How to Make a Memorable Impression in the Boardroom

And I don't mean in a good, career-building kind of way.  But then again, I bet you already knew that would be the case by virtue of the fact I'm writing about it..

Yesterday morning was a brutal one.  In fact, yesterday as a whole was a piece of crap challenging.

Buddy has decided that life is simply too boring when you do things like listen or be cute and say sweet things.  That is SOOOOO yesterday.  Today is, apparently, time for a bit of a shake up.  It's interesting to see just how much a few extra tantrums, meltdowns and diabolical freak outs can shake up an otherwise mundane day!

By the time I got the boys to daycare yesterday I was ready to snap.  Or make an emergency trip to the LCBO.  I  pulled myself together and went in to face a day of nonstop stress at work.

Well, about 45 minutes into a meeting I casually glanced down and realized there was something poking out of my collar.  What the fuck?  At this point I have 4 other people staring at me in either pity or horror, not sure which but I guess it doesn't really matter. 

I reach down and pull out.....

.....a pirate-themed washcloth.

Complete with skull and crossbones.

I have two little boys - what can I say?

I actually thought the whole thing was quite humorous.  Thankfully I wasn't presenting to senior management!

The day continued in this fashion.  Buddy tantrumed the whole way home and then I got an email from the cake lady who I ordered Little Man's Birthday cupcakes from casually letting me know that "oops"  she "overbooked".  Sucks to be me.

The 5 places I've emailed so far are totally booked up and unable to take on the order.

I guess this is a reminder as to why I usually do everything myself.

People Suck.

6 Month Update

Well, well, well.  It's hard to believe we have been living in our crazy tiny rental for (almost) 6 months now.  That means we are half way through our initial intention of one year.

It's safe to say it aint happening.

We knew that months ago and that's okay.  As long as we keep ourselves focused and have a "plan" in place, it's okay.

So....here's our current, slightly revised plan.

1.  Remain in our rental (or possibly another rental if the situation with the Trolls downstairs doesn't improve) for another 1.5 years.

2.  Pay off all or almost all out debt.  Not a small feat!

3.  Buy a home in Markham.  Why Markham?  Because the location is good.  It's close to the city and Super Husband works there.  Housing prices are WAAAAAY lower than the city and the schools are ranked highly.  It also means we can stick with one family vehicle which is super important to us.  Two cars = far too much unecessary expense!

4.  We like it there.  And we have friends there :)

So.  How do we change our situation between now and then?  Improve cash flow (insert sarcastic laugh here).  But seriously.  Up to this point, we have not make many significant financial advances since selling our house.  The money that we ended up with from the sale of our home went to credit card debt.  We have been making at least minimum payments on all credit each month since then and not incurring new debt which in itself is a huge win but it mainly appears as though we are "treading water".  That part sucks and makes me want to throw a tantrum that could rival my three year old.  But it gets better.  Eventually.

1.  In April of 2012 I am due to get a decent bonus payout.  We plan to pay off the car with that and eliminate $427 in car payments each month.

2.  In June 2012 Little Man will be 2.5 and move to the Preschool room in day care.  Yippee....that will save about $250 a month.

3.  Also in June (ish) we are expecting a really good tax return (thanks to a move >50kms to my office and the fact we have reciepts for lots of daycare dollars)!

4.  In August we will eliminate Buddy's day care fees.  We pre paid his last month up front and he will be starting school full time in September.  That gives us $950 per month back.  Granted, we will have to pay for some level of after school care but it will be significantly less.

5.  All the savings from points 1-3 above (~$1,600 per month) will be applied to our existing debt load.  Once we reach a "comfort point" we can then start saving a lump sum for a down payment.

It's a long, slow process but if I keep focused on the end result, I find it manageable.

And That's Why I look Like Shit Today

There are oh so many things that people forget to tell you about being a parent.  Before becomming a member of this so-called club, you (or maybe just me) think that yes, it will be a lot of work but ultimately I can "figure it out".  This is true, however, there are some things that are part and parcel with being a parent that I (selectively)? overlooked.

One of these things is that fact that I look like shit more often than not.

Some days, I might even smell like shit or have shit ON me.  Thanks to one of my children.

Today I look and feel like shit but consider myself lucky in the sense I'm not full of it.

Friday night marked the start of a series of "bad nights".  Buddy woke up with a nasty cough.  I crawled in bed and lay wide awake as he tossed, turned, thrashed and coughed.  Perhaps my over-tiredness is the reason I fell down the stairs the following day resulting in a painful bruised welt.  I look like I have been a victim of domestic violence, I'm sure!  Looking like shit.

Yesterday I got the dreaded call from daycare.  Buddy has a fever.  Come get him.  Now. 

After an afternoon of nurse duty (poor Buddy) we geared up for the night.  Super Husband agreed to take today off so he was taking the night waking shift.  Buddy woke every 10-30 minutes all night.  At 4am Super Husband tagged me to take over out of shear exhaustion.  I spent the next 2 hours laying wide awake as Buddy thrashed, kicked and coughed.  Dragged my butt up for work, looked in the mirror and confirmed my suspicions were bang-on:  Wow.  I look like shit.

I pray that Buddy is on the mend.  I feel so bad for him.  Secondarily, I feel bad for Super Husband and myself.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a shit free day :) 

Take A Guess

Remember how I posted last month about what was keeping us busy?  You might recall Item #4 on the list:

4) Fixing the fucking dryer.  It's broken four times since we moved in.  FOUR!  And we've only lived in the house for four months. 

Guess What?

Well if you guessed wrong you have problems as it was more of a rhetorical question.  Yes, of course the damn thing broke again!  So we are now fixing it for the FIFTH time.  Well, technically it's the fourth time Super Husband is fixing it as the first time it was the landlord, but anyway.  It still sucks ass.

So that would be Five times in just under 5 months.

Let's start taking bets.  What's your guess on the date of the next breakage???  Winner gets nothing but the glory in knowing they are clairvoyant.......

Humor me.  I need it.

I Have a Hobby!

And no, it's not tormenting the downstairs Trolls.  Actually, yes it is.  I'm not going to lie.  But aside from that I have ANOTHER hobby.  This hobby is productive and good.  It makes me feel like I'm a Domestic Goddess!

I finally (after months of moaning) purchased a sewing machine.

And now.....I'm in a Machine Quilting Class!

If I wasn't in a class there's no way it would ever get done because "I don't have time" but because I'm competitive and cannot stand to feel like I'm losing the "make a quilt competition" I am good and try to do my homework :)

I will update this post as I make progress on my piece of crap art.

Here's my fabric: 

I've now gotten to the point where I've cut it, made my strips, and am sewing my 9 squares together.

UPDATE:  11/07/2011

Yahoo for progress :)

I've been busy trying to catch up on the class I missed while away in Vegas so I'm now at the point where I've sewn all my 9 box squares, pressed them and have figured out how they will all piece together!  Now I just need to actually sew them together (each of the 9 squares to one another) and I've got the front of the quilt done.

How We *Almost* Hired a Murderer.....

Drama seems to be the name of the game around our parts lately.  Not for lack of trying to AVOID it....it just, well, finds us.

Super Husband and I came to realize we are in very, very bad need of some quality US time.  Not just us barely conscious in front of the TV at 9:30pm when the kids are *finally* asleep, but rather some time separate from our roles as mommy and daddy.  After more than 3 years of parenthood (and having two babies in 15 months) we are ready!

So?  On to the next challenge!  How the heck do we do that?

We are pretty self sufficient with the boys.  We rarely ask the family for help as they are all busy with their own lives so we started to ask around.  I asked at day care.  No leads there.  Friends came up dry and having only lived in the area a couple of months we haven't got any real connections.  So now what?

Well I did what any mother in 2011 would do:  Place an ad in kijiji :)

It's astonishing the responses that you get.

Super Husband and I sat down together after the first day to sift through the 30 or so responses we got and make a short list.

Our favourite was from a mom who wanted us to drop our children off at her place (location = Jane & Finch...the ghetto of Toronto) to be entertained by her FIVE children!  Why?  "cuz my kids like 2 play with yours".  Oh my.  That one didn't quite make the cut.

We did get some very decent responses and made a short list.  From there we Googled the names to see if anything interested came up.  Yes, we are sneaky that way.  We are talking about our prized posessions (and yes, at their tender ages, Buddy and Little Man are absolutely our posessions thank you very much)! 

Anyway, one of our short listed candidates came up with a match on a news article.  Someone with that very name was arrested and charged with murder.   We laughed about it and decided that it was likely NOT the very same person but we agreed that we would meet her and ensure that she did not match up with the picture from the news article :)

So I emailed her back and she responded right away and was super excited to come meet the boys.  She had good availability and couldn't wait to meet them.

Perfect.

She asked if there was anything else she needed to do prior to the interview and I replied that we would like to verify her ID (I want to make sure I KNOW the ID of the person I'm leaving my kids with ahead of time). 

Well guess what happened next?

I got a response saying "something has come up.  I cannot commit to this at this time".

Huh.

That's odd.  Ten minutes ago your were over the moon about the opportunity.

Kinda makes us think she might be a murderer, after all.

Amen to Google!

In the end, we contacted a lady in our neighbourhood that had responded and she is lovely and the kids think she's great.  She came over and they loved her instantly.  We did a trial outing where we went out for a couple of hours and returned to them playing happily with her and her 11 year old daughter.

So we do have a babysitter!  And she's not even featured on America's Most Wanted!

Love Thy Neighbour? Not So Much!

I think we are at the point where it is fair to say we have a hate-hate relationship with the people living in the apartment downstairs.

Yesterday, Halloween, was the crowning glory of exchanges we have had with the trolls from down below.

*Sigh*

So exhausting.

I'll back up.  We signed our lease at the same time the people below did.  Let's refer them to Mr. Troll (the dad) and Miss. Troll (the 20 year old daughter).  I mentioned (asked) at least three times before signing the lease if the landlord, his wife or the estate agent involved anticipated there could be any noise issues seeing as we have two young children.  The answer each time?  Nope.  It will be juuuust fine.  Okay - I raised it.  I did my due diligence.  Right?

Well The Troll Family moved into the basement apartment in April.  We were not taking over our lease until mid May (but not moving in until mid-June).  Prior to moving in I received a call from the Landlord giving me "full disclosure" that Mr. Troll had been caught red handed smoking in the apartment.  He was told that was inexcusable and that he could only smoke outside.  Fine.

We moved in and at first it was okay.  We were very careful about ensuring the boys were not being overy noisy or making excessive noise.  Fine.  Well, then we started noticing the apartment was smelling like smoke.  A lot.  Complained to landlord who warned Mr. Troll again.  Got better for a bit then smoke smell returned.  When I complained again, Landlord notified us that Mr. Troll was unhappy with the noise levels coming from us.  I agreed we would continue to work on "being quiet" although we do have two young children.....

Well fast forward to Thanksgiving weekend.  We had been dealing with a new exciting side effect:  Pounding on the ceiling.  Apparently when we are "too loud" the adult thing to do is wail on the ceiling (our floor)!  Who knew?!?  We tolerated it a few times but then it started happening All.The.Time.  Even while we were seated at the table eating dinner.  No running, playing or yelling involved.  Grrrrrr!  I lost it and called the Landlord....AGAIN.  Said enough was enough and if eating dinner at 6 pm is a problem what the %$#* were we supposed to be doing?  Landlord called The Trolls and told them pounding is not the way to deal with it, and to come talk to us directly.  Finally, he came over and there was a not so great exchange which resulted in him "threatening" to break lease and leave.  Ummmm.....is that a real threat?  Promise Jackass? 

The pounding had since subsided.  Until yesterday.  I got in early from work with the kids (at 5pm) to get them ready to go out for a fun night of Trick or Treating.  We weren't even home 10 solid minutes when he was wailing on the ceiling.  Our table was bouncing from the vibrations.  Let's just say I lost it.  I pounded right back and promptly called the Landlord.  Gave him an earful to say the least and let him know that if this was not rectified we would be leaving.  Super Husband walked in during the exchange and said he would go talk to them.

This is where it gets interesting.

Now, Super Husband is not a real confrontational type of guy.  In fact, he is the nicest, most down to earth person you will ever meet.  Normally.  He is definitely better qualified to deal with The Trolls than I am.  Because I would surely go ballistic all over their faces.

So Super husband goes over and knocks on the door.  Nothing.  he knocks again, louder.  Nothing.  Then he can hear an exchange inside.  Arguing about who should answer the door.  He pounds on the door a third time, his blood pressure climbing every second.....

Finally, the door opens and Mr. Troll stands there, arms crossed, still in pajamas (I've only seen him out of pajamas once - at the lease signing, but I digress).

Super Husband:  What is the issue?
Mr. Troll: The fucking pounding that's been going on all day
Super Husband:  Is that right?  We left the house at 7:45am and came home at 5:00pm.  How is that possible?  And why are you pounding on the floor?
Mr. Troll:  Because you've been making noise all day.  Make your kids wear slippers.
[Really.....the guy cannot be reasoned with.  He's a complete idiot]
Super Husband:  Actually, they DO wear slippers. 
Mr. Troll:  You're a fucking Goof.
[Ummm...yes....that's what this grown man said]
Miss Troll: Just fucking go away.

Yes, really.  This is what we are dealing with.  They are all class.

DH stormed back in and was so angry he was about to have his head explode.

Two minutes later, guess who's at our door?  Miss Troll!  How nice!  All sweetness and sunshine asking how we can sort this out and saying how sorry she is that her dad is a "hot head".  Are you kidding me?  Freak more like.  It was all I could do to not tell her to stick it where the sun don't shine.

In the end I told her to ensure there was no more smoking and called the Landlord back to let him know what happened.  Advised him that if this doesn't get better NOW that one of us has to go.

And that's where it was left.

We had to then put on happy faces for the boys and go trick or treating.  They had lots of fun, but I doubt we will ever fondly look back on Halloween 2011.

FML.