Life in Aylmer Quebec

has been opened.  My first born has been asking often enough to ride, that I decided it was time.  Emma had her first official ‘TicToc’ lesson with Sunstsar on Monday evening.  She loved it and she was great.  Sunstar was a trooper, being the schoolie that he is.  He will be getting lots of extra carrots and peppermints from me from now on.  It always helps to cultivate a good relationship with the schoolies.  She will be having another lesson tomorrow afternoon, to make up for the fact that the girls have to come to the barn with me for the rest of the week.  PD days.  Again.  I asked Meg if she wanted to ride, and she very politely said: ‘No thank you.’

My car has a name.  Greyce the Shark.  Somehow, that just works.  The more I drive her, the more I like her.  And I talk to her when we are out.  She seems to like it.  (I was going to call her ‘Greyey’, but Meg came to the rescue with Greyce, and my Mom added the Shark.)

North Bay Fall 2010 Girls’ Wkend was a great time!   Toes were painted, movies were watched, mudmasks were applied, wine was drunk, bazaars were attended, more wine was drunk, wine was drunk, uhhm, what…where…huh??….oh yeah….we had fun!  Love love our girls wkends in North Bay!

Taking pictures of freshly painted toes...

Blue Martians...aka mud masks

Tada...the Gang

So…today is our ten year anniversary.  I have been married to this guy for ten years, which means I’ve lived in the same house with this guy for the last ten years, (or more if you count the years we lived together before marriage….BM….I love it!  really bad joke); I’ve slept with the same man for the last ten years – literally, and well, literally; wanted to punch this same guy occasionally for the last ten years (or more); listened to his rants, his jokes, his drive-his-kids-nuts silliness, his snoring, and everything else; and I can only come to one conclusion.  I think I love the frackin’ guy.  Pretty sure.  But I might need another ten or fifty years with him to be absofuckingshitlutely sure he is the one.

Meg and Mike, Emma and Todd

It's scarier than it looks!

My youngest daughter, my husband and Mike, are actually upside down on this thing called the Jetscream!!

Riding the Komodo at the TO Met Zoo

Elephant rides...much more my style!

So that’s a brief synopsis of our adventures in late June, at Wonderland and the Zoo.  We stayed with Mike, had an extended visit due to our van breaking down, spent a few extra days walking around Hamilton and bemoaning our fate.  We eventually made it home, just in time for an insane heat wave and the brakes to go on said van.  Starting to think Chevy’s sorry…. Chevrolets aren’t all that!!!

Maybe next time we’ll go with a Dodge Caravan. Or the ever dependable Toyotas!  (hahaha) I shouldn’t, I really do like Toyotas, despite the recent string of bad luck they’ve had.  Our first family car was a Toyota Corolla that we drove into the ground, literally.  We loved that car.  We still miss it.

Why do all the good quotable thoughts pop into my head either shopping at a grocery store, or while shoveling horse poop?  And I can never remember them later.

********************

Dr. T was by the barn, and I was finally able to pay him for the emergency call he did months ago for Bailey.  I had cash, he was there, I paid him.  He asked me if I’d lost weight.  Whhhhaaatttt?  When your friendly, grandfatherly vet tosses that out, casually, is it time to think maybe you’re finally getting there?  He’s about the third or fourth person to comment on my weight.  And why do people think that’s an okay thing to do?  Nobody would ever say that they thought you’d gained weight.

*****************

Swimming.  Meg’s been bugging me lately to go swimming again.  It’s been so long since we’ve been to the pool, that our city card expired more than a year ago.   Kinda funny since I used to rave about the pool.  I found horses again and forgot all about being a mermaid.  And I love to swim.  Better get that card renewed.

*************************

CHINOOK AND ME

Would someone please tell me to sit up straight!!!!

The more I ride her, the more I like her.

In March?  Yes, it is true.  My beloved gave me a Christmas gift last night.  He meant to give it to me in December, but for some reason it slipped his mind.  Going through some things yesterday, he found it, and realized that Christmas has long since passed and I had not received it.  So he thoughtfully gave me the gift last night.  It was poignant.  There were tears.  Or not.  Now that I think of it, I was actually just happy to get it.  It’s an awfully useful gift, the kind that I like.  I’m not a diamonds and pearls kinda girl.  I like things that can either be put to good use, something practical that I’d wear, or seriously yummy treats.

My gift is a seriously nice camera case for my digital camera.  I lug my camera with me in my backpack almost everywhere, but as I had no case for it, it was simply thrown in along with all my other junk.  Which is/was probably not the best idea.  So now I have a really nice protective case for my camera, which I really like.  And it’s got extra pockets for things like batteries, memory cards, keys, even a small wallet.  I could just take the case with me on some of my outings, no need for a big clunky back pack all the time.  Pretty cool!

So in honour of my camera’s new case, here a few pictures for your enjoyment.

Gorgeous George, the RCMP horse that came to the barn right around the same time as Bailey did. I always wanted them to go out together, George and Bailey. Get it? It's a Wonderful Life! George Bailey was the character Jimmy Stewart (sigh)played.

I think they make her look very intellectual, no?

This fellow, however, needs a little help. Meg calls him Snapper. He's probably a little out of focus cause you don't have wicked cool glasses like Meggie.

Another reason I lug my camera all over Dog's Green Earth. My very own wonder horse, Bailey.

I think I’m going to start pretending to be a serious photographer, along with my pretend writing aspirations.  No one will know.  I’ll walk around with my camera in its new case, and a pencil stuck behind my ear, and a carrot in my pocket (for Bailey of course), and mutter awfully dark poetry to myself.  Or maybe just awful poetry.

Note:  Can you tell that my sense of humour has returned?  No??  Well, at least I amuse myself!

I’m done moping now, and although I still miss that wonderful old horse, I am feeling positive again. He lived a long happy life, and as Sarah said, I was his girl, at least for a little while.  I tried my best to treat him as if he were my own, and for the last part of his life, he was active and pampered and loved. There was a shine on his coat, a gleam in his eye and always a pocketful of carrots for him. I don’t think there was a single day when I was out at the barn that he did not get at least a bunch of carrots

As opposed to real life experience is highly over rated.  I am speaking from personal observations here.  I’ve read quite a few books.  I’ve seen quite a few videos.  Nothing prepared me to watch my boss, Karen, take over my horse for a bit and make him do in a matter of  minutes what I’ve been trying to get him to do in a matter of months.  Not that there is anything wrong with books, or learning, or book learning, or even how to books, per say.  But they are certainly no substitutes for real life experience.

It’s been a really busy week for me.  I was out at TicToc on Saturday as well as today.  I am also doing stalls over at Tracy’s place every day for the next month, we barter barn work for my saddle and for lessons.  It works for me, although it is a lot of work!  Friday Emma had her guitar lesson, which are going really well.  I think she shows a lot of promise.  The girls also wanted to go to ‘movie night’ at their school, so we invited Zoe and Jacob to come along.  They had fun, and thankfully I hadn’t seen the movie that was playing, ‘Cloudy with a chance of meatballs’.  It was cute, but not one that I would want to sit through twice.

We’ve been watching the new HBO show ‘Spartacus’.  I’m hoping it’ll get better.  So far, I find it severely lacking, although there are some pretty good looking full frontal Roman Gladiators.  And yet, despite showing  the Gladiator ‘erectile organs of copulation’ (hey, I looked it up in the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary), it does not hold a candle to ‘Rome’, which was a completely amazing show, also obviously based on the Romans.  The name kinda gives it a way, no??  I am still in shock over its cancellation, although it was a few years ago.  Whatever network dumbass decided to pull the plug on it should be shipped off to Siberia.  Rome was sublime.

Those network dumb asses should always call me before they go and do something stupid.  I could have told them Rome was one of the best shows ever made.  Almost as good as Firefly (another show sent to an early grave).  Definitely as good as The Tudors.  Better than Deadwood and Dexter (although lately that last one is jumping fish a bit – network dumb asses? – CALL  ME BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE)  As good or maybe even better than True Blood ( I lurve that show.  It kicks Twilight Ass.)  And all you Twilight fans?  Yes I’ve seen it.  I’ve even read all the books.  I meant what I said.  True Blood  kicks Twilight Ass!!

Don’t go reading anything into it, but it is one of my absolute favorite Joni Mitchell songs.  And I am ashamed to admit I do not even own that record, tape or cd.  Or any other Joni Mitchell album.  I fear my musical education is severely lacking.  Although I do have several Gordon Lightfoot albums.  Love him too.  Who doesn’t get shivers when listening to ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’?  Or, totally different era, but ‘Big League’, Tom Cochrane.  Or ‘Lover’s in a Dangerous Time’, whether it’s the original Bruce Cockburn version, or the Barenaked Ladies cover version.

Anyways, point being skating.  My girls LOVE skating.  (I don’t.)  So far this year, I’ve gone skating more often than I probably have in the past decade combined.  Meg spent the summer rollerblading.  She won’t ride a bike without training wheels, but the girl can move on rollerblades.  And the crossover to skating as the winter counter part was a natural move.  Not to be outdone, Emma has latched on to skating as well.  We have a really good outdoor hockey rink, with a smaller practice rink right next to it, in the neighborhood.  So every day after school, and homework, and my nap dinner prep, I have to come up with some excuse why we can’t go skating.  About 3 out of 4 days, I don’t succeed.  So we skate.  and skate.  and skate.  And my ‘five more minutes’ gets stretched to 10 or 15 minutes more.  So we skate some more.  And you know, I’m getting better at it.  I can stop, doing that spiny circley thingy, rather than the old stop I used to use (crashing into the boards).  And I can almost do a crossover, without falling down.  And, this is absofuckinglutely amazing, I can skate backwards.  Sorta.  But I do go backwards!!  Know what though?  I still don’t like skating.  The things I do for my girls!

Good thing I have little elves to to some baking and cleaning up and wrapping……

Where'd those pesky elves go???

They left quite a mess on my dining table!

But at least there was some serious decorating going on!

Ah...there they are!

Hey… we got some cookies made!

Some serious work going on…

Elf Meggie...

Elf Emma