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..

Yesterday was my niece's wedding.. they were going to have it on the beach but it rained.. hard... and it was cold.. so they had it in a shelter.. and then there was a beautiful double rainbow... a good sign I would say... they also had a sand ceremony where they poured sand from two single jars into a large jar and the mingling of the sand represented their union in marriage ...

Then everyone went to their house for a reception.. and while there I was talking to one of my sisters about my other sister's son (she has two sons whose names start with "A" so sometimes I get them mixed up).... I got an invitiation to A#1's wedding and my sister said did you hear A#2's engaged?.. I said you mean A#1.. and she said no, I meant A#2.. *now I was confused because A#2's gay* and I opened my mouth and said "Is he engaged to a guy?"... well duh... I felt like rewinding the last two minutes and starting over again... color me embarrased...

BTW I have no idea if she liked the painting because she didn't open her gifts while I was there...

Thanks to Earl I've now included a Site Counter..

And erm.. I don't have the success of his.. in fact, I think I'm the only one reading it of late.. lol.. oh well... that way I can be as blunt and forthcoming as I want without the fear of tons of people reading it.. but it does slightly ding my ego a bit... and I no have a bit of the "nobody loves me" syndrome.. phhttt... all of you that would like to stroke my ego should send their dollars to Kathryn D at - - - - - - ...

If anyone's interested

If anyone's interested I finished the portrait for my niece here http://thecreativelifeofkathryn.blogspot.com/ I must say that I'm pleased with how it turned out.. check it out and give me your opinion (ok only if it's positive.. phhhttt)...

Shopping for the house

Not to get a house because we have one.. but shopping for stuff for the house.. yesterday R and I went into town to check out the Building Centres for flooring for our upstairs bedroom (where we have our computers and spend a lot of time) and went to three places to check on prices, we also wanted to get tiles for the upstairs bathroom.. we bought this place three years ago, it's an older home in the country and needs a lot of work.. including a new window in this bedroom as well as the flooring..

Anyway, we checked out the Home Hardware and saw some really different click tile, it's like laminate flooring but it has a black textured finish on it and it was 99cents a square foot.. not a bad price ( down from 2.89 a square foot and underlay for $25.00 for 200 sq feet) but we had to buy the whole lot of tile and it was an odd amount..

Next we went to the Kent Building Centre and saw some laminate flooring on for 87 cents a square foot that was nice (and underlay for $20.00 for 200 sq feet).. the guy who waited on us told us that they had some end lots in the back that he could give us a good deal on.. almost the same but a bit darker in color.. a faux oak.. and he said he'd give it to us for 65 cents a square foot .. we said we'd take the 13 boxes they had left, got him to put our name on it to hold it until we could get the trailer to take it home and noticed that there were other boxes laying around of laminate flooring..

Then we went to the Home Depot and checked their stuff out.. they had laminate flooring for 99 cents a square foot and underlay for $29.00 for 200 sq feet... and tile for around 45 cents a square foot but for that you need to buy grout and stuff to stick it down...

So we went home and on the way decided to get enough laminate flooring from Kent to do the bedroom upstairs, the hallway, bathroom, the entryway downstairs, the den and underlay for the whole thing and it only cost us a bit less than $600.00 for the whole thing... and R's going to lay it all down himself and it doesn't need to be glued down or nailed .. I'm very happy with the purchase and it will make a huge difference it the look of the house... will post some before and after pics later..

Work in progress in my other blog

I have a link back to a provious post but I'm working on a painting in my other blog called The Creative Life of Kathryn and I plan on having it done by the end of August, or perhaps earlier.

getting better every day....

This old body is recovering nicely, thank you for asking... my neck is mostly ok now but my right arm is a bit stiff, I think it's from overcompensating the last couple of days.. but it looks good for going back to work tomorrow... big whoop...

Over the last few weeks I've taken the time to sit down and type out all the services we provide, the departments we provide services for etc, and the numbers are astounding.. we provide over 200 services for 20 seperate government departments and 28 or so divisions.. we provide services for 7000 customers and we take in from 100, 000 to close to a million dollars every month in our office alone... that freakin' blows my mind.. and we're very much underpaid for what we do.. the reason we were getting all this information together was because we are trying to be reclassified.. granted we're getting paid a lot more than the private sector here in this province but they keep heaping on new duties without raising our rate of pay and I don't think that's right... we should be ready to present this information to the board in a couple of weeks.. and if it doesn't create some change I know a lot of people whose morale is going to be rock bottom.. and a few who may end up going on stress leave soon.. not that the money would releave the stress that much but at least it may attract more people to want to work in our department if our wages matched the work done... we'll see how that goes...

owwww my neck hurts

Well, I thought that I was going to be heading off to work today, but when the alarm rang this morning I rolled over to turn it off and when I got 2/3 of the way over and was reaching out my hand I suddenly felt a sharp pain shoot up from my neck to the top of my head and down my side to my hip, My neck is now locked, I took some Tylenol even tho I'm not supposed to because of my ulcer and I'm using heat even tho it;s hot in here this AM. And it's hard typing with one hand so I'll stop now.

It's over

I'm back from the hospital, rested up and had my first full meal.. and the news was good .. with the colonoscopy the doctor found no polyps, no inflamation and best of all, no cancer.. whew... and the gastroscopy did find inflamation and he gave me a perscription for that and wants to see me in October for a follow up in that regards.. so if I keep feeling well tomorrow then I'll be off to work but it's a Friday so even if I feel weak it's only for one day so I think I can handle it..

I had a weak spell waiting for the doctor to come in and give me the results but once I got home and had some soup (I know, more soup but at least this was chicken noodle with a bit of substance to it) and I slept for around three hours and now I'm feeling back to normal... so thankfully I won't be talking about bm's or that stuff now. And that stuff they give you to kill the pain and so you don't remember didn't completely work because I remember a lot of pain... but at least it's over, for now anyway...

today's the day

Well, today's the day... all the purging and fasting is done, well the purging anyway.. my stomach is talking again.. but I think it's just grumbling because the test isn't until 10 AM... and that's 2 and 1/2 hours from now... we leave for the hospital in about 1 and 1/2 hours (need to be there 1/2 hour before the procedure in order for them to prep me).. A bit nervous.. but all in all I think I'll survive the wait... at least I'm not full of shit anymore....lol..

day two almost done

The second day of cleansing and purging is almost over.. my stomach is talking to me all the time.. goading me into eating something solid.. like new potatoes and pork.. yeah I can almost taste it .... mmmm PEI new potatoes ... STOP!!! STOP!!... OK I think I'll be alright now.. tomorrow is the big day.. the day of the enema.. oooo can't wait.. have you ever noticed that when you have to go two and a half days without solid food that 9 out of 10 commercials on TV are about food?... interesting phenomenon that is... I should be at the hospital from 9:30 until about noon.. I wonder if they'll feed me.. seems to me that the last time they didn't.... bastards... I'm trying not to think of all the possible problems that could have caused the symptoms that warranted this procedure.. gotta think positive.. probably just a polyp... just a polyp that's been bleeding since February.. yeah.. that's it.. but then again.. I do tend to dramatize things a bit.. so maybe it is nothing.. that's what I'm telling myself till told otherwise..

The cleansing has begun..

First day of my bowel cleansing and fasting.. *sorry to any of you that are in the process of having breakfast, on second thought, since my breakfast consisted of jello and water - fuck you*.. I had big plans for today and tomorrow but found out that if any of my plans consisted of doing anything farther than 10 steps from either bathroom they're out... ain't life a bitch?...