This past Friday, an old friend of mine announced that his "nest" was increasing by one at the end of January!  I offered him congratulations when I heard the news, then buckled down to the arduous task of emptying *our* nest!  You see, our eldest, who has been living with us (with a variety of interruptions) since December 7, 2001, has decided, on ( Read more... )

When I was much younger, I remember a Miller Lite ad that featured football star LC Greenwood crushing a beer can flat with just one hand.  It was followed up by Baltimore Colts quarterback Bert Jones “replying” and then failing to crush a can of his own (I believe his can was still full, while LC’s was empty), and then a third one where he ( Read more... )

It was almost 20 years ago, so I was reading a few minutes ago, that teenaged son of a social worker in BC came home from a wilderness camp with a necklace of beads of various colours.  The camp had provided him with many learning experiences and, as he sat with his parents, he could tell them what each bead meant, what he had had to do to earn it ( Read more... )

So, let's make a postulation here:

We'll start with two parents of a troublesome child.  Nothing they do can get the child to be obedient, "normal," or basically behave as expected, even a significant amount of the time.  As the child grows up, the parents assume that it is them.  They must be the problem - they were not educated enough about the ( Read more... )

Just to put down *something* - a second of my children has been returned to "the system" via the Children's Aid Society.  This has been coming for a while - Sir Goobs did not adjust to the move at all, utterly refused to accept that we'd left Strathroy, and demanded to be returned there at every chance.  He told us many times that he would be ( Read more... )

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This past Saturday was, in a word, nuts! Our 4th annual Christmas Extravaganza came to pass, and once again our basement was filled with people in search of crafts, baking, candy, and the occasional bowl of VC's Famous Chili, among other things! We had a couple in the congregation say, "Hey, we sell holiday woodcrafts!" VC sez, 'Okay, c'mon out ( Read more... )

A few months ago, an energetic young salesman came to the door and enquired as to whether or not we wished to partake in a deal being proferred by one of the local golf courses.  Essentially, I paid the price of one round of 18 holes ($30) and was given a card with which I could receive several free rounds (with a lot of BOGO's) as long as I paid ( Read more... )