Lordy, Lordy!! Look Who's (almost) Forty (two)!!

So, my 42nd birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and I'm finally getting around to having a 40th birthday party.

You see, two years ago, when I actually turned 40, I wasn't feeling particularly settled or comfortable with myself.

I was happy but weirdly unsettled.

Since I had never had a problem with getting older in the past, I couldn't figure out why 40 was throwing me for a loop.

My retrospective theory is that my life had gone through some pretty significant changes ... some pretty great significant changes but some pretty shit significant changes, too... and my head and heart were still trying to get catch their respective breaths.

A bunch of my friends turned 40 that year, too, and most of them had celebrated with big super fun birthday parties. My Guy really wanted to throw a big party for me but, much to his chagrin, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get into the big-birthday-party-having mood.

However, we did mark the occasion with a wonderful birthday BBQ and the only celebrants were My Guy, The Girl, my Mom, Dad, Sister and Bro-in-Law and Niece (The Boy and my other Niece were off at camp.) We had steak and salad and a DQ Reese Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard cake...Oh YEAH!! And My Guy and My Mom demolished several bottles of red wine...I have the pictures to prove it :)

It was perfect.

Then My Guy and I had a relaxing night away at a relaxing resort and had an eventful boat trip home...but, Hammy Hamster, THAT is another story.

AND!!!!

And...

My Guy and My Kiddos got me what is now my most cherished possession...My iPad.

How awesome was THAT??!!

And I'm pretty sure that they now wish they had never given it to me ... I might spend a lil bit of time with it...maybe ...possibly ...probably... definitely.

oops

So, I definitely was NOT neglected on my 40th ...in fact, I was completely pampered and wonderfully spoiled, as I am on all special occasions (THANKS SWEETIE!!)

It was EXACTLY what I needed!!

It was very low-key and lovely.

But...

I still felt really strange about being 40.

BUT...

All that has changed and I'm ready to fully embrace my 40s!!

YAY ME!!!

The Boy and The Girl are excellent. They have navigated beautifully, all the changes they've had to go through over the past few years and I couldn't be more pleased ...or relieved...that they've made it through to the other side and are so well-balanced and awesome that it kinda freaks me out a little bit.  I have 2 teenagers in the house and they're nice... and happy. It's weird.

My Guy is excellent...and patient ...and gentle ...and patient ...and thoughtful ...and patient and has hung in there while I worked through a lot of the super squirrel_e_ness that has been zipping around in my brain and I love him a whole big bunch for that.

We have a beautiful house that is excellent and I feel like I'm finally home after 4 years of upheaval and re-settling.

And...

That is cause for celebration, don't you think??

Me, too.

And...

It just so happens that my birfday is coming up so I figured we could have a sort of combination Birthday/Homecoming Party to commemorate these milestone events.

Since I'm a little late with one of those milestones,  I'm calling this...

"My 40th (+2) Birthday Bonfire!!"


And...

If you'd like to come and celebrate with me ...you can!!

Well, I kinda have to know you ... so if you know me and you wanna come then please feel free to send me an email or a Facebook message and I'll fill you in on all the deets.

YAY ME!!!

YAY 40(+2)!!!

:D

...Or Are You Just Happy To See Me??

Ah man!!!

I am having a bastard of a time starting this week’s

“squirrel_e_girl & The Girl's Country Tune of the Week”

We’ve picked our song but I'm just not feeling very inspired and writer-y tonight, so I might have to mail this one in and lay down a bare bones post. Ho Hum. Wah Wah Wah.

Maybe I'm just too tuckered out from harvesting a whole whack of tomatoes and cucumbers from the ol’ bunny-free veggie patch. We’re still waiting on the red peppers to turn red and the carrots to fatten up.

My radish crop was a complete flop...which is A-OK by me... Radishes...BLECH... BARF ...YUCK. Apparently, one has to thin out the rows once they start growing in order to give them enough elbow room to get all round and radish-like. If one fails to cull the radish-herd, one ends up with skinny scraggly things that look like gross mutated pinky-red carrots. Off to the compost bin they all went...Too bad the rabbit went to the great strawberry field in the sky...perhaps he would've enjoyed several dozen mutant radishes.

Actually, there’s a bit of a problem with my cucumbers, too. I'm afraid that they may have grown too big...which greatly increases their comedic value but I'm pretty sure it adversely affects their flavour. If I didn’t hate them I guess I'd know for sure because I'd actually taste one...maybe they're delicious??? Then they'd be dual-purpose vegetables: tasty snack AND excellent prop for inappropriate super funny jokes. Alas, I do hate them so they only fall into the "excellent prop for inappropriate super funny jokes” purpose category.

OK...enough talk of phallic-symbol humour. I must really be hard-up for material if I resort to discussing radishes and cucumbers.BLECH... BARF ...YUCK.

Back to my mailed-in, bare-boner post:

So here's ...

“squirrel_e_girl & The Girl's Country Tune of the Week”

We’ve picked “Country Girl (Shake It For Me)” by Luke Bryan.

You may remember Luke from our inaugural Song of the Week post.

He’s awesome and I think I might choose him again next week. He actually sings the very first new country song that ever caught my ear with its silly lyrics ...but that's next week.

He also wears a ball cap really well and but I do love me boys in ball caps. Rarr.

This video is kinda goofy but don't let it distract you from the actual song which is best listened to really loud.

Beloved Readers, may I present to you...

Luke Bryan’s “Country Squirrel (Shake it For Me)” <--- you had to know that was coming

Apart from maybe a few too many bum shakes by Luke, I think it's an ok video and it is a kick ass song regardless of how may times he shakes his bum in a ridiculous manner.

Did you happen to catch my two super subtle/super funny penis jokes?? I am a laugh riot.

Did you also happen to catch the actual squirrel reference in the song and not just my bastardization of the song's title??

"What's he do? Nibble your bum?"

When you were wee, did you ever run into Peter Rabbit and all his cute fluffy pals? He was the main character in Beatrix Potter's "Peter Rabbit and His Cute Fluffy Pals" series of kids' books. Actually, I'm pretty positive that the series went by another name but I'm feeling a little too lazy to Google it right now so I'm re-christening the series for my own bloggy purpose...poetic/creative license and all that.

Anyhow, Peter Rabbit et al spent a bunch of time making the token human character, Mr. MacGregor's, life miserable by raping and pillaging his vegetable garden.

A Grammatical Query: which word shows possession in that case "character's" or "Mr. MacGregor's"?? 

These past few weeks, I have felt a rather strong affinity with the much-abused Mr. MacGregor.

Get outta my garden you wascally wabbit

My new house happens to have a very small raised bed that my sister-in-law(the previous homeowner) used as a vegetable garden. I’ve never ever had a veggie garden of my own before so I was very excited to try my hand at bringing forth food from the earth...just like my Mom.

Every summer, for as long as I can remember, my Mom has had an enormous garden. When my siblings and I were young, we were conscripted into her slave labour garden workforce to "pick stones" and pull weeds and lots of other little menial garden-y tasks. We were her grubby little garden minions.

The pay was pretty excellent though...all the veggies we could sneak without her catching us...kinda like Peter and his friends. If you've never had the chance to gorge on freshly-pulled carrots (...you wipe the dirt off in dew-soaked grass, if available, and if not you can run them under the hose...delicious!!) you are missing out on one of the best things in the whole entire Universe. Also super tasty are peas in their pod and yellow and green beans and tomatoes. She also grew radishes and cucumbers and onions and green peppers but they are on:

"A Comprehensive List of Vegetables That I Think Are Gross and Therefore Will Not Eat Them"
by: squirrel_e_girl

• Radishes ... I don't even want to think about how gross they are let alone muster up the words to describe how gross they are. They are the worst vegetable. Period. YUCK. F&@K.
• Cucumbers... Wouldn't eat them EVER... under any circumstances until just recently. I will now almost sometimes think about eating them if they are in a Greek Salad...or if I've been tricked into eating them when they've been hidden in a Mariposa Market sandwich.
• Onions...Cooked=Not totally disgusting...Not Cooked=Totally Disgusting
• Green Peppers...If I had a nickel for every little chopped up piece of green pepper I've painstakingly picked off pizza or out of a salad, I’d be a gazillionaire. A very time intensive task. Actually, same goes for onions so that'd make me gazillionaire X 2...a bigazillionaire, perhaps.
• Brussel Sprouts...Little gross green balls of disgustingness. No amount of butter can make these little bastards palatable.

Hmmmmmmmm.....I may have lost the plot a little.

So...Back to my story...

To Recap:
-New House
-Little raised vegetable garden bed
-Very excited to plant veggies for the first time and feed my children food that I have cultivated with my own bare hands...primal stuff.

OK...

So, this spring I dove right in and cleaned out my new veggie patch...pulling out a million little baby chives and a million little pine cone type things that had blown in and one nasty bitey nettle bush that I'm not sure how or why it got in there in the first place...I'm thinking My S-i-L must've booby-trapped it...she's mean like that ;) ...But seriously...have you ever had a run-in with a nettle bush?? Envision several thousand angry red bitey ants attacking your hand...then pouring gas on it and then lighting it on fire....That's how it feels to tangle with a nettle bush. It f$&king KILLS.

My Guy brought in about a million pounds of triple mix to make new flower beds with and he also used some to top up my veggie garden. And with my topped up, mixed up, beautifully raked bed ready for planting, I headed off to buy me some veggies.

As I mentioned earlier, it's very small so I had to choose my choices carefully....and since choosing choices is an arduous task for me to begin with, choosing choices carefully was AGONIZING!!

BUT!!!

I did it!!!

I bought 2 little tomato plants and 4 little broccoli plants and 2 little red pepper plants and 2 little strawberry plants (they were very different plants which I found interesting so I bought em both as an experiment...I am a thrill-seeker). I also bought a packet of sunflower seeds and a packet of carrots seeds ....

And here is where shit gets crazy...

I also bought 1 little cucumber plant....AND... a packet of radish seeds....THAT!!!! is how much I love My Guy.

Cucumbers and f&@king Radishes.

I bought 2 little wire cages for my little tomato plants and 1 little wire cage for my little cucumber plant...my Mom suggested that since my space is limited, growing my cucumbers up instead of out would be a good idea...who knew???

Now, before I planted my wee plants or sowed my wee seeds, I had to sift through the beautifully prepared soil and remove all the DISGUSTING CAT POOP that my Asshole Cat had deposited there. He must've thought he had died and gone to Asshole Cat Heaven...because, while it might be a teeny veggie patch to me, it is an ENORMOUS open air kitty litter...a Kitty Poop Patch, if you will...to him.

Asshole.

I really wish I had taken a picture of my beautiful little veggie garden...it was so neat and tidy and beautiful and so full of promise and hopes and dreams.

Little did I know that it was also full of frustration, disappointment and heartbreak.

And this is where I get back to telling you why I'm feeling a strong affinity towards Mr. MacGregor...the woodland creature hating man.

You wanna know why???

I'll tell you why!!!

WOODLAND CREATURES ARE TRYING TO WRECK MY GARDEN, GODDAMMIT!!!

The first assault on my beautiful and beloved garden (other than my cats insisting on pooping amongst the radish seeds...I guess they hate radishes, too. Wise felines.) was launched by what we first thought to be a groundhog.

We noticed that our newly planted Hosta bed had been invaded by a groundhog who had returned to reclaim the entrance to his subterranean lair. There had been what we thought was a dormant groundhog hole at the side of our house. It just happened to be located right where I wanted to plant a bunch of hostas.

Silly groundhog.

The Hosta bed was created.

The groundhog dug it up.

Silly squirrel_e_girl.

Groundhogs have landed on my ever-growing List Of Assholes.

Hosta Bed/Groundhog Hole...the sand isn't supposed to be there

The dug up Hosta bed was just the beginning of the horror...for we walked over to admire my fine looking vegetable garden in an effort to soothe the pain of the destroyed hostas, only to discover ...

THIS!!!!!!

Decimated Baby Broccolis

And THIS!!!

Decapitated Baby Sunflower

And THIS!!!

Leafless Baby Radishes

I was very sad.

Very.

Very.

Sad.

But...as obviously logical as it seemed to blame the veggie patch destruction on the woodchuck, a couple of things didn't add up.

A) There were no rodenty-type footie prints in the soil surrounding the vegetable carnage whereas there were rodent-y type footie prints in the desecrated Hosta bed.
2) There were other victims in my other flower gardens. The buds of a bunch of tall plants had been eaten away and unless the groundhog was wearing his stilettos, he could not have reached the tips of the tall plants.

It wasn't until we ran into our down-the-road neighbour who told us about a doe and her fawn who had been hanging out in his backyard eating their stuff that it finally made sense.

THEY were the ones who ate my broccolis and sunflowers and radish leaves....which, of course, means...

Does and Fawns (especially Fawns) are assholes.

Yep.

THEN...

With that mystery all cleared up, I was free to shift my focus to my anticipatory excitement since BOTH of my strawberry plants were sporting wee little baby strawberries !!! YAY!!! I settled in to wait until they ripened.

Left-Good Strawberry Plant...Right-Less Good Strawberry Plant

YUM YUM

The first plant to offer up tasty berries was mildly disappointing ...the berries were small and elongated and seedy and weren’t especially sweet. They were more akin to the little wild strawberries you find out in fields...still yummy but not AS yummy as I had hoped them to be.

The berries that appeared on the other plant held more promise. They were more like your typical run of the mill strawberries...nice and round and plump.

One morning, I checked in on their progress, as I do every morning, and I noticed that FINALLY, one was just about perfect. I was going to pick it and eat it as a pre-work snack but I had just brushed my teeth and didn't want the residual toothpaste taste to detract from the strawberry’s strawberriness....so I didn't.

A post-work/pre-lunch snack it would be.

I looked forward to that strawberry ALL morning and when I got home, I hopped out of the car and skipped over to my waiting strawberry snack, only to find ...

THIS!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

No groundhog or deer could do precision work like this!! Not even a wee baby asshole fawn has tiny enough teeth to commit such a dastardly yet dainty crime.

DOH!!!

We figured the strawberry nibbling thief had to be a small rodent and fingers were immediately pointed at ....say it ain't so...at one of our friendly neighbourhood squirrels.

Squirrels are assholes.

It was the same thing, day after day...kinda like the movie “Groundhog Day”...but with squirrels.

I’d check my strawberry plant for ripe-for-the-picking berries and think to My Self, “Self, how ’bout we give this one till tomorrow and then it'll be perfect and then we will eat it.”

Eager for a sweet strawberry snack, I'd check my strawberry plant the next day...

And...

BAM!!!!

The berry would be half-nibbled.

Again.

Damn YOU, Squirrel!!

Then the plot thickened...I was harvesting some of the lesser strawberries...the Berry Thief was very discerning and rarely helped itself to those ones ...and from somewhere in amongst the veggies, I heard the very angry chattering of a very angry .....CHIPMUNK!!!! And I'm pretty sure I heard him say, "Get the hell away from my strawberries, lady!! Or else I'll cut you!!"

Could it be that the asshole swiping my prized strawberries was a cute little chippy???? Was it the same chippy who has been hiding out from our my asshole assassin cat in our garage eating all the uneaten birdseed that was useless to me since I took the feeders down to save the birdies from my asshole murderous cat??

This chipmunk was living large.

Chipmunks are assholes.

Damn you, Adorable Cute Little Chippy!!

Then...

The plot thickened....

Again.

My Guy was leaving for work early one morning and was startled by a blur of greyish brown followed closely by a blur of menacing black as the blurs sped out of my strawberry plants.

Asshole Cat was hunting down, at an extremely high rate of speed, a fluffy little bunny :(

Could it be that the asshole swiping my prized strawberries was a fluffy little bunny??

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Not a fluffy little bunny!!!

Say it ain't so!!!(again)

So...

To Recap:

“A Comprehensive List of Possible/Probable Vegetable Garden Rapers and Pillagers”
by: Mr. MacGregor

• Groundhog
• Mummy Deer
• Baby Deer
• Squirrel
• Chipmunk
• Peter Rabbit

Unfortunately/Fortunately, a few days later, the “A Comprehensive List of Possible/Probable Dastardly Yet Delicate Strawberry Nibblers” got really really short... really really fast.

I did my usual Pre-Work Strawberry Status Check and was surprised to find a couple of nice plump fully intact strawberries still attached to the plant.

Weird.

Delightfully tasty.

But weird.

And mysterious.

The mystery didn't stay very mysterious for very long because as I pulled out of my driveway and onto the road, I noticed a little pile of fluffy bunny smooshed in the middle of the road.

Poor Peter Rabbit.

I don't have to share my strawberries anymore.



“A Comprehensive List of Dastardly Yet Delicate Strawberry Nibblers”
by: squirrel_e_girl

• Peter Rabbit ...RIP

The End.


As long as we're on the subject of bunnies...

HA!! That rabbit's dynamite!!



p.s. Unfortunately, The Veggie Patch Heartbreak doesn't end there with the dead bunny...my little tomato plants and little cucumber plants quickly outgrew their little wire support cages and are so crazy big that the tomato plants are collapsing into themselves and the tomato-laden branches are bending and breaking and the cucumber plant has toppled over its cage and is smothering my pepper plants :(

Who knew that veggies could grow too big to be manageable?

Maybe I should’ve splurged and bought the heavy duty wire support cages.

Oh well, there’s always next year.

Lessons learned.

I guess my mad gardening skills are just too spectacular to be confined and limited to such a small space.

Yeah...that's it.

What a Honey of a Deal!! Four for the Price of One!!

(My blog is still haunted and random white highlighting is popping up where I really really REALLY don't want it to...grumblegrumblegrumble...Enjoy the post!! Ignore the stupid white highlighting!!)

I'm just gonna sneak this one in under the wire...with a mere  half hour to spare!!

PHEW!!!

Here is Week Numero Four for...

"squirrel_e_girl and The Girl's Country Tune of the Week"


Please don't take my tardiness in posting this as any reflection of how I feel about our choice(s) this week...except maybe if my late posting of this gives you the impression that I really super LOVE the song(s)...then, yes, it is indeed a reflection of how I feel about our choice(s) this week.

The Girl actually gave me carte blanche in song choice this week...and that is probably why me and my awe-inspiring decision-making skills came up with not one but SEVERAL songs for this week.

Oh yeah.

See the problem is, is that The Girl encouraged me to choose a Zac Brown Band song...since they are one of my favourite bands...

 Of all time.

Of all genres.

They are spectacularly AWESOME!!

I've mentioned them before in a couple of posts ...most significantly as an antidote to Dallas F&*king Green's beautiful moroseness.


I am super crazy pumped because My Super Crazy Awesome Guy, who cannot keep a surprise a surprise (it is physically impossible for him to do so...Fact) let it "slip" that he got tickets for Zac Brown Band's concert in Toronto in September for my birthday!!!

YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!

~ An Aside... My birthday is in August...He told me 2 weeks ago. See...birthday surprise no longer a surprise :) But now I get to be super crazy pumped for 2 and one half months instead of just a few weeks. So really, he's also given me the gift of weeks of giddy anticipation...Priceless!!


~Another Aside...I'll talk more about my birthday in a later post. Big News!!

I went through my Zac Brown Band Playlist ...which, by the by, features 49 songs...and was unable to choose just one...Also, I had to consider some input from The Girl (refer to title of this blog feature) and My Guy and both of them liked a bunch of songs too...so, as it stands at time of typing, we're going to have three entries this week.

Firstly, my favourite song, and therefore my pick, is "Quiet Your Mind" by Zac Brown Band.

This is a big song with big sound...which kinda makes the title a wee bit ironic not to mention a little bit misleading. The depth of the sound brings to mind Dave Matthews Band and the smooth strength of ZB's voice makes me think of James Taylor...neither are bad things in my book. It's also in 3/4 time and, boy oh boy, but I do love me a song in 3/4 time...123123123123 ...smooth smooth waltzy smooth. Yep. Love it!! As well, the song builds and swells and builds and swells and sweeps me away as it builds and swells. Love it!! AND I love the message in the song.

I hope you like it:

The Girl chimed up that this is her favourite... "Keep Me In Mind". This song has such a fun funky groove to it. Awesome!!

My Guy gets a huge kick out of "Sic 'Em On a Chicken". It's a funny silly song that always makes us chuckle.

And...

 Because it's killing me to only get one choice, I'm going to include their latest single "The Wind" and I'm embarrassed to admit that the first time I heard this on the radio, I thought to myself, "Holy Christ, Self...what the hell is this?" and I didn't much care for it and then when it dawned on me that it was my beloved ZBB's newest single...I was sad. But then the more I listened the more I loved...so here it is:

Ok... I think that's it!!

This was a very difficult task for me. There are so very many excellent songs.

I love these guys in a big bad way.

I urge you to search out and listen to any and all Zac Brown Band music. (warning: some of the actual official music videos for some of the songs are a little strange and off-putting...even for me and that's saying something)

Nighty night, y'all!!

Maury, an Irish Pug, Half-Naked Abercrombie & Fitch Dudes and Joe Nichols...and Nemo.

Here we are again...Country Music Song Pick Day....Volume Three.

Wait a sec...

I'm a wee bit distracted.

And disturbed.

The Girl is sitting beside me watching a YouTube video.

...which is no big deal, in and of itself...

BUT!!!

It is a YouTube video clip from a Maury Povich show titled "15 year old girl had sex with 15 men over 300 times"   ...or something equally horrifying.

Good Christ.

That is so f*&king wrong for so many f*&king reasons. The first/worst reason is that my daughter is actually f*&king watching Maury Povich.


Though all is not lost...she is now watching a video about a little Irish pug who can't run....

She thinks it's adorable...I kinda do, too...but then I'm also a bit concerned that the poor dog has some sort of neurological problem that renders him incapable of running.

 Perhaps an inner ear abnormality that throws his equilibrium way outta whack.

 Perhaps he's been drinking. He is Irish after all.

 Who knows....

 But it's better than videos with Maury Povich and young girls having sex 300 times...

 Maybe I should re-word that last statement... Nah.

 Good Christ. Now she's watching a video featuring a bunch of shirtless male Abercrombie models singing the ridiculously overplayed Carly Rae Jepsen song.

I find this one mildly disturbing as well.

 Maybe I need to lighten up a little.

 Maybe I should start drinkin'...


 Which, interestingly enough, brings me back to my original point...

 Ahhhhhh....The Circle of Life :)

 Here's this week's:

 "squirrel_e_girl & The Girl's Country Tune of the Week"


 This week, we've chosen: "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off" by Joe Nichols

 This song is catchy and it's cute and we love it.

 We also love Joe Nichols. He's adorable. Even more adorable than that stumblin' tumblin' pug.

You may recall him from last week's pick. Did I mention we love Joe Nichols and we think he's adorable??


 Please enjoy the lyrics and ignore the video's off-the-charts-cheese-factor and all the skanky babes. (I'm speaking directly to you, Laura)

OK...that's it for this week.

We're gonna go watch "Finding Nemo". Quick!!! Pass me half a dozen Kleenexes!!

Oh Nemo!! I'm really really sorry your Mum and all your unborn siblings get eaten by a stupid barracuda. That really sucks... a lot.


IMPORTANT UPDATE

Upon further viewing of the Irish Pug video, I discovered that he DOES have some sort of neurological problem.

I'm not a neurologist nor do I play one on TV...

 But I should.


 IMPORTANT BITCH AND MOAN

Stupid Blogger keeps messing with my post!!

All my paragraph(and I use that word loosely) spacing mysteriously vanishes and then I have to re-edit and then it disappears and I have to re-edit and then random sentences end up being highlighted and then I have to re-edit and then my sentences become stupid long and grammatically incorrect ... oh...that's just the way I blog. Damn.

So please excuse any weirdo spacing and highlighting...it's not my fault. My blog is apparently haunted.

Also, please excuse any weirdo run-on, grammatically incorrect sentences...it is entirely my fault. My grammar skills are apparently pretty close to non-existent.

As Promised....

 
It's Saturday and you know what that means...

 It means it's the same Bat Day for the time-honoured tradition of...

"squirrel_e_girl & The Girl's Country Tune of the Week"

Yes, indeed.

I know you've all been waiting with bated breath for this....

So, without further ado...

This week, The Girl and I have picked:

"Gimme That Girl" by Joe Nichols (he actually spells "gimmie" with an 'i'... I don't)

Again, here's a country dude being all sexy but in a super cute, super sweet kinda way.

I've said it before but these guys know how to treat their girls.

And, speaking of girls, of course we all know what to do with any song that has "girl" anywhere in it...

We sing "Squirrel" instead.

Yep.

So, here's "Gimme That Squirrel" by Joe Nichols

 gimmegimmegimmethatsquirrel

Yep.

:D