Apologies All Around

I have to apologize to the Internet and all that entails for my lack of participation.  You see I was a little busy with the painting, but not as much as usual.  I was a little busy with guests, but not enough to count.  I was busy sweeping, but hey, when am I not?  I was busy doing yard work, but hardly able to consider it work.  I was a little busy with my walks, and bike rides, but nothing to write home about.  However...I have become a little mesmerized by some angry birds.  First off, it is all my daughter's fault.  Had it not been for her and her outside influences I would have never considered playing such a silly game.  And second, who can resist birds when they say, "ow, ow,"? 

Typically I am not a big gamer because I actually don't have the patience for that kind of stuff, but honestly I cannot resist birds that blow up.  I don't know why, but it is much fun.  Then just as I was going to give it all up I found out that when you click after letting the birds go well other stuff can happen like laying eggs that blow shit up, splitting into three, and chewing through wood really fast.  So it set me off on another round.  I'm a little slow, and obviously haven't spent any time looking information up about them so had to discover these traits after a couple of weeks of on again, off again play.  The good thing is that I am finally getting to the point where it is getting too frustrating again so I might really quit this time.  Really...I will.  Just watch me.  But not until tomorrow because I want to give a few more levels another try.  Then I can quit...anytime I want to. 

Today, when I wasn't blowing up birds, the hubby and I went for a walk out to the back forty and ran into a couple of ladies planting some flowers near the memorial site.  I received a hug and a kiss for my efforts at planting a rose bush and building a small set of stairs in the side of the hill down to the site.  It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  I would have gotten all teary eyed and everything but almost immediately afterward the mosquitoes found us and pretty much picked me up and carried me out of the bush.  They were so nasty that they were actually biting me through my clothes.  The only thing that actually saved me was the fact that I was wearing my East Coast Burka.  Here at the Old Shoes and Tea Society we have a saying.  "When the mosquitoes get bitey run like hell for your life or you will be scratching and itching for weeks to come." 

Here in Canada this weekend was what we refer to as May Long, or the May long weekend, it is a celebration of Queen Victoria's birthday.  When I was working in the pits of hell it was a lovely, lovely weekend, even if it snowed.  However this weekend it did not snow, it was warm, sunny, and just simply stunning.  The greens were green, and crisp, and greeny green, like a green thing but exponentially more green then that.  The smell coming off that lake brought back the best of my memories of being out on the lake when I was a kid.  It was an amazing three days...is an amazing three days as it isn't quite over yet.  The only real downer was the fact that someone had a little too much grog celebrating the queen's B-day and decided that smashing mailboxes would be a great fun thing to do.  For some reason the mailbox gods smiled upon ours and it went unscathed, but the neighbour's was smashed to hell.  And as of five minutes ago the official count for the hellhound is 194 wood ticks.  Now that is creepy, crawly, and yucky.  But the good thing is that we are only taking ticks off her in the threes and fours, as apposed to double digits.  So along with wanting black fly season over with I am also wanting tick season to be over.  Shocking but true.