It’s Wonderful

Today was the first day of getting the library off the ground at the junior high and everyone was so wonderful! And so grateful. People were thanking me for coming and filling in and saying how nice it was for me to be there. And it was really nice. I don’t think I’ve ever had that many people be thankful and wonderful like that. It was just really sweet. It totally made my week!

It was really fun too. It was a challenge getting my mind around the problems of a new library where there were only the odd hints here and there on how things were done as the previous librarian had trained someone before she quit and therefore didn’t leave me lists of how-to. (The new hiree ended up moving over the summer, hence me stepping in to get things going.)

Being in the library, being my own boss (sort of) made me miss steering the ol’ school library ship. I’m not going to give up being a stay at home mom, but it was a lot of fun being in there today. Something I may go back to in a few years. (In fact, I was disappointed a bit to hear that someone had already been hired, so I’ll only be there for a few days to help her get on her feet before going.)

It is just such a great staff full of wonderful, helpful people. It was fun.

Thanks, guys! Here’s to you!

Camping Expedition

Went to Big Knife Provincial Park for a little get-your-feet-wet camping expedition with the little one. Sure was nice to go back to the familiar, quiet place. I’ve got a lot of fond camping memories from camping there with my hubby back ‘in the day’.

I had been a bit concerned that we might get there and find that there were no tent spots left–it being later in the day on a Friday (as well as being the best weather of the week). When we had tented here in the past, it was usually mid-week and I wasn’t sure what to expect on the weekend.

Anyway, we got to choose our own site and walked through them all, (lovely, lovely, quiet treed area) because we were the only ones there for the tenting area. Craziness! The place is like a secret camping nugget of wonderfulness. (There is even a wading pool, river, hiking/walking paths, a park as well as the usual basic camping amenities.)

As we were hauling stuff from our car to our tent site (quite separated from the RV section), some people walked by and I overheard one of the ladies saying that it was a shame that they didn’t take a bunch of the trees out of the under-used tenting area and make it an RV area as it was so nice and peaceful (and treed).

Some people don’t get it, do they? What does she think that the RV area used to look like?

Anyway, by morning there were four tent sites occupied. I say ‘by morning’ as one group came in the dark and although shining their headlights into the bush to see enough to set-up, they were very courteous. As was the other, basically, nonexistent group.

But then there was this guy who road up on his bicycle. I was like, ‘cool’. And of course felt totally unworthy because although tenting (and nobody in Alberta tents anymore) we had driven our car to the campground. (Of course. Like I’m going to haul all our camping gear and our daughter 140km.) But then I heard his cell phone ringing and later saw he was eating a huge bag of Cheesies. Now, I felt like he was in fact human and I might be still worthy after all. Whew!

And then his ‘girlfriend’ arrived. And talked all night. Yes, ALL night. Impressive, really. Occasionally she made forays past our site in the middle of the night on her way to the parking lot wearing her super loud slappy flipflops. Anyway, whatever. Why did she feel the need to run her vehicle at 3:30 a.m. for a few minutes? Dunno. (By then dude over in the RV section has ceased serenading the valley with his generator. So maybe she thought it was too quiet–I mean the coyotes were yet to start howling and the squirrels had stopped scolding us and had gone to bed. So it was pretty peaceful.) I think others arrived at their site too at some point after we went to bed.

Evidently, Flipflop Girl hadn’t seen a blue LED flashlight before as when I stumbled through the dark past her site at 5:30 a.m. en route to the outhouse with my daughter, she thought I was an alien.

Yes, an alien.

“Is that an alien?” she says in a stage whisper sounding entranced. “Hey alien do you have a lighter?” she calls out.
“No,” I say flatly, continuing to carry my daughter past her site.
“Really?”
“No.”
“How about a cigarette?”

By then I was back at my site, certain that my daughter would wake up in another hour ready for her day and while Alien Girlfriend Lady slept (she did sleep, right?), we’d happily make as much noise talking and laughing as possible without being totally transparent in our maliciousness.

But, we slept in.

I was saved from my malicious fantasies.

And I was really tired this morning. I forgot how hard the ground was to sleep on. No nice layer of memory foam to ease the weight off my hips. But whatever. We went camping! And had lots of fun! I forgot how good food is cooked over a fire. Like marshmallows! Mmmm.

Later…

Got home so hubby could help a friend build a fence. And now, I have a job. Well, one that pays. I’ll be opening up the library for my hubby’s old school–just until a new librarian is found. Kinda cool! I’m looking forward to it, but I’m already worried about how I’m going to balance things–like cooking and grocery shopping and all that second shift stuff. Suddenly I’ll have a lot less free time and freedom to get all these things done as I feel like it. But at the same time, I’m really looking forward to it and am already worrying that a new librarian will be found right away and I’ll have to hand over the reins just as I get comfy with them. Crazy isn’t it. I want it, but at the same time I don’t.

Oh, such conflicting feelings!

Chores

Listening to: If I had a Million Dollars~Barenaked Ladies

I have so many things to do around the house. Lots of little projects. Yet, I have no to very little interest in doing them. What is up with that? At the cottage I did tons. I don’t know. It’s like at some else’s house, doing the dishes is always way more fun. Why is that? Cleaning at the cottage doesn’t seem the same mundane chore. I still don’t enjoy it, but it isn’t the same boring torture as at home. Is it because at home I get distracted by projects and bits of ‘important’ papers that I don’t know what to do with?

I mean, even climbing up on the roof to scrape of over a hundred years worth of paint and then apply two new layers of paint on the windows was entertaining. ???

Speaking of which, yesterday I finished unpacking. There is always the bits of stuff in the bottom of the suitcase when you return that you don’t know what to do with. Like acorns. So now I have a stack of stuff that I don’t know what to do with on my desk and the bag is sitting on the floor downstairs because it feels like ‘too much work’ to open the closet door and stuff it on the shelf with the other bags.

Anyway, at the cottage I did tons of stuff like dig new logs into the path, then rake the path and dig the crud out from around the rocks and pull out trees and whatnot. And it was an adventure. Yet, in my front yard, I have holes that the bobcat left during the tree incident from this spring. Did I fix the holes right then when I had the dirt and shovel and all that? Noooooo…the holes are still there and looking rather sad from the hot summer. Do I really want to tackle it now? No. It feels like a lot of work, when in reality it might take half an hour.

So, what is up with all this? I don’t get it. It must be some weird law to do with doing your own chores. (I mean, I went and put in someone else’s sidewalk blocks instead of doing my own chores the other month. I think I might be cracked.)

Breaking News: Computer Transforms into Fury Beast and Consumes Unsuspecting Owner

Cats, they’ll love you and miss you when nobody else will.

I can barely type my cats are crowding me so much. One is curled up and pressing into my leg, the other one is actually perched on my right arm. He’s purring too. Weird. He’s usually a lot more aloof. I guess they missed me. Unfortunately, they are making my keyboard and screen super fury. Agh! My computer is turning into a signing fury beast! (It sounds a lot like Jennifer Warnes.)

It is raining, raining, raining.

Thinking of joining a writing association, but how do you ever pick one? They are sound good…or conversely, not what I am looking for. Choices, choices, choices.

To only have my foot in the door.

Argh! My fury computer has come alive and is eating me…

Another Ten Months

Hubby is back at work today. Another ten months of the same. And it looks boring to me today. So much stretched out in front of me. And I don’t know what I am going to do. Okay, I do, but it all seems so discouraging. Maybe I am just bored. I feel the pressure to be…something. I have projects to do, but I don’t feel like doing them. I guess it is the crossroads feeling again. (Still.)

Everything is so repetitive. Grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, breathing, sleeping, coming up against walls. Having to repeat myself over and over and over…

Later…

You know what I hate? I hate 50 dollar bills. I don’t hate money, don’t get me wrong. But I hate those big ol’ red bills. I dread spending them. I don’t hate buying things, I hate handing over the fifty. I feel like I am a pretender. A big bucks girl pretender. But what I really dread? When they scan the bill under their counterfeit bill scanner. I feel like such a criminal.

I also hate sorting recycling. I used to pay ten bucks a month for someone to sort it and take it away each week. Now, I no longer have that service. Now, I have an overflowing recycle bin and at least one grumpy mood that lasts up to half an hour at least once a month that consists of a lot of cursing under my breath.