Am I Crazy???

On the week-end I was checking my regular sites on the internet when I discovered I could not access one of my favourite blogs. The site suddenly, inexplicably had password protection! Why did she ban me? Did I leave one too many comments and now she thinks I am a stalker? Did I say something to offend? A woman I have never met and never plan to meet blocked me from her site. What did I do? What could I have done to prevent this? I took this very personally


I blame Terry for me over reacting to this situation. (I have to blame someone….isn’t that why people get married?)

This week-end Terry went away ice fishing with a bunch of guys for the first time. This left me with way too much time on my hands. They drove five hours north, to spend a lot of money to live in a plywood shack on top of the ice. I suggested the guys just rent a room at the Holiday Inn up the street. It would be cheaper, warmer and they wouldn’t have to drive so far to drink lots of beer and tell lies to each other. Also, if they really had to they could stop at the Superstore and buy some fish on the way home.

With Terry away it gave me lots of time to dwell on the fact I could no longer access one of the usual sites I visit each day. My internet routine was totally ruined. I kept checking back onto the site over and over again and each time the computer told me I was “unauthorized.” How could this be?

As it happens, I have connected with the blog writer’s father through the internet as well. I know, it sounds creepy when I say “I met this guy on the internet,” but through one blog, I discovered another and I think Ed and I have developed a friendship, albeit a very distant one as he lives in Germany. We are both educators and parents and we have that in common to comment back and forth a few times a month. No, relax; I am not heading off to Germany any time soon.

I lamented to Ed about not having access to his daughter’s site. Today I came home from work and found an email from Ed. He was gracious enough to supply me with the information I needed and I logged onto my beloved site right away. Can you believe it? There is someone out there saying nasty things about the blog writer and she decided to keep her personal site a little more personal. It had nothing to do with me!!

Suddenly I realized I was being ridiculously paranoid. In fact, as I re-read my own writing today I am tempted to put my own password protection on so people don’t realize how crazy I really am. But then I realize the people that really know me, already recognize I am crazy!

Cultural Differences

In preparation for the Olympics the Associated Press put together a list of words/phrases unique to Canada. Other than “eh” at the end of our sentences I never really thought much about the linguistic differences between Canada and our neighbours to the south. (Although I do insist upon Canadian spelling…..it is neighbour with a u not neighbor) If you are interested in the list, here is the link…

http://www.canoe.ca/Travel/Canada/2010/01/20/12541491-ap.html

The article got me thinking about (not aboot) other differences between our two countries. The first thing I thought of was vinegar on our French fries. I learned early on in my travels to never, ever order your French fries with vinegar in the States. They put on this gawd awful cider vinegar stuff. Everyone knows French fries (not liberty fries) are best doused in white vinegar. You have to be careful ordering iced tea as well…..not that I drink the stuff. I remember traveling companions ordering Ice Tea in the States and getting a tea bag in hot water with ice cubes in it. Now what is that all about?After we eat our meal we wipe our mouths with a serviette.

Don’t get me started on American beer……I am sure everyone has heard the joke about how American beer is like making love in a canoe…….they’re both like f#@$%ing near water!!! (I know, I should be old enough to actually type that word…but what if my mother reads this one day?) After enough beer Canadians go to the washroom or sometimes the bathroom…but we don’t take a bath in there.

The Associated Press list mentioned we call electricity hydro. Doesn’t everyone call it hydro? Hmmmm. I am sitting in the dark as I type this because of my hydro bill but I will rant about hydro another day.

There are so many other cultural differences but I can’t seem to think of any more right now….I would love if there are any readers out there willing to add some of their own.

By the way......if City Wendy is reading this let me know if you have any questions about surviving your trip to Canada. I can't wait to hear all about your Olympic experiences....I am sooooo jealous you get to go, even if Drew is working crazy hours. At least you are both there AT THE OLYMPICS!!

Advertising in the Age of Blogging

I am not really sure why I blog but I know I have no allusions of making money at it. Nevertheless some time ago I signed up to allow advertising on my site. After reading the fine print I finally figured out if I blog enough and get enough “hits” over a period of years, I will be able to buy a pack of gum.

I am amazed at the ads pasted to my blog.

When I first started blogging many of my posts had to do with cottage life since it was the time of year when all things in our household revolve around the cottage. The ads for most of my posts were sites for cottage related items as well as cottage rental sites. Because the ads so quickly appeared after hitting each new “send” button, I pictured someone in a dark suit and skinny tie like in “Mad Men” just waiting for me to be inspired to blog and to set me up with a suitable sponsor. Lately however, I have become worried my sponsors have not been as suitable as they once were. Here is a list of some of my recent blog themes and the attached ads:

The Holiday is Over (Terry cutting up our Christmas tree in a million pieces)
Ads:

• Toronto Junk Removal

• Christmas Hair Styles

Happy New Year! (About finally becoming an empty nester….again)
Ads:

• Dating at Match.com

• Sponsor a Family Member

Enjoying Christmas Vacation (a list of all the things I did over the holidays including watching the entire Season 4 of Dexter)
Ads:

• Explaining Death to Children

If there is anyone out there interested in removing junk from Toronto while sporting a cool Christmas hairstyle with your new date from Match.com all while welcoming your newly sponsored family member here to explain death to your children…….I will share my pack of gum with you.

The Holiday is Over

Today I gathered up of the decorations and put them in a box ready for storage for another year. All of the Christmas tree ornaments are put away and the lights and garland are carefully stored so they won’t be a massive tangle next year. Although we all know no matter how I tried, somehow light bulbs will be missing and there will be snarls requiring the patience of Job to untangle.

The only thing left to do is to get rid of the tree.

Previously in order to get rid of our tree all that was required was to put it at the curb and wait for the garbage men (now called waste management workers). Things are different now we are living in a condo. I googled “Christmas tree pick-up” and found out the waste management team will be picking up trees on January 9th ……only for single family residences! That means we have no way of getting rid of the tree except to load it into the car somehow and take it to the dump (landfill site). At the rate our tree is now dropping needles I really don’t think that is a viable option unless I want to be vacuuming everywhere for the next six months.

I came up with a plan!

When it gets dark, we will just toss our tree over the balcony and then sneak down to the courtyard and hide it in the bushes until January 9th. Then on the appointed day when no one is watching we drag it to the house across the street! Perfect!

No. Terry would not go along with the plan because he thought we would be bothering the neighbours. I think he is just afraid of getting caught….although what’s the worst that could happen? Terry decided his own idea was much better and there was no changing his mind.

Terry took out a pair of side cutters and spent an hour cutting up our tree and putting into several garbage bags. Then he took the bags down to our garbage room and put them in the dumpster ready to be picked up Monday morning.

Somehow as I watched him cut our tree into a million pieces and meticulously putting every twig and needle into black garbage bags, I had flashbacks of the many episodes of Dexter I watched over the holidays.

Do I need to worry?

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Today is the first day of the rest of my life……yadda yadda……

Can I start out with any more clichés? How about my New Year’s resolutions? Lose weight, exercise more, get healthy, budget better, peace on earth ……

This year I am not going to disappoint myself by listing a whole bunch of resolutions we all know by January 15^th will be ditched. Instead this year is going to be my anti-resolution year. I am guaranteed not to fail.

Today is the day Greg gets his new place and we are officially empty nesters again. However, Jennifer is graduating from Queen’s this spring and is contemplating moving in with us in May until her future is more defined. I vowed I wouldn’t be those empty-nesters with kids who keep rebounding back in. However, I must admit Greg’s short stay here was rather painless. I am sure Jennifer’s will be the same…..if not ,we will make it painful for her so she wants to move back out. I feel like a terrible parent because I am not more invitational to my children. I believe my job as a parent is to create independent people. Why is it so many twenty-something kids out there have parents who don’t agree with me? No matter how strongly I believe in something, eventually I start to second guess myself when I am the only one who believes it.

As I natter on I realize I really do have a New Year’s Resolution, to become an empty nester on a permanent basis.

Wish me luck!

Enjoying Christmas Vacation

So it is officially my first day of the Christmas holidays I have been able to relax. It has been a crazy hectic holiday season.

I often liken my job to a marathon race. It begins in August with the prep and the first bell on the first day of school is like the starting pistol. I remind teaching staff we have to pace ourselves or we won’t make it to the end of the June. We can’t sprint the whole way but there are certain times of the year it certainly feels like we are gasping for breath to keep going. The month of December is one of those times. It begins with report cards, followed by parent-teacher interviews which can be very stressful because not every student is above average. (Someone has to be average, some even below average but no one wants it to be their kid) Then comes the Christmas concert and the juggling of the timetable and everyone is out of routine. While it is supposed to be a joyous time of the year, in fact it is one of the most stressful. As the principal I try to hold everyone up while calming everyone down.

So in order to de-stress this is what I have done so far this Christmas:

• Shopped and bought gifts for the entire family
• Shopped and bought groceries for two family Christmases
• Celebrated the Olympic Torch arrival with the rest of the city!
• Picked up Jennifer at Queen’s (8 hour drive…..got stuck in Toronto pre-Christmas 5 o’clock traffic on the way back)
• Cleaned the whole house in preparation for Christmas company
• Entertained my parents for three days
• Hosted the McKelvie family on Christmas Day
• Hosted the Tromanhauser family on Boxing Day
• Posted all of my Christmas pictures to Facebook ensuring our “Creepy” Santa was in every shot
• Cleaned the whole house after the Christmas mess
• Had a great lunch with the neighbours up stairs
• Took Jennifer back to Queens (traffic good, made it in 6 ½ hours)
• Went on early morning walks most days (OK, not that early but considering it was holidays, anytime before noon is early)
• Watched the entire Season Four of Dexter in two days…..OMG!! What an ending!!
• Lunch with my friend Dianne
• Open house with the upstairs neighbours
• Prepared for our New Year’s party


Somewhere in there I also got word from editors of two different magazines for some freelance work I had pitched ideas. So now I have to make time to actually do some interviews and write some articles.

I’m tired.

OK, the most important thing here…..and yes, I am looking forward to some responses!


What did you think of the ending of Dexter?

Christmas Decor

It has been quite some time since I have posted. It is because of so many reasons. School got incredibly busy with report cards, Christmas concerts and assorted things. We painted the entire place. And………..Greg has moved back home!

But the real reason for not posting is procrastination.

So I am back.

As I have mentioned before, my husband and I recently downsized from a large two-story 4-bedroom house to a small condo. We had to get rid of so much stuff. One of the things I got rid of in the move was all of our Christmas decorations. Over the last few years I have come to detest Christmas. To me it had become just extra work, more expense and too much stress in trying to make everyone happy. It felt good to get rid of all of those decorations collected over the years.

This year I am starting to get the Christmas spirit back. I don’t feel so rushed and I no longer feel the pressure to make it a perfect Christmas for everyone. The kids are now grown, they can take care of themselves……..and they do!!

So this year we got a real tree. I bought new decorations for the whole place. One item I picked up was a little white Santa Claus. I bought it because I thought he would look perfect in front of our fireplace.

As soon as I took him out of the box Terry asked me why I bought a “Gandalf”. Not being a fan of The Lord of the Rings I had to have him explain exactly who Gandalf was. I was not amused.

A few hours later, Greg came home. The first thing he asked was why did I have a statue of Gandalf?

The icing on the cake was a conversation with Jennifer. She was telling me one of the Jessicas enjoys looking at my facebook pictures but wanted to know why I had a creepy looking Santa in all of the Christmas pictures.

So……..in my excitement to bring back the Christmas spirit into my life did I rush in my selection of Santa décor? Is my white Santa really that creepy? Is he really a tribute to a fantasy series which I never enjoyed?

What do you think?????