the size of it all

Here are a couple of photos to show you how much snow we have. The bottom right hand corner is the shed that collapsed. The shots of the dad-guy and the big-kid are taken in the front yard where dad-guy moved all the snow away with a bobcat.

too much of a good thing

I am feeling a slight twing of guilt as I sit here composing this post. The dad-guy is currently outside digging snow off of our shed which collapsed 2 days ago. We have had an incredible amount of snow! 2 days ago a small amount of white precipitation floated, lazily from the sky. It was that last flake, it caused the feat of engineering which formed our tent shed to finally collapse. Dad-guy has spent most of his weekends moving snow around, trying to prevent such a tragedy, even to the point of renting a bobcat to push the 8 feet high mounds of snow away from our house. Should spring come in like a lion, he reasoned, we could be floating away. How disappointing to now have to rescue and perform triage on the various pieces of equipment that were stored is the collapsed shed. Weather is a force that cannot be predicted or controlled, perhaps that is why it has been a popular topic of conversation for as far back as humans go.

Poem

I wanted to post one of my son's poems. His writing is humerous, with a bit of a serious twist.

The humuncus

Humuncus, humuncus how I hate thee if only you would leave me in peace.
Get out; get out, out of my head no more chanting, no more teasing,
Don’t pull on my strings, stop looking through my eyes
This is why we hate the humuncus,
He leaves me; but will you be next???

guilty conscience

I had the funniest thing happen last night. I was awake and couldn't sleep so I headed downstairs for a drink of water. Halfway down the stairs I heard a 'ka-thunk', tinkle, tinkle. Looking in the livingroom I see our small dog, Bandit, at 2 in the morning sitting next to the leather chair, trying to look innocent. I could almost hear him saying, "yep, yep, yep, just sittin' here at 2 in the morning, thats what I do when you are asleep." I promptly put a laundry basket on the leather chair, and tried not to laugh. His conscience was active, even though he was in a deep sleep, the sound of my feet coming was all he needed to bolt him into action.

the front

In reference to my gum-chewed hair cut, A few of you said you needed to see the front of me, so here I am. Keep in mind that my hair has now been growing for 2.5 weeks since my cut. So you can imagine how short it was. The painting next to me is one I finished a few weeks ago of a building in Wells, BC.

everyone does it...once

This morning my sleepy 8 year old daughter came out of her room rubbing her eyes. I was excited to see her as I had been away the previous night, but my happiness turned to shock when I saw her bangs. It appeared she had taken the scissors to them last night after her bath. The Dad guy, hadn't really noticed the night before and just put her to bed. Well, I stated in a shocked voice: "what did you do to your hair?" She replied, "nothing", and began to cry and clutch her tummy. After a sympathetic discussion about how most kids try to cut their hair at least once, I tried to fix her creative cut. She now has quite the set of micro-bangs. At the end of it all, one questions still remains in my mind. How could the Dad guy have missed seeing that?

cold day

need I say more?

brrrrr.....

It is very cold here today. Our family spent a couple of hours outside working on cutting, splitting and hauling the wood that fuels our heating system. The temperature is predicted to drop to lows in the -30's c., and we want to be ready. Our wood furnace is very old and dearly needs replacing, but that must wait for another year. In the meantime, someone will have to get up around 3-4:00 am to put wood in the stove so we can be warm each morning.

culprit

This tree is the reason I was unable to post for 4 days previous. 8000 residents were out of power for 3 days in the Prince George area due to a wind storm. Our home was out of power and telephone. We have a small generator which ran several lights (and the fish tank). Our wood heater kept us warm and we cooked outside on the propane campstove. The romance of the situation wore off after about 24 hours and the family was so greatful to have power restored on Tuesday.

taken out by stomach flu

I'll be back in a few days.

dog time

My dogs are constant companions while I work each day. They seem to know time as they watch and anticipate my schedule. It amazes me that they are so accurate, within 10 minutes. Every day at 2:30pm, I bundle myself up and take them for the 1.5 km walk to the school bus stop to pick up my daughter. Every day at 2:20pm they start following me around wagging tails and barking. I was curious to see how they would handle the time change (daylight savings). It only took them 2 days to adjust to the new schedule. Amazing.

in training

extreme ironing collage
Originally uploaded by My Art4Life.

I said I would be posting my extreme ironing sport events and to wet everyone's appetite I am posting this training session. It was a challenge to hoist that heavy ironing board from the '70's onto that roof. A lot of people who participate in this sport have fancier equipment than me, like battery operated irons, however, my iron still needs to be plugged in. Husband, Kevin lent me his super heavy duty, extra long extension cord for the event and I was greatful. He has even offered to loan me his gas generator so that I can perform "off the grid." I would like to issue a challenge to my friends and colleagues to compete with me. Email your photos of yourself "extreme ironing" and I will post them to my blog.

reunion

25 years have past since the whole of my future lay ahead of me. High school was left behind and interests were pursued. There are those I remember having had an influence in what paths I would take. This man was one of them. Dave Johannsen still teaches art at Memorial Composite High School in Stony Plain, Alberta. It was my pleasure to reconnect with him and classmates this Thanksgiving weekend.

who are they now?

Apparently there is a 25 year high school reunion for my class this October long weekend in Stony Plain, Alberta. I went to the 10 and 20 year gatherings and really enjoyed them. All too soon the evening is over and people, reluctant to leave, begin planning the next one. I'm not sure how many graduating classes still enjoy each other's company like mine does. You would think that people would grow so far apart and differences would make trying to socialise once every 5 or 10 years uncomfortable. But for some reason, there is a large number of people from the MCHS class of '81 who still get a kick outta seeing one another. Spouses seem to come too, even though some of them get pretty bored after an hour or so and look for a hockey game to watch in the lounge next door (yes, you know who you are:) Actually, I have to hand it to them for tollerating the event at all. One can only handle so many "remember when's" if they don't relate to anything you've participated in. This time I may not be able to attend and I am truly disappointed. Perhaps I need to rethink that decision. I could use a blast from the past right now.

update

It has been a while since I made a post and so much has happened. I wanted to talk about our sweet friend Genevieve Klassen who passed away at the age of 15 this last week of an unknown illness. How sad we have all been about loosing her, and seeing her family grieve. I want to talk about the new classes I'll be teaching at the college in the fall, and the fact that I will be leaving my job at the Native Art Gallery so that I will have time to teach. There's the hot weather causing my garden to droop and die. The baptism, my son and I were baptised this last weekend, which was a birth, a new life in Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah). Our yard! We dug up the foundations of our basement and put in drain pipe and rock, and now we are smoothing out our lawn. More birth, my brother and his wife are expecting a baby in the fall. The days are passing, but who is recording them? If they are not recorded, is it as if they have not happened?