home renovation and marriage

The Yoga Kid Stumps Again


I taught yoga one-footed today. An early morning renovation related accident rendered me lame with no time to find a sub for the noon drop-in class I had promised to sub.

Hatha Yoga Video Tree Pose - VrksasanaIt’s not difficult to teach an entire yoga class without leaving the floor, but as it was a strength class, I felt obligated to get them to their feet and few a string of standing postures. Ralph Macchio does a better crane than I do. Or at least he did. I have no idea what kind of shape the guy is in today though I seem to recall hearing he managed a decent showing on DWTS (Dancing with the Stars).

Between limping, a runny nose and hacking up the occasional piece of lung, the class was a great success. I am lucky in that I have my teaching instinct to fall back. Even if I am less than stellar, I have a way of pulling things off that has more to do with years in the classroom than my actual yogi skills and knowledge.

The week flew by, its usual crammed too full self. I’ve been enjoying NaBloPoMo and even my turtle slow approach to NaNoWritMo. Writing for myself is still fun and it is good to know this.

I’ve neglected my social media, which isn’t a bad thing. Twitter seems to function better when I don’t watch the pot too closely but Google+ is creeping me out because it feels like Match.com with all the questionable male followers my feed is attracting. I’ve blocked a lot of them, but still it would be nice if someone could design an app to screen and drop-kick based on a pre-set list of criteria:

  • not from a 3rd world country
  • at least a couple posts in English, so I see it’s not spam or porn
  • definitely no faceless people
  • and those looking for white Canadian women need not plus me

I am wearying of stumping for votes for the Top Canadian Mom blogs list, and I imagine you are too. Incredibly, there is another 13 days of voting to go. Sigh. Thanks to those who have voted, continue to vote and who have even convinced their family, friends and even their old high school friends on Facebook to vote as well. I cling to the top five, but there is a very determined Mommy reviewer nipping on my heels and periodically climbing up my back to sit on top of me. So, keep those votes coming because if every single one of you who reads this actually votes? I might gain enough of a lead to quit asking for votes. Just saying … along with my thanks.

Fall officially ended with an arctic blast today. The child wore a winter coat for the first time today. She’s thoroughly winterized, so it has to be winter if she is bundled. No snow as much as WeatherNet threatens us with it. With the chilled temps comes the one year anniversary of THE reno. Last year at this time, Rob began knocking down walls and gutting the front half of the main floor. Tonight he will nearly finish the kitchen as he lays the last of the tile in the new fabulous kitchen. He says we will have a more than just a functional living room by Christmas but I am sure we have some relatives who haven’t yet had a crisis they need us to drop everything to help them with – so I remain skeptical.

And that’s it. Aside from the lingering flu that I need about 11 hours of straight shut-eye to finish off and I won’t be getting it tonight. Soccer practice in the AM, you know. But next week is Fall Break. No alarms. No school buses being revved up beneath our bedroom window and no buses to catch. It’s the simple things.

Another Chapter in the Life of the House’s Bitches


The kitchen of the "Althuus" (meanin...

Image via Wikipedia

Rob finished updating and switching over the electrical to the new kitchen today. I marvel without end at that insanely unreal breadth of that man’s basic knowledge base. As of this evening, the kitchen will be operational minus plumbing with the goal of sink and dishwasher quite soon.

Mom arrives in 27 days, and Rob assures me that kitchen, living room and a rudimentary dining area will be waiting for her.

This is optimistic of him because where the renovation is concerned, we’ve been miles off-schedule since the demolition last November. Life in the forms of work and family have screwed with us from day one, and his insistence that my help just makes more work for him has meant that he’s mostly been the lone wolf handy-dandy guy on a project of such daunting scope that anyone who’s seen it, or heard about even, cannot believe we didn’t just sell the house as it was and buy a new one.

While Rob laboured like a dwarf in the semi-darkness on the electrical panel tucked away behind a furnace and water heater that also needed updating, I zealously attacked Dee’s room – again.

I’ve lost track of the number of hoarding interventions I’ve performed on that child’s room. Over lunch, I informed her I was cleaning in there and she immediately went upstairs and rearranged in that perverse way of territory marking she’s carried over from her toddler days. But my strategy is a simple one of steady attrition. If I move with caution and at a slow pace, eventually I will rid her space of all the pointless clutter, leaving behind only what is useful and what truly matters. So far, it’s been a great success.

A tedious, time-sucking on the magnitude of a black hole success, but I’ll take it.

My basic problem continues to be the lack of finished space which in turn clogs up the user accessible space with non-related items. And it limits the comfort of the accessible spaces too. For example, we have two very plush sofas that are currently humping each other under tarps in the corner of the living room that’s blocked off by the dishwasher that can’t be installed until the plumbing is in and by the fireplace, which can’t be installed because there isn’t enough workspace to do so because of the stacked up sofas.

Rob took off two afternoons and Friday last week in order to really book on the kitchen. He lost nearly one of those afternoon and all of that same evening on a child issue and half of Saturday in the city. Life competes and our kitchen loses.

It is just a kitchen, I remind myself when my patience wears thin enough that I am in danger of letting the sanguine veneer I project on the state of the house slip. I certainly don’t want to be one of those wives because the reality is that even living in a complete state of unfinished, my life rocks and rocks again by nearly any comparison that might be applied. But at ten months of total renovation and still counting, I will allow myself this heavy sigh and to express that I am tired of trodding on sub-floor and carting the dishes from the dishwasher and sink in the old kitchen to their new homes in cabinets in the new one. And I want to be able to sit on my sofa.

 

Spring


Persephone ~ goddess of Spring

Image by ihave3kids via Flickr

Today is the literal if not the figurative first day of Spring. A glance out our back door, and at the weather forecast for the next few days, would hardly be reassuring, but it is spring. The post-nuclear apocalyptic looking jack rabbits that roam the fields are flecked with the warm brown of summer as they shed their white camo, and the chickadees can be heard on the mornings that are frosted over.

And the pavement is peeking out from under a mix of ice and chemically laden slush.

Today is a day of equal standing. Light and dark is perfectly balanced and the march to Summer Solstice begins.

Many traditions and myths have been fashioned around the Vernal Equinox. Resurrection mythology abounds, and I don’t blame Christians one bit for ignoring or trying to suppress because they pre-date Jesus by a lot and call his reality into question. A fascinating example?

In ancient Rome, the 10-day rite in honor of Attis, son of the great goddess Cybele, began on March 15th. A pine tree, which represented Attis, was chopped down, wrapped in a linen shroud, decorated with violets and placed in a sepulchre in the temple. On the Day of Blood or Black Friday, the priests of the cult gashed themselves with knives as they danced ecstatically, sympathizing with Cybele in her grief and helping to restore Attis to life. Two days later, a priest opened the sepulchre at dawn, revealing that it was empty and announcing that the god was saved. This day was known as Hilaria or the Day of Joy, a time of feasting and merriment.

We will celebrate spring with the continued dogged pursuit of renovation. It’s resurrection-ish, wouldn’t you say?

Silver and Edie will be over to help with the drywall again as I am still forbidden to lift and the walls need to be up before Spring Break week. That’s when the new kitchen cabinets and countertop are scheduled for installation.

They were here yesterday as well along with Mick and her friend Dare. He goes back to her high school days, and though they are just friends, I couldn’t help noticing the obvious Rob traits in him. I am fascinated by the way the women in Rob’s life look for him in they men they admit into their lives. Silver, the new FIL and now Dare. It’s uncanny.

Rob is a taskmaster though and his Virgoian need for perfection and having his eyes and imprint on all he surveys within the boundaries of his kingdom needs to totally be reckoned with by all.

“Try not to be too hard on them,” I remarked on Friday evening.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“You know,” I said. “The heavy sigh, the eye-roll and then walking away in telling silence.”

“I don’t do that,” he protested.

“Totally you do,” I said. “Maybe you should practice toning it down tonight so it won’t be so harsh.”

Yesterday that became a running joke, and as we were discussing it, the older girls chimed in with tales of their own which provoked Silver to pipe up,

“So that’s where Edie gets it.”

“I don’t!” she protested.

And Dare replied,

“You do.”

Apples and trees.

It was a good pre-spring day Saturday though not as stunning as the near 10C temps of Friday when the whole of the Fort seemed dressed for summer. This coming week will be chilly with snow but the following promises sun and warmth, and I fully expect to see the little high school girls running about in shorts and sandals soon. Dee is chomping to be rid of her snow pants and the battle of the inappropriate for school summer footwear is soon to recommence.

We’ve called off our trip to the South this month to accommodate the reno, but I am determined that this will be the last major deconstruction this year. Our summer will be that of any self-respecting Albertan and include a weeks long sojourn with the holiday trailer and then taking it out to camp every weekend. Living at a breakneck frenzy in the great outdoors for as many hours as one can stomach and beyond in is the Western Canadian way after all.

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