I took Charlie for a good long walk this morning and we finally broke the 5 km barrier:)  Yesterday I was so tired I could hardly drag my ass around the block, but I'm feeling less tired today.  We go early because of the heat, and so does everyone else apparently, or maybe it's because the kids are back to school.

As per Ms. Moon and Boud, I cut more zinnias to enjoy in my kitchen.

There is a community garden about one km from our house and the sunflowers are blooming.

I picked ten pounds of ripe tomatoes and made ten cups of tomato sauce.  I only had four tomato plants survive the spring and really only three of them are producing much.  I'm saving seeds to grow my own plants again next spring because buying the plants was a waste of money.  I also saved the seeds from my delphinums and will grow more of them next spring as well, some of the seeds I sprinkled in the flower bed because I want to see how well self seeding works.  My lupins are self seeding and the variety I have didn't get any aphids this year which is a wonder.

Jack started back to school yesterday.  He takes the bus from just down the block and no more daycare.  Oh well.  Hopefully it all goes well.  We met his new teacher on Wednesday and she seemed like a kind woman.  I've been told by neighbors that the teacher is very patient, which is good.  I hope he has a good year at school.  He's starting to read which is a shock when he reads a sign out loud to me.

Jack starting grade one means twelve more years of school routines, and calendars.  I remember when Katie graduated from grade twelve, I thought, no more school, ever.  As is so often the case, I was wrong:)

It remains hot but I put the room air conditioner from hubby's bedroom in the kitchen to make the house more liveable.  I'm looking forward to cooler weather.  

 More sowthistle.  I know it's a weed, but I still love the colour.

And here's another one, faces to the morning sun.

It's bloody hot here, 33C (91F), and forecast for even hotter tomorrow.  I took some water out to the two spruces that I transplanted this spring.  Hopefully they survive.

I took the dogs for their walks early this morning, so I was finished early and it still wasn't too hot yet.  I thought, I'll just move a couple of plants, because I need to do some major editing in my garden.  Things have gotten out of hand.  So I dug up a very sad looking delphinium that was not happy where it was and thought, I'd move it to the front garden.  And I could move the bergenia in the front garden to the back, under the pear tree which is shady and which the delphinium didn't like.

All good in theory, however, the lamnium has gotten out of hand, the solomon's seals have been underwhelming, and the irises are fewer and fewer every year.  So I had to dig up a bunch of stuff, to get to the delphinium and make room for the bergenia.

I went around front and started digging up the bergenia, which was an enormous plant, but I also had to pull out lamnium and yarrow to make a hole for the delphinum.  I also thought I would move one of the salvia's further back into the front garden, as it gets taller and would look nice next to the delphinium.  

As I was doing this, I kept snagging on low branches from the crabapple tree that grows in the front bed, so I cut some of those branches down.  I also found an astilbe, barely alive, in the middle of the yarrow, so I had to find a home for that as well.

There was so much bergenia that I put it into two beds in the back yard.  Two hours later, I had moved five plants and dug up a copius amount of lamnium and some of it's roots, as well as pruned the crabapple.  And this is why it's hard for me to work in the garden sometimes, the work multiplies, even when I just want to do a little:)

My son visited Jack again this past weekend.  He's trying.  He still has miles to go, but he's taken a first step.  

We're in for a heatwave this week.  Yay.  Sleeping in the basement this week.  

I went to Service Canada this morning to submit Jack's passport paperwork.  The guarantor for his passport photos forgot to put her entire birthdate on the application.  Next appointment is in a month, but I know all the paperwork is correct at least which is good.  I hate filling in forms.

Still no word on a teacher's strike yet.  Some people think they will allow children to get settled into school and then walk out.  I fully support the teachers.  Class sizes have increased and the complexity of the children's needs has also risen.  Our provincial government has encouraged migration to our province but isn't willing to provide increased funding for health and education to address the increased population size.

I signed up to be an official canvasser.  I will be canvassing for signatures to allow a petition to be put forward as a referendum question.  "Do you want Alberta to remain a part of Canada?"  Makes my head hurt that we even have to do this, but I will do the work required.  Our premier has fomented a lot of nasty ideas, separation, book banning, interfering with trans gender people's lives, rascim, and chemtrails.  WTF.  She's a piece of work, kind of like trump and his ilk.

I took the dogs for a walk this morning, they're trying to recover now in the shade.  I've got laundry hanging on the line which means my bed will smell wonderful.  Roomba will sweep up all the dog and cat hair, and I'm going to go work on staining parts of our new shed.

Jack starts grade one on Thursday:)

I think this is perennial sow thistle, I think, I could just as easily be wrong.  I'm ok with being wrong now.  There was a time when I couldn't handle being wrong, I couldn't handle the opinions of others, and I couldn't handle criticism.  I can now, mostly.  Being wrong is ok.  Not knowing is ok.  I don't have to right all the time.  I can shut my mouth and leave facts out of the conversation, sometimes.

The thing is, Jack always has to be right and it brings out my need to be right.  We've told him he doesn't know everything.  Told him he doesn't have to be right, that it's ok.  Nobody knows everything.  None of that helps and none of it diminishes his need to be right.

Yesterday I saw a thing on Instagram about the Dunning-Kruger effect. Basically the Dunning-Kruger effect means that people with a low skill set in one area, are unable to accurately evaluate their competence in that area, because they don't know what they don't know.  Their incompetence prevents them from understanding that they are incompetent.  I worked with a nurse like this for fourteen long years.

On the other side, highly skilled people will question their competence because they have a better understanding of what they don't know.  

Which brought me back to children.  I wondered if children experience this, so I googled it and sure enough, children also experience this, although in children it's not usually called the Dunning-Kruger effect.  Children lack experience and knowledge and have no idea of how little they know.  What children do know, is that they keep learning and know a lot more than they did previously, so it's easy to understand why children would think that they know everything.  It's normal in other words.  

I always worry about Jack.  He's been through so much trauma in his short life, starting with his birth when he had to be resucitated, and I wonder how much of that has impacted him.  He lives with his old grandparents who are tired, but also have a lifetime of experience in both knowledge, skills, and child rearing.  Does that affect him?  Doubtful.

And now for my new skill this week, canning peaches.  I learned it was time consuming, but they do look pretty.  Cutting up the peaches, dousing them with lemon juice, and freezing them was much easier.  Now I know.

 

We're back from our holiday.  The photo above is Jack at Abraham Lake.  We stopped for a picnic lunch there and Jack threw rocks into the lake and tried to pick up the heaviest rocks he could find.

On the way home we stopped at The Enchanted Forest which exceeded expectations and Jack enjoyed a great deal.  When I was a kid we always drove past this tourist attraction on the way to Vancouver Island and on the way home.  Mum and dad never stopped there.  I imagine it would have been too expensive to stop there and spend another night on the road, but it would have been amazing to stop there as a kid.

We hiked at Naramata Creek Park.  We never made it as far as the falls because Jack was freaked out by the signs for poison ivy along the trail (and there was a fair bit of it), but he did have fun climbing on the rocks.  We ran into a family of seven kids along the way, and Jack had fun with the other kids.  

I've been cleaning up dog hair and doing laundry since I got home.  Yesterday I took Miss Katie out and we had a nice lunch.  She's doing well which I'm thankful for; it's such a fine balancing act with her medications so that she's happy and not anxious, but also not drugged.  I worked at Michener Centre (an institution to house mentally disabled people) many years ago and the patients were drugged and drooling.  Not something I want for my daughter.

While I was in Penticton I got to visit with my sister in law, whom I love.  She is the sister I never had:)  We talked the whole time we were together and it was wonderful.  Of course I cried.

Now that I'm home I'm feeling reenergized and I'm tired of doing most things by myself.  I have a hard time saying no and an even harder time asking for help, but I did.  There is a teachers strike looming here and we don't have anymore daycare after the end of the month.  I told Jack's grandma I would need help and she said she was going to Toronto twice next month, so I texted her back and her told the dates I need her help.  I also told her that I need her and Jack's aunt to take care of Jack one weekend a month.  We've been doing this for four years now and at the beginning, they said they would help, but their help isn't really help.  That first Christmas, they all went to Mexico for a month.  It hasn't changed.  So now I'm asking.  They're not like me, I would offer to help, they don't.  I'll ask now.  If they don't want to help, they'll have to say no.

On the Provincial front, we now have to pay for Covid vaccinations $110/dose.  This fucking government is shit, worse than shit.  What's worse than shit?  A goat rodeo!

It's been hot here which means unsettled weather and beautiful cloud formations.  We didn't get this rain though, it went further east and hit Vermillion and Vegreville.

Yesterday I went to the gym for the first time in probably a decade.  It was good.  My muscles are sore today, especially my triceps but it's a familiar sore, a sore that means I worked out.  I spent twenty years lifting weights when I was younger, an excellent preventative measure for osteoporsis, something I've managed to avoid so far.  My poor mum broke so many bones, starting in her forties, and continuing on until she started taking fosamax.  When I retired, one of my goals was to start working out and now a year later, I went to the gym.  I only bought a punch card for ten visits though, before I commit.  I know what I'm like.  I start off gung-ho and then lose interest, but I also know how good I feel when I lift weights, along with my cardio workout.  

We're leaving for Pentiction on Sunday, to visit my brother and my sister in law.  I'm looking forward to seeing them, but not the weather.  Penticton is hot as hell in the summer.  Thankfully there are two lakes to choose from and an outdoor pool at the motel.  I'm in the middle of cleaning and doing laundry, organizing stuff to take with us, and packing, because that's what women do apparently.  

In good news, Jack and I have been accepted into a program that builds resiliency and skills for ADHD children and their parents.  We talked to the psychiatrist yesterday, a very nice man with excellent kid skills; the course starts in September and runs for ten weeks.  It teaches both the children and the parents how to deal with ADHD, which will be so helpful.  I'm quite excited about it, for both of us.  The psychiatrist was also impressed with Jack's ability to sit still and talk to him, despite the ADHD and the trauma he's been through.  I guess we're doing something right.

Jack will start swimming lessons again next month and he wants to get onto a soccer team as well, so he'll/we'll be busy.

This is what ADHD feels like:)

 The asters are blooming which always signals the beginning of the end of summer to me.  

African daisy.  A lot of my photos are ending up blurry these days.  

So that's it.  I walked the dogs this morning before it go too hot.  Roomba vacuumed and I washed the floors.  Time to sew.

As I lay in bed last night thinking about drugs and alcohol (as one does), I thought about my own life as well.  I was listening to a podcast the other day about the use of Miltown, one of the first drugs manufactured to treat anxiety.  The podcaster pointed out that there has always been anxiety in the world but people's options were limited in how to deal with that anxiety.  Alcohol has been around a long time, 9000ish years, and opium, 7000ish years, both have been used medicinally and recreationally.  Addictions to both opium and alcohol have been around a long time too, probably about 9000ish and 7000ish years.  So I was thinking about all of this as I tried to fall asleep and then I thought about trying to teach Jack resilience and wondered how on earth can I teach him resilence when I don't feel that I have resillence.

And then I thought, "but all the shit you've lived though, and you're not a drug addict or alcoholic", if that isn't resilence, then what is?  So maybe I can teach Jack how to be resilent.  How I do it isn't pretty, but I've survived a lot in my lifetime, and have lived 62 years as someone with ADHD and no medications, and no self medications.  Not too shabby.

I'm going to visit my friend this afternoon.  She'll listen to my complaints, she won't judge, and at the end of it, she'll hug me.