The Open Window is More Interesting.

Last night I had the good fortune of getting a ride home with my brother and his girlfriend. It’s not that I dislike riding home with hubby, it’s just that it’s always late, and getting home at 5:30 is a real luxury that I could get used to very quickly.

Alas it was like 48 degrees in my house when I got there. It was so hot, poor Rosie was being very still, lurking in the shadows. I immediately threw all the windows wide open and set up a fan in the back-est darkest room, and we decided to just lay low for a bit.

I turned on the t.v. because I never do that. I thought “I am going to watch all those shows that I don’t get to watch when hubby’s here because he’d rather watch documentaries/nature shows/the news 3 times in a row.” I turned on the t.v. and Rosie and I plopped onto the futon and we watched t.v. Rosie is injured and that’s enough excuse for me.

Wow is t.v. ever bad these days. In my normal life, when hubby’s around and it’s not the middle of summer, I generally only tune in for a handful of shows: Tuesday nights we’d watch Flight of the Conchords for a half-hour, Wednesdays I’ll watch like 4 episodes in a row of At the End of My Leash where an annoying but effective dog-trainer guy works with all these families, usually completely irritating, to rehabilitate their dogs/themselves. It’s my guilty pleasure. He thinks he’s Cesar Milan but he’s so totally Calgary. I like the dogs though, and Rosie enjoys it.

On Thursdays we settle in with our pizza dinner (home-made! It’s not as bad as it sounds!) and allow ourselves to watch 3 hours solid of television. We start with My Name is Earl, not our favorite favorite but we’ll miss it anyway, then move to whatever they’ve got on next, which most recently was the excellent Parks and Recreation featuring the excellent Amy Poehler. Then we slide into The Office and cap it off with 30 Rock. Following that hilarity, we use The National as our chill-out room. Usually I knock off at about 10:30, once I’ve seen the top stories.

But it's summer now, and last night I flipped the channels, desperately looking for something to watch. I started with ET Canada where I learned all I never wanted to know about celebrities for the day, and then I went over to HGTV, where I watched perky real estate agents try to help people look for homes. A fellow named ‘Cheyne’ (pronounced ‘Shane’) who was also a falconer was looking for his first home, with great expectations. His mother carried a small dog with her wherever she went and was convinced she could negotiate $50k off the asking price. A young married couple, the husband of which was in a rock band, were looking to move out of the tour bus and into an apartment (!)… but with the bandmates. That’s an understanding wife. As she squealed, upon seeing her fully decorated new bedroom, “it’s just like a hotel!” and caught myself yelling “BECAUSE IT’S GOT NONE OF YOUR DAMN STUFF IN IT!” I realized I needed to turn off the t.v.

These days, if the options are watching snotty NYC Prep school kids being horrid, watching snotty airheads in L.A., watching irritating ‘celebrities’ survive in the jungle, watching people compete in talent shows, watching the evidence of peoples’ bad financial or relationship decisions, or watching real estate agents try to turn a silk purse into a sow’s ear, I think I might just throw the t.v. set out the window and enjoy the breeze.

OK Summer, It's ON.

This weekend our little family was bitch-slapped by mother nature. It was nothing that we should ring alarm bells about I don’t think, but someone flicked the ‘summer’ switch and we were immediately inflicted with all summer concerns.

Saturday we went up to the land to check out our new laneway. It was momentous – we were finally able to DRIVE into our lot. What a great feeling. However, when we parked the truck and got out, we realized the side-effect of taking a backhoe to black earth in the deep forest in June – the place is a wall of blackflies and mosquitos. The laneway is a bit messy but give it a few weeks and the edges will start to grow back and cover up the mess. We need to cut down a few more (dead and scruffy) trees to get the air moving in there, to ward off the insect army.

We first headed down to the waterfront and I took the first swim in my own lake. It felt marvelous – the water was the perfect temperature, the bottom felt ok, it was nice and shallow and Rosie had the time of her life, running back and forth through the water, swimming around in circles and chasing sticks. She swam for about an hour solid. She and hubby swam down the shoreline and then back up the shoreline, while I stayed behind with the loppers and clipped down the crappy little trees that made the beach inaccessible. I didn’t cut them all down – just the ones blocking our beach and the ones blocking the access point for our future dock. The beach is now sunny and passable. I call it a beach but really it’s a sandy strip about 2 feet wide – 4 at its widest.

Then we tried to measure out BIL’s cottage footprint, based on plans he sent us Friday night. I think we did an ok job, but we were rushed, as the dog was being eaten alive. No joke, her eyes are still surrounded by little bumps. Luckily the bites don’t seem to irritate her the way they irritate me, but it still makes me sad to see her with flies stuck to her eyes. I think that footprint will need to be re-measured so he doesn’t end up with a wonky cottage.

Sunday we took off and headed north, to 31-mile lake, to spend the day with my family. My parents launched their boat for the season, so it was the first day ‘on the lake’ for all of us. We got out of the car at the boat launch and Rosie went running into the water to frolic as she usually does, but I heard her yelp, and saw her hobble out of the water in such pain that she didn’t want to stand up. She just lay in the dirt holding her paw up and looking at me, whimpering. All I saw when I examined it was a raised swollen bump that appeared to be rasped or scratched – no blood, no nothing. Anyway, when we got to the island 40 minutes later she appeared to feel better but then got worse, and even though her brother was there, she didn’t really run and play. Swimming felt ok (the water was pretty chilly and it’s low-impact, and probably cleans it out a bit) so we swam and swam, around the island. She must have gone around the island four full times. She spent the rest of the time huddled up on the dock or in the boat, shaking a bit, covered in a towel, giving us the sad eyes. He paw wasn’t looking any better – between the toes it was all puffy and red, but still no blood.

So far, our leading theory as to what happened in the water is that she was nipped ever-so-slightly by a ticked-off snapping turtle. When we returned to the parking lot at the end of the day, our theory was reinforced by the lot full of snapping-turtle tracks, and areas dug up in search of a nesting site, which had all happened while we were out for the day. There was a busy snapping turtle in the hood, and it was feeling a bit defensive. I think Rosie accidentally paddled it while it was lurking in the mud, and it nipped her between the toes – obviously it didn’t get a good shot at her thank god, or else she’d be down a toe today. For once I’m happy Rosie is always moving.

She slept all the way home and last evening appeared to be feeling a bit better – she was walking on it limping a bit, and using it to stabilize her bone while chewing. This morning her body no longer felt hot, and wasn’t panting anymore, but the paw was still swollen so my mom’s taking her to the vet this afternoon to check it out. I want to see if we can give her any painkillers.

It was an on-and-off cloudy day, and while we were all on the island enjoying ourselves, all of a sudden the wind whipped up and it started to rain. It poured, but we all got into my parents’ boat and pulled the cover over us just in time. We were cozy in there, with 6 humans and 2 (large) dogs, curled up, listening to the radio and having some cocktails. The weather got beautiful again quickly once the rain passed, and we all ended up going home burnt to a damn crisp. We are all red today. Those cloudy days are sneaky!

Anyway, stay tuned for the next part of the turtle-bitten dog saga. My heart breaks for Rosie, who didn’t have much fun at all yesterday. Between the bugs, the turtles, the rain, the sunburns, and the knee I bashed on a rock while swimming, we were walloped by summer this weekend and going back to work feels a bit like sweet relief. The deck guy is at our place, the trailer’s almost finished, and I have high hopes for July and August.

Letting Go

Hubby and I were on our way into work this morning and the conversation turned to comedy. He’d seen Carol Burnett on TV last night and was reminded of how hilarious she is, and how much her brand of humour works to this day, even though comedy in general has changed. I told him that I have come to the point in my life where I can admit that I really love comedy. I seriously love it. I am totally comfortable saying that I don’t really like dramas. Where some folks might think that indicates a kind of shallowness or lack of intellectual rigour, I am now 33 years old and I don’t like dramas. Lofty Oscar-winning movies like Doubt or The Reader sound like boring dirges to me, exercises in emotional manipulation. Give me Judd Apatow any day. I’ll take Seth Rogan over Sean Penn please.

We got to talking about all those arty movies that film students and people in their early 20s love or love to talk about. I did genuinely enjoy many of them. I’ve seen much of Jim Jarmusch’s oeuvre, I’ve seen Brazil, I’ve seen many Peter Greenaway movies. But the time in my life for such things has passed. I’ve let go of the intellectual poseur that I once maybe aspired to be – I no longer have anything to prove.

That made me think of all the other things that I have let go. Not including my ass (ha ha see? comedy). I have let go of aspirations that I might one day become a jeweler. I enjoyed making jewelry when the time was right, and I really love having that knowledge under my belt and may one day take a course or something just for fun. But I don’t think I’ll invest any more money in tools or other supplies, because I have realized that I don’t have it in me anymore to focus on it. I am putting it on the back burner. Maybe not letting go completely, but not putting pressure on myself to pursue it anymore.

I am letting go of the idea that I will travel the world. I thought about that question in detail one day, and got rigorous with myself in deciding on the places that I’m actually interested in. I made a list. I mean no offense to anyone and I’m sure glad other people are doing it, but in all honesty, I have zero interest in traveling to China, Russia, South America, Africa, Japan and most of the rest of Asia. I’d go to India on a free ticket, but I wouldn’t pursue it. This may make me less interesting in the eyes of some folks, but I had to get honest with myself and pare down the list, because I am at my roots a homebody. Also I hate flying. Now I can really focus on a short list of places that I would really like to see or revisit: Scandinavia, Thailand, the Yukon/Northwest Territories, Italy, and more of Austria, the Netherlands and Germany, which are places with real relevance to my life. So freeing.

I am letting go of some hobbies, because frankly I am overbooked in terms of interest and commitments. I am letting go of the idea of myself as ‘photographer’, because I realize I’m not that good at it and I don’t have the brain energy or focus (ha) to learn all about all the camera settings. I am a point-and-shooter and whatever success I’ve had in the past has been a fluke. I’ll learn to use what I’ve got but nobody should expect a career out of me. Also my sister-in-law is so much better at it that I will defer to her for all photographic needs.

Soon I will let go of home decorating, because I hope that at some point in the near future, it’ll just be done. Once I do this and this and that and this and that other thing….I am taking the pressure off of myself to be a terrific cheese maker, and will instead make easy cheese when the situation calls for it and I really feel like it, like in the summer when the basil and tomatoes are ripe and I can make a quick mozza, and sprinkle it all with fresh ground pepper and balsamic vinegar. Very do-able.

I’m letting go of the idea that I’ll someday be able to grow all of my own produce. Realistically, I have a job, and so am out of the house for 11 hours a day. I’m not a farmer. Also realistically, I live north of Ottawa in zone 4.5/5 and our growing season is not that long. I already got realistic with myself this year and decided not to grow things that are difficult or that I don’t actually love eating (radishes, beets, cantaloupe). One day I will let go of the grow-op too, because I know that I can find organic tomato and pepper seedlings somewhere if I look hard enough and it’ll be worth the time and energy to just pay for them. Also I am lazy – full disclosure. I have tons of enthusiasm for the garden in May and June but come late July and August, things start to become quite neglected in there. When pestilence hits, I’m all like “whatever.”

I am not ambitious. I have come to realize this about myself. I have a great job, am financially comfortable, and I’ll be happy to stay at this level for a really long time. I am not one to climb the ladder and I don't have my eye on anyone else's job. I squeezed my way into the job that I love, and hope that I get to keep it when my term is up in two years, but aside from that I don’t have any more need for power, money, additional responsibility, etc. I hope to become a happy and knowledgeable lifer.

I’m letting go of the idea that I’m young. I’m trying now to focus on not being an awkward middle-aged person. I find it sometimes hard to relate to my much-younger coworkers, and sometimes find myself feeling old and weird and square. Questions like “is that your boyfriend?” sound much weirder coming from someone ten years older than you.

I’ve let go of the idea that I am hip to new music. I have zero idea what all the kids are listening to these days. I just think they should all get out into the sun and eat a cheeseburger and stop wearing their hair so that it looks like it’s on backwards. I stick with my old friends – the Beastie Boys, Beck – all of whom are comfortably middle-aged (I think the Beastie Boys are actually approaching 50) and have picked up a few new ones along the way, but I do not by any means have my finger on any kind of pulse anymore. If it comes to my local bar, I might go see it but other than that I no longer go to see bands at bars and clubs or feel that desire to NEVER MISS ANYTHING. I haven’t bought a music magazine in 5 years.

I’ve let go of the idea of myself as a cat person. I am officially through my cat phase. I still have a cat – Sasha – and I love her dearly, but it’s not the same anymore; the term ‘Crazy cat Lady’ no longer applies. Turns out I was only obsessed with certain cats. When offers of free cats come my way, my gut reaction is “nonononono.” I’ve marked it in memoriam, I’ve moved past it, and now I’m fully committed to being a dog person. Dogs are hilarious and It’s better for the aforementioned ass.

I'm mostly letting go of high heels. I wear orthotics people! From now on it's platforms or kitten heels, but stilettos are no longer my speed.

All of this housecleaning might be indicative of a mid-life crisis, but I really feel like I’m in a simplification phase. Life is busy, the projects have gotten larger, and I’m at a crossroads in terms of family planning etc., so something had to give. I think it’s healthy to do this kind of analysis once or twice a decade.

My Town

My town is funny.

Long a refuge for disenchanted city folks and people who run at a slightly different speed, my little town is unique in that in many ways it’s a rural small town, where everyone knows each other and who they’re sleeping with, and yet it’s a half-hour out of the city, so the lifestyle is sustainable in that you can hold down a decent job while living ‘away from it all’. It’s a haven for industries such as yoga and pottery studios, organic mushroom farming, watercolour painting, shiatsu massage and dog-sledding. It has for several decades been happy home to a large gay and lesbian population. There’s ‘Hippie’s Custom Tattoos’ right beside the pizza place, which serves the best pizza on earth, and features one called the ‘Magic Mushroom.’ It's a great place to visit if you need your chakras realigned. Why, just this morning I got a copy of the daily email newsletter with the following public service announcement:

Kripalu yoga is cancelled this Tuesday, June 2nd due to the demystification of channelling happening in the space.

There are literally about 15 yoga classes happening in my village at any given time.

All of this lives side-by-side and in relative harmony with the local population of hunters and fisherman, wood-cutters and dudes with ATVs and snowmobiles. Many of them are one and the same (i.e. fishermen who do pottery or yoga). Our local bar (one of two rockin’ local bars) is owned by a music impresario, who has brought in acts such as the Arcade Fire, Grizzly Bear, Final Fantasy, Danny Michel, and Buck 65. The music they feature has a contemporary-folk and world beat focus and is normally of really high quality, and bands reportedly love playing the venue, whose stage sits right in front of a picture window looking out over the dark river and the mountains. On the off nights, I’m pretty sure the bar still has a ‘Dart Night’ and the old local dudes hold up the bar while drinking their quarts of beer with tiny little glasses. There is a pool table and usually a hockey game on the t.v., and the owner’s dog walks around freely among the crowd. In the winter it’s not uncommon to see the parking lot filled with ski-doos, and in the fall, sometimes the trucks in the lot have deer strapped to their roofs. The other local bar is owned by a local band, and is always hopping. Last saturday there was a horse tied up to the patio, and last night someone pulled up in a backhoe. You can bring in a picture of your dog and they will put it on the dog-wall with everyone else's dogs.

When we bought our new car, the wonderful Pontiac Vibe (the ‘Viberator’) I called up Richard at the local dealership and pretty much said “hey Richard we need a car, do you have any cheap Vibes?” When I couldn’t make up my mind about it, they just held it for me until I was ready to commit. When I call they jokingly answer the phone with “whaddya want?” or some other old-man phone-answering joke because they can see my name come up on the screen. There’s some yuks about my dad to get out of the way before we can do business, and they are always very accommodating with regards to my schedule, or loaner cars.

There are some notable gaps in the economy of our town, which some brave individual should fill some day (not me). I believe an art supply shop, maybe one that sells fabric and yarn as well, and could bring in specialty items like clay for the potters, would do really well. We don’t have a gas station – are we the only town on earth without a gas station? The only take-out around is pizza; I’m not complaining, because our local pizza is earth-shatteringly good, but sometimes I have a hankering for Chinese. A tackle shop and/or marina could do well, since our town is on a river and is surrounded by cottage country; some genius could combine this with the gas station and start raking in the cash. Unfortunately, it’s tough to make a go of it and I’ve seen a lot of businesses start up and then fail almost immediately. They’re doomed before they open their doors. The place nearly shuts down in winter, so if it’s a tourist-driven business, they have to know what they’re getting into before committing.

The government of Québec insists that signage in our town be posted in French only, or French-first-and-bigger, but nobody who actually lives there cares much. Those things matter more in other towns. When those laws came out, local retailers started posting their specials in Ukranian, Thai, Swedish, just to piss off the man. Visitors are usually tourists from all over, and they don’t much care either I don't think, though I’m sure the cottagers visiting from Ontario and from the states would prefer that their cashiers at the grocery store speak at least a bit of English. It’s just economics. We’re a border town and the lines get fuzzy. In our town, English folks speak a bit of French and French folks speak a bit of English and generally everything is copasetic until an election comes along and some politician 'from away' jams a stick in our spokes.

Anyway, that is my ode to my town. I have lived there since I was two years old, interrupted by only one short sojourn in the city when I first moved in with hubby, and I can’t imagine living anywhere else on the planet. Someone asked me the other day “what’s it like actually being from here?” and I couldn’t answer the question. It’s paradise, obviously, and it’s funny, and sad when negative changes or conflicts happen, and interesting to meet the people who come through, stay awhile, then move on. It’s the only place I know.

Victory Weekend

It has taken me until now to recover from what has been one of the most foot-intensive weekends I can remember.

Friday night we met up with some friends who were visiting from Toronto. They have 4 kids, and the two eldest girls were in a synchronized swimming competition. We met at their hotel and walked downtown to a restaurant, then walked back, but I had been unprepared for the walking and was wearing inappropriate footwear. I got myself a nice blister which bled all over the back of my shoe. Nice eh?

The next morning we were up with the robins to head into town once more for the Great Glebe Garage Sale. I think I have illustrated in this site before the importance of this event in our household. This year we brought my mom, who made us yummy breakfast sandwiches for proteiny fortification, and it was a very good year. Between us we purchased the following items:
- a really really old first aid cabinet, which will eventually go in our cottage;
- a very cool yellow lamp – I don’t yet know where it will live. I have a rather large lamp collection already;
- Martha Stewart’s “How to Decorate”, 1996 edition;
- A pair of never-worn brown wedge-heel sandals, Nine West, for $8;
- A tiny metal train (engine, two cars and caboose), total 3 inches long, for 50 cents;
- An enamel pail with a handle, which came from a real ghost town in Saskatchewan, apparently (ghosts use buckets? I wonder what for?);
- A chemical toilet for our trailer – brand new, never used – which we were going to have to buy anyway but we got it for $40 (less than half price);
- A beautiful ceramic bed pan;
- A painting – paint by numbers – that hubby paid a dollar for. A woman came up to him later on and said she’d nearly mugged him for it, but offered him $20 for it instead. He didn’t accept;
- Two board games, for the trailer;
- A dinner party game called “Deadly Vacation” which we will play at the electricity-less cottage some dark and stormy night;
- Flippers;
- An ‘O Canada’ ceramic hotplate, featuring the coat of arms’ of all Canadian provinces, for my BIL’s cottage (ha ha we are going to decorate it for him);
- A cooking pot with a lid, for the trailer;
- A chrome kettle, for the trailer;
- Never-used thermal insoles (free);
- Two backpacks (ask hubby why – he collects backpacks like I collect lamps);
- A beautiful new collar for Rosie (pale purple with black polka-dots). She looks like she’s going to a party.

Hubby making off with his loot. He likes to walk out front to keep an eye out for bargains.

And notable things we did NOT purchase include:
- plants of any kind
- fishing things of any kind
- dishes for the trailer
- dog toys

I think we showed great restraint. I’m not sure how much hubby spent (more because I made him buy the high-ticket items), but I got away with only spending $39. I also petted about 1,200 friendly dogs. That’s a fun day in my book.

As you can see, I even took pictures. Here’s a view down one of the streets:

At the Great Glebe Garage Sale, the pedestrian is always right.

And here’s a series of shots I call “Garage Sale Tragedies” ™:

Kitty's found a new place to hide.

No comment (The Strangler).

Sleeping Beauty (The Strangler part deux).

We were home by one but we weren’t sure whether or not the Toronto friends would be coming to our place for dinner, so while hubby drove up to our land to discuss the laneway with the backhoe guy, I stayed home and cleaned the crap out of our house. It felt good but two days later it was filthy again. Le sigh. By Saturday evening I was pretty spent.

Sunday hubby went fishing and I stayed home and painted the trailer with my mom. I got most of the trailer covered with the first coat, but I didn’t buy the best-quality paint and I fear it could go to 3 coats. It’s a really crappy painting job too – lots of tiny areas that require a brush, lots of rough spots to cover, lots of gaps to fill. Totally miserable. Anyway, I will keep on trucking and painting my little heart out.

Then Sunday night we went to the local bar (the most excellent Black Sheep Inn) and checked out SoCalled, a klezmer-rapper I went to high school with. It was an excellent show and I actually danced, and drank a bit too much wine, and Monday morning my feet AND my head hurt.

If every weekend were like that I don’t think I’d have any feet left.

Suddenly I See...

….where in the hell that damn trailer will go.

The weather was kind of poopy on Sunday so we took the opportunity to spend a chilly black-fly-free day up at the land clearing for a laneway. Back in the fall we’d purchased a brand new shiny Stihl chainsaw at our local hardware store during a sale, and were starting to feel a bit foolish with a spic-and-span $500 chainsaw sitting in the basement untouched. We recruited my dad and then my brother volunteered and before you know it, we had a real honest-to-goodness work crew.

We’d gone up there a few weekends earlier, when there was still a bit of snow on the ground, and marked with spray paint which trees we wanted to cut. We chose a route that would allow us to carve out one laneway for the two properties, which would branch off at the end in an informal ‘T’ formation from my brother-in-law’s (BIL’s)place to ours.

Once on-site, and in consultation with my brother who is much more realistic about such things, we realized that the last part of our laneway (leading right down to the cottages) wouldn’t work, as BIL would have to drive smack into the back door of his cottage and down a hill too steep for any rental car to climb. Brother thought there might be run-off issues as well, dribbling into the lake, which is against our vision for the whole place. We instead made the difficult decision to end the laneways at the top of the ridge behind each place, and in future install two nice sets of stairs and pathways down to the cottages. When you visit our cottages, your vision will not be cluttered by unsightly automobiles.

My brother ‘borrowed’ (the guy wasn’t home but you snooze you lose) a super-powered brush cutter, which made short work of the saplings and raspberry bushes covering the first half of the six-acre parcel. He walked the marked laneway and zig-zagged the brush cutter through everything in its path, trees included. Here’s a picture of my brother with the fancy tool, which comes with its own harness (anonymity protected – not everyone likes having their faces plastered on the internets without their permission):

He did return the brush cutter at the end of the day.

Once that was cleared out, we could really see the terrain, and found a logical point at which to branch the two laneways apart that was nowhere near our original plan. As it stands now, we have pretty much cleared our own mini-road, which extends about 500 feet before branching off right (for us) and left (for BIL).

Ours continues down what was once a skidder track for the logging company that selectively cleared the land ages ago, so no major trees were left in our path and it was smooth sailing. We found a clearing – well, we made a clearing – filled with dead birch trees which were promptly removed. It is now a sunny site on a plateau overlooking the lake and what will be our future building site. Here’s a shot of the view from there. The birches will be removed later this summer, in preparation for future cottage-building.

BIL’s laneway ends rather abruptly, so we cleared a little area for cars to turn around and park right nearby. He will have to build a path and a short set of stairs leading down to his cottage, which my brother claims he wants to build right into the hillside. Easy.

When we were done, the neighbor (Ted) came by on his ATV to check it out, and we chit-chatted with him for a bit. Thank god he’s lovely. He and his friends have noisy toys, but if you can’t beat ‘em, you may as well join ‘em. I’m sure BIL will get himself a dirtbike in no time flat and hubby’s already told me he is absolutely going to buy an ATV someday. I can’t complain – I love me an ATV.

Then yesterday I spent a blackfly-filled day gardening and installing my new backyard squash garden. I had a temper tantrum and was going to quit when my parents came over and helped me over the hump. I am off to buy more dirt tonight – sucker’s bigger than I’d planned. I am also planning to buy myself that long-coveted pear tree this evening, so I’m pretty excited. It doesn’t take much.

I also dug in the terracotta flue liners that hubby and I found in a pile of garbage near the fertility clinic. Ha, at least something good has come of it. I will plant these up with a variety of annuals and maybe herbs and I’m sure they will look beautiful for about three weeks, until they become hidden by the monstrosities growing beside them. I always forget how big things get in the garden.

Rosie supervised.

Also this weekend I planted potatoes, cilantro, and some more bulbs in a planter by the front steps. I moved my huge terracotta containers into position on the deck but left them near the stairs, since I know they’ll have to be removed when we tear the deck off.

It was a good weekend’s work, though I didn’t touch the trailer. Sigh. Next weekend’s the Great Glebe Garage Sale, and on my list of things to look for this year are:

- more terracotta flue liners
- retro books on cottage, deck, or outdoor furniture building projects
- board games to leave in the trailer
- dishes for the trailer (metal or plastic)
- vintage tins and bottles i.e. future cottage décor
- a large enamel milking bowl with a red rim, with no rust
- galvanized buckets and things to put plants in
- weird ceramic forest animals (squirrels, bears, birds) from the 50s and earlier

As usual I will report back on our findings. Hubby is expecting a big haul this year, though I’m not sure how he can predict these things. I am going to wager that he comes back with at least one electric motor and some esoteric fishing thing that he will never use. I love the Great Glebe Garage Sale.

Satisfaction

Hubby mowed the lawn last night and I have to say it: it doesn’t take much to make me the happiest woman around.

When I was young I was kind of a bit on the edgy side; there were moments of wardrobe craziness, I used to dye my hair black (woo) and clomped around in army boots for awhile. I had a bunch of holes in my ears. These days that’s nothing, but back in 1992 I was pretty weird for my town. I never really imagined the way that my life would turn out. To be fair, I didn’t ever have a clear picture of where I wanted to be in 10, 15, 20 years, or what I wanted to do when I grew up. I knew what I didn’t want, but was fuzzy on the other details. I knew I liked to draw, I loved rock music and boys with long hair and animals and fashion magazines. What 16 year old kid doesn’t?

I sort of always imagined myself wearing black a lot, being really stylish, having kids, and maybe being an art dealer. Everyone in art history class wanted to be an art dealer.

Here I sit, 33 years old, in a wardrobe that’s getting progressively better-made yet more boring-looking, hair that looks vaguely like it belongs to a soccer mom, comfortable shoes (OK black Converse sneakers, but still. Heels? Not usually). I live in the country, 3 minutes from my parents, in a house that’s one year younger than I am but has aged less gracefully. I have a lovely husband, we have been together for 11 years and we had a beautiful wedding, and he is also settling into middle age comfortably (a recent quote: “I can’t understand how I’m getting so FAT with all this dog walking!” My response? “you’re 37 dear.” Was that supportive?). We have no kids, which I couldn’t predict and has thrown us for a loop, but even that is okay most days. I have a great set of European in-laws and a nephew, and my own brother has turned into a real man and found himself a heckuva nice lady too.

I live in a neighborhood filled with lovely people who are around our age and a bunch of nice dogs and cats. On Saturday, the big excitement was being invited to a neighbor’s house for game night with other neighbors. We had a blast and walked home at 11:30. I made dip. I take a pottery class also within walking distance, and my good good friend from a long time ago is moving in to the house behind me. I have what’s considered a ‘nice neighborhood’, filled with nice people.

My job is wonderful. I have a dream job. I’m not an art dealer but I’m pretty close, and I have a great health plan. I am downtown every day and sometimes I go to the Chinese grocery to buy my frozen squid and my fish sauce. Best of both worlds.

So this morning when I walked out onto the deck I took a moment to inhale. The grass is evenly clipped and fresh-smelling, and at this time of year it makes the garden POP. The tulips were covered in dew and the crocuses are still out, and the apple trees are starting to get teeny little leaves. The birds were chirping their fool heads off, and I made a mental note to fill a feeder tonight for the first hummingbird I saw in the garden on Monday. It’s my mother’s birthday today and as she is my very best friend, I left her a special treat on the kitchen counter, for her to find when she goes to walk Rosie at lunch. I look forward to joining a new doggie play group in my town after work, so Rosie will have the chance to run around and meet new dog-friends, and I remembered to leave meat out of the freezer for dinner. Work is going really well and we’re approaching a long weekend.

In the end, it takes little more than a nicely-mowed lawn to trigger the happy.

Progress!

On Saturday I had the opportunity to work on the trailer undistracted by anything – husband, dog, etc. I’d gotten it to a pretty good point by then but everything was still rough, and I had stopped last weekend when the wall I made didn’t fit right. I was on the verge of a tantrum and thought it best to call it a day.

Saturday I calmed myself, went into the trailer, and began to work relatively systematically. I made the wall fit, then affixed it, then cut trim to cover the parts that didn’t fit right. I caulked everything up and made it all smooth before starting onto the next area. I managed to get the trailer to the point where no pink insulation or moldy wood is showing. I swept and vacuumed everything. Behold, the before and after of the front part of the trailer:

There’s still some ‘hardscaping’ to be done; I have to build a little cabinet under the window with a hinged lid, which also functions as the seat back, and then I have to install a shelf along the width of the trailer. I also have to rig up my patented (not really) table-bracket system which involves magnets. Fancy eh? Here’s a rough outline of what I have to do to that corner still:

And in the back, I have also made good progress. It’s not totally sealed yet, but that’s mostly because that damn back wall is curved and I can’t find anything to seal the corner. I bought bathtub surround stuff but it all came unglued, so it was a bit of a waste of money.

Behold the work I’ve done so far in the back:

And the work I have yet to do (that thing above the bed structure is a shelf.)

My next steps are: to finish building that stuff at the front of the trailer. To clean the entire thing with bleachy cleaner to kill any remaining mold or other infectious stuff. Fill gaps with wood filler and caulking. Rip off the linoleum from the ‘kitchen backsplash’. (That’s one weekend). Then, I will paint. Paint paint paint. (that’s another weekend). After it’s painted, I will build in the bed frame, install the bed, put in the cushions, put in the table, remove the stove and put in the new countertop. Then I will move on to the bathroom, where I will remove the toilet and install a chemical toilet (another weekend). After that it’s the really fun stuff: the hardware and storage things that I have yet to buy from Ikea (baskets, racks, hooks, shelves, etc). I figure this thing will be ready to move onto our land by July, when we will also finally be done our laneway, we hope. Once it’s up there, I will buy the most industrially-sized tube of silicone caulking I can find, and when it’s in place, I will caulk the living daylights out of it. Water will fall upwards to get away from it, it will be so watertight.

In other progress, I planted 100 onions and some spinach this weekend. I also planted my flower bulbs in the perennial garden, so if the godforsaken squirrels don’t get them, I should have an explosively beautiful garden this year. The grow-op is trucking along, though my tomatoes are a bit of a disappointment. One of the two varieties I grew didn’t produce at all (maybe two sprouted, and they are weenie). The peppers are up, but I suspect that it’s the cayennes and not the red peppers. I always have success with cayennes. I planted kale seeds and they came up, like, the next day, so that should be interesting. Some evening this week I will dedicate an hour to the veggie garden and plant carrots and potatoes.

We have reserved a guy to build our new deck the third or fourth week of June, so that’s pretty exciting, though we’re still undecided as to what we want to do about railings. I have more wood to order, but the cedar decking is sitting by my driveway ready to go. Also, I think next weekend we might dedicate a day to tree-cutting up at our land. It’s the long weekend so maybe we’ll even be able to drum up some assistants.

Things are moving along.

Happy Earth Day

Yesterday was Earth Day, and I celebrated it in a variety of ways.

I am one of three co-Chairs of my workplace’s ‘Green Committee’ and we recently completed a fairly comprehensive environmental audit (with an outside consulting firm) of our operations. It’s the first one my organization’s ever done. Yesterday, Earth Day, we had the opportunity to present the results of our audit to all of our colleagues (about 230 people). Co-Chair #1 went up and introduced the project, gave some background, and passed the mic to Co-Chair #2, who outlined the findings of the audit. Then they gave the floor to me, who was to explain the next steps and communication of the audit results.

I firmly believe that not all people are good at everything. There are a lot of things that I am really really good at: I can knit pretty well, I can cook a mean dinner, I am a pretty competent driver, I walk really well and I can write a list like nobody’s business. However, this means that there are necessarily things that I am not good at. This category includes team sports, juggling, dieting, doing hair, understanding concepts verbally i.e. without drawings, having patience, cooking potatoes and public speaking.

I got up there well enough – made it to the podium without falling or farting or anything* – but things started to go downhill very shortly after I got there. For some reason, about 10 seconds into my presentation, I forgot to breathe. Once I was behind myself by one solid breath, I couldn’t pace any future breaths, and started to breathe too shallowly. My voice started to wobble audibly, and my palms got really sweaty. I tried to pause – everyone in the room was uncomfortable by then – but the problem was still there when I continued. It was physical, but exacerbated by nerves. I think I told everyone I had a cold but I can’t remember. I think I must have blacked out. Anyway, I managed to skip part of my presentation, get the slides screwed up, then tried to back out of the last paragraph by asking Co-Chair #1 to take over for me but he didn’t get my cry for help and refused. I finished it off ok, but it has to have been the most embarrassing moment of my entire career.

People keep coming up to me and asking me if I’m ok. It’s so humiliating. One of my colleagues, an older gentleman who I like very much, told me that once he had to do something similar, and broke down crying. So you see we can’t be good at everything. Happy Earth Day everybody at my work!

When we got home, we took Rosie out for a walk. Up the road, she startled a partridge, which promptly flew into a neighbor’s window and killed itself. My neighbor came out in her cute little flannel penguin pyjamas and pronounced him dead at the scene, and offered it to us. Rosie went mental. She has never actually had her mouth on a freshly-killed anything before, and her wolfy nature came out full scary force. She was thrashing all over the road, yelping and acting the fool, so we took the poor dangly-necked bird home and dispatched it. Hubby stood on its wings and pulled on its feet and it’s really disconcerting how little effort it takes to completely disembowel a partridge. They were meant for eating, apparently. No tools required. We gave Rosie the remains and she went all National Geographic on us in the yard, rolling in it, covering herself with feathers, then after about 45 minutes of playing with the dead thing, she finally ate it all. Crunch crunch, feathers and all. We went on our walk and came home and she promptly barfed up the entire dead bird on the futon. Happy Earth Day everybody!

* Sorry, that was crude, but it’s always a concern. You know.

So about that camper...

The saga of the camper continues.

I found, once I really got into it, that there had been more water damage than I expected in our beloved trailer. Some of it was still wet when I opened up the walls. I ended up having to remove the back walls, the back ceiling, and re-build the wooden inner structure of the walls and back end. The floor was wobbly, so I firmed it up with some 2x4s, and have ended up unscrewing and screwing everything back together. It’s been a challenge.

I am now nearly finished ‘shoring up’ the back end of the trailer. I have yet to screw the outside of the trailer to the new 2x4 on the floor, but that will happen soon.

I am discovering new things every time I go into it. I lifted up the seat bases in the ‘dining room’ and discovered the water tank, filled with black mold. That will be coming out, or cleaned and repurposed as grey water disposal. The trim on all of our cabinets is loose and gappy. Whoever did the last paint job wasn't so careful about avoiding hardware, doorknobs, etc. I discovered that someone had likely run the camper into a tree at some point, and the front end is all crunched in at the back of a cabinet. Water damage followed, so the bottoms of the upper cabinets have to be replaced. I found a little plaque that says “God Bless This Camper.” Indeed.

What do you get for $600?

All of this being said, I am still enthusiastic and my vision for the trailer still stands. I have or will have torn out:
- the bunk bed in the back
- the stove (we will use a coleman – same thing)
- the cushions on the front benches (will replace)
- the countertop
- the linoleum backsplash
- the fluorescent light above the sink
- the toilet (will replace with a chemical toilet)
- the window cranks (replaced)
- the window screens (replaced)
- the mattress at the back (replaced)
- the table (replaced)
- the furnace/air conditioner
- the walls at the back end
- the walls at the front end
- the floor of the cabinets at the front
- and potentially the vinyl flooring, to be replaced with wood-look laminate, of which we have a ton left over from previous projects.

We’ve determined that we don’t need a tap, a flushing toilet, a stove, an air conditioner, electric lights, or anything that requires electricity, propane, or running water. This is pretty much a glorified tent, that you can stand up in and keep stuff in during the week, with a chemical toilet and a place to wash dishes.

I’ve already thrown a bunch of this stuff out, and have purchased many of the supplies needed to get it shipshape. I have a vision. Behold (this is as if you were peeking into the kichen window):


Maybe I’m dreaming in technicolour, but stay tuned.

Springy?

As I write this, snow is pelting past my window at a 45 degree angle. I fear for all of the teeny little perennial nubbins that were popping up in the garden this past weekend, which I uncovered (silly me), all excited that spring had finally arrived. I’m assuming that these early bulbs and perennials (tulips, columbines, crocuses, jacob’s ladder) will survive a couple of days of wet snow but it’s still sad to think of them out there, all soggy and freezing. Boo.

Rosie loves it though, the little freak. I let her out to pee last night and she tore around the snowy yard in a big circle, her back end nearly flying over her front. She loves the snow – and the water. Anything wet and messy.

The seeds in my grow-op are coming up; so far I’ve got a bunch of tomatoes, and I think one basil or some other stringy thing (an errant weed) in the basil cell. Eggplants and peppers aren’t up yet, and neither is tarragon or basil. The tomatoes win the race this year. They’re so tall (and stringy) that I had to remove the cover of the seed-starter. I grew two varieties this year: ‘Winterkeeper’, which I will apparently be able to pick late in the season and keep in my basement into the winter, and ‘Teton de Vénus’, which I bought because I belive it means ‘Venus nipple’. How could I resist?

As for progress made on other projects, so far I’ve been really good at finding people to do stuff for me. I have to nail them down still with regards to specific dates, but I have found an eavestrough/sofit person who charges very little, and a handyman to do all of my heinous jobs, also for very little. This makes me happy. I have a bit of preliminary work and shopping to do but I look forward to coming home and having the work done for me. I am getting so bourgeois and old.

I called a lady who does slipcovers in my area, to see what a couch slipcover would cost me, and nearly snorted my lunch out of my nose when she told me it’d run to about $1,000. I paid $600 for my couch, and it is used primarily by my dog, so I won’t be going that route. Looks like the mother and I are going to have to do it ourselves.

Tile backsplash is done, and it is beautiful. Photos to come (as soon as I tidy up the kitchen).

I have booked a ton of appointments over the course of the next month or so. I will be all caught up and checked out by mid-may. Also, have booked an appointment with the municipality guy for April 30 to discuss permits/allowances/bylaws/regulations for our new land.

Have also collected two cedar logs (free) for my side garden project. More progress will be made on this soon…maybe hubby can practice using our superduper new chainsaw.

And another project that I have not yet mentioned: turning Rosie from a crate dog into a free-in-the-house dog. We left her out of her crate last Friday, and it went swimmingly. We’re trying to get her used to the idea of being mature and responsible, a little bit at a time. So far so good.

Speaking of dogs (when am I not?), we will soon have a new doggie extended family member. My brother-in-law in Austria called us last weekend to tell us to check our email, where we found pictures of their tiny little four-week-old black lab puppy, Dakota. Little Austrian Dakota, who goes home to them on May 3. I am very excited for them, and look forward to hearing their tales of chewed arms, sleepless nights, ruined furniture… good times. Here I was afraid that Rosie was too much for them to take at Christmas time. Guess she wasn’t that bad after all.

Camping, updated

I would love to tell you that I am a camper. I would love to be able to talk about the latest high-tech tent I bought at Mountain Equipment Co-op, the fancy little one-burner stove I’ve got for making my coffee in the neat steel percolator I found at a nifty camping store in so-and-so little town. I would love to be able to brag about back-packing into remote locations and setting up shop, pooping in the woods and taking it all back home with me.

Unfortunately, I have to be honest with myself. I live in the country. I have never lived in the city (except for a couple of years there, which I didn’t love as much in practice as I did in theory and during which I did actually like to camp a lot) and have usually had a home where I could see more trees than neighbors. I have never felt the primal need to get ‘out there’ and set up camp, feeling like an explorer, reveling in the hardship. I’m already out there. I don’t like sending my food up a tree. I hate having my legs restricted in sleeping bags that I can’t pull up over my ears. I hate trying to track down that one mosquito who got into the tent. I’ve done it, I’ve enjoyed it, and I’ve got some great memories of really fun camping trips, but when asked the honest question “do you want to go camping?” I would have to say the answer is usually no, I prefer to keep my bed dry and my food close by.

I’m a good camper, too. I can cook a mean dinner on an open fire. I can set up a tent in the dark. I can wash dishes with very little water and very little impact. I do actually like camping on islands (fewer bears, more swimming) and can canoe there and make it downright homey. I don’t even so much mind going to the bathroom over a log. However for some reason, whenever I go camping I have the overarching urge to sleep. I become narcoleptic. Maybe it’s because I’m like 100% relaxed, or maybe it’s because there isn’t much to do but sit around, but all I want to do at all hours of the day is sleep. When I’m awake, I like to drink. I’m usually too cold, or damp, have allergies or sore hips or both, am dirty, or my hair is itchy, so sleeping and drinking distract me from all of that.

When I go camping (and there will be more tent camping in my future, I’m sure), I must have access to the following things at all times:
- un-frigid water to swim in, preferably rocky and clear;
- sunshine, lots of it;
- a toque for sleeping;
- food, lots of it, mostly junky;
- booze, see above, beer for hot afternoons and red wine for cool nights;
- lots of polar fleece clothing;
- many changes of underwear;
- a book or magazine or something to distract me;
- a folding camp chair;
- friends, for variety.

So it ends up being “well for both of us we need the big tent. Then I need something to sleep on. Then my sleeping bag isn’t warm enough so I need a fatter one. Then we need the coleman stove, the cooler, the food bag, the beer, the wine, my backpack, hubby’s backpack, something(s) to sit on, dishsoap, toilet paper, spatulas, forks, knives, salt and pepper, towels, tarps, bungee cords, rope, rain jackets, life jackets, paddles, fishing equipment and I am exhausted just thinking about it.

All this being said, I am about to take camping to a new level. Behold, the camper:

(not our picture or our stuff)

This little puppy was found on a local used-stuff website, and we got it for only $600. It will be placed permanently on our piece of land, at the lake, and will be our ‘summer home’ until we have a cottage built, in futuretimes.

I have big plans for this camper. There was a feature in Domino magazine (R.I.P.) called ‘can this outfit be made into a room’ or somesuch nonsense, and for this camper project, it will be Genny’s design challenge: Can This Room Be Made Into A Camper?

(a terrible picture of what is actually quite a nice room)

Our new little acquisition will be completely gutted, its fittings replaced with new ones, a wider bed, better storage, sleeker accessories, a comfy seating area, nice flooring, a decent (chemical) toilet, a deck, patio furniture, BBQ, and outdoor lighting. We have zero power up at our land save for what can be powered by propane and solar panels, so living in there will be a challenge, aimed at readying us for our eventual off-grid cottage. It has to be comfy, dry, well-ventilated, spacious, and Rosie-fied (i.e. easy to clean). I will paint the interiors, build a new and spacious table, make nice foam cushions for the seating area, buy all new plush bedding, get baskets for our stuff (Scrabble, first-aid kit, blankets, etc), and install laminate wood-look flooring. And decorate. I’m going to leave the outside looking shabby, and make the inside sleek, elegant, and cozy. The deck will be built out of our former deck at home (once it becomes the former deck) and my dad built us some lovely compact patio furniture. I bought exterior solar lights at Ikea (they have a lot of solar-powered stuff for summer!) and look forward to stocking the kitchen with finds from the Great Glebe Garage Sale.

I am really looking forward to CAMPING in my CAMPER this summer. I may never be satisfied with a tent again!

Spring Things

Oy vey it's going to be a warm weekend, and I am so looking forward to losing our snow you have no idea.

We ran out of firewood about two weeks ago. We borrowed a batch from my parents, and hubby dug a pile of it out from underneath the snow last weekend (he had to split it, it was all wet, etc.), but it still hasn't been enough to indulge in fires on days that are not the coldest. If it goes below minus ten, sure, but above that, we've been sucking it up and wearing polar fleece.

I have a number of objectives for this spring (spring being defined as March, April, May). They are:
- start my seeds in the basement grow-op: zinnias, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, basil, and melons.
- install a new white tiled backsplash in my kitchen, to replace the beige/orange daisies we currently enjoy.
- chop down/thin out some of the cedar trees in the woods beside the house.
- get back into the groove of doctor's appointments that I've been neglecting.
- slip-cover my sofa.
- build a long raised bed out of previously-cut cedars from beside our house.
- Fix the fences on my veggie garden. Weed garden.
- Evaluate the perennial garden. Remove/move wrong or wrongly-placed things.
- Hire someone to replace my eavestrough and install sofit.
- Meet the guy from the municipality where our land is and tackle all the permits, assessments, etc.
- Install a cable run for Rosie somewhere where she won't get all tangled up but can still run around.
- Begin the siding project for one more (final) year.

Then we'll be on to summer. I think that's very reasonable, considering that I could do the first two in the coming two weekends, doctors' appointments are currently booked, and my mom is on the slip-cover case. Hubby loves to use his chainsaw, so he will be in charge of thinning the cedars. A number of things can't be started until late April, so everything has its place.

I am watching the sun shine into my dirty office windows, and it's 4:58 p.m. Daylight Savings is this weekend, which is wonderful, and means that while it'll be miserably dark when I get up in the morning, Rosie might sleep until 6:30 like she's supposed to, and by the time we get home at night, it'll be full-on bright when we take her for her walk.

I have a stressful week here at work next week, so wish me luck!

Sleep well, little magazine

A few weeks ago I learned that one of my new favorite magazines was folding permanently. This recession has been a bugger for the publishing industry (according to all the sad stories on my one source: Gawker); logically, advertising is really low, luxury brands are tanking and a number of less-relevant publications have consequently met their maker.

Domino was one of those magazines that I wanted to hate. Kind of smug, cliquey, they guilelessly promoted a whole lot of products affordable to not many people. Their ‘look’ was deceptively high-end; often kind of boho, but with a very professional price tag. The people they featured in their pages lived extravagant lives, like the painter who lives in an open-air villa on acreage in Africa or the textile scion in the fancy Moroccan country home. To a certain extent, this is common fodder for decorating magazines, but in Domino, everyone was approximately 40 and lived the kind of lives where I would constantly ask myself “how in the hell can they afford to live like that? Who ARE these people?”

All this aside, what I liked about Domino is that the aesthetic was eclectic, colourful, a bit hippie sometimes, and unafraid to celebrate complete over-the-top decorating insanity. One recent issue celebrated the home of LA designer Kelly Wearstler, totally filled with giant useless objects, brass, and patterns so crazy and mismatched that if I visited for tea, I would completely miss the couch. The wallpaper (designed by Wearstler herself) reminded me of the oceanfront condo my grandparents rented in Panama City Beach in the 1980s. In the article, they promoted the decorator’s own line of tchotchkas, including a brass ashtray-looking candy dish-thingy for $995 and several useless and gaudy small stone boxes for over $1,000 each. It was so delightfully insane. I like to see how the other half lives, and I also enjoy a good train wreck. I feel smug reading about people who revel in a complete loss of perspective.

Alongside the nuttiness, there were some profiled homes that I could really get behind. I learned that Thom Felicia from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy has the world’s most beautiful cottage. I was inspired by a small one-room kit home that was built in the woods somewhere by a couple of people in a week or so. There was a British woman, a friend of one of the writers, who bought an old home somewhere in the country and re-did it in the most wonderfully colourful and loopy way. I applaud the magazine for letting us into these inspiring spaces.

Overall, what I gathered from this magazine more than any other out there were ideas. The objects in Domino were usually things that I could keep in mind and attempt to replicate at home, search for at garage sales, re-finish, or emulate by splurging on a small piece of fabric or something small to jazz up a whole room. It gave me the inspiration to buy a bright turquoise vinyl and wood platform rocker from a former local nunnery, and pair it with a zebra-print cushion, and place in the corner of my bright orange tv room. I drank martinis and happily wallpapered my walk-in-closet in leopard print and hung my scarves and purses and shoes all over it. It reinforced my love of large plants, paired with old framed botanical prints. I became unafraid to mis-match all my cushions, inspired by both Domino and What Not to Wear, where Stacey and Clinton are forever reminding us that “it doesn’t have to match, it just has to go.” Everything in my house just kind of goes. Very few things match.

These are the sources that reinforce, rather than dictate, my own personal style. Before Domino, I’d never seen a North American decorating magazine that celebrated the eclectic to this extent (from France, Maison Français is excellent – the French do high-class kooky very well). I’d always bumped along thinking that my own personal style was sort of hobo-garbage-dump-meets 5-year-old-kid, but it turns out that there are other people doing similar things, and much much better. It allowed me to see what the progression of my decorating style might be, as I transition from my broke-ass-poor 20s into my rather more comfortable mid-30s – from using garbage and hand-me-downs by necessity to seeking out just the right kinds of garbage and hand-me-downs. I could never put my finger on what my own style is, but in Domino, I could see it all played out, in various colours and options and price points.

All this being said, I will never become a Kelly Wearstler. I still get tremendous satisfaction from finding stuff in the trash and fixing it up. Though I now understand that this is illegal, some of my nicest furniture was found late at night before garbage day, hauled back to our home by hand or in the trunk of our car, and stripped/re-upholstered/painted/reinforced/patched up. Via this method, we proudly acquired hubby’s dresser (a beautiful wooden wave-front cabinet made in Quebec in the 60s), a lovely dressing room chair, a kitchen chair, a silver kitchen chair (decorative – I still have to fix the seat), a bamboo outdoor chair, a child’s chair, used as a plant shelf…. I seem to have a thing for chairs. I adore chairs. Also people tend to throw them out often for some reason. What we didn’t get in the garbage, we inherited from family members, bought at garage sales, or were given as gifts. The only ‘new’ items of furniture we own are our couch (no longer new) and our bed. Posh for me is splurging on something new at Ikea. I can’t foresee a day when this won’t be the case.

I will miss Domino. I will miss their zany decorating profiles, their weird “Can This Outfit Be Turned Into A Room?” feature, their little sticky tabs, the profiles of working professionals who come home on a weeknight and host 12 for dinner – Easy! – and their monthly human guinea pig article. I will miss those $1,000 ashtrays and $250/yard textiles. I gained a lot of great ideas from that magazine, which I will take to the bank. Meanwhile, when I need inspiration I will trudge down to the big magazine store and seek out Maison Française. R.I.P Domino – no surprise you folded in a recession, but it was sure fun while it lasted.

In Pursuit of Happiness

So there’s this lady, Gretchen Rubin, who made a pact with herself a number of years ago to ‘be happy.’ She went about it in a very scientific manner, studying all kinds of philosophical, psychological and logistical methods for improving happiness to find out which one would work in various situations. She turned this study into the Happiness Project, an online resource of insights, tips, and interviews with happy people in the form of a daily blog, which she dutifully writes 6 days of every week. She has a list of 12 life commandments which she’s developed for herself, and encourages everyone to write their own list and begin their own Happiness Project.

I can’t decide if I this is incredibly thoughtful, useful, or self-indulgent. It kind of reminds me of those online quizzes, or the “25 Random Things About Me” on Facebook over-sharing kind of internet phenomena, like this here blog.

I am a fan of over-sharing. I don’t know why, or what aspect of my personality finds it so appealing to tell everyone everything about myself, but I find that when I meet people I have an overwhelming desire to recount all the daily minutia of my life. I guess that’s why the “25 Things” activity, and others like it - which land in my email inbox every so often (“what’s your favourite flower?” “when’s the last time you cried?”) appeal to me so much. Guilty pleasure. If I dig a little more deeply, I guess I have a fear of seeming boring or socially retarded as I can be kind of quiet and awkward, so I overcompensate with factoids. I make a great cocktail party guest. I nod a lot.

My suspicion is that writing stuff down makes me more clearly able to assess. Or writing down certain answers makes me feel good about the kind of person I am or ought to be. Weird.

Anyway, I read her blog for a bit. As someone who struggles with the question of basic happiness on a regular basis – I always seem to be dissatisfied with something – I found it interesting to imagine a rigorous process through which we might correct ourselves in negative moments and remain happy. Or at least happier.

Aside from all of the insights, and the psychological tricks required to keep myself ‘thinking’ happy, I believe I have a list of physical requirements for happiness that must be met, and are much easier to quantify. Herein is my list of 8 physical requirements for happiness:

A full stomach. I can’t even think straight if I’m hungry, and I can get really snappy.
The correct temperature. I need to be relatively cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
Comfortable feet. Nothing can ruin my day more than barking dogs.
A clean body. If I catch a whiff of an errant or unexpected smell, I will be ‘off’ all day long.
Clothes that fit well. No distracting pulling or pinching or bagging or sagging.
A comfortable place to sit. I will choose a restaurant or other public place based on the comfort level of its seating. I have a sensitive tushie. I’m like the princess on the pea.
A quiet place to which I can retreat. As a proven introvert, this is very important. Like a dog, I need my own den.
Lots of sleep. Duh.

Most of these are abundantly obvious to any human, but I feel like they need to be itemized before we can dig into any psychological rules, which I’m still elaborating for myself.

Overall, I am pleased to report that I am a much happier person than I was a decade ago. There’s a certain happiness that comes with contentment, of course, and age and wisdom. Maturity teaches you not to sweat the small stuff or to be completely self-absorbed, and I’m sure hormones iron themselves out around your thirties as well. But as someone who once struggled with depression (and I can’t call it major, in retrospect, but it affected my quality of life at the time) I can say that I’m pleased as punch to feel the way I do most of the time. I have a few little secrets up my sleeve.

More on this tomorrow.

Spring fever

It’s got me. It’s got me bad. Like the trees that I saw poking out of the snow last week sporting tiny little buds, I am starting to feel spring in my bones. There’s no practical explanation for it – it was -24 this morning, when I walked the dog in the darkness – but the days are getting slightly longer and as a result, the trees are in bud and the seed catalogues have come in the mail. Like clockwork.

I promised myself I wouldn’t go insane this year. For logical reasons, I plan to hold back on the ambitious and usually-unsuccessful experiments. This year, we need to replace or resurface our deck, which will not only take time but also take up space. We will also be overseeing the construction of my brother-in-law’s cottage and starting to clear our own land, which we will be using on many weekends. I am not going to attempt to do planters of flowers on the deck this year because as much as I love them in June, in July they always get ignored and bake to death and end up looking awful. I had visions of window boxes on the north side filled with coleus and other shade-loving plants, but somehow I think if it’s not in the books in January it won’t be in the books in June.

This year, I really do want to focus on having a great veggie harvest. I am more and more interested in sustainability, which for me includes being self-sufficient as much as possible. I like to think of myself as an island. It’s delusional, yes, but it keeps me going.

The one large project I will take on, aside from the deck, is a new bed at the back of the house, on the south side. I want to cut some of the scrappy cedars out of our forest, which will open it up a bit for other plants to grow and also cut down on the bugs, increase the breeze, etc. I will then use these bits of cedar (and some metal spikes) to build a raised bed, about 18” high and 20” wide, along the wall at the back. I will build a trellis up the wall as well. Into this raised bed will go gravel, a batch of fresh compost, peat moss to absorb the roof run-off, black earth and maybe some sheep manure or something. I will plant this area in a concerted way with my squash vines, so they don’t trouble the veggie garden. I will surround it with copper mesh, so the slugs can’t get any purchase on my beloved squash. Dammit, I will have squash this year. If I have to cut down trees to create sunlight, I will have squash this year.

I have ordered some seeds, against my better judgement. Yes I have a two-litre tub in the basement filled with seed packets, but I can’t rely on their viability. Some of them are pretty ancient. I have ordered from Greta’s Organic Gardens once again, despite having mixed results last year (tomatoes were tinier than expected, melons didn’t really germinate, squash did nothing). I have ordered the elusive kale, which I will inter-plant with my garlic for a late harvest. I will plant a lot, so boerenkool all winter! I have ordered two kinds of tomatoes – one is an early harvest type, and the other is called ‘winter-keeper’ and apparently if you pick them slightly unripe, they will last up to 4 months in a cool dark place. Fruit flies here I come.

Also in my order are butternut squash and tiny little melons, which apparently ripen early. I love melon in summertime. You always have dessert ready! Lately we’re really into grapefruits. Dessert is either a grapefruit or yoghurt. Anyway I am off-track. In addition to that, I will grow peppers and small eggplants in pots on the deck – red pots – because I have had no success in the garden and they need more sun. Baking is good, as long as I water them every night. Also I can keep the earwigs and slugs at bay a lot more effectively in pots.

The main garden will be focused on: Tomatoes (x2), onions, basil, kale, garlic, mint, strawberries, beans, carrots and cucumbers. And cilantro, inevitably.

The new bed in back will be: butternut squash (they’re a compact variety, bush-style), melons, and zucchini (up the trellis in back). This bed will be about 10’ long. If that’s all too much, maybe I’ll do the zucchini in the garden as they’re easier to grow.

I will plant potatoes in the potato bin once again, as that was pretty successful. Last year’s successes were pretty much only potatoes, garlic and onions.

I’m giving up on all herbs that aren’t basil or cilantro. Turns out, I don’t use them. Maybe I’ll try a bit of dill for fish.

As for annuals, I want to get a few to fill in the perennial bed – orange poppies, maybe calendula. I have some other planters that need filling but I promise not to go nuts. I really want cannas but that has never really worked for me. Maybe this will be my year.

Finally, perennials. I always have to wait to see what lived through the winter before buying anything new for the spring. There’s a weird garden area at the back of my place that needs something permanent and ground-covering, so I may invest in that a bit – perhaps a variety of hostas would do the trick. They’re so low-maintenance - I love them.

This post has been very helpful. I have now made a shopping list, and will attempt to stick to it. I promise.

A Really Uneventful Week

So nothing much happened this week. Just status quo. Nothing to watch on t.v., no exciting international events, nothing. Yawn. What a tedious week.

Oh except for that whole Barack-Obama-thing. But what's so exciting about that? So he's the first African-American US President. So he's young and sexy. Who cares that he has a gorgeous amazon of a wife? And the fact that he's been in office only two days and is already on his way to fixing everything is so banal.

In all seriousness, it's like the second coming. I am a huge fan. I drank the kool-aid and loved it! Gimme more! I could not watch ENOUGH inauguration footage. I even watched the boring marching bands (actually not so boring - did you see the one with the ladies in the gold pants?) I worry that he's going to burn himself out though. I mean, save some work for next week. Take the weekend off. I love how he's like "this morning: shut down Guantanamo and broker peace in the Middle East. This afternoon: cap salaries and make government more transparant. Make peace with Cuba. Then have an open-house party, confirm my Secretary of State, and re-take my oath. Tomorrow maybe I'll work on the economy. On Friday: fix the environment." And I thought my schedule was tough.

At least he works from home.

In other news, my parents are in Cuba. Rosie's been at day-care all week and she's so pooped. Every morning now, she stands at the door and looks at me beseechingly, like 'please can't I just spend 11 quiet hours sleeping in my crate today?' but she's still so excited when she gets there she's totally out of control. It's a little embarrassing. I worry about her throat and neck because she pulls so hard, she barrels in the door to go find her friends, which is technically bad behaviour but so damn cute because all the dogs seem wait for her. Cesar Millan would not approve. Anyway she's a peach at home, so Cesar was right: exercise, discipline and affection in that order. Except that with the first and the last, the middle one is almost totally unnecessary. She's been really good all week. It's hard for her to get into crap when she's lying on the floor snoring.

Parental units are getting back tomorrow so Rosie will be back to normal. She will be beyond excited to see gramma, and will likely pee all over the place.

Also, on Saturday Farley goes to his new parents. We said "anytime after 9 am would be fine" and the husband said "we will be there at 9:01." I love that they are so excited. Farley got fixed (he would argue that he was not broken) on Tuesday, to celebrate the inauguration, and he looks like a little baboon with his shaved arse. Poor guy. I wonder if it's cold? I have pre-warned the new parents not to be put off by the baldness. Farley seems perfectly happy, like he has no clue what happened, which is for the best I guess. Tomorrow night I will brush him again for one last time (I've already removed a bunch of dreadlocks, most noteably from under his chin), and attempt to cut his toenails so he's all ready to be on his best behaviour at his new house. I won't be at all sad to see him go, because I know he's going to the best possible home.

So after this weekend we should be back to normal. I promise to clean out the basement and maybe even start letting Rosie down there. It'll be nice and cool for her in the summer.

Last weekend was a blast: we took Rosie to town. She was great! She only tried to jump on a couple of people but it was pretty easy to deal with using the harness. She sniffed the ground constantly, which made me realize that the city's a horrible place for dogs. There's crap everywhere! Cigarette butts, frozen vomit, food bits, garbage - it's so distracting for a country dog! That's likely why she was too busy to jump on anyone. But she walked beside us, was friendly to strangers (especially those carrying bags of food), was very popular, sat before crossing the street and was not at all put off by the traffic. It was total saturation. We were walking around for an hour and a half and she slept all evening long, she was so exhausted.

The next day my brother, his girlfriend, hubby and I took the dogs up the mountain for some snowshoeing, which was beautiful and exhausted the dogs once again, and then we all went out for dinner (not the dogs) for his girlfriend's birthday. Fun times.

We went skiing Monday. God we sound so active. And god, we are not really. I have sat on the couch and knitted a sweater every evening since. It's coming along though! I'll be on to the sleeves soon enough.

That's all I've got for now, but WHAT an exciting week! Jam-packed full of heart-warming goodness.

See?

Gorgeous.

Weekly check-in

Hi all, it's time for a check-in. Last time I wrote all about Harry/Farley, our little basement tenant. I have spent the last several days thinking about the following things:

- seed catalogues have started arriving, and I have been looking even though last year I SWORE I had WAY TOO MANY SEEDS and would NOT be buying ANYTHING this year. Ha.

- we bought our ski passes yesterday. Now we have to figure out when to use them.

- Mom and Dad are off to Cuba on Friday. That means Rosie gets to go to daycare every day for a week! Wow will that ever be fun for all of us.

- tomorrow's temperature is supposed to be something insane like minus 48 or something. I got a new coat in the mail, which weighs exactly zero grams, and am excited to check it out.

Picture my head on here. And my hands.

- Harry/Farley continues to do well. No changes there, except that his new parents are beyond excited to meet him.

- I love my job. I get to look at art all day. It's rough, people, but somebody has to do it.

- Am waiting on the two new magazine subscriptions that hubby got me for xmas: Dwell, and Cottage Life.

- I am now an amateur architect (ahem), and so have designed about 6 different cottages on my computer, all under 850 square feet. It's hard to stop. We are gonna go to the cottage show in April and do some learnin'.

- No clue what to do for dinner. I'm thinking aloud here. Nothing is thawed and the kitchen is a disaster zone. Takeout? This is one of the downsides of living in the country: no chinese takeout. I am falling down on the dinner front lately. The produce is suffering.

- I have a weird urge to make a cake. A real, decorated, honest-to-goodness-with-homemade-frosting cake. I am going to make one for my new boss' farewell party next friday. He's moving to Australia. I am trying not to take it personally. Should I make cake for dinner?

- Rosie is now not so good at sleeping in the bed. She tends to sleep in the upper part, where we are, and she sleeps sideways. Ergo, hubby and I have not really slept well for the last few nights. She's still sweet though, so she gets away with it, though half the time I think she's fake-sleeping so we can't move her.

- I need plants for my office. I have stolen two cuttings off of some existing office plants, but am also considering an aloe, a small palm, and maybe one of those plants you can grow in a goldfish bowl with a beta fish swimming around the roots. I need some life at the office and I don't think they want me to bring Rosie in for the day.

- I have the urge these days to bring Rosie into the city. Crazy, I know, but I want to see how she does when there are TOO many people to jump on and TOO many cars to get excited about and TOO many other dogs to sniff. I think she will be humbled, and I want to see that. She's a country dog, so she still gets overly excited at every passing pedestrian or car. I want to see how she does on a busy sidewalk with traffic passing beside us - to see if she actually becomes blasé about it at some point. In her harness, of course. I guess I'm a bit late to the game on this one but there haven't been a lot of opportunities. I also need to post more pictures of her, to here and on facebook, so you all can enjoy her beauty. I can't say this enough: world's most gorgeous dog.
I'm actually a bit embarrassed by it, like people will think I strive for the most beautiful dog and spend money and time in the pursuit of that, but it's all natural. I think she could work in Hollywood.

- We're running out of firewood. OK it's getting to the end of this post; I have run out of things to say.

Enjoy the week, folks. We're heading into a crazy cold snap so I will be unashamedly wearing silly hats for the next 5 days, bad hair be damned.

It's never dull

Phew.

The holidays are over and I'm back at work, staring at a snowstorm and eating a falafel sandwich. I craved garlic after a coworker microwaved her garlicky lunch in the kitchen adjacent to my office. Mmmm garlic. I am so susceptible. Also, the snow seems to be falling upwards.

We had a great time. The family was wonderful; they loved their land that we bought them with their money, Christmas gifts were all a great success in both directions, we bowled, we snow-shoed, we ate, we pipe-dreamed, we drank, and I learned how to play canasta. Nasty canasta.

When Christmas was over and the Austrians left, on Dec. 29 (Rosie's first birthday!), I had another challenge ahead of me. As we had lost our Loki, and hubby had posted notices all over town looking for him, my kindergarten teacher - with whom I am in touch regularly - called me to let me know that she had a stray black cat around her place and would I come take a look? I knew in my gut that it wasn't Loki (too far away) but I went anyway. It turned out to be a sort of ratty-looking long-haired black cat, who was very friendly. I promised my teacher that I'd make him my problem, since she didn't want to encourage him to stick around and he was getting kind of skinny. She was concerned but really didn't want a cat.

I brought him home and installed him in our basement apartment, which is apparently a popular spot for transients and needy folk of all kinds (my busted-up neighbor, our friend whose house burned down, our friend who couldn't afford rent in town). I started to feed him, and brush him. I brushed out about a pound of dull, unused fur. I learned that he is an intact male and that his pee stinks real bad. I also learned that he has worms and possible other parasites, so I made an appointment to bring him to the vet, before he could pass anything to my other pets.

I brought him in on the weekend, and when we got there, the nurse asked me "what's this cat's name?" I went "uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Harry? 'Cause he's hairy?" and then Harry had his first vet check-up. We learned that he's one year old at the very most, probably younger. We learned that he is 10 lbs. We learned that he's an excellent patient (he's very friendly) who didn't complain at all when he got his shots. We learned that he hasn't got fleas, but that he had a terrible yeast infection in his ears. I made him an appointment to be neutered as well, just in case I couldn't find him a home in time and he starts spraying my house or fighting with the neighbors.

All in all, he's a healthy and friendly little bugger. I was starting to get a wee bit attached, despite my dislike of long-haired cats, which is not his fault. I put him back in the basement for now, and upgraded his food a bit. Hubby decided he liked the name 'Farley' better so now he's 'Harry/Farley'. I continue to brush him and feed him cod liver oil, as part of his makeover.

On Monday, hubby went to work and put out the word that we have a cat up for grabs. One of his most-liked coworkers said "as a matter of fact, we have been looking for a cat for our 12-year-old daughter." Turns out, she wants a long-haired, friendly, young cat, black is ok, and male is preferred. They had been looking for one at the SPCA for some time with no luck. Harry/Farley had her at hello, or rather, once she saw the pictures hubby took of him.

I suspect he may be full of beans. Ssh.

So Harry/Farley has found a forever home, starting January 24. They are over the moon and excited to meet him. Hubby has great respect for this lady and says she will be a great cat mom. It is a perfect match, and it warms the cockles of my little heart. There is something karmically good about this.

In other pet news, Sasha's getting along much better with Rosie, since Loki's gone. They even kiss and will sleep next to each other, which is really big news as she's spent the last 10 months avoiding Rosie completely. Rosie turned one on Dec. 29, and got lots of toys for her birthday and christmas, as well as a 'happy birthday' dog cookie with dog-friendly icing. She had no idea what was going on. She was ok with the visitors but she jumped on them incessantly, so I guess she wasn't really that ok. We're just used to it. She is on big-dog food (no more puppy food), and we've gradually cut out lunch, and she'll be happy to be back to her routine. She's better when she knows her parameters. She is still knock-out gorgeous.

But there has been one big change: Rosie now sleeps on the bed. Something I said I'd never do. Now that Loki's gone, she's great on the bed and sleeps like a rock - no more spite-peeing! She actually sleeps in. Sasha will also sleep on the bed some nights. In the mornings, Rosie wriggles up and continues to sleep wedged between us - it's pretty cute. Once the novelty of this wears off, I am hoping that she'll sleep anywhere, preferably on the floor next to our bed. We shall see. In the meantime, don't judge me. We no longer have a working heater in the bedroom. I am used to having warm snuggly animal bodies on the bed and was missing one of mine.