Thanksgiving

As many of you know it is Thanksgiving in Canada this weekend. I love Thanksgiving. It may be one of my favourite holidays. It's the only holiday where no one yells at you for wishing them a happy day or that has been taken over by commercialism. It's simply a day to be thankful and eat yummy food. For primary(Sunday school), I spent the week leading up studying what the Prophets and Scriptures have said about gratitude. So when my Saturday turned into a bit of a gong show, I was in a good frame of mind.

Here is a low down of all the things I'm grateful for.

It was the coldest Thanksgiving in 50 years and I was outside selling girl guide(scout) cookies all day on Saturday.

1. I'm thankful that I own 3 pairs of long underwear, 3 pairs of winter boots for different types of snow and cold, 8 different hats, 6 scarves, 4 pairs of gloves and mittens with some extras, and 7 winter coats(and I'm making a new one).
2. I'm thankful that I have a new furnace that is keeping my house nice and toasty warm.
3. I'm thankful for a programmable thermostat to save money.
4. I'm thankful I have a closet full of blankets.
5. I'm thankful for hot water that I can use to thaw myself out.

The car I rented got a flat tire and I couldn't leave the store where we were selling cookies because I was needed for leader to child ratios.

1. I'm thankful for tow trucks that changed the tire and put the little doughnut on.
2. I'm thankful to the girl from the car rental place that came to the other side of the city to switch out my car.
3. I'm thankful for the new car that has seat warmers and a fantastic stereo.

I spend my entire Saturday selling cookies, by the end my back was killing me because I was bending over dealing with all the money and standing on concrete and I needed to finish my pies for dinner the next day.

1. I'm thankful for takeout.
2. I'm thankful for pay per view movies.
3. I'm thankful for drugs, lots of drugs.
4. I'm thankful my roommate peeled and sliced all the apples.

I have so many things to be thankful for. Yesterday, I had a very yummy dinner at my friend's house and today I had pumpkin pie for breakfast and I'm still in my pajamas and it's almost lunch.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Canadian Thanksgiving and know that I'm thinking about you.

catching up

My summer was mostly overcast or pouring rain with brief periods if sun, so I just couldn't write.

To sum up:

On the home front I've dealt with the nightmare of the dealing with the condo board and finally got everything fix last weekend. I now need to put everything back.

On the dating front, "I'm looking for my fourth wife." Why would someone say that on a first date? And "If you voted for Obama or consider yourself a feminist you'er not the girl for me." I didn't vote for Obama because he is too conservative for me, besides I was too busy burning my bra.

On the work front, my organization is undergoing a major upheaval and while my group is secure, there is a lot uncertainty and the fighting in the media is awful.

On the health front, I had a scare and I had someone tell me that I'm "really getting fat".

But the fall is here and I'm starting anew. I've taken up swimming with a goal to swim 1650m. I'm taking a sewing class to make a coat. I'm moving to the teenagers with girl guides. So things should be better.

The damage

My biggest frustration with my whole water nightmare has been the property management company that my condo board hired. I feel like they are trying to take advantage of me because I'm a new homeowner and don't know much. The property management still hasn't sent someone, but they are starting to realize that I'm not going away. What they don't know is that I have the ability to read, consult experts and talk to my neighbours. So know I have knowledge about how to deal with water damage, I know the law that governs condos and I have the support of my neighbours to get elected to the condo board. And when that happens, the property management company with rue the day I bought my house. I think the other part that drives me crazy is I don't like feeling like I need to be this tough jerk, just to get stuff done.

I got lucking and was able to salvage the carpet, but not the carpet pad. I learned that you have to dry carpet from back to front so the glues that keep it together don't dissolve. So here's the pictures of the damage. My first indications that it was more than just some wet carpet.

The problem corner where the water is seeping in from the foundation.

When I realized that I had mold.

The rusty nails that told me that this was not an isolated incident. According to the insurance guy, it's not the previous owners fault that they didn't notice because the dry wall was doing a good job soaking up the water.

The pile of of molding drywall I riped out.

I don't know if you can see it but the vapour barrier was dripping with water.

This corner is going to be a nightmare. This is before I pulled out the moldy insulation.

You can see where it is coming in.

One of the frustrating parts was that some of the insulation looked fine from the front.

But then I found this on the back.

The frustrations of water

I'm exhausted. Wednesday evening I stepped into a puddle of water in my basement, of course it was in the finished side with my perfect set up for sewing. Then came the mopping and calls to the condo board. They are responsible for any problems with the windows or foundation. Then came more phone calls and frustrations. Friday, the condo still hadn't sent someone out, so I called my insurance company and they sent someone out 2 hours later. Of course, it's not covered. In any case, the contractor guy was super nice. Turns out I have a water seepage problem at the base of my foundation that has been going on for 3-4 years and the reason no one noticed was because up until the heavy snow that we got after the ground thawed on Tuesday, was just the perfect conditions to create a puddle. He also told me how to clean everything up instead of taking the money that I don't have. So Friday I riped up half my sewing room. And still the condo still hasn't sent someone out. The property management people that the condo hired don't realize yet that I will not stop until it is fixed and if they want to have any peace they will fix it quickly. I'll post pictures later.

a small brag

Since this is my blog and feel that this is an appropriate place to brag. This week a received an award from SAS, the programming language/software I use at work. I receive the Customer Forum Leadership Award for my work as President of the Edmonton SAS user group. I stepped down this fall and it was nice to be recognized for my work building up the group for the last 5 years. Then that night, there was a big party for the retirement of the organization I work for. There is a huge government restructuring with health care in Alberta. And to pre-emptively answer the question, my job is very secure. There are not that many people in the province that have my knowledge about the administrative data used to evaluate health care. Anyway, this is me a Herta. She is the longest employee at the Cancer Board at 45 years. I have to admit that I can't imagine working at one place for that long. She is a fountain of knowledge and one of the people that really helped me when I started working.

And another brag, one of my co-workers asked me if I had a secret life as a sexy bombshell. I made my dress for the night and I love it. Some of my co-workers even walked right by me. It made for feel great about myself. Below are my friends Anthony and Amy with Herta. Anthony and Amy are my ranting friends from work. When I need to get on a soap box, they are there for me.

Cakes

My friend is getting married this summer in a small backyard wedding, and I'm making the cake. I've started with my experiments to find the perfect recipes for the cake and to work on my decorating skills.

This is my first try. A chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream icing. The icing was perfect, but the cake fell in the middle, so I'm still looking for a choloate cake recipe. I think is turned out will and was feeling pretty good about my skills. And then there was the disaster. A plain vanilla cake with lime icing. The cake was dry and the icing was way too runny and I could just add more icing sugar because it was a boiled icing.

Girl Guide Winter Camp

This year I decided to step down from my position as a girl guide leader with a weekly meeting. The best part has been that I can keep doing the things I love best and avoid the things I don't like. And the thing I love best is camp!!!! So every year in the winter we head out to a camp that the Girl Guides own. In the winter we stay in the fancy lodge. The girls are only 9 to 11 years old and their parents couldn't cope with the girls sleeping outside in winter. This year the group has 11 girls. We had tonnes of fun. Some of the girls goofing around when they should be in bed.

The girls at camp do all the cooking. They love it. Most of them aren't allowed to cook at home, so this is their chance to do it. At camp, the girls also do all the cleaning. We divide the girls into patrols and they take turns doing all the duties at camp. You would think that there would be much moaning and complaining about the bathroom cleaning, but that is one of their favourite jobs. They even fight over who gets to do the various jobs. The bathrooms at camp are also the cleanest bathrooms ever, because over the course of the weekend they get cleaned 3 to 4 times.

The girls making bead hat crafts. We had an insane number of beads in the craft boxes, so I came up with a bead horse and bead cowboy hat. We always plan a couple of crafts for the girls to do during the down times.

We worked on the chemistry badge. The girls loved the experiments. We did a chemistry magic show for the Brownies (7-8yrs old) and the Pathfinders(12-15yrs old) that we using the other lodges at the camp. I forgot to get some pictures of the show. But the best part was when our first year guide, lit the match for her experiment. I was a little nervous, because normally there is a lot of crying and fear about using matches, but she had no problem. She was actually the first guide I've had that had no fear and just know she could do it.

This is a video of the girls trying to get the baking soda and vinegar explosions going.

More beading. The girls are always bugging do work on them.

We worked on the life skills and the bird watching badges. So to kill two birds with one stone, we made bird houses. For most of the girls this was their first time using a hammer. There was a lot of pulling nails out and straightening them out on the part of the leaders.

There was also a lot of holding the part of the leaders. I think I may have been temporarily insane to hold a nail while a kid hammered for the first time.

It was very difficult to convince the girls that if they held the hammer at the end instead of choking up on it, they would have more success.

We also give the girls what we call a challenge book. It's another thing to keep them busy when they are finished their duties or between activities.

The food line up. You would think we starve them, given how quickly they come for meal times.

The girls laying around in the snow.

This is the pile of stuff . It's amazing how much we bring out for one weekend.

The girls love sliding everywhere. It works out great for us. Once they finish cleaning we kick them out of the building, so the leaders can do the final check out.

All of us at the end of camp.