In the lane, ice is glistenin'

the title is in honour of the freezing rain advisory in oxford county this morning. I had a couple of mm on my car this morning and it was "raining" my entire drive in this morning, despit the temperature in my car saying -2C.

So, Niki inquires what am I up to?

Man, I’m busy. That is all I can say about that. The last three weeks have been a blur in which I’ve worked around 50 hours each. Ugh. Good news though is that I now have 26.25 hours banked, banked hours don’t expire either which is good since it will allow me to take off some extra time around our wedding next year.

Last week I was out in the field Tuesday – Thursday. And they were long days. As in being at the refinery in Sarnia by 7:30 (had to leave the office by 6:15 which meant I had to be there by 5:45, which = leaving the house by 5 am.). yes. Exhausting. Worked 11-12 hours every day for three days. Friday wasn’t much better. No overtime, but no time to breathe either.

The weekend was good. Nice and relaxing which I needed. Saturday morning we mulled around doing nothing, but by 11 am, we were outside taking care of our lawn. I finished getting the bulbs planted and weeding the garden and walkway (we have a cobble stone walk way, so this involved actually lifting up individual bricks to get at the roots system. Work intensive but it looks much better now. A mowed the front yard one last time and raked the leaves from the front yard. By mid afternoon we headed inside. I made dinner for burger and her DH while A cleaned the house. We tag teamed it, and were done about 10 minutes before they got to our house. We had a nice visit and CH enjoyed getting to watch the Leafs-Sens game in High Def. I didn’t much enjoy the leafs winning at the expense on my Sens, but I guess the leafs need to be thrown a bone once in a while ;)

Sunday I was lazy and read my book most of the day. A was busy studying for his exam. When we woke up on Sunday morning the tree in the front yard had magically lost all of its leaves overnight so it looked like we had done no work. Meh. The bulbs are planted so we will have a pretty garden come spring.

This week has been a little less hectic so far. I’m still uber busy with work, but at least I don’t have field work. Tuesday I went to the Guelph office and hung out with Burger. I’m going to start doing some modelling with their group to help lighten the burden while they are looking to hire someone new. Before my boss approved, he made me promise that I wouldn’t try to transfer offices. It’s nice to know I’m appreciated :). Yesterday I was so busy trying to get stuff done, that I didn’t even take a lunch break!!!

Upcoming: Christmas Party for work on Friday night, and then it is off to Peterpatch to visit Nej and C-dub to celebrate our birthdays. We’ve been heading up there for our birthdays for 4 years in a row now (I think).

I will also post on my other blog about wedding related stuff

Short weekend

I was in traffic until almost 8 on Friday night. In woodstock! There was an accident on the 401 right before Woodstock. Yeah. It sucked. Took me 40 minutes to drive 2 km. Yuck.

Saturday and Sunday were pretty busy days. We got a lot of yard work done. Collecting leaves, mowing the lawn (back lawn anyways) one last time and planting some of the bulbs that we got as an engagement present. We only got about half of them planted yesterday before it got dark. Our garden was left in pretty rough shape by the previous owners. Half of it is looking pretty good right now though.

So, other than that, not much. Except. I think think I have a UTI. I have this urge to go to the bathroom but when I go there is nothing, so I'm pretty much certain that is what it is. Problem - I don't have a family doctor. And the walk-in clinic in Woodstock isn't open tonight. And tomorrow I'm going to be in the field all day. Oh, and apparently walk-in clinics don't open till 5 pm so I can't even go in London now. (I'm surveying in brantford this afternoon so I can't go in london at the end of the day either. Man, this is going to be miserable. Not to mention dangerous - a UTI can spread pretty quickly to a kidney infection if it isn't treated and that can be serious.

A cold Week.

So, this week I was up in Barrie doing field work. Annual landfill monitoring. Fun stuff. Only problem was that it is November which corresponds to cold cold rain.

Monday I had to be in Barrie for 7 am. Which meant up at 4:30 and out the door by 5. No biggie because of the time change (insert rolling eyes here). Oh well. That was only the first part of it. It was pretty cool on Monday. A little rainy too. Luckily no snow yet though. It still took me a bit of time to defrost when I got back to my hotel room. 9.5 hours in the field.

Tuesday the Snow came, and so did the wetness. Another cold, miserable 9.5 hours of field work. I seriously considered quitting on Tuesday. And I cried. I had to bail out 130 Litres of water out of a very deep well (60 m?). The bailer was attached to a very light weight string which kept getting stuck to the side of the well and it would take me 10 minutes to get the stupid bailer to the water level. Stupid well. Anyhow, after being frustrated, cold, and wet for 2.5 hours, I had bailed exactly 45 liters of water from the well. Luckily the field parameters stabilized and we figured that was good enough. Man. I was upset with that. Another 9.25 cold cold hours.

Wednesday – was wet. And cold. Again. Woke up Wednesday morning to 4 inches of snow, and they got another 2 inches while we were working. Now. I love snow. And normally I would prefer snow to rain. The problem is, when it is 0 snow is wet and melts and gets you soaking wet. I think my toes were boarderline frostbite most of the day. Another 9.5 hours of cold wet field work.

Thursday – More snow, more wind, more cold and wet. Although, I did go out on Wednesday night and invested in some warmer socks. Luckily it was the last day and when we were done at 5 pm (10 hours of work) I got to drive home from Barrie in a snow storm (luckily the snow wasn’t sticking when you got 10 minutes south of Barrie, so the roads weren’t all that bad.)

So yes, 4 days of ~10 hours in the field with a maximum temperature of 5C and a min of -3C. Rain, snow, wind. Fun times. I’m very thankful to be in our wam (?) office today!

So yeah. I made it through this week without quitting my job, so I think that is quite the accomplishment. I haven’t had to work outside in the winter since my first co-op term, so I think I need to build up a bit of a tougher skin.

The Water Un-tower

The water Tower that was formerly at ground level has now been raised to it's full glory. I'm working in the 'saug today (proposal. yay). And drove by the tower this morning and it is up. A crane was still holding it up, but it looked all shiny and new!