I get so mad at the kids for their lack of impulse control because it’s one of my worst traits.  Or maybe it’s one of my best, as there are times when I want to get things done immediately.  For years I’ve been depressed about the exterior of the house, then two days ago I decided it was time to find a painter.

I browsed on-line, and Ouija Board-like I let the mouse lead me to the right person.  There he was, a guy named Mike.  I sent him an e mail and even though it was Sunday, he replied immediately, asking when I’d be around so he could give me a quote.

I hadn’t replied so Mike phoned on Monday morning and asked when I’d be home, and we set a time to meet for 2:00 PM.  He arrived promptly and I proceeded to walk around pointing at the trim and siding, as well as the peeling cement stairs to the basement.  I said maybe do the deck as well.

I went inside and let Mike wander about, making his estimate.  The whole thing with paint will be $3000 so I said sure, go ahead.  Yesterday he came and brought the paint brochure so I’m going berserk trying to decide on the colour.

You know I’ve always hated the deck railing since the day Denis completed it, as it’s just too clunky looking and no-one ever sits on it.  So as I’m going to be having the exterior spruced up with paint, I decided to have the railing changed at the same time.

Because it worked so well with Mike the Painter, I went on-line to look for a carpenter or handyman, and I used the same technique.  The mouse stopped at someone who listed themselves as a retired carpenter who was bored.  I e mailed him, but didn’t hear back.

The next day I went back on-line and found a handyman who does renovations.  He replied immediately and set a date and time to give me an estimate.  Of course then the carpenter phoned, and I told him I’d contacted someone else but he wanted to come and give me an estimate too.

And guess what, both of these guys are named Mike!  They came today and both will supply me with an estimate.  Mike #1, the retired carpenter, only looked at the deck and said he’d send me some photos of railing he’s done.  Mike #2 appears to be more of a handyman type, and I asked him to also give me an estimate on fixing up the sunroom’s exterior.

So now I have Mike the Painter, and if I go with Mike the Carpenter for the railing, then I can go with Mike the Handyman for the sunroom renovation.  The latter Mike’s already raced off with one of the screens to see if they need to be custom-made.

It’s funny how you live with things for years, and then one day really look at them and see how terrible they are.  When Mike the Carpenter was here I said why is that lattice area around the deck so ugly?  He replied it’s because it doesn’t come right down to the ground, hence the hideous cocmrete footings are showing.  He said it’s easily fixed with a proper wood wall.

Such a simply question with a very straight-forward solution.  Just do it!

My friend Petra and I drove to Osoyoos on Monday, which was the newly-minted Family Day holiday.  We picked mom up and had lunch at the N’Kmip Winery which wasn’t good as usual, though the view’s lovely.  It’s only in rural Canada that one would drive 100 miles each way for lunch.

The night before Petra and I went to see the play The 39 Steps, put on by the Kelowna Actor’s Studio.  It’s a dinner theatre, so we met at 6:30, ate, then the show started at 8:00 PM.  You know me, I’m always in shock when something starts at that time of night as it’s my bedtime.

But one must challenge oneself from time to time, just to be reminded that life can’t be comfy all the time.  My idea of bliss is sitting on the couch with my dog, watching TV.  So every once in a while to be forced out of that routine is probably healthy.

Because I’m turning 60 in the summer, the government kindly sent my pension contribution statement.  It appears I’d get a paltry amount if I decide to take it now, and so I can see I’ll be yoked to the vagaries of work until I’m 65.

But I told myself to cheer up, as that’s really just 64 months away, and you know how time flies at our age.  It’s an excellent opportunity to be thinking about all the things I want to do when I have more time.

Regardless of that, I’m going to order a couple of bee hives this spring, as there’s no point in postponing that project.  You’ll recall I’ve got the the bee suit and smoker, so it seems silly not to get the bees to go along with it all.

As well, I plug along in my creative writing pursuits, and with any luck will have a short story to submit to the Okanagan Short Story Contest.  I was humiliated yet not surprised to see the story I submitted to CBC’s short tory contest contained a typo!

And they say it right on the site: Check your submission.  I was like ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve read it a hundred times’, and sent it.  Then a couple of days later I idly opened the document only to see I’d somehow cut off half a sentence.  I must’ve copied and pasted and didn’t re-check.

Hence this submission’s going to be gone over with a fine-toothed comb before being sent.  I wonder if Alice Munro started like this, but somehow doubt it.  Perhaps Erma Bombeck, whose style my writing somewhat resembles, had these issues in the beginning.

Another project that’s looming is exterior house paining.  Not by me, don’t worry.  But I have to call a couple of companies or handymen to get quotes.  I’m so poor at that step.  I just want to have a fairy come in the night to do things while I sleep.

But really, living here gives me so many nice pursuits that working isn’t all that pesky as I don’t have to leave home in order to do it.  It’s almost mean of the government to send a document like that when all it does is confirm the worst: Carry on!

I just placed an on-line order totalling $157.19 for bulls’ penises.  This morning I shelled out over $30 for 3 penises at Buckerfields, and cut one in half and gave it to Louie.  Two hours later it’s almost gone, so I can see this isn’t going to work.

I went on-line and starting doing research on bulls’ penises and came upon this fantastic site.  It’s bullysticks.ca and they have really good prices for penises.  And they’re so good for the dog as they’re all meat and excellent for cleaning their teeth. 

Now I have a crate of penises coming so I hope that’ll last Louie for awhile.  But from now on I’m certainly not schlepping to a store when this was so much easier to do.  I can see how agoraphobia begins.

I needed to get out last weekend though, and decided to make my rounds of the thrift stores.  I nearly wept, but in the Mennonite thrift store I found a pair of Ingledew’s Grazia-brand made in Spain pumps.

The woman at the till and I examined them and thought perhaps they’d been worn once.  They were $9 instead of $300 so why not?

I got Louie a stuffed donkey a la Shrek, for $3 and it’s slightly larger than he is.  I could tell he liked it as he decided to have sex with it almost immediately.  Neutering didn’t do much to diminish his zeal around certain stuffed animals.

You know how compulsive I am over some things, and the juicer’s one of them.  Most days I throw a beet, some carrots, a bunch of parsley, an apple and an orange into it and make myself a delicious glass of juice.

 You’re thinking one would lose weight juicing, but you’d be wrong in my case, as I believe I’m gaining.  It’s my own fault of course as my gluttony knows no bounds.

For example yesterday Kathy and I were invited to Rosemarie’s, another nice woman from the gym, for a Devonshire cream tea.  She’s from the area so made us lovely buttery scones, and served them with strawberry jam and whipped cream.

When she sent the e mail inviting us, I salivated for two days while I waited.  Then yesterday I had a healthy glass of juice for lunch in preparation, so when I got there all ravenous, I proceeded to put as much jam and whipped cream on the buttery homemade scones as I could.  Mmmmmm.

So I suppose the dog comes by his insatiable appetite for delcious things honestly because of his adoptive mother.  One way we’re dissimilar however is in how dirty and messy he is.  He loves bringing in pine cones and then chewing them up, spreading debris throughout.

Louie also takes the stuffing out of his toys, and of course his favourite thing is to go downtairs to the laundry room and get a sock or underwear, bring it upstairs, and chew holes into it.  You can see how the money spent on the penises is a good idea.

Twelve years ago mom and Gerry moved in together, and they were 77 and 87 years of age respectively.  After a year Gerry said they should get a dog, so mom said okay and they got a puppy.  This was quite miraculous as mom has always loathed pets, so it was weird to vist there and have a pup greet me.

Schwarzie was raised as Gerry and mom’s child, so she meant the world to them.  In the early years Gerry would put her on the leash and take her for walks.  One day when they returned mom and whoever was with her started screaming.  Gerry, who had macular degeneration had no idea why.

As it turned out, the dog had picked up a dead bull snake on the walk.  I guess it’d been slashed by the farm equipment and she’d found it as they’d wandered through the old apple orchard.

Another adorable thing she did was beat the hell out of Gerry.  Because the dog was at the top of the pack, if the three of them were watching TV and Gerry decided to get up for something, she’d race over and bite him hard.

She was there every minute last year when Gerry was in his bed, dying.  After that, she consoled mom and then all of a sudden last spring she became very sick with diabetes.  Mom tried giving her shots but found it too hard, so decided to just put her on a raw meat diet and try the herb Gaba which is supposed to be good for regulating blood sugars.

It didn’t work, and sadly the dog was euthanized by the vet yesterday and naturally we’re all heart broken, given all the poodle meant to everyone.  But as we know, if we own dogs we have to be prepared for their ridiculously early demises.

Another thing to accept is adult children and their frightening whims.  Luke said he can go and work on oil rigs in Azerbaijan and wants to do that as then he’s closer to Thailand and Jan.  I can understand the latter, but working in a terrorism-ridden country doesn’t sound good to me.

Just thinking about countries like that, or Russia and the Olympic Games and the amount of corruption to get them off the ground, makes me so glad to be a Canadian.  And I hate to say it, but as I live in the best region in the best country in the world, I’m smug.

But as usual, I look out my kitchen window feeling ashamed of my immediate environs.  I think I’ve mentioned the 32 tires stacked in the yard, as well as the dozens of large cardboard boxes in which the kids’ electronics are delivered on a regular basis.

Because of the intermittent wind storms, there’s a thick layer of pine needles everywhere.  Step one in getting a handle on this mess is calling a rubbish removal company, closely followed by a landscape labourer.  Maybe Nicky’s pal Taylor’s got time to haul a dump truck or two’s worth of pine needles off this property.

A poor faithful customer tried to order two fruitcakes only to be told there aren’t any, so I really do have to get with the program and bake a bit.  Life carries on, after all.

My dreams are so wonderful and vivid, and before I woke up this morning I dreamt about a young lion.  I checked out the meaning of lions in dreams, and one site suggests “the appearance of a lion in a dream may signal that new power or passion my awaken within you.”

It’s funny, as one of the topics I want to explore for my January newsletter is passion, or the lack thereof in many people.  To have passion about something can move mountains, as witnessed by people like Martin Luther King Jr.  As you well know, I’ve never really lacked in this area.

Of course it’s wearing, as witnessed by those who had to live through the early days of the fruitcake business about which I was aflame.  Then there’ve been the convictions a bee hive will save the planet, a xeriscape garden’s the only moral way to go and my letters to the editor decrying development on Agriculture Land Reserve land.

This past week I’ve experienced the usual highs and lows of all of our lives.  One of the dear women from elementary school who I’ll be meeting in May for our big 60th birthday celebration let me know her younger sister died.  Then my friend Petra e mailed to say their dog Buddy became extremely ill and was euthanized.

On the positive side I had the great pleasure of being visited by people I’ve known all of my life.  Eve and Angie (formerly Baillie) are the daughers of my mom’s deceased best friend, Liz.  Eve spent a couple of nights and Angie spent one and it was tremendous fun.

Nicky asked me how I knew them and I explained.  I said to him it’s like the Lynch’s girls and you remaining in touch all of your lives; or Alison’s boys who’ve known Nicky and Luke since they were all small.  It’s not necessarily that these people are friends, they become almost like cousins.

Angie has three adult kids and I like the way she never refers to them by name, only as The Big Girl, The Little Girl and The Boy.  Isn’t that adorable?  At one point I said I’m sorry to have to ask but I forgot their names and she had to remind me.

Remember how happy I was to get Netflix plus through that box I was able to see the last 8 episodes of Breaking Bad, thanks to Nicky’s stealth on the Internet.  However after the visitors had gone, I saw down and was ready for another episode of Nip/Tuck only to find the box dead.

I mean dead as in nothing happened whatsoever when I pointed the flipper at it.  Changed the batteries in the flipper, and still nothing, so called Nicky.  He checked it and declared the box pooched, so drove to Future Shop for a new box.

He installed it and went downstairs.  After an hour or so the screen went black and then a loud whining sound started coming out of the speakers.  I asked Nicky to check it, and at first he was blase but when he heard the noise, he was like, “Holy F”

It was fixed, but not before he declared the sound was very, very rare and hence quite interesting. 

Yesterday I noticed I was in a vile mood, and wonder if it’s just the January doldrums.  I think that’s why a lot of lucky Canadians who can afford it go someplace hot and sunny for a week or two.  Not that it’s cold here, but it’s just so damned boring.

I’m now working my way through the old series Nip/Tuck on Netflix, and I’m happy to see there are 100 episodes so that should keep me going for a while.  I’m shocked that Downton Abbey is comprised of maybe 12 episodes for two seasons.  What’s up with that?

A bit of fun was had in Osoyoos last week as mom had a dinner party for Jerralynn’s birthday.  Of course Louie accompanied me because everyone’s crazy over that little dog.  Or else they should be if they’re not as he’s very, very cute.

Sadly mom’s poodle Schwarzie has diabetes so only weighs a pound or two and one of Louie’s favourite things to do is to bowl the dog over.  He’s not trying to be mean, but he gets all excited and happy and decides knocking down a one-pound dog is fun.

So perhaps even he’s suffering from the January doldrums, so maybe if I see a thin person I’ll have to run over to them and knock them down.  Not sure how well that’ll go over, or if it’ll relieve boredom.

In a couple of weeks school tours start again at the art gallery, and thankfully there’s a new exhibit.  As I mentioned before, I simply couldn’t understand the one we toured the kids through in the fall.  I just hate that kind of stuff, you know, a pile of sand with shards of glass in it.  This is art?

I’ve been indulging in a bit of my favourite thrift store browsing, but I have to stop buying lamps.  I don’t know why I do it, but when I see a nice lamp, even though I do not need any lamps, I buy it.  Again last week at Value Village there was a cute lamp for $6 which I bought.

That engenders hours of re-arranging because how to incorporate something like that into a fully decorated house?  First there’s just walking around, holding the lamp, then finally an object is removed, and the lamp has a new home.

Then the object that was removed has to be carried around, and when it’s placed into a new spot, the object it replaced has to be carried about for hours.  This domino effect goes on for a long time, and finally something makes its way to the storage room downstairs.

Today it was 11 degrees and windy, so besides being unseasonably warm which melted all the snow and ice, the yard’s a debris field of pine needles.  With 50 Ponderosa pines one gets an awful lot of needles in a windstorm.  This usually occurs in the spring, not January, so I’ll have to get Nicky out there with a leaf blower before the next snowfall.

He drove to Osoyoos on Sunday to spend the day with his gramma, so he’s also in need of a bit of external stimulation.  Maybe something of great importance and excitement will occur.  If so I’ll let you know the moment it does.

You may recall somewhere around 2010 or 2011 I got a parking ticket in Penticton, paid the $10 fine, but my cheque arrived one day late, so the City of Penticton put me over to a collection agency for the $25 they alleged was owing.

I refused to pay, so had dozens, if not a hundred calls, from a company named Wiggins Adjustments.  Whenever the phone rings, I look at it, and if it says Wiggins Adjustments, I don’t answer it.  I notice they’ve stopped, so maybe that’s that for them and the illustrious City of Penticton.

Then in October I parked a bit outside the lines in an Impark lot across from the art gallery during the docent training.  I had bought a ticket and put it on my dash, but they didn’t care, sending me a bill for $62 for being an ‘obstruction’ in an almost-empty lot!

In the letter it said I was being put over to a collection agency, and I wrote them back and said I didn’t even know the money was owing as nothing was on my car when I left the gallery to drive home.  Obviously, they don’t care, and now I’ll have two or three years of staring at the phone and seeing a new collection agency’s name.

I wonder how collection companies manage to collect anything with call display.  Who’d answer their calls?  As well, I don’t even have to listen to the message as I just hit erase instantly.  I notice in the letter it says civil action may be taken, which I welcome, as I want to tell my story to a judge.

I suppose I’m lucky to have these types of things, as we know adrenalin’s a good boost to the nervous system.  If my life was without conflict it’d be quite boring.

The new gym opened, and I went on Saturday and today.  It’s quite a noisy place with open warehouse-like ceilings, so I’d never be able to spend more than my hour working out there.  I mentioned this in the change room and one of the women said she just loves din, and I said I meditate and want silence.  To each his own.

I bought a little hyacinth today and am hoping for spring already.  Not that I want all the gardening work that goes with it, but I love seeing spring flowers in the stores in January.  I’m off to Osoyoos this afternoon for a dinner party at mom’s for Jerralynn’s birthday, so will give her the plant as part of her gift.

Luke’s working in minus 44 degrees temperature in southern Saskatchewan but as he works inside he’ll be cozy and warm in his trailer.  I happened to be speaking to a young man the other day who works as a roughneck on the rigs, and when I told him about Luke’s job he said he’s so lucky to be working inside.

Are you ga ga with excitement about 2014?  I am.  Not sure why, but I think a lot of good changes and things are coming my way.  If nothing else, I have my big 60th birthday reunion with the women I went to elementary school with in May in Palm Springs.

Until then I have to remain focused on some goals, one of which is to have the house exterior re-painted and also to get bees again, both of which will occur in the spring.  And as well, there’ll be the many phone calls from some hapless collection agency to ignore.

Another gargantuan Christmas train’s gone through the house, and I’m very glad to be waving bye bye to the caboose.  From the vast amounts of presents under and around the tree for the six of us, to the jumbo helpings of food and booze, it’s already time to start thinking of a health regime.

The Woman’s Place Gym has moved locations, so we’ve been without any exercise since December 22nd and they’ll re-open with a big splash on January 4th.  Secretly of course I’m enjoying not being able to move this carcass other than to walk the dog.

Margaret and Brendan arrived right on time, early on the 24th and the dog and I picked them up from the airport.  I continued my cleaning routine while Luke went to Osoyoos to pick up mom and Schwarzie.  Everyone was assembled by late afternoon.

As we like to do, we dressed in decent duds and then convenened around the piano and sang while I banged out a bit of Jingle Bells, Deck the Halls, Joy to the World and other old favourites.  We then began opening gifts but it was such an exhaustive act we had to break for a huge dinner to fortify ourselves before being able to continue.

The over seven pounds of brisket, which looked like an awful lot of meat, was easily consumed by this pack of savages.  A tiny bit was leftover for lunch the next day.  Once we’d eaten our lashings of meat and roasted potatoes, we resumed the present-opening.

I was very thrilled to get a Breville juicer from Luke, and Chanel perfume from Nicky, both as requested.  Margaret gave me her old Flip camera which looks like tremendous fun for making videos, and she also gave me the cutest tray and apron, both with the theme of pink roses, which you know I adore.

There was a bit of excitement on Christmas Day, as I asked Luke to affix a hook to the back of the bathroom door.  I got out my power drill and he easily did the job.  I don’t know exactly what happened next, but I think he became over-stimulated by the power tool and said he was going to remove my old range hood.

This was a job I had mentioned and wondered about, but as he’d acted as if he may or may not do it, I’d kind of forgotten about it.  However, here is was, noon on Christmas Day and he wanted to do it.  The old hood was taken off, and the new one was grabbed and installed.

When the power was turned back on, wham, a piece of metal and a puff of smoke flew from the hood, and I said this doesn’t look good.  It had to be taken off and re-done, so I said I was going to walk the dog because my nerves were going.  I mentioned I’d have to have all of that working very soon because I needed to start the stuffing.

When I returned, everything was working, and the turkey dinner was a great success.  Denis spent the day hanging out, and we all ate and drank as much as we humanly could.

Louie’s been a remarkably good dog, given his curiosity about everything.  He hasn’t opened any presents, nor peed onto the tree skirt, so he’s doing really well for a young pup experiencing his first visit from Santa.  I gave him a bath before mom’s party so he’s ready for the season.

He and I went to Osoyoos on Tuesday, and initially Luke thought he’d attend, but then changed his mind.  He said after driving from Saskatchewan to BC he didn’t want to drive for a while.  However the dog and I enjoyed mom’s party, and everyone enjoyed him, especially when he devoured a mini quiche and grabbed a beef bun right out of a guest’s hand.

I used to get mad at kids who visited when Luke and Nicky were small if they complained Arnie or Mojo had stolen something out of their hands.  I’d remind them they’d been warned many times never to hold any food at waist height or lower as the dachshund always lurks, ready to spring.

For the first time in ten years, I planned the fruitcake inventory better, and instead of having any left over I ran out just a few days ago.  A few people tried to order, and if they were local I sent them to Discover Wines who have the bulk of them.  However yesterday I got a phone call that pushed me right over the edge of reason.

You know how I love to bake Christmas cookies, and I generally have a DVD of old Christmas tunes on so I can sing along.  Nothing cheers the soul more than “Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii’s way to say Merry Christmas to you.”  I also love to have the tunes on while I’m decorating and wrapping, which I was also doing.

So in the midst of this, some man phoned and wondered if I could get two fruitcakes to Regina by Tuesday!  At first I actually tried.  I phoned Purolator but it was busy, so I went on-line and tried to find the shipping rate and time.

It seemed possible, so I phoned him back, and said I would ship via Purolator.  Then went back on-line and tried to arrange for pick up, but after half an hour of opening an account, then typing in my address it said pick up isn’t available at this location!  I realized I’d have to stand in line for hours on the Saturday before Christmas to ship two fruitcakes for someone who waited until now to order.

I picked up the phone, called him back and told him if he insisted I would do it, but would have to charge for my time.  Silence.  I then added perhaps he’d wanted to cancel this order and think about ordering in a more timely fashion next year, which he quickly said he would, and then we hung up.

Now I hope to have peace and quiet from the business so I cam complete the last of the preparations.  I found the cutest set of cloth antlers with bells I must’ve bought for Arnie or Mojo years ago which will look adorable on Louie.

He just loves company so is enjoying Luke’s visit, especially the amount of food debris in a wide swatch all around the kid.  Louie’s going to love Christmas, too with everyone here including mom, Margaret, Brendan and Denis.  Merry Christmas to all of you, too!

You know how people tell you how busy they are at Christmas, with the shopping for gifts and groceries, card-writing, parcel-sending and all?  I just stand there listening to that, and then say to the person, “Yes, and now add replying to orders, packaging fruitcakes, driving to the post office, and making local deliveries daily to that list.”

In other words, YOU aren’t busy; I’m the person who’s losing their mind.  Because as you well know, I love to hand-write Christmas letters, send cards, shop like a lunatic for gifts, wrap them like an artisan, bake cookies and plan meals.  So the month of December has now become truly unmanageable.

I remember how I’d put down the Martha Stewart Living magazine, and then get busy reproducing some of her lovely ideas in the house or yard.  After near nervous breakdowns, Denis would remind me that Martha has an entire staff to do all of that, and I would go, “Oh yeah, right.”  But at least I had the time to give it a good try.

And so, after days of thought, meditation and prayer, I’ve come to the decision I have to stop selling my fruitcakes wholesale to stores.  I mean really, I’m not Mrs. Weston, so why try to make volume, earn 2 cents a cake, and hate what you’re doing?

As you know, I stopped selling to all stores outside of Kelowna, as I thought if I keep the product in stores in town, I can avoid people driving to my house to buy them.  However, people have become so used to the fruitcakes in these stores that the orders locally are large.

So now I’m thinking next year all of these local people will still want my fruitcakes, so will have to come here and pay me the full price for them.  I can adopt a better attitude about people coming to the house, and really, with my on-line repeat customers I can now have a solely home-based business.  Then next year we’ll see if I’m in a similar vile mood.

 I’ve been feeling somewhat better after making the decision that all sales will be retail, hence via me, but I’m quite nervous to tell the stores as it’s going to be horrible for them.  I had a similar experience the other day when I went into Illichmann’s for a large loaf of marzipan.  They now only carry the small, so I felt murderous toward the poor clerk.  Same thing next year with the fruitcakes.

On Thursday night I had a small Christmas dinner party and invited Petra, Larry, Kathy and David, and everyone enjoyed Louie’s antics, especially the way he plays with the cats.  I thought the food was horrible but they had to act like it was okay.

I made boeuf Bourgignone, but by the time we ate it, the meat was desiccated as it’d been in the oven that long!  I said to them, imagine this one hour ago, chunks of stew meat in a lovely red wine gravy.  Most of the time I’m in shock by what’s happened in the kitchen while I’ve been visiting with guests.

Luke’ll be home next week, and he said he could hardly sleep last night with excitement thinking about it.  Mom’s having a gala Christmas party next week that we’ll attend, so that should be great fun.  These things help to minimize the crankiness, though we now know there’s only one real cure: buh bye stores.