Wandering in my mind

You know what a touque is.

You drive on a highway, not a freeway.

You have Canadian Tire money in your kitchen drawers.

Kraft dinner is a food group.

You participated in Participaction.

You have been on or know someone who was on pogey.

You know a two four means a party.

You added the missing U’s to non Canadian textbooks when you were a student.

And finally,

You understand the statement “Please pass me a serviette, I just spilled my poutine”.

But even if you’re not Canadian, have a good weekend, and spare a thought for us as we celebrate Canada Day.

Tomorrow morning we pick up the kids report cards for the year. From 8 to 11 am they are ready and then it is officially the end of the school year. I love the summertime. And with being home this year, I can pack up on a whim and head out for a day trip to where ever seems like a good idea. I foresee a lot of mini trips to see things in the area that I have heard about, but have never taken the time to look into. It will all start with Canada Day celebrations.

Ah Canada Day – the summer start off. I have a new outdoor umbrella in white with red maple leafs on it, Canada flag napkins and cutest of all, a flap lapel pin with flashing coloured lights. I know – sad and dorkey, isn’t it – but it was only a buck and it was so cute and bright – something special for those of us easily distracted by shiny things. Over the weekend we will spend at least one day at the lake with our company, eat too much (I have the thick rib steaks and lean burger on hand already and lots of snackage – garlic sausage, cheese, chips, dip, pickles, veggies) and stay up late playing Euchre. The weather is supposed to be fantastic – bring on the weekend.

Happy Canada Day (or July 4th for those south of the border) and have a great weekend.

Stoopid lawn mower. Whose brilliant idea was it to put the spout thing into the oil reservoir where it could be caught by a stray tree branch and just popped right out? Oil all over the place, a panic-y DD mower and a guilt trip. I did pop the darn thing back in, but I think it squished the seal cause it still leaked - so my repair job was not up to snuff. Do I tell DH or just sneak it into town and have it fixed? He will blame the DD mower for not taking care and on some level it would just be easier to get it fixed. Any suggestions?

A sentence that has every letter of the alphabet is a pangram, or a holalphabetic sentence. If you type, you have likely at some point done the "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dogs". The subject of this meme is just to see your handwritting.

Get a piece of paper and write the above sentence on it. Sign (but not with your real name signature, obviously). Then take a picture or scan it and post it in your blog. It's that simple.

This is mine....

My name is Surveysez and I am a consolidator. There. I’ve admitted it. I hate having a whole bunch of containers all holding something similar.

One inch of Ranch and one inch of Caesar dressing left? Dump one into the other and they will get along fine. Four different types of shampoo with only a little in each? All into one. Three different brands of barbeque sauce? Heck, they’re just ketchup and spice anyway.

The really sad thing is when I end up with an improvement – something that has that little edge making it better than the original. There is no chance of repeating the combo. That’s just the way it goes. So tell me – what little idiosyncrasies do you have?

Today is rhubarb pie day. One for the family and one for the friend who is going to bring my new kitchen table and chairs out for me. (His wife doesn’t bake much, so he is easily bought off with baking.)

The flower garden has been weeded. The youngest DD has cut three quarters of the lawn (and it needs raking, cause the rain let the grass get out of control) and the rest will be done tonight.

The library called and there are two books in that I requested, so a run to town is in order today as well.

Time to get of my butt and get busy.

I just can't resist.

Brenda needs to be far away in a safe place
Brenda needs to think (personally, thinking is vastly overrated)
Brenda needs to tell Sonny something (perhaps that I am going away to a safe place?)
Brenda needs a makeover: "Brenda's stuck in the '80s! (Google is criticizing me?)
Brenda needs to shake things up a lil bit , get > gangsta , and go bak to the old scool , old style > brenda , make a trip to her stoner boys (um, right, I was like this in the 80s?)
Brenda needs the shoes (yes-a nice shoe sale would be just the thing)
Brenda needs to remain hospitalized (likely as a result of fighting over the last size 8 sale priced pair of shoes )
Brenda needs lots of space (Is google calling me fat?)
Brenda needs the uplifting support of her wacky Village pals (wanna be a wacky Village pal? Applications are going fast.)

Surveysez needs turns up squat. Guess one side of me has everything it needs.

Yesterday DH made spagetti sauce, since they have been rained out at work. This involves two huge pots and lots to go in the freezer. The man can certainly make a good sauce. However, of late, I have been using the top foot space in the freezer, and moving stuff around to get the lid closed. There was literally no where to put the new stuff. So I spent yesterday cleaning out the freezer.

And what a job it was. In the depths I found a frozen chicken with a date on it from 2000. The choices were either chuck it or enroll it in school for the upcoming year, cause somebody needed an education. A whole layer of pig parts from when we had purchased a pig, and left the parts we didn't want to use in the bottom of the freezer. I can't believe how much I chucked out. But the main thing is, I now know exactly what is in the freezer, and I have an abundance of room to put more in.

And the sauce turned out great!

Well, I guess I’ll post this, and then just let it fall gradually into the archives while I continue to do just what ever the heck I want to. Yesterday was the appointment with the doctors for test and biopsy follow up. Summed up in total, I suppose what they told me was go home and enjoy what time you have and if you need later chemo or pain meds down the road we are here. Now before you say that awful, it is really an improvement on what we have been living with for the last three weeks. You see, after the biopsy, while I was still out of it, the surgeon (Dr. Asswipe) spoke with Blair (DH) –on the phone cause the doctor was in a hurry to get to a meeting- and told him the cancer still there and was inoperable, and that I would likely be getting sick in a couple months, more than half of one we spent waiting for the follow up appointment. So the three weeks of waiting have been pretty hard on everybody, and to finally be told by the regular oncologists that their best guess would be a couple years (could be more, could be less, they aren’t fortune tellers) well, it was a reprieve and a relief. I mean, I had the songs picked out for my service, for cod's sake! And in case you were interested, they were Ozzy's See You On the Other Side; Evanescense My Immortal and either CCR's Candle in the Window or the original Spirit in the Sky.

Main goal number one is now oldest DD’s graduation from high school next year. Once that is accomplished I will move on to youngest DD’s graduation. Then comes college grads and what ever follows. And while I move towards the goals I plan to continue things just as I always have done on a day to day basis. Day to day goals will be one DD in summer school for July and one at camp, then in August, a visit to my mom's, then my 19th anniversary - all the day to day milestones we all have.

So that, in a nutshell, is my news. I promise the next blog update will deal with more relevant, up to the minute, pointless regular stuff – like it should be.

The last band concert is over, and I did not do my share. I did not take a pie for the intermission slice of pie sale. There has been quite enough fund raising and money making this year, thank you very much. Also, the grade eights were done by intermission, so we left then and I took the girls out for ice cream before we went home (Secret Agent Man, Red River Valley and Phantom of the Opera playing in my head for the rest of the night). I feel a little guilty for not staying to the end, but not enough to drag me back into the gym.

The girls had monster cookie blizzards, although the local DQ was out of M&Ms, so they had to use Smarties instead. Have you seen the DQ commercial for the monster cookie blizzards? The monsters are making the cookies and one is making a special cookie for Gertrude Monster. It just kills me the way he slaps his hip while looking at her, and I expect him to say "rowwwwr". I don't know if it is the commercial or me that sees the perversion, but it amuses me. Perhaps I'm just easiy amused.

Blogger has some issues today, it would seem. Anyway it seems that a little entertainment is in order and all this talk of prairie skirts has reminded me of a song my mom used to sing when I was little.

**holds out edges of flowy skirt and curtsies, then breaks into song**

East is east and west is west
And the wrong one I have chose
Let's go where I'll keep on wearin'
Those frills and flowers and buttons and bows
Rings and things and buttons and bows
Don't bury me in this prairie
Take me where the cement grows
Let's move down to some big town
Where they love a gal by the cut o' her clothes
And I'll stand out
In buttons and bows

Thank you for your kind applause. I’ll be appearing until Friday. Don’t forget to tip your server.

I do not have a single pair of shorts. So I tried to find a pair. Now, I hate trying things on, but recognize the necessity. As a result, I did not get any shorts. The ones that looked okay when standing tended to pull across the bottom front of the leg when I tried to take a step and were annoying. Perhaps if the material had more give it would have been okay, but it didn’t. I like an elastic waist in shorts, cause it doesn’t seem to be so sweaty and confining on really hot days, but I wasn’t finding any of those either. The only ones that would have been acceptable were part of a pair of pajamas. Sadly, they a snoozy kitty pattern that readily identified them as pjs. It was proof that the style I want exists, even if they don’t offer them as day wear.

So I ended up with a skirt. Ankle length, shading from light blue to a darker blue bottom, light cotton, and fairly full. It swings nicely and will be cool to wear and the cotton, while light and flowy, is not so light that underwear is a constant requirement. I’ll keep looking for a pair of shorts, but I’m glad I found something for now.

There's only a few marshmallow peanuts and a couple little tootsie rolls left of the candy. The kids cried when King Kong died and I keep wondering what on earth Jack Black has that could put him in a movie. A real plus was managing to get the place cleaned up before the fisherman got home. Wouldn't want evidence of our snackage, now would we?
It was a great weekend.

Oh yeah - I got a set of four of those solar lawn lamps and stuck them out on the lawn by our walk. Now if it would only get dark quicker so I can see just how bright they are and how they look.

So I have been in hiding for the past few days, just counting the days off until we get the biopsy and scope results on the 14th. It’s so hard to deal with the unknown. Almost anything is easier to handle when you have full information. And so we wait. But I’m really getting bored with that.

I am chasing DH out this weekend to go fishing with a friend. He felt he should stay home, but waiting and looking at each other accomplish nothing so we finally agreed he will leave tonight and come home Sunday night. The girls and I will go shopping in Red Deer Saturday morning and watch at least one movie, maybe two per night. We will have to pick up some major snackage for all, blue jeans for oldest and shorts for youngest and myself. The local fire bans have been lifted, so perhaps we will even start a fire one night. We’ll see.

We will eat the foods DH hates, so caesar salad and chicken fingers for supper tonight, Chinese at the mall tomorrow for lunch and maybe a picnic supper for tomorrow (for us, that has always been garlic sausage, cheese, crackers, dip, carrots, celery-easy finger foods). I figure we should be able to make a mess of the house within 2 hours of his departure, if we keep to our normal patterns. I don’t know why we suddenly lose the ability to pick up a wrapper and put it in the garbage, but it sure does happen. Girls night in!