What is Father's Day when your dad is gone?

What is a dad?
A dad is someone who parents you, loves you, wrestles with you, spies on your boyfriends to make sure they're good enough for you, picks your intoxicated-teen-butt up from parties at 3 am, snaps wet dishtowels at you, loves you, and calls you the apple of his eye.

What happens to Father's Day when that person is gone?

My father has been gone for over 13 years, and since then, Father's Day has not meant much to me. Often, I forget that it's coming until the last minute and then I realize that I should probably do something for Tony, the father of my children.  Fortunately, Sashimi has an awesome art teacher who pretty much took care of that for me. The kids and I also made Tony breakfast and espresso in bed at the table after letting him sleep in until 8:30 (WTF?! I know...that constitutes sleeping in around here).

But what do I do for my own dad?

My dad was my daddy, but that relationship was severed when he died; I was 17. I know that we will see each other again, but we do not have a continuing relationship.  There is nothing there but memories, photos and a few home videos.  I show them to my kids, we talk about their Dede Kerry. But the past is the past, and living in the past is not going to bring him back.

So I acknowledge the fact that my dad is not here, that I miss him, and I move on.

Ed, my step-father, and came into my life as an adult.  He never raised me, disciplined me, sent me to my room, or wrestled with me.  Frankly that last one would be kind of weird. But he has done something that my dad was not able to do: be a grandfather to my children.

My children love their Gedo. The boys wrestle with him every time we visit, usually about 20 minutes before I want to go home, getting them all riled up and then sends them home for me to deal with. He plays catch with them, he throws rocks in the river with them, he goes fishing with them, and doesn't get angry when one of them drops his new pliers in the lake. He helps them learn to ride their bikes. He gets them to help him with work around the yard, like stacking wood or removing stumps. He plays games with them. He helps me build things for them. He reads stories to them in French even though he has absolutely no idea how to speak French or pronounce any of it.  He slept with each of my babies on his chest, carried them around and burped them. He loves them as his own grandkids. And my kids love them as their Gedo in a way that they will never be able to feel for the grandfather they never had the chance to meet.

So on this day, even though I am tired from the early morning, the high-energy kids, and a daughter that did not want to nap, I want to show Gedo how much we love him and appreciate him in the best way I know how: making a roast chicken and gravy dinner and sharing it with them.

Thank you for being such a postive part of our lives, Ed. We never take for granted how fortunate we are to have you in our family. And how good you are at making pina coladas.

PS - And can you bring your weed-whacker when you come over? Tony wants to borrow it. We don't take that for granted either.

The Caterpocalypse

They're coming.
*insert Plants vs. Zombie music when the zombies start making their way onto your lawn. And maybe there's fog.  Or not.  But definitely zombies.*

Last weekend, we drove off to a wedding.  We noticed that the tops of the trees in the valley looked like they had been painted brown.  We guessed it was the start of the caterpiller outbreak we all figured was coming.

But it is so much worse. 

It's the Caterpocalypse.

My parents were on holidays, so my mom asked me to water her flowers and new strawberry plants. No problem.  I went every day, watered, bam. Done.

Thursday morning: I get a text from my mom.  Can you check on my rose bush in case of caterpillars? You'll have to start spraying it with soap solution once or twice a day.
I respond: Ok.  Sure.
Thursday evening, after work, I go to my mom's. I walk through the little arch into the back yard.

And I shat myself:

Holy shit.  Too late. Moment of silence for the rose bush.

Holy. Sweet. Peter. Paul. And. Mary. That used to be a rose bush. Like 24 hours ago. What. The EFF?!

Creepy crawly forest tent caterpillars everywhere! They're in the rose bush. They're stuck to the siding, they're crawling up the patio doors, trying to get into the house to devour my mom's brains.  Or houseplants. Who knows. They are vile, sick, and smell awful when squished.  But the only way to stop them is to squish them because the damn things don't seem to drown! And what with it being so DRY up here, you can't very well blowtorch the mothertruckers without causing a national incident.

So they keep coming.

Caterpillar orgy

And coming.

Caterpole dancing. Not sexy. At. All.

Those aren't even trees you idiots! That is a metal pole! No leaves! Not even green! Why would you climb it other than to gross us all out and make silky meshy webs all over the place that you need to pressure wash with gasoline?!

Oh. And you know what else is gross? Having a T ball practice in a field infested with caterpillars.  Because Yea! your kid is playing T ball! Yea he's going to bat! No, wait. The bat has caterpillars all over it.  Let's whack it a few times. Oh crap, now there's caterpillar guts all over the bat. And it stinks.  Wait, there are caterpillars crawling up my leg! OH SWEET JESUS GET THEM OFF GET THEM OFF GET THEM OFF! AAAAAAAH! WHY ARE THEY SO STICKY?!?! iBean does not like them at all.  One starts to crawl on her sandal.  She whimpers and then quivers and then full on freaks out.  Then I have to carry her for the rest of the one hour T-ball practice while the creepy crawlies fully take over my bag of water bottles and Off spray.  Which, for your information, does nothing to caterpillars.

Then you drive home. Back through a semi-wooded area, where the stench of the squished caterpillars on the road is like vomit and bile and decomp. And then you drive past all the bare trees (they just got their new spring leaves two weeks ago...they just want to be pretty.  WHY CAN'T THEY JUST BE PRETTY?!) And drive into your driveway, which is two houses up from the main road.  The caterpillars have only taken over the houses and yards on the river side, not the upside. They have not made their way across the road.
Yet.
 
Monday:

They're here.
They're in my driveway. Five days of inching their way through acres of forest and they have finally made it into my driveway.
And my garage.
WhAT?! My garage?! Close the door! Wait! Open the door!
Grab the big broom, sweep those things out!
Put down the broom, run to push the garage door button, but by the time I get there, the caterpillars are already crawling back into the garage! NOOOOOOoooooo! They're so fast!
Grab the broom. Sweep sweep sweep. Squishy squishy. Sweeeeeeeep! Hurry! Hurry Hard!
Run to push the garage door button.
Garage door is closing...closing...and it opens itself back up. Something triggered the sensor.
CATERPILLARS!
My brain finally turns on.  I grab the remote opener from the car.  I squish and sweep and swear and scream: GET OUT OF MY GARAGE YOU PIECES OF SHIT!!! And as soon as the last one is out, I push the button.  And wait. And watch. And see them starting to try and crawl back in.
Close faster! CLOSE FASTER! HURRY!!!!!!

And it closes. 

Safe for another day. But it's only a matter of time.

They're coming...

33 ways to greener living

I read today that the carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere are the highest they have been in 3 million years.
I would love to write a post about 3 million things you can do to help change that horrible fact, but that would be excessively long and I don't know if I personally know of 3 million things.  But here is a list of things that we (our family) does to lower our carbon footprint on a daily basis:

1. Wash laundry in cold water
2. Avoid purchasing food that comes individually wrapped. More wrapping not only means more waste, but involved more costs of production (more carbon) at the manufacturing plant.
3. When you clean the inside of your fridge, UNPLUG IT. Your food will survive.
4. Grow your own food.
5. Make your own food.  And that does not mean reheat food that you bought in the frozen section of the store.  It means buy actual ingredients and make real food.  I could go on, but you get the picture.
6. Buy a manually-powered lawn mower. Like this one.  We own it. Never have to sharpen the blades, easy to push. And the best part: no noise.
7. Plant less lawn and more food-producing plants.
8. Wear your jeans more than once before you wash them.
9. Shower with someone.  Hey - fun for everyone!
10. On hot days, keep windows closed and cover the windows during the day, open the windows at night.
11. When the heat is getting ridiculous, seek refuge in the basement.
12. Be naked.
13. On cold days: your car only needs 5 minutes to idle and warm up the motor in the winter.  5 minutes.  Not 10, not 20. Five.
14. Make less trips into town. Plan ahead and do all your errands at once.
15. Keep a reusable cup in your car for when you want to buy a coffee or iced-coffee.  No waste.
16. Use waste-free lunch containers like these.
17. Unplug your electronics EVERY NIGHT. The easy way: plug them all into a timer-equiped power bar. Then set the timer to turn on and off at a certain time each day. You have no idea how much power your LCD TV, blu-ray, etc are sucking when they are turned off. 
18. Use a rain barrel to water your plants.
19. Buy a green car. Not the colour green.  One with better fuel economy than your current car. Although the car could also be green on the outside. Not all families need minivans. You can fit three carseats into the back of a Prius.  We have done it.
20. Walk or bike to get where you need to go.
21. Turn the lights off when you leave a room.  Or install motion sensor light switches. 
22. Reuse plastic grocery bags as garbage bags for your bathrooms.
23. Use cloth diapers.  Even considering the cost and energy consumed to wash them, they are still much more green than disposable.
24. Compost
25. RECYCLE.
26. Turn down your hot water tank. Especially if you leave for a few days.
27. Turn down the thermostat at night and cuddle up to someone for heat.
28. Wash and reuse your ziploc bags.
29. Grow your own herbs and dry them. They taste so much better than store bought!
30. Make weed tea to fertilize your plants.  It stinks, but it works!
31. Drink regular tap water.  You can filter it through a Brita or whatnot, but it saves money and plastic from all those little water bottles.
32. Make your own iced tea from tea bags, lemons and sugar. The tea bags get composted, the lemons are biodegradable, and the iced tea is super delish. Want some recipes? Check these out.
33. If it's yellow, let it mellow...and get a toilet that uses less water per flush.

Off the top of my head, that's what I've got.

What do you do in your house?

The Bed that Sarah Built

I came across the Camp Loft Bed on Pinterest a couple of months ago. iBean was still sleeping in a crib, but I knew that she would need a big girl bed by summer. Since her room is small (inside walls measure just under 9'x9'), I thought a loft bed would be ideal.

I have NEVER done a DIY. I don't even own tools. As a university student, I spend one summer building roof trusses, so I am not totally useless with tools. But to build something like this, I definitely needed help. My step-dad Ed is very handy, so I asked him to be my consultant and helper to tell me if I was doing things the wrong way! Fortunately, he was able to lend me a miter saw (which he borrowed from his brother, or brother's friend's cousin's uncle...), some aluminum saw horses, and his years of DIY expertise to be my advisor and lead carpenter.  My husband, not so handy.  If you want amazing bread or croissants, he can hook you up.  If you want gardening advice, he knows what you need. If you want to build something, he already ran off screaming in the other direction.  Not that I don't think he could. It just is really low on his list of fun things to do.

Day 1: Buy wood. Back cars out and turn garage into danger zone. Miter saw wood. Drill pocket holes using my new favourite tool the Kreg Jig.

Welcome to my workshop

Day 2: Borrow sander from friend. Run out to buy sandpaper and swear at damn sandpaper for not being the right size and wrestling it into the stupid clips.  Repeat like 10 times.

Day 3: Wipe all boards with a damp cloth, let dry, then prime the wood. Priming sucks. It's boring and white and thick and no fun.

Two saw horses, a vulcan ladder and some old leftover baseboards make a pretty good set up for painting!

 Day 4 and 6 (but not 5, because I was subbing in a kindergarten class that day and resorted to having a peanut buster parfait for dinner that night.  God bless kindergarten teachers...): paint, paint, paint! the pink boards are actually glamour pink, which was leftover paint from iBean's room. The rest of the boards were boring white. White on wood is a tricky thing.  It doesn't conceal the imperfections of the boards and made me nervous that it would never look nice.

Is that PINK??

 Day 7: Work at school teaching music. No DIYing. Just singing and ukuleleing.

Day 8:
Construction day! Tony was in Edmonton for a course, so not the ideal weekend to build something.  But my lead carpenter and advisor would be out of town the following weekend, which meant all that painted lumber would be parked where my car should be for another two weeks.  Nuts to that action.
So we started working at 10:30 am. We had to empty out iBean's room and carry in the lumber, then it was building time! By 1:15, we had this much built:

My lead advisor was hungry and my iBean was tired, so I put her down for a nap in Sashimi's bed and we took a siesta for lunch. I continued measuring pieces out and put the bookshelves in place.

The brother-shelves: a handy feature for any little girl who wants to put her brothers away.

It's like a stage!

After iBean awoke, we realized that we needed a different length of screw to attach the 2x2 to the 2x6s (where the slats under the mattress sit).  Also, we needed a twin mattress.  Minor detail when buiding a bed. So I packed the offspring into the car, bought a mattress, had my credit card declined, phoned my bank, determined that my card number had been stolen and someone was trying to purchase some cell phone crap in the USA. Cancelled my card. Swore a bit, then resumed building the final component of the bed: the stairs.

cleats for the stairs. Ed watching the kids climbing like monkeys on the bed

Final plank for the steps.  The kids are super excited (and helpful...not)

Voilà! iBean's bed is complete!

iBean's new big girl bed. Marvel at its awesomeness.

My favourite part: the reading nook. And by the way, you must add Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons to your reading nook.  Fantastic book.

The boys are already planning out their new beds. And desks. And bookshelves. And toy boxes.  Tony asked me last night if there are plans for a DIY chicken coop on Ana White's site.  Which there totally IS.  I guess I have my next project! Those chickens are gonna be so posh in their luxury accommodations...

For all the more technical information related to building this bed, you can read my brag post on  ana-white.com. All of her plans for various projects are available as PDFs. For free.  FREE!! She then invites members of her site to post brag posts of the DIY projects they've done, and I was extrememly proud to submit my first brag last night. 

For all of you wannabe DIYers, I say to you YOU CAN DOOOO EEEEEET!
Now I wanna go relax in the reading nook with Pete the Cat.

Rewarding laziness

Sashimi's played at his first public piano recital this week.  The theme for the recital was "A little Night Music" and all the pianists were to wear pajamas.  Sashimi and I were performing two duets: Twinkle Twinkle and Catch a Falling Star. So he wore his Angry Birds pjs and I wore a T-shirt and pink fuzzy cupcake-covered pajama pants.
Keesadilla, being his normal self, had been wearing pajamas all day.  We tried to convince him to get dressed to go to the recital, but he was resolved to wear his pajamas.  Non-matching pajamas.  Inside-out pajama shirt.
And since he's four years old, we let it happen.
Little did we know, there would be a door prize at the recital for anyone who showed up wearing pajamas. So guess who won the door prize:
Keesadilla.
An awesome spa memory foam pillow.
And now there is no way we are going to be able to convince him to get dressed again.
The ultimate reward to being lazy and stubborn in the way only a four-year-old can.

Keesadilla in his everyday attire.  Ready for a trip to Walmart...

 **As an aside, Sashimi nailed his performance :D