May as well, it's Sunday

I'm off to the church this morning to promote the new parish website that we've been working on for months. Now it's my job to sell it to the parish, to let everyone know they have a website now. That's the hard part. Today is coffee Sunday, and for each of the Masses there will be a parade of parishioners shuffling past the coffee urn, snack tables, and my computer (complete with little cards with the site written down for them). Check it out...

On a brighter note, here's the best Newfie joke ever written...

Canada's worst air disaster occurred today when a small two-seater Cessna plane crashed into a cemetery early this afternoon in central Newfoundland.

Newfie search and rescue workers have recovered 826 bodies so far and expect that number to climb as digging continues into the evening.

Have a good Sunday all.

GO GO GO GO GO STOP

So I woke up at 7 this morning, poured coffee, drank half of it, and pulled the car onto the lawn. Loaded it with shit for the dump and headed out, thinking an early start will keep the line behind me instead of in front.

No line, in and out of the dump in 30 minutes. On the way home, I vacuumed the leftovers out of the back, bought a paper (plus one for the elderly lady next door), and pointed the car towards home. On the way I see no line in the Ministry of Transport office. Thinking that my stickers are up fore renewal next week, I stopped. Before I even took the number a voice says, "can I help you?" Half stunned by the comment (mostly because it's the Ministry of Transport, and they're really not ever in the mood to 'help' you), I walked up, paid my $74 and got my plate sticker. 5 minutes. Done.

Ran in the house, my daughter is right where I left her, on the computer playing the Sims, Kim is up and on her computer, and no sign of the teenager yet - still snoring. I poured more coffee, went out onto the porch, watered the plants, replaced the removable storage unit in the back of the car (it came out for the dump load), and sat down to drink my coffee.

Another half cup. I attacked a load of dishes.

I'm antsy today. It's now 10:03 am and I've done more this morning than many will do all day. Now I'm writing a little, while finally finishing a coffee. What's next? I have some cleaning to do downstairs, and I want to get the back yard tidied up. I'll get there, hopefully before I crash.

It pays to be a morning person. Right now, there's some poor schmuck at the dump in line waiting for his chance to enhance our lovely landfill. Wouldn't it suck if he had to renew his plates today?

Cheers.

Broken Promises

I promised it years ago.

I have been true to my word.

I have never wavered from my convictions.

I have always insisted that my family would be better for it.

I have always maintained my integrity and honour, and my family has reaped the benefits of the promise, the decision I made in 1994.

And now I've broken it.

Much to my and my family's dismay, I have failed them.

There is now a PC in my home.

Argh. I hate it.

We now have 3 Macs and one PC. I will continue to believe in Mac and will not EVER touch that infernal machine. It won't touch my wireless network, and it will remain behind a closed door, where my guests will still only see the one true machine. The Mac.

It will be relegated to inferior status, forever mocked and chided by those machines it aspires to become, but never will.

It will not become the house computer, only one of necessity, until the world comes to it's senses, and sees the error of it's ways. Bill Gates has no friends here, and his

machine shall not be the window to my home. And if it does, his stare will be met with a site sure to make him cringe - The mighty Apple.

Feel free at this point to chastise me for my

views, all you sheep whom Mr. Gates has enticed to the dark side with the promise of power, ease of use, convenience, and cookies.

I am Keith, I'm a Mac user, and I'm proud of it!

Cheers.

Family Room

We finished painting the family room today. It used to be dad's living room, but now that he's not here we have to use it for something, family room is a no brainer. The last thing I want is for it to be a junk room, we already have 23 of those. Just for fun, I went back through the photo archive and found the pics we took of the house prior to moving in. The man we bought it from was kind enough to let us come in with a camera so we could plan things out, not to mention plan out the crap we needed to fix once we were in. That list seemed to be longer.

Without further adieu, here we go...

This is the before and after of the family room, which is actually 20'x10', this shot is deceiving. Pardon the crappy ceiling, I haven't got to that yet:

Next, we have a before and after of the front hallway. The former owner is standing in the doorway:

Next up on the tour, the kitchen...

And finally, the living room. This room hasn't changed much, still the same paint. It's next on the hit list.

So that's our home. Hope you enjoyed the tour. It's neat to see how much things change over the years, even short ones. We have much still to do to make this place truly ours, but it takes time. What I haven't posted here is the outside - new windows, shutters, gardens, fence, shed, patio, doors, and more. I'll save that for another time, right now, I have to move the PS2 into the family room, there's games to be played!

Cheers.

Labour Day Weekend

3 days til school starts. My son starts high school, my daughter starts grade 4. Wow, have they grown. The weekend is the last hurrah of the summer, the last chance to do things you wouldn't normally do the rest of the year, and yet it seems we haven't even had the chance to start. This summer, as you know, sucked. Hugely sucked.

I kept saying I can't wait til the school year starts because it will bring back some sort of normal to the house, but it won't be that way at all. The first 'not' normal is high school, my little guy is growing up faster than I'm comfortable with. He has his schedule, his friends are in place, new shoes await, blah blah blah, but it's all new to him and us. Normal. Yeah.

We had some labour day traditions going for a while, the first of which sounds silly, but hey, it's what we do. Every Labour Day we go down to Assumption Park at least one last time, maybe take the bikes, or just walk along the paths of the sculpture garden. We have lunch at the Chip Wagon, fend off the bees, take pictures on the boulder (progression chart of the new age), and head home, where bags are packed and clothes are picked out.

We also tend to have a BBQ with Shelley and Mike and their girls. Last year, we headed to the Harrow Fair. It seems that Labour Day has always been for those things you take for granted during the summer, but if you don't have a chance to do them, it all gets crammed into one weekend.

Not this year. First off, my car is on loan - taking someone near to us to school in Ottawa. Their car is out of the picture for this trip, so I stepped up and loaned them mine. So, no trip to Assumption Park. I did however, get a loaner for the weekend, an ebike, which I took to work yesterday, and can I say I WANT ONE! Really cool, like a bicycle for lazy people that scoots at 35 kph. The Harrow Fair is also out, as I can't take my family on said ebike to another town.

The BBQ is out, as the families that take part are not around to enjoy it, and frankly, nobody's got any coin to put one on this year. We may have one before the cold weather hits, who knows.

Oh well, we'll make the best of it, it's still a long weekend for me, the only on in the house that can really say that, everyone else has had a weekend lasting months. I will still enjoy it, relaxing around here and getting some work done in the basement.

My daughter is ready to go. Kim took her to get shoes yesterday and came back with a pair that matches her new backpack - pink plaid. Too cool. She's geeked to go back, strangely enough more for the school than seeing her friends again. She's a little bookworm, some days I wonder who's ready for high school. Unlike most children her age, she's eager for school. She thrives on it to the point it drives my son nuts. When she started summer, she actually made herself homework because she missed it. Weird child, but I love her.

Today is cleaning day downstairs. We want to create a family room where dad's living room was. Not too much of a stretch to do that, we just have to change the decor a bit, and take out some of the stuff we've inadvertently piled in there when we purged the upstairs. Dad never let us paint that room, so the primer on the walls that the previous owner applied is still there, today we'll start patching the walls and looking at paint. We don't want that room to be a catch all or a storage room, we want it to be usable space, maybe put the PS2 down there, or a games table. Something anyway, we need to move on and avoid the temptation to make dad's space a shrine to him. We still haven't touched his bedroom, I'm not ready for that yet. Today that door stays closed (once I put it back up, we took his bedroom door off when the oxygen came in so it wouldn't squish the air line).

So at it we go, after coffee and morning paper, the sun is shining, September has begun on a bright warm note, and we're off to change traditions. We're off to begin rebuilding ourselves.

Change is good sometimes.

Cheers.