Written on the way home....

What a day!! And it's not even over yet! Left the house about 1230 give or take a few. Walked to the bus and it showed up when I did. Then missed my stop!! I was 3 or 4 stops past it when I realized it
and got off to transfer back the other way. Got to Bellamy and the bus took forever so that when I was 2 stops away from getting off at the GO, the train was pulling away. This is the train that would make me get there- to Pickering- an hour early. Normally the train would get me there for 249 and the bus I needed to get me there on time left at 301. If I had caught the earlier train then I could have waited for the 301 bus with no worries. Didn't happen that way. Caught the 232 train after waiting the hr for it. Now yesterday, for those that didn't know, there was a freight train that derailed at pickering stn. Although it didn't block the GO at all it still had to run slower going through there. And there's a delay so that the train sat on the tracks at a red light for almost 10 min. I almost RAN off the train to find the bus platform. Found the bus and it was pulling away as I'm about 2 platforms away. Luckily when I waved it down he stopped. I was the only rider LOL

GOT HERE and had the interview. Seemed to go very well. I find out by not next week bit the end of the next one the wk of the 12th. Now to find my way home. Currently standing at the bus stop not knowing when the next one arrives. Been here 20 min and my back is killing me. Could take another 30 or so depending on when rush hr service starts for this route. Things seem accesible here at least-- as long as you don't mind waiting aroung for them. I'm getting my licence and the car fixed as soon as we can. This is ridiculous. Ok going to stand here and read. Ttys

----------
Ok, home now. Pat and Larry, the owner's of this business, passed me in their cars while I was waiting for the bus. Probably about 5 min after I signed off on this the first time. Pat stopped and told me to get in the car. She drove me to the GO station. We had a nice talk in the car and then when she dropped me off she said: "I just wanted to tell you that you were our favourite today. Wanted to make sure I told you." *fingers are crossed tightly*

A New Day

Spent yesterday... doing not much LOL We're into Civilizations 4 lately, so be playing that. Reading... we made stew/soup and turned it into a pot-pie... kind of. It was still tasty :)

Had a dream about Tripp Friday night. I walked into some house and he came running up the way he does and gave me cuddles and kisses... showing me that he loves me and missed me. I told Rick and he said it was Tripp coming back to see me and showing me that he's ok. I cried. No dreams that I can remember last night.

Not much else to write about right now... will let you know if I do anything exciting today ;)

Starting Again?

Well... I'm starting over. I think. I'll keep the old posts here for background, but maybe this'll give me something to do. I hope I can keep it up this time. I'm a procrastinator... we'll see :)

We've watched Julie & Julia twice. Once in the theater, and once just tonight. If you haven't seen it, read it or heard of it, it's basically this Julie person (Julie Powell) changing her life around by taking a year and cooking everyone one of Julia Child's recipes in 1 year. It's a good movie. And it got me thinking.

I'm unemployed. Both me and Rick are. Beyond job searching, not doing housework (I did say I'm a procrastinator) and sitting on the computer... what do I do with my day? Not a heckuva lot. Used to be WoW (World of Warcraft). It still may be again. My time-card ran out in Feb, so I've had to do other stuff. I'm getting better at housework... but playing OTHER games. Reading. Watching TV. We dealt with our dog dying... that's another story... but what do I do? Both of us sit here doing as little as possible, and not much else. I want to hopefully do something else.

So... I'm going to start this again... put out my thoughts, and how things are, day by day. Hopefully it'll be every day. Hopefully I won't fight everyday with Rick LOL . Hopefully I'll get other stuff done too... but hell, it's a start, isn't it?

So starting over... again, again. *smile* What thoughts are going through my head today? Lots, actually.... and what did I actually do? Not much LOL

The ground's thawed, at least. I was able to shovel and rake the backyard. No more dog poop. It needed to be done. I've been putting it off. Rick asked for US to do it on Wednesday. We didn't. I was dizzy as hell this aft when I got around to it but I wanted to go outside, I wanted to so something, and I pushed through it. I'm glad it's done. Two garbage bags full of leaves and branches etc... well 4, as they were doubled. LOL It was bittersweet however... weird, what thoughts go through you're mind when you're cleaning up dog poop... and I'm going to start crying. Let me give you a backstory...

In 2005 when I started this blog, we had ONE dog. Perrin. Christmas of that year, we got our second dog, Tripp. For the past 4 years, we had two dogs, and two cats.... and then Tripp got sick in January. I won't go into all the gory details... but we couldn't afford to do the extreme measures to treat him and find out what was wrong with him... so we did what we could. Medication wasn't working. Steroids weren't working... so on February 24th, 2010, we decided to put him down and stop his suffering. That was a very hard day. There was still snow on the ground.... he's been cremated, and when we can pay Tammy back, as she lent us the money for the ashes, we'll get them.

So... long story slightly shorter.... this is the first time I cleaned the dog poop out of the backyard since he died. I had tried mid-Feb when we had a slight thaw, but couldn't get a lot off. It was hard... harder now that I think about it. It's like I was wiping the last vestiges of Tripp from the backyard. It's more difficult to remember him now... but I force myself to. We loved him; love him still. We put a nice picture in a frame up in the hall by his favourite sunning spot. I don't think I've swept up since he died either, beyond the kitchen floor. But cleaning the dog poop? Who ever thought it would make you cry?

Rick made a really good dinner tonight. I did have to unload the dishwasher, and reload it to make room in the kitchen to actually do anything. But we had gotten a couple steaks from the discount section in the meat dept ($5 a steak can't be wrong!!), and Rick pounded them and sprinkled tenderizer on them. Then he cut up the potatoes and the garlic... I put them in 2 pots and added the water and put them on to boil. As an afterthought, threw in some corn in the microwave to at least have a veggie... then he fried the steaks. It was a great meal.

One thing with being home all the time, and being completely broke, is we're not eating out. Hardly at all. We're getting discount meat to throw in the freezer, and then looking for recipes on how to cook it. We've gotten some use out of appliances and gadgets we've hardly ever used before. We're cutting our portion sizes, well HAVE cut them, by half. Sometimes less :) Don't know about Rick (as he's afraid to step on the scales) but I've lost 40 pounds. Was at 35. Weighed myself again this morning and I'm down another 5. I'm past my goal to get my hair done LOL Now I just have to be able to afford it!!

Have a job interview on Monday. It's in Mississauga. It'll take me about 2.5 hours to get there... and it's at 9:30 in the morning. Meaning I have to leave about 6:30, just to be safe. I am NOT a morning person. I've had a lot of interviews since being laid off (in June) but nothing has panned out. Frakking sucks. :(( But what can you do? Hopefully this one will be the good one... if not... well, I'll just carry on :)

We're going through family stuff with Rick's family right now. I won't go into details but it's stressing us out. Almost more so then the stuff with Lee-Ann. At least my sister ignore's me. But my other sister is getting married in June. To a guy named Ryan. He's nice enough and treats her well, and Mary seems happy so I can't really complain. I think I may be kind of a snob though. I'm trying not to look down on her (well it's not hard when I'm 6' tall and she's less than 5' LOL) but it's hard when she's getting all the reception stuff from the dollar store, and if my Mom can't make the bridal bouquets then they're going to get a bouquet from the supermarket... ok... a wedding on a budget is one thing. But there are ways to make it LOOK like you give a damn instead of being so cheap it's noticeable. I will admit that Mom did make Mary's bouquet, posted a pic on Facebook and it's very pretty. And fake flowers aren't all THAT bad... But it LOOKS fake. I'm almost afraid to see Mary's dress... I feel like a shit, but I can't help HOW I feel... I hope she's happy with it, and hopefully in 90 days she'll stop talking about it. By then she'll be Mrs Mary Mark. Fuck. I hope she doesn't read this.

Running out of things to say. Maybe next week I'll be about to get us a new WoW card. Then I'll have something constructive to do :) I miss my rogue... :(

Signing off for now. When I have more random thoughts, I'll let you know :)

Vicky

Underhill :) Our new house.

WWRY - Believe

This is the WWRY (We Will Rock You) Cast in Toronto doing Suzie McNeil's "Believe". Scott (the guy in the video) is Suzie's real-life boyfriend *grin* No, he doesn't normally sing like that, but the entire thing is hilarious. You can see it on You Tube, but I'm trying it this way, having converted it so I can play it... so people can see this without accessing youtube :)

Enjoy!

A very nice surprise

Have you ever thought that you knew someone, but didn't realize how special they really are until they do something? That's what happened to us.

I don't remember if I've written in my blog about Big Machine. It's a band that we were introduced to (we as in Rick and I) through Rick's old boss, Doug. Doug's the drummer; Ed's the lead singer/guitar; Duane is the bass/backup singer; and, either Kerry or Sean will be the lead guitar/backup vocals. Kerry wasn't there when we met them the first time. We met them, got to know them and their music, and now they're friends. Not to mention that after the first night, I did their website *Grin* http://www.bigmachine.ca is where you can go to see it.

Anyway, getting closer to my point.... Ed's bought me a few drinks, for doing updates on the page (I didn't charge them much, as they do the band for "shits and giggles"), and paid for a dinner meeting etc... but mostly he's just a really nice guy. We've tried to go to as many gigs of theirs that we can. The last one that we went to was in March in Burlington. Sean was there. Before that, was in January, and we saw Kerry. When Rick got laid off in April, we didn't have the money to be able to go before this past weekend. We budgeted it out of what we had left and went to the Piper in Ajax to see them play.

We got there somewhere between 8:30 and 9pm. The pub wasn't too busy, but as we walked in, Ed was just starting to bring in his gear. He was the first one there. I've never seen him so happy! A gorgeous grin just split his face when he saw us. He put his stuff down, give Rick a HUGE handshake and I got a great big hug. He was soo happy to see us. Kerry and Doug showed up after a little bit, and Duane was up north so some guy named Tim did the bass. He was OK, actually no, he was pretty good. But he's not Duane. So we hung out when we could, Rick and I ordered dinner, watched a few sets and decided about 12:30am that it was time to go home. So before they started the next set, we said good-bye to Doug, got hugs and handshakes, and I went over to Ed and got his attention.

Me: Hey, Ed... we're going to head out.
Ed: Oh really? (really disappointed) I'm sorry, Vick. Tim doesn't know all our songs, we're trying to figure out what we can play etc... we haven't been able to spend much time with you guys [We were the only people there as "groupies"]
Me: That's OK, we completely understand (put my arm around him and he did to me) I love you, Ed, you're awesome... but I'm tired, and I want to go home.
Ed: laugh, alright
Me: We just have to take care of the bill and we're on our way.
Ed: no, just leave the bill with me, I'll take care of it.
Me: No you won't. (laugh) Thank you, but we can handle it.
Ed: Look, Rick's out of work, I understand and have been there. You guys made the effort to come out tonight and we really appreciate it. I'm taking care of the bill.
Me: Are you sure?
Ed: Yes, definitely.
Me: Then you're telling Rick! (laugh)

So we walked over to Rick, he repeated the conversation, Ed stole the bill from Rick's hand and called over the waitress. He then told her that he's taking care of our bill and to settle up with him at the end of the night. I got another big hug from Ed (he's a hottie, and quite a bit shorter than me, but he's a sweetheart and can really hug!!) a good wishes etc.... and we left. Rick and I, to say it bluntly, were shell-shocked. Both of us couldn't believe that he did that. That gave us extra money for gas and lunch on Sunday (we had family plans to be written about later) and showed us that we had a guardian angel. I sent him a free gift on Facebook when I got home (I tried sending him one that we could pay for, but it only accepts Credit Cards. If they did PayPal, I'd be good!) and I hope he got it. Regardless.... someone, whether God or other people, are watching out for us.

Thank you Ed. Our guardian Angel, Ed Brabanec.

Isn't it interesting...

Isn't it weird how things work? Regardless of what may come out of it, networking actually works. Here's an example: Yesterday I was online, just messing around in facebook and going through people's profiles, seeing what I can see. I get a message on MSN from Jay. Jay is some guy I started talking to about a year and a half ago, and haven't talked to in months. So long ago, that I've since cleaned out my MSN list and had deleted him. Lucky for me, he remembered ME and just happened to say hi. So we're talking, catching up on our lives and it comes out that Rick's unemployed and been so since April. He asks me what he was doing, what he's looking for, the norm.... and said that he worked for a company that's looking for managers of Rick's caliber. I told Rick, who was on his own computer behind me on the bed, the company name. Rick had applied multiple times and hadn't received any response. Jay was very surprised; but went ahead, called an Operations Manager, who said to send in his resume. So Rick sent it to me, I sent it to Jay, he'll send it to his work email and hand it to his Ops Mgr. No guarantees, which is fine, and I agreed to that .... but at least it's getting Rick in the door, you know?

So THAT's what's interesting these days. Old contacts who become current; talking that becomes opportunities. Even if nothing comes of this, someone stuck out their neck to help out. It's nice what some people are willing to do.