powell River and so they had the party early...

One of my biggest regrets in life is not having a half a dozen kids...surely with a greater number of them a couple would have turned out to be decent...and I would perhaps have a bit of family close by to celebrate family stuff with, instead... I spend the days alone...actually on my fiftieth birthday I believe I was seeding grain...we went to a move the following week...I don't know why it matters so much...it's just another stupid day, like the other 364 of the year...It's not like we ever had an abundance of parties as kids...we didn't even have a cake every year...if things were tight or they forgot...yes that's right they forgot our birthdays on occassion...

Any way I had planned to ramble on and on but with the days lasting longer now the light sky has tripped me up and Robert has come in for supper early and I am running late...it figures, the one time he is in at the right time is one of the rare times I am late...oh well, I'm thinking peanut butter and bread...hmmmmmm