Mixed Emotions

Today is a day of mixed emotions. My supervisor "A" is finished work today. With the whole merging crap here at work, her job was fizzled out. "A" has been my supervisor for over a year here, which is a pretty good track record at this place because it's not uncommon to change supervisor's atleast 3 times a year. "A" is the same age as me, we graduated high school together and her desk was right behind mine. We became friends over the past year of working together and I'm very sad to see her leave here today. I know I hate my job so badly, but I love some of the people here and that's what makes the days here bearable. "A" just left and I said farewell to her about 10 minutes ago and we both got a little teary eyed. In fact, I'm still a little teary eyed right now, writing this entry. I know I'll see her again, we've said we'll go for a coffee or something after I get finished with the busy-ness of Carrie's wedding.

On the completely opposite end of the spectrum, I am SUPER excited and happy today too because my Carrie girl arrives into town tonight! I can't wait to see her! She should arrive at around supper time (they're driving down, left yesterday at supper time) and I'm heading up to her parent's house after I get off work at 9 tonight.

Tomorrow night is STAGETTE night! I'm throwing a stagette for Carrie at my place with lots of fun games and food and drinks and then we're heading out to the bars for one more night on the town as a single gal. It should be a great time!

Windy!

I can't believe how freakin' windy it's been here the past two days! It's unreal! I put some Easter decorations outside last weekend and half of them have blown away!

Last night after work, I made a quick stop into Sobey's to pick up a few last minute things I needed and I ran into Carrie's parents there. They didn't even recognize me at first, and were blown away when they realized it was me. I guess I just don't realize how different I look to other people who haven't seen me in a couple of months. I'm now down 77 lbs!

Ryan came over last night and helped me get together some of the games for the stagette party I'm having for Carrie on Saturday night. It was pretty funny, the two of us working on this, without getting into any details to reveal any games to anyone who reads this, who'll be attending the party.

Rough Start

This morning was off to a bad start, let's hope it doesn't spread to the rest of the day!

I get to work and feel like I'm missing something. I get to my desk and set down my bag and my purse and then realize that I am missing my coffee! I remember making a pot of coffee this morning and getting my mug ready, I just never poured myself a cup to bring with me.

My mother has me a little freaked with coffee makers and has told me not to leave them plugged in because they're a fire hazzard when they're left plugged in, so I started worrying about that. I rushed home and got me my coffee and unplugged my machine and made it back to work just in time to start my shift. It was close - whew!

First Sale!

I'm so happy right now! After two weeks and many, many long hours on the job as a car salesman, Ryan has made his first sale!

Yesterday afternoon Ryan made a gentleman the proud owner of a pick up truck. The sale wasn't actually finalized until after supper last night and the gentleman is coming in this afternoon to pick up his new purchase.

I'm so happy and proud of you Ryan!!!

Busy Weekend!

Wow, this weekend was packed full of busy-ness and it just flew by!

Friday night I went over to Angela's after I got off work and helped her until around midnight with her wedding invitations.

Saturday afternoon Angela and I headed to Houlton, Maine on a whim. It was such a beautiful day and we felt like going for a drive, so we drove to Houlton. I got a pair of Guess jeans from Marden's for $8 and a whole bunch of groceries. It's amazing how many great groceries items you can get over there, that you can't get here.

Sunday at noon Angela and I went down to Giant Tiger and scored some super cute bathing suits for $12. I then dropped Angela off and did my laundry.

You're probably wondering where Ryan fit in here in the weekend. I didn't actually see him all weekend until last night. He came over and watched the Amazing Race and spent the night. He worked Saturday and one of his friends is home from Alberta, so he visited with him Saturday evening.

Weekend's Here!

Well our weather is finally starting to warm up. The temperatures are still nowhere near where I'd like them to be though! haha.

Not too much planned for this weekend. I'm heading to Angela's tonight after work to give her a hand with her wedding invitations, so she can soon get them out.

Ryan's friend Bill is in town this weekend. He's currently working in Alberta and is back home right now with his girlfriend scoping out the scene here in Fredericton. They're expecting a baby in a couple of months and contemplating a move back home.

Ryan hasn't seen Bill in a few years, so I imagine he'll be spending some time with him this weekend. Angela and I are thinking we'll maybe do a pamper night tomorrow night complete with paraffin wax treatment. My feet should be all pretty in time for the wedding thanks to the wax treatment :).

New Obsession

Ok, so I got this request in my email yesterday from my friend Shelly's husband Scott for this request to approve him for this Facebook thing. I was curious so I looked into it further and I now have to admit that Facebook is my new obsession.

Facebook is this friends network thing where you can search for old (and new) friends and reconnect, share photos, etc. Yesterday I stumbled across tons of people that I haven't heard tell of in years. It was SO neat to see what they're up to now! I literally was on facebook.com all day yesterday!

I encourage you to sign up to facebook and reconnect with your old friends! If you search me out on there and can't seem to find me, I'm the one with the big "?" as my profile picture, lol. I will update with photos on my page as soon as I can get to my brother's place to use his computer and upload some!

Some Good News At Work...For A Change

Yesterday was a good day at work, surprisingly, for a change.

As a lot of you already know, my $hit shifts were to begin this coming Saturday morning - meaning me working nights until 1 a.m. from Tuesday-Friday and then in on Saturday morning at 8 a.m.

I have been taking calls for Brand A for the past 2 weeks, instead of Brand B, as they're having trouble with the new call center they set up in Mexico to take over Brand A, and also Brand A has been receiving a lot more call volume.

The executives made a decision to form a group of 40 Brand A agents and until the end of April (with the possibility of all summer) we would be strictly taking Brand A calls only. I was approached with the offer and accepted. I was then told that they had to "unfortunately change my schedule". I thought to myself that it couldn't get any worse than what I already had...and it certainly didn't - it got much better!

Starting this Saturday, I'm back to having weekends off and my shift from Monday to Friday is 12 noon until 8:45 p.m. - far better than going in at 4 p.m. and it's the same every day, unlike now where I start at a different time every day.

So I'm happy right now with that, and am hoping that this does indeed last until the end of summer. Ryan was a little bummed at first when I told him that I took the offer, as he was thinking that I could meet him for lunch during the week when I had my $hit shifts, but he's happy in the end for me. I told him that I will certainly meet him for lunch a few times when I'm off for two weeks for Carrie's wedding :).

Fitting # 2

Dress fitting # 2 was last night and they seem to be coming along nicely. They were "mocked up" - meaning they were somewhat assembled, but not fully. I tried the dress on and the seamstress pinned me into it. Once I was pinned into the dress, it actually looked like what it was supposed to and I'm very happy with it so far.

Angela came over last night and we watched the premier of "Dancing with the Stars"...although we didn't scarf down any Easter Eggs or big bags of chips, lol. I tell ya, I was still feeling sluggish yesterday from all the junk that I'd eaten last weekend. I'm back to feeling great though today :)

Great Weekend!

This past weekend being my last one where I'll have both Saturday and Sunday off for a long while, was a great one!

Friday after work I went up to my parent's place where my brother was with his new mustang :). We went out for a short drive, before our wicked weather started.

Saturday night Ryan and I went to Oromocto to spent the evening with Kim and Jon, and Angela was also there :). We played poker, enjoyed many beers (which we dyed green in honor of St. Patrick's Day), had some delicious pumpkin cake which Kim made and we then ordered some pizza in...so yah my Weight Watchers went out the window this past weekend. I was trying so hard to be strict with the program up until I host Carrie's stagette party on March 31st, but the temptation while I was under the influence was too much for me to handle, lol.

Yesterday afternoon when we were driving home from spending the night at Kim and Jon's, Ryan and I went to William's for lunch and I had some fish n chips - which was so freaking delicious! I can't explain to you how good that tasted to me!

I then went up to my parent's house and did up my laundry and then my brother showed up later on. We took a drive to go and get some rum for my parent's (they always have a drink of rum every Sunday before supper and they were out) and when I came out of the liquor store, my brother was sitting in the passenger side of his mustang...meaning I could drive home! I couldn't believe it...my brother actually let me drive his baby! I'm the only person (so far) that he's let drive it and I think that will be quite an honor, as the list of drivers of that car will be very short I believe, lol. Thanks again Rich :)

Last night Angela came over for the Amazing Race and we inhaled a bag of mini eggs and a big bag of Sour Cream and Bacon chips (it was a cheat weekend for both of us). They tasted so good when we were eating them, but both of us soon felt horrible from stuffing ourselves with junk food all day, lol. Let's just say I was happy to start back up again with my Weight Watcher program this morning!

Mustang Friday

Today is the day that my brother has been waiting literally months for. It's Mustang Friday - the day he gets to pick up his brand spanking new, custom ordered 2007 Mustang GT.

He ordered this car before Christmas and it was delivered to the dealership many weeks ago - just to taunt my brother I believe, lol. His lease on his pick up is done today, so that's why he had to wait to "officially" purchase his Mustang today.

I just wish that the weather forecast for today was more favorable for him though. It's shame that he'll be picking up this car this afternoon and basically having to drive it straight home and put it in his garage, with the almost 30 cm's of snow that is being forecasted for today. Congratulations anyway Rich! :) You know what you're doing this weekend when it gets nice out don't you - you're coming to pick up your favorite sister for a drive!

And what is with this crap anyway - It's mid March. Why is the temperature dipping so cold again and why are we getting dumped with this much snow again? I want this winter crap to be overwith! I'm so tired of paying sky-high power bills to heat my home, I'm so tired of shovelling snow and I'm so tired of freezing my arse off!

No Better, No Worse

I've been taking the ole Echinachia (sp?) and vitamins since I started feeling bad and I think it's helping a bit, because I don't feel any worse today than I did yesterday. I'm still a little under the weather, but not too, too bad today.

I'm thinking now that some of this not-feeling-so-great may be stress related too because as Carrie's wedding gets closer, my stress level is rising. I've enjoyed every minute of helping Carrie plan and put together this wedding, but as it nears and it's now time to start getting all of our ducks in a row, it's getting more stressful. I have faith that everything will come out perfectly though as I have been pretty organized.

So no Survivor on tonight because of some stupid basketball game. Angela is still going to come over anyway and we're going to watch a movie instead. Ryan may be over tonight too. I haven't seen him all week as he's been putting in a lot of long hours at work and he went to the RCMP recruiting info session last night.

I had a meeting today at work at 10:30 this morning. I go into the meeting room and it's full of support staff and there's only like 4 of us loley agents in the room. I'm thinking "Ok, this is REALLY strange...what's going on here"? It turns out that they did this thing called the "Revenue Club" for us agents during the transition period of taking over Brand B calls, and I'm apparantly a memeber of this Revenue Club...meaning I made over a million bucks for the company in the past 12 months. It seems only fair that they give some type of a commission off of that revenue right, lol? Nope! They did give me two extra vacation days though that I can use whenever I want to, without having schedule it ahead of time, which is better than nothing I suppose. I plan on using atleast one of those days for Angela's wedding in June as I know I'll still be working Saturdays this summer.

Yo, Getting Ill With My Bad Self

I think I'm also going to be plagued with the nasty cold/flu that's going around :(. My brother was sick all last weekend and when I picked Vickie up (one of Carrie's bridesmaids) to go to our dress fitting last Monday, she was sicker than a dog and looked like crap. So I think I caught it from either of them, but I have a stronger feeling it was Vickie though, lol.

So last night I started feeling it in my nose. It was a little plugged up, but nothing too serious or bothersome. Now today as I sit here typing this, my nose is getting drippy-er and drippy-er and I have a headache. The back of my throat is getting scratchy as well. Oh goody, I can hardly wait for this sickness to hit me full-force, woohoo! This upcoming weekend is my last one all to myself before I sell my soul to the company I work for, and start working my shifts from hell and I can't wait to spend it feeling like crap!

Dresses

Yah, so I had the first of 3 dress fittings for my gown for Carrie's wedding last night. It only took like 5 minutes, but what a pain the arse it was to get to the seamstress's house (it was on creepy private land that I felt I needed a 4X4 to get into)!

She only measured around my waist and not my hips or my bust, which I though was strange, because I got thinking to myself "Wouldn't she have needed my hips measurement for the skirt of my dress (it's a 2 piece) and the bust measurement for the top to fit properly? I mean, I'm not an expect, but I sew a little. I've made clothes before and I made some drawstring purses out of the same material as our dresses, for us girls to carry during the wedding reception. I also made the skirt portion of our dresses because I was going to make all 3 of ours, but I told Carrie that I didn't think I'd have time to do 3 with everything else and I didn't want to chance making any mistakes on them, so that's why we've got this seamstress lady.

Last fall, she gave Carrie the list of things to buy for the dresses and didn't put zippers on the list (for the skirt). I told Carrie we needed them. Carrie goes "Well, H (seamstress lady) didn't put them on the list, so she must not need them". I said "Carrie - trust me, we NEED them. Without them, our skirts won't stay up. I've made that skirt remember" and then I took it out and showed her. Carrie then calls H and tells her about the zippers. H goes, "Oh did I forget those...Yah we need those...We'll I'll go pick them up for you".

Last night H says to me "I'd like to get the dresses finished by the end of March". I looked at her strangely and go "Ah....yah, cause that next weekend...IS THE WEDDING". DUH!!! Man, I don't have a good feeling about this - I dunno about H, this seamstress lady. I just pray that everything turns out alright! We're really down to the crunch now!

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Ok, so I just got into work and I'm a little miffed. I have a "reserved" desk at work. It's the one and only perk of having worked here for over 7 years...at the 5 year mark I earned my own desk. It's nice to have - to be able to leave a framed picture here on my desk, to leave my own stuff here, like a pen cup, etc...you know, just basic stuff. The woman who sits directly behind me has a "reserved" desk too, but hers is designated as a medical desk - meaning that everything is set for her - the height of the desk itself, the monitor, the chair, etc. She has a placard on the front of her station that says medical desk, the same as I have one that says reserved desk - which in lammens terms means "Don't sit here".

Well, we come in this morning and on B's desk (the medical desk lady) someone over the weekend took her sign and wrote on it "Guess what, too bad, there is no more medical pods - live with it". I was floored because her desk was issued and set up for her by our HR department. They also took B's mouse from her computer. I then sit down at my desk and see that someone has done the same thing to my desk and they also decided to take my scissors out of my pen cup and start cutting up random things on my desk. that's along with strewing my sh*t everywhere. It looked like a typhoon hit my desk.

Ever since the B Brand staff moved into our center and we merged, it's almost like we're dealing with elementary kids here now. They (most of them) have 'tudes up the ying yang and obviously no respect for anyone whatsoever. When we were all A Brand here in this center, we were one big family - we all respected one another and made things go as smoothly as we could here. We worked together. Now it's almost as if we're working against each other. A Brand versus B Brand. It really pi$$es me off that in this day in age, people have no respect for anyone else and it's all about *me* and what makes *me* happy. I'm so sick of this. I run into this everyday. With the B Brand rivals, with the customers I deal with, with people in general. Nobody says "Goodmorning" when you walk by now, nobody says "Have a nice day" etc. What is going on with today's society has the custom of common courteousy gone out the window? Is this something that no one instills in their children anymore?

I'm thankful that my parents taught me the morals and values that they did and that I'm the person who I am today. I have respect for others and a general concern about people. If I hear that someone is ill for example and I don't even know them, my heart still goes out to them. This morning I had to stop by the post office to mail a package out to Carrie. I held the door open for someone, I approached the postal clerk with a "good morning" and said my pleases and thank-you's. I'm just wondering if her next customer of the day (I was the only one in there at the time) would do the same?

Death Row

Yesterday while blog hopping through other's blogs, I saw one lady's entry was about Death Row. She said "I'm sure every family has this conversation (or is mine just weird) but if you were on Death Row...what would you select as your last meal". It got me thinking. I love food, hence my being on Weight Watchers, lol. If I knew I was only going to live for one more day, what exactly would I chose as my last meal? I started invisioning lots of salty snacks and cheese-covered foods, desserts with millions of calories and luscious beverages....mmmmm. I came to the conclusion that I couldn't choose just one particular meal...so here's my last meal(s) with a few extra treats in there, lol.

Breakfast:

-Coffee with 2 sugars and cream (the real stuff...no more Sugar Twim and whitener)!
-Sesame seed bagel toasted with herb and garlic cream cheese
-Scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese
-Bacon
-Homefries

Lunch:
-Fish and Chips from William's Seafood
-Chocolate milk

Supper:
-1 slice of Hawaiian Stuffed Crust pizza from Pizza Hut
-donair from the "Lebanese Plus" guy at the Fredericton farmer's market
-caesar salad
-Pepsi
-hot fudge sundae

Evening Snack:
-Plain Ruffles chips with Philadelphia herb and spice dip
-slice of McCain's deep and delicious chocolate cake

If eating all that in one day didn't kill me, I'd then be ready for my executuion, LOL!

Ka-Ray-Zee Cold....still!!!

I keep telling myself that there's light at the end of the tunnel - that this week of living in a deep freeze will come to an end shortly. It will be over soon...It will be over soon...It will be over soon. I dunno though, I'm starting to think that we'll never see milder temperatures! It's -22 degrees out there right now and that's without the windchill taken into effect! My fingers (which were indeed gloved) hurt so bad when I came into the building this morning that it almost killed me to try and unlock my locker - the pain was just running through my whole hand. This is nuts I tell ya...nuts! I'm 'bout ready to seek advice from a grizzly bear about how to go about the whole hibernation thing.

I must tell you that I totally scored yesterday off of Fredericton Freecycle yesterday. I've been looking for a double bed for a couple of months now because there is a possibility that Kathy and Todd (who I've met and become friends with over the past couple of years of going up to visit Carrie in Ontario) may be able to make it to Fredericton for Carrie's wedding next month and if they do, they'll be staying at my place and I'd like to have a place for them to sleep, lol. Also it would be nice to have the extra bed for other overnight guests (such as will be the case the night of the stagette party in a few weeks) rather than making them sleep on the futon from hell, which I own.

Anyway, this lady was offering up a double bed yesterday and I totally scored it. My fabulous Dad and brother took me to go and get it last night and wrestled it down a super steep driveway that wasn't even shovelled! Thanks again so much guys! You two ARE the best! I must say that the bed is in superb condition - perhaps even better than my own!

BRRR...FREAKIN....BRRR!

So Ryan's parent's made it home on what seemed to have been the coldest day of the year...although I think today may have that beat!

Ryan's mom called my place late last night wondering if I knew where he was - they had gotten in a bit early I think, and she called me 15 minutes before they told Ryan to be there, lol. I told her that I knew that he'd be along shortly because I was talking to him around 9:00 and he knew he had to be there at 11:30. His mom and I chatted for a little bit longer, until she saw Ryan walking through the airport.

Today is my friends Kim and Jon's first wedding anniversary. Congratulations and it's hard to believe that it's been a year already!

Geez...enough Old Man Winter!!!

Oh My Good Gawd it's cold out there! Geez...wasn't it just like 4 days ago that it was +7 degrees? Now it's something like -25 with the wind chill?!? It took me all of like 2 minutes at the very most to walk into work from my car and my fingers are still tingling as they're starting to dethaw...and that was with gloves on! This is crazy, I am SO done with winter...not that I was ever "with" it to begin win, lol.

So last night after I got off work, I headed up to Swiss Chalet and had a great dinner with Angela and Sherri (Sherri it was so good to see you by the way (I don't think I told you that) - it had been too long since I'd last seen you)! The meal was great, totally hit the spot and I was plugged full when I left the restaurant.

From there I drove out to see Ryan and surprised him with a card and some mini cupcakes. I wanted to get him a small cake to celebrate his first day on the job, but I went to Sobey's and found these mini cupcakes that worked out to 2 Weight Watcher points per cupcake, so that won over the decision to buy a cake (I had two of them later on, after I wasn't so full from supper anymore...and they were de-lish).

Ryan's first day seemed to go well, although he found it a little long. Understandably as he was basically in a study period yesterday, learning all the ins and outs of the vehicles he'll be pushing. There was another salesman who started yesterday as well, so Ryan's been able to work with him, go to lunch with him, etc. Overall I think he had a good day.

His parent's fly in from Arizona tonight at 11:30 p.m. I imagine Ryan will be exhausted tomorrow as it will more than likely be around 1 a.m. before they get home and he's got to be to work at 8 a.m.

Another Weekend Overwith

Another weekend completely gone in no time! Only two more weekends left for me, before I start working them :(.

Friday night was crazy with the weather. The roads were terrible and I was a little scared driving home from work. I called my brother when I got home and asked him if he wanted to pick me up (in his 4x4 [while he still has it - he's getting a brand spankin new Mustang in two weeks :)]) and take me up to mom and dad's, because I needed to borrow their computer printer in order to start printing up the programs for Carrie's wedding. Being the awesome brother that he is, he came and got me and took me up, then drove me back home afterwards :).

Saturday I got up and spent two (yes TWO) hours shovelling my driveway. It was so heavy and saturated with water, making it just like lead. It took me 45 minutes just to get the crap at the end of the driveway where the plow went by. Despite my misery in shovelling, it was a gorgeous day with the tempurature reaching +7 and the sun beating all day. You'd never know that we just got hit with a nasty storm the night before, judging by Saturday's weather.

After I was finished shovelling, I talked to Angela on the phone for a bit and we made plans to go shopping for stationary for the programs for Carrie and stationary for invitations for Angela's wedding this coming June.

I started up the printer and loaded a bunch of paper and set it loose to print off a few program pages while I had a shower. I got out of the shower to find that the dang printer had quit half way through. I figured it needed ink because when I removed the cartridge it felt pretty empty.

Angela and I were on our way and shopped til we almost dropped all afternoon, hitting numerous stores including stops at Walmart and the Dollarama. It was fun though, I LOVE shopping and would do it every day if I could afford it! LOL.

I dropped Angela and her parcels off at her place and went back to my house to try and get the printer going. I changed the ink cartridge with one I'd picked up earlier in the day and let it loose. It was acting like it was printing, with the carriage moving back and forth and sounding like it was printing, but no ink was coming out. The printer is offically now junk. It's broken and the cost of repair would be more than a new one. I feel horrible because it was my parent's printer and it broke while in my possession. I feel obligated to buy them a new one, but can't afford to right now :(. My Dad didn't seem too concerned over it when I told him what happened, but I still feel terrible about it. I'm just going to have to photocopy the pages for the program now and hope that Carrie's OK with that. I'm sure she will be.

Angela came over to my place after my whole printer fiasco for supper and we then did pedicures while watching a movie. Ryan was at Crabbe Mountain skiing all day, so it was nice to have a girl's day together. I'm going to miss those days when Angela moves to San Diego after her wedding.

Yesterday was laundry day. I also went for a little drive with my parent's to the village of Harvey. It was a little sad because Ryan's parent's used to have a camp on Harvey Lake, which they sold last summer and I haven't been to Harvey since. I absolutely loved it out there at the camp and miss it so much!

Tonight I'm going out for supper with the girls and then heading out to Ryan's parent's place afterwards to see him after his first day of work :). His parent's are supposed to come home from Arizona tomorrow, so this will be the final "retreat" to their place for a while, lol.

Do you need a new car?

After waiting a week to hear word back, Ryan found out today that he got a salesman position with a local car dealership! I am so excited for him! He's been looking for so long and trying so hard to find a decent career here in Fredericton, getting frustrated in the process. After a lot of determination, the wait has finally paid off! I'm so happy and proud of you Ryan! :)

E.C.D. calmed somewhat

So I found somewhat of a solution to my E.C.D. for lasagna. I made some sort of concoction last night for supper with no yolks noodles and I must say it turned out really, really good! I was impressed...which is a good thing, because I had high expectations based on the amount of work I put into the dish, lol.

Nothing much new to report today. I went out to Ryan's parent's place last night for the evening. They're coming home next week, so that was probably the last "retreat" to their place for a while now. We didn't do too much, watched a movie on the movie channel and caught the tail end of American Idol when they were reviewing the clips from the performers for the evening. Man that Lakisha girl can sing! I'm pulling for her this season!