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.