November & December

Wow…the last little while has been pretty insane! :/ I went to Brockville in the end of October and beginning of November to visit Steve for a week again, and in that time, we went looking for an apartment to rent for the 1st of December…we had been talking about finding an apartment to rent for January, but we decided to just do it for the first of December instead. So, we started looking around. We went to one apartment to view it, and it was remarkably small – very nice, but way too small for the two of us. Oh boy.  So we kept on looking…the second place was just outside of Brockville and that one was huge.

We did consider that one, as it had two bedrooms, two living rooms, a kitchen, and a deck that we could use, so it was nice, but it was right over a garage, and I was not sure how quiet it would be with it being right over a garage. Steve seemed to like it…but we decided to look at one more apartment.  The huge apartment was a bit out of the way, so I wasn’t too sure if we should take it or not, even though we both really liked it. *laughs* It was huge, really, really huge so…

We then took a look at a third apartment, just to have more options, and that apartment was where one of Steve’s co-worker also lived in. He knew the apartment well and liked it, so we went and looked at it. It was pretty nice, bigger than the first place we looked at, and the landlord was very talkative.  Pretty funny actually. She was asking me about my last name, as she knew a Stagg herself, so…I had to tell her it was my married name…heh. A little weird, I will have to have my last name changed soon…I just keep putting it off…so it’s a pain.  Steve and I both talked about the apartment and we liked the third, the price was good and the size was good, so we went ahead and took it. But the funny thing is, I still haven’t signed a lease, which is pretty ridiculous. *laughs* I have already moved in!! Should be doing that sometime this week so I can bring it in to disability and show them that I have moved.

Anyway, we looked around, and got the apartment that we wanted, and I started packing up as soon as I returned back to Kingston…there was so much sorting that I had to do so it was not a lot of fun. I already lived in a two bedroom place as it was and it was filled to the brim. *laughs* And I have to move in with someone else, so I had to really sort through my stuff and decide what to keep and what to get rid of…it’s not been so much fun actually. And also on the week that I was at Brockville in the beginning of November, I actually got to sell my engagement ring, so I was really happy about that. Heh…the older lady who purchased it loved it so much, so I got my money and that got done and over with. I still only have the wedding band left. But I have sold my engagement ring, my wedding miscellaneous…so I’m getting some good leeway there now. It’s not been too much fun actually, but I want to get rid of as much as I can.  I’m currently selling my wedding band, two Christmas ornaments that I got from my ex-husband that says Our Christmas together, and they are pretty mushy, so I thought I’d try to sell them when I could. Don’t need it now, especially not while I’m seeing Steve.

Anyway, the time before the move was a bit crazy actually. *laughs* Oh, I also went to the Pacemaker Clinic for my routine check up for my pacemaker, and the funny thing was: my doctor came up to me saying that he was going to raise the limit that the pacemaker puts on my heart rate to a higher limit, because the limit it was at right now was too low, and was actually bad for my heart. I was surprised, and went, what? It’s bad for it? It’s been like this for years!!! 12 years to be specific. Wow.  So, when I went in the clinic for my appointment, I was sleepy, and when I came out of my appointment I was perked up and awake with the small difference they put on my heart rate for the pacemaker. It was a really weird feeling…I haven’t felt this awake in years and years and years!  It’s a good thing, I have more energy now so it’s a lot better. But it definitely was scary hearing that though.

Anyway, I figured I would need to get my cat Violet declawed, because the new apartment had carpet, and I knew Violet has this tendency to claw the rugs right up, it was her thing…so I figured, that since I was moving in an apartment with carpet that I should try to see if I should get her declawed. So I called the vet, and asked about it…she needed her shots as well, and was asking about when I could get her declawed, and they said that I could do it pretty soon, so I was surprised...but they did mention that she was an older cat so she may not be too happy for a bit about it…so oops. I found out how old she was in November, they said she was 9 years and 3 months old…I didn’t realize she was that old! *laughs* Wow…I thought she was maybe 7 years old…I didn’t think I had her that long!  Time sure flies. :S

Anyway, I brought her in for an overnight visit at the vet and having her getting checked up before the surgery, and went back home…in the night the vet called saying that it seemed that Violet had something wrong with her, but wasn’t sure, and was going to keep checking up on her and finding out what was wrong with her, and if she was actually sick they couldn’t do the surgery. So I was like, okay, doesn’t sound good but okay…just all wait and see. In the morning the vet called and said that they found that she had a kidney infection and they couldn’t do the surgery yet, because she was sick with a kidney infection and had to give her antibiotics and let her heal. I was like, okay, I actually didn’t know she had anything wrong with her. When I got her back she was all relieved, but wasn’t happy she was at the vet all night. *laughs* Now I’m not even sure if I am going to get her declawed, knowing how old she really is. :S So just have to see. She’s at the new apartment right now and she still has her claws… just occasionally tries to claw the rug. The rug is pretty thin, not thick rugs like my old place had…so oh well. Just have to see…I do have to call the vet here in Brockville and have her checked up soon…actually any time. *L* And make sure she’s actually all better. Oh well… just with her being sick, the vet bill was like 360 bucks…I nearly cried. I haven’t even gotten her declawed yet and that is supposed to be over $500 to do!  That was expensive, so I have to wait and see.

The day I dropped Violet off to the vet, I found out that my desktop computer wasn’t working right, and I was a bit confused…kept on checking and checking, and found that one of the drives that Windows was on had become nonexistent, so that was pretty sad actually. Ugh. So I just left it alone and started using my little netbook instead for the moment so…that wasn’t much fun. After I moved to Brockville, I went to Future Shop with Steve to look for a new computer, and I found one, a good sized one and bought it, it was nice and cheap actually so I liked that. Heh… So I bought it, and have been using that computer since. Oh well!!! I like it, though not used to working with Windows 7 at the moment. *smile*

I went out to Raxx’s a bit with my mom and her boyfriend and his sons…so that was good…just having a break and getting out of the house with all the boxes and all the disaster that was in the apartment with me sorting through my stuff. Wow.  Steve decided to come down at one point, to bring me the lease so I could sign my name on the lease for him and the landlord, and I brought him to Raxx’s there for their rib special…it was good.  Heh…

Then the moving day was pretty insane.  Steve moved a few days before the 1st of December, but he was lucky, didn’t have that much to move anyway.  So I hired movers to move my stuff and all that, and they came first thing on the 1st of December, and started moving stuff, then drove to Brockville, while I rode with my mom and John, and they started moving up stuff to my new apartment. *laughs* They really didn’t like the stairs much actually. I personally don’t like the stairs, but there’s no elevators in most apartments in Brockville so it was pretty insane.  So they had to just do it. *laughs* This was the reason why I got movers actually…no one wanted to move my stuff up and down the stairs. Haha… Funny.

A lot of my stuff was all good, except for my desk where the wheels on the bottom of the desk broke, so I removed all the wheels of the desk and now it’s fine here.  My tall lamp broke in half surprisingly, but it was okay because Steve had two tall lamps anyway.  Pretty funny though. I wasn’t sure how Violet would like the whole idea of moving to a new place, and so on, and so on…after all she cannot stand Steve at all…if he comes too close to her or tries to pet her, she starts swiping at him with her claws and meowing loudly and hissing…she really cannot stand him. Poor Steve – he loves cats as it is, but Violet doesn’t like having anything to do with Steve. *laughs* It’s crazy. But overall Violet seems to be enjoying the new apartment, surprisingly enough.

The unpacking then started after the move was over, and I started getting used to the whole living in Brockville thing. It was really weird…and I soon figured out that I lived really, really close to the mall, it was actually just across the street from me…so that was pretty crazy. *smile* My bank is really close to me as well, it’s probably just two blocks away from me…so it was funny finding out all the places that was close to my apartment. *L* Everything is really close so I’m not used to it… haha.  I’m liking it, for sure!

Oh, before I moved I tried to get all my Christmas shopping done and over with, and I think I did before December…which was pretty hilarious. I wanted to have it done and over with, because of the move, the unpacking would be taking forever and so on…so it was good.  Still had a few odds and ends to pick up, but they were easy enough to get. Heh...picked them up after I had moved in so generally I’m done. That’s one nice part about it all! Haha…

What else? I also sold my old film SLR camera the other day to someone who wanted it for a Christmas present, so that was good…I was surprised it was one of the fastest thing to be sold actually…it’s a film camera? *laughs* It was funny, but the person wanted it so no problem…no complaints there!  I’m still trying to sell my Christmas ornaments, but for some reason a lot of the respondents are from Kingston, not Brockville, so it’s a little odd, for sure.  Oh well.

I’m getting there, to getting everything done before Christmas, at least. I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to be doing for Christmas…I know that I’m probably going to go to Steve’s friend and volunteer at TVCogeco’s Christmas party with his family on Christmas Eve, but otherwise I think I’m going to see my mom for Christmas day and go out to the restaurant like I did last year and have dinner there.  I think Steve may join us, but it’s all wait and see.  Oh well…after that, I have no idea. All wait and see, of course.  It’ll be interesting, that’s for sure. Heh…

Oh, yes, last Saturday Steve was all wanting to get a videocamera, as that’s what he wanted for Christmas, but he didn’t want to wait till then, he wanted it now, and so we went out to Ottawa to get him one, and all that…then after picking up his new videocamera we then went to Steve’s friend’s house and said hey…I have never met him before, but he was pretty funny.  You can really see the difference on how Steve treats me and how he is around his friends, and it’s quite amusing.  We went to his house, talked, and hung out, till the time when Cory (Steve’s friend) had to go to Royal Oak to set up for karaoke that he does once a month, and then a lot of silliness ensued from there.  Lots of singing and of course I knew nothing as I cannot hear, but I got told who was good and bad, so it was pretty funny.  Just watching everyone sing – Cory, a couple of guys that just went ahead and sang, and Steve even sang one song…he has said he is a really bad singer. Haha…Figures. It was just more silly than anything else…around 10:30 or so, Steve and I headed back to Brockville.  I even asked Kat if she wanted me to stop by, but since it was a bit too last minute, she was at her parents place so I didn’t get to see her at all. Cory actually lived close to Kat so that was a little funny. Maybe another time – Steve likes to visit his friends in Ottawa a bit, so it’ll be good anyway.

It’s been a crazy little bit, that’s for sure!  Whew!

Brockville, Zaiden, Thanksgiving, My Wellness

Okay, what do I say now? So much has been happening that it’s been crazy. I can barely remember what has been going on. The week in Brockville was pretty good, though I wasn’t sure about going in the first place, because my brother’s baby was supposed to be due on the 25th of September. Heh. I was leaving for Brockville on the 25th, so oops. *smile* John and my mom drove me up to Brockville, and then I just mellowed out with Steve as it was Sunday after all. The week was not bad, Steve went to work part time the entire week with some days off, so it was interesting...summers are usually his work’s slow time so he was able to take off more days when I was down. I didn’t ask him to, but oh well.

It was fun...we ended up going out to different parks and playing around with my camera and mellowed out here and there. I watched a movie with him, the new Transformers: Dark of the Moon movie, and it was good. We went out checking out Brockville, and unfortunately the weather was generally pretty bad so we stayed in a bit. :/ Oh well. It was relaxing for me and him too.

And luckily Jase and Kelly hadn’t given birth yet, when I came back on October 2nd...so it was still a waiting game then. Later they said that they were going to have the pregnancy induced, so that they could have the baby out quicker. So oh well, fun for sure. Heh. On October 5th, they went in to have Kelly induced, so they were hoping the baby would be born that day, but it didn’t happen, they ended up sitting around for a long time in the hospital waiting, and they finally induced Kelly at around 5 in the afternoon, and she gave birth to their son at 12:19am...so the baby was born on the 6th of October, of course. I didn’t know what they were planning on naming the baby, until after he was born, and his name is Zaiden. Kelly and Jase wanted his name to be different so to offset the plain last name of Smith. Of course my brother wanted to put my dad’s name in his name, which is typical, so he ended up being Zaiden Christopher Smith...so that’s not a surprise. He looked cute, and the day the baby was born on, my mom decided to go and visit them both in the hospital, and help them out if possible, and my mom, John and I went to the hospital to meet the baby. *L* We stayed for around a hour or so...then we all went back home so to let Kelly and Jase rest, as they barely had really slept since the birth...so not fun. The nurses were constantly walking in the room and making Kelly feed the baby all the time, so yeah, they were always waking up. *laughs* Oh well.

When Zaiden was born he kind of looked more like Jase, but it was hard to tell because he had just been born then. *L* I just looked at a new picture of Zaiden today and he actually looks more like Kelly, but as the baby grows he’ll start looking like either one of them as he grows. Heh. It was also crazy, because everyone that I know knows that I don’t want babies, just because I don’t want to give birth...period. And they all were telling me, I know you don’t like babies, but you have to hold your nephew, after all he’s your nephew! I was like, okay, I get that, no worries...if I have to hold him I will, it’s not like I say no to that sort of thing... *L* It was a bit funny that friends were telling me that. Oh well.

The next day after the baby was born, Jase and Kelly then went back home with the baby, and my mom wanted to go over to Belleville so to help them rest up and she’d look after the baby, but they had already rested up better the night before in the hospital so they were okay then. We just hung out there, and talked, as the baby was sleeping most of the afternoon, of course. My mom made everybody dinner so everyone was having some and just mellowing out, and after dinner my mom and I left, as they both seemed fine with not resting up and preparing for the baby and so on. It was nice enough.

The coming weekend was Thanksgiving weekend, and Jase and Kelly were coming by for Thanksgiving dinner at my mom’s place with the baby, and my mom’s boyfriend’s brother and his girlfriend was coming over, along with his two sons, Josh and Jordy, and Steve came with me. Steve had come over for the weekend and came on Sunday and we went out in the countryside, and then went down a trail and started taking pictures of odd stuff and the nature. Steve had asked me to film him filming with my Canon EOS, and I wasn’t sure because I hadn’t actually filmed in a long time. *laughs* I ended up doing it wrong, anyway. Because I was handling a camera, I wasn’t thinking of it as a video camera and keeping it horizontal, and I got a lot of vertical videos. Oops. Haha...It’s been a long time since I have filmed anybody...haha. Oh, yeah – it’s also hilarious, because when my mom and John went grocery shopping for Thanksgiving stuff on Sunday afternoon, she said that she saw my ex-husband walking around the grocery store with his new girlfriend and was telling me about them, and loved it when Eric had walked by my mom and John and holding up a flower pot over his face to hide himself as he walked by them...my mom had already seen him earlier anyway. Haha. It was hilarious and a little immature of him to do that...but I’m glad, and so is my mom, that he has finally found someone else to be with. *smile* It was a bit of a relief for me personally so it was funny actually.

The Thanksgiving dinner on Monday was pretty good, lots of food, and we all chowed down in the living room and was talking to everybody and just hung out. It was funny because at one point in the afternoon, my eyes started swelling up from allergies. I was wearing contacts so I was like, what the hell are my eyes swelling up from? I usually get allergies from outside, but there was nothing like that in my mom’s living room, no outdoor dander in the house so I didn’t know what it was from...one of the materials that was lying around in the basement? I have no idea...but I ended up getting swollen eyes, but was fine otherwise. It was really strange!

Steve ended up going back home that evening as he had to work the next day, so fun for him. But it was a good weekend just hanging out and enjoying ourselves for Thanksgiving. *smile* Everyone was pretty goofy out there so it was nice. The week was quiet, finally, and my birthday came about...I was another year older, so it was like, whatever. *smile* My mom offered to take me out for dinner for my birthday and I could ask Steve to join us as well, so I asked him and he then came by on Saturday afternoon and then we just relaxed and hung out till dinner, and then we went to River Mill restaurant with my mom and John, and ate...the food there was surprisingly good. We all enjoyed it. Steve had ordered buffalo and he said that the other place he had it was better, but it was not too bad there. *smile* I have no idea, I don’t eat buffalo anyway. Hehe...it was nice, and then we headed back home and Steve and I decided to put in a movie and mellow out...we put in Shutter Island, and that was surprisingly good. My mom had told me to try watching it and I kept putting it off and off and off...so I watched it with Steve, and it was pretty good. Very weird, but good. Hehe...my birthday presents were already purchased before the date anyway – my mom paid for half of the camera I had bought already, and Steve had gotten me the camera bag, so it was all nice. *laughs* Just my camera to play around with. Hehe.

It was a nice little while. *smile* Though on Thanksgiving weekend I felt like I had a kidney infection so on the Saturday before Thanksgiving my mom took me to a clinic to get some antibiotics and it checked, so I got antibiotics...when it ended I felt like I still had an infection so I found that to be weird, so I thought I should call my doctor to get it checked again, then I realized I had a kidney stone moving through again as the pain became more specific in my kidney, which was so painful...so I was determined to catch it and bring it to the doctor...I caught one for the very first time and was a bit weirded out by how it looked, and then put it away so I could bring it to the doctor when I could get an appointment set up. Just yesterday I went to the doctor and brought the stone in, he told me that when I went to the clinic and had my pee tested I didn’t have an infection at all as was reported from the medical clinic that I went to for when I thought I had a kidney infection, and I told him I figured that, with the stone moving through...just felt like a crazy infection. :/ Oh well. I just couldn’t tell it was moving because well, I wasn’t drinking enough water. Now I am and I can feel little ones move through all the time...it’s not always comfortable, and other ones are more minor. Blah!

I ended up getting a few things done and over with, with the doctor there, and got a flu shot, so yay, that was so exciting. I hate getting a flu shot, my arm always ends up hurting too much...haha. But it wasn’t too bad this time so it was all good...just had a bit of a tender spot where the needle went in, that’s all. *smile*

Last weekend was a nice quiet weekend for me. I didn’t do much that weekend so it was all good. The coming Sunday I’ll be heading out to Brockville for a week and mellowing out there, so it’ll be good. *smile* I went to the Pacemaker Clinic today and for some strange reason my doctor came up and talked to me about my tiredness and the such like, and said that he would raise my pacemaker’s limits on how high and low it can go and raise the range up higher so that I wasn’t always so sluggish and tired. I was surprised that he said that, I didn’t really know that it was affecting how I was tired all the time and the such like...but we’ll see in the long run...just today when he raised the range up higher, I actually woke up. I was tired in the morning, and then when he raised it up, I wasn’t tired anymore, I was actually awake. At first it was uncomfortable for me, because I wasn’t used to the speed it was going at. *smile* Let’s see if I improve in my energy and what I do, but hopefully my mind will get better and not as sluggish, and me being more active. It feels as if it will, but all wait and see in the long term. It was just raised today, so all wait and see of course. Hehe...it’s weird because he said that the range it was in, how low it was set in was actually not good for my heart. What? You tell me that and it kind of freaks me out. My heart rate is actually very low compared to normal people... *L*

So it was interesting today finding it out. I’ll have to wait and see how my energy is eventually. Hehe.

Labour Day Weekend and Miscellaneous

I’ve been busy doing a lot of different things lately. Just been busy doing stuff with Steve; talking and doing things with my mom and figuring out different things. *smile* The Labour Day weekend was crazy! I ended up doing so much then, that it was unbelievable. I asked Steve if he would help me pick out a good DSLR camera, and he agreed, and he suggested this camera, a Canon EOS 5D; unfortunately the new ones, the 7Ds were out and they weren’t as good as the 5D in his opinion but I was going to go and look around over the Labour Day weekend. *smile* I only know how to use Nikon DSLRs, as that’s what my ex-husband used a lot. And I know what is good and what is bad in those, so I wasn’t sure and had to ask around what else was good so that I could get something. I needed something, it’d come in useful for work and the such like…and they can be fun to use too. Hehe…

So Steve had the Labour Day weekend off, and he came to Kingston for the weekend to relax and hang out, supposedly. We ended up running around the entire weekend that it was ridiculous. *laughs* He wanted to do a lot before it got cold again; he loves being out and active when its warm, not when it’s cold. *laughs* So it was fun. I have no idea where all the places we went to were, but it was still fun. *smile* When he came by on Saturday, we then went up and straight to Henry’s and Future Shop to look around for cameras, and after some talking things out with the salespeople, I ended up getting the Canon EOS 7D at Henry’s, as it was cheaper there than it was at Future Shop…crazy! So I went to get my money, and then bought the camera. Nice…and then we stopped to get some lunch/dinner at Denny’s so it was good. I got back home and got my camera all set up, all charged and ready to go, and then Steve decided to do a lot of checking out of different areas around town and doing a lot of shooting and testing out the DSLR and him videotaping different places.

He then wanted to go to an abandoned house that he had gone in before, and wanted to do a different way of filming it – as in filming me checking out the house with my camera, discovering what visiting an abandoned house was all about, and so on. It was an interesting visit, that’s for sure. There was broken down sheds out back, overgrown grass, the house was half crumbling down to the ground so it was pretty sad pretty much. There was a lot of mold growing everywhere because the house was crumbling down to pieces and all the rain and weather was getting in the house. Sadly enough, but it was interesting checking it out.

Return To The Abandoned House (HD) from Steve Savage on Vimeo.

I was surprised to find that there were no animals lurking about the house. *smile* I kept thinking that there may be, but there was none so it was a little weird. *L* There were a lot of broken windows so it was nuts.

We finished up wandering about the house, and then got in the car and started back home…then we had a late supper.

The next day we were in and out of the house exploring the camera, playing around with shutter speeds, exposure times, and etcetera. We even tried shooting in the nights so it was pretty cool. We tried for longer shutter speeds so to capture the motiion of moving cars in the highways and the roads, so that part was a lot of fun…I got a lot of different photos so it was fun.  Hehe…we explored the camera quite a bit.

We even tried out checking out the horse track stadium so to see what it was all about… it was all open and I saw a couple of people training their horses on the track so that was kind of neat to see. The place was pretty much falling apart, so that was sad, kind of…Steve says that he remembers the place from when he was a kid, and I couldn’t really. I wasn’t sure if I ever went there before…Oh well. We were exploring the place, the land, the track, and we were even able to walk in and explore so that was a lot of fun, finding out what areas might have been before…it was really weird. It was pretty much all wiped out, torn down, but it was neat seeing what used to be and the whole structure. I took a lot of pictures so it was fun. Though we did get in trouble at one point while we were in, we had no idea we were not supposed to be in there or around there, and the guy who runs the place had to get us back down and explained to us that we had to ask permission from the owners to go in, and have someone lead us around…as there had been people who had been injured from going in and things breaking and them going through a floor and the such like, so they like to know that people don’t get hurt while exploring and would prefer people to go to the head guy and ask permission and a tour of the place and he’d show them. I had no idea, and was like, ooh, really? But I know that for next time and ask someone to take me through the building though I did go through a lot of it already. Oops. At one point Steve had to tell me to avoid areas, because there were absestoes, and they were eating through wood and insulation so it was not good. Yuck! *L* I took a lot of pictures and they are in my photo page here on the website, and there’s also a video of the horse track:

Photographing The Old Track (HD) from Steve Savage on Vimeo.

We did some visiting of Kingston Mills, of Kingston’s waterfront, some abandoned places like an abandoned gas station, and the such like…even went to check out some railways and that was kind of fun… *smile* I even went to a park, where there was a train track nearby, so it was kind of different to check out, and photograph so it was fun just exploring and doing a lot of different things.

I wanted to try those motion photographs that I remembered doing in college for photography classes, only then I had film cameras. So this way I could see what I took immediately…so it was kind of funny. We took some shots of cars going by in the nights, some shots of trains going by, so that was fun… And so on, so on, it was really fun. I even had Steve go by the train while he was filming I took some shots of him with the moving train so that was a little scary but he wanted to do it so okay then…haha.

It was quite a different weekend so it was just lots and lots of fun.

The time since then has been pretty quiet, other than Steve and I talking about me moving to Brockville once Steve’s lease with his apartment ended, and finding a place to live in and the such like… Heh… Funny. We aren’t yet looking… but his lease doesn’t end till the end of December anyway, so it’s all good anyway. *smile* I was talking to my mom about it all, and she said it was no problem, as right now I pay her rent for my apartment in the house I am in now…so…at one point she said she probably would move upstairs and rent out the basement apartment, but changed her mind just now that she would stay downstairs and rent out the upstairs apartment. So it’s all wait and see.

Now in a few days I’m heading off to Brockville for a week, so that’ll be interesting…just hanging out and relaxing down there…not sure what I can do but I’ll just have to see. *smile*

I’ve been not feeling so great the past little while…it’s been no fun for me really…oh well. I have good and bad days, so it’s all a pain in the butt. But I’ve been keeping busy in cleaning out all the items I have…clothing and stuff…I do need less clothing, I have like a huge collection of clothing and I ended up going through a lot of them and tossing out what I never wore anymore and what was too big or small for me, and tossing them out…so that was fun for me. *smile* I have much less stuff so it’s better, need to have less stuff to pack up after all when I move. I do have a lot of items, unfortunately. Oh well.

I’ve been doing a bit of cooking, a lot of homestyle food so that has been good… pretty yummy, so oh well. I really need to get the hang of cooking good food again, instead of always eating quick meals all the time. Oh well!! Heh.

Camping, My Old House, Starting All Over Again

The camping trip was interesting, that’s for sure.  Steve came to pick me up on Monday morning and I was a bit unsure how we would get along, after all, he was my ex.  And we haven’t seen each other since we broke up, so I wasn’t really sure how we would get along.  We get along fine when we talk to each other online, so I was hoping that we’d be okay in person as well. I woke up really, really early that morning, I think I got up at 6 am and couldn’t go back to sleep for a couple more hours because my head was just continually spinning with what would happen, how we would get along, and I hadn’t been out camping in ages, so I was a bit unsure how it would be. The week before we were supposed to be camping but because of the weather we changed it to the next week and we booked it for that week instead.

So I got ready, finished up with my packing, and waited for Steve to get to my place so that we could pack up his car with my stuff, and go grocery shopping for food for the next four days, and so when he got here, we kind of didn’t say too much to each other, except on what to do in packing up his car with my items, bags and stuff that we needed for camping.  He started to pack it all up, and thought it’d be fine…so we got settled and headed off to Walmart and then shopped around there for items we needed for groceries and food for the week.  We gathered up all the items we needed, and then went to pay for it.

Then we were on our way.  It was a nice Monday afternoon when we left to go on our way to Sharbot Lake…very nice.  The roads to the campgrounds were a bit rough, but that was to be expected, and once we got to our campground, I was amazed to see that the trail leading to our campsite was quite…steep?  I was like, I’m not going down there! *laughs*  I could see myself falling down it…it was steep and had very little steps to go down.  Wow.  So Steve loaded me up with bags and items, and I took my time trying to get down the huge hill, and near the bottom I actually fell and started sliding down the hill.  Ouch!!  I stopped and realized that I had scraped up my arm and hand going down the hill.  That really did hurt. :S  It was just so steep and because I hadn’t been down the hill before I didn’t know where to put my feet down on, and I just ended up stumbling and then sliding down. *laughs*  Owwww.  After my fall, Steve made me stay down at the campsite and he’d get the rest of the stuff. *laughs*  I slowly began to learn how to maneuver the hill after that fall, and started to be more cautious and careful when I went down the hill…going up wasn’t too bad, it was the going down that I had some trouble with. *laughs*  And the craziest thing was, there were two hills I had to worry about…the one from the car and outhouse to the campsite, and the second one to the lake.  I was like, really?  There’s hills both ways?  Grrr. *laughs*

So when we arrived, we were hearing that it was supposed to rain sometime in the afternoon/ evening so Steve worked on setting up the tent so to have it ready for when it rained and so on, and then when it was done, we then started putting stuff away and since the weather was cooperating, we decided to check out the area, the water and the such like…I checked out the water and it felt quite nice actually. *laughs*  So after a bit, Steve was like, okay, I’m getting hungry so we started putting supper on, we had steaks and started BBQing on the firepit, so that was interesting.  He brought his BBQ as he wasn’t sure if there was a grill over the firepit of any kind so…he has camped there a few times but couldn’t remember if there was anywhere where we could BBQ food over.  But there was a removable grill that you could move over the fire when you wanted to make food, and remove it when you wanted the pit for just the fire.  We had the steaks and some pasta salad that I had made up for the week, and then mellowed out.  It was good, though very, very filling.

After supper we were talking and checking out more of the area, him showing me different areas of the campsites around our campsite. *smile*  He normally doesn’t drink since I have known him and when we were shopping for food and stuff he said he wanted to pick up some booze for himself and I was surprised that he did, as I didn’t know he drank at all. *laughs*  I told him to go ahead and do that…so okay then. *smile*  He opened up one bottle of booze to have in front of the fire and was all relaxed…it was funny to see actually.  He just had one bottle that night.  I then decided to put a dare on him, as I had been told by a lot of people online that I should go skinny dipping when I camped and I was like, pfft, that’s not even happening as I had figured it was a public campground…and I decided to just dare him to try it.  The campsite we were at was pretty private anyway, and it was late then and pretty dark out, and no one, if there was anybody, would be able to see him, so he said he would go for it just for the hell of it and he did…it was hilarious actually.  I wasn’t sure if he would, but he did, and it was hilarious, it was also really cold in the water and out of it too, so it was like, eek! I hadn’t really gone swimming yet in that lake, so I wasn’t sure what the water was like. *laughs*  It was really interesting with the temperatures of the water and the night air, the water was almost warm and cold at the same time so it was kind of cool. *smile* We crashed pretty early that night, as it was so dark to even do anything or see each other to talk.  I’m deaf so I need light to be able to talk, and see the other person talk. :/  So that wasn’t much fun…we were sitting around the firepit a bit beforehand so it was good, with him just keeping warm with the fire after the dip in the water.

The next day we both got up, did some swimming and Steve was doing some chasing of little frogs that were hopping around on the shore of our beach, and kept capturing them and showing them to me.  He seemed like a little kid chasing after them and capturing them…it was definitely strange. *laughs*  I had breakfast, relaxed, and then went for a bit of a swim, and Steve got his inflatable canoe set up so we then went for a canoe ride…but the strangest thing with the ride – we kept going in circles!!!! *laughs*  Steve and I had brought our cameras and his camcorder, and I sat up in front because then that meant I didn’t have to steer…and Steve was doing no steering so we kept going in circles, which was ridiculous… *L* So we were just fooling around with the cameras and things like that, and I later told him after we came back that normally the person who paddled in the back of the canoe was the one who steered the canoe, and he was like, oh, really?  When I heard that I knew it was all his fault. *laughs*  Hilarious though…we were just floating around the lake and checking out the scenery and just enjoying the sun.  Though the fact that the canoe kept going in circles was kind of making me feel a bit seasick. *laughs*

We also noticed that there were chipmunks always coming around saying hi to us when we were sitting around the campsite and all that, they would just come up and stand up, see if we had anything on us and we would be breaking bread and giving them scraps of bread and they started coming back and forth hoarding all the bread that we gave them…they were adorable! *laughs*  I have never seen chipmunks be that friendly before… *laughs*

Whenever we would swim, there was this one higher up rock on one area of the lake, and if one of us sat around there, we could see all those little fishes follow our feet and hang out around us… it was so weird. The water was so clear that we could see the fishes swimming near us. Heh...it was pretty funny too. *smile*

Later that afternoon Steve wanted to take me to a hiking trail by Sharbot Lake that he knew about and used to go to a lot when he was younger, and wanted to take me there to check it out…the lake we were on was called Black Lake, not necessarily Sharbot Lake, it was on the other side of the land we were on. Heh…so we went driving to the hiking trail, and then went for a walk there.  It was an interesting trail… very hilly, but lots to look at, take pictures, and things to check out, so it was pretty fun.  It was hard work going up and down the hills though, I was getting tired by the end of the two hour hike through the trails. Steve said it was hard work for him as well, and he’s more active than I am!  *laughs*  Good thing I didn’t get to bump into a lot of people there, because I would probably have slowed them right down. haha…Funny though.  There were a lot of nature to check out, a lot of oddities out there and it was fun to check out… *smile*  Everything was just gorgeous where we went walking so it was pretty refreshing.  There was a lot of stopping and going, a lot of photos taken so it was a lot of fun.  I know I definitely did want to sit down a few times in the hike, because it was exhausting. *laughs*  It was hilarious.

We got through the hike and the last bit took a lot out of me, when we first came to the hiking trail, it was downhill so it was easy enough…then when we had to return to the car, it was very steep uphill that we had to climb up and it was like the last grunt up there…wow.  We both were exhausted by the time we got to the car…and just went, whew!!!  *laughs*  Funny though.  There was just too much hills everywhere in that area, which was crazy!  Haha…we then returned to our campsite, and we then had supper, mellowed out and relaxed…it was nice. There were the chipmunks again running around looking for food, and we were playing around with the cameras for fun, and then Steve went to sleep a bit because he was so tired and he wasn’t feeling so great after all day out and active…I think it was like 9 pm when he went to sleep. *laughs*  We talked, and I went to sleep close to around the same time as he did too, because I can’t really sit up in the dark by myself and do nothing…I couldn’t even see or anything like that, so it was a little freaky…though at one point I had to go to the bathroom to the outhouse at like 1 or 2 in the morning…and oh my God, that was so hard to do… *laughs*  It was pitch black everywhere and I did bring a flashlight, but that famous hill I had to get up, while really needing to go to the bathroom was so hard, and finally I got to the outhouse and used it, and then I had to come back, but I was still half asleep so I sort of flew down the hill and crashing into that white tree in the bottom of the hill…that stunned me awake and I regained my balance and got to the tent okay…it was insane!  Thankfully I was able to go to sleep…I just had sore hands from using it to catch the white tree to keep my balance with me so that I didn’t fall face first down the hill. *laughs*  It certainly got me awake…once I got into my sleeping bag again, I finally relaxed into a slumber and fell right to sleep.  Thank God, I didn’t think I would be able to after all that adrenaline going down that hill that I hated so much. Heh…

The next day was a relaxing day actually so it was a good day. *smile*  I ended up waking up, wondering where Steve was as he was not at the campsite then found him down at the water shore just sitting out and enjoying the view of the water.  So I decided to get changed into my bathing suit and get washed up down there in the lake, just getting my hair and everything else cleaned up, and then I ended up just staying in the water and going for swims and the such like… *laughs*  It was a hot day again, and all I wanted to do was just stay in the water. *L*  We ate at the campsite, some breakfast, and went back to the lake and enjoyed the water and just chatted it up, as Steve was feeling better that day and he was all mellow out.  I was just enthusiastic to go swimming so I just swam and swam…But the funny thing about that day was, we had been hanging out by the shore all day that we actually, dumb us, forgot to put on some sunscreen and we got nicely burnt that day…we didn’t think of it until we noticed the other person getting badly burnt. *laughs*  Ouch…we both started hurting bad from the burn. *laughs*  The other days we’ve been fine, we’ve put on some sunscreen but that day we both just forgot.  We hadn’t really been planning on staying out there all day and we ended up doing just that…it was relaxing and it was beautiful out there, so oh well…haha…Hilarious.  I even took a long swim so it was pretty good… Steve did the same so it was pretty fun.  While we were swimming, a canoe came towards our campsite shore, and they were people that was using the same shore as we were, only they were using a different campsite…so Steve was talking to the couple a bit, telling them about the campgrounds and what they can do around there, as they were kind of new in the Sharbot Lake campgrounds, so he was giving them ideas of what they could do. *smile*  They were pretty nice, and they had a German Shepard that was jumping all around the water so it was a little funny to see.  I was just keeping busy swimming out in the water while Steve was talking to the guy there and so on.  He had to let them know that I was deaf, so oops.  They did try to talk to me while they were canoeing in to shore, but I couldn’t hear or understand them, so that was a little funny. Heh…

Finally later, we had to think of supper so we trudged back up to the firepit and made some hot dogs and the such like and started eating them and relaxing, and it was another relaxing night, just talking and being silly and doing stuff at the campsite.  Another night at the firepit… we later said that we should have brought some marshmallows with us, as we had actually forgotten to get some… I always have marshmallows with me whenever I camp or go someplace where there is a fire. hehe…Funny though.  Oh well, no such luck. haha…

We were doing a bit of talking about us, I was trying to get him to talk about us, but he didn’t want to talk about us, and things that were heavy, because it was his holiday and that we could talk about it after we came back…I thought it was a little weird, but had to accept that and just treat it like a holiday and not talk about us at all.  So we just had fun and enjoyed the whole camping trip instead so it was quite different…I hadn’t camped in years so this was a great refresher for me, and I really enjoyed myself.  Heh…

We started packing up some items that evening and when we got up in the morning we tried to get up a bit earlier so we could enjoy the campsite a bit more and just have fun just hanging out and checking out the view, it was nice there so it was pretty relaxing.  We started putting things away, cleaning up that morning and just sitting around, eating, cleaning and packing up, and talking…. so it was pretty nice. *smile*  By that morning we both were badly burnt so we really didn’t want to be half naked in our bathing suits again to go swimming…haha…we were talking a bit and I was telling him I wanted to go by my old place where I grew up at, as it was on the way back to Kingston, and he was like, sure, why not…I told him I really was from the country and he was like, yeah, I get that….okay.  *laughs*  So when we left, we took a detour to go by my old house from Harrowsmith, and then drove by my old house.  I was shocked at how different the house itself looked like, and was pointing out different areas where I used to go in, hang out, play around in, the little woods across the road from my old house and so on, so on… it’s in the middle of nowhere pretty much.  I was shocked to see how different my property looked. *laughs*  It looked a lot better than the last time I went by there, and it was really cleaned up but it just looked so different now than it did before so it was hilarious.  It’s really nice now, more of a country type of house with bigger sheds or farm houses I guess, beside the house, and the house now shared the property with the next door’s house for the horses, so that was cool. *smile*  It just looked so different…I just remember my place having a huge field out back that I used to go running out in when I was a kid, and the woods out in front that I used to go with my brother and my pet dogs. *L* The woods are still there, but the field was a different layout this time around. *L*  It was a different sight…the house was really cleaned up and looked so different. *L*  I then went driving down the road I used to know a bunch of families live in and I was shocked at how many houses had changed and had cleaned up, so it was cool…only one was falling apart, but the rest was like, wow. *smile*  A definite change.  So it was fun telling Steve about different places, and different people I used to know on the street and telling him stories…I could detect some jealousy there. *laughs*  When I was a kid, it was just home where I did a lot of playing around in.  I do prefer being out in the country than the city…even though people tell me I’m more of a city girl and not a country girl…so okay, if that’s what they think, fine then. *smile*  But it was fun to check it all out. Heh.

When I got home I was like, oh my God…home…all the luxuries of home, electricity, lights!!! Baths…. *laughs*  When I got home I had a nice long bath while Steve was driving back home to Brockville, and it was holy crap, heaven. *laughs*  I was like, oh my God…I feel so clean again. *laughs*  Then I mellowed out with my cat, who was angry that I was gone for four days… *laughs* Watched some TV, relaxed and just felt really good after a few days of camping…it was a lot of fun. 

And then one day on Saturday night soon after we got back from camping, I think, after a few days of me and Steve talking to each other online and all that about us…we kind of started thinking of seeing each other again.  Steve still has around two months left of getting his life back together, and his financial status back to being out of debt, instead of always being in the black.  But we did get along very well at the camping trip, and we did click very well, and it was easy for us to talk to each other and the chemistry was still there, so…we decided to try again and he came to visit again after he went to his friend’s karaoke thing in Smiths Falls and he stopped by on Friday or Saturday night, and we started talking, and it seems like we are trying again now. We do get along really well so oh well.  What can I do?  *laughs*  So we’re taking it all very slow and trying again.  Just have to see how it turns out this time around.

The past week I’ve been working on the camping photos, and I have gotten a lot of it up in the pictures page here, and Steve even got a video done and set up from the camping trip, so it’s pretty cool.  It’s in this link: 


Sharbot Lake Camping 2011 (HD) from Steve Savage on Vimeo.

I think I look a little weird in some shots, but it’s pretty fun it seems. *smile*

I had to take some photos of my brother and his fiancee, as they were due soon with their baby, so I had to take photos of them pregnant, so…they came down last Saturday and it was gorgeous that day, though so humid…I’m so tired of the humidity.  Yikes!!  *laughs*  Oh well…so we went out to the waterfront to take photos and I wasn’t sure how or what they wanted me to have them to do, what poses they wanted to do, so it was interesting trying out different ones, and I was surprised at how many turned out to be…a lot of them turned out well…so it was interesting…I still have to see what Jase and Kelly did pick out to use for themselves and to post online for themselves.  So it was interesting. *smile* I was really tired by the end of the two hour photo shoot. Heh…I ended up taking like 70 photos and I gave them 40 to look at and appreciate…a lot of the photos turned out really well, surprisingly enough. *laughs*  They seemed to like it but I’ll find out what they like and don’t like eventually.  I just sent them the photos this afternoon so oh well. *smile*

After the photo shoot we all went down to my mom’s place for dinner, so it was nice…we all were exhausted from being out in the sun all afternoon so just sitting around and relaxing and eating supper down there was pretty good. *smile*  I didn’t have to do anything so it was good. Haha…Funny.  It was nice, and Kelly was talking about how people at her work and her family were saying that she was likely to give birth soon, because of how her stomach has dropped considerably and my mom was surprised at how much it had dropped and said she was going to be due very soon, with how much her stomach has dropped. *laughs*  It’ll be interesting to see when she has her baby.  She’s supposed to be due in the end of September, but I have no idea when she will actually have the baby, so it’ll be interesting to see, for sure. *smile*  All wait and see.  Hehe…

The Baby Shower and the Upcoming Camping Trip

It’s been interesting lately, that’s for sure. *smile*  After the potluck party in Ottawa, I kept busy during the week doing stuff around the house and I also was surprised a while back talking to my ex Steve, he was worrying about money for a cross-country trip he wanted to take and I asked him where he was going, and I would help him out if he was going out west so that I could meet a friend out there…just to see.

And we got talking, and he was going out east, not west, and we were talking about it…I had not been out east before and was intrigued by the idea of going there. *smile*  And well, we started talking…he then decided not to go out east and stay here in Ontario and camp here instead, as he was really low on money and didn’t want to take all of my money…*laughs*  So I was fine with that.

Since we were talking a while, I figured that we could take a bit and talk things out between us in person.  So we decided on going to Sharbot Lake and camp there for a few days and enjoy the nature and talk stuff out, and just enjoy ourselves, platonically, and so on.

There has been so much stuff going on…my brother and Kelly had a baby shower last weekend at one of my brother’s old friend’s parents house, and it was pretty nice, though really hot with all the sun glaring on us.  Wow.  When I first got there, I met up with Brenda and Ken and their son Brandon…I hadn’t seen them in a really long time so I started talking with them.  Brenda and Ken were a couple that I knew from high school and was best friends with my brother.  Ken was a grade above me and Brenda was a grade under me, so I know them quite well. *smile*  I also got introduced to Brandon, who I had last seen as a little baby, so he was a lot bigger than I had last seen him.  It was pretty cool actually.  Then more and more people started arriving, some family members, some of their friends, and Jase had to go out and pick up of his buddies who didn’t have a car…*laughs*  He even went out and picked up one of his old friends from London, Zofie, from Toronto, which was crazy.  Haha…she and her boyfriend were there and just talking to everybody.  I talked a bit with the owners of the house, they were exactly the same as always, I remember meeting them quite a bit when my brother used to go over to visit his best friend Matt, who was unable to make the shower because of work.  His parents, Lynda and Pat did a bit of talking, and I even got to see Matt’s son, TJ, who was pretty cute.  The mother of TJ, Karen, was there as well.  I used to know her from school as well. *laughs*  It was a bit of a small world there.  Kelly’s friend Eve was there as well, and she was the one who threw the shower with the help of Kelly’s mom.  There were a few different people around so it was good talking to them and catching up and getting to know them.

I even went for a swim at one point because it was so hot, and swam a bit with Brenda and her son Brandon…more and more people started joining us, and I was cooled off enough and got out.  Kelly actually went swimming for the first time.  She was still a bit self-conscious about how she looked with her being pregnant, but she looked just fine. *laughs*  Everyone had to tell her that!  Haha…Crazy.  We did some swimming, and then when everyone got out, and everyone made Kelly sit down and open up gifts with Jason.

They then went through all the gifts, and ate supper from the BBQ, and talked, so it was good, then when it was over, everyone started leaving.  The shower was for 2 to 5, and I think most people finally started leaving after 7 which was a little crazy. Haha…I imagine the hosts of the party were exhausted…the shower was good in the way I was able to catch up with old friends and see what was new, so it was pretty nice. *smile*  I was really tired after the shower though, after being in the sun all afternoon so it was crazy. *laughs*

After the shower, that night, I met up with a guy that I had been talking to a little while, Shawn, and we just sat around and hung out and talked a bit…it was interesting, actually.  He was a nice guy.  Then the next day I continued with all the packing and getting ready for the cottage that I was leaving for on Tuesday morning…I was just so exhausted. Haha… Got everything I needed packed up and then Tuesday morning I got up and made sure with Steve that everything was all set, and realized in the emails that he wanted to postpone it because of the weather and I was a bit dumbfounded, as it was okay back here, it wasn’t raining yet or anything…then a couple of hours later it started pouring. *laughs*  It rained, and rained, and rained…I was glad that we did decide to postpone it because of that day…I can’t imagine having to get there, and dealing with the rain and setting up the tents. Haha…So we postponed the trip to next Monday for the week.  So I’m staying in town for the next week and trying to relax. *smile*  The same day I was supposed to leave for Sharbot Lake, my mom asked if I wanted to go out to the store to pick up things, food and the such like.  So I went out for a couple of hours to Canadian Tire to get items I needed (such as an air mattress) and things my mom needed, so it was a good outing.  By the end of the day I was so tired…and now I get to relax the rest of the week, so I’m looking forward to that.  Heh…then going to go camping next week.  I am kind of eager to see how that turns out…it’s been a while since I have last camped.  I would think that the last time I actually slept in a tent was probably when I used to go to my best friend’s family island and we used to sleep in tents then…it was a lot of fun though. *smile*  Hehe… but that was in high school.  Wow.  Since then I have enjoyed the outdoors in cottages and the such like, so I haven’t actually done the whole camping part in ages, so it’ll be interesting. *smile*  I’ll get my memory refreshed.  Hehe….

Hm, I think that’s all. *smile*

Insane Relatives, a Potluck BBQ, and Friends

It has been a stupendously busy little while lately!!  Holy crap.  At least for the previous weekend…that was a great, great weekend though, and a good change from my usual routine.  And I have had some crazy and surprising things come up, which has been not so great, but I think I have to put those not so great things out here later on, on my blog as they have been related to this blog.

I have been relaxing and having a really slow little while since I returned from the cottage.  I got to see my friend Liz last weekend, before she left to go to the US for a couple of weeks, and it was nice.  I haven’t talked to her in a bit, and we just sat around and talked and caught up, so it was kind of nice. We just mellowed out at my place and just talked, then she had to go back home to finish up with her packing and help her mom with some stuff.  It was good seeing her, and the funny thing, Violet had no problems with Liz…at first Liz wasn’t sure, and I wasn’t too positive because of how Violet was around Steve, and told Liz about her personality and she was a little unsure, and then Violet was all glued on her and rolled around near her asking to be petted…So I guess she just has an aversion to males, not females.  Probably a cause of my ex-husband.  She loves females for some funny reason.  Heh.  I was relieved, I really didn’t want to deal with her hissing fits if she ever got that bad…but she was her own sweet self around Liz so that was nice.  Just too bad that my cat has a weird aversion to males, hopefully I will be able to find some more male friends that have a big thing for cats and are around a bit and know how to deal with getting my normally sweet cat to warm up to them.

The past weekend though, has been extremely busy.  I’ve been helping out with the cleaning out of the garage back here, and it’s so much better now.  My mom rented a moving truck to toss out all the garbage that was in the garage, and it actually got filled to the brim.  It was that much garbage that was in there…all the broken drywall, insulation, and bags of garbage from when my ex ripped down all the damaged drywall and stuff from the raccoons, but he never got around to tossing them to the dump, so we did that…and then sorted through the garage and organized everything: seasonal things that were in bins (Christmas stuff, old stuff, and things like that), things that we were going to sell, things that were going to be picked up by odd people, and tools all in one group.  We can now walk in freely and get the things we need…the things we ended up throwing out, was a lot actually.  Wow.  But it really, really, really looks a lot better in the garage so it’s terrific.  It used to be packed right to the seams so having a place to actually walk around and store necessary stuff and get them out and back in is a lot better now.

The previous weekend was crazy.  Friday night I decided to meet up with a guy, Josh, that I had been talking to pretty regularly online for a while and he was a lot of fun to talk to, and we got along really well, so we decided to have a friendly meeting. Just to get to know each other in person, and we met at the Confederation Park and sat down and chatted it up.  I have a tendency to chat it up with new people online without a problem but I find that sometimes when I meet them in person they aren’t as chatty or they have a hard time dealing with my deafness and so on…with Josh I had absolutely no problem.  He was very friendly and was easy to get along with, so it was pretty fun.  We then got up after two hours of chatting at the water foundation and then went walking around downtown and just talking and talking and then went back to the docks and checked out the water and just talked.  We got along really well and I did enjoy myself…it was really nice to be around someone who could make me so comfortable to be with. *smile*  And that day, he was suffering floods in his place…that morning there was a horrible downpour that pretty much flooded a lot of downtown Kingston, the city was submerged under a inch of water up to knee high water, hip high water in some areas of Kingston which was absolutely insane…My house was lucky, and it had no flood in the basement so it was good…but I do remember it raining so hard that it was awful.  I had been talking to Josh online earlier that day and he had been stuck cleaning his apartment as he lives in a basement apartment and his place had been flooded, so it was awful really.  I felt bad for him.  Yikes!!  Oh well…but we were talking and I asked if he wanted to get out of his place, with it being so wet, and to meet up and just talk and get out of the house.  He agreed and we then met up and talked…it was a good night.  I then headed back home as I had to be up early as I needed to go shopping with my mom for baby items and do groceries…oh joy.

I later found out that several other people I knew had problems with the heavy downpour as well, there were a lot that suffered damages to their places so it was bad…wow.  Oh well.  I got lucky so it’s a relief actually.

Saturday I ended up going shopping with my mom, looking around for different baby stuff for my brother’s baby…it was interesting what was out there… *L*  Lots of funny and weird stuff in the stores, but some were pretty cute…lots of stuff to pick out and choose.  That took a few hours to do, and then I headed out and did some groceries.  It was a nice day out in town doing things I needed to do.

That night, my brother decided to email me and ask me to not mention anything about anything relating with family and too much information about family and stuff…I was like, what are you talking about?  The only thing I remember saying anything about the outside family was over a year ago when there was all the commotion going on with my uncle Mark when he stayed at my mom’s place because he split up with his ex-girlfriend after he cheated on her, and all the stuff that was told to me by my uncle or other family, and I was of course surprised but it was just their thing.  And that was over a year ago.  I barely said much about them just my opinions on what was going on…I didn’t like my uncle’s affair to start with, so when I was stuck hearing all about the stuff that was happening starting from the affair, I started noticing bad stuff come up everywhere, about the wrong people, and of course I was stressed out and dealing with them, but most things I talked about were minor, such as my uncle had an affair and he had two kids and so on, and stuff like that, and everything…Jase was telling me that certain people were questioning him about things that I was letting off my chest, and I told him they weren’t entirely mad, at least one aunt I know for sure, because mom hung out with her for a while after the break up and she knew about what I said in my blog and asked about it, then she was fine with it all.  We had all realized that my uncle was doing a lot of lying when he was telling us about what happened, so she was a bit mad but once we all talked it out, and it turned out to be fine.  We just found out that my uncle Mark was lying about everything in sight.  Heh…but it’s all good now anyway.  It also was the rest of the family, mostly the males that had problems with what I said.  If they don’t like me stating my opinions: how I don’t support family members having affairs or cheating or lying, I will mention it, and if they don’t like it, they can talk directly to me.  Several have and it’s been worked out just fine.  Heh…this is just definitely not something I want from people, or a friend myself, nor from my family.  As long as my family members know how to behave and keep themselves together, they then won’t become fodder for my words online. Heh…

My brother is just simply trying to get close, or at least neutral to a lot of his outside family for his upcoming kid’s sake, and I totally get that.  One good thing I haven’t even seen a couple of them for over a year so it helps.  Heh.  If they stay in a good place, or in a neutral place, in my life, and I don’t know what is going on in the choices they make, I will be good, and won’t say anything. Hehe…I guess my brother was just trying to make peace, but I told him that it was not likely that there would be peace between two sides of the family (my mom’s side and the other uncles side), but if he wants to get along with them, he can…no one would stop him.  He can go ahead and get chummy with them.  It doesn’t bother us, or anyone else either.

I just wish that the people who have problems with my blog would contact me directly.  They can in the emails that I have listed in Facebook and anywhere else and so on. *laughs* That would make it easier than just putting my brother in the middle…he has nothing to do with my blog, he’s all hands off on all that. *smile*  I’m the author, not my brother.  But it’s been a long time since I have talked about family, so oh well.  Things are nice and quiet now so it’s all nice and peaceful for me. Heh…I do know that if people who don’t like anything I mention in my blog, they can contact me directly and ask me to remove anything or edit something, they are welcome to.  No one does very much, they are generally good with it, but if they think they need to, they are allowed to, and welcome to.  I do get people asking me to omit some information and it works out fine, and if they are flexible I know.  So it’s all good, so you all don’t need to worry.  If they don’t like it and don’t contact me, that’s their own fault. :)  But I haven’t talked about family in a long, long time now.  It doesn’t bother me if anyone wants something edited or omitted, just not to the point where the edit is a lie though.  Heh…If I have to change my opinions, I’ll just omit the whole story if necessary. Haha…

All right, what else?  Oh, I had forgotten about the invitation that my friend Christine had given me a while back for a housewarming party of her new house and she was having a potluck BBQ at her place and a bunch of people were invited.  I was invited a while back but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get a ride, I didn’t really want to get a train in and back, so…so I wasn’t sure and didn’t hear from anybody else who was also invited, so I figured I wouldn’t be able to make it, then my brother surprised me by calling me on Sunday morning the day of the BBQ; which I thought was a junk call and didn’t answer.  It was at like 9:30 in the morning when he called, and that’s early for a Sunday morning, and when my mom realized that Jase and Kelly had called my mom woke me around 11 am saying that they were going to Christine’s potluck party and they were going to be here very soon, and I was like, holy…I need to wake up first. haha…so I tried to get ready fast and then they arrived.  I finished getting cleaned up and then 30 minutes after they arrived I finally was able to get out and get in the car and ready to go… It was a bit hard to do actually. *smile* I had headed off to bed quite late the night before so that really didn’t help.

On the way to Ottawa, I was just talking to Jase and Kelly about things that were going on and the such like…then we stopped at a store in Ottawa to pick up some food for the potluck and then we got to Christine’s place and just got introduced to everybody there, and saw Kat and Derek there, they both looked tired as heck though, as they had just come back from camping over the weekend and Kat wanted to say hey… she was only going to be there for a short bit, and then head back home and crash.  We talked a bit but Christine kept asking me to join her and talk to the whole group. Haha…normal! Kat was talking quite a bit with Jase and Kelly.  But at least I got some new news and new things that were going on in her life, so that was good, but it definitely was a brief visit with her. She was tired from camping so oh well.  Funny though.  I will have to see her sometime again in the summer, in a different time.

Kat and Derek left after a hour or so, and then I was just sitting around talking to everybody who was at the party…interpreters, people that Christine were friends with and so on, so it was good.  Just chatting it up and catching up, and getting to know different people.  It was nice.  Slowly people started to leave and I was still staying around and talking to who was left.  There were some people that were familiar to me, one guy I had worked with as a camp counselor was there, and when I worked as a counselor there he was still a high school student.  Now he’s in his second year of college, so it was a little funny.  He was always a really nice guy anyway, so all good.  There were a lot of females and guys at the party, so there was a lot of introductions made and so on, and talking about our lives and so on, work, love lives, mostly work, and being deaf and acquiring work and so on… *smile*

I finally ate at around 6 after most people had left, I wasn’t hungry at the time I arrived for the potluck around 2 so I didn’t eat anything, and was just talking to everybody, Cris and Christine mostly…Cris was definitely in a silly mood all day so it was an entertaining day watching all the people talk.  Christine even mentioned that I had seemed to have lost a lot of weight, and I was like, yeah, I have.  The last time I saw her was at Kat’s wedding so that was a long time ago, and I was a bit bigger then, though I did gain a lot more after the wedding…and all of that, I lost.  So it was interesting to hear her say that.  She even reminded me that I went with her when Christine met Cris for the first time, and I couldn’t remember that. *laughs*  So it was kind of funny hearing her talk about that, and how she still has one picture from that day and would try to dig it up while unpacking for her new home and send a copy to me.  Hmm, interesting, that’s for sure.  They have been together for 11 years now, so that’s…wow, amazing.  It was a good day actually just talking and seeing their whole house (their place was definitely really nice!). I think we finally left around 8:30 in the night…the three of us (Jase, Kelly and I) were so tired by then, so the drive home was quiet, except for one thing. Haha…Jase got the surprise of his life when a cop started flashing his lights at him and wanted him to pull over and Jase was like, I was only going 110? So both Jase and Kelly were freaking out, then the cop came to the window and said that he wanted to let them know that their back lights weren’t on or broken. It was getting dark by then and they needed to turn it on. Kelly did think the cop was pretty hot so it was a little funny actually. Heh…Just a little funny, Jase did get scared. I know he loves to drive, but I can’t imagine being pulled over would be something he’d love, so I was actually mocking him afterwards, doesn’t it make you love driving now? Heh…It was entertaining for such a quiet drive back home.

The past couple of days have been quiet, with some crazy stuff going on with all the garage items that we had that we wanted to get rid of; some steel items (old fridge, dehumidifier, push lawnmower, very old window frames and etcetera), some broken items; some old furniture in the garage that John had gotten from his brother and was going to sell.  There were a lot of items and the past little while John has been busy talking to various people who were interested in the items.  It was unbelievable how many people wanted crappy stuff for free, really.  It was all items that we didn’t need or want anymore, and the old furniture John is trying to sell and it’s a little tougher.  Oh well.  But it’s been interesting what kind of people have been around. Haha.

The Week at the Cottage and Miscellaneous

It’s been interesting so far. *smile*  I met up with a friend who had just moved to Kingston from Winnipeg, and it was interesting talking to him.  He was new here in Kingston and wanted to check out different areas of the city, so I decided to meet him the night before I left for the cottage.  We met up at the Confederation Park and then went to the Brew Pub to just sit down and talk it up…he was very nice and was talking about how he wanted to learn sign language so that was funny.  It was one of the 30 things he wanted to do before he turned 30, which is pretty soon. *smile*  He was very friendly and had no problems talking to everybody out there, so it was pretty hilarious… *smile*  Then we just headed back home and I finished up with my packing for the cottage.

July 10th:

I’ve been at the cottage for a couple of days now, and it’s been interesting here.  For one thing, when I and my mom and her boyfriend got here, the woman who rented us out the cottage was supposed to meet us and give us the keys to the cottage, and tell us about parts of it and what to do.  She didn’t even show up and John was trying to reach her and she wasn’t answering her phone.  He then tried all the doors in the cottage and found one to be open and we all went in with our stuff.  Hopefully she’ll return John’s calls sometime. *smile*

We got in and unpacked our stuff and mellowed out, checked out the entire cottage and the property around it, and sat outside for a bit as it was a really nice day that day.  I even tried to go swimming but found it was a bit problematic – there were water weeds everywhere and they kept grabbing me as I was swimming so it was a little odd. :S  The temperature of the water was just really warm so it was nice, but I just cannot stand the water weeds. *laughs*  I can’t even wade in as the weeds are all over the place.  So that isn’t much fun.  Even the deep end had really tall weeds that reached the top of the water, so I have no idea how to swim in that. *smile*  I wanted to be swimming all this time but…just bad water to be swimming in. *laughs*

I’ve just been lying around and enjoying the sun and so on.  My brother came by around supper time the first day we arrived there, and was just staying for one night and going back home the next day.  He ended up stuck in traffic – as there was an accident on the 401, and he had to take highway 2 on the way here, and then took a wrong turn in Gananoque and went the opposite way of where he was supposed to go to. *laughs*  Mom did the same thing when she first came here to pay the woman for the cottage.  *smile*

So they finally got here like a hour after the time they had estimated they would be here at.  When he got here, everyone all started talking and catching up.  Jason started talking about what he was going to do with the house, the baby’s room and the such like, and what they still needed for the baby…they are having her baby shower in August so… *smile*  All wait and see, of course.  Kelly seems to be okay with her size and the such like…she’s now 7 months pregnant and doesn’t seem too big, just big enough. *smile*  She’s still figuring out what she wants to do and so on.  They did a lot of hanging out and talking, checking out the lake and having supper, then we all watched the movie, “The A-Team” the first night.  Not too bad.

The next day everyone was so mellow and tired, God knows I was!!  Haha…all I wanted to do was sleep.  Wow.  Jase and Kelly were doing a lot of hanging out at the water, and so on.  I was just mellowing out mostly and just resting, enjoying the fresh air, though I actually got sleepy really quickly the first couple of days.  Kelly at one point asked me if I was excited about becoming an aunt…it’s just something I’m gonna be, and that’s no big deal. *smile*  We also played some bocci ball out front in the large front yard, so that was fun.  It was way too hot out there though. *smile*

They headed back home around 2 to 3ish, and then I actually relaxed and fell asleep on the couch for an hour or so before supper, and I felt a bit better after.  That day my brother left, it kept looking like it was going to storm anytime… it was a little silly. *smile*

July 14:

Now, it’s been a few days now, since I came here…it’s been a really busy little while for sure! *smile*  The first few days were nice…Jordy, John’s youngest came soon after Jase and Kelly left, and has been here all this time since then.  He’s not much of a cottage boy, or a camping guy, that’s for sure, but he has been having fun fishing here and there, even though he has a leeriness about touching the fishes that he has caught…he has had to call his dad for help on getting the fish off the hooks, and John is not much better in handling fish either. *L*  It’s been a funny sight actually with them both going, eww, eww, on handling the fish.  For a while there, they were dealing with the fishes with paper towels in their hands and so on.  Heh…it’s funny actually.  I don’t fish anyway, so I rather not touch them either, I just stayed away from it all. *smile*  Jordy has been here most of the week, with the exception of Tuesday night when he had to go back for a game and he left on Friday afternoon.

Josh, John’s oldest has been here since Tuesday or so…he seems to be comfortable and relaxed here.  He doesn’t seem to do much, other than watch everyone do their thing, play some games with his youngest brother and the such like.  He went back home after one day, and then came back later in the week.  John’s brother, Boris came along with his girlfriend, Carol on Wednesday, and John’s other sister, Ellen, came with her family on Tuesday.  They are a lot of fun…Ellen I remember from other parties that John has had before,  Ellen and Jeff, along with their two kids, Kenny and Lily.  Lily has been talking quite a bit with me and my mom, she’s a nice girl. *smile*  The first night Ellen got here, though, everyone got really drunk that they didn’t remember anything…it was crazy!!! *smile*  I do remember it, but they don’t.  Wow…the next day they had to go back because Jeff had to work the next day.  Boris and Carol, loved being here as Boris fishes constantly and does the whole fishing thing that no one else liked doing.  I’ve been playing games (bocci ball and badminton), some board games such as Yahtzee outside, suntanning whenever possible, swimming and mellowing out. *smile*

There has been some days where there were possibilities of rain, thunderstorms but we didn’t get much of that, except on Wednesday when everyone came over.  There were high winds, torrential rains but it lasted for such a short time so it wasn’t too bad. *smile*  The weather the past week in Kingston has been ridiculously hot, but back here in the cottage by the lakes, it’s been really nice.  Lucky me, eh?   Hehe…so it has been pretty good.  Lots and lots of sun back here except for that day with all the rain.  Which has been pretty good. *smile*

July 16:

It was crazy, John had bought a case of beer for himself to drink up in the week that he was here in the cottage, and when Boris and Carol were over, Boris actually drank a whole 24 pack of beer in one day…then John had to go out on Thursday, to get another case of beer for the next couple of days, and of course, as of 10pm on Friday night, everyone realized that the 24 pack was all gone plus John’s few beer that he bought for himself. *laughs*  Wow…Boris really has very little control when it comes to drinking, the eating part he didn’t do much of which surprised me, but he was just drinking himself mindlessly, so he didn’t really think of eating.  *laughs*  Oops…it’s not been much fun.

John’s middle son, Brett, came along with his girlfriend, Katie, on Thursday, and they came for BBQed hamburgers and food for supper.  They just came to see the cottage and talk to everybody and say hey…Katie was doing a lot of talking, that’s for sure.  Haha…it was interesting, and they left around 10 on Thursday night. *smile*  When there was a lot of people at the cottage I just ended up hanging out away from everybody and just reading, watching some DVDs on my mom’s laptop, and talking to my mom here and there.  There were too many people over at once and I just wanted to relax…sometimes it got to be a bit too much, especially in the evenings, and I just wanted to get away and do my own thing. *laughs*  During the day it’s fine being around so many people, but after the day ends I just want to get away from everybody and mellow out. *smile*

It took a bit for me to get over the water weeds, and John even helped me out in finding good areas to swim in the lake, where the weeds weren’t so high, up to the top of the lake, that I would get tangled up in them. *laughs*  One of the beads in the ties of my swimsuit got ripped off by one of the water weeds when I went out swimming for the first time…so yay. *smile*  Oh well, so John wanted to go swimming (the water was unbelievably warm, really!) so he kind of found good places to float around and swim in.  It was not bad at all. *smile*  On Friday I actually went all the way to the centre of the lake, so that was pretty weird.  My mom was surprised that John and I went out that far, but it wasn’t too bad…some areas were really full of weeds, but it was weird, how deep the lake was and there were so many extremely tall weeds all through the lake and I had to kind of go around to get past them.  It wasn’t a lot of fun, but oh well…been interesting for sure. *smile*  I’ve been the only one who has actually gone swimming in the lake, along with John… Jordy tried it once but it didn’t last for him, and no one else has actually gone swimming which was a little weird for me…I can so why can’t anyone else?  Oh well…the water was really, really warm so, yeah…haha.  Yes, the weeds were pretty icky, but you just have to swim a little differently to get past them.  I swam with water noodles so that helped a lot, kept me level and to the surface of the water so my feet didn’t have to get so tangled up with the lower growing weeds down below me. *smile*

One thing about John’s family, they are really sort of city dwellers, so it was a little funny seeing some of John’s family freak out by random stuff…especially his youngest son.  Wow. *smile*  I’ve been at a cottage before, I know how to adjust in that sort of place, even though I get told I can be a bit of a city person as well, but I have no problems adjusting to the country at all…the woods and stuff like that. *smile*  I also grew up in the country when I was a kid.  But John’s family, especially his sons, seem to have a harder time dealing with that sort of thing, which is amazing really. Heh…I was surprised, but now am used to it…I would see Jordy freak out by the water (and oh, yes, Boris would also freak out by incidents he had heard about on the news about people drowning in the lake, and he refuses to swim in the lake thinking it’s at fault for making people drown…*laughs*  A little cheesy, I know.) and everyone would…just be silly really.  There’s also the aspect with the toilets in the cottage, you have to use toilets differently in a cottage than you would at a normal house, and a lot of people that come visiting seem to have a problem with that.  They like to flush the toilets constantly and dispose of the toilet paper in the toilets.  It’s pretty silly.  Oh, well.  It’s a cottage!!!   Haha…but otherwise, I was trying to relax…

On Thursday I even took a tour of Gananoque, and that was very interesting. *laughs*  Just stopped at a couple of stores and walked down the main street and checked out places there.  It was interesting actually. *smile*  John had needed to pick up more beer there, so that’s why we all went down there for the other people who were visiting the cottage.  I just went with my mom and John so to catch a glimpse of the town – I don’t think I have actually checked out Gananoque before, so it was kind of cool. *smile*

Most of the people left in the afternoon on Friday, so it was just me, my mom and John by then, so it was good being able to relax that afternoon/night and the next day…the last couple of days we were cleaning up, packing up, and mellowing out in the sun and relaxing… just not worrying about anything else but just doing our thing. *smile*

There was also a water snake on the deck on Friday, and everyone thought that was so icky…*laughs*  But water snakes leave you alone normally, so oh well.  I’m used to them from when I was at the other cottage, my ex’s family cottage used to have water snakes all hidden in the deck right over the water.  When you walked by the decks, you’d see water snakes shoot out of the crevices into the water one by one…it was always disgusting…so when the people at the cottage we were at found one, I was like, oh, that’s all? *smile*  I’ve seen much more…they are gross, but they generally leave you alone anyway, they are more scared of humans than humans are of them. ;)

As soon as I got back home on Saturday I was actually sooo tired it was ridiculous… *laughs*  I just pretty much mellowed out and unpacked and just gave some attention to my cat who I have left alone for an entire week… she was all glad I was back. *laughs*  Funny…that night she was on my lap the entire night just purring.  Heh.  It was funny, but the cottage was really nice overall, got to see a lot of different things… *smile*  All good…

Canada Day, The Patio, and Meeting New People

Wow, what do I say here?

It’s not been that long since my last journal entry, but there has been so much happening that it’s like, wow…*laughs* Oh well. My mom has been taking me out to rent movies here and there, so it’s been good. The first time around I rented the movies, “Just Go With It“, “How Do You Know” and bought two other movies, “The Romantics” and “Morning Glory“… they all were good, though I watched How Do You Know, and it wasn’t all that great, but I think I was distracted watching it so I couldn’t get into it really. :/ But the rest of the movies were good anyway.

My mom also rented the movie “Biutiful“, an Indian movie, with English subtitles. That was a very good movie, but had a really sad ending. :( Oh well. And “The Resident” was a creepy movie, but very good…just saw it the other day and it was creepy. But it was just really good. Haha…

The Canada Day weekend turned out to be really busy for me. *smile* My mom had eye surgery on the day before Canada Day, to get out a lump that she had on her eyelid. She had some sort of bump that was growing in her eyelid, and it had started to interfere with her vision so her eye doctor had to request that she go through surgery to have the bump removed… my mom was telling me about the surgery, and how lovely it was… it sounded gross. haha… She had to have her eyelid opened wide, and flipped inside out, and then an incision was made in the inside of the lid to get out the bump, and she said that all she could hear was, oh my God! It was leaking all this stuff out, and then a hard bit came out and she’s having that checked. Then they closed it up and put her eyelid back down and she has to let it heal. It was a little gross hearing about it all. Hehe…then she came to see me with a lovely eye patch on…bandaged eye. It was quite funny. ;)

That same night a guy I was talking to a bit, who I got along with really well, decided to ask me to meet up with him to Tim Horton’s for some drinks and to talk and so on… He met me at the intersection near my place, and then we walked over to Tim Hortons’ and then grabbed some drinks, relaxed and chatted it up a bit…we got along really well, and he actually tried to learn sign language…so that was interesting. He knows a lot of other languages so picking up on sign wasn’t too hard for him. It was actually pretty fun. *smile* I enjoyed myself with him so it was good…then on the way back to my place he unexpectedly kissed me. I was thrown, because we had met on the agreement that it was to be platonic, friends only, and the kiss was a surprise. He then got himself back together and walked me to the intersection and then I headed back home, a bit stunned I guess… He was a very nice guy and he wanted to be friends for sure, because he was going to be moving back to Europe after he finished his courses in Queens, so…I guess it was a surprise for me. Oh well. We have talked here and there after, and it seems like I may not hang out with him again because I don’t want to get involved with him and so on…I’m just looking for friends to start and so was he! *laughs* But oh well…he just thinks he cannot do it, because he’s too attracted to me. So, it’s like, oh great. I haven’t had that happen before so this is very strange for me.

The next day was Canada Day and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do…so I talked to another guy I had been talking to a bit and he offered to meet up with me so that we could go and see the fireworks at the waterfront. He was a bit older than me and was looking for friends locally, like myself…he picked me up and then headed out to The Sleepless Goat. He actually forgot his wallet at one point on the drive there, and said he had to turn around to get it. I was a bit unsure and uncomfortable about going to his place while he picked up the wallet, so I decided to get out of the car and wait for him while he got his wallet, and I walked on to downtown Kingston…I think he dropped me off on Montreal St, so that was a little freaky… it’s not the best street at all. haha… Oh well. Then he came back quickly and we headed to The Sleepless Goat. We talked and I saw a guy who was in my classes for graphic design so it was weird. He didn’t recognize me, thankfully, but it was good…it was okay at that place and we just talked, then headed out to the waterfront to watch the fireworks. The fireworks was pretty good this year, and it was unbelievable how many people were at the waterfront. haha…Wow! *smile* I usually sit in a different area, like in the Confederation Park, and I was on the pier this time around so it was a different place to be standing in, but I got a very clear view of the fireworks so that was different. Heh. It was good, and then I was all, I’m going home now…good fireworks, and he asked me if I wanted to go to Fort Henry to check out stuff there, and I opted out, because that was out of the way and wasn’t up to going there with a new person just yet. So he took me home and I then relaxed for the rest of the night. *smile*

I also put in ads for my engagement and wedding rings to sell them, so that was interesting on the number of responses I got for them. Haven’t gotten anyone to actually buy any of them, but I’ll get there. *smile*  And the funny thing is no one actually put in a response for the ruby engagement ring, and it was the one that was raved about, so I assumed that that one would be sold fast, but it hasn’t even had one offer come in for that ring.  Haha… Funny.

It’s funny I watched The Romantics on one Saturday night and I realized that I resembled the character that Katie Holmes was playing, so I began to realize I was a hopeless romantic…which was…um, weird. Haha…I really didn’t expect that at all.

The past week or so I have been watching my mom’s boyfriend work on the back patio… he had his one son help him out on it, so it was interesting. They had to take up the old stones, which looked to be cement blocks…and then even out the ground underneath, and then put down the new stones. It looks pretty good now, much better than it did before. *smile* It looks a lot cleaner and simple, and is even bigger so it’s pretty nice. Heh…You can see the before and after, so it’s pretty cool. John still has to pick up two more stones for two empty spaces, but otherwise it’s all done.

Here’s the before picture, after the old cement blocks were taken out:

The before picture for the patio, all the old cement blocks removed

Now here’s the new patio stones in, still missing a couple in the front corner where all the bags of soil is resting on.  They need to wait for the stones to get in the store so to get it… the other two stones they had before were chipped and broken.