Have you ever paid attention to the little term ‘Blogroll’ that is often on many blogs on the internet? I do, in fact I do it meticulously, especially when I’ve discovered a new site (or had one shared with me).

I have my own Blogroll, have you seen it?  Are you on it?  I have only those on there that I read often.  They aren’t in any particular order, but all have very interesting things to say.  I wanted to do a little thing that may seem a little odd, but I don’t really care, it’s my blog .  I’m going to list my blogroll here and say a smidgen about the blog itself and why I read it.  Some are bookmarked in my favourites, some are just on here because they are wonderful writers and entertain me when I’m doing my procrastinating.  This idea to blog of this stemmed because of a comment on yesterday’s post from Louise, who I would consider to be famous because of her and her husband’s extraordinary means of retirement-travel (you’ll see below in Odyssey’s description).  On their site, she posted today how she’d like readers to submit their own websites (of any type, not just blogs) just so she (and I imagine Sean was curious too) can get an idea of who the readers really are.  It’s a great idea in my mind.  So I’m doing a different version of my own that I read (because I don’t know that I have enough readers to sustain the same topic as Louise!).  I’ll post them alphabetically.

#1. Antique Mommy – This lady is a very talented writer and she seems to have been blogging a good amount of time.  Her name Antique mommy came from the fact that she is a mom in her later years, of a young boy.  I won’t state her age, that’s her thing .  She quite often writes small snippets, and will also share the most hilarous conversations with her son.  Then she’ll share an inspiring story say of her Gramma’s sibling that died.  All-in-all its a beautifully written nice blog to read.  I don’t read it daily, nor even weekly really as I pick and choose based upon time, but she is still on my Blogroll because I can’t bear to delete such a talented writer!LOL!

#2. Bird on a Wire – This is the blog of a gal I went to school with.  I stumbled upon her blog, most likely from a friend and was immediately hooked.  She is witty, and has such an unusual writing style that I rarely miss a post.  Her first writings I took in were mostly about her adventures in Thailand as she was teaching ESL there with a hilarious group of friends (of whom I’ve read some of too).  Lately it has been more along the lines of settling back into the normal living of a Canadian, tax paying, wine drinking, homemaker house-wife along the rest of us, and its a great read.  Okay, she’s not a house-wife technically because she’s not a ‘wife’ per se, but she writes about getting used to the normal life, or whatever else she’s imagining that day.  An awesome read.

#3. Cooking with Altitude – What I used to think of as a strange title, or at least a misspelled one has turned into just a great way to get to know an OL friend a little better.  This is Brenda, and she lives in an area whose altitude made cooking a bit of a hassle, and she loves to do it, so experimentation with cooking I imagine is what brought her to name her blog that way.  I read her blog mostly to see what she’s up to, and to see lovely pics of her cutie dd.

#4. Just a mom … – This is Corra, and like Brenda, she is a part of a group who all have similarly aged kids, and a bunch of us shared our blogs.  Corra’s isn’t updated as often as I’d like because I really enjoy her writing.  It’s very chronological in style (such as ‘we did, this this and then this’) and I like to read what is happening with a fellow Canadian in a different province.  I also love her title, aren’t we all trying to stay sane in our daily lives?

#5. Leigha & the Triplets – This is Cathy. Cathy is a crazy woman who also belongs to the group with Brenda and Corra, but with 1 major difference, that is mightily obvious from her blog title.  She is a mom of a wonderful dd, but also of triplet boys, yes, she knows she is crazy.  There is no doubt her life is special, crazy, and utterly chaotic, especially when we get stories such as when her boys dumped liquid detergent on her floor, or the stitches they’ve received, but we also get the wonderful stories of their birth and survival, and their first day of school.  It’s been awesome to read of her adventures, and to think she is doing this with her dh being in Japan for 18 months.  Yes, she knows she’s crazy .

#6. Matthies Madness – This is another wonderful lady from that group of women.  I know it’s not right to pick favourites, but again, this is my blog, I’ll do what I want.  This is my favourite blog.  This is a wonderful lady who I find quite inspiring.  She brings me through her good times, crazy times, fun concert times, and rough times and I feel like I’m right beside her.  She’s a great lady, and a good friend.  I read her daily (or whenever she posts), she’s like a morning cuppa java, it’s almost a necessity.

#7. My Tiny Kingdom – This is a gal much like Antique mommy where every post she writes is funny, and filled with often gross stories of what her sons have been up to.  There’s been all kinds of posts and each one is unique, but her wit comes through.  I’d recommend her to anyone’s daily readings.  She’s been through a lot and has written about most of it (from Hep. C, to her back surgery, to her mom’s death) and it’s been awe inspiring and tear jerking at times.  A great, great writer.

#8. Our Odyssey – This is the newest of my Blogroll and is probably the most interesting I have found.  This is written by a couple who after being married a short while (no kids) decided to retire and retrofit an older model German made bus-type vehicle to their own specifications in order to travel the countryside.  This is probably the most amazing transformation of a vehicle I’ve ever seen and the end product is amazing and I would highly recommend readers sifting through their multiple videos on the layout of their home on wheels.  This is the blog of whom I stole the basis of this idea for (and also who commented to me on my post yesterday).

#9. Pammie – This is the computer guru of that group of women of which Corra, Brenda, Kristina, Cathy and I belong to.  She is the ultimate computer gal and has often saved some of our asses when it comes to our beloved connections to each other, the computer.  She is extremely smart and has just started blogging again recently, so I’m still in the process of adding her to my daily ritual just as she is in the process of becoming a Southern Belle .

#10. Snow Bound – This is my Northern friend Donna who is also a fictional writer as well as being a great blog writer.  Unfortunately her blog seems to be abandoned as of late, so hopefully she’ll get back into it soon, or I may delete her … sounds so nasty!LOL!  I met Donna online as a fellow writer of fiction stories on a board (that no longer exists) and we’ve kind of bumped into each other over and over again over the years, through Writer’s Cafe (a now non-existent bb again), through NOTI (a semi-private bb that is short for ‘Not of This Ilk’), and finally through that wonderful board that Pam runs.

That’s it, that’s all. That’s my blogroll.

and it’s only 1pm.  It feels like it’s about 3 or 4 in the afternoon with all that has transpired.

Last night I went to a home party where I bought way too much stuff for my home (I won’t advertise them ), but good stuff, so it was worth it.  Most home parties like this are cram packed with moms of many kinds; single working, SAHM, self-employed, OCD and non-chalant-types (like me!).  This party was no exception.  But what connects us all is our kids, and our concerns for them.

The topic of the dreaded plastic leaching BPAs came up.  It’s almost as controversial as religion or politics, but not as heated (no pun intended – you’ll only get that pun if you read on, or know of the BPA issues).  BPAs are a chemical used in plastics to help it do something I don’t know (yeah, bundle of knowledge here), but it’s an additive in most hard, clear plastics, like baby bottles, and has been known to leach out of the plastics when heated to certain temperatures (hence the ‘heated’ pun, get it?).

So of course I came home relay to my better half about what a dunce his wife is for not ever hearing the news as this is actually 8 month old news.  I didn’t check the bottles then and there, as it was getting late and I was selfishly tired.

This morning I spent some of it pouring over information on my particular brand of bottles.  I was appalled to find out that the companies that make these don’t even care.  There isn’t even a rebuttal or ‘press release’ anywhere on their sites, it’s like hear-no-evil kinda shit.  It took about an hour’ish of searching to find a few reputable sites on the internet where I found that sure enough, my bottles were among the mid-range kind to leach BPAs upon heating (mostly in the dishwasher, but also in the microwave if you’re a bad mommy like me and occasionally zap its contents).  Crap.  Thankfully, my sippy cups were not affected, not that I found that information on that manufactureres website either, but as I was searching for my brand of sippy cup, I came across that it also affects containers and water bottles.

Shit.

Off I go to Rubbermaid©.  Now, are you shocked?  I actually typed a brand name, and here’s why.  Not only did Rubbermaid© post on their very front page a clear link to a new page on the BPA issue, but they actually posted out clearly a very thorough list of their own products which contain BPA as well as those that do not.  I was so impressed.  Granted their first page was a type of hoo-ha that tried to allay any fears like ‘BPAs have been used in the plastic industry for years’, but that doesn’t deter me from praising their name for taking this head on and letting me, the consumer, have the absolute final choice in what I do with my Rubbermaid© products.

So after doing my research (yes, I get that an hour isn’t true research, but I ain’t a scientist ya know – or a language nerd either ) I went onto a forum I go to and did a feeler post to see what others think of the whole thing.  I got what I thought I would, plus a piece of information that I didn’t know.  Being Canadian quite often our news is U.S. news, so I wasn’t sure what Canada’s take on it was.  Come to find out that we’re ahead of the U.S. in the game as our government has declared BPA a dangerous substance, so a ban on it will probably not be too far behind.  Plus I also learned that major retailers are actually accepting exchanges of the BPA bottles.  WOOHOO!  I was so happy.  Not that the cost to replace would deter me, but it’s definitely a nice bonus.

So after making my list I went off and phoned around to the retailer I originally thought I got the bottles from.  I was ecstatic to learn that yes, they do accept them back on store credit.  I phoned dh to tell him the good news and he said, ‘wait, you didn’t get it at that store, you got it at so-and-so’.  Shit.  So back to the phone I went and phoned the truly original store.  To my surprise they were not accepting any returns without receipts.  I’m usually gung-ho on saving receipts but not for these items of course, so I tried the main branch of that store and they were willing to accept them as a straight across exchange, no store credit.  I’ll take it, as it’s better than zip.  If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have shopped there again.

So I bundle up Sweet Pea for the rain and head off to the store.  The poor little bugger was really thirsty as all he had was a couple of slurps from a sippy cup that he is no where near ready to use on a constant basis.  I walk into the store to find the same clueless clerk as what was on the phone and figured I was screwed on getting out of there anytime soon.  I was right, but she was extremely helpful.  She had to get a supervisor to tell her how to do it, and it worked.  I think she was shocked at the original pricing as I exchanged 9 bottles, worth about $30 and was only purchasing a $15 set, plus I think a little guilt set in at how much I had to wait, so she snuck me a $5 gift card!WOOHOO!

I got the new bottles, sped back home to find out how well they work and am very happy to report he took to them very well and snarfed down a good portion of a bottle.  At first he wanted nothing to do with the strange bottle, but once I squirted a bit of the good stuff in his mouth, he slurped it down.

Checked my Facebook message to find out my Gramma got the call this morning that there is room in a local nursing home for my Grampa.  It was only 2 weeks ago I wrote that it was clear he needed one as it was getting awful for my Gramma, and now it’s here, yet I’m still sad.  Funny really as it is a necessity for my Gramma to live (the lack of sleep alone is killing her-but she’s also injured herself trying to help him up from a fall) as he is now permanently in a wheelchair and cannot stand, but we’re all shocked and dismayed because it has happened.  I know nursing homes can be a death sentence for most people, so I think it may be that realization that is causing the pain.

It is definitely true that even though you attempt to prepare yourself for all the upcoming sadness, it doesn’t help it not come.  I’m just glad for my Gramma now.  It won’t be long now and he won’t be here with us anymore.

I wrote only a few days ago about my upcoming weekend, which is now passed of course, about how weird I thought it was going to be, but it seemed almost normal. Of course, we missed my Grampa like crazy and a few tears were shed, but only at a certain time (be patient, your almost at that story ).

Wednesday, the day I wrote my last post, dh came home from work and we got gung-ho about packing the trailer. We were close to finishing and I was just putting Sweet Pea’s diapers in the washer when he sidles up to me and asks if I want to leave immediately after we were packed. Of course I was completely excited to go and said yes, knowing full well my kids would be mental by having to drive 3 hours starting at 7:00 p.m. But, we did it anyway.

The first night was not pleasant, that is for sure. Not only did Sweet Pea barely sleep the first night, he did not nap more than 2 hours the next day as there was so much to bloody well see! Thankfully he’s so good natured, that second day with him wasn’t hell. In fact, he was a little peach and it made up for the mental night before. My aunt K arrived that night, and with a bit of confusion, missing tree limbs, and a tad bit of fear, my uncle had their trailer parked, set up and their kids and mine started having fun. Even their 15 y/o was extremely great.

The next day was spent waiting. Waiting for my brother S to arrive, waiting for my parents to arrive, waiting for my cousins D & C, and making random 25¢ bets as to when everyone would arrive and of course deciding unanimously that my aunt L and uncle S would arrive dead last. I didn’t win any of the money, so I lost 75¢.

The evening was fantastic, the kids had a blast, the adults were undoubtedly loud, but a good time was had by all. Plans were made for the next day’s golf adventure. I, however, was not participating in that particular event. At the weight I am now, I can’t imagine even attempting to try and swing a club, I’d put my back out and wheeze the entire course, even with a cart. So I opted out, but with not much remorse as it gave me time to catch up on a few things, like finally getting back into my writing and tackling a few story line directions.

After Saturday’s golf, it was my family’s turn to put together a gigantic feast for supper. My parents bought a bunch of rib eye steaks (insert drooling icon there), I was informed there that I was responsible for the caeser salad (oops on that one, I had no supplies!), and we had taters packets too (potatoes, sliced thinly, onions, mushrooms in a foil packet with butter, salt and pepper, BBQ’d). It was so delish.

The Sunday went much the same. Golf in the morning for everyone else (15 in total) while I spent quiet time with just me and Sweet Pea with a giant feast afterward hosted by another part of the family. Ham,
baked taters, spinach salad, and potato salad. The evening was littered with dirty kids (who had a blast burying each other in a sand pile), big laughs, and ended with a few tears shed.

You see, as I wrote last week, my aunt had arranged to have a tree planted on the 8th hole behind the campground. We even watered the beautiful little Mayday with rye and water as a bit of a christening. We planted it in view of the campground in a fantastic little spot just off the fairway where it’ll get a lot of water. It was a teary moment, yet beautiful. My dad broke down a bit as this will have been the 4th in this family to die (brother first in 1974, mom next in 1987, sister in 2004 (she followed her dh by only about 6 weeks – both of liver failure), and now his dad this year), I think it may have been a bit much. But what made the tears flow harder was when my Bing and her cousin noticed him crying, they both ran to him and embraced him as only granddaughters can do to a very loved grampa. It was just such a sweet, tearful moment. We will always remember the moment. My gramma couldn’t attend as she’d be too much of a mess and she can only handle so much of the memories and pain. She was doing well though and even joked about maybe moving to Mexico now because she can.

Just a side note, it was so wonderful to chat with her on the one day were down there. Where we ‘camped’ is actually at a golf course in the middle of town, so a short jaunt to her house. Since she is unable to drive she asked if we would come up for lunch with her on the Friday before everyone else started to arrive. We had such a good chat and it was so good to see how much she’s enjoyed since he’s been gone. We know she’s had bad days, but it’s so nice to hear they don’t horribly out number the good. She bought a DVD player (never had one as grampa would ever allow anything but the weather channel and ‘roll-around’ to be on without sound – gramma even teased about not even realising her tv had sound), has watched a few tv shows, and has even attended a concert. All sorts of stuff that not only did she have little time to do so, I think she almost forgot she would’ve enjoyed them. Her whole life revolved around grampa and what he wanted and most especially at the end when he was so sick, all routines were his. I’m so happy for her.

Okay, back to the normal story. Monday, oh yeah, today was the time to pack for home. Everyone packed up fairly early, and a few left by 10′ish and I had plans to leave by around noon. At around 11:30 dh and I were pretty much packed up and all that was left was to hook onto the trailer. My brother had parked his motorhome directly in front of our fifth wheel, but we thought there was enough room between to sneak our truck inbetween, kind of jack-knifing the truck (so it locks onto the trailer perpendicular instead of straight onto it). Everything was going well, but it almost got locked on and the truck kind of stopped as if something was blocking the pin from engaging the hitch. So dh flipped on our E-brake and jumped out of our truck to inspect. Our E-brake is funny, it does engage fully, but for some odd reason there is slight rolling of the wheels, just about an inch or so. Once the truck did it’s slight roll, I heard the strangest sound, a weird popping sound and heard my brother say ‘uh-oh’. He was standing beside me, sort of blocking my view so I had to go around him and see what happened.

No, my truck’s back window does not roll down, it is missing in this picture. I was in such shock to my system that I didn’t think to take a picture until the back window had been already removed.

The back window shattered. You can see in the pictures the angle that dh was attempting to hook on with. In the bottom picture, the very far right shows where my brother’s motorhome is by the white spare tire cover sticking out. Instead of asking my brother to scootch his motorhome forward so we could hook on, I didn’t want to be a bother, didn’t watch dh back up (as I usually do) and the back window was in a million little pieces because it was pushed in by the front edge of the trailer. I didn’t know glass could do that, but it’s also a safety feature, only where the trailer pushed into the window was there any pointed shards. Thankfully it held together a little by the defrost wires long enough for my dad (the goofy guy bleeding in the close-up and waving through my non-existent window in the far one) and dh (bent over head in the first pic) to get a couple of boxes together to remove the glass to the dumpster. After a few hours of sweeping, bleeding, vacuuming, duct taping boxes and rehooking up (after asking my brother to move ahead ), we were finally on our way, with a lot of noise, a bit of sadness (at the perceived cost to replace mostly) and very tired (I’m starting to not be able to type much anymore, so after this is posted, I’m heading off to bed).

All-in-all, it was a fanastic time. If that window was the worst of the weekend (which it was), I’ll take it. The kids played good, the adults played good, and we’ll continue the tradition, always remembering the reason we started to go. Good-bye grampa, we love you dearly.