New plans.. gonna get the work monkey off my back...

btw, there is no job waiting in the office I was at yesterday.. so until one opens up I'm stuck where I am....

So after thinking about how much less stressful it was working there yesterday I decided, after a lot of thought, to give up my job in the cash office and just work on the counter... there's a woman that has been asking to be trained in the cash office for a long time and I checked with her today and she's still interested so tomorrow or early next week I'm going to be sending an email off to my manager and the director, telling them that they will have to start training someone soon because in the near future I want out of there.. It's not worth risking my health (I have high blood pressure) and happiness for a job that doesn't pay any more than working on the counter alone.. so soon I will be going to work, wait on customers and that will be it.. no more going above and beyond and getting nothing extra on my paycheck for it..

Well I got to see how the other half lives...

Today I was asked to work (and I use that word loosely) in one of our smaller branch offices because most of the staff were going to a funeral.... so it was me and one other girl most of the morning and another one in the afternoon... In our main office we have a staff of 11 and a number machine that rings out the customer's number directing them to the appropriate wicket for service... and the bell is constantly ringing and most times it's the never ending "NEXT"... with hardly a moment for a breather... and the fact that I work in the cash office in the mornings every second week adds to the stress and sense of urgency to get at it and get it done...

Now today at the brance office I sat for the first two hours with narry a customer.. I chatted with the other clerks.. checked my office email.. got a coffee and sipped it slowly.. did some stretches at my desk... yawned a lot... such a hard life... and I probably waited on 15 customers all day.. compared to the 50 or so in the main office on a busy day... hmmmm and to think that they are getting the same pay as I am ... there's something wrong with this picture... I just can't put my finger on it..

So the possiblity of applying for a job in this office is becoming more attractive every day.. although it might drive me crazy not having anything to do all day... but it might cure the burning hole in my stomach and tension headaches.. and considering I'm planning on retiring in five years or so I think I could live with the non-stress for a few years.. don'cha think?

Ahhh the wonder of modern medicine...

I was getting ready to come home from work on Friday and I noticed that I had a pressure in my bladder.. nothing too bad but just something that I thought might develope into something if I'm not careful.. it takes me 20 to 25 minutes to drive home depending on the traffic.. I pull in the driveway and I'm starting to feel the pain.. get in and go to the toilet and the pain is bad and I have a tinge of blood in my urine.. and not more than a half an hour later it's pure blood... I had panic in my eyes when I told R that we needed to get to a night clinic.. like NOW!.. so we drive into Montague to their small hospital knowing that the line ups in the emerg. would be less than at the Charlottetown hospital or even a walk in clinic.. and we were right... in a little over an hour we were walking out of there with a perscription... for Sulfa Drugs... OMG!!!... I used to have a lot of bladder infections when I was younger and Sulfa Drugs were all that worked for me.. but I hated them... they always make me so sick to my stomach.. luckily I have two and a half days down of a total of 10...

What really shocked me was how fast the infection came on and developed into something that severe... I had felt fine all day.. no pain.. but I had been going to the bathroom more than usual.. and thinking back I had been going to bed a lot earlier the last few days because I was more tired.. but the infection went from zero to sixty in about an hour... but soon after I took the first pill it started to do it's magic... and the bleeding stopped.. now if I can just be sure to take all of the prescription so that I don't relapse.. but seriously *gag, double gag*

Fashion is fickle...

It seems every day there's a new fashion craze, like the fuggly new holey shoes or piercing every inch of human flesh and tatooing where you gotta admit it gotta hurt like hell to get thousands of sharp, ink laiden needles jammed under the surface of your skin... not to say that the fashion of my generation was any better (although I've noticed that a lot of the styles have come back in style *gag*.. but I think I've come up with a new fashion accessory... it's warm, and get this, self cleaning ... it's actually angora (albiet short hair) so the snobbish can continue to look down their bobbed noses at the meer mortals that we are.. My new invention is called the catsock... and I predict it will be the latest trend.. get yours while it's hot *or at least snuggly and warm*

Back to work today...

Well at least I had the gloating over my car to look forward to... lol... I've been off of work for three weeks straight and within a couple of hours the old fingers of tension wrapped themselves around my neck... say it with me *I LOVE MY JOB... I LOVE MY JOB... OOOOMMMMM*.... I was worried that I would forget all my passwords and forget how to do one of the 200 plus job responsibilities... but no such luck.. it was shoulder to the wheel once again... *how many days did you say it was until my retirement?"... This is a very cold thing to say but a woman that worked in the Record section of another department in our building died and I'm wondering if I should apply for her job... and she's barely cold in the grave.. *shudder*... What is this job turning me into?....

We got a car today....

We got our car today.. *doing a little happy dance*
We made our final decision on the car and got it today instead of waiting for November.. we used my car as a trade in and the fact that Arkay was in the services saved us $500.00... So we don't have to make a payment this month and no down payment besides the trade in... We leased instead of buying and this car is on a four year lease...

This is the color of our car and it's a 2007 Saturn Ion Quad Coupe... We don't have a spoiler on ours but it is loaded... we got A/C, CD player, cruise control, keyless entry, alarm, power windows and locks, and you can adjust the mirrors from inside.. there are probably a few other things that I can't think of right now...

They call it a Quad Coupe because there is a half door on the back on each side that opens the opposite way to the front doors (like the old suicide doors from the old old cars) there is no handle for it on the outside or the inside, you have to open the front door and the handle is in between the doors... very cool...

This is the interior.. see all the pretty dials and stuff... lol... and it has the most heavenly new car smell... mmmmmmm.... (I'm easily pleased...lol)...

Holidays almost over!

This is my last week of holidays and we've accomplished a lot in the last couple of weeks...

the upstairs floors are done as well as the den floor.. this is a picture of the color of the den flooring, it's darker than the flooring we have on the upstairs.. We got ourselves a screen door for the side door which R is going to install once we get the bifold doors back on the hall coat closet. We bought a water tank for the basement and we're having a plumber in on Friday to replace the one in the basement that's always getting waterlogged (the new one has a bladder inside that holds the prime better).. we got some fake brick to put around our flower beds in a yard sale for $10.00 a box.. We had an electrician in to fix the wiring in one of the upstairs bedrooms, he said the wiring in the house is aluminum and it tends to expand and contract and gets loose over time..

We also took a bunch of cars out for test drives including Toyota Yaris and Corolla, Honda Civic and Fit, Saturn Ion, Dodge Caliber and a Mazda 3... my personal favorite is the Honda Civic, with the Saturn Ion next and then the Toyota Yaris.. I'm pretty sure we're going to go with the Ion on a lease and it's going to be in November some time.

I got some shocking news today.. a coworker died in her sleep last week.. as far as we know she was perfectly healthy (although obviously not)... her husband came home in the morning from work to find her in bed and decided to go out for coffee and when he got back she was still in bed and he decided to go wake her up and found out she had died.. how terribly shocking is that!! I can't even imagine how he must have felt!!

Found out one of the branch offices are against us going for a reclassification!!!! It was a complete shock.. but then again they are a very small office with very few customers so I really don't think that they deserve a raise anyway... when they send someone in to help out if we're short staffed the employee can't do any of the work so we have to put her on the camera to take pictures or to do straight renewals.. really pisses me off that she's getting paid the same as the rest of us but does diddly squat.. she told one of the girls that he main job consisted of stocking the break room!!!! We have our reclass request passed in to the manager and director and they said that they need a couple of small changes and then it will be ready to go.. will let you know if there are any developements...

At the starting of my vacation I went to one of my nieces' wedding and now at the end I'm going to one of my nephews' wedding... they are very practical and for the reception they are having a pot luck and I'm bringing homemade biscuits and pepper steak (if I can find the darned recipe!)... I made him something and won't post a picture of it until after the wedding in case he reads this... :o)

I sorted out my closets and bureaus and packed up three garbage bags of clothes, and threw out some more stuff that wasn't fit to wear and took the clothes over to my daughter so she could sort through it then contact my sister to take the rest to her church to distribute....

Took our dog Missy for a walk one morning to the end of our road where the farmer has a track to exercise their race horses and when we were walking around the track I looked down and saw some HUGE coyote tracks (the coyotes here are cross bred with wolves so they are much larger than a normal coyote).. I'm glad that we didn't come in contact with that beast.. apparently their mare won't let the foal go down to the river to drink because she's scared of the coyotes.. can't blame her at all...

I cleaned out my fridge, wish that you could press a button and it would miraculously clean itself.. I'm not lazy, just practical....

This woman is on a mission...

http://www.myspace.com/mgchs check out this blog.. it is written by a great woman who, to raise money to build a new animal shelter, has agreed to spend 30 days (the month of September) in a cage like one of the animals in the shelter and she will be writing about her experiences. In the beginning it tells about her family dropping her off at the shelter... some people do amazing things for a cause..

House Renovations

I don't know how this happened but the pics went out of order.. well as you can see the laminate flooring is now down on the upstairs bedroom, hall and bathroom.. R did an excellent job of laying it so that he didn't have to put a joiner between the hallway and the spare bedroom and the hallway and the bathroom.. since the pictures are sort of out of sinc I hope you can see which ones are which..

I have the first one is of the yucky bathroom and then one of the bathroom with the new floor, but I don't think it's right after but the third one down... anyway, I'm sure you can figure that out.. I found the laminate floor really brightened up the bathroom and our toilet has a wooden seat that that sort of matches (personally I HATE the wooden seat because I never feel like it's clean enough.. ewww)... and the harvest gold crappy color of the fixtures actually looks kind of nice against the faux Oak.. we're putting a boat type sealer on the bathroom floor to prevent the laminate from getting water damage and are putting a quarter round around the edges as well...

Somewhere in there are pics of the hallway and it's a big improvement over the subfloor that was all that was left once we lifted the crappy carpet a couple of years ago (we tried lifting the subfloor and saw there was a wood floor underneath but alas it was a soft wood floor and for some odd reason there was big spaces between the individual pieces.. this is a very old home so we were hoping that there was hardwood floor under the subfloor but boo hoo we were wrong)....

Then there are a couple of pics of the spare bedroom (forgive the mess because I was so exited about the floors being finished that I didn't tidy up completely before I took the pics). I really love the color of the flooring and now we'll have to repaint up here because the baby blue in the bedroom does not do the floor justice... We have to touch up the baseboard and put quarter round everywhere up here as well but it sure picks up the look and feel of the house...
Now we have to do the den.. the flooring we got for down there is a bit darker faux oak and should looke really nice against the brick wall behind the wood stove... Will post pics as we get that down.. We have to get some sort of ceramic tile for the entry way because some times we get snow, etc around the doorway in the winter and if we get a really high wind and rain against that door it will leak a bit.. So the laminate will not do for that.. It really gives you a boost to get some improvements done on the house..