My Garden

Yesterday was a wonderful day, the clouds were out, and the rain was falling. Fog flouting on the tree tops and in all the gloom of different shads of gray, high in the trees you can see hints of yellow, orange, red and brown. Summer is saying good-bye and autumn is saying hello.

Yesterday was wonderful not because of the weather, but because I looked at my little garden laying there in the rain, soaking up all the water that it can handle, looking more beautiful then ever before. My garden that had started its life as a bet with my husband had survived the wrath of my black thumb, and now that autumn is poking its little head around the corner, my garden is starting to die of natural causes and I am feeling pretty good about that

My garden is a sweet testament that I, JM, can plant a flower and not kill it.

So here are some photo’s

Summer Vacation? Over!

Wow, it is hard to believe that it is Friday today. This week had gone by soooooo fast. And I just realized that there is only one more week left of Summer Vacation. I cannot believe that summer is gone. This is it, gone forever. And When I look back at when summer vacation started. I was thinking to my self, that these 8 weeks are going to go by so slow because my house hold is down to one car and I live in the middle of nowhere. And now that I look back at it all, I SURVIVED summer. I cannot believe. Please, don’t mind me…I am in a state of Shock. I think I need to lie down. I will Blog another day

collections

Does this makes since?

I just got off the phone with a collection agency that I have been dealing with for about 4 months now and they just informed me that their client is now claiming that I owe them more money then what was agreed to when I started making payments to the collection agency. My dept with this agency was $361.60 and I have sent them postdated checks and they have been cashing them like all good agencies should. But according to their client and they claim that they have just been informed today, that my dept is $600.00 and something.

Now of course this collection agency would say, yes I agree with my client (and they did), A contract is a contract and you should contact them. But then I started thinking, the company that I have dealt with took my account to collections saying that I owe them the $300.00 and after a month frustrating mail from this collection agency that they had hired, I make contact and agree to make payments on what was told to me was my dept. And now they want more after an agreement was reached.

So after thinking about this, I got on the internet and I found the collection agency web site and I have down loaded their brochure and I was a little shocked at what I found. According to them, in 8 steps the can resolve an issue for their clients. It was the first step that took me for a surprise.

Step 1: Account is Assigned
An account can be submitted by fax, mail or email at any time of the day. Once we receive the account you will be sent a client acknowledgment form to verify all information is correct.

So this is saying that this company, who had hired them to go after me, was sent a verification form and I am sure that it was filled out with the amount of 361.60. So here is my problem. Do I pay the extra 300.00 that is claiming is owed or do I say look, We agreed on the first amount, this is what you told the collection agency was the amount owing, I have made all the steps on my part to deal with it, it is kind of to late to ask for more money?

What would you do?

Look Mom....No Hands!

Look Mom....No Hands!

Today is the day that I break the bottle habbit.

So far so good, she is very happy about drinking her milk from a "Big Persons" cup. Plastic of course.

I would like to take a moment to thank my 8 year old son for showing me how to down load the camera into the computer and sitting with me while I figure out how to up load the photos into this Blog. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t think I would ever have a photo of my self in the “profile” area and this cute photo to share with everyone of my 2 year old mastering the art of “hand-free bottle holding.”

Husband approved

I have great news regarding my career choice. My husband approved; however with one condition – must take the course AS SOON AS POSABLE!!!!

At his work site (commercial renovation/construction) he is estimating that he has about 6 months guaranteed work left before the work is completed, then after that there is the possibility of going back to the previous employer for less money. So if I want this course then I need to act now.

Now to clarify on what I would be doing is exactly this, I am planning to become a Resident Care Attendant. I am planning on taking the course part-time for 8 months. (Full time would be 6 months – not much difference time wise, same with tuition cost)
After getting the HS/RCA certificate and getting into the workplace, I would have more options open to me within the heath sector.

The course starts in October 2008 and ends June 2009, Before October, however, I need to get my Food Safe Level One Certificate, Current Standard First Aid and Level B and C CPR, so right now I am scrambling to find these courses. But good news from the college, for $150.00 plus the one time registration fee I would get my seat.

OMG!!!!

Holy Smokes…

As it turns out this course is going to cost $2100.00…..OMG!!!!! The $525.00 was for out side costs such as Course Modules – $125.00, Nurse Uniform and shoes - $200.00, Nurse Watch with second hand - $50.00; the list goes on…..

And Student Society Fee and Levies……Outrageous!!!! Out of this $2100.00, $320.00 of it will go to the Student Society. So all-and-all with everything in total; this course is going to cost $2265.00. ($2100.00 plus the $525.00) I wonder? Would I have to pay PST and GST on top of it all?

I will talk to the husband and see what he would have to say about this………..

Have I found a Career? Maybe..........

As I was driving home from work last night thinking about my job at the grocery store stocking shelves with light bulbs and toys, when it really hit me that this is what I would be doing for the rest of my adult life; needless to say that this made me feel…what is a good word here…..

For a few months now, one of my neighbors here at home has been on my case that I should do something with my self. And that I should look into providing health care. [I guess now is the time I should inform everyone that my neighbor is an RN (Registered Nurse) so I guess that you can say he is a recruiter of sorts.] He has informed me to the highest degree that there is a shortage here on Vancouver Island and that I should strongly consider doing looking into it. Anyways to make a long story short, he feels that I have a good disposition to provide this kind of work. So for some time I have been ‘kind of mulling’ this over.

So it would seem maybe by chance that the same time I have been thinking about how crappy my stupid part time job is and just thinking THAT maybe I should kind of look into what my wonderful neighbor has been telling me, when out of the blue on the car radio an add for Registered Home Care/Long Term Care Providers urgently needed… “For more info go to such and such a place brought to you from the government of British Columbia.” Isn’t that a coincidence or what?

I put the pedal to the metal and I did just that, I looked it up and I just found out that the course that my neighbor has been kind of pushing me towards is right in my price range. $525.00 for 28 weeks!!!! I was shocked!!!! I couldn’t believe it!!!! I was always under the impression that I would have to pay and least a couple of thousand for this kind of course. And to make things even better about this, the part-time hours at one of collages in Victoria fit my schedule – How about that!!!! I have scholarship that I have earned 4 ½ years ago that would pay for the majority of this course.

So I guess the only thing that I have to do now is to talk to the husband and children about this and convince them that MOMMY cannot be a “Stay at Home Mom” forever, and ever, and ever, and ever….. And that it is high time that MOMMY found a career.

BLOGS

Last night after the husband and the children went to bed, I found some good MOMMY time alone to do some surfing on the Web. And I have come to the conclusion that I may be becoming addicted to BLOGS. Yup, you heard me, I am a BLOG ADDICT. For the past week or so, I have been searching the web for BLOGS to read. And I have come across a few that I like. So I am going to case them out before I add them to my BLOG ROLL just make sure that this stranger has the same interest as I do.

So what am I looking for in a BLOG?

A) Must have children to talk about (The four legged kind will do to)
B) Must have something interesting write about
C) I don’t what to read anything regarding other people peeing, puking or crapping themselves on a night out. I am just way too old for that now.
D) I am not into nudity, racial slurs or anything in this nature.

Is this to much ask for? I don’t think so. So the other thing that I was wondering about is this. What are the appropriate steps of adding one to ones own BLOG ROLL? Do I give them a comment that I am going to do so and ask them to look at my BLOG to make sure that we are a match? OMG!!! What if they don’t like me!!!!

Sooke Pot Holes - Camping

We made it back safe and sound and another camping trip under our belts. We went to the Sooke Potholes camp ground for the week-end and our experience there was not what I thought it would be. The major complaint that I have with this campground was that people were camping on top of each other. The camp sites, I kid you not, were less then 3 feet apart. So if you want privacy here, you can forget it. The campground did have some good stuff about it to, such as cell phones don’t work, no reception what so ever. I thought my husband would go into with droll, but he survived. The other good point with this camp ground is the rules are strict; you cannot pass the campground gate if you are not camping. You must put friends on the guest list if you want visitors and quiet time is enforced with off duty RCMP officers and firefighters’ volunteers. How about that!

We were lucky that our camping neighbors were not that bad. They tried hard to ignore us and we did the same. The other site next to us was a no show, most likely because of the rain and did it ever rain. (Rain is our camping curse; it rains when ever we camp) But more about our camping neighbors. We were so close to them that we could not help but notice that the insurance decal on their license plate had expired almost a year ago on their camper, October 28, 2007, to be exact. There was some small talk with them, such as they are from Langford, their kids’ age, stuff like that. However, we were not too happy with how close they were to us. So when Sunday came around, my husband and I decided that we were going to pay for an extra night so we can stay in the campground longer to burn the rest of the fire wood that we had bought and let the kids run loose. We went to A&W for breakfast, went home for a shower and then went back to the campground. We were a little disappointed with our camping neighbor; he was still there. Now the one thing that Sooke is good for is Road Blocks. We have them every Friday and almost every Sunday on Sooke River road, the road that one must take to get to the potholes. They start from about 2:00 in the afternoon and end about 6:00 in the evening. My husband and I are Sooke natives and we know this but our camping neighbors don’t. So when our camping neighbor made an appearance, I walked up to him and told him that they should be careful when they leave and pointed to the plates. The guy looked at me and said “I noticed that to, I have the papers in my glove compartment; just forgot to put the decal on!” I just looked at him said “Sooke has two Road Blocks, one on Friday and the other on Sunday – just for the Potholes.” His face went white, he herded up his children and wife, got into his camper and peeled out of there so fast, he made dust clouds, and he didn’t even let the camper warm up!! It was funny. My husband looked at me and asked what I said to him. I looked at my husband and just said “Road Blocks.” We just started laughing.

But you know what, after our neighbor had left, we were the only ones left in the campground and it was just pure heaven.

Again, I forgot my camera!

My Long Weekend

I just finished looking at the long term weather forecast for the Sooke aria, and all I can say that it is going to be HOT. Yesterday was 26, today is 28 and tomorrow it is going to be a whopping 30!!!! I am going to melt…….

I am going camping this weekend, and all of my hopes for a campfire are slowly slipping away. It looks like we are going to bring our ‘not so little’ butane heater for artificial fire and some warmth. Darn!!!

Now that the weather is out of the way and my droning about my foreseen lackage of campfire is over and done with, let’s continue on with my long weekend.

I had a good long weekend. My children and I got to spend 2 days in row with their father. Now why am I making a big deal about this, because this hardly ever happens! He is a work-a-holic. His favorite saying is “If I am working, I am not spending money” And this true with him – the man loves to shop!!! So we spend our two days doing repairs around the house and spent our afternoons at the river with the kids. And I have almost forgotten what a big kid my husband is. It was great. I am just sorry that these two days had gone by so fast.

Death of a DVD

Today is sad day. My “Finding Nemo” DVD has gone to DVD heaven. It is scratched and smudged beyond recognition, and my only regret is that I never made a back-up copy for this unforeseeable tragedy. My daughter is horrified that her beloved Orange Fishy is broken and my son is jumping with joy with the knowledge that he will never have to watch “Finding Nemo” again. I have never seen him so happy to see the fish dead. What am I to do!!!

Don’t get me wrong here, the “Finding Nemo” DVD, had a long and fruitful life in my house hold. I bought the DVD in 2003 when it first came out and it was a great investment. For 6 years Finding Nemo had always found it self in my DVD player entertaining my children. First with my son when he was small, he played it over and over and over again. Other people’s children, long car rides with our travel DVD player. And now for my 2 year old, who doesn’t understand that she may never see “Finding Nemo” again. Other DVD’s came and went but “Finding Nemo” had always came back. It will be missed.