Burnt, yet frozen.

Every time I get a bonfire going – and there is a shit load of fuel in our yard right now – I think in caveman-speak.

Me make fire!  *grunt*  Look!  Fire!  *grunt*

It’s possible, although not lab-proven, that I am a tidge on the weird side.  Yes, indeedly do.  Ah well, it keeps life entertaining, especially in my head.

Today I managed to triumph over the somewhat soggy pile of sticks and logs, and got a fire going.  (grunt!)  I made a dent in the fallen trees, although one would be hard-pressed to prove it.  I also managed to singe trim one eyebrow, and have what appears to be a burn on the side of my nose.  Oh, and my face is a lovely shade of lobster red.  You’d think I’d gone tanning or something.

The boys – mine & the neighbours’ – did manage to help.  For all of 5.67 minutes.  Then they flitted off to do other stuff.  Stuff that didn’t seem like work and wouldn’t singe one’s eyebrows, I suppose.  Little shits.  They’d better realize how good they’ve got it.  I might take the 7/11 clerk’s advice and make them really work.  Laundry, toilet scrubbing.  The works!

Muahahahaha.

And now?  I am going to kick the dog off the couch, and curl up under a blanket.  I’m freezing!!

Memory lane.

Spring Cleaning, part deux.  That’s what today was.  I did some laundry, cleaned the basement, moved the two file boxes full of old paperwork upstairs, and decided what baby stuff to send to my about-to-pop sister in law.  I’ve moved along most of the baby crap – like 98% – so it’s slim pickings.  She is, however, getting some great blankets and some cute books.  The rest of the books are going to Special K’s son, Mr. B.  (hear that, Kaz?  Yer getting more stuff!!  Mwahahahaha)

The file boxes were amusing.  Every one of my tax returns, back to 1991.  Wow.  Hello, Mr. Shredder!  Bank statements for accounts that haven’t existed since I still signed my maiden name.  Paperwork pertaining to the labour claim D had with a former employer…….in 1996.  Pay stubs.  Credit card receipts (for cards that no longer exist).  Have I mentioned that I love to get rid of clutter, and could be considered an Organizational Whore, except for that whole bothersome Kitten Whore nickname?

I’ve unearthed photos from the 90s – graduation, weddings (mine included), animals that are no longer with us.  Especially sweet were the ones of the first puppy D & I had together:  Marley.  He was so fucking cute.  A little 5-pound ball of nothing when we got him, he grew into a large Akita-cross.  I still kick myself for not ensuring he was unable to wander.  Maybe he’d still be with us.  And the cats!  Ratty’s little sister is in there – she died on our front lawn in 2003, literally scared to death by some kind of wild animal – she was a funny little thing.  I can see why I just had to have Gizmo…..he really does resemble Lael….and here I thought D was nuts.

Photos of Austin as a baby.  Again with the cuteness!  Not that he’s lost it, it’s just changed.  A LOT.

After the fun of sorting paperwork, I braved the cold (but sunny!) weather and picked up the winter’s dog crap.  Oy.  I had gloves on for warmth, with plastic gloves overtop of those.  I think I’ll triple-glove with plastic next time.  Ick.

Had a quiet afternoon, baked some cookies a little while ago (from a bucket, people, I am so not domestic these days), and am awaiting the influx of kids that is sure to occur any minute.  The neighbours’ boys are here this weekend, and I haven’t seen much of my two.  Since they’re having company next door, I offered to let their two sleep here tonight.  Oh, and we have an extra dog.  D2 & her husband are off to some rodeo thing, so I have their boxer.  She’s a sweetheart, but she’s an only dog.  This means she’s not up on her cat-iquette, so to speak.  Our dogs like the cats and/or ignore them.  Bailey?  She’s a little more interested in the cats.  Sniff, sniff, whine, whine….I have her on a leash next to me, just to be safe.

4 am.

That’s when my phone rang this morning.  And yes, I answered it, even though it usually doesn’t go well.  The last time, it was D’s alarm monitoring company, calling because some back-check phone call didn’t work.  Bullshit call, and the guy didn’t need to call.  Especially not our home number, where D doesn’t even live full time.

Anyhoo.

This morning.  4 am.  I answer, some stupid bitch says, “Stop calling me.” then hung up.  And, at the risk of sounding like a racist bitch, I’m pretty sure she might have been a resident of our local reserve.  Either that, or she did one hell of an impression.   She (he?) called again, but I didn’t answer.  No message, and I turned off the ringer.

Then I couldn’t fucking sleep!  Which made me very angry.

So, I lay there, awake and pissed off, when I noticed that the message waiting light was flashing again.  Are you KIDDING me?!  I listened to the voice mail, and it was some gibberish song with swear words.  Now I’m thinking:  Young.  Drunk on hooch. Random-dialing people.

If it continues, I’ll use the call-trace option (even though the number is blocked, the phone company knows damn well who’s calling me) and/or add a call-screening feature to my phone.  Whatever.  I just don’t want the phone to ring at 4 am.

Re:  previous post.  I adore Maine Coon cats, strangely enough.  My girlfriend had one years ago, and he was just the most beautiful and sweet cat – he was probably the cat that made me comfortable with the very idea of having cats of my own.  Hm.  I’m going to have to get one someday.  Maybe when the numbers reduce a bit?

Me-yow!

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I think I’m asleep, so don’t quote me.

So. Tired.

Days = long, stressful, work-filled.

April is shaping up to be relatively crazy.  Not FUN crazy, either.  Just plain crazy-crazy, which annoys me.

Told my boss today that the paper on my desk is trying to choke me.  He laughed and said welcome to the club.  Nice guy.

Decided my former boss has to be renamed.  Once the Moody Bitch of our office (we all have bitch names, and mine’s Picky, thankyouverydamnmuch), she is now going to be the Snoopy Bitch.  Seriously.  I left my office (MINE!  do I sound like a 2 yr old yet?) quite early on Monday* so I could see my husband and have time to do some shopping in the Big Northern City.  She called my office for no reason, which translates to Checking Up On Me.  Cut the apron strings, woman.  You’re not my damn boss anymore.  And stop looking at my calendar just to make comments about it.  I can cut off your fucking access any goddamn time I like!

*Easter Monday, no less.  Can you imagine how dead our office was?  80% of our clients thought we were closed, and the other 20% spent the day calling us to see if we were open.  Grr.

Kids are asleep in my bed.  Mmm…built-in heaters for my cold toes.  Have a headache.  Listening to National Geographic channel – some show about scientists studying woolly mammoths.  Interesting, but am only half-listening.

Later.

PS  Candy, I am TOTALLY going to make something up….someday.

PSS   I actually had to call 911 at work today.  Two idiots (men, of course) were beating the shit out of each other across the street from our office.  Older dude kind of started it, but the younger guy got him on the ground and whaled on him.  Bloody, limping, etc.  His wife put a stop to the fight when she came out of the bank.  We had such a good view that we got both license plates and I gave the RCMP very detailed descriptions.  Impressively, 3 squad cars AND an ambulance arrived within 3 minutes.  Oh, the excitement.

Now Paging: Inspiration.

I have nothing to say.  I suppose the fact that I’m writing this means I do, in fact, have something to say.  But really, it’s nothing.

Life is a little bit boring right now, and I’m quite grateful.  The most interesting thing that happened to me in the last 24 hours?  My children calling home at 10 pm last night, desperate to come and see me (they’d stayed at a friend’s the night before, while I was out of town).  They came home and crashed with me.  Sweet boys I have.  This week has already been long, what with a trip north on Monday (including a visit with D en route), dinner with the other BC managers, meetings yesterday, and the drive home last night.

Spring cleaning is almost done.  I so love ridding myself of excess crap.

See?  Nothing.  Boring.  Maybe something interesting will occur to me today.

We’ll call it a draw.

It’s a very good thing I don’t live-blog.  The vitriol spewing forth today was….er….epic in nature.  I really and truly detest abhor  hate with the fire of a thousand suns the job of assembling furniture.  Especially wardrobe-y things that have been constructed with the most evil of wood products:  MDF.

ARGH.

Medium Density Fibreboard, my ass.  More like More Damned Fuckedup or Momma Done Fuckedup or even Man ‘dis FUCKED.

My children heard the f-bomb more times today than they have in the past year.  And I swear a LOT.  (yeah, yeah, bad mother, what the fuck ever)  At one point, I tried to scream in frustration, only to become more frustrated because my voice is not fully back yet.

That’s when I walked away.  About 30 minutes past the point of some slight, but now permanent damage to the wardrobe.*  Yeah.  I really know when to quit.  Stubborn may just be my middle name.

Anyhoozen, I’m not proud of my language today, or the couple of times I snapped at the kids, or even the door-slamming I did in a failed attempt to calm the fuck down.  (stubborn + temper = EVIL Bitch)  But hey.  We all have bad days.  Right?

Right?

*You know how all these DIY things have the stupid goddamn boards for the back?  And how you’re supposed to oh-so-easily nail in about 50-kajillion teeny-tiny little nails?  All while managing not to a) place them incorrectly and miss the intended spot, thereby leaving a mangled hole in a very visible place; and b) slam your full-size hammer into your fingers, which are just *thatmuch* to large in nature to properly hold said teeny-tiny nails, of course.  Yeah.  Didn’t happen.  There are several fuckups, and I have to vacuum again just to get the MDF bits up.  What a great day.

Some assembly required.

Possibly the most dreaded phrase ever.

In a fit of I-really-hate-this-dresser-that-is-as-old-as-me pique, I asked my parents to pick up a new wardrobe/dresser* for Austin. It was one I’ve been eyeing, and it had gone on sale for a decent price. Unfortunately, it’s from one of those Swedish places – not THE Swedish place, but close – and guess what? I get to put it together.

I should be assembling right now, but holy crap, is that kid’s room a nightmare. I worked up a sweat just cleaning and moving the furniture that will allow me to put the new furniture together. It went something like this:

1. Remove drawers from old dresser, place on bed (if full) and stairs (if empty**), move old dresser out and into the garage (up a flight of stairs!).
2. Decide that desk can be moved to spot vacated by old dresser.
3. Pick up crap that fell behind old dresser, vacuum carpet.
4. Move desk.
5. Determine that if bookcase is moved to spot vacated by desk, then night stand and bed can be moved over, thus allowing room against the far wall for the new wardrobe.
6. Clean up crap on floor between desk & bed. Vacuum more.
7. Move bookcase. Hm. Sucker’s heavy. Removing books is for pussies.
8. Vacuum dust bunnies that were living behind bookcase.
9. Slide Very Heavy Box #1 into room. Follow with Even Heavier Box #2.
10. Move night stand over. Vacuum again.
11. Slide Heavy Boxes over to lean up against book case, after realizing they can’t stay where they are.
12. Remove folding storage bins from under bed. Curse about how much CRAP one’s children have accumulated in their short lives.
13. Roll bed over, until flush with night stand.
14. Walk around other side of bed, to discover a new pile of crap to clean up. Curse louder.
15. Pick up junk, throw out garbage, vacuum yet again.
16. Shove folding storage bins back under bed, vowing to cull the toys.
17. Look at desk in relation to bed, realize that desk will have to return to original spot. Bookcase will need to go where desk is.
18. Lay Heavy Boxes of assemblable furniture down. Rip open like it is Christmas.
19. Curse heavily when one realizes there are 1.4 trillion pieces involved, and none appear to be labeled.
20. Remove empty boxes from room. Look back once, decide to go eat something instead.

*Austin’s bedroom is an odd one: no closet. Well, there is one, but it houses the pressure tank and some of our water system stuff, and it’s cramped and under the stairs. So, no closet for him.
**the empty drawers? A happy by-product of my reluctance to put all their clothes away. Am looking forward to hangers, which Austin can certainly handle himself. Folding he just can’t master.

Woof.

Playing catch-up.

Erm.  Yeah.  Where to begin?

Have already hired a new staff member.  My mom, of all people.  She & my dad are looking to move here, so this ties in well with their plans.  I think it will go well.

Got sucked into doing much more than expected for our soccer auction.  Oy.  Nobody else in the association had any experience, and I suppose I could have warned them about the chaos that would ensue.  I’m a bitch, however, and did no such thing.  Now they all know.  *snicker*  It went very well, with a sell-out crowd, and plenty of Disposable Income types in the room, most willing to part with their money.  I do believe we pulled in over $10k last night, and that goes a long way towards fields.

Voice is coming back veerrrryy sllooooowwllyy.  I’m sure the kids love it, since my yelling capacity is much reduced.  Me?  I fucking hate it.  I squeak on the phone with clients, don’t sound like me, and my MIL once again thought I was Austin when I answered the phone.  Fun stuff.

Have become completely & utterly addicted to Scramble on that dame Crackbook site.  Argh.  Wanna play?

Am working my way diligently through all of Douglas Coupland’s books.  I find myself enjoying his writing very much – he’s quirky and nothing is predictable.  I went to pick up the one book the library called to say was in, and there were FOUR waiting for me.  Oops.  I need to get through “A Thousand Splendid Suns” before anything else, because I’m sure there’s another hold on it after me.  Shouldn’t be a problem.

Speaking of books, that damn Doubleday group sucked me into another subscription renewal.  Five free/super cheap books?  Buy four more in 2 years?  Sure, sign me up!  DUH.   But!  They are sending me the new Ken Follett, and that is enough to make it worth my while.

Spring Break has begun, so I’m facing two weeks of the kids off school.  Should do wonders for my already overdue (read:  horrifying) daycare bill.

This week is meetings, meetings, meetings.  Can’t wait.  Later!