Thursday, February 21, 2008

Fun in the sun

Just a quick post for you guys to let you know that Victoria and I arrived safe and sound. We had an excellent flight. It is hot and sunny. We have been taking it easy and enjoying lots of time on the beach. I can't believe we have been here two days already, the time is going by so fast. I will hopefully be able to keep getting internet time and keep you all up to date on the trip.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Tip of the Day...make Lists...LOTS OF LISTS!!!

Today is slightly better even though I still have far too much to do and yes I am still very overwhelmed. It feels like it will never come together...I made several lists in an attempt to organize myself and reduce some stress. Who knows I may actually get some sleep going into this trip yeah right LOL. What started out to be a one page list became five very quickly. The more I thought the more I realized I had forgotten. It was a rewarding yet overwhelming at the same time. How can I have this much left to do?? I wish I had help.... I will post more latter when I have time.

Back by Popular Demand

Haha ok maybe not popular demand but I have had a couple people ask if I would cut and past the posts from my old blog that were entitled "The requirements to date me" series. I unfortunately deleted them along with the rest of the old blog, HOWEVER since I am once again single I decided to entertain the idea and start a new list LOL. Soooooo if you have ideas (the funnier the better because after all it is all in good fun) you can email me at my hotmail account, send me and MSN or send a message on facebook. Just put "requirements to date me" as the subject and I will at it to the list.
I will be posting the list sometime after I get home from vacation. While I will be posting here while I am gone to keep you all informed about my fun I will wait and post the list when I get home.
Put your thinking caps on and let me know.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

The word of the day: Overwhelmed

Today has been a really long bad day. I had way too many appointments this morning, while still trying to pack and then go to work.

I am so frustrated....it looks like every closet in the house exploded. I am just now at 11:47pm, having my first meal of the day....unless of course you count the bag of chips and the diet pepsi I managed to grab at work.

To make matters worse I had to go to see my ex today to finalize stuff so I can fly with Victoria....Yes I think I have lost what little I had left of my mind.

I sure hope things come together....2 days until vacation...not that I'm counting LOL

Thursday, February 14, 2008

I Heart Cake


Victoria helped me make a Valentines day cake. I think she did a pretty good job. For the record the icing is Cinderella pink. Yes I know it's sad I own the Watkins Disney Princess Food colouring collection. Also the smudges of icing on the cake board are not from me icing the cake but rather from the 5 year old helper who kept sampling the icing while I was working LOL. All for quality control purposes of course.

Doesn't Anyone Speak English Anymore?

Stupidity annoys me. Anyone who knows me at all will tell you that much. If you did not read the post from the other day about my "encounter" with student loan you may want to read that first then come back to this post....it will make a lot more sense. Yesterday I put in the call to pay the entire over award back. I get a woman on the phone who, after I explained what had gone on and how I was settling the matter she proceeded to tell me that it was because of me "people like me" that universities and loan lenders are in such poor shape. People who make as much as I do take it from those who really need it. Keep in mind all this was done in a very thick accent and VERY broken English. NOW if you are going to insult me and make a comment that speaks to the type of person I am you need to get your facts straight and have actually MET me. I am afraid after no sleep, a bad day at work and being up with a sick child all night I was in NO mood to take her load of malarkey. I proceeded to point out that the agency that she was representing was the one who approved my application. I also pointed out to her that the estimated income for the prestudy period was far less than the estimate that I had made AND the amount I made during the study period were also less. When they audited me AFTER they had already given me the loan they pointed out in a letter that I met the criteria for the loan and that the audit showed that I HAD NOT been given an overaward. I also proceeded to not so nicely remind her that if it were not for "people like me" going to university and needing student loans that SHE would not have a job. After I finished tearing strips off her I demanded to speak with her supervisor to take care of the matter. She did everything but kiss me feet (more out of fear of being reported than anything else). I actually hope that was recorded....it was amusing and I am sure it will provide many hours of enjoyment for someone. LOLThe supervisor was not better....even stronger accent and actually told me it was very hard to understand me due to my strong accent. EXCUSE ME??!!! I am calling NOVA SCOTIA student loan. I am from NOVA SCOTIA!!!!! My East Coast accent really should cause MAJOR communication barriers when calling with in my own country let alone my own province. I spared him a rant and decided that they must have a rule stating that for every intelligent customer service agent they hire they hire ten agents whose sole job is to irritate and infuriate the public. At the risk of sounding like a broken record stupidity annoys me. After paying the over award the "supervisor" tries to explain about a "special paper" I'll need for income tax showing the amount of what was owed...interest and summary of payments and yada yada yada and that this would be sent in the mail and emailed to me as well. When I checked my email I got a link that was no longer being used. Being cranky I call back and demand to speak to my good buddy the supervisor. I explain that the link he emailed me was dead. He laughs and says you cant be dead you speaking to me. I assured him that I was not dead and since I was alive would need him to mail me the document ASAP. I left it there...for once I was speechless....

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Mommy I has a cold

I knew Victoria wasn't herself when she wanted to go to bed and it wasn't even 7pm. She slept for about an hour and then I heard her little footsteps coming down the hall. She informed me "Mommy I has a cold"It came on fast and hit the poor little munchkin hard.
I got her back to bed without too much trouble but she wanted to call someone and talk on my cell phone. I let her play with the ring tones instead LOL. I am not sure but think she may have sent out a few text messages in the process. So if any of you receive a random text from me that is just gobbley gook or random numbers/letters it is more than likely the handy work of Miss Victoria.
This has been a long....HARD day and looks like tomorrow is shaping up to be the same. Work again early and snow and a sick little girl. Hopefully she will feel up to going to school (if there is school that is) since her school Valentines Day party is tomorrow.

Hoare's Law of Large Problems: Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out

Today was "one of those days" and it's only suppertime. Apparently it was Murphy Law Tuesday and no one sent me the memo. There were more "little situations" today than there should be in an entire year. They say bad things come in three and well for my sake I hope that's true. When I got home I find the pellet stove needs filling, there are no pellets left upstairs where said pellet stove is and there are messages on the phone. Okay now here is where the proverbial snowball started rolling down the hill with largely gaining momentum. I grab the closest bag of pellets and proceed to carry it to the stove. Now having said that it may be worth while to note that in my basement are approximately 3 tonnes of pellets in bags of 40 pounds a piece. Only 5 bags out of all of them had small holes in them and required extra care in carrying them. I of course, being tired, cranky and in a hurry grab the first bag that I came to. Yeah that was a BAD idea. With only a half dozen steps left the bag rips spilling pellets EVERYWHERE. I was able to get them back into the bag with minimal frustration. Okay lets just carry on where we left off and pretend it didn't happen....yeah right then when I go to pour some of the pellets into a hopper to make filling the stove easier. Again a good idea in theory. The bag finishes ripping and the pellets once again are ALL over the floor. So here I am once again on the floor picking up pellets off the white carpet, still in scrubs, freezing and just wanting 5 minutes to myself before Victoria gets home off the bus. The final installment in filling the stove saga was when the hopper handle slipped from my hand causing pellets to fill the hooper WAY to quickly (yup you guessed it!!) sending said pellets on my floor again AHHHH!!!!!So the stove is filled, the floor cleaned up and I have mildly calmed down. I still have time before the bus gets here so I check the messages and I assure you things did not get better. The first was a message from my ex wanting me to call him back to clarify something....oh good I think can it get any worse?! By thinking that I of course jinx myself. I get the last message and it is from Student Loan. That should send chills through anyone who has had the displeasure of dealing with these highly trained, fluent English speaking, customer service agents. I am of course being sarcastic in case you can't sense the sarcasm ooozing off that sentence. I call the "student loan" entity. Apparently the idiots decided I made too much money (hahaha yeah right) and for my last semester was given an over award. They wanted this over award repaid immediately. So to recap the money they gave me a YEAR ago for my last semester of University they want back NOW. When I say now I mean like within 48 hours kind of now. I needless to say flipped. I called banks, the university and my family and friends to try and figure something out. To be honest I was holding things together quite well. I set up meetings at different banks, made arrangements that satisfied the money hungry idiots and talked out some of my frustration and thought I was doing well until I called my daddy. He and my mom are down south for over a month. I called him and as soon as he said hello I lost it. I cried my heart and soul out and surprisingly I felt a lot better.By the time that all of this was done I made it to meet my baby girl and her hug helped most of all.
I am now much calmer and back in control only to find out that I am late for ballet for Victoria and I.

The Bruins play tonight and I will be snuggled up in my Bruins blanked and enjoy the game and I will feel better.

I will post more here later tonight.

Off to ballet......

Monday, February 11, 2008

CBC Hockey Day in Canada


As many of you know I am HUGE hockey fan to say the least and when it comes to the Bruins I am the biggest fan of them all. I am very pleased that Victoria is following in my footsteps and loving hockey as much as I do. On Saturday we put on our matching white and pink hockey night in Canada Jerseys and spent the afternoon and evening watching hockey. I am so proud to be the mother of the biggest Bruins fan under 6 LOL.

I have posted some of my favorite pics of Victoria enjoying Hockey day in Canada. I really like the blue butterfly headband LOL.







Mmmmmm Pepsi and hockey....wonder who she gets that from LOL!!!




Looking for a snack during a commercial


More Pepsi LOL




YAY we scored!!!!










Flood at VRH

As many of you have already heard, Valley Regional had a flood last week. While undergoing renovations "something" happened causing one of the main sprinkler lines to break on level 3 sending water through all 3 levels of the hospital. I found the official press release amusing to say the least. It stated that late Tuesday afternoon a sprinkler line broke flooding the hospital with between 1 and 20 000 gallons of water. Okay hold it right there! I mean between 1 and 20 00 gallons?!?!?! They couldn't ball park the figure a little better than that?? No one would expect perfect accuracy in reporting something like that by any means. As any one who has had to clean up an entire carton of milk from the kitchen floor after their five year old has tried to pour their own milk will tell you, liquid when spilt ALWAYS looks like more than it really is. HOWEVER having said that, three fire departments were called and pumper trucks had to be used to pump the water from the hospital. Now I am no expert in floods nor do I claim to be a math wizz but a one gallon flood hardly seems worthy of a pumper truck. A mop, shop vac, and perhaps a fan would do nicely.
I must say though everyone is taking the flood very well. The lobby which had just finished renovations is totally closed as are the areas directly above and below the lobby causing major detours and disruptions in the daily workings of the hospital. With no end to these disruptions in sight I can only hope this sense of team work and happy will continue at least until I go on vacation.

The New Blog

After six years I have shut down my old blog and started a new one. Many things have changed in the last six years and it was time my blog did some catching up. While some things will change the blog will still be a place I come to rant, rave, share some interesting things and of course catch everyone up on what is new.

Here's to many years of happy posting, reading and ranting.