You know the lovely poem by Lewis Carroll, the Walrus and the Carpenter?  In it, the two of them are walking along the beach, and weeping at the great quantity of sand. 

“If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose,” the Walrus said,
“That they could get it clear?”
“I doubt it,” said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

I thought of this as I was wheeling the thousandth wheelbarrow full of pine needles up the hill, and onto the Big Yard Waste pile I’ve created.  It’s really gigantic.  Besides the yard waste, Nicky and I went through the garage and got rid of things we knew we’d never need.  Gone are ice cream pails filled with casters from old furniture and dozens of door knobs.

Since I have to phone the junk removal man anyway, I decided I may as well make it worth my while.  I found old discarded lumber, blankets and broken furniture to throw onto the pile.  Then of course since it’s spring I thought I may as well put as much yard waste as possible on there, too, hence all the pine needles.

It must be quite sad for my meticulous neighbours, because they see this enormous pile of refuse whenever they leave their front door.  No-one’ll be happier than them when the big truck comes and hauls all of this unsightly detritus out of here.  I’ve already found a nice new spot for future yard garbage, which will conveniently be out of my line of sight.

As well as working on this big yard cleaning project, I’ve been trying to do one thing a day for the business.  The strangest things will hold me up, however.  Right now, I could take my bark to the store owners who expressed interest, but am too unskilled to make the ingredients label for the back!

And these are simply labels, as these small stores just want the main things listed.  However, I don’t know how to make labels, so am sitting here with a package of 1500 of them, the wording ready to go, but not capable of the technology to put the two together.  Oh well.

Then there was the unexpected arrival of Luke and his entourage.  He doesn’t travel alone, and as he’s getting older the numbers of hangers-on is growing.  This time he arrived Friday at midnight, girlfriend in tow, as well as another couple.  By Saturday night Dan (the Boarder) had joined them, so every room in the house was full.

Luke says he has to drive from Alberta to Kelowna to ride his dirt bike.  I asked if there weren’t any trails in Alberta, but he said no.  So they dirt-biked all day Saturday and Sunday, then left early Monday morning, thoroughly biked out.

Once they’d driven off I proceeded to haul the large, round plastic platters from the sushi delivery, and the large aluminum pans from the Greek delivery out of the garbage and put them into recycling.  I started to collect their beer and Jaegermeister empties, and wondered, if I had six more maids around here, and we all had mops, could we perhaps clear this place of some of the debris?

I guess I should feel Mother’s Day was a success with 50% of my offspring making an effort.  Nicky knows what makes and keeps his mother happy, and so surprised me with a bottle of tequila.  I know it seems an unusual gift for a child to present to his sainted mother, but in my case it’s very appropriate.  The other kid didn’t even call, so what can one do?

My life’s improved immeasurably since Nicky’s been hired at Canadian Tire.  He gets up at 4:30 because he starts work at 5:00 AM and works until 1:00.  Because of that, he often goes to bed at 8:00.  As you know, I love going to bed early, so now there’s a heavenly peace around here for hours and hours.

In the mornings I can turn on noisy hoses and sing special ditties for the dogs, as I’m alone and not bothering a soul.  I’m thinking of this as a rehearsal for the day when I might actually stop child rearing.  Luke’ll turn 25 in late summer, which will mark a quarter century of living with offspring.  It just doesn’t seem right somehow.

My mother-in-law, with 11 children, lived with offspring for a total of 40 years, which seems like an awful lot.  But I think by the time she’d had the eleventh kid, she’d become inured to so many things.  I only had the two, so maybe that’s why I haven’t developed her stoicism.

But I can’t blame Nicky.  Just as I did for Luke, I make gourmet sandwiches for him to take to work.  Both like bacon on their sandies, so I fry pieces of bacon, which when cooled are added to the deli meats, mayo, grainy Dijon, lettuce, etc.  One of Nicky’s favourites is the standard bagel, but he likes ham as well as cream cheese on it.

And now Nicky’s friend Felix has given me another $50, so that means another punch card of 10 meals coming up for him.  His first in this series was my gramma’s rouladen.  This is thin slices of beef which are smeared with mustard.  Then you fry bacon and crumble it, and chop pickles.  The bacon and pickles go on the mustard-smeared meat.  This is then rolled up and tied with thread, and then fried for quite a long time to tenderize the meat.

With lunch and dinner shopping and preparing, it’s all I can do to keep up with what’s required in the yard and for the business.  I seeded beets and carrots, planted herbs and seed potatoes in the lower vegetable garden.  I’ve just started planting annuals into my containers.

I’m experimenting with the right size for the bags of chocolate bark.  Discover Wines would like to buy some, but I’m trying to work out the size and price before I present it to them.  Then whatever that presentation turns out to be be, I can take to both House of Rose and Dirty Laundry Wineries.

I shouldn’t complain about the low-key mom’s day the kids provided, as my mom and I were too complacent to even bother to meet for lunch!  I think it’s similar to my own children in that we’re constantly together so not sure what to do with a specially designated day.

I’ve done more marketing in the past week than I’ve done all year.  First of all, Rosebuds, one of my favourite consignment stores, was holding a silent auction on Saturday.

The owner’s trying to raise funds for a local Miss Canada prospect, and also for a charity.  She asked if I’d donate a gift basket, which I did.  The staff at Rosebuds like my product, so hopefully lots of women bid on it, based on the staff’s effusive praise.

Also on Saturday I went to the Kelowna Wine Museum for two hours of fruitcake sampling, paired with local ice wines.  There were five different wineries’ ice wines, some white, some red.  I got to sample each one of them, and I think the Gehringer Brothers Gewurtztraminer ice wine is my favourite.

Quite a few people bought fruitcakes, and so I was glad I’d brought another dozen of each along.  I dropped those off along with samples, and I hope they’ll sell those over the spring wine fest, which is on now, here in the lovely, yet freezing cold Okanagan.

Then on Sunday my pal Kathy and I attended the Wine, Art and Music (WAM) event at the Rotary Centre for the Arts.  We were in the same room with a gluten-free bakery from Peachland, two wineries, and a visual artist.  At one point I looked over to see a buxom young woman, nude from the waist up, bearing red pasties posing for the artist.

It was a lively event, with a great musician singing and playing throughout.  People sampled food and wine, looked at art, and listened to the music.  We had a gift basket at my table, so we forced people to cough up their e mails in order to enter the draw.  Being under Margaret’s constant tutelage re: social networking, she said I simply had to get their contact information.

Now I’ll add those people to the list of those who receive my newsletter, and now can market to a whole bunch more people.  You see how brilliant Margaret is, and how completely obtuse about social media I am?  If I had any brains, I’d be able to link my Facebook and web site somehow, but like I said, if I had any brains…..

I’d be remiss if I didn’t say how much I adored the Royal Wedding on Friday.  I didn’t get up at 2:00 AM, but I did watch it unfold in a second ‘live’ broadcast starting at 6:30 AM.  I liked that, because I watched every second as though it was in real time, plus I’d had a decent night’s sleep, so it was a win-win.

I just loved the dress, the Middletons, the bride and groom, the Queen, the Arch Bishop and the whole damned thing.  It’s a pity, but at my age I find myself reduced to a bucket of tears over any event whatsoever, whether happy or sad.  It must be the after-effects of menopause, as why else sob at the sight of a young gal on her dad’s arm?

I’ll be surprised if I don’t get tarred and feathered by the neighbours.  I’d been in Osoyoos visiting mom and Gerry for two days over Easter, so Nicky was at home looking after the house and pets.  When I arrived home and asked how it went, he said it was fine except for one thing.  He said he ‘must’ve’ left the French doors open all night as he was awakened at 6:30 by the dogs’ barking.

As he explained it, he and Jordan were sitting outside, came in, thought they’d closed the door and went downstairs. In the meantime, the door fell open, and stayed that way all night.  I can’t wait to see the heating bill.  In the morning, the dogs raced out and started barking around the yard like lunatics.

Nicky sleeps like a hibernating bear, so if he says he was awakened by their barking, it must’ve gone on for a long time.  I know how annoyed I am by other people’s dogs’ inappropriate barking, so I bet some people were seething and plotting revenge.

I finally did some marketing for the business, and attended a Parent Advisory Council (PAC) meeting last week.  It was quite enjoyable, as the principal was asking the parents to get into groups to brainstorm the attributes they’d like their children to have when they graduate.  He asked me if I’d join them, and I said, “of course!”

Because I live with the results of the school system, my input into the group was somewhat different from theirs.  The elementary kids’ parents were saying strange things like, “communication” or “flexibility” whereas I was saying they should know how to cook, or budget.

I was viewed as a total nut, and as I was soon going to be presenting my fruitcake and bark to them as a fundraising product, I decided being silent would be the better route.  Once the small groups had their words chosen, we broke into two larger groups with one person recording our answers.  I wish a camera could’ve been trained on my face.

In any case, that school now knows about my products.  I also attended a meeting to prepare for the Rotary Centre for the Arts event on May 1st.  There’ll be visual artists, musicians, wineries and food producers scattered about the various rooms in the building.  They’re expecting 400 people, so I have to get an awful lot of samples ready.

And wonder of wonders, I actually baked some fruitcake yesterday afternoon.  I needed some Okanagan Fruit and Rum bars both to sell to wineries, and also for the event on May 1st.  As usual, I felt totally sick about it, and then once I’d done it I went, “that was so easy!”

So hopefully I can recall that feeling as I begin marketing Okanagan Harvest Cake and the bars for the upcoming tourist season.  And strangely, my little note to myself, “I worked on the business today” is still helping me tremendously.

 This is kind of spooky.  I realized I wasn’t doing nearly enough for the business, so decided to make myself a note.  It says, “I worked on the business today.”  I then stuck it on the wall right behind my screen, so I look at it often.  I began to try and make myself do at least one thing per day for the business, and it’s actually worked.

That little piece of paper has magically made business appear.  Last week on Friday I took six bags of chocolate bark and some samples to the gym and put them in the disply case.  When I returned on Saturday, two were sold.  Then when I arrived on Sunday, one of the women who’d bought a bag raved about it to the women in the class we were in.

On Saturday I also sent out my monthly newsletter, which always bring sales.  Today I received an order for three pounds of bark from a nice local customer named Deb who buys my fruitcakes.  The poor woman arrived and I had no bark made, so she had to endure the wrath of the dachshunds and leave empty-handed.

The dogs were particularly angry because she’d knocked so softly they didn’t hear anyone was here until I opened the door.  I guess when that happens they’re angry at themselves so they take it out on the guest.

Deb’ll return at 4:00 today for her bark, and this time I’ll be ready.  But it was hard getting everything done, because just as I was preparing her order another nice customer named Tammy phoned.  She’s also a member of my gym, and belongs to a PAC (Parent Advisory Council).  She’d told me a couple of months ago that she’d suggested my products to the PAC as a fundraising idea.

As it turns out, they’re meeting tonight and she wants me to attend, so I had to quickly make 30 little bags of mixed bark samples, then 30 little packages of fruitcake samples.  Of course I’m never ready with written stuff, so have to create that right now.  I also plan to take the packaged products so they not only taste, but see what they would be selling as well.

Tammy was kind of nervous asking me if I could attend the PAC meeting tonight because she said she reads my newsletters, and saw the piece in this month’s about my early bedtime.  She said, “Would 7:30 be too late?”

I assured her that as it wouldn’t take me more than ten minutes to show and tell about my products, I’d be home by 8:00 PM, and hence all would be well.  It’s kind of nice to know that I now have the world trying to work around my rather eccentric and perhaps neurotic schedule.

Deb mentioned it today, too, as she’d also ready the article in my newsletter.  When she arrived and no bark was ready, I said, “I’m kind of having a rough day because I was at my friend Kathy’s birthday party until 11:30 last night.”  She said, “What?  I thought you said you went to bed at 9:00 ever night.”

So I think it’s good that people are beginning to know the details of my sorry existence, and perhaps as a result some will begin to take pity on me.  Or not.  In any case, I think I’ve got a tiger by the tail here with my motivational slip of paper to guide me.

I often think fondly of the food prepared by Mrs. Pugh.  She was the cafeteria cook at Osoyoos Elementary Junior Secondary School.  When I attended, it housed a few hundred kids from grades one to ten.  At lunch time we’d all head down to the cafeteria, some of us clutching 25 cents for lunch.

Not to insult the dead, but Mrs. Pugh was no Julia Child.  And even though her meals were simple and not gourmet, they’re a very positive memory for me.  Actually, a lot of fond memories centre around food, whether it was good or bad.

My pal Liz and I soon figured out that wasting 25 cents on the main meal was for losers.  For 25 cents you got a scoop of mashed potatoes, a vegetable, and some meat.  On Thursdays, for example, it was the potatoes, accompanied by creamed corn and a couple of sausages.

Liz and I preferred carbs and sweets, so wisely ordered the 10 cent meal.  That way you got the potatoes and vegetables, and had 15 cents to squander.  We’d often get a chocolate pudding for five cents and then have a Fudgsicle with the last dime.  Good times.

It was awfully nice to hear this the other week when Luke was here.  He and Michelle walked in and she said, “Oh, how I’ve missed the smells from this house!”  No matter what happens in a lot of these kids’ lives, I know somewhere in the world a kid will be sighing deeply and saying, “I miss Luke’s mom’s food.”

But that’s my problem.  I go on-line and find interesting recipes and make them, and then wonder why I don’t have time to devote to other things.  Just baking and making nice food for a bunch of louts is surely the road to disaster.

Here’s what I absolutely must do.  Cassandra, the nice owner of the Woman’s Place fitness centre is going to let me put my bark into her showcase for the week before Easter.  So by this Friday I have to have all kinds of bark made and adorably bagged.

Then by May 1 for the WAM Wine Festival event I have to have a bunch of promotional materials ready, as well as more bark for samples.  There’s no point in going if I’m not ready to sell like a scalper at a Canucks game.

And there’s the garden, which I won’t even discuss because I’m so far behind.  Remember what Frank Costanza used to say? “Serenity Now!”

March seems to have snuck by me, unnoticed.  I went outside yesterday and realized the sun is already stinking hot.  Winter became spring and I had no idea it was occurring!  It’s kind of horrible to realize that one’s life is going by like that, in a somnambulant daze.

I was thrilled to get an on-line order yesterday from a woman in Summerland.  She ordered both fruitcakes and bark, so I see my evil scheme is working.  Of course when I had just one kind of fruitcake, people bought just the one.  Then when I added the Okanagan Harvest Cake, people said, “Aw heck, I’ll  just have to take one of each.”

So now when you go on my site and you’re ordering a fruitcake or two, why not throw in a few pounds of Belgian chocolate made with local dried fruit?  I’m telling you, one of these days you’ll be saying, “I knew her when.”  I just wish that day would come sooner rather than later.

And why? Because I gave in and bought a spring In-Style Magazine.  Dear God!  I want a pant suit I saw in there very badly.  It’s beige, and made of some type of stretch fabric, and has a very short jacket.  Tres chic.  Then I saw a Guess handbag that nearly made me weep.

Using this new-found motivation I decided I’m going to have to get out there and start marketing again.  To start, I’ve booked the showcase at the woman’s gym for the week before Easter.  I bought some Easter-themed bags from a dollar store, and will display my wares surrounded by adorable fake grass and other kitschy stuff.

I ran into Steve MacNaull, the business reporter for the Daily Courier newspaper.  As a result, I thought oh what the heck, I’d better e mail him and update him on the bark.  You never know when it’s a slow news week.

Here’s the irony of gardening.  I remember it distinctly, the year was 2004.  I had just torn the nail off my left big toe, and was hobbling around.  I was getting Nicky to help me prepare the little mound at the top of the driveway.  I wanted him to help me get rid of all of the grasses in it so I could plant periwinkle.

The periwinkle got planted, but had a hard time in some places.  Year after year I hauled the hose over to the mound to water it.  Each year I planted more periwinkle in any bare places.  Finally, this year the mound is completed covered in lovely periwinkle.

Now I’m going to need Nicky’s help to remove every bit of periwinkle from the mound.  Once it’s all completely dug out, roots and all, I’m going to get a huge pile of bark mulch and dump it onto the mound.  That’s how it looked when we moved here in 1990, and now it’s going back to the way it was.  Why I wanted to do so much gardening, I do not know.

You have no idea how hard it is to type with a large cat sitting really close to your laptop.  If I move my hands too much, he claws at them. and if I try to reach for the mouse and it’s under him, he bites my hand.  I love Wrecks, but he’s just a little too close for my comfort right now.

Recently he decided the cushion on my desk chair is a far nicer place to be than his own chair.  When I go to pick him up to move him, he digs his claws into the cushion so I’m lifting a cat that’s dangling a cushion.  Then when I go to put him down he gouges my arms with his hind claws as I’m lowering him into a perfectly comfortable alternate chair.  All of this, I suppose, is kitty’s way of showing me how much he adores me.

I guess that’s why Luke showed up this past weekend – out of adoration for his mommy.  That’s what mothers like to think, anyway.  It’s some perverted ego thing or other.  Anyway, he immediately reverted to being 15 years old again, not showering or brushing his teeth the entire time.  Binge-eating continued unabated.

I enjoyed a lot of it because I got to make foods like my infamous pot roast dinner.  The Boarder happened to be in Kelowna this weekend as well, so I knew I had to make pot roast or the kid would think I didn’t love him anymore.  So on Saturday I invited Denis over, and made the standard pot roast, mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and gravy.

You know how we get these chi chi ingredients in tossed salads at restaurants now?  I decided to use some ingenuity, and because I have dried cherries in the house for the chocolate bark venture, I decided to add those.  I had the nice mixed baby greens, then added a bit of green onion and cucumber, a few chopped roasted almonds and a handful of the cherries.  Then I topped it off with oil and balsamic vinegar and it was really good.

For dessert I made chocolate mousse which was wolfed down by all.  How I’m supposed to fit into all those small-sized summer clothes I bought last year I do not know.  I was very relieved to be at the gym this morning for the 9:00 AM cardio and weight-training class.  Nothing like a few burpees to remind you that mousse gets very heavy to lift once transported to the hips.

And here’s an interesting dessert idea I bet you never thought of.  This came by way of Ken, one of my nicest and most faithful customers, who happens to live in the US.  He said he’s currently perfecting a batter because he’s deep-fat frying pieces of my fruitcake!  Isn’t that a fabulous idea?  We don’t seem to have that deep-fat frying fetish in Canada so much as they do in the US, and perhaps that’s just as well.

Please check out this adorable site, which was also sent to me by Ken.  It’s an abbey where monks make fruitcake.   You can pay by credit card, and the fruitcakes look very nice.  I know I should never direct customers elsewhere, but in this case I really feel as though I’m doing the Lord’s work.

Plus I don’t see either ‘booze’ or ‘chocolate’ listed as ingredients in their product, so I’m not terribly worried about those old monks.  I’ve got bigger worries than that as I try to figure out a way to shave 10 pounds off this carcass in a terrible hurry.

I was in Osoyoos on Saturday because my brother Freddie and his wife Wendy were there from the Coast.  Luckily, we happened to be sitting at the dining room table when the moon rose, and mom said, “Wow, look at the moon!”  And indeed, it was huge and very bright.  Then on Sunday I heard it was some special lunar event, not to be repeated for another few years.

And speaking of lunacy, the continual gloating over my weight loss has motivated my dear friend Alison to join Weight Watchers.  Now what have I done?  She’s on her way down with her weight, and due to the evil chocolate bark, I’m on my way back up.  Perhaps we’ll meet somewhere in the middle and stay there.

Oh well.  I suppose it’s a good thing to be so inspirational to others.  I’ve been trying to spread the message about xeriscaping to people, and it seems to be making them think.  On Saturday my mom, Wendy and I went to mom’s landscaper’s yard to see his sustainable landscaping.

The main feature is the mulch, which is planted with water-friendly flowers and shrubs.  Each plant has a drip so one isn’t watering an entire area for nothing.  There’s much less lawn, and the walkways are covered in pebbles.  The main thing is to reduce watering and increase the ground’s ability to absorb the paltry amounts of rain we get.

The landscaper’s drawn the plans for mom’s front lawn, and I’m excited to see it unfold.  I’m in the unfortunate position of having to do my own, though I’m going to hire a bit of labour for some of it.  Certainly I’m going to need them to help me with the sprinkler system because I can’t even set the alarm on my clock radio.

However we all have our strengths, and the boys have always been very pleased with whatever food I produce for them.  The other day Nicky’s friend Felix said he felt bad about eating here all the time, and insisted on giving me $50 so that he’d feel okay about accepting my invitations to join us for dinner.

I then made a punch card for him, and he’s got two dinners down, eight more to go.  I figured $5 should cover his gourmet meal, plus dessert.  He’s very appreciative, and no matter what I say about the food, he says, “It’s always good, no matter what you make.”  Who wouldn’t want to cook for someone like that?

Other appreciative eaters are my web designer and the nice man who made my business cards.  I’ve never met either of them as they both live in Victoria.  For the card designer I sent a pound of bark, because he did an edit on the cards for me.  And for my web designer, I sent an assortment of squares, cookies and bark to thank him for all the work he just did on my site with the chocolate bark.

As Nicky pointed out, the barter system only works if both parties feel the product is of equal worth.  As I need technical help, and they are single males who need home-baked goods, it seems to be working so far.

I don’t know what it is about spring, but I always like to get going with some projects.  As you’ll recall I said I’d painted the textured kitchen ceiling last week.  I was so proud of myself because it’d nearly killed me due to the amount of pressure required.  I thought if I wasn’t in shape from the gym it wouldn’t even have been possible.

When I told some of the women at the gym about it, one of them said to the assembled, “Don’t they usually spray those textured ceilings?”  A few of the women nodded, and I scoffed, and said, “Well I did it myself with a roller.”

Then last Wednesday I went to Osoyoos to celebrate Gerry’s 96th birthday.  It’s actually on March 13th, but his son David was there from Virginia, so we held the party early.  You may know of Gerry’s famous son, David Bruck, as he’s an expert on defending people if they’re faced with the death penalty.

That night I noticed my back was feeling funny, but I just assumed I’d slept in a bad position.  It was fine by the time I drove home later on Thursday morning.  However on Thursday night I was awakened dozens of times by horrible pains on one side of my mid-back.

I got up at 5:00 AM on Friday and took 3 Advil and stuck my back against an ice pack.  I noticed I wasn’t able to move.  Breathing was causing horrible spasms of pain, so I knew something more energetic, like standing, would likely kill me.  I considered calling 911, but decided it would hurt too much to get the phone, never mind punch in all those numbers.

After a few hours I was a lot better, and realized I’d had a bad muscle spasm from pressing like a lunatic on that paint roller stick.  Who does that kind of thing anyway?  But then by Sunday I felt so well I decided I’d better paint the interior of my bedroom closet.  This time no pushing was involved, so it was okay.

I’ve had my business cards re-vamped, and had the words Artisan Baker changed to Food Artisan.  I know it’s very pretentious, but baker no longer summed it up now that I’ve added the chocolate bark to my repertoire.  Have I mentioned how hard it is to have a sweet tooth, be on a diet, and have kilograms of Belgian chocolate in the house at all times?

I just weighed myself and am now in a really bad mood.  I gave away all of my fat clothes, except for a couple of pairs of pants.  I now live in those pants.  It all just seems so cruel when I witness what Nicky eats and manages to stay thin.

Last night after consuming a really thick, large pork chop and a giant portion of homemade scalloped potatoes, he ate toast thick with butter, cinnamon and sugar.  Two hours later he ate a large salad bowl of Froot Loops and full-fat milk.  It’s just not fair, it really isn’t.

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