Sleep...dreams...bad

I should be in bed. I should be sleeping. I don't want to though. I don't want to go to bed, nor to sleep. Sleep bring bad dreams. Dreams that I don't want to deal with. Dreams that disturb. But that wonderful feeling just before falling asleep, that peaceful bliss, of being halfway between the world or reality and that of uncontrollable strangeness. That feeling alone is worth it.

I shall go, and hope my sleep is peaceful and refreshing.

g'night

A great end to a great week :p

So, so cap off an awesome week *puke*, I had one final thing to cap it off.

Someone made a copy of my credit card when I was in Edmonton last week. Today they started using it. Early this morning they bought $100 worth of pizza, then went on a spending spree with over $350 at Save-On-Foods, and 3 $200+ bills at Shoppers Drug Mart before the bank suspended my card and contacted me. I got back to them a few hours later and the assholes were still trying to use it at various places.

When I travel for business I use a card that I keep stricltly for business use for ease of expense reports. I made the mistake of using my personal one when I took the office out to Swiss Chalet for lunch. A $91 bill for the 4 of us, with a decent tip on top of that. For the rest of the trip I used my other credit card. And today I found out the shitty news. The charges will show up on my statement, and I'm just supposed to make sure I don't pay for what I didn't spend, and and investigation will take 4-8 weeks.

What a great fucking week...

vacation

We are going on vacation this upcoming week; 7 days in beautiful Fairmont. Jo's parents have a timeshare up there, so we'll be spending the time with Jo's immediate family.
I'm nervous and excited at the same time. It'll be wonderful to take a week off of work and just go out there and relax. I'll get to see Jo's brothers and families, whom I don't see much of, which will be nice. I'm worried about all the time Jo's parents will have with us, and the things they inevitably say. I can deal with them fairly well, but that's because I can detach myself from it, whereas Mama Bean isn't so good at that. It's her family, so the things they say effect her a little more. That's what I'm worried about. Though I figure with all the little grandchildren running around, her parents will be occupied for the most part and things should go smoothly.

It should be a good week. I haven't gotten to talk to Dave so much, and I'm looking forward to that. He's a pastor out in Vancouver. He's very much a big brother, and I can seem him pastoring the same way, which I find pretty cool. I'll also get to see my nieces and nephews and play with them. Kids are so much fun.

So yeah, it'll be good times. I'm looking forward to the relaxation. I'm gonna bring some books and my bass. I figure I'll have some time to noodle around, which I'm looking forward to. Maybe learn some new things.

Oh, and thanks for the loving e-mails following my last post. The love and support really goes a long way. :)

shitty week...:(

Alright, so this week fucking sucks. I woke up so pissed off yesterday morning that listening to Meatloaf all the way in wasn't enough to shake it.

Monday we dropped the price of our house by 6 grand to $338,900. We'd been on the market for 23 days with not a single offer. A decent number of showings (2-3 a week, which is good for this market), but no offers. On the bright side, we had two showings in two days immediately following that drop, and even an offer. Too bad the offer was shit, but I'll get to that.

Tues we get word that Jo's last day at the clinic is this Saturday. WTF right? Exactly. WHAT THE FUCK?!? Jo, being the considerate person that she is, let the doctors know a month or so ago that we are thinking about moving this summer, as she is in a 2 year contract that ends next June. They were cool about it and said to give them a few weeks notice when we nail down a solid date, and that she could work until the end of the summer. They said they'd be looking for someone new, and not to be insulted if they asked her to help train the new person. Okay, so these guys are assholes. We know this, I've mentioned it before. On Tuesday they pull Mama Bean into a meeting at the end of the day and say that they've found someone new, and that she will be starting the following week. Since Mama Bean is on vacation this works well, and Saturday will be her last day. What?! Umm... WHAT?!? So Jo, being the amazing individual that she is, takes it gratiously instead of telling them to fuck off as I've been known to do, and leaves for the day. Oh wait, she doesn't leave just yet. They tell her she's been let go, and then has her adjust the last few patients of the day so they can leave.

Now these guys have treated her like shit from the getgo, but it was her first chiro job, and they've been her doctor's since she was a kid. So she has stuck it out. She's had more perserverence and patience than I though humanly possible. There's no way I wouldv'e put up with the amount of shit they put her threw. They see 100+ patients a day, of which she gets to see 4 or 5. They tell her to bring in more patients...why? So they can adjust them, and she sit around? The patients she did get were the ones the other guys didn't want to deal with. The fat ones, the stinky ones, the mean ones, and assholes.

She is also due 10 days vacation per year under her contract. She isn't technically an employee, more of a sub-contractor, but the contract is really fuzzy about the details, and ambiguous about the shit we are dealing with now. So next week we are on holidays, and they weren't going to pay her for it since she'd being let go before she leaves. She asks them about that, and they tell her today, "Okay, so since we aren't paying you for next week, today will be your last day and you can have the next 2 days off with pay." ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!? And we can't say anything because they are Jo's only professional reference, and we can't burn bridges. Burn bridges? Fuck, I'd like to burn their fucking building down. Seriously. What a bunch of useless fucking assholes. For fucks sake. Who the fuck pulls shit like this? It's a professional fucking office. THEY ARE FUCKING DOCTORS! But I guess that doesn't matter when you are an asshole at heart.

So that was our Tuesday.

Wednesday brought the joy of an offer for our house! Joyous occasion right? Well, it started off that way, except that the buyer's realtor was a FUCKING TOOL. Or, as my dad said it, a dingbat. She was acting as the other couple's realtor and morgage broker (and probably life coach). It seemed like she was trying to offer them the world and help them make all their dreams come true. They came in with an offer of 335, which is 4 less than the asking price, and what I found to be acceptable. The problem was that their deposit was only 2 grand, and they had a condition that their house had to sell. Nope. In this market, I'm not waiting on someone else's house to sell in order to buy mine. If you are that interested, sell your own house, then come back and make a serious offer. And as for the 2000 deposit, we wouldn't get it until their house sells. So a 2000 deposit is tiny. The norm is $5000. 2000 you can walk away from if there's problems or you find something else and screws me over. 5000 is a little harder.
So I countered their offer asking for then to drop the clause that requires their house to sell, and to raise the deposit to $5000. When my realtor presented that to the buyers they weren't too pleased, but whatever. So we wait for their response...and we wait...and we wait. 45 minutes later we notice her car isn't outside anymore. So my realtor calls to ask what's up. And this lady is all insulted that we would possibly counter offer, that it was such a good offer, blah blah blah. Ummm..how about you FUCK OFF, and don't be so fucking rude and tell us that you are declining our counter-offer and that's fine. But to leave us sitting there wondering? That's not cool. Her name was Lynn Lamb, a realtor for Coldwell Bankers, and morgage broker for whomever. I wouldn't recommend her to no-one. She was rude, and over invested in her client. A bad combination.

So yeah...this week has been sucking the big one.

Bitter

I'm bitter. It's a foreign emotion to me. I'm not quite sure how to deal with it, and it's making me a little sick to my stomach.

We hired a new guy at work to replace me. I sent out ads, I interviewed the candidates, and recommended the guy to hire. He's a great guy, lots of knowledge, quick on the draw, good attitude; a joy to work with. He's 5 years older than me, with 3 kids at home, and plenty of life experience to draw from.

Here's the problem...well not so much a problem, as something I don't know how to deal with. I'm bitter about money. He is starting with less experience than me in the computer industry, and making more than 50% more than me and I've been here almost 2 years. Over 15 grand a year more than me. That's bullshit. I couldv'e threatened to quit over more money and still not gotten that. So I'm bitter about it. Though in all fairness, it is due to me that he is making as much as he is. I told Claire that she'd need to offer the next guy more money than she pays me. And I was really happy when I found what she offered him.

Until today. Payday. And he takes home more than $500 more than me, and does a helluva lot less work. (it's because he doesn't know as much as me, and I'm working on transferring more of the workload to him but still...)

I don't know how to deal with this, and it's ripping me up inside. I know my bitterness is justified, because I should totally be making that kind of cash, more even, but I don't want to be bitter. I should be happy for him. It's like the parable of the planters. Where some guys are hired first thing in the morning, another at noon, and another with just a short period left in the day and they are all paid the same amount. The guys that worked all day got paid the same amount as the guys that worked an hour because when they were hired, they said they would work for that wage. Same thing here.

I'm still bitter though. I'm going to go find that passage in my bible and read it and think on it, and REALLY hope it helps. Prayers would be appreciated though. :)

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's day to all my favorite blogging Moms out there!

Anniversary

A couple days late...but that's okay.

Mama Bean and I celerated our 1st Anniversary as a married couple on Monday! It was such an awesome day. We both took it off work and had a wonderful time. We got to sleep in a little bit, then went for breakfast. Then it was off to the mall to hit up Kernels to use our 2for1 coupon for some popcorn to eat at the Zoo. Then it was off to the zoo where we spent the entire afternoon. We saw it all. The best part, I think, was the baby elephant; she was so cute! And they have this new Ray exhibit. It's a big oval tank with a shallow lip around the edge. You put your hand in and place it flat on the bottom and the rays swim around and "pet" you. It's so cool! And we saw the hippos, and giraffes, and lions. The wolves were out and about playing with each other, and even the snow leopard was stalking around his cage. It was amazing! I love the zoo. I'm excited to see what the one in Winnipeg is like.

We also went to Jubilations dinner theatre on Friday with Fred and Tasha (friends of ours from church). It was a lot of fun, and they put on a good show there, with some really good food.

So yay us for our first year! It went by suprisingly fast, and I'm excited to see what the next year brings.

Funny Stuff

I read this once a few years back, and it was recently forwarded to me again. :)

A new priest at his first mass was so nervous he could hardly speak.

After mass he asked the monsignor how he had done.

The monsignor replied, 'When I am worried about getting nervous at the pulpit, I put a glass of vodka next to the water glass. If I start to get nervous, I take a sip.'

So next Sunday he took the monsignor's advice.

At the beginning of the sermon, he got nervous and took a drink.

He proceeded to talk up a storm.

Upon his return to his office after the mass, he found the following note on the door:

1) Sip the vodka, don't gulp.

2) There are 10 commandments, not 12.

3) There are 12 disciples, not 10.

4) Jesus was consecrated, not constipated.

5) Jacob wagered his donkey, he did not bet his ass.

6) We do not refer to Jesus Christ as the late J.C.

7) The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not referred to as Daddy, Junior and the spook.

8) David slew Goliath; he did not kick the shit out of him.

9) When David was hit by a rock and was knocked off his donkey, don't say he was stoned off his ass.

10)We do not refer to the cross as the 'Big T.'

11)When Jesus broke the bread at the last supper he said, 'Take this and eat it for it is my body.' He did not say 'Eat me'.

12)The Virgin Mary is not called 'Mary with the Cherry'.

13)The recommended grace before a meal is not: Rub-A-Dub-Dub thanks for the grub, Yeah God.

14)Next Sunday there will be a taffy pulling contest at St. Peter's not a peter pulling contest at St. Taffy's.