Well here it is Sunday morning and the day is well started. The sun is out and starting to heat,so an other hot day ahead.  The skies are blue and everything is glistening in the morning light ,the greens seem brighter and the air fresher. I love the starts of the mornings.  I love to see the birds and of course the growing rabbit clan.  I miss our chipmunks though!!  I wonder where they are?

It's really hard to not think back today.  We are married 35 years today.  Most of you that will read this aren't even 35 years old. 35 years,seems soooo long,seems so short.  We are aging together,he getting grey while I am still young....LOL!!!  O.K. ....I'm old as the hills and some days you really feel it. I have gotten unbelieveably wide. Oh dear....you travel through it all and you see things and are confronted by challenges...so many challenges!  You do tend to look back,these occasions are made for that,to take stock ,to reflect.  We never had things easy at all and we struggled. The struggle is either done together or it drives you apart but that is a choice you make.  You do without and try to not compare your life with others or you let it nag away at you.  You decide that your joy is where you find it or you listen to negative factors that can rob your joy.  You go through many stages and grow apart,grow back together on a different plain or resign to breaking that what you found in each other and leave.  I can talk about parting because if you are not aware you do part.  It's wether it's worth the work to not totally part.  Raising kiddies is tough,drains your energy, money, time and sanity...try a house with 5 teenagers...if you're sane after that you can live through anything.  But they are your best work,your very best to set into this world.  We all struggle to do better for our children than what we knew.

So 35 years ago this darling,wonderful, giving man took me on. Haa,haa little did he know what he was in for!  We faced the first day of our marriage in a life and death situation being hit by a hit and run driver. We never got a honeymoon.  After all the stuff we have faced and been through I would still love a honeymoon with this special man of mine!

Well here I sit listening to roll after roll of thunder.  Not a good start to our biggest holiday,the event that really kicks off summer here in Canada.  It is Canada Day on tuesday and some have a long weekend and other unfortunate souls have it split. My flag was installed by me the other day before heading to sit the day waiting for a doctors appointment as was my new spiffy outdoors thermometer!!!  It's in both C and F !!!!  Big move for me as I really have trouble converting the tempurature,although right now it's very humid. Haaa,haaa forecast is...here looking out the window,severe storms,heavy lightning ,torrential downpours!   The past weeks have been odd.  Weather we usually don't get. Tornados have been regularly spotted and we have had storms so intense that you hold your breath at times wondering what will let go.  Last week I awoke to a dark morning.  This morning is grey and foggy with all the rain but this morning was black,black when there should have been light.  The birds were quiet which is what I think woke me. The winds picked up and abaited off and on and the rhythm was strange, picking up as the hours went along.  The sky when it tried to gain colour was very off,had an odd pinkish hue to the underside of the dark clouds.  I went out to stand to watch and the speed of the clouds on high was so much faster with the darkest clouds hovering at a slower speed.  The breaking of the storm came with a crack of thunder that made you jump. Then it was on! On full with the winds howling and they gained speed until they were picking up the curtains at the sliders and blowing them straight into the room. The rain lashed and it fell quiet all of a sudden.  I went to push open the slider and thought better of it!  Then it started,the harsh pinging and it got heavier and the hail started pea size and as it continued they got larger. It was crazy to see it all bouncing and piling,hitting things and landing at odd angles,building little ridges here and there,beat everything down.  It lasted longer than I have ever seen any hail storm,they are usually short lived,just long enough to add a little excitment,but this was about half an hour.  The scene was strange,all this large round stuff layered up against the house and covering the plants. The sun came out and the heat created an odder veiw. As the sun's heat  hit the masses of pearls it caused the frozen hail to steam as it melted.  Slowly the perfectly round invaders were melted back and the sun shone on a normal day.  After such a wild, dark and violent morning the noon peace of the rabbits hopping about the yard wasn't bad at all.

I spent yesterday really busy,cleaned the dog!  Well that took some doing as he is a large beast!  He is now a large clean smelling dog,strawberries actually.  I hope it doesn't affect him as he does smell just lovely,I'm sure to him it is not an improvement!!  I bought this all natural shampoo that when you use it on very dry natural curly hair has an interesting effect.  You get a mile of wild hair standing mostly straight out!!!  For hollowen it would be great,mad scientist or road kill,would work great! So I thought generously that it might work well on dog.  Well if you want to see a demoralized look...that was dog getting bathed. I use two really large red square bins on the deck,fill them with heated water and off we go scrubing the beast.  He tolerates it,escapes once out of the wash covered in strawberry suds and shakes it all over but dutifully gets back in.  When I think I can scrub no more I let him out to shake off and then he begrudgingly gets into the rinse bin!!  Haaa,haaa wash cycles for the dog.  But it is so hard to get his coat wet and extra hard to get the soap off!  It is surprising how much water he holds in his coat.  It was a bright sunny day and when he shakes off the water you see how much and how far it covers!!  He was still wet into the evening.  Now instead of stinking greasy dog we have sofl billowy fluffy dog scenting the air with strawberries which is far better than what he usually scents the air with.  So now I have big strawberry fluffs of fur every where. Like little animals they are tumbling down the stairs and blowing across the rug! I awoke this morning to find then everywhere even on the bed in Janice and Steve's room and on Jess' bed.  He decided I'm sure seeing I took the liberty of destinking him he was going to take the liberty to sleep were he knew he shouldn't!!!  So off he goes now with Hubby for the morning trekk that Steve took with them and I just hope the other dogs don't make fun of his newly aquired scent.  Us Mother's do worry about peer pressure!

Hello all!!  Weather report first... Here in Oshawa today it is warm,bright and sunny!!  I am not.  I have been trying for days to clear my watchlist after reading Janice's advice on such things.  Who knew/?? It strikes me as yet an other clever ploy by this darn computer to play underhanded games.  I have sat here clicking one by one through past history!  I now have it down to 179 pages.... oh good grief I think I will go nuts...nuttier..nutiest???  What is the plurel for being totally out of ones tree???  Click,click,click...I even asked Izzy if there was any other way!!! One at a time??? Really,I thought computers were smarter than this...why the heck does it store watch lists?? Who wants to refer back to their watch list?  However as you go PAINFULLY through the endless list you see sweet messages,birthdays for little guys and not so little,births and babies and the past flows through the screen.  You see the fiesty flare ups and the info and most of all you see us all connected.   But this clearing of the watchlists is......not fun. Makes me think what else don't I know???  Haaaa,haaa that would fill volumes!!! Is there some other little thing I should know but don't that will sneak up and bite???   Oh well,I bet hell has clearing watchlists one by one by one.  179 more pages.....see you all later...much later...much later with crazy thoughts of throwing computers and violence...only towards computers...not our friends,not at all.

I'm sitting here again in shorts.  Hummm,really,it's not working.  I am steadfast in toughing it out,tomorrow after all is the first day of summer.  Mother Nature, I hold you to the calendar!  It was 9 this morning and 10 yesterday,so maybe if I do put on pants it would warm up?? LOL!! Actually I'm fine with this! But when I opened the curtains this morning I was greeted by bunnies,big bunnies and lots of little bunnies!!  Oh my!!!  Someone has been engaging in unsafe sex!!!  And the proof is very cute but totally eating everything in sight!!!   My little mind wanders from bunnies to the many Ladies on Minti that have just had babies and those awaiting them.  Cath with her two,such a busy Lady and Arna who I hope is taking it as easy as she can and dannii!!!  Fairymama25 who is in my thoughts and I send vibes to.  I so hope all goes well for you.  All the babies and all the ups and downs of being Mothers comes to mind.  I do think it's the hardest most demanding job ever!!  Physically demanding ,you can get so tired and suffer from lack of sleep to the point of illness and then there is all the physical work!!  The endless washing and floors and cleaning and cooking.  All the running about from toting home endless piles of groceries to car pooling and events at school and church meetings and doctors appointments!!  Then there is the mind stresses,money,that guy that you are suppose to have some sort of relationship with (when there is time?) ,answering endless kiddie questions to them expecting help with homework (square root of what???) to staying a step ahead of the little darlings!!!  Also on the mind is how to handle girl/boy friends, social disasters that hurt our little ones...our own social disasters as we fall off the face of the planet and how to teach budding teens everything as they already know it all.  They should really enlighten us and not keep all that info to themselves.  Mother is the hardest job and everyday we face it with all the strength we can muster and all the love that our hearts never seem to run out of. We may lose patience,we may tire...who wouldn't?, we may suffer mind lock...ohhh that one is mine!!! and we may get werry.   But we never stop loving!!! Best of luck to all the wonderous Mommies,you are so special!

Got nothing to talk about but seeing that has never stopped me before I thought I'd blog!  I still miss Janice. Crazy but I feel she should still be here.  You must be sick of hearing this out of me but whaaaaaa, I do want to see her and get my morning hugs and chat and see her beautiful face.  I was sooo spoilt having them here and would so love it to have continued.   We had a big Father's Day this weekend,tons of fun, but I was wondering and sending vibes to Janice to get better.  We were treated by son-in-law to a movie with his Mom and Step-Paw.  Harrison Ford is still cute although older but then I sooo relate to that!  It was entertaining...let's say that ,but I feel it will not be up for awards!  Well actually they did a really great job of depicking the period and the visuals were impressive.  Didn't care for those ants but maybe they are real in Oz!!!  You do have crazy nasty bugs there!  My son brought Sean and shared his first Father's Day with us.  Sean is changing every time we see him but al he has to do is sparkle those blue eyes at me and I'm gone!!! He is finding he can grab things and his little head is up and turning,he really doesn't want to miss anything!  All his Aunties and Uncles were cooing and gooing over him so he will always have this group behind him.  I love that thought.  It's like this crazy Master Plan of mine all falling into place without me doing anything!  Sean will be surrounded by family,how prefect!  Always have people around him that care.  Always have some one to go to when life throws you curves that will embrace him with the truth and yet truely care about him.  Oh,yes!!!  My work is done...except for keeping everyone fed and all the stuff that tired me out completely!!!  Is a Mother's work ever done?  Father's are so important to be there to teach and to be role models but we all know Mom's are great!!  I think we should get at least two Mother's Day a year,come on!!!  Heee,heee,so maybe that won't be happening...I am just so happy with all the hugs I got this weekend!

Curse the electronics of the unnatural Earth,Mother Nature would have never devised such torture!  I am struggling here!!!  The good news is we are finally on high speed of some type,... all I know is that the page loads and you have not gotten more grey hairs waiting for it...actually rather fast!!!  That by no means makes my two little fingers type faster but  along with this  miracle is the taking away of my computer!!  Ahhhhhhh!    I am left with this book thing,not connected to anything....haaa,haaa,like I could walk and type????  Cursed thing really doesn't like me.   Won't do what I want when I want and keeps making strange noises at me.  Personally I think it knows it's way smarter than me and is showing off!   Will I master this little thing??? Totally unlikely.  It has no mouse and does that throw you off.  Janice just showed me the tricky wheel thingy in the middle of the mouse used  for scrolling!! Who knew???  But can I use my new found trick now?? Nah!   It's all a matter of not blowing it up,hopefully!

On a more serious note, Janice is ill and that worries me greatly.  She's been gone so long from my home and I miss her so but I know how tired and worn out  she was.  I think travel requires a lot from you, the length of the travel and being packed in a plane with ill people takes it's toll.  I wish you a speedy recovery and I bet tons of other people will to!  You're such a special Lady,one can only wish you the best!!!  Get well my friend!  Until Later!!!!

Oh wild life...where were you when Janice and Steve were here? And why,oh why are you here now?  Why now and why here?  Good questions.   I looked out to see a racoon on the deck,a fair sized one so I scooted him off as dog needed out only he didn't leave as I thought,he came back into the yard. Darn!  I had already let dog out and so it went!  Dog thought...get out of MY yard and racoon thought.. oh YA!!!!   So infuriated Shepherd got all bark,bark,bark and racoon got all tall and spread put his front arms and claws,hissing and gnashing of the sharp teeth...that was the racoon!!!  He stood much taller than the dog and was really not feeling like moving on.  Dog didn't feel like sharing at all so the deadlock was broken by me!  I yanked dog allowing this masked marauder time to climb the fence and climb into the hedge.  Not good enough for dog who some how knew the minute he turned his back racoon would decend to steal food and water again!  The bandit walked along in the hedge with his weight bending and swaying the hedge and dog kept under the spot..maybe hoping he would slip and fall into dogs path to start the chase again.  The heavy lumbering through the hedge lasted a while longer until I could see him get down and go to the neighbours yard pond,oviously time to try fishing for her goldfish!!  Free dinning is great in this neighbourhood!

We now have three wild bunnies and have recently added one domestic rabbit. Good! Just what we need. Dog takes extreme exception to racoons who just wash up in his water bowl and clean up dropped pet food but the rabbits eat every thing down to the ground.  They have eatten the roses as they bud,stripped the plants so they didn't make it though the winter and anything planted is eatten that night and no thank you note left for the fresh greens at all.  These he tolerates! He watches them hop about the yard and he sleeps while they chomp about him. He gets all excited when he sees them on the other side of the fence as he knows they are coming through to visit...and eat everything.  We think he sees them as his pets???  Sad really.  So today we have three dark bunnies with the big puffy white tails and the new guy,big fat soft grey bunny. He has a white pattern on him and his ears are rather long.  The neighbours stopped in their walks yesterday to admire our rabbits. Questions like...how do you get them to stay? Are they trained? They don't mind the dog?  Please bunnies,this is silly ...go be wild.