Almost two and a half years... eight moves and more than forty eight sleepovers in the last six months alone...

....I have finally been able to make a momentous decision!

My journey started when I moved back home to the Chaleur area of NB, after having been away for almost forty-two years. That is a heck of a long time to be away, isn't it? However, don't let anyone tell you you can't go home again. You can!  I did and while what transpired was NOT always easy, I survived and I am gloriously happy.

I am now done with being a "couch whore". Please pardon the expression, but I was. En français ça se dit bien aussi, une putain de sofa.  Some prefer the term "couch surfing".  Whatever term you prefer, that is what I was.  I moved in and out of my rented cottage four times, in and out of my brother's motorhomes four times (each "in" is a move in my books, and each "out" is a move too!) I stayed with my sister, my baby brother, my first brother , my son, my daughter, my friends in Edmonton, Campbellton, Jacquet River, and Florida. Have I mentionned my MOTHER?  My wonderful, caring, supportive mother who took me in more than once, and especially when I was at my lowest point, last fall, upon returning from The Camino?  I owe her a debt of gratitude I can never repay.

So, it is ANOTHER HAPPY DANCE FOR ME! I bought a home!!!! Je me suis achetée une maison, une semi-détachée, et nous emménageons, moi et Vimy, la fin avril, pour DE BON! J'ai enfin fini de rouler ma bosse un peu partout dans la région Chaleur et dans le monde.

My new home is 0.12 kilometres from my disaster zone apartment, which I moved into in mid November.  Some may think I am TOTALLY CRAZY to be moving so quickly and so soon, but.... it was meant to be. 

Furthermore, I know there will be NO smell of cat urine in my new house. Alleluia!
Now, if I can just get a hold of the RIGHT mailbox keys from the get-go, life will be perfect!

What would you have done?

My friend Linda and I came out of church one Sunday morning a few weeks ago, to find that the car parked behind us had its front hood up.  Propped up by the driver's door, was the owner, a regular looking guy in his late thirties, smoking a cigarette.

OF COURSE, I had to ask him if he needed a boost, as I had booster cables in my trunk.
Without remembering every little detail, this is the story he told me, more or less.

"I left (Edmundston?) this morning. I am on my way to visit my 81 year old father in Saint John.  I stopped in Campbellton at Tim's, and there I changed my jacket to a lighter one, since it was warm out.  It was only when I took the Bathurst exit to find a gas station to fill up, that I realized I had left my OTHER jacket behind, with my wallet, credit cards, and cellphone, in Campbellton.  I have no money for gas, and I was hoping some people could help me out, so I can get to Saint John."

He said all this in a very matter of fact way.  OF COURSE, I had to ask a few questions, to which he replied, "Yeah, I called Tim's from the gas bar and no, the jacket is there but there is no wallet, nor cellphone in the pockets."  "Yeah, I also called my father so he wouldn't worry." "Yes, I cancelled my credit card."

OF COURSE, I then pulled out $20 out of my wallet and gave it to him. He thanked me politely, and said he only needed another $5 to be able to fill up his tank, as a few other people had given him money.  As he said this, Linda, who had been in the car, came out, heard a summarized version of his story from me, and promptly gave him $10.  He thanked us again, got in his car, and drove off.

OF COURSE, we were left wondering, as WE drove off to fill up Linda's car, if we should have handled this differently. Maybe we should have offered to put $30 in his car, by following him to the gas bar.  Furthermore, Linda thought his story a little odd, in that he shouldn't be going to Saint John, via Bathurst and Campbellton, if he is from Edmundston. However, it is possible that in MY recollection of his story, I made an error in his departure point.

Anyway, after musing over this incident, we decided that if it were a scam, it was a poor one, because hardly anyone came out of church. There was a "Share Lunch" in the church basement after mass, so most people went there, thereby not going out to their cars.  Furthermore, if it was a scam, "Hey!", what goes around comes around, sooner or later.

However, our ultimate conclusion was that we had helped out a fellow human being in need. It wasn't up to us to decide how and why the money we freely gave, was spent!
We will never know whether his story was true or not, but I have a feeling it was.

I AM NOW "LESS A HOME". HAPPY DANCE! HAPPY DANCE! HAPPY DANCE!

Should I say I am now one "homeless" person with elucidation?

I no longer own a house that I have been trying to sell for almost two and one half years.  I have been bought out, and I couldn't be happier than a pig in S&?* or a clam at high tide!

At the end of February, when I received my buyout, I went to the bank.  As I handed over the cheque to be deposited, I told the cashier "This is the largest cheque I have EVER received in my name alone. Furthermore, this is  the FOURTH happiest day of my life!  She so totally, totally deadpanned it when she replied "You must have had three children then."  I smiled, told I had had two children, but didn't tell her what the third happiest day of my life had been. Then I made my request and told her what I wanted to do with some of the money. She laughed... and laughed. She said it was the first time she had heard "that one!"

I had told my lawyer's secretary what I was going to do when I received the money. She replied " You have lost it!"  My son chuckled and said, "Go for it Mom!"  My daughter thought it hilarious when I sent her the picture.

So here is what I did with some of the money!

 

$1000 in five dollar bills!

Each day is a surprise... when you go to school!

"Are you the lunch lady?"  (I am NOT wearing a uniform!  So, no, I am not the lunch lady.)

"Madame, that kid told a non-truth!"  Frankly, what happened to calling a kid a liar, like we did in my day?  Even kids are politically correct nowadays. Not a bad thing actually.

Have you ever heard of a "soft lockdown" in a school.  Here is my take on one.  It starts with you and your students getting locked in the corridor between the gym and the cafeteria. You can't get out and you can't get in. You have to bang on the doors to get the attention of a parent waiting for his primary aged child to be dismissed.  He finally hears the banging, and opens those doors so you and your students can go back upstairs to the classroom.

No, CORRECTION! You start to go up the stairs with your students, when the intervention worker comes runnning down with her walkie-talkie in hand, and tells you that NO ONE can go upstairs;  you and your students have to turn around right NOW! Mass confusion.  So you do as you are told and march back downstairs. You are left wondering why you can't go back to class; also wondering where to go. You end up congregating in the primary wing, where those students are getting ready to be sent home on the early busses, so it bedlam there too.  Then you get shuffled into a Grade One classroom.  After you have done THREE headcounts to make sure you have all of your 18 students, you are told you can NOW go back upstairs to your classroom. Why the soft lockdown?  What is a soft lockdown?  I still don't really have the answer to either of those questions. That is classified information, apparently! LOL

I walked by a table where the wees ones were having lunch in the cafeteria, and stopped to chat with one, because he is SO darn cute.  With a guilty look he immediately declared "I said the F- word by mistake!" I replied,  "You did? No one does that by mistake."  Little Jack on the other side of the table, jumps in with "Yeah, he called me an Idiot Pooper!"  I turn to Johnny and ask, "Is that the F-word that you said to Jack?  He nods his head solemnly.  I try not to show even a smidgeon of a smile, when I tell him "Well, you apologize to him for calling him the F-word".  Which he does, the little scamp.

Children obviously don't know their initial consonant sounds yet, halfway through Kindergarten, which is to be expected.  However, they don't necessarily know them in Grade Two EITHER, because a few years ago I had one student say, "Madame, Jordan called me the C-word."  You can imagine what C-word went through my head.  I thought, "OMG!"  I took a deep breath and asked Joseph what was the exact word Jordan had called him. His reply? "He called me an IDIOT!" 

I ended my week with a big hug from a full-of-fire Grade Six student in the French system, who put her arm around me at recess and said, "Madame, fa fredo oggi!"  That Italian is really getting around.

On a wall in Northern Spain:

We are born to study.
We study to work.
We work to die.
We are dead from the beginning.

Death to Capitalism!

The young do NOT have a monopoly on being being foolish and stupid!

When I am frustrated, upset, or angry, (anyone of those NEGATIVE emotions), I don't eat, nor do I veg.  I don't self mutilate either.  (Just kidding.... I wanted to see if some one was paying attention!).  I try not to add more negativity to how I already feel.  I do something physical, to drive out those emotions. Therefore, I go for a run, a long, long walk, a big hike, or as I did today, I go snowshoeing in the woods.

The forecast was for a few centimetres of snow, with the temperature rising and then the snow turning to rain.  Well, as usual, the forecast was wrong, wrong, wrong!  It continued to snow all day.  I took to the trails, alone with Vimy.  I got lost.  Plain and simple! I only meant to be gone forty minutes, but it took me twice that amount of time, and quite a bit of doubling back, before I found my way out of that winter wonderland of snowshoeing trails.  The falling snow kept covering my tracks, and it was hard to figure out where I had gone.  I must admit, a light panic set in a FEW times.  I had my cell phone, with RunKeeper, so I had GPS.  Unfortunately, I don't know HOW to actually USE and UNDERSTAND the darn thing.

Vimy and I got quite the work-out!  I have learned another lesson. DO NOT go snowshoeing alone, when it is snowing. If you do, stick to tried and true familiar trails. 

I gave myself something I never had, when I hiked 820 kilometres in northern Spain last fall. I have a BIG mother of a blister on my right heel!

What a "nounoune" I am!  (Fille ou femme, qui agit de façon stupide!)

A HIT and a MISS!

"We missed you at church these last few weeks".  That is what I was told by someone recently. You would think a priest, or a parishioner of my parish would have said that, right?

W-e-l-l-l-l-l, it was a nine year old boy in Grade Four on Monday morning, when he saw me at school!  Now, it is true I haven't been to church for about four weeks, because I was otherwise occupied, but still, I WAS there this past Sunday.  Imagine!  A sweet child noticed my absence, bless his little heart.

That about wraps up my excitement lately, which is to say, that which I can write about anyway, that is suitable for public reading. :)  I think I need to set up another "anonymous" blog, and really share EVERYTHING that goes on in my life.  That's not going to happen though, so I thank God for my awesome friend Listen Linda, to whom I CAN tell everything. 

Some major changes in my life,  are coming down the pike REALLY soon I hope.  While I wait with bated breath for these changes to happen, since they are out of my control, I have taken to doing some calculations.  I will share those in my next blog.  Let's just say, it has to do with moving, beds, and being homeless.

I shall end this post at the same place as I started, with a story about school. I was in the computer lab today, with a Grade 4 class, having the kids line up to go back to their regular classroom, when one poor little fellow tossed his cookies, right there in line!  A lot!  You never saw twenty other children scatter SO fast!  I have very little sense of smell so I am never bothered that way, by these type of "events"!

Mind you, you still have to be quick and think on your feet, regardless of the "no odour zone".   I tried to buzz the office, but of course the intercom never works when you REALLY need it. I sent one student down to the office, sent another one for a roll of paper towels, and evacuated the remaining students back to their classroom. I asked the EA, when the towels arrived, to go soak some in warm water, and return to help clean up the young fellow, who by the way was still sick, but is now doing it over a wastepaper basket.  We tried to get him to the washrooms, but of course they were at ONE end of the hallway, and the computer lab at the OTHER.  Wouldn't you know!

Back in  the regular classroom, ( having left the EA and a few students helping the sick one, still in the lab) I get buzzed by the secretary, who now knows what happened, but wants pertinent information, like "WHO" was sick so she can phone the parents.  At the same time, one of the student helpers dashes back to class to inform me that Jay (who was sick) wants me to know it was "strawberry yogurt!"  Hello? Do we need to know that? Try to teach a Science class after that kerfuffle!

A half hour later it is the end of the school day. In the office I see two school custodians talking to the secretary.  One is coming off his shift and the other starting.  On a whim, and suspecting maybe THIS part of the message was never conveyed, I innocently ask if the "mess" in the computer room had been cleaned up?  Of course, that fact got lost in the shuffle, so to speak. You should have seen the look on the face of the custodian just starting his shift!  He thanked me for telling him, but you could tell that is NOT what he really wanted to say. :)

Hey, don't shoot the messenger!

The OUCH and AWE moments in life ( for those not interested in watching the Super Bowl!)...

as defined by my experiences this week:

Having a $185 dental bill (NO dental insurance) to repair my lost filling, which disappeared last week, and which I am sure I inadvertently ate, thinking it was granola.  OUCH!

Being told by someone that while I am obviously fit, I have a lot of "rolls".  OUCH!

Doing a HARD Raggetty Ann PLOP on a sheet of hard ice at the bottom of my front deck steps.  I had no time to even try to break my fall.  My feet came right out from under me.  I had forgotten about that sheer ice, because it was nicely covered with a two inch layer of fresh snow. I don't know which hurts more; the five needles in my jaw from my visit to the dentist, or the pain in my butt from landing so hard on my backside.  OUCH!

NOT receiving my new Visa card, when my old one expires at the end of the month, and being told it was shipped to the wrong address.  Don't assume because you change your address online with your bank in plenty of time, that they will apply that address change to everything you have with them.  Forget that! It was sent to my old address, which is now my mother's former address, as she has moved as well. So I have had to be without a credit card for three business days, while they rush ship me one directly to the branch.   (Five days where I can't use my Visa?  Doesn't that count as an OUCH?)

Walking to your car in a parking lot at The Dollar Store, and hearing a child's voice yell out the window of a moving car, before you even see her cute little face, "MADAME, no fa fredo oggi!"  That is Italian for "It's not cold today!"  I teach a few Italian phrases when I supply and some kids are just tickled with it. This little one obviously was.  I yelled back, "No, fa bello oggi!" AWE!

The trail in front of me today, while snowshoeing, and the trail behind me.  AWE!

Celebrating a fifty-first birthday in the family, with baby bro's birthday tomorrow and Mamacita's eighty-second on Tuesday, with Mimosas and Sunday brunch. AWE!

Finishing up the week in Kindergarten, where it was wild! That day alone would be a whole other blog!  Reading a story always calms children down, so I read them a story about "The 10 Rubber Ducks" being put in a box on a cargo ship, destined for faraway countries. When I threw out the following question, "Can you think of a faraway country",  little Landon piped up, "Allardville!"  AWE!

NB: Tu dois peut-être venir de la région Chaleur, ou assez bien connaître notre belle province, pour apprécier sa réponse.  Encore une fois, j'ai voulu rire aux éclats.