A busy Visit ...

I've been slacking a bit on this Blog entry because it's about a visit from my father. The last time I saw my father in person was about 6 years ago. A was just a baby and M hadn't even been thought of. Now, I have an odd relationship with my father; things happened a long time ago that I feel can be placed at his feet but there is no point in getting into that now because the few times we have touched on the subject I saw that we would never agree so there was no point in getting into a fight over it. My compromise is that I keep in touch badly partly through choice partly because I never know when it's a good time to call and often forget when I mean to e-mail him. I should be famous for my awful memory, although I feel mostly I forget things because I'm too lazy to remember them /sigh/. I do try to keep in some contact when I remember; my Mom has always been very clear that I have a certain duty to him as my father and that what happened in the past is the past. If my Mom is willing to let it go than so am I but she will always be number 1 to me, of course it helps that she lives right in the same city as me too :)

Anyway, my father was in the area for the funeral of his father ... I could have gone but have decided after seeing Old Dog dead and gone that I cannot handle having that be the last memory of a person that I cared about. So I have a new found resolve to never go to a funeral. But I better get back on track here :)

He got here by bus on Friday August 10th and kept us busy his whole four night stay with us. J & I are not people that are used to being busy but my father certainly is and we did stuff everyday(Who does stuff everyday?!?!). Friday afternoon we walked over to a local department store and he bought each of the kids something. K picked out a new style ant farm that actually is made of gel so you don't have to feed or water the ants while they tunnel. The ants are non-breeding so they will only live a couple months before they die ... we're waiting for the ants to be delivered now :) Friday night J & Dad went to Toys'R'Us and bought a remote control truck for us all to play with. Saturday was family day as usual and we all went to the Y for the morning, Saturday evening we went to a nearby park that had just had all it's playground equipment changed, Sunday we went to a small Zoo and even that trip went well(although J & I are usually very reluctant to go anywhere) and the kids had great fun at the splash pad at the zoo. Monday J had to go back to work(he had been off the previous week) and Dad and I hatched a plan to finally get rid of the trees that have been messing up my satellite TV all summer. He really wanted to help J & I with a house project and is comfortable with a chainsaw so after leaving a note on my neighbour's door(technically they were his trees although he had told me back in June that he was going to cut them down it hadn't happened - Thanks to my good friend FF in Florida for the note's wording) we started in on the trees. When J got home he and dad went and rented a chainsaw and Dad took the rest of the trees down with it.

You should have seen it ... I thought of taking pictures but was too busy cutting up brush to run into the house for the camera ... my 60 year old Dad climbing in the trees taking off the limbs with a handsaw. He dropped every limb without hurting any of the phone or cable lines that run into mine and my neighbour's house: it was very impressive.

I have to say I am truly blessed to have such good parents: Mom, of course, for always loving me no matter what and for always helping me(so many times!) when I needed it and so recently sharing her good fortunate with me as well. My father was a huge help to me getting those trees down and I'll admit is was nice(though tiring) to have such a busy 4 days. The kids weren't bored even once. So I'll say it now: Thank you both for coming together and having me ... because without you both there would be no me.

Of course I will only mention in passing how much work I have left to do. My city takes yard waste so I have been bundling up all the stuff I can cut up from the trees. I have 40 bundles done now and am getting close to being done with brushing(Brushing: the act of cutting up branches and smallish limbs while trimming brush on your property, also the act of bundling said branches. - now it's a word) in the back yard ... I'm currently working on our years old brush pile at the back of the yard having already conquered the two mountains of brush nearer the house from the freshly cut trees. After that I will cut back anything that needs cutting in the back yard and move to the brush in the driveway. Then I get to move all the logs and bigger wood to one place in the yard, we may someday use it as firewood for camping. I figured when I started I may have up to 100 bundles of brush done by August 23rd ... yard waste pick up is the next day after that so I'll have the chore of hauling all those bundles out to the front of the house ... I will take a picture because this may possibly be the most work I have ever done in my life.

That's it for me, Blog more another day,

Cass :)