Scared Silly - A Confession

I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that there's one thing that absolutely scares the beejeebers out of me.
This fear is so great that even the word bothers me. The the sight of it paralyzes me. A mere photo creates such anxiety that I couldn't even post one in this blog.
I consider myself a logical person. Level headed and intelligent. I have overcome much in my lifetime. I have undertaken projects that aren't for the faint of heart. I have actually watched a filmed autopsy without flinching. What is this phobia? The thing that horrifyingly nauseates me, renders this able-bodied, independent woman to a lily-livered coward??............... spiders. Just typing that brought water to my mouth.
I've always thought my ideal home would be in a country setting, with acres of land and stable for horses. Of course in this dream I am independently wealthy and employ a team of Insect Assassins.
Once when I was first married and my husband was working out of town, I was getting ready for bed and spotted 'one' on the bedroom wall. As expected, arachnophobia prevents me from getting close enough to kill it (like I would want to anyway??) I sat and watched it........... for hours. I knew I couldn't sleep in the same room.. GOD No! I couldn't leave the room... it would disappear and be creeping through the house somewhere and I'd have to sell and move. So I sat and watched. Eventually, after a few good shoe tosses from across the room, I managed to slay the beast, got the shovel from the garage and walked it outside to the curb. Even now in my home I am the head of the house, but by no means the fearless one. My courageous youngest daughter does the deed. The sad thing is, if Nadia's not around, myself and my other daughter, (another arachnophobic) are doomed.
House protocol states that when the monster is exterminated, it must be taken outside, at the very least, disposed of in the toilet which must be flushed at least twice. At work, after the guys chase me around the office with it, I make them flush it in the men's toilet.
As I sit and type this, I have the feeling of something creeping up my legs. It's terrible.
I know, I'm gutless. I would feel so much better if I were afraid of something substantial; large man-eating snakes or crocks, maybe large sewer rats. But they just don't bother me at all. Will I ever conquer this fear? I doubt it. I'd gladly trade it for doughnutaphobia (?)
Perhaps I suffer from just plainwierdaphobia.

Congratulations Nadia !!

A quick shout out to my dear daughter Nadia. My Sweetie graduated from High School last night!

Congratulations Nadia! I love you!

Where Am I ?

I'm on holidays.
In case anyone is wondering why I'm M.I.A., I'm on holidays this week.
As I don't really take holidays to enjoy the overwhelming hot weather (eyeroll), I have taken this week to do some very much needed work around the house.
Will return next week with something new and exciting.
Well... something new anyway.

Ta Ta !

I Could Be Some One Else!

I attended a family function on the weekend. I don't have a particularly large extended family. No Grandparents to speak of. Of all the grandparents, I only knew one and for a very short time. Most Aunts and Uncles are gone, just a couple left. Of the small extended family, some are scattered in the States.

This particular family function included an Uncle and a cousin from the U.S. It was truly wonderful to see how peoples lives have changed, how they themselves have changed, physically and otherwise. It has to be almost 20 years since I've seen them. It was nice to catch up. It's funny how different people are, yet come from the same family lines.

My parents were both born in Canada. Most of my fathers family up and moved to California in the 50's & 60's. As the story goes, we were set to move to California as well. I would have been under 10 years old at that time.

A technicality stopped that transition from occurring.

So as we sat and chatted about the time they all moved South, I wondered....... 'how different would my life have been?'

I left that afternoon honestly intrigued.

My life, over a simple decision, would have been drastically different. I would have been different. I wonder if I would have looked different? Would I have been well off? Would I have been more successful? Maybe I would have married someone famous! Perhaps I would have been an actor! (OK maybe not). Would I speak differently? Would roof become ruff??.. and creek become crick? Would I never go OOWT, but rather go OAAUUUT? How would I wear my hair? How would I dress? I wonder if my life would have been easier or better.

Questions came flooding to me as I pondered how close I came to turning out completely different.

I wouldn't have been married to the man I married. Certainly I wouldn't have my wonderful children. It was then that it really hit me. These little people that I gave birth to and love and raised and know backwards and forwards wouldn't even be here!

So I chose to look at it this way;

I could have been a celebrity, married to a famous actor, lived in Beverly Hills, had houses scattered in different countries, been filthy rich, (this could be slight overkill), but I'm so glad none of that happened.

I have my kids. My wonderful, beautiful, lovable, funny, odd-ball, filled-to-the-brim-with personality, troublesome, wallet-emptying, drive-me-broke kids.

I wouldn't have it any other way!

(xoxox - love you Jessica and Nadia)

Tuesday Blah's

I hate spring. It's pretty much always cloudy. It's rainy, it's damp, and it smells like worms outside. I do have a fond memory of spring worms though. Back when I was a perfect child (snicker) I would pick up all the worms off the driveway and put them on the grass so mom or dad wouldn't squish them with the car. How cute is that? Today.... I drive right over the buggers. I honestly detest spring. Why is it I am in the minority? Can't anyone else see what I see? When the snow melts, roads are covered with dirt and trash. The grass is brown and matted and mommy pot holes have made all kinds of baby pot holes over the winter.

Then we have 3 months of humidity to look forward to. Humidity is my enemy. As I was not blessed with wash and wear hair I take great care in my daily washing, blow drying, fixing, ironing, spraying and shellacking. Three minutes outside and it deflates and plays dead. Even my hair's depressed. Who really has a good hair day during spring?

I've never been much of a summer person either. I hate to sweat. Heat bothers me. Anything over 17 Celsius is entirely too hot for me. The car interior heats to about 4000 Celsius. The entire summer I can be seen behind the wheel with the A/C blasting. Turn to see me in the car and my hair will be blowing furiously.

The abundance of lawn I have acquired with the purchase of my current home takes about 2 hours to cut, start to finish and I swear if you sat and watched, you'd actually SEE it grow. Weeds need to be pulled, flowers need to be watered. Fertilize the lawn, cut the lawn. Fertilize the lawn again, cut the lawn the again. Stop the madness! I pull out all the patio furniture from the shed, wash it down, place it nicely under the canopy, lovingly decorate it with lights and flowers, make it all charming and cheerful so that when I choose to eat outside in the midst of all that loveliness, the bees, wasps and flies chase me right back inside. If I'm lucky, I'll get to eat outside 3 times during the summer only to have to drag all that stuff back to the shed in two months time.

Winter... I can take it or leave it. I really don't mind it though. Nothing prettier than large snowflakes gently falling over trees and rooftops. Christmas decorations inside and out are a beautiful sight. Of course those of us in the North know about driving in the winter months and the extreme cold, oh the cold! That bitter, see-your-breath in the morning cold, (and that's before you get out of bed). Cars that won't start, feet that won't warm up and lets face it, are there really any 'attractive' hats for winter ?? That pretty much leaves me anguished from November to March.

Fall is my season of choice. Love the fall. Love the colours and the crispness in the air. The splendour of sweater weather. No sweltering heat and no humidity. I'm at least guaranteed 2 or 3 months of good hair days. Oversized sweaters, a roaring fire, the fall TV schedule and gourds. All my favourite things.

So the way I figure it, It will probably be 2nd or 3rd week in October before I beat this Tuesdays blahs.

Something to look forward to.

Out of the LOOP!

My apologies for my posting absenteeism. I have been busy working on an additional blog. This new blog will feature some of my own home projects as well as some very interesting and beautiful pictures I have collected for inspiration. As we all are aware, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I find old, antiquated items the most beautiful. I don't think I've always felt this way. In my younger days, newer was better. But as I myself have aged I see beauty in different places.

In the past couple of years I've formed an addiction to flea markets and garage sales. Twenty years ago I would have turned my nose up at such things. Buying someone else's discarded incidentals seemed dreadful. Today, I find these items can be so much more than rejected castaways. Look beyond what you initially see. See the ghastly artifact for something other than it is. What can be done with those old rakes or barrels? Why on earth would someone be selling old shoe forms?? ( I know why, and I bought some).

Not long ago I acquired a child's old pull down desk. It had writing, stickers and crayon all over it. Truly hideous. But I loved it! I picked it up for $5. I'm working on that piece as we speak and will feature it in my other blog.

Last weekend I took my youngest daughter Nadia down to Queen Street in Toronto to browse through the old Antique and Collectible shops. I think I may have entered the wrong shop first on the excursion. As we approached the door, I turned and muttered, "Prepare yourself". Kids at that age have no appreciation for Antiques or garage sale items, much less entering into a hole of a store jammed with relics that really had no value to anyone. It wasn't an Antique store really, it was more fragments and remnants of things that may have had a purpose at some point while they were attached to something of value, but this store was just a landfill. Nadia's face dropped. Her eyes widened. The look on her face was worth wandering into that store first. I held my laughter until we were back on the street.

She asked if they were all going to be like that. Thankfully they weren't and thankfully she very much enjoyed the rest of our outing that day. She was actually fascinated by history she observed; the first TV's ever made, old wooden crank phones with no buttons or dials, old 2 ton metal cash registers.

I often found her leaned over engrossed in framed pictures of people from the early 1900's. As our junket ended she told me how much fun it was to see little pieces of history she had only seen in the movies. (Such a sheltered life!) It must have had a positive impact on her, shes offered to accompany me on my next treasure hunt.

Click on over to http://www.recapturedcharm.com/

for some interesting photo's, ideas and perhaps a little inspiration!