Frozen Canadian Mom Decision Making

I had a better morning today.  I got the munchkins off to daycare without hitting anyone with my car (not to worry, it was just a bumper tap yesterday, no damage), but I realized I was almost out of gas.   The light was on, so I knew I was going to be lucky enough to make it to a gas station, and no further.  Stopped at a light I pull out my phone and check my “Gas Buddy” app.  We have a Costco in town, and it makes our local gas stations a bit more competitive.  So, it looks like gas is $1.279/L ($4.36/G) versus my Ultramar at $1.311/L ($4.47/G).  Ok, so it’s four cents different. That’s typically enough to send me to Costco.  Costco is on the wrong side of the road and lights take forever and only accept cash (debit).  If the difference is less than $0.02 I’ll use Ultramar because I can collect “points” on my Walmart Mastercard that I believe makes it equitable. 

Then I checked the temperature.

It’s -30⁰C (-22⁰F) … so if I go to Costco I have to stand outside, swipe my Costco Card (likely twice to get it to read it), then wait.  Swipe my interact card, and then wait.  Select the amount I want to pre-approve for, confirm that, select which account, and wait.  Then punch in my PIN, and wait to be told to lift the nozzle and fill ‘er up!.  At Ultramar I hop out of the car, wave my Mastercard at the pump and lift the nozzle and fill ‘er up!. 

I went to Ultramar.  Cold trumps money savings!

FYI - average gas price locally is $1.361/L ($4.64/G)

You are my FOREVER

When I fell in love with you, I knew it was real, because all those corny love songs started to take on new meaning and made me think of you.  What amazes me is that I'll still be driving and a song, like this one will start and granted not all the words, but the below ones say it better than I ever could.

Turnaround bright eyes
Turnaround, every now and then I know you'll never be the boy you always wanted to be
Turnaround, every now then I know you'll always be the only boy who wanted me the way that I am
Turnaround, every now and then I know there's no one in the universe as magical and wondrous as you
Turnaround, every now and then I know there's nothing any better
And there's nothing that I just wouldn't do

Turnaround bright eyes, every now and then I fall apart
Turnaround bright eyes, every now and then I fall apart

And I need you now tonight
And I need you more than ever
And if you'll only hold me tight
We'll be holding on forever

And we'll only be making it right
'Cause we'll never be wrong together
We can take it to the end of the line
Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time
I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark
We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks
I really need you tonight
Forever's gonna start tonight

I know you don't have your dream job, and sometimes you're worried that you're not good enough, but you are PERFECTION for me.  You truly are magic and wondrous.  I can't believe someone as perfect as you not only exists in this world, but works so incredibly hard to make me happy.

You really have made me feel like the luckiest person in the world.  I love you and I'll never stop telling you how magical your are!

Thank you Shawn, for everything.  I mean it now, and forever!

Another fantastic olympics!

Total team ice domination, boys being told to play like girls, because the women lead the way to the top of the podium.  Yes, we're a pretty happy and proud country right now.

Honestly, it's not as sweet as 4 years ago.  This incredible achievement happened thousands of kms away, it wasn't on home soil like 2010, so we're not as close to it.  Four years ago Canadian Pride

The two highlights for me personally was enjoying the Women's gold medal win with my friend in Boston.  She was in a meeting, so I texted her updates.  I gave up when we were down 2-0 in the third, but her meeting was over so she'd watch it at her desk.  Then she texted me that we score ... it felt like a tease.  Then she texted me we were going to overtime!  OMG.  I'm superstitious when it comes to hockey, I let her watch and text me.  The captain had carried the flag for the opening ceremonies, so they were cursed to lose, but then I got the text from her.  Congrats my friend, good game, you won!  OMG Hayley broke the curse and our girls were golden again.  Talk about fighting back, talk about NEVER GIVING UP!  

The second was a bet made by a US Transportation Company for the semi-final game in Mens hockey, USA vs Canada.

EPIC ... this started so much trash talk, and was more important than the beer bets made by the PM and POTUS.   They lost!

Of course I've been hashtagging it #BestHockeyBetEVER!  

Inspired by an on line writing.

I belong to a few different on line groups.  Some even cross over to real life, so I tend to do a lot of reading of on line blogs, journals, etc.  Some are truly insightful, inspiring me to be a better parent, a better girlfriend, a better employee, all in all a better person.  Some … well … not so much.  I came across one journal post titled “Actually No, I don’t have to ‘Play Nice’”.  The author is a self described “bohemian”.  He doesn’t necessarily conform to our “rules of society”.  The journal proceeds to say I don’t have to be nice if I don’t want to.  If you’ve hurt me (on purpose or not) I can block you out with a big fat wall.  You won’t affect me that way.  Basically goes on to say that if they’ve screwed up in his eyes, he’s far too busy a person to hold their hand and teach them the better way.

Really at this point of the post I wanted to hurl.

What happened to common decency?  What happened to the base level of human kindness?  What REALLY annoys me about this person is that he spews “enlightenment”.  He’s approximately my age, with a young child, no job and at last count 3 girlfriends.  For some reason this creep has that evangelical cult leader persona and people do listen to him.  When I first met him, I thought he was farther along the evolutionary enlightenment path than most, now I just realize he’s a drug addicted loser who can’t hold down a job and be a truly contributing member of society.  He believes he’s better than that, and the truly annoying part is that MY tax dollars pay to have him sit on his ass and spout this garbage.

There are so many ways I’d like to rant not only about this jerk but too him.  But I am likely on the other size of that wall.  He’s NEVER extended a hand to me, or even looked twice in my direction.  I likely wronged him somehow and apparently the chance of me ever overcoming that big fat wall are slim.  GOOD.  I’d like him to be surrounded by that big fat wall, then I’d like to fill it with water. 

When other people like this annoy me, I remember … wait, I have friends, I have family, I have the love of my life and two of the greatest children ever.  I just received a spectacular review at work, we have a BEAUTIFUL house, and I’m blessed with people who make me laugh, smile and just generally feel awesome about life.  I bet he doesn’t have that, behind his wall.  Wow, I actually pity him … and if he ever knew I pitied him, I’m sure he’d RAGE.

Respect – it’s a two way street.

I’m sitting here in my office, listening to TCW speaking down to her youngest daughter (12 years old) on the phone.  Her voice carries (particularly with its whiney quality) and while I’d guess (hope) the beginning part of the conversation was cordial, this part is just ugly.  She’s not screaming, but she’s being completely condescending to her daughter.  I don’t live in her house, and I can’t hear the other side of the conversation, but if ANYONE spoke to me as TCW was speaking to her daughter, I’d hang up the phone.   I’m guessing the other side of the conversation is much the same, as we act as we are taught.

Respect is a big thing in our house.  We respect one another, all of us, from the gifts to me to BBE.  Everyone treats everyone else with respect.  Manners highly prized and praised in our home.  I would NEVER belittle the boys, publically or privately, that just tears them down.  When they act out, we try to find the root of the problem (99/100 someone is overtired) and we deal with it by respecting the other person.  The ONLY time you’ll hear yelling in our house is when we’re playing the “I LOVE YOU” game from different rooms.

The gifts respect us, and we respect them.  They’re little people who will grow into bigger people and act based on what they learn and how they’re treated.  It’s my responsibility to not act disrespectfully to ANYONE, but most importantly to my family!  If they’re not respected by me, who can they count on to treat them right?

And that my friends, is a frozen Tuesday afternoon one to grow on!

Its Murphy’s Monday!

Ick, it’s been a day.  The gifts were a tad slow moving this morning.  Littlest gift wanted breakfast at home (instead of daycare) and eldest gift was having trouble getting out of bed.  Not too bad, but a little slower than our usual pace.  I hadn’t packed the boys lunches the night before (I’m a little challenged on room in the fridge at the moment) so I had to pack their lunches … TOTALLY forgetting the lunchables in littlest gifts lunch.  Shoot, sorry dude.

I finally collect, my apple, coffee, purse, laptop, indoor shoes, the boys snow-pants, eldest project, bag of gaming stuff to go to their dad’s, their backpacks and the boys and we head to the garage.  It’s been a ridiculous winter, 37’ of snow and counting, so BBE lets me park in the garage.  Everyone is in; car is loaded with stuff … CONTACT.  We open the garage door and …

DAMMIT

There’s my truck.  Shoot, BBE blew out the driveway yesterday and forgot to put the truck back on the other side.  Muttering a few choice phrases, I go back in the house, grab the truck keys, minimally brush it off, and move it to the other side of the driveway.  Ok, this time for realz … CONTACT.

I get the boys dropped off at daycare, now 40 minutes behind schedule and I look down and the car is out of windshield wiper fluid.  Oh for the love of all things purple … I have to stop at a gas station, buy fluid, fill it up and hit the road.  Apparently people took there “let’s inflict some RAGE on techy today” pills, as EVERY MORON who wanted to coast in the passing lane was out.  Muther Effer!  I finally pull in to work 45 minutes late, but beat my coworkers and decide ok, it’s done; my day can get better now …

But no, of course not.  I’ve been working on this MASSIVE new product line that has been evaluated, changed, tweaked, rebranded, resourced, redesigned and basically screwed with for a year.  I’m finally seeing a light at the end of a tunnel (praying it’s not a train) and I get a bunch of proofs back on my desk and almost lost it.  The R&D manager, who I’ve come to learn, is incredibly bright but epically lazy.  Changed a bunch of information, and asked questions (to which he should know the answer) and is sending my program spinning again.  I LOST IT.  I fired off an email, reminding him that he’d already proofed and approved ALL this information.  Is he “sure” this time?  Really?  UGH.  I have to go back to the drawing board on about 30% of the program.  Fortunately I’ve got the time and manpower to handle it, it’s not one of my “critical timeline” items, but GEZZZ this guy drives me NUTS.  He was told to proof the info MONTHS ago.  He simply shrugged and said “hey man, everyone makes mistakes”.

*deep breath*

All I can say is that it’s a good thing BBE is home tonight, that’ll cheer me up.  I’ll put this Monday behind me and try to be grateful that these days are the exception, not the rule!