back in the saddle again

I did a survey today at the building that just about broke me. When I first started working for my job, I went out and did a survey on a building. I was way undertrained and made lots of mistakes. I was ready to quit and I think they were ready to fire me. It sucked.

Two and a half years later, I had to get back on the proverbial horse and re-survey the building. I've been dreading going back into that building for the past 4 months. But it's done. And it went okay. And I don't think I did that bad a job the first time for the experience I had - it was a very difficult survey. I have never popped so many ceiling tiles in a day in my life. My arms were having trouble replacing them by the end. I sort of wish I could have had a camera taping me because it likely would have been hilarious.

Anyway, tomorrow I get to go up in my first scissor lift. They dropped it off tody, does it ever look funny sitting in a fancy business building.

water meter fun

The city phoned and wanted to know when they could come over and switch out our water meter. The water meter is in the basement. My sister has a kitty named Walter. My sister lives in my basement.

Setting complete.

A few days ago I took an early lunch to come home and meet a water meter guy at my house as had been prearranged. I introduced myself and opened the house. He, armed with his water meter stuff, followed me down to my sister's suite. As I opened the door I, in a singsong voice, started calling "Waaalter. Here Walter." I was going to leave water meter guy to do his thing while I ate lunch so, thinking maybe I should find out his name before leaving him alone in my basement, I turned and asked his name. He kind of smirked and said, "Actually, it's Walter." I thought he was joking. "Usually people call me Wally," he added.

Can you imagine what this poor man must have thought when I opened the door and started singing, "Waalter. Waalter. Come here Walter." Right.

But at least now I have a thingy set up so they can read the meter from outside which = no more water meter Walters in my house. Just kitty.

I have a hobby

I always hate the sections of applications and surveys and conversations where it says

hobbies:

I never have anything to write. I've never really had a hobby per se. There are lots of things that I like to do, but they have always fallen under a different category like extracurricular activities, clubs or volunteer work. But finally, I have a hobby. There is no other heading which it could really fall under.

My new hobby is wall climbing. I've been going at least once a week for the last 6 weeks. I'm five climbs away from my self set goal that will allow me to purchase my own shoes. Another fifteen and I'll buy a harness. It might be awile before I get into ropes and stuff. But I'm so excited to have a hobby. The only problem now is keeping my different friends interested enough so that they keep going with me.

Today I did 2 new walls that I haven't attempted thus far. It felt great. I love having a hobby.

muy caliente you bed of sun, you

Ah Mexico, so soon I can almost feel a sunburn on my nose. Oh wait, maybe that's from the tanning bed (I'm trying to get a base tan so as to avoid the lobster look in the wedding photos. The lobster look is so last year). Anyway, I decided to get a Hepatitis A/B shot before I left. Which meant I needed a doctor's appointment. Which meant I needed a doctor. I've never really had a family doctor. When I was young we used whichever doctor lived in my small town but it changed throughout my life. So this week I found myself a doctor accepting patients. I made the appointment and met her today. She's about a year older than me. A medical doctor. My new medical doctor. My age. Crazy. Anyway, now I'm told I may feel flu-ish for a couple days so I figured I'd post before that hit so I don't wine about it.

Hah, whom I kidding. I'll totally wine about it.

First thoughts of Christmas!

Christmas list in the works:
My roomate is leaving me probably. I sad. So now I need a few things. So I decided to add them to my already started Christmas list.

- Cordless phone with caller display
- Lazer thingy that my dad and grandpa have to help me park my car as far back as possible without getting it squished by the garage door
- Digital camera
- Adapter thingy for my iPod so I can plug it into the special spot in my car that is made for such things. I love my new car.
- Charger thing for my iPod so I don't have to take my laptop on long trips
- Knee length terry cloth robe
- Lots of socks
- Yoga mat
- Stainless steel garbage can with a foot press opener
- Lint remover
- Wavy flatware set from Peir 1
- And I can't forget a hippopotomus

Goodnight

what Shannon said to Ky that didn't quite come out right

"Next time, feel free to tell me 'Hey, that's not my weiner.'"

My guest star appearance on Melrose Place

I am going to Mexico in less than 2 weeks. I was ridiculously excited about it. When I paid my deposit and planned to go, it was supposed to be a fun relaxing time with the bride, groom and their parents plus one other girl my ageish. Sounded awesome. Practically a girls' trip. I was planning to take a tennis lesson everyday, figure out what a catamaran is (they are included in the all-inclusive-ness after all), get my hair done at the fancy salon, play some beach volleyball, fall in love with a cute resort worker and maybe even go out dancing one night with the bride-to-be and the other girl. Not that I still can't do all of those things, but within the past week I found out that an old friend of the bride's decided to come along which is cool - but definately changes the boy to girl ratio. Then I found out that the bride's brother, whom I used to sort of be seeing, decided to come along last minute. Certainly understandable and also cool - I was really excited even to hear it; he's her brother for goodness sake. Then this morning I found out that my most recent ex-boyfriend is trying to make the trip as well. Just great. I've always wanted to go on a beautiful romantic holiday with basically what amounts to 2 ex boyfriends. Can't wait. The thing is, I totally adore both of these guys and want them to still be in my life. But why couldn't it be somewhere not on my very much anticipated vacation? This is seriously going to damper my ability to fall in love with my tennis instructor.

oh sweetness to the extreme

So thank you hotel in previous town for being full tonight because the roads weren't bad at all (I hit the highway soon enough in the day that everything is wet instead of frozen - glad I'm not driving tonight though) and the hotel I am in now is beautiful. Oh my gosh. I've stayed here in the normal rooms before but tonight I reserved a business suite. The couch in the "living area" is huge and comfy, the tv big with lots of channels, the bathroom clean and fresh, and the fridge quite nice actually. Probably the nicest hotel fridge I've ever had. Then you open the pretty glass door to enter the "bedroom area" and I have 2 gynormous beds (too bad I'm all alonesome) and another tv. My view is of the courtyard which is covered in snow, but still. And I'm such a dork that this makes me excited but there is even a separate entrance into the bedroom. So if I did have other people here and they were sleeping on the couch, I could enter through the bedroom entrance and they wouldn't be disturbed. Cool huh? Kinda pointless for just me, but still. Not to mention the fitness room. I might take up boxing tonight because there is one of the bag thingys that you punch. And a skipping area. And a bike, treadmill AND cross trainer machine. Plus free weights. It's pretty much as good as my gym in Saskatoon. I am going to try all the machines in it I think. After I teach myself to box of course.

But first I need to get some reports written and other work done. The big question is, which room do I do it in? They each have a desk. Since I have 2 reports, maybe I will do one in the bedroom and one in the living room.

Don't you wish you were as excited about such meaningless little things as me? If you are, you are my favourite.

Oh, and what a stupid phrase "not to mention" is. You say it just before you mention something. That doesn't make any sense.

slip 'n slide

I'm in central/northeastern Saskatchewan. They (the weather network people) told me before I left on Monday that there would only be a light snow this week. My faithful weather friends lied to me. There was lots of snow. It was a scary 5.5 hour drive to Kamsack (it should have taken just over 4). Then this morning from Kamsack to Canora, it was pure ice. Even the big full-of-confidence-in-themselves-and-their-trucks truckers were going slow. I was sliding all around on the road. If there weren't so many deep ditches and road signs that could wreck my pretty new car, it might have been almost fun. But I just kept going nice and super slow. The roads were better this evening thankfully.

Usually on my survey trips (which is what I'm currently on), I do lots of surveying with short drives (they are totally the best part) between - but this trip there is lots of driving everyday. I am sad to say that it's made me grumpy. I just about snapped at the hotel lady when she said they are full tomorrow and I can't book a second night. Which is retarded - it's not her fault that I'm in the middle of the storm watch area (for snow, rain and freezig rain - light snow my bum) and that tons of other people booked tomorrow night before me. But thankfully I didn't snap. And we ended up laughing about something (that I won't explain because you totally had to be there) before I came up to my room. So that's good. But I still feel grumpy. I don't want to take 3 hours to get to Prince Albert tomorrow because I have to go like 20 the whole way. Actually, if I have to go 20 it would take more like 4.5 hours becuase I think I'm 90 clicks away. But I digress. I guess if the roads are really really bad I will just have to beg one of the roadside places to take me - there are 3 here. 2 are kind of sketchy. But I have my sleeping bag so I should be okay.

You know, last time I was in this town for a job, there was a huge snowstorm and I was stuck here. Methinks I see a pattern...

Anyway, I'm going to take advantage of the one night I do have in a nice hotel with a fitness room and pool. The pool is undergoing maintenance (of course) so it's closed, but the treadmill should be good to go.

Later.

oh yeah

I got my new glasses. I'm over my sadness of losing the old ones. The new ones are kind of cat-ish. Ky says they are semi - sexy librarian which I can totally handle. I got compliments on them all weekend. So I like them. Goodbye old cool blue glasses - hello new hopefully attractive ones.

This weekend, I was in Love.

That's right. I love being in Love. I just wish I could be there more often. And, although I have no complaints about being in Love with my friend Ang (the first person I have ever been in Love with), I'd like to be in Love with lots of people.

There is a town in Saskatchewan called Love. It's a cute little town, but I would drive myself crazy if I lived there. If you ever go there, you will understand what I mean. It is literally impossible to keep yourself from punning. You will find yourself saying, "wasn't it great, being in Love?" and "I wish I was still in Love." Trust me, the list goes on and on. To the point of self annoyance. But it cannot be helped. My friend Ang and I stopped by the village on our way home from our weekend quiz meet. There are hearts everywhere. And all of the streets have alternate names. For instance, 2nd Street is also True Love Drive. Railway Avenue is also Cupid's Way. It's fun, but definately cheesy. I'd drive myself crazy there so it really is a good thing that I'm not often in Love.

See.

you know you are in saskatchewan when...

I had a survey in Regina this week. It was an important one with a huge time constraint. I had to get there. Of course since I live in Saskatchewan, there was a blizzard in my city. Well, maybe not a blizzard, but enough snow that I didn't want to drive my new car on the highway. 5-7 hours (round trip depending on the iciness of the road) of stress was not how I wanted to spend my day. So I tried to get a flight. The options were:
1. a small airline that only flies between Saskatoon and Regina; and
2. Air Canada. The Air Canada flight wasn't a direct flight. I actually would have had to fly to Vancouver first. Yeah, look at a map if you don't know how far that is.

So anyways, the small airline, which was much cheaper, was sold out of the 7 am flight so I grumpily took the last seat on the noon flight and tried to be super prepared since I was going to have half the time to do my assessment. Well it's a good thing that first flight was full. Because it ended up being cancelled and there wouldn't have been anymore seats on the noon flight and i'd have been SOL. But now I must tell you why it was cancelled because it makes me laugh.

They actually loaded up the little jetstream plane and everybody got on board. The plane taxied out onto the runway so they could de-ice the wings (a common occurance at many Canadian airports - except probably not Vancouver or Victoria). When they tried to take off they couldn't. Why you ask? Because they were frozen to the runway. Hah! They had to get towed back to the hanger and flight = cancelled. Shannon = happy she didn't call soon enough to get on the early flight.

I'm sure Saskatchewan isn't the only place in the world where planes get stuck to concrete, but I've seriously never heard of that happening before.

the frighteners - and i'm not talking about raven

a friend of mine has, over the past couple months, made friday nights at his pad the place to be. after wall climbing with some friends, we headed over for the rest of the evening. the decided event of the week was a movie. it took about 2000 minutes for us to decide but finally 1996's "the frighteners" was chosen. after i got over the fact that michael j. fox was a potty mouth i decided that the movie was really... well... terrible. so bad. but it was fun to watch with my friends. especially since ky got all creeped out and could barely go to the washroom by herself in her fear. now ky and i have a history of being scared by movies together. and the sure fire way to get over it, is to watch some teenageish type movie together. so that was the plan.

we arrived home and had to decide what to pop into the dvd player. i knew what ky secretly wanted to watch. see, she has this deep abiding love for raven symone (who now apparently goes only by only "raven"). but she won't admit it. in fact, there is a good chance she will deny it - on this blog even. i understand that it is probably a little bit embarrassing to adore raven, but i think ky should know by now that her friends accept her for who she is and won't hold it against her. anyway, good friend that i am, i suggested that we watch "cheetah girls" so that ky could have her fill of raven without having to put herslef out there and ask. i actually bought the movie for her at christmas and she says that she's never watched it yet, but i caught her mouthing some of the words of the songs so "sure ky. you haven't seen it." anyway, it definately calmed us down from being scared of the frighteners. although to be honest, i am little scared for the future generation of girls. scary. anyway, i bet ky had nice cheetalicious dreams all night!

hah, i'm so getting a punch in the throat for this post. tee hee.

My glasses that I loved broke. Still under warranty so I went to pick up the new pair today. They are no longer making them. So boo, I have to get new frames. And my fashion eyewear consultant is in Red Deer. So I've picked a pair with the help of his sister. But without his input, I have no idea if they are suitable.

On another note, the metal is gone. I'm surprised how much more spacious it feels in my mouth though. My tongue doesn't know what to do with all the room in there. I'm excited to floss tonight. I think I'm getting over the sadness I felt last night very quickly indeed.

comfort metal

I am kind of sad tonight. Let me explain why. When I was in grade seven, I had my braces removed. To keep my bottom teeth from shifting, I recieved a wire along the bottom of my mouth behind my teeth. It's never bothered me. It is a bit of extra effort to floss, but that's about it. They didn't want to remove it until I had my wisdom teeth out and since it never bothered me, I wasn't in a rush. When I got my wisdom teeth removed, I still wasn't in a rush. But this weekend, it broke and has been cutting up the side of my mouth and my tongue. Thank goodness for orthodontic wax. $2.50 was all it cost me for complete relief. Anyway. The dentist's office was closed all weekend and yesterday so today I called and made an appointment. As I suspected, they are going to remove this wire. Strangely I am nervous to have something that has been a part of me for 12 years taken away. Not to mention that I'm not thrilled to have a SECOND retainer that I'll have to wear. Real sexy huh.

Anyway, it will all be done in less then 24 hours. Just like that. I feel somewhatt ungrateful to this little piece of metal that has aided in creating the smile I have today. But then again, it is just a piece of wire. Why should I care?

Weird. It must be all those pickles I ate last night wreaking havoc with my emotions.

Night.