Back to the simple life part 2

So in my previous post I spoke about my wifes unhappiness about living in such a small village because she is a city girl at heart, as it turns out my assumption as to why she was unhappy wasnt entirely accurate.

Her biggest issue is the simple fact that there are no grocery stores here and no entertainment either other than the bar, her point being is that you have to drive for 30 minutes to the nearest city to get groceries or to have a family night/day out or to do pretty much anything, which as she says isnt so bad during the summer, but is not a good or safe thing in the winter as the roads are often closed for days at a time.

She actually does enjoy the country life, its just the severe lack of everything out here that makes her not so keen on living out here, having to drive 30 minutes (often in snowstorms and blizzards)down an icy highway to get to work and back is not a pleasant experience for her (or anyone really).

The thing is Pense is a bedroom community, people live here and work elsewhere, there really is next to nothing here, yet when we went to Maryfield (my home town) , it to is a small village but it has a proper grocery store,a small restaurant,a movie theater,and a pool hall/bar/hotel, it also has a school that goes all the way to grade 12 ,unlike here where the school only goes to grade 8.
Maryfield also has a spring and fall fair, and a mid summer antique farm show that draws farmers and visitors for miles around,they have a library,fitness center,2 retirement homes,a gas station,hardware store and a few little family shops that sell crafts and such, and Maryfield retains its young people, meaning most kids who grow up there end up returning later in life to raise their families.

My wifes point is she would like to live there as there are things to do there, there are even job opportunities there,unlike here in Pense that has non of that. Her major sticking point is the fact if we moved to Maryfield we wouldnt have to travel so much, especially in winter.

She makes a good argument, I am home sick for my hometown, most of my pleasant childhood memories are of there in Maryfield, the problem is , it will take me another 7.5 years to pay off the property we have here in Pense, even if I were to sell now, we wouldnt have much money in pocket to start over as most would go to the bank to pay off the loan.

Theres that and the other fact, we have alot of shit!, a camper, a pair of off road bikes, 3 vehicles, I have a 30x30 work shop full of tools,then theres the contents of a 3 bedroom house and a utility trailer, the tractor the lawn tractor, the tillers etc. Sure I could sell most of it off and start over, but the chances of getting the money invested in these things back are slim.

Even our son says hes up for a move and wouldnt mind starting over in Maryfield, my little family planted the seeds of change in my head, made some valid arguments for leaving here to move to Maryfield, tugged on my emotional heart strings, and made me thankful that they didnt say they wanted to move to a city..... hard to resist their desires, and so I am giving it serious thought.

So thats where we are at, I will keep you posted on this, and yall will be the first to know if I decide to say screw it and move my family down to Maryfield, after all, if you have learned anything about me through these blogs, you know that I am all about Family and keeping them happy at any cost.

Butch
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I’m Back Services and other ramblings

We had a service for my wife Saturday February 7th 2015 , it was simply beautiful, it lasted about 45 minutes, the little church was packed with standing room only, I just know she was there in spirit smiling, and probably thinking “I don’t like all this attention” , she never was one who cared for much attention, she was more focused on her little family.

I have her Urn and set up a nice little memorial on our book shelf, nothing too fancy as she preferred the simple things in life, I just put her photo there next to the urn, 3 purple candles and 3 chocolate red roses , that’s pretty much it, I have my memories of her now, and it may sound odd ,but with her urn home in the house, it’s almost like we are a Family again.

We had lots of Family stay with us, our little house on the prairies was packed full, we had 8 people not counting Hammy and I sleeping and living in our small humble home, but we managed just fine, we also brought a lot of business to our villages bar/hotel, we filled all 10 rooms , each room has 2 double beds so it was 4 people per room, my Friend owns the bar and gave everyone a deep discount, and we kept the kitchen busy as well.

Hammy and I are starting to fall into a quasi normal routine again, my day usually starts at 6 am and ends around midnight, I not only look after Hammy but the house as well, I had a great teacher for the last 18 years so I know how to keep a house, and I can cook, very well if I do say so myself, I have also been up to my ass in Government forms and other paper work, it gets complicated when a loved one passes.

Hammy is doing alright, he sits by the urn and tells his Mom about his day at school and always says good night to her, he grieves different than I do and that’s okay, there is no right or wrong way to grieve, He is a strong little soul that is for sure.

I myself am starting to recover slowly, I find myself getting teary eyed out of the blue every now and then, I smile when I see a young family together then get teary eyed knowing that , that was once me and my little family, the truth is the whole family dynamic has permanently changed and can never be what it once was, and I miss that. I want that back. Every day I miss her and I always will.

Hammy and I have grown closer, we have made it a rule that we don’t go to bed with out a hug and a kiss on the cheek good night followed by an I love you, we do this in the morning too, even if he has dragon breath in the morning, I still appreciate the kiss on the cheek, I have started putting little notes in his school lunch, nothing fancy, just a simple I love you and am thinking of you , Dad , hopefully it brightens his day a bit.

I can do this, I got this, I can be a single parent and manage a home and the animals just fine, I am not so scared of the task now, Hammy isn’t the least bit worried, as long as he is fed and watered he is a happy camper, He follows the routine pretty well and is managing to keep his grades up at school. I am so very proud of him and you will find me talking/writing quite a lot about him as time moves forward, he is Pauline’s Legacy to the world and I will continue to raise him in the same fashion as before, he is my pride and joy and I am gonna do my fare share of bragging on him because he is just that great!

Financially I am in good shape, there will be some tough times now and then, but then there always is for almost everyone on the planet, I still have my job at my friends bar here in the village, I cook there a couple hours a night 3 to 4 nights a week, I haven’t returned to work yet and don’t plan to until I have all the paperwork and Government crap done, perhaps in March I will return to work, I also have EI (employment insurance) which I always file for each winter until spring arrives and I can fire up my yard maintenance business again, my business is seasonal so I usually take the winters off and hibernate, I also have other things that bring in some money, not a lot but when you save it up it all adds up, I do use Google Ads on my Blogspot site to generate a small income, it’s not much but as I said it adds up, and the cheques are in US currency so I get even more Canadian dollars when I make the deposit. I also collect scrap metals and recycle , it’s quick easy money, I am toying with the idea of selling off some stuff via Ebay, no rush for that though and it’s there if and when I want to give it a whirl.

During the spring summer fall months I generally make more than enough money to carry through the long cold winters we have here, so I am by no means financially ruined or facing any serious hardships now that my wife is no longer alive, quite the contrary, I’m not spending $300-400 in gas making multiple trips to the city to get to doctor appointments, I’m no longer shelling out $50 a week in hospital parking, no longer have to buy specialty foods and special diets , nor am I shelling out hundreds on medications each month, it’s all money that can be saved and put away now.

This summer Hammy and I plan on doing some traveling,fishing and camping together, it should be fun and together we can build some great memories, I do very much enjoy spending time with Hammy, he honestly is a fun kid and a hard worker, as I mentioned in previous posts, last summer Hammy pretty much ran my entire business all summer so I could be home to look after Pauline, he was just 12 years old turning 13 when he manned up and went to work running my business, I did all the paper work and reassured clients that yes Hammy could run the equipment and knew exactly what he was doing after all he had been working along side me since he was 7 years old, he runs the machines like a pro and I never had a single complaint all last year, and yes I made sure Hammy was paid and paid well for all his hard work.

As far as my grief goes, I do miss my Wife dearly, I am heartbroken and lonely now, but I find comfort in the fact that she is no longer suffering and she is at peace now, I know she is in Heaven smiling down on us, I know she will be eternally young, I know she has her long blonde curly hair and that her eyes once again have that sparkle in them, I know God is taking good care of her,I know that we will be together again one day and that comforts me.

I still haven’t been able to sleep in our bed, it’s so big and empty now, I just may down size to a twin bed, I will never share my bed with anyone so I really don’t have the need for a queen sized bed anymore. For now I sleep on the couch in the living room, also I haven’t gone through her stuff and bagged it for donation yet, I’m just not quite ready for that yet, I have gotten rid of a few things in the living room, more decluttering than anything , just a lamp that was never used, an old rickety book shelf, some bins full of scrap booking stuff , not a lot, but enough to free up some space and make the house more Hammy’s and mine.

Guess that’s all I want to say right now, but I am back and will write more often now that life is settling down again.

Remember folks: express your love often,never take tomorrow for granted, and be kind to others.

Butch
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My Wife is back home inner strengths cross blogging

Before I get too far into my ramblings, y’all should know that I cross blog, meaning I also keep a blog at Blogspot : http://butchcountry67.blogspot.ca/ it’s a mirror of this one here at word press : http://butchcountry67.wordpress.com/ < this is for the blogspot readers.

I started out a couple years ago at blogspot because it is an easier format ( I like the simple things) , also I could customize the holy jinkers out of it and make it mine, something I am still figuring out how to do here at wordpress, I’ll get it….. eventually! ( I’m not the most tech savvy Butch on the planet) As I found out (the hard way) it isn’t easy to copy and paste from blogspot to here (the platforms must not agree) but it is easy peasy to copy and paste from wordpress to blogspot, so that’s exactly what I do.

That said, now onto bigger and better things!

My wife is home from the Cancer center again, she finished up her Chemo Sunday and the doc said I could bring her home, She is pretty sick at the moment, chemo really knocks the hell outta her, she should start feeling better within the next day or two.

My heart Zings when I get to have her at home, when she is at the hospital I miss her dearly, she doesn’t like visitors when she is getting chemo so I stay away and it truly kills me, I love her so very much and everytime she goes into the hospital, I pray that she comes back out.

The atmosphere of the house has shifted yet again, now it truly feels like a home again, as I have stated when she is away the house seems cold and quite uninviting , My wife has a big personality and a big presence and you feel that when she is near. We give each other comfort and strength through these rough times, add our son Hammy to that and as a team we forge ahead regardless of the obstacles, as a family united it feels like we are unstoppable, but remove just one from the team, we flounder and begin to fail, we have our share of ups and downs that’s for sure.

You really don’t know how truly strong you are until you are literally backed into a corner with very little hope of escape, I don’t even truly know how strong I am …yet, as hard as it is to have the Love of my Life have stage 4 (end stage) Lung Cancer, I still carry on and get what needs to be done, done, life has to go on, I look after her as best I can, make sure she is comfortable, make sure she gets her meds on time, administering her needles and making sure she wants for nothing & being the rock to lean on that she needs me to be.

Then there is Hammy (not his real name,just my nick name for him) he is a pretty independent 12 year old, but still needs his Mom (my wife)and sometimes me (Dad),but mostly his Mom , I try to take care of his emotional needs as well, keep him positive and happy , it is very hard for him as well, he knows the truth,that his Mom is most likely not going to survive this illness, we don’t lie to him, it is better that he knows the truth from the get go than to have him be angry and hate me for not telling him just how serious this is later, and again being the emotional rock that he also needs me to be.

I don’t really take good care of myself, I do the bare minimum when it comes to myself, yes I keep good hygiene, yes I keep fed, yes I take my own meds for depression, but that’s about it, I don’t do therapy, I just don’t have the time, between getting our son to his therapy sessions and looking after my wife, the house, bills, property,animals,(dog and cats) , work schedules, I don’t really have time to do much else, so here is my therapy, writing in my blog and continuously fighting with spell checker that doesn’t recognize Canadian English, dropping the “u” is the bane of my existence.

Inner strength, do I have it? I guess so , where it comes from I do not know, I have always been a “get -er – done ” kind of person always doing what needs doing no matter how tough the doing is, it doesn’t make me any kind of special, just makes me able to quickly get a handle on most problems and solve them, that’s all, nothing more.

I am NOT the solid unbreakable rock that I appear to be, there are many cracks in my foundations, they are just unseen by others, my wifes cancer and the fact that it is terminal blew a pretty big hole in my foundations, I patched them as best I can and got down to the business of looking after her, another major crack in my foundation is the fact that just last year our son Hammy was fighting for his young life, he had a brain tumor, thank god it turned out to be benign , the surgery to remove it damn near killed him. I also carry many cracks from years past, my youth and childhood, I got good at patching the cracks, so I don’t rightly know just how strong my inner strength is, I haven’t hit my limit just yet, I’ve come close plenty of times,but always managed to patch it before imploding.

Leads me to believe that human beings are so much stronger than they believe they are, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, especially when the situation is balls to the walls dire, I think it’s in everyone , the lucky ones just never have to use it, I mean really use it. Most people will have to draw on that inner strength in one form or another, and all I can say is, hang in there , draw on it , use it,and you will survive , you can do it, just be confident and truly believe in yourself and anything is possible. thats a fact for sure.

Anyway that’s all I got for tonight, remember to express your love often, don’t take tomorrow for granted, Peace be with each and every one of you

Butch
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Just a Laid Back Day with a Pleasant Surprise

So today is a new day, I slept in and missed Sunday Church services, oh well, I needed the extra sleep badly, besides I talk to my God everyday, silently to myself, I also talk to my wife that way, I have entire conversations in my mind without speaking a single word…. and no my cheese has not slipped off my cracker, I am perfectly sane.

I stumbled out of bed at 10:30 am this morning, ( went to bed around midnight) , made coffee and sat down to answer my emails, and comments here, do some blog surfing , and just gradually wake up, also threw a load of laundry in while I was at it, Hammy , being Hammy was in the kitchen foraging for food (his favorite past time) I wasn’t paying attention and out of the blue he made me a fried egg on toast sandwich …with cheese, what a Pleasant Surprise!! I was NOT expecting that at all! I have to add that it was very nice having someone else cook for me, a very nice change of pace! and Hammy is a good cook too. !

So I am still in my jammies, and doing some house cleaning while Hammy plays video games, he would help with the chores if I asked, but the way I see it, he spends all week at school working hard to pull straight “A”‘s , and he babysits and mows lawns after schools and on weekends, between that he finds a couple hours to spend with his friends, so he rarely plays video games now that summer is upon us, so I figure he can play an entire day of video games on a lazy sunday ( seeing the weather is cool and rainy) , and I can do the chores myself at my own pace , my own way.

so that’s it for now, I am working on a blog post in my mind, just sorting everything out and will post it this evening, in the mean time, y’all have a great day and Remember Folks: express your love often, never take tomorrow for granted, and be kind to others.

Butch
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