Ash's Journal

Aghhhh, I hate when Lee's Dad comes over to help with something on the house. You know the door we picked up to install on Sunday? It's Tuesday now and they are nowhere near getting it done. Whenever Denis works on something, he always finds a million other things he "has" to do to get the job done "right", and it ends up taking days and days (sometimes WEEKS!!) to actually get it done.

In a way it's a good thing that he likes to make sure everything is "perfect", but it's also a pain in the ass. My house has been freezing for 3 days now because there's a piece of plywood covering the opening where our door is supposed to be, while he works in the basement on the walls. Not to mention the cost of this job is going up and up as he comes across something else he "NEEDS" to fix right now.

When they took out the old door they realized that there was a pretty bad leak under it, and that the wood/walls in the basement were damaged. There's about a 5 ft. by 8 ft. area I guess (directly under where the door was, to the basement floor) that is all rotten. They're taking it ALL out (taking the siding off and everything outside) and redoing it all. That needed to get done - everything was moldy and wet and it had to be replaced. That's fine. But then when they started taking off the drywall Denis realizes that some other boards (don't ask me what they're called) are not right (they weren't put in properly by the contractors that built the house, and Denis used to build houses so he "knows" this stuff). Anyway, LONG STORY SHORT - installing our new door has turned into a huge ass job of Denis finding all kinds of things he wants to change, and it taking forever for us to get the door in.

I hate complaining because he is doing all the labour (with Lee) for free, and that's nice.... and really, the materials aren't costing TOO TOO much (but more than they were supposed to). I'm just annoyed because he can never complete a simple job. He is a major perfectionist when it comes to construction type things, and it always takes him forever and a day to complete anything (his house has been upside down for years because he is always in the middle of some huge renovation job!) Anyway, I guess I'm just getting impatient... and cold. This door was supposed to take a day to get in - maybe two or three by the time they fixed the rotten walls - and it's DEFINITELY going to take over a week now. This is the third day they've been working and honestly.... it doesn't even look like they've done much yet! :\

About a month ago we got him to help Lee put up boards on one side of our fence. The neighbours had put their boards up who knows how long ago (when we bought the house this fence wasn't finished), and there were spaces where we needed to put our half of the boards up. There were about 100 boards that had to be screwed on to the fence. Want to know how long it took? 4 DAYS. I'm not even kidding! Denis whipped out his level, and his measuring tape, and every single board was put up just PRECISELY. That job could have been done in a couple of HOURS!

Anyway, rant over. I'm just getting tired of banging and swearing and freezing. :\

Oh yeah, and since this makes me angry, I wanted to post about it for all the Marathon people to read.

Mr. Cling - the principal at the highschool - abandoned his cat. He moved out of town a few months ago I guess, and called the humane society to ask if he could drop off his cat. Linda (the surrender lady) told him she was sorry, but that they already had way too many cats at the shelter and couldn't take any more at the time. Well, he moved, and he left his poor kitty outside alone. Neighbours of his ended up calling a few weeks later, saying they had seen the cat hanging around the house a lot. When Linda found the cat he was super scared (they are sure he was an indoor cat and the Cling's just left him outside in hopes someone would pick him up) and was injured so badly he had to be put to sleep.

How sad is that? And what pisses me off is that Mr. Cling was "respected" in town as the principal of the highschool. I wonder how many people know that he purposely left his poor kitty behind to die?

They estimated the cat to be about 8 years old too - which makes it even sadder. He had that cat for 8 whole years and thought nothing of leaving it behind and forgetting about it?

I really don't get people who move and think that they can't take their animal(s) with them. I've travelled home with a full car and three cats a number of times now - it's not hard! Why do people think they need to get rid of pets when they move? It's such a stupid excuse.

That just pisses me off.

Wow, I am so proud of myself. HEEEEEEEEEEEEH! I just got a really amazing deal on my new laptop. I wheeled n' dealed the guy so much and saved over $300. :D (Lee gave me a $1400 limit and said to go pick it out myself!)

This is my new laptop!

I got it for $840 + here's everything else I got:

- 3 year extended warranty with free express shipping service (since I'm going to be living in Marathon where there are no Best Buys anywhere in the area.... not even Thunder Bay I don't think?) So if ANYTHING at all happens to it I can ship it out free to be fixed for 3 years - which I am EXTREMELY happy about because my last laptop bit the dust only shortly after the 1 yr warranty expired! BAH!

- Windows Vista Premium

- Norton Antivirus (the newest pro one)

- Microsoft Office Suite 2007

- Free printer & USB

- Installation and set-up (and they're making me recovery disks since none of the computers come with them anymore)

Grand total including taxes $1500 on the nose.

It came to $1600 even after all the deals (almost everything I listed was talked down) and I told them my limit was $1400 max. They met me in the middle and said $1500 total.

I am SO happy! I feel all proud of myself because I spent an hour and a half bargaining with them and it worked. :D I was right on the ball the whole time and they knew I wasn't leaving without an awesome deal! (Normally I get nervous about doing that and just give in, but I didn't! :D) I know they gave me almost everything at the lowest price possible because even the manager was telling the guy who was helping me to type in different deals on certain items that the deal he gave me was too much for. He said the head office would call and ask why he gave so much off, so he had to start taking off money on other things to make it all work.

It helps that this is a prime time for students buying laptops since school is starting, so there were already good deals on - AND this store is brand new. They just opened about 3 weeks ago.

I'm just so excited! The computer seems like a great one too. 2 gigs of ram and lots of speed. It will be perfect for when I have Photoshop, CorelDraw, and my website program running all at once (which causes my computer now to crash!) The guy said it should run smoothly with all those programs running at the same time plus a million internet browsers! Wow! (Oh, and bonus - since I still have 3 days at work next week I'm going to take home Photoshop and some other fancy programs to install on my new computer!)

EEEEEEEEEEEEE! I have to go back and pick it up at 4 because they needed time to do the setup and install everything. This is probably the best deal I've ever gotten and I'm so giddy about it! :D

Ugh, GROSS.

When we were in the pool at the hotel in Toronto it was sooooooo full of chlorine. I knew it wasn't a good idea to be in there - when we came out we were so itchy even after having a shower!

Anyway, my hair is so disgusting today. I didn't really notice how nasty it was yesterday because I used the hotel shampoo and my hair is always a rats nest if I don't use my usual shampoo. This morning I did though... and my hair is still.... a rats nest. :|

It feels like I didn't wash the conditioner out or something. It's all sticky and gross. When I brush it it stands up whichever way I brush it.... like it's full of hairspray or something.

GRRRRRRR! This better go away! I spent $25 on this nice reconstructive conditioner stuff awhile back to get my hair back to nice (because it's so frrrrrrried from me dying it a lot) and it was finally good until this. This is really bad.

I'm so mad!!! :|

There are two jobs I can possibly get in Marathon.

One at Vianet (internet provider) as a receptionist, or one at Northern Computers where I worked that one summer and sat on my butt and watched Dr. Phil and surfed the net all day and occasionally sold a cell phone. :P

Both places will probably take me. I already called Vianet and they already hired someone but the lady said she REALLY wanted to hire me before (I applied for that job a few summers ago but didn't get it) so she said she would call her head office and see if they will allow her to hire a second student. :O Just for me! She's getting back to me some time today.

The other job.... well, Jackie told me if I ever wanted to come back and work for the summer I could, so I have a feeling all I have to do is call her and I'd probably have a job.

Thing is, I would make a lot less money at these jobs than I do here. I make $11/hr now and I would make like.... min wage probably ($7) at either of those jobs. Lee would be making $8 MORE PER HOUR working for my parents than he does here though, so it would kinda balance out? Then I wouldn't have to be alone ALL summer? I'm starting to think it might be worth it to suffer a pay cut to be able to go home and be with everyone.

Sooooo things just got a whole HECK of a lot more confusing! Argh! If Lee passes that test tomorrow, he's gone on Monday, and it would be ideal for me to go then too since we could drive down. This means if I get a job too, I'd probably leave then too... ummm... I wouldn't be able to give my job ANY notice really. YIKES. What a crazy situation!

I called into work this morning because all of this stuff going on is making me a little bit crazy. I want to be here when the Vianet lady calls back and lets me know about the job. Sooooo much going on.... holy cow.

Of course, this ALL depends on whether or not Lee passes that test tomorrow. If he doesn't, everything's scrap. AHHHHHHH. AH AH AH.... that's all I can say. My head hurts!