I have a new car!

Well, not new, and not yet, but I did come to my decision. My new car will be a 2005 Silver Camry with 37,000 km on it. It is pretty :) and it is in good condition. I should be able to pick it up on Thursday or Friday. Yay!

Wedding stuff is coming along well. We had a party for co-workers on Saturday that can't come/weren't invited to the wedding. All day saturday I spent preparing food. there was a lot of it. Fruits, veggies, nacho dip, cheese straws, lemon bars (I had memories of making them in Quinn's Appartment that one year at christmas!), chocolate chip muffins, nut burgers, scotch eggs, and deviled eggs. Oh my. Now we have all the leftovers... some items were more popular than others though, but I guess you expect that kind of thing.

All of the big stuff is taken care of for the wedding now, I've even confirmed with most of the vendors. There are still a few small details that we still have to figure out though. like wedding vows, and order of speeches and that sort of thing.

On the weekend we got our honeymoon all booked. before, we just had the flights.

Our itenerary.

Arrive in Calgary 8:30 MT on Oct. 5.
Oct. 6 - Either see calgary or drumhellar - I think Arash would like it - and then drive to edmonton, hopefully stopping for a visit with a certain awesome family in blackfalds
Oct. 7 - Drive from Edmonton to Jasper where we are camping. Do some hiking
Oct. 9 - Drive from Jasper to Banff where we are staying at THE BANFF SPRINGS HOTEL!!!!!!!! (Expedia had rooms for super cheap! more than $100 off the regular price!)
October 12 drive back to Calgary in the evening for the Red eye flight home.

We plan on doing quite a bit of hiking when we are out there and seeing the sights and what not. I'm getting really excited. This is my first vacation in well over a year, and I definitely need it. Now I just have to make it through 4.5 days of work... I'm almost at the point of counting down working hours left!!!

Two updates in one week. Oh my!

I’m actually sitting here today at work, and I’m a little light on work. Yay! This is the first time this has happened since, I don’t know, February? I don’t think I’ve had to ask anyone for work since Christmas. I’m going to relish in it for a bit. I’m sure there is stuff I can do (like clean out the equipment room and order stuff, and what not, since I’m supposed to be in charge of it, and haven’t done anything since July really. Ooopsies! I just compile one of my Huge @ss reports that we have to do every year. The report itself is 70 pages with all the figures, tables, and appendices, it is two three inch binders! Anywho, sent it off this morning to Mississauga for senior review. The other report I had to do for this project that has been hanging over my shoulders has been cancelled. Yay! We had to do interim and annual reports, and the interim got cancelled because the landfill has officially been closed and cover is complete.

Sure, there is stuff I could do, write PDFs for the appendices (boring! This would take like 2-3 hours, of printing files to a PDF writer – Last year I had a tech do it), Coordinate the fall sampling of a landfill that I’m apparently now in charge of, and work some magic in the equipment room, but I’m going to relax a minute instead. Bad employee ;). I was actually out at a site in Woodstock this morning and they didn’t have enough holding tank capacity to dewater the excavation to continue excavating and sampling, so I had work to do, just not anymore.

So Christine was asking how the car shopping is going? Truth – too many options. I think it is much harder to buy a used car than it is to buy a new car. Not only do you have to narrow down on which model you want, but you also have to decide between a dozen different cars with different mileage, different years, and different price tags. On top of that, do I buy a car in Woodstock? In London? In Kitchener?

We decided we wanted an ’04 to ’06 Camry with lowish mileage, but even then, there are half a dozen options. I went to Kitchener Monday night, Woodstock Tuesday night, and London Wednesday night. I have driven 5 camrys, 1 used matrix and the 09 corolla (I don’t want to buy it since it will cost more to get the things that I had on it last time and I don’t want to be paying for that for another 60 months… It did drive nicer than my 08 corolla, but still no comparison to a camry).

I have my top favourite at each dealership. There is an 06 Camry in London with 45 Ks, it is gold coloured though and I think it is kind of ugly. The interior is immaculate, but the exterior have a few chips in the paint, and the front bumper looks like of like it is was in a fender bender and wasn’t properly fixed which has me nervous. In Woodstock there is an 06 camry with 113 Ks, but is 3000 cheaper. Not as immaculate inside, but better outside and a nicer colour (grey). In Kitchener there is a 05 with 30 Ks, cheaper than London, more expensive than Woodstock. It is silver. We haven’t had a chance to look on the inside/outside yet though, so I’m not sure the condition it is in. We are going to see it tonight after work, so I have to leave a little early. Right now this one is the front runner, but that could all turn upside down tonight.

What a week.

So I guess the last time I updated was September 4… A lot has happened since then.

That weekend we went to Toronto to visit A’s mum. We took care of some wedding things and did some shopping. I got new contacts (not sure that I like them), and a new jacket (white trench, in hindsight, not the best option for me), and make-up for the wedding. Expensive make up. I shouldn’t have spent that much. Oh well, I never spend money on make-up, so once every three years, splurging isn’t a big deal.

On Monday morning I was driving in to work to do my timesheet and take care of a couple of loose ends before I went up north again for the week. I went around a bend in the road just 500 metres from my house, and the light blinded me. I haven’t driven that way in about 2 weeks, so I didn’t realize it was the time of year that the sun is blinding on the drive into work, so I was driving faster than I normally would. (40 in a 40 zone, but when the sun is blinding (about two weeks in September and two in April), I would normally drive around that bend at no more than 30). I got into the shade and all the sudden I see a parked truck about 5 metres in front of me. I tried to veer, but I didn’t have time. I hit it with the front passenger side of my car. The truck was a 1984 truck, in sustained not too much damage. Solid steel construction at what not. My car on the other hand was totalled. No worries about me though. I am relatively okay. Very shooken up, with a sore hand – my thumb got stretch back by the steering wheel, but no serious injuries. I got the call from the insurance person last week. $18,000 to fix it. Nice. So now I’m in the market for another car. I have to sort it out before Thursday or pay extra for a rental car. Boo.

I still ended up going north, but much later than planned. I wanted to leave Woodstock at 10:30 and didn’t end up leaving until almost 4! They sent another girl up with me to drive though, so that was nice.

I took last Friday off to get some wedding stuff taken care of. I did my trial hair run on Friday and then went for my second dress fitting (it still fits!). Made some head way with ceremony music and went bridesmaid dress shopping with D&M on Friday evening. We didn’t find anything, but D assures me she will find one this week. On Saturday I went to meet with the DJ, got presents for people in the wedding and picked up A from the train station. My sis came over that evening and got us all organized for the wedding. I now have a list of all the things I have to do before the wedding. Hopefully I can manage to get everything on it done!!! On Sunday we met with our officient for the second time and I have a digital copy of the ceremony. After that, we drove to Toronto and picked up a CD with our engagement photos on them on the way through Trenton. They are AWESOME! I’m going to post them (at least some of them ) on facebook when I get a chance. I’m so happy with they way they turned out. Last night we took my dad to see Spamalot for Father’s Day. It was actually his birthday yesterday too! He really enjoyed the show. I think A did as well. He was laughing quite a bit, but I think he missed some of the humor in the songs due to the language.

Le Sigh

I'm starting to sound like a broken record here. I'm busy. I have no time for wedding stuff, life, whatever. That is my life.

The weekend of the 23rd my sister came down from thunder bay. It was nice to get to visit with her. We also had a family picnic at my aunts and uncles in winterbourne. it was nice to see (almost) everyone. two of my cousins on Dad's side will be missing the wedding, so it was nice to get the chance to see them.

Last week there was a tanker roll over on the 402 in Sarnia and I got called out to it. 28.5 hours in 2 days. FUN. Insert eye roll here. It was definitely a morale low point to say the least.

Last weekend was pretty awesome. I got a good chance to relax. Saturday we went to kitchener and went shopping and finished our registry. We then went to a party at A's coworkers. It was an okay time. Not stellar because I didn't really know anyone there. The coworkers that A is close with didn't end up going.

Sunday we went to the beach. Long Point. It was great. Beautiful sunny day. Nice an hot, but not humid. The water was nice too. we took a bunch of photos, perhaps I'll post some if I get a chance. Monday was okay. we did a lot of house cleaning. Boo. I really want to hire a cleaning person. We make enough money for it. when I'm at home on the weekends, I want to be enjoying myself and relaxing not working. I do enough of that Monday to Friday!!!

Tuesday I found out that I have to go up to Mattawa again on Monday. So now I'm scrambling to get stuff done this week. Not fun. Particularily since I was out in the field on Tuesday and yesterday. Oh well, I can only get done so much.

Oh. I almost forgot to mention. Our photographer has posted a few pictures from our engagement session on her blog. Ignore the error in my name!!! I particularly like the last one. I have it as my desk top at work now, though I can't figure out what is on A's knee.

Break?

I’m so negligent of my blog these days. I think I might actually take a blogging hiatus which is basically what I am on. Thing is that most days at work, I work through lunch or I’m not in the office at all.

Funny me, I have to look at my work day planner to figure out what I have been up to for the last 3 (?) weeks since I updated.

1) Went to Montreal with C-dub and Nej. Had a great time even if our hotel left much to be desired. It was clean and we didn’t see any crawly things so we can’t complain too much.
2) The following week at work was crazy of course. That weekend we went to Belleville and had a family get together with my mum’s side of the family. My great aunt was here from England with two of her children and her grand children. We had a nice visit with them. I haven’t seen my great aunt since 95, her eldest since he didn’t have kids – 87?, and her youngest ever. Her middle daughter did not come over.
3) That weekend we met our photographer and had some official engagement portraits done. Haven’t seen them yet, but I will let you know if she posts anything on her blog.
4) Last week was very stressful. I almost cried several times at work
5) Last weekend we went camping with Arash’s groomsmen and went rock climbing. I drank way too much southern comfort and currently never want to drink again ever.

That brings us to this week. Busy again (of course). I have to get a report done today, but I have zero motivation to do it. I really am getting sick of that job. Tomorrow I’m out in the field all day, as I was yesterday. Monday I was in meetings all day in our Cambridge office. I’m hoping to leave early from work on Friday. Biggest Sis is coming down for a family get together this weekend with the other side of the family. She is staying at our place. Two of my cousins aren’t able to attend the wedding, so it will be nice to see them.

Oh, almost forgot to mention
a) Honeymoon – Will be to the Rockies. I’m hoping to get to see our Niki when we are out there since they won’t be able to come to the wedding.
b) A’s Grandparent – Visa not approved. We are trying to see if there is anything we can do. A’s mum is pretty upset. She was looking forward to seeing her parents again – she hasn’t seen them for well over 2 years. She is thinking about going to Iran for a visit before our wedding.

Well, there goes that Idea.

So A called the Iranian embassy yesterday afternoon. He has to get his passport renewed. He thought it would take a couple of weeks, based on how long it took his mum, but never called to verify with them. Um, no. 6 weeks. So he will get his passport back mid September. On top of that, because he is an Iranian citizen instead of Canadian, he will need a visa to go to pretty much any country. (except for iran, then I would need a visa). Visa’s usually take 2 to 3 weeks to get, could be longer though if there are any problems. Like being from an Axis of Evil.

So it looks like Hawaii is definitely out. Greece and St. Lucia are almost definitely out. St. Lucia *might* still be an option since it is a commonwealth country. That leaves… Canada. :( Don’t get me wrong. I love our country and I definitely do want A to see more of it, and to travel through Canada with him, but I’m not sure October is the best month for it. Also doesn’t seem to honeymoony to me and kind of boring.

I’m a little sad :( I was looking forward to seeing something new and going somewhere different. The last time I went anywhere even remotely exotic was three years ago now, and I want to travel. Not see the same sights as I have seen several times before.

I’m also a little frustrated with A. If he got his passport renewed (or started to) a month ago like I suggested, he would have it by now and we would have plenty of time to get a visa. Or, if he had his Canadian citizenship (like I have been nagging him about for over 2 years now) he wouldn’t even need a visa to go most places). I told him he should bribe the people at the embassy to process his visa faster. Or that he should explain that his fiancé is going to leave him for giving her a bad honeymoon (jokingly of course).

Good Bye Hawaii. Good bye Greece. Good bye St. Lucia.

Shocking

Another Blog update already that is ;)

Last week was pretty good. I only had two half days in the field. I think the last time I had a week like that was probably in April. Wow. On Tuesday morning I had to go out to dig a couple of test pits at the sit I spent most of June at, and then on Wednesday one of our main clients had a gasoline spill, so I had to go out with the PM for the emergency response. Really though, there wasn’t much point in my being there.

The weekend was good. A’s mum came down on Saturday and we took her driving. (She is trying to get her full license by the time of our wedding since if A’s grandparents come, she wants to be able to drive them around and out of TO on the weekends). On Saturday night we watched my sister’s wedding video so that A’s mum could see what a north American wedding was like. To be honest, the video was MUCH the same as our wedding will be ;).

On Sunday morning I took A’s Mum driving again, while A worked on the back door. We replaced the spring on the back storm door, the handles, painted the actually door (Hawaiian Cinder http://www.myperfectcolor.com/Match-of-Behr-S-G-710-Hawaiian-Cinder-p/mpc0080979.htm) and replaced the hinges and door knobs on the back door. It looks really good now.

Also, yesterday afternoon I booked our room for the night of our wedding. As D suggested, we are staying at the Montrose Inn in the Campbell Suite http://www.montroseinn.ca/bedrooms.htm. It looks like a really nice place. Plus, Road to Avonlea was filmed there ;) (when Cecily had to go to the Sanatorium when she had tuberculosis.)

In other news, it was decided last week that we aren’t going to Iran or Scotland for our Honeymoon. We have been convinced that October is not the time of year to visit Scotland, and Arash doesn’t want to go to Iran for our honeymoon since the visit would be all about visiting with A’s family and not relaxing and enjoying ourselves. We will save that for another trip. A is pushing for Hawaii , which I admit would be lovely. Personally, I’m pushing for St. Lucia or Greece.

Long time no update (AKA Wedding budget woes)

So it looks like the last time I updated was early June. Oopsies. Story of my life – Work is crazy busy. That is basically it.

On June 11th a dig an dump job started that I was doing the field work for. I was out at that job site every day between June 11 and July 4th. Long 4 weeks. In June I was 138% chargeable. Go me. It’s actually kind of sad. To date this year, I’m over 100% chargeable, my chargeability goal is 85%. Busy. Also, at the end of June I started pay roll deductions to be a shareholder in my company. Last year share prices increased almost 30% plus a 10% dividend. Should have bought shares last year!!! Hopefully we will do equally well this year. We must with all this overtime I’m putting in!!!

So if June wasn’t bad enough chargeability wise, on July 5th and 6th I got ready to and went up North to Mattawa to work in the bush from the 7th to the 14th. I came back down on the 15th. The first full week in July I was 180% chargeable. The second week (last week) I was 170% chargeable. Phew. I guess that is what happens when you work 17 days straight with no break :(. Hopefully I will be able to take a couple of days off later this month to relax. Well, at least one.

So basically. I have been busy.

Somehow in the insanity of the last month and a half, I have managed to fit in the following things.

1) Had J and C up for a weekend in June. Nice visit and the fabulous ladies helped me with the invitations. I’ve got so many compliments on them, but really, the kudos goes mostly to these gals who did most of the real work while A and I figured out the wording and babysat the printer so that we wouldn’t ruin many vellum sheets!!!
2) Had my aunt, uncle, cousin and her kids over for dinner on the long weekend. It was nice seeing them all again
3) Went to J&Ps on the long weekend and got to visit with EK&W, burger, J&P, J&G
4) Went to see Get Smart – Hilarious. I would recommend it to anyone. I was not disappointed!
5) Got invitations addressed and sent out (almost all) exactly 3 months before the wedding. There were a few that A had to find addresses for. Lazy boys ;). We still have to invitations to go out. For his groomsmen *eye roll*
6) My Dress came in! Dad has paid the remainder of the deposit.
7) Ordered MIL dress for the wedding (bad me, did this too late and have to pay an extra $25 for rush.)
8) Picked up my wedding ring. It is pretty nice, but it ended up costing $200 more than he quoted me which makes me a little mad. :( I think he used more gold than he expected he was going to.
9) Got my hair piece. It was about half of what I budgeted for
10) Booked toilets for the wedding.

I think that takes care of most of the big things for the wedding, though I still need to get a hair stylist (boo!) and arrange for the bus transportation to and from the wedding. I called a place at lunch today and it looks like it is going to be more than double what I had budgeted for it.

At this point it looks like our wedding will likely be about $1000 over budget. Not that we have an extra $1000 just lying around. Oh well. It sucks because a lot of the cost have gone up astronomically since S&Ws wedding – like tent rental went up about 40%, $5000 vs. $3500. Photographers 300% from $500 to $1500, DJ 200% from $250 to $500. Our wedding is going to be smaller and cost $3000 more. Everyone in the family was making fun saying that it is because I have more expensive tastes (which may be true), but that is so not it :(

So after another very hectic week last week, I am now back in the office.

I was out at the remediation site last week doing my air monitoring. I’m not sure if I wrote before, but on the days I have to be out there, I have to get to the office for 6 am to calibrate all the equipment and get to the site and set it up before work starts for the day at 7. They typically work to about 6 pm so by the time I take down my equipment, transfer/save data, and get it back to the office it is 6:30. Add ontop of that my driving and I’m gone from home from about 5:20 to 7:10. It also means setting my alarm for 4:30 so that I am awake enough to drive the 50+ kms to the office. I ended up working 59.5 hours last week and fell asleep on the couch at 7:45 on Friday night. I’m such a party animal.

Sure enough, 5:30 Saturday morning rolls around and I’m wide awake. I stayed in bed until 6:30 and then got up for a run. It was my first run in a few weeks, but I was able to make it 9 kms with little problem, so that was refreshing. I feel so completely out of shape these days.

Saturday we headed down to Toronto to help A’s mum move into a condo that she bought. And that took all of the day. On Sunday we went to Ikea with his mum to buy her a house warming present and ran into of all people… my dad and Nora. That was strange. But it was a pleasant surprise. Nora is getting an ikea kitchen in her Toronto Condo and had to pick out the handles for the cabinets. They ended up getting a fabulous deal – 75% off so they ended up saving them selves a couple hundred.

This week is pretty boring at work. I’m working on the most boring report ever and it is kind of hard to keep interested in it. It is the Liner monitoring program of the Keele Valley Landfill. Sounds like it could be kind of interesting, but a) I have next to no interest in landfills and b) annual monitoring reports are as dry as bread crumbs and with less flavour. (I have no clue where I got that analogy from, it just came to me, but I like it).

Today is 4 months exactly to the wedding. I spent some time at lunch starting to make address labels for the invitations which I hope to get out before the end of the month. I stepped on the scale this morning and it was pretty depressing. Since finishing my half ironman last summer I’ve gained around 15 pounds. I’ll need to lose at least 10 to comfortably fit into my wedding dress. It is just so hard to eat well when you are in the field all day long. It doesn’t help that my laptop has been broken since January so I can’t track my food on weight watchers in the evening. My laptop is fixed now though, UPS tried to deliver it yesterday and they try three times before leaving it at the drop off centre. I was originally supposed to be working at home this afternoon (I had a couple of jobs that would have taken half of the day in Woodstock and Brantford and rather than drive all the way back to the office I was just going to go home and work – it got cancelled last night at 9:30) so I would have been home to accept the delivery. I will just call UPS tonight though and ask them to take it back to the shipping centre which isn’t too far out of my regular drive to and from work so I should have it back tomorrow. Food wise today is going well, I just have to keep with it this time!!!

A long overdue update

Sorry for the long delayed post my loyal (are you still loyal?) readers. The last two months of my life have been a serious blur. At the beginning of March a big TCE remediation job that I am working on started up, and since the end of the month it has been go go go. Busy times. Also pretty hard on me sanity wise. When I have to be out there the day starts at 6 am which means I have to be up at 4:30. The day isn’t over until 6 or 7 pm, so it makes for a long brutal day, and doesn’t leave much time for doing other things like spending time with A, keeping in touch with friends, exercise, photography, and what not. The most hours I have worked in one week was 65. Horrid. I ended up getting the overtime I banked that week paid out to help pay for our basement renovations. Now, on top of that there is the fact that we are doing major home renovations in our basement. Last time I posted I mentioned that we had ripped out the carpet, in the basement. Since then we have: painted, put in dri-core, put in engineered hardwood, installed baseboards, and painted the trim around the doors and windows. We are now about 95% done the basement renovations, but A and are both thoroughly exhausted. We still need to caulk around the baseboards, paint one more coat on the door and window casing and baseboard, paint the doors, move everything back up stairs and install the doors. We could easily take care of that in a weekend, but we took all last weekend off of any worries and relaxed. It was long overdue. The last time we truly had a relaxing weekend would be Easter?

The wedding plans are coming along well. We have a caterer (yay!), and the tent rental is confirmed. I have bought the invitations, I just need to find the time to make them, and have bought the centre pieces. I have booked off hotel blocks. We have registered (Sears and The Bay). There are still a few important things we need to take care of, but I think we are finally in okay shape. I keep having weird wedding dreams. The other day I dreamed that instead of my father it was our office manager that gave me away. Kind of makes sense since I am working so much these days. I also have reoccurring dreams that my dress comes in, and I go and try in on, and it isn’t actually my dress. It has been black. It has been a pant suit. It has been short. It has been everything but what it is supposed to be! When I ordered it back in December the lady at the store said it would be in around April 14th, and after waiting for the phone call for a month, I called the other week to check on whether it had come in. Apparently when it reached the American quality control centre they found a pull in the material and the dress had to be completely remade! It’s a good thing I ordered so far in advanced!!!

I guess the Cat is out of the bag and I can finally share the news I have been holding in for a few months too. My sister S is preggo again. I’m very excited for her, but the only bad thing about the news is that her due date is Oct. 2. Exactly 2 days before our wedding. I recently found out that one of my cousins is also pregnant and due on Sept. 20. S is going to try to make it to the wedding (and is still planning on buying a bridesmaid type dress), but my cousin is not planning on coming. Which kind of sucks, but it is a happy occasion, so I can’t dwell on the positive now can I!?!

Speaking of Cats, Jenny is doing well and is loving going outside. She gets to go outside for about half an hour or so most days, but she stays in her harness and is tied to a post. She is a bit of a scrappy cat, so I don’t want her to get into a fight. In the evening she spends most of the night in front of the door howling to be let outside. It is actually quite funny and is more dog-like than cat-like. It gets annoying pretty quickly though.

I guess that is it for now. I promise to be more diligent about updating from now on!