Blog Your Blessings Sunday - Sleeping In

My husband's schedule for the past few months has been getting up at 4 AM and out the door a half hour later.  After a very full day, we had dinner together while watching Coronation Street then were usually in bed before 8:30 PM.   Needless to say, this has affected both of our sleep patterns.  The past couple of weeks we have been moving back towards our normal schedule.  This past week we adopted the rule of no alarm clock.  It's rude waking to an alarm clock at best so we simply decided we would get up when we woke naturally.  It has been a real blessing to indulge in a bit of extra sleep!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

Gathering Blog Fodder

I've been on a blog fodder gather mission and the results of that will be quite apparent shortly.  Yesterday I had a bit of free time on my hand so flicked through a few television stations.  Oh good gosh, there is no end to blog fodder on the good old boob tube!  Just in the news a babysitter's boyfriend put their little charge into a washer in a laundromat and turned on the washer.  Like what was he thinking?  Then a Florida doctor who was to sails to the wind proceeded to seriously abuse himself when taken into custody.  I'm thinking he might be seeing his patient list go down!  But nothing prepared me for the blog fodder you can find watching the tv judge shows.  These shows are seriously beyond belief!

So there is this young couple in their early 20's.  She is nice looking and conducts herself appropriately in court.  He is good looking but I swear none of his brain cells were working yet he had this good natured cockiness about him.  It was down right hilarious!  She said he had a drinking problem but when the judge asked him if he did, his answer was the drink had a problem with him.   Well apparently, he got himself arrested because the friendly guy on the bus didn't want to lend him his cell phone so he punched him.  That was after the young guy showed him one of the team tatoos under his arm.  He has two and the explanation was just too funny not to mention about how he is going to get a devil girl and angel girl on his large tatoo so they can battle over his heart.  So with the public disorderliness and intoxication he was arrested again and that judge gave him bail because he had had something like two similar charges in the past two months.  Obviously he had a bit of a problem and yet he was funny.  Then she started talking.  Clearly this couple was not meant to be but she put up $5,000 cash and guaranteed his bail of $50,000 then calmly proceeded to get him kicked out of him mandatory addiction rehab!  No reason was given as to why she caused enough of a scene to get him kicked out.  I did get the impression that she was very much an enabler so perhaps she didn't want him to get sober.  She sued for her $5,000 back because he was still partying, making no attempt to pay her back.  Meanwhile, he continued to play the charming class clown in court.  As funny as it was, and honestly you couldn't help laughing, yet it was sad.

Under ideal circumstances this couple might have been a perfect match.  They looked good together and it was clear that they still cared about each other.  For whatever reason, this young man full of good looks and who could easily become a very well paid comedian, somehow got side-tracked.  Unless there is some type of intervention he will continue along this pathway of addiction until he dies an early death either from the alcohol itself or through the violence it is causing.  What a sad prediction...

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

A Little Knowledge Can Be a Huge Problem

Sometimes a little knowledge can be dangerous.  I'm on a canning group because I am a large scale home canner, canning upwards of 1.400 jars of food annually.  In the canning world acidity is a huge issue but the problem is many home canners really don't understand acidity as measured by the pH of the homogeneous product prior to processing.  The pH (not ph or PH!!!!!) scale ranges from 0 to 14 with pH 0 being most acidic and pH 14 being most alkaline (basic).  For safe BWB processing the pH of the product must be below pH 4.6 otherwise the product is considered low acid so must be processed using a pressure canner.

Well, one member posted an article acidity of a particular fruit.  I have a very strong scientific background so caught the error simply by reading the title of the paper.  The thing is, it was a scientific paper discussing the acidity level of one acid in the fruit NOT the total acid.  What this means is even though the fruit could have a high content of that particular acid, it could actually end up being classified as being low acid when the total acidity is considered.  Essentially telling someone to go ahead and BWB that fruit based on that scientific paper is akin to getting them to play Russian roulette with their lives.  In this case the lack of knowledge of being able to understand what the paper was saying combined with the little knowledge that acid is important in home canning really could have caused someone to become ill or worse if they followed the misinformation!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

Wordless Wednesday - On the Wish List

On My Wish List

May 3, 2012

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

Blog Your Blessings Sunday - A Week Spent With Friends

The past week was spent relaxing with good friends.  It was a wonderful way to refresh ourselves!  We did a lot of talking, a lot of laughing and even a bit of giggling like kids.  What a wonderful blessing to be able to share our lives together like this.  What an amazing week!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

Oh Good Flipping God!

Seriously, have you ever met someone so beyond annoying that the thought of killing them crossed your mind?  Well, that is why they make happy hour!  Even though a healthy dose of tuning out does work, happy hour works better.  I'm just saying ...

 
Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

Blog Your Blessings Sunday - Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day! 

Normally, I make a gushy and very nostalgic post in honour of both of my moms.  They both know and I know they are always on my mind.  So today, I raise a glass in tribute of what I have learned from both.  I am beyond blessed to have had both of them in my life and not to be remiss, I am very blessed to have had my MIL in my life.

Mothers, especially the good ones are a special breed to always be cherished.  The mediocre mothers should be recognized for the parenting effort they made.  And even though it seems that mediocre mothers didn't care, the reality is they just didn't have the coping skills they needed become a Martha Stewart of mothers.  Life gives hard knocks sometimes and that means even though a mother loved her kids, she just could never do as good as she wanted.  Bad mothers, well we will just leave it at that because even a bad mother can have a positive effect, regardless how small on a child's life

Today, pay tribute to those mothers and the legacy they gave us or continue to give us.  We acknowledge that they did the best they could to nourish us, protect us, teach us and guide us into adulthood.  We cherish their love, faith, compassion, hope and fears.  We give them credit for their patience through the terrible twos, the countless questions, and nights spent waiting up late we we arrived home later than we should have.  We respect them as individuals and we love them because despite everything we as children ever did they loved us unconditionally.  We are their children, their pride and joy.  They are our mother, the one person in the world we would do anything for...they cycle of life and love.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

A Piss Poor Mood

Have you ever been in a piss poor mood for no valid reason?  Well I in one that I would normally term a funk but this is worse than a funk and the worst part of it is, there is no valid reason for the pissy mood.  None what-so-ever.  I should be in seventh heaven the way things are going and yet there is this mood.
So I've been doing a lot of positive self talk, playing with my plants and enjoying a bit of the sunshine in between cloud burst.  And there you have it...

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

How Times Have Changed

I am a child of the 60's.  Well actually I was born just before the 60's but am very much a child of the 60's.  Corporal punishment was the in thing although it was waning somewhat.  While I never got the strap at school I did see others get the strap.  I had to go to Catechism each Saturday morning and had I learned earlier to not be so expressive, it would have saved a few hits on the head and knuckles with a ruler or kneeling on beans.  I'm telling you those nuns were beyond brutal!  My Mom did not believe in hitting kids but trust me should could put the fear of those ice blue eyes into you.  I'm not sure what would have happened, I just knew there was a line you didn't cross.  We were taught to use our manners and show respect for both person and property.

These were the same values we raised our kids with.  Respect is one of the biggest things there is.  Like my Mom we did not believe in corporal punishment.  Our kids were well behaved without the need to hit them.  Now fast forward to today's kids.

I volunteer in the school breakfast program and along with my other credentials I am a certified teacher.  Today's kids have no respect.  They have been raised in a 'me first', 'instant gratification' society that leaves no room to consider how other people feel.  The Ontario school system can no longer fail a child, give a child a failing grade or hold them back because they fail to perform because that might damage the child's psyche.  Well, I hate to tell them but out in the real world if you fail to perform you get your butt kicked to the curb but that's besides the point.  A child cannot be strapped in school and a teacher can no longer stand a child in the corner for misbehaviour,  Again, it is that damaging the psyche thing.  Parents can't smack their kid and if they do, they had best hope no one sees them or the kid doesn't call 911 on them.  Essentially the kids rule the roost now a days with no real repercussions for their actions.  This past week one of the kids in the breakfast program who is about 8 years old and who does have a record for going after her parents with a knife and who has tried to commit suicide attacked another student taking an actual chunk out of the students arm via a vicious bite.  She was suspended from school for one day.  That's it!  A couple of days ago, the new reported two children about ages 7 to 8 setting fire in garbage bins.  They haven't found the kids yet but they will and when they do the hands of the police are tied.  Oh sure they could report to CAS that these are kids at risk but chances are very good that CAS already knows that.  At any rate the kids will face no consequences for their actions.  The reality is parents, teaches and the law has no authority over the kids today and they know it!  I shudder to think of what will happen when these young ones become of age because quite frankly some of them are already little hellcats without control.  


Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

Double Rainbow

Double Rainbow

 April 26, 2012

Southwestern Ontario has been experiencing some rather bizarre weather.  We had virtually no real winter and certainly not any kind of cold snap where the air is brittle and the snow crunches under foot.  We experienced a little over two weeks in March that was so warm folks were wearing shots and walking around barefoot.  Our furnace was off for the entire time!  Then April hit and frost came a lot later than the predicted ADLF date of April 15.  It is destined to be a bad year for fruit production given the fruit trees were blossoming only to be hit by late and heavy frosts.  Farmers are already complaining.  Then the storms hit.  These storms are rather strange as well with very high and damaging winds yet little precipitation.  Last week we had a horrid storm with very high winds and driving rain that seriously came down in sheets.  The sun came out, shining brightly amidst the driving rain giving a beautiful fully arched, double rainbow.  Had the rain let up, I could have got a few pictures of the full arch.  It was gorgeous!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012