How To Survive a Heat Wave

You know how you put on a bikini top only to notice your boobs are drooping so you untie the bikini behind your neck and retie it so tight that it feels like you are slowly trying to garrote the back of your neck with the polyester-cotton blend bikini strings all in the hope your girls are hoisted just a bit higher than that place above your belly button where they were just sitting a moment ago?

Ya.

Welcome to summer.

The time of year when you notice your boobs are dropping like a baby boy's testicles should.

What my life can may end up looking like soon. Only with less sand and more chest hair.

We're in a bit of a heat wave up here at the moment, and yes, for people who assume I live next door to polar bears, Santa Clause and Sarah Palin, this does in fact mean my igloo is melting.

It's a sad sight to be honest. I was not made for these temperatures. I'm actively wishing for -40 degree temperatures and snow because at least then when it burns from the cold I can escape by sitting in front of my wood burning stove.

Right now, I'm about as naked as three strips of cotton, some string and my teenaged son's sense of "Oh my God Mom, if I have to see you naked for one more second I'm never going to be able to have sex with a woman and I REALLY WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH GIRLS so please don't make me have to pluck out my eyes and live like a monk for the rest of my life!" modesty will allow. And I'm still sweltering.

I would prefer to be naked.

But I also want grandchildren and so I'm wearing an uncomfortably tight red bikini that totally doesn't hold in my stomach rolls or hide my cellulite. It does however emphasize the fact I need to shave my legs and do a push up or two before the wind catches the wings I'm growing under my arms and send me off on an unplanned flight.

Welcome to the untold ugliness that is global warming.

Last night my children slept outside under the stars to escape the 85-degree boiler our house had become. Since I didn't want the Jumbster to be bug bait all night long, the two of us sweltered in our oven house. I'm fairly certain Jumby slept better than I did.

His bed is right beside a window.

My bed is not. So I spent the night tossing and turning and swearing to the baby Jesus whenever the dogs would breathe on me or the covers would touch my skin.

It was a restful night.

So when my husband called early this morning to ask how I slept, I may have whined. Or snarled. It was hard to tell. I was busy wiping beads of sweat from my brow already. At 8 a.m.

And when Boo commiserated that he didn't have a great sleep either because the power went out so his air-conditioner shut off for like TWO WHOLE HOURS, elevating the temperature in his bedroom to a FURNACE LIKE 70 DEGREES, well, I may have rolled my eyes so hard they are now threatening to fall out of my eye sockets permanently.

(Let that be a lesson to all ye eye rollers. Do it too often and yes, your eyes may fall out of your head. It's written on the internets so it must be true. Got that Fric?)

In the interests of fairness and not wanting to be served with divorce papers I should point out that for the last five years my husband has tried to install air conditioning in our home. And for the last five years I've mocked him and used my veto power to kill his cool dreams dead. Because it only gets hot enough to warrant using an air conditioner for a few days a year up here. And what kind of wussy would I be if I couldn't survive a few days of heat?

Hahahahah.

Sob.

Shut up Boo. I know you told me so.

So ya. I don't do heat well. I really don't understand how people survive in places that are hot all the time. Like Phoenix. Or Florida. Or hell.

Heat makes me cranky.

It turns me into that crabby old man who yells at kids to get off his lawn while shaking his cane at them.

Okay, so not a stick but an axe. Still. SUMS UP MY FEELINGS.

Only I'm readjusting my bikini strings so tight I'm cutting off circulation to my brain all in an effort to make sure air circulates under my boobs while screeching at children, animals and insects alike not to breathe on me because I may melt.

Now excuse me. I need to go wipe the sweat from places sweat should never be.

Namely my arse crack and under my boobs.

God bless all you people who live with heat worse than this all year long.

Laziness is Hard Work

My husband left for work because apparently we have bills that need to be paid and all the Canadian Tire money I've been hoarding for the past 15 years won't go very far in covering our debt.

Or so say's my husband. I'm pretty sure he doesn't really know what he's talking about because he's never actually tried paying our mortgage or any of our utility bills with the wildly coloured Canadian Tire money. I think he's talking out his arse cheeks without any actual evidence to support his claims.

He'd make a lousy scientist.

See? I'm rich with funny money!

Thank God he makes a pretty decent husband. Which makes his departure and subsequent absence that much more depressing. It turns out I kinda dig the dude. And the longer he's home the more I like him. It's like magic. Like how Sea Monkeys never die.

It's almost as though I actually knew what I was doing when I was 20 years old and agreeing to marry him as we gestated babies together.

Take that all ye doubters! It wasn't just dumb luck! We still like one another all these years later!

Ahem.

So ya, he's gone. After being home for more than two weeks because I may have had an epic temper tantrum and threatened to knock down his precious new garage walls if he didn't get his butt home to help supervise their erection.

Wait.

That sentence doesn't look right.

(I swear, he didn't just pack my heart into his suitcase, he stole my brains as well.)

My point, murky as it may be, is I miss my husband. And he's only been gone three nights. But when he's home the dogs don't sleep with their arses pointed an inch away from my nose, thereby waking me up with what smells like gaseous warfare; the kids actually act like functioning humans instead of the sass monsters I'm stuck with and the spinach in the fridge never has a chance to wilt.

(Fun fact: My husband thinks he's Popeye and eats spinach the way Britney Spears eats Cheetos.)

Of course, as sad as I am that my husband is gone, I'm fairly certain that my husband is thrilled to be gone. While having him home meant perfectly grilled steaks for me, construction progress for the man-cave and obedient children for all, apparently for him it meant HARD WORK.

When it was finally time for him to leave I'm pretty sure he couldn't flee the premises fast enough. As easy as he makes barn building look, apparently it's hard freaking work. I wouldn't really know. It looks kinda sweaty from down here under my umbrella, in the shade, with my lemonade and my laptop.

(Don't judge me. I gestated and birthed three nine pound babies for that man and he didn't lift a finger to help. I PUT IN MY TIME AS A LABOURER.)

So my husband is now safely ensconced behind his desk, enjoying a vacation from home life as he toils away earning non-Canadian Tire related monies for me to spend.

I'm left alone, with our children who have suddenly morphed into gamer sloths and have melded with the couch, a leaking pool, a partially roofed monstrosity reminding me how I may be one step away from a permanent invite to a padded cell and  a couple of dogs who insisted not only on farting in my face all night long but getting up every hour on the hour to insist on chasing squirrels outside our bedroom window.

There's no way they would have done that if Boo was home. Or rather, there's no way I'd have had to been the one getting up every hour on the hour to let them in and out because I'd have elbowed my husband awake and then fake snored until he rose to let the annoying creatures out.

So I guess the point of the entire post is sometimes long distance marriages really suck.

Come home soon Boo. I really need to rest. And that barn ain't going to build itself.

One Man's Dream Is Another Woman's Nightmare

It's happening.

The ridiculously oversized, mammoth garage my husband has been dreaming of for over ten years is finally starting to materialize. That's the funny thing about dreams. You dream them long enough and hard enough, guilt your wife and spend every last dollar you haven't even earned yet and POOF! Dreams really can come true!

I leave for America and come home to find I had a popsicle stick roof. I was gone four and a half days. Apparently my husband moves a whole lot quicker when I'm not around to pester him with back-seat construction instructions.

(I'm not a carpenter but my grandfather and my brother are, therefore I KNOW EVERYTHING. It's a rule. One my husband does not understand.)



I have to admit; I was a tad impressed with the sheer enormity of the project once the roof was on. I had a hard time gauging the size and scope of the project from the prints and even when it was just cement walls and open sky it still didn't look big.

It looks big now.

It looks HUGE.

It looks like we are building an airplane hangar for my invisible jet.

Even my husband, the power behind this project, had a moment of clarity and admitted that maybe, perhaps, possibly, I was right and it is a bit of a monstrosity that could have been a wee bit smaller.

It was the sexiest pillow talk ever.

Also? It goes without saying that I am often right. No matter what my husband thinks.

However right I am, the project isn't going to get any smaller and I'm going to have to learn to live with a garage with more square footage than my house.

My tractor totally deserves fancier digs than me. Its been around longer than I have and I'm certain it's resale value is higher.



The upside to this oversized barn/shop/garage/airplane storage facility is that there is an upstairs. My husband contends this will be a games room; a place where he can scratch his manhood, watch movies and throw some darts. Or something. I have a different idea though.

I'm envisioning a rehabilitation room for Jumby, an office for myself and maybe a craft room where I can play with glue and sparkles and all sorts of decidedly girly things.

The truth of the matter is, there is SPACE ENOUGH FOR ALL OF OUR IDEAS.

RE: OVERSIZED MAMMOTH MONSTROSITY.

At least my ugly couch will finally find a home it looks good in. (I am a 'the glass is half full' type of gal.)



Then again, if we don't get the floor poured and the staircase built soon I may have to abandon my lofty (get it? heh) plans for all things glittery because I don't know how many more times I can climb that ladder. My thighs are screaming at me in pain just looking at that damn ladder.

I have nightmares about that ladder, that's how many times I've climbed it.



Of course, I also have nightmares about my kids falling and crashing to their deaths because apparently my teenagers are part monkey and they are fearless. Every time I go to find them I have to look up and then yell at them to get their arses back down out of the trusses, off a wall, please for the love of all that is holy get off the roof before you kill yourself.

This entire project is killing me.



I'm a walking ball of anxiety. I'm either worried about someone hurting themselves, the weather, the fact my husband is practically killing himself to get this done basically by himself, the cost expenditure, the timeline or you know, a myriad of other construction woes.

I am not cut out for building things.

I DO NOT ENJOY.



I feel like an arse admitting this, because you know, I'm getting a fancy, near-indestructible building to shack my car in and I should be grateful that we have the means to do this.

I am spoiled and fortunate and incredibly blessed.

Except I am unable to stop worrying about everything that can go wrong and it's robbing me of the joy of knowing how awesome it will be when it's finished.

Construction: It makes me neurotic. And not in the charming way.

To be honest (or TBH like all the cool youngsters say on Facebook,) I may be going a little crazy.



The upside is, it seems like everyone else around here is losing it too, so at least I won't be alone in my padded cell.

*I swear, one day soon I will stop yapping about this damn garage.*