It is possible that I’m overreacting. Maybe.

I know, me, overreact?  So unlike me and hard to believe.

DH spends a lot of time away from me now due to his job.  It sucks but it could be worse as his other options were other provinces, other countries or, well, unemployment.  So we suck it up.  I can’t support me on my salary let alone me, him, the cat, the house, two cars…..

He also works a lot.  Long, long days and once a month he’s gone the whole week instead of just the regular four days away.  In fact, twice this month he’s worked a five day week and twice next month he’ll work a five day week.  He’s normally supposed to work 40 hours over four days and once a month 40 hours over five days.  Needless to say, this is hard for both of us as we haven’t been married all that long.  Even if we had been married forever, it’s nice to see your significant other for more than two and half days or so a week.

Which brings me to my point.  Yesterday DH came home an announced he was going to watch the Grey Cup (CFL final for those of you not from Canada) on Sunday with a cousin of his at a bar.  I have nothing against the cousin, in fact he’s a nice guy and I like him.  What burns my ass is this. 

1.  DH had been home less than five minutes when he announced this. 
2.  It wasn’t open for discussion.
3. As a general rule I see him briefly Friday morning, Friday evening (even if he comes home Thursday night he gets home late and generally goes to bed soon after he arrives…also I work all day on Friday so the day is pretty much shot) through Sunday night now (Monday morning doesn’t count since he leaves at an ungodly 5am).
4. He is away all day NEXT Saturday at something he can’t miss.
5. He has to work all week next week and then do it again for the third week of December.

I think you can understand why I said I wasn’t happy about his plans.  He came home late on Thursday.  I won’t see him until 5pm tonight (can you believe he had the nerve to ask me last night if I wanted another couple to come to dinner with us tonight?) and then I suspect he’ll go to sleep pretty early as he usually does on Friday nights now, he’s at his parents for a good chunk of time tomorrow (I have a pass (woooo!) as I have other plans…which I would have cancelled if he wasn’t going to his parents), we’re going to visit some of his cousins tomorrow night before we carry on to a party at my friend’s house and so the only time I can really spend any quality time with him is Sunday. 

Which is when he’s decided he’s going to do all the yard work while I do my regular Sunday chores of cleaning up, ironing and doing laundry.  Not to mention I have to work on Itchy & Scratchy as I’m under a deadline here people! 

And then he’s going to go and watch the game at a bar.  The game starts at 6pm which means he’ll leave at 5pm and he’ll be lucky to get home by 9pm.  If he doesn’t run into a bunch of other cousins who will encourage him to stay and have a few drinks and chit chat.  Which means he’ll be home around 10pm, have to deal with all the garbage and recycling (blue job at Casa Not Clean), pack for the week ahead and then bitch to me that there’s no food for him to eat. 

EXACTLY.

I’m not going out of my way to cook food for me if he’s not home.  And I’m certainly not going to make a big dinner and then have him waltz off to watch football all night.  Oh we can eat early he said.  Right.  Maybe when I’m 65 I’ll feel like eating at 4:30.  Until then…well I have two words.  One starts with F and the other with O.

Ever mindful of my tendency to overreact in a (possibly) negative way to him wanting to spend time with his family I suggested that maybe he watch the first half of the game and come home at half time.  We can salvage dinner together and the remainder of the evening. 

No he told me, he wants to see the whole game.  Not negotiable.

I’m thinking about calling a locksmith.  If he wants to hang out with his friends/family over his wife I’m sure they’d be happy to let him sleep on their sofa.  At least until Dec 18 when he takes possession of the cottage.

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Knitting right along

My wrists are aching and I have calluses (or is that calli?) on my fingers but Itchy and Scratchy is coming right along.  I’ve almost finished the front and tonight I will cast on for the sleeves.  Two at once to combat boredom and then the back.  If all goes well (and I forgo sleep) I hope to be done by next Friday at the latest.

And it really is deliciously itchy and scratchy.  It  just feels so awful and I  swear this yarn is but one step removed from that Phentex plastic crap.  I.  Love.  It.  Well, I love the fact that it’s so vile and that the  FIL will be obligated to wear it. 

Although, I kind of think that all that itchy-and-scratchy-awesomeness will be wasted on the FIL.  I’m pretty sure he has no idea what nice wool feels like and the  MIL has no idea either since she once told me that a ripple afgan she crocheted (it’s actually very nice) needed to be handwashed as it was made out of wool.  Umm yeah wool that came from petrochemical sheep.  It’s 100% acrylic.  To quote the Penguins from Madagascar “smile and wave boys, smile and wave”.

But I’ll know the truth and I’ll laugh my ass off every time the FIL wears it.  Long live Itchy and Scratchy!  And since Itchy is a petrochemical product it really will last forever. 

Pictures will be posted very soon.

Slumlords

You all know DH is working on-site for the next year or so.  Maybe longer (although God I hope not).  Anyway, DH is very lucky in that his company pays him a very nice per diem which probably works out to more than my post-tax income. 

So, DH is living in a ratty dorm-type residence and not liking it all that much.  I am living in Casa Not Clean with only the cat for company most of the week and not liking it all that much either.  But before DH left for the on-site, one of my coworkers suggested we look into buying property up there.  The on-site is in one of my province’s cottage country regions (sadly not Muskoka…although we wouldn’t have been able to afford buying a boat house up there let alone a real house) so we tossed around the idea of buying a winterized cottage and having DH live there while he’s working on-site and possibly renting it out to another of his co-workers to give him some company and offset some bills.

Last week the deal was finalized.  We are now the pround owners of a three bedroom-yet-to-be-seen-by-me-winterized-yet-to-be-finished-basement-craptastically-furnished-close-to-but-not-on-the-lake cottage.  We may rent it out on (long) weekends.  We hope to rent it out during the summer at some point to recoup some of our investment as well.  But for now, all we want to do is pay off our mortgages (so weird to have more than one) and dump all the craptastic furniture currently residing in Casa Not Clean’s basement at the cottage.

At. The. Cottage.  Never thought I’d say those words.  Never thought I’d own one either.

Like a phoenix rising from the flames

It’s no secret that I don’t like my FIL.  Picture Archie Bunker, but with a Greek accent and that’s the FIL.  Although Archie Bunker was slightly more enlightened.  But before you start to feel bad for the FIL, he doesn’t like me much either.  In fact, last Christmas he told the DH (in front of the WHOLE family) that he made a mistake marrying me.  Good times.

So why am I making the FIL a sweater for Christmas you ask?  That’s a lot of time to spend making someone I don’t like something.  Well, I like my uncle-in-law a lot.  And I have some really nice wool to  make him a sweater.  But I can’t make a sweater for him (the UIL) and not the FIL.  We open presents in front of each other on Christmas Day and while I really don’t like the FIL I’m not going to throw it out there for all to see….I’m trying to take the high road here.

So the plan is to make the UIL a sweater out of nice wool and make the FIL a crew neck sweater made out of the grossest, scratchiest, itchiest acrylic I have in my stash.  The FIL will be obligated to wear it and it will be uncomfortable.  Yes, I am evil and yes, I am going to hell.  I’ll probably see many of you there.

I started Itchy last year  (there’s a post somewhere in the archives but I’m lazy and  can’t be arsed to link it) but gave up on it.  I found it again last month and had to frog most of it, but it’s back baby!  Itchy and Scratchy has risen like a phoenix from the flames and will live to torment the FIL.  Which is why blog posts have been few and far between.  Give me a week or so and I’ll post a picture of Itchy in all it’s glory.  Bwah ha ha ha ha.  Ahem.  Excuse me now, I’ve got a sweater to knit.

 

Some weird random sh!t

Hallowe’en is traditionally a time of weirdness.  I’ve got more than a bit of pagan in me and I truly believe that the “veil” between the worlds is very thin around this time of the year.  You’re welcome to your thoughts and beliefs on this matter but I’m a believer myself.  There’s a lot we can’t explain and I’m inclined to not dismiss things just because Science says it’s a load of bunk.

Also, “the sight” runs in my family.  I don’t claim to have it myself but I can’t totally disregard those who do.

Anyway.  In the past four days there’ve been some strange things happening around Casa Not Clean House.  First odd occurrence….our pumpkin disappeared.  It wasn’t smashed, broken or otherwise abused.  It just disappeared.  Poof!  Which is strange as it wasn’t particularly well carved (I made a cat…boring) and it was huge.  At least 15 lbs.  And it was sitting on our porch which meant that whoever took it had to come pretty much right up to the front door to get it.  Which creeps me out when I think about it since I’m home alone now for most of the week.  But it’s gone.  Disappeared into the night, without a trace.

Second odd occurrence.  A bag of random garbage was dropped off in front of our house.  Ok, so this isn’t so much odd but annoying.  Still, in the year and a half that we’ve lived at Casa Not So Clean we’ve never been the recipients of random garbage dumping.

Third odd occurrence.  Yesterday I came home to find our banana tree (well, some kind of exotic, flat leaf tree that I call a banana tree) had fallen over and snapped clean in half.  I had recently moved it slightly closer to the wall but it was totally stable and and most importantly, it was healthy. 

Finally, and this is the last odd occurrence, one of our neighbours was grilling me about where another neighbour’s green bin disappeared to.  Probably the same place as my pumpkin but let’s not go there.  Anyway, said neighbour only noticed YESTERDAY that we have two giant green bins and wondered where the second one came from as his neighbour’s went missing. 

Well Concerned Nneighbour, if you had been paying attention for the past year, you’d have noticed we regularly put out TWO green bins and that ONE came with Casa Not So Clean and that the second was delivered brand-spanking new from the city we live in.  Also, as an aside, if I was to take the neighbour’s green bin, I’d probably not take one from the guy who lives thee houses down from us on the other side of the street.  I’m lazy and that’s just too much work to drag it all theway back to my house.  I’d probably pinch the one from the students who live next door to us as they are, oh, NEXT DOOR to us.  Just sayin.

Now none of these are particularly creepy events (except for the pumpkin maybe but I’m inclined to blame drunken students for that) but they are kind of random.  And they are all annoying and they all happened in and around Hallowe’en.  All I know is that this business better stop and whatever Fairy Folk we have kicking around Casa Not So Clean had best stop with their shenanigans.  I have an active enough imagination to freak my self out all by myself.  I certainly don’t need otherworldly help to me along.