Micheal Moore......

Last night was one of those nights were we found our selves with out our satellite T.V. It is not because we don't pay our bills, it is more sinister then that, but for the sake of trying to explain why didn't have any T.V last night, we didn't pay our bill. As we waited for the "payment to go through," we decided that it was a good time to watch a DVD from our 'need to be watched pile' and next on up on the pile was Michael Moore's - Fahrenheit 9/11. I am sure you can see where I am going this.

You are most likely asking your self why we didn't watch it when it first came out, well that question is simple - we never been much into politics. But what a weird time to watch that documentary with the elections going on and the economic crisis taking place within the United States. All I can say is this - after watching Fahrenheit 9/11 I feel very enlightened and being Canadian, well I never been more proud of my nationality.

I decided that I was going to find out more about Micheal Moore and see if he has any websites or blogs and to my delite, he does. So it really saves me from ranting and raving about what I have watched last night.

To find out more about Micheal Moore go to http://www.michaelmoore.com/

He even has a little section for us Canadians.

After going through his website, it looks like he is in the process of creating an other documentary and it could about health care in the US of A v.s. our Canadian heath care or Katrina. When it does come out, I will be watching it.

It's Monday...

It's Monday, Do I need to say more?

The Lessons We Teach Our Children....

Every morning and every afternoon, my son needs to catch a school bus to and from school. For him to use the school bus cost us $60.00 a year. $60.00 is not that bad of price to pay for him to get ride. However, there have been a quiet a few times in the past were he had missed the bus. But back then it was never really an issue if he had missed the bus because at that time we were a two car family. But now we are down to one car and my son missing the bus is now a problem, and yesterday was a good day to teach him a valuable lesson in regards to the importance of being on time for the bus.

I got the phone call from school and knew what had happen before I even answered the phone. He missed the bus. The conversation went like this.

Me: Hello
School: Hi this so and so from l’ecole Poirier, DM has missed the bus and is asking for a ride home.
Me: I have no way to pick him up, my husband has the car. I don’t even have my wallet to pay for a cab.
School: oh!
Me: Here’s the scoop, I am going to teach him a lesson about missing the bus; he can walk home.
School: hold on
Muffled voices: DM your mom said for you to walk home!
DM in the background: WHAT! That would take me hours to get home.
I can hear him start to cry.
Me: Can I speak to him.
DM: I have to walk home! Can your friend pick me up?
Me: No
DM: Can Pa-pa’s friend pick me up?
Me: No, Pa-pa’s friend is at work.
Me: You want to miss the bus, you can walk home. I will see you soon.
DM: crying now, **sniff** **sniff** O.K **sniff**
The phone hangs up.

OMG! I felt so bad for doing that, and to be truthful about it all I was worried about him. After all he is only 8 years old, but an old 8 year old, he will be turning 9 in a couple of months. It took him an hour and ten minutes to walk home. What I thought was going to be good lesson for him, ended up being a big discovery about himself. He really liked walking home and had asked if he could do it again. I was very surprised about that request. He said that he had fun looking around. He saw cows, horses, llamas. He ate black berries along the way. He ran a little bit and walked a little bit. Then he told me that was longest he had ever had to walk. What was I to say to him, “Glad you had fun?”
So know I have to ask my-self this question, did he learn a lesson here? I will never know. But I am glad that he had fun, but I will never tell him that, after all it was to be his punishment. And maybe, just maybe if the weather is nice I will let him walk home again.

It Was So Hot In My House.....

Every morning my husband wakes up at 5:30 a.m. and is out the door by 6:10 a.m. for work, and this morning was no different with his morning routine; however, there was one small difference, it was raining out side and cold in our house. So being the good man that he is, he had decided that he was going make a fire and decided that this fire should be a very hot fire so that when the children and my self wake up, we would be nice and warm.

I got out of bed to start my morning off with a nice cup of Joe (I like to try to get up before the kids do to have some quite time to my self) and when I walked into my kitchen, I almost died. Our house was so HOT. I looked at the thermostat and it was showing 81 degrees. That man had that stoked the fire so hot that all you could see from the wood stove was bright orange. It remined me of, and don't ask me why, 'Night Mare on Elm Street.' Needless to say, I spent my quite time out on my porch to drink my coffee and I dreaded going back in side to wake up my son to get him ready for school.

Anyways, to make a long blog short, My husband had called me from work on his lunch hour and asked me if it was warm enough in the house for me and the kids. I could hear him laughing on the other end of the phone.

I will be posting photo's of our new wood stove here pretty quick. I need to wait for my son to get out school tomorrow because he likes to take the photo's and up load them onto the blog. He decided that that's his job. Cute I know. (Wishing I could

make a smiley face here.)

Up Yours Evil Hydro Man!!

I would like to take this time to say that my blog will not always be about ‘he said this’ or ‘she did that’ when comes to the people who live in my neighborhood. Hay, when you live in the middle of nowhere with 24 other families, it is sure bond to happen. But I must say it sure felt good venting about it! Just a small up-date with that situation, nothing changed.

Anyways, I have some good things going on with my life that I am very happy about and would love share. First off, I am no longer working at the grocery store in Langford. Yup, I am now unemployed. Second of all, I start school in two weeks! Thirdly, I have one month to come up with my tuition costs. And last but not least, I have friend, who has a friend, who works in a group home working with the mentally challenged, who can get me a job on an on call bases until my course is done. How exiting is that. But this is not what I want to talk about, all of that is for another time.

What I'am really, really excited about is that my house hold had said Up-yours to the Evil BC Hydro Man. Now we are not going to stop paying our hydro bill because it is way too high - we did so much better then that. We installed a wood burning stove! Yup that’s right, a nice beautiful money saving, heat generating, wood burning machine. The Hydro Mans worst enemy!

What lead up to this wood burning craziness one might ask? First off , I would like to thank the BC provincial government who 10 years ago had the wonderful idea of freezing hydro cost. Let’s forget about the possibility that our population in this province will grow in the next decade and let’s forget that our hydro infrastructure will age in the years to come. And all it took was a massive black out in the great city of Vancouver (our provinces largest city) that took our government out of its sleepy loll and woke it up to the fact that all is not good and look what happened, a serous black out caused by ageing wires that could have, should have been replaced by BC Hydro, but didn’t because there was no money to be had.

So now to fix our ageing hydro infrastructure BC hydro had introduced a new 2 tier billing system starting October 1, of this year. Now I am not sure how it will work, all I know is this - If you live in an apartment building your are safe from the Money Hungry Hydro Company and if you live in a stand alone house, no matter how old it will be, your wallet in your pocket is open to the Evil Hydro Man, who really, desperately wants your money. So up-yours BC Hydro – come and try to take my money! Say hello to my wood burning stove!!!!

A Whole New Low......

My neighbor and his wife had hit an all time low with concerns to our dispute regarding our pets. I would have never figure them of all people would be the kind of people who would go out of there way to steal an animal to prove a point. Well in this case, I should say they tried to take an animal. They tried to take my dog!

I was on the phone with my friend when I just happened to look out my living room window when I noticed my neighbor’s wife holding a make-shift leash. She was standing in front of my house, across the small lane that we all share to get in and out of the park, and she was looking into my yard at my dog. She was holding the make-shift leash in the way that a person would before they would put the leash on a dog. If my dog was not tied up and if she didn’t notice me watching her, she would of called him over out of my yard to her and take him. I know that she had seen me watching her because she looked right at me and scurried back to her place. She had a few words with her husband who was out side chopping wood at the time, and then went back in side her house.

I told all of this to my husband and we agreed that the next time they try to do that, I am to talk to them about this with the RCMP present and start a file. He feels that our neighbors may not know that our dog is registered, not only because it is the law, but because of his pedigree. We paid a lot of money for him. It would cost a lot of money to replace him.

I am not the kind of person who would go out of my way to steal an animal or hurt it in any way because it is bothering me or damaging my property. I am not that low. For the time being, I need to patient and wait for their cat to scratch my post and get the photo that I need to take them to small claims court and fix my post. Cat owners need to responsible for their animals too.

A cat has to scratch; a dog has to @#$%!

Wow, my first Blog entry in what? Two weeks? I was having some problems with my computer and the host for my Blog. I couldn’t sign in at all. But it looks like the problem is fixed, until next time.

So as you can imagine, I have lots to say. So here I go.

I am currently in a dispute with one of my neighbors and it is regarding our animals. It is about my dog and their cat. It all started during the week-end when DM, my husband was working out side in our yard cutting tiles for the hearth for our new wood stove.
Because he was in and out of the house all morning, it was not a surprise that our dog got out. Sometime during this time period our dog had made a “surprise” on our neighbor’s yard. It was not until the next morning our neighbor had notice the “gift” and decided that he was going to talk to my husband about it. The conversation had gone far and well beyond scoop of the problem. I am surprised that my husband had sat trough the verbal abuse.

Our neighbor had proclaim that the next time he finds a “gift”, (and he will be looking for them) he will leave the “gift” on our front porch. Fair enough. But then he stated: “it is easy to blame the dog but then take a look at the owner.” Ouch! And then he went on about responsibility. After that conversation took place, I found my neighbors wife and reminded her about the property damage that their cat has caused and still causing to my fence in the front of my yard. I had talked to her about it some time ago and she proclaimed that they have no money to fix my post that her fuzzy hairball has been using for its personal scratching delights. The difference here is that they found “Poo” and preached animal responsibility to us; their cat is causing actual property damage and they have not taken any responsibility to remedy the situation. Later that same day I had asked him to take a look and my fence. He told me that cat’s scratch, that’s what they do. So other words they will not take responsibility for their animal.

The moral of story is “a cats got to scratch; a dog has to @#$%! So know they won’t talk to us and I really don’t feel bad about it. But when the time comes to replace my post (because it is looking really bad with cat scratches) and possibly of one panel of cedar fencing, they will replace the cost. After all it was their animal that caused the damage.

September

I would like to let every one who passes by my blog to know that September is a bitter - sweet moment in my life. Every time this year, I have to except the reality that my son is growing up – one year older academically. This year he starts grade 4. Next will be grade 5 and then after grade 5; a brand new school and the cycle begins again. A cycle that I hope will continue well after grade 12.

All the preparations that I have taken to make September work with ease have so far paid off. I have bought every thing that my little-big boy needs for this school year. All of his school supplies, new school cloths. (One must look great for the first day of school), A brand name back-pack - this year we went with Roots, new lunch box – Columbia, and indoor shoes – Skechers. Did you know Skechers is the only brand name here in my part of Vancouver Island that does not go on sale? So in case you haven’t guest it yet, the cost of all of this is the bitter part of September, watching my boy walk on the School bus is the sweet part. It is too bad for him that he will be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the next month, but at the end it is worth it.

I know some of you are wondering why the brand names. They were bought not to make him look good, I want him to look good, but more so for the fact that good quality brands last much longer then the cheap counter parts. I remember in grade one, I went through 3 pairs of running shoes, two back-packs, the list goes on. So at the end I have ended up spending the same amount of money from having to replace every thing. It just made more sence to spend my money on better quality. I know my pocket book will thank me latter.