DAMN, DAMNED, DAMNIT AND DAMMING!

It is so wonderful to be BACK in the world of the LIVING!! It is so marvelous to not have your head feel like a ton of bricks resting on your shoulder, with another ton of bricks pressing on your chest. It is so incredible to not have your teeth hurt! Sinusitis is such a B@&$!

I was beyond excited to escape from home this weekend, by going to visit friends in big salmon country. We attended a fancy Valentine evening event, complete with a scrumptious four course meal, and prize draws galore.  I never won a D*A*M*N thing!  Dinner was followed by dancing. It was a superb evening! The weather was a positively balmy the next day and I enjoyed a three kilometre walk with Vimy.... my longest trek in three weeks, before heading back home. I also splurged and bought something BRAND NEW... a rare occurrence for this frugalista. I bought a pair of Nival winter boots.  No more wearing my daughter's old snowmobile boots when I am on recess duty. Those boots were only 23 years old after all.

A quick visit with Mamacita on my way home, coupled with a few errands and I roll into my driveway at dusk. I am in such a DAMN fine mood! I am thinking, "Some lovely leftover seafood chowder for supper, along with a glass of red wine, and maybe I can indulge in a binge session of Season One of X-Company." Life is good!!! My friend J's thoughtful husband had just downloaded all three past seasons for me, onto a USB stick and presented me with this unexpected gift, as I was leaving.

I walk in to my house, and the first thing I do is close my dining room blinds. As I do this, I notice yellowish stains on my radiator beneath the window. I look up and well, I'll be DAMNED... I have water dripping from the upper framing of the window.

I know right away it is ICE DAMMING.... DAMNIT!  We have had so much rain, followed by freezing temperatures, and more snow, that there is ice build up of at least SIX  inches thick on my roof, and in my gutters. If today hadn't been so mild.... DAMNIT!

I phone a friend who is ALWAYS an angel of mercy. He assures me he has nothing planned this evening and will come over to have a look as quickly as he can.  I rush over to my "vecina's" side of the house, to borrow her ladder and roof snow scraper.  For the next 45 minutes I proceed to clear as much snow as possible off my roof and hers. She too has water coming into her house.  I am so mad that I have energy to burn, and use that fury to keep attacking that snow and ice, until I give myself a blister.

A.O.M. arrives with a small hachet, climbs the ladder and proceeds to chip away at this massive layer of ice. More than an hour later, I now two DAMN drips, and he has come to the conclusion that our entire roof will have to be de-iced and de-snowed!  He calls a friend who is in the business. Said friend will come over tomorrow and give me an estimate. He assures me a lot of people are having the same problem Vecina and I are having.

It is now after 9:00. A.O.M. comes in for a hot chocolate, but I, DAMNIT, am having that glass of red wine.  I skip the chowder and the binge fest on X-Company of course. I am in bed by ten, and what do I hear?   I don't want soggy, wet floors tomorrow, so I put tin cans on the window sill to catch the drips. What do I hear? The pings of the drops hitting the tin bottom.  DAMN Chinese water torture!!!

NB:  Tomorrow is now today.  I received a reasonable quote, so we told the contractor to go ahead. Two men have been shoveling snow, and hacking away at ice, for about four hours now.  What a relief!  No more drips.  All is well again... but of course, he tells me the roof is shot!  I will worry about that down the road. Such is life! I have put out yesterday's fire. I am DAMNED HAPPY!
Now if I could JUST find my DAMN partial.

Countdowns, counting and tally marks!

No, this blog has nothing to do with math in school and has e+v+e+r+y+t+h+i+n+g to do with just day-to-day life.

COUNTING DOWN 13 DAYS!!!  To departure with my hermanita (little sister) for an awesome seventeen day adventure. Stay tuned!

FOUR DAYS AND COUNTING :  Out of seven teaching days, four days have been snow days. We are getting smacked down with blizzards and big dumps of snow every time we turn around.  Such is February on the east coast. Thank goodness it is a short month. 


TALLYING: Nineteen days that I have had THE worst sinusitis I have ever had, in over four years. Neddi pot, ginger inhalers, nasal sprays, Advil Cold and Sinus, honey lozenges, Vicks, essential oil drops..... you name it, I have tried it. The BEST?  Hot buttered rum before bed!!  This delicious drink is due to the generosity of my Camino walking partner, who stocked my bar before she got sick, returning home sooner than expected because of her own HUGE misadventures. 

EIGHT HUNDRED AND EIGHT!

Number of pages in one of the two books I read.

SEVEN!

Number of kleenex boxes I went through.

LOSING COUNT!

Of those who have watched out for me: i.e.

J & J, friends passing through town who stopped to take Vimy for a walk, put supper in the oven, set the table, and drop by at work to give me a big hug. How did they know which school I was at? They spotted Jiminy Cricket a mile away! 

My Vecina (neighbour), who put out my garbage, checked on me, gave me food and magazines, bought me extra kleenex boxes, ran errands for me, took my dog for the afternoon, took him for walks with hers.... s-o-o-o-o many tally marks there. :)

A friend who shoveled out my drifted in front door, plowed my driveway, unplugged my kitchen sink, and sent me encouraging messages every day, extolling the virtues of lemon.

Friends who knew to call when I was having a BIG "pity party", and cheered me up to no end.

My hermanita doing ALL the work and planning for our upcoming adventure, while giving me continuous pep talks about resting, and taking time off work.

Once again, I repeat myself.  I AM BLESSED!!!

One of THE most ROMANTIC places in Canada....

is Bathurst, NB? Did you know that? Expedia says it is so, so it must be true!! Fourth in a list of fourteen.  They really don't say enough but check it out!

https://travelblog.expedia.ca/14-romantic-places-canada/

I think that is wonderful, and true, but maybe NOT SO TRUE in the depths of winter.  What would be TRUER? COLD, COLDER, COLDEST!  We have been smacked with so many minus thirty Celsius mornings, I have lost count.  Days on end, at school, the kids can't go out for recess.  We know schools are a cesspool of germs, so of course, everyone is sick with .... COLDS.

I should have known that teaching in four different schools, in four days, in double sized classes of Kindergarten (37), Grade 2 (36), Grade 3 classes with 26 students in each, was going to quadruple my exposure to that infamous L-I-N-E we teachers all know - THE MUCOUS LINE!  My hands were right there all the time. It doesn't matter how many times you wash those hands, they are in contact with those little heads!  So of course,... I came down with a really bad cold, that has morphed into a major sinus infection.  

It has been two weeks, and I am totally miserable, cranky, tired, fed-up, écoeurée au bout!  Sorry about the franglais. I don't know how people with chronic illnesses face each day. I  R-E-A-L-L-Y don't.  There are days I just want the earth to open and swallow me up, or swallow everyone else up, because I have no patience for anyone or anything. 

Do things quiet down when you are sick? Not...a.....chance!  Your Camino walking partner, who is staying with you for six days, while visiting her mother, disappears one day. She doesn't come home that night, and she doesn't call.  I start to worry around 9:00 pm. Turns out she had ended up at the hospital all day in Emergency, in major pain, and was shipped to the CHI for emergency surgery that evening.  I only get less than the bare facts from her poor mother, who calls me at 10:00, but is so "discombobulated", (to quote her daughter later), that I go to bed wondering where she REALLY is and what has REALLY happened.  I don't want to call her husband in Michigan, and worry him, if he doesn't know. According to the mother, he doesn't know.  I find out later the next day, after her hubby and I have tracked her down, that ALL HE knew was that she was at the hospital, because VISA had notified him of  a large debit on his card. Can you imagine? He went to bed like I did, wondering where and what had happened to his wife.   Why hadn't my friend called? The battery on her phone was dying. She was trying to conserve it.  So no one knew where my friend was, except her elderly mother, who was exhausted and overwrought, having spent eight hours in Emergency with her daughter.  Everything ended well, but HOLY JEEPERS PEOPLE.... call, or text!  It only takes a minute to let people know where you are are, especially when it is at the HOSPITAL!!! 

I guess I S*H*O*U*L*D  thank my Camino walking partner, for making me much more aware of how important it is for people to know where you are; it is especially so for those of us who live alone. Posting on FB doesn't cut it here!  So check on your elderly neighbours and family.  Anything and eveything can happen, and in these deep, dark days of winter, we are all vulnerable. 

SO.... I will end on the romantic note on which I started, with a slight bow to that most CRASS, COMMERCIALIZED, AND MERCHANDIZED DAY of the year... VALENTINE'S DAY - EL DIA DE LOS ENAMORADOS.  Don't buy anything! Just GIVE lots of hugs that day. They are better for you than chocolate. Honestly!!!  PS:  Make sure they last SEVEN seconds. 

LES PETITS BOUTS DE CHOU sont drôles en français aussi!

En Maternelle:

Maxime:  Jésus est dans notre tête,nos yeux, notre corps.  Jésus n'a pas pas peur de rien.  
Moi?  ''Amen!!''

Quand j'ai dit à une petite, pour une raison quelconque, que j'étais vieille, voilà ce qu'elle m'a répondue:  ''Toutes les vieilles sont petites. Ma grandmère est vieille comme toi, et elle est petite.''

Lucie: Tu es qui aujourd'hui? Mme.Guylaine?
Moi - Oui!
Lucie: HEY, j'sus BONNE hein?

Moi: Je m'appelle Mme D.
Gemma: C'est qui ça?  
Moi: C'est moi! 
Gemma:  (Tout étonnée!) OH!!!

''Elodie et Angélie sont jumelles,'' déclare une petite en Maternelle.  Une autre petite répond,''Oui, elles vont à la même maison le soir, après l'école.''  
Moi - ''Ah, c'est la raison qu'elles sont jumelles?   Elles descendent de l'autobos à la même place!'' Leur réponse unanime?  "OUI!!!"


Paul ''Comment est-ce qu'ils s'appellent tes enfants?'' Je lui réponds.  Prochaine question: ''Est-ce qu'ils couchent ensemble?'' (Drôle de question celle-là!)

En 2e année: 

Petite Laurie-Rose, en me voyant à son école, ''Es-tu ici pour ma classe?  Je ne me rapellais pas si la petite était dans la classe de l'enseignante que je remplaçais, alors je lui ai posée la question ''Tu es dans quelle classe?''  Elle me répond,"La même!''