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No, I'm not going fundamentalist on everyone.
But, Hallowe'en is evil, nonetheless.
Yes, I know I do it to myself with my fabric stash and high expectations. But, it is for the kids! Slaving away for a week on a costume that will be worn for one (1) day is tantamount to the effort put into a homemade wedding dress.
Yes, you save some money. No, no one cares.
And besides, this year, Charli wanted the hard costume. Being the second child means she often gets hand-me-downs and second best. So, I had a chance to have a good mommy moment and redeem myself from mommy-guilt.
So, I made it. Sort of.
Whomever designed that pattern should have been shot, 25 years ago, when he/she created it.
Perhaps I had better back up a bit and explain.
I am the lucky recipient of all of my mom's sewing patterns, my aunt's sewing patterns and have a fairly large collection of my own.
Charli was wanting a hallowe'en costume - she wanted to be a brown cat. We have a black cat costume already, but I figured she would find the pattern for the brown cat in the box and we would be just fine. It isn't hard to sew and would be excellent over a snowsuit.
Well, I didn't go through the box first. Big mistake.
Stuck down at the bottom of a box was a never opened Cabbage Patch Kid costume pattern.
Most patterns have their difficulty rating on the front. This one didn't. That should have been my first clue.
For a one size pattern, there were six pages of instructions. That should have been my second clue. But I just thought they were being descriptive. (They weren't. Anything but.)
The pattern called for 7 metres of lace eyelet ruffling and 5 yards of rickrack trim. That should have been a deterrent. Except that I also received all of my Aunt's trim stash, so I could cover that.
Anyway, the costume was made. I skipped making the legs, shoes and hands. And it still took me a week.
Fortunately, Joey wanted to be Lilo. Actually, Joey wanted to be Nancy Drew in the Mystery of the Golden Pavilion, who wears a muumuu, but I told her that I couldn't change her hair colour, so she could be Lilo. And the muumuu - well, that too came from the Aunt Alice fabric stash.
Sorry about the blurry photo, but that should give you an idea. Now I have to go to the school and put them into these things for the afternoon, so they can get them dirty with classroom party snacks before we go out tonight.
Hope everyone has a happy hallowe'en, may it be less evil for you!
Yesterday was eventful. I woke up to put the kids on the bus, looking forward to a relatively quiet morning of sewing (halloween costumes and hemming curling pants) and then an afternoon of skating fun.
As I'm sitting at my computer, I notice that Pixie, our small blonde cat is waiting by my dishwasher. Quietly. She had been complaining bitterly that no one had let her out to prowl the night before (it was horribly cold) yet the door had been opened and she hadn't gone out. She was sitting in my kitchen.
Since it was quiet, I listened and heard a mouse rattling around under one of my appliances.
Well, this is the farm. Mice happen at this time of year. So, I asked Dale (who was downstairs) if he wanted me to wait before I pulled out the stove drawer. That was the easy access point to underneath the appliances.
He came up, I pulled out the stove drawer. No mouse.
Then Dale pulled out the stove. No mouse.
Then he removed my pan storage unit. No mouse.
Then the panels came off the front of the dishwasher. Could hear the mouse, but couldn't see it.
So then the dishwasher got unloaded, the cabinet above it got unloaded, and the whole thing got moved. Small blonde cat is still waiting in the kitchen.
The mouse, of course, took off for the living room.
Pixie, eventually, figured this out. After she had sniffed all of the yuckies behind my dishwasher.
So, now the mouse is behind my couch. As are seven pillows, 4 blankets, 2 urp cloths, a bag of yarn, and a table. I removed all of the soft things while Dale waited to see if the mouse would run out. No, it didn't. Queen cat Mindy was annoyed at being disturbed (she was relaxing under the table), so she meandered out.
I put Pixie back behind the couch. The mouse ran behind the piano. Dale moved the piano. The mouse ran under the fish tank. Pixie remained behind the couch.
At this point, I have no kitchen because it is full of appliances. I have a living room floor filled with soft and cat-furry blankets and pillows.
I decided to give up and go sew. Dale had to go out as well. He set a trap under the dishwasher, since our feline mouse control was a bit ineffective. And then he went to work. But, I only had one seam to do on Charli's costume before I needed to cut some more fabric...in the living room.
Well, my computer is very hard to ignore. I sat down to check the weather & my e-mail. And heard the mouse behind my desk. Out comes all of my "filing" system. Out comes the printer cabinet. Out comes my desk. No mouse.
And that only left the fridge. Which is not a good place to have a mouse. The fridge moved out. Pixie noticed this time and tried to get the mouse, but it had hidden underneath the large and heavy appliance.
I went to cut the fabric, realizing full well that now I had every appliance out from the wall...and of course, that the dust bunnies had all multiplied in their secretive habitat since the last time I had done that. Add to that the various bits of mouse scat (which is not a good thing) and I would have to go find my bleach spray bottle.
I finished sewing most of Joelle's costume, hemmed Dale's pants and returned to my kitchen to bleach the back of my appliances.
Yes, the backs. The part that no one ever sees. But, spraying the mouse scat with diluted bleach before cleaning it is our best defence against Hantavirus. And since I had to do that anyway, well, bleach was as good as anything else to remove the dried on food that drips behind things and the dustbunnies that have glued themselves to the linoleum.
Which means that I now have the cleanest appliance backs of anyone I know.
Pixie, incidentally, caught the mouse while I was eating my lunch. She took it to the bathroom, so Dale just closed the door on the two animals in there. Then he went in and removed the mouse, since Pixie doesn't actually kill and eat mice in the house, she just plays with them. She just kills them outside and leaves them as doormats for us.
Maybe today I'll clean the front of the appliances...
Small towns are "perfect" to raise your children in.
Or at least I think so since I turned out so well.
However, I'm in awe of my mom and my mother-in-law. Either
a) things were considerably different in the 1980's
b) I'm a sucker and do too much or
c) they were superwomen.
Or maybe all of the above.
This week I'm feeling highly overwhelmed and underappreciated. I have given myself the new title of "club mom" for the figure skating club. I'm helping out the president, the secretary didn't know how to take minutes, so I helped her, I schedule the ice, I help pick up the littlest kids so they can learn to skate (and get a sore back and bruises where they kick me), I do the budgets (at least that's my job), I get workers for the kitchen, I explain the programs to the CanSkate co-ordinator (and try to explain the concept of independent practice to the transition parents) I sort out the various activities for the test skaters and I communicate to the community. Actually, I'm about ready to take the girls to skate in Brandon. Yes, I'd pay a fortune in gas and more in ice fees, but I wouldn't have so much work to do!
Now, I know that both my moms served long-term on figure skating executives. My mom did president - I think more than once. And she worked! Kaye did her part too - and she had four kids! I don't know how they managed working at rinks, keeping us clean and busy, keeping school and clubs going, and driving - everywhere.
I'm already tired, and it's just October.
I could quite happily crawl into a hole right now - I have halloween costumes to sew today, need to get myself and the girls ready to skate (and do the general meeting for skating), need to make supper for the rink (we're there from 4 until potentially 8) need to get ready for enrolment tomorrow and should do laundry so I can pack for the weekend. Dale has had to take over the work on the festival poetry, the girls have cooking club at school tomorrow and I still need to get some paperwork done for the farm.
And we need to get things from Brandon...maybe. Our trip west may have to be put on hold - this weekend looks like it might be okay to spray on. So I'm not actually counting on it either way - which means I may be packing like a mad fool on Friday. Or not. I'd like to get away, but I'm not going to get excited...
So, I'm off to go try to figure out my serger. It has been here for months, but I haven't had time to play with it. Charli's costume will be my test run - that could be pretty scary. Took me an hour to thread the thing last night. Wish me luck!
This past week was my week "off". The kids weren't skating. The festival hasn't started (although I need to get the kids working on their speech entries). All I had was Sparks/Brownies/Guides and the annual visit from Uncle Grant on the calendar.
Ha.
Woke up Tuesday and realized that it was the 14th. All of my Guiding registration forms had to be in by the 15th. With the long weekend, I had forgotten to pester the parents who hadn't got the forms to me yet...so I had a little panic in the morning and got all of those brought over. I e-mailed the lady in Neepawa that I was supposed to send them to, then I whipped into town, put them in an expresspost and went to vote. I would have been quicker there if I hadn't been stopped by two people to talk about things the Guides were supposed to do and one person to talk to me about festival. Got home to find...that the lady in Neepawa no longer wanted the forms, she wanted them sent to Winnipeg. Argh. More e-mails to try to meet deadlines that won't happen - and you all know me and being late.
Anyway, I thought that Wednesday might be better. A kindergarten day always allows me to get a bit more done. So I started in on the bookkeeping. That wasn't too bad - I wasn't really that behind, but as usual there were a couple of strange transactions that I had never done before. And my accountant wasn't available. I knew I had to run to town again to do book fair - my kids always love to go, and since his mom couldn't get off work early enough to take him, I had Cole too. So, we're at the bookfair for half an hour trying to convince Joelle that she doesn't need every book, and trying to find the right level for Charlotte, and keep three children's hands out of all of the gadgets and things that are available. It was slightly nuts.
After bookfair I still had a few errands to do, so three kids followed me to the post office, the bank (Jo had a little cheque to deposit herself, so I had to go there) and then the co-op. I don't know what it is about the co-op that makes Char believe it is her own private racetrack, but I was absolutely cooked by the time I got out of there after chasing her. And I still had to clean up before Uncle Grant came over to visit that evening. I need to buy more plastic so that I can stack the boxes of things I just hide away...
While Uncle Grant was here, phone rings - festival. They need me to "volunteer" and the day that they have picked I have appointments in Brandon. So I'm not available...and somehow, I was supposed to have given my schedule to a lady I barely know so that she wouldn't have scheduled me that day? I switched off for a day that I would be around, but it sounded like I had royally messed up the volunteer co-ordinator's chart by not being home. That has to be one of my pet peeves - I am always expected to be available because I "stay home".
Thursday was pretty quiet - I didn't get a hold of my sister for her birthday (I tried...), and I just had to plan my Guiding meeting. Hadn't been in too much of a rush - the early part of the year is always the same for Guides, Brownies and Sparks because we have to work on enrolment. We had enrolment scheduled for November 6th. Three weeks away. No rush until I realized that festival would be in the church on the evening of November 6th, and the sounds from our enrolment downstairs would be very unwelcome to the speech participants upstairs. And, we already planned an early meeting for October 30th to allow parents to do pumpkin carving or costume fittings or whatnot - so we didn't want to do a ceremony that night. Which leaves...next week. Panicked phone calls to Guide Shop to get supplies mailed out, and we had a "rehearsal" meeting. Hope that we can pull it all together next week!
And, it rained/snowed last weekend. That made the oats that were supposed to start moving on Tuesday have had to start moving Friday. Which meant that Dale couldn't take his truck in for its regularly scheduled oil change and checkup. So I had that to do. And since I would be in Shoal Lake, I got to pick up trophies for festival, distribute programs for festival, deposit skating fundraising money, pick up tickets at the bus station for skating, enquire about some "old style" cheques that we're still using on a little used figure skating account, check in with our accountant on the obscure transactions that I have to bookkeep and follow up with half of the skating parents while getting my groceries. Oh, and I had to pay big bills (October 31st is not just halloween, it is the due date for a lot of our inputs and services) and pick up wood for shelves for the canning room.
After school...the dreaded "lice" note - they're in the school again. And, after a quick check of Jo, I started on Char. Who still suffers from Cradle Cap. She's five and a half. And she has a raging case of the flakies right now...so I spent an hour of scrubbing with special shampoo and conditioner and picking away at the poor child's scalp to try to reduce the breeding space for little bugs.
And then there were panicked phone calls and e-mails from the moms of our competitive skaters that their kids hadn't been registered with Skate Canada. Since I thought that had been done in August, and these girls couldn't compete in any competitions without being registered, I spent the next two hours trying to figure out what the heck happened there. That's the president's job, I know, but she was at another meeting and it needed to get done. Turned out that while everything had been set up to register everyone online, the "submit" button hadn't been pushed. I couldn't figure out why we hadn't got a bill yet for registrations - that's because the invoice prints after you press "submit". So now I have another expresspost to do to get the cheque to Ottawa to make sure these kids get registered pronto. Ugh.
I'm not sure if things will be better when we're into the full swing of things - but maybe I'll be more prepared for all of the little minor crises that make my life interesting. In the meantime, we're off to the lake today to close up the place - kind of sad, because it won't be warm enough to be out there, but kind of relieved - soon the snow will fly and this transition will be over.
I just want to bang on my drum all day (or something like that...right?)Yup, I'm procrastinating. Well, I have tried to do some things today. I have phoned people (and left messages, or had to let them go because I got beeped in on, or had to let them go because they were so busy...) I have done lots of little tasks for skating and festival and Guides today. I have checked out my finances, purchased some more necessities, gone to the post office, filled the car with gas and done my civic duty and voted.But, it is cold. I am cold. I don't want to turn up the heat as then the rest of the house will complain that they are too warm. It is still nasty out - the wind is chilly and it has blown most of the leaves off of the trees - it makes the landscape barren. The snow didn't melt until 11 or so on my front lawn. And it is gray...and very, very mucky. I'm hoping someday to be able to wash my car. There is no point right now - it is the same colour as the truck. That's why we bought a truck that colour, and I would consider the same shade for any vehicle and most of my children's outerwear. But my car will eventually need to be dug out from under the multiple layers of dirt...and I'm not looking forward to doing that little chore!
Took out the winter boots last night and put away the sandals. After the four pairs of summer footwear that my youngest wants to send north were removed from it, there is actually a bit of room in the tub right now. And I'm working on putting the "seasonal" clothing back into rotation. Fleece and turtlenecks aren't necessary during the afternoon, but winter skating season is starting next week, so they might as well be out. Still need to check out the skates and helmet for Char this week - Jo's are in for sharpening already.
And, you can tell the seasons are changing because we're almost out of tomatoes (fresh.) There are still five or six flats of them in the breezeway, but there is more summer type stuff that needs to be put away in the breezeway than there are tomatoes. So we're almost out of the canning season too.
But I guess I knew the seasons were changing when I visited Canadian Tire yesterday to try to buy a "deck box" - you know, one of those huge plastic containers. I was going to use it to get some of my cover blankets out of my garden shed so I could actually fit tools in my garden shed. However, when I went to the aisle that has had these items in it for months, all I could find were Christmas trees and shiny red bows. And yesterday, officially, was Thanksgiving. Haven't even got through Halloween yet. Maybe I could understand if it were an American retailer...but Canadian Tire? At least they weren't playing Christmas muzak...I would have had to run screaming from the store!
Hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving anyway...
We finished combining on Saturday. From Saturday onwards I have somehow managed to
- Take a Guide training
- Go to a festival meeting and write up all the minutes
- Redo the entire figure skating budget
- Apply for harvest advance programs
- volunteer for the elementary school "learn to speak french" leisure club
- move all of my peonies, bag up most of my lily bulbs
- do up 7 quarts of spaghetti sauce, 12 quarts of stewed tomatoes and 7 quarts of canned tomatoes (with Dale's help)
- do the laundry, try to catch up with my kitchen
- not submit anything to my blog
Sorry. Actually, at least the list looks like I have done something, so maybe I'm not that sorry.
I had planned on writing something witty today, but honestly, it's just one of those days. Had to send out the corrections to the minutes. Had to talk to the skating coach for an hour and a half (I think. Probably longer.) Needed to organize an executive meeting for figure skating to discuss expanding the budget, schedule a planning meeting for the Spark/Brownie/Guide leaders and now the school just called to let me know that Jo says she's not feeling well.
That could just be our bus issue, again. Seems to be a bit better on Kindergarten days, even though I don't think that Char is anywhere near where the older kids are. I can't even say it is one kid in particular since the grade two girls seem to have formed a "spy" club (or something) complete with codes and messages. It is just too bad that it is such a long ride on the bus - it might not be so bad if they only had to spend 15 minutes together.
Anyway, I'm back. I will find my desk, someday. And someday later, I will move it. But we're "not starting anything inside until the snow flies" so it will be a while. And perhaps, sometime, we'll get our provincial electrical company to come out and connect our power to the shop. The wires are laid, most of the lights etc. are in, but the wire can't be connected until the transformer is moved. Doubt it will be today, as we've had periodic power outages all day. I'd better post this before the next one!
Fortunately some of our grain deliveries are coming together. Providing that the snow stays away, we'll move piles (literally) of oats starting next Tuesday, and wheat will be heading to Forrest then too. Not sure when we'll get off the farm to vote...
So, please excuse the sporadic posts while I slide into my other life. It seems rather dull compared to busy time, but I'm not sure that it is much less busy.
This seems like a long harvest. Only having one (smaller than usual - we have had 8010's previous years) 2588 combine has made it seem slow. And there is a lot of crop out there - mostly straw, it seems, so that makes things very, very slow going.
For a point of reference, swathing started August 23rd. And I finished it off last night, 36 days later. Both Norm and I were out swathing the wheat - we were supposed to straight-cut it, but first of all, we didn't get a combine that had a header that could do that and second of all, no one's wheat seems to be drying down. Everyone has the same problem around here - we're wondering if it is simply too much plant matter to dry down. We killed the plants with Glyphosate about a month ago, it should have worked by now!
Anyway, Dale trucked grain - we were in little bins of canola yesterday, Norm ran the pull type on one part of the wheat field (his preference) and I had to practice on the big 30 foot self-propelled swather. I only cried once - so that was a good day! My spatial perception needs work (but then, I'm sure I have a disability in that - perhaps there is a name for it). Trying to figure out if the remaining standing crop is 60 feet wide or 62 feet wide is something that takes practice. If it is 62 feet you cut it in two skinny strips first and make a third one so that you don't clip the swath on either side. If it is 60 feet you cut two 30 footers and pray that you went straight. I didn't go straight. Thus the tears. But, I fixed it. And the next chunk I did better.
So today, we're going to try combining the wheat again. And if that goes (which we're really hoping it does), I get to be the housewife today. That isn't my preferred occupation at this time of year - if I am at home and I can't start anything I am less productive than if I'm not home at all. Here, things get messy (two kids, I'm making meals, I'll do down tomatoes or peppers or something); if I'm in the field, it is peaceful. I have no kids. I have no mess (other than grain dust, and a shower gets rid of that). I have no meals to worry about. And the tomatoes wait in my breezeway and I don't have to feel guilty about them.
With any luck at all, we'll finish the wheat tomorrow. Then we'll go back into the oats for a day (these are the yucky oats, the ones we've been dreading all year since they lodged). Then into canola for four or so more days. And then I'll give myself a hangover. I hope.
That's only a week more...considering we've been combining almost continuously since September 12th (sixteen days already) I guess I can survive that long. But, since our best laid plans never actually happen, I'll just be glad when we have this crop in the bin.
We should just be happy to be getting this quantity of crop off- it likely will be the only time in our lifetime that we do. However, it sure has been tough going (we're not doing many acres a day, and the poor combine header plugs almost every swath), and the quality isn't really great. Which only proves the point that you can never have a happy farmer.
