Canadian Illegal Immigration Problem

As many of you know I'm a "bleeding heart liberal" bordering on communist according to my father. Anyway, someone send this to me and I thought it was hilarious. To my liberal American friends, if you can make it over the rough terrain, you can stay with me.

Canadian Illegal Immigration Problem

From the MANITOBA HERALD, Canada (a very underground paper): The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration.

The possibility of a McCain/Palin election is prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, and agree with Bill O'Reilly.

Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night.

I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota .The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry. "He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken.When I said I didn't have any, he left. Didn't even get a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?"

In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. So he tried installing speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh across the fields. "Not real effective," hesaid. "The liberals still got through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much they wouldn't give milk."

Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons, drive them across the border and leave them to fend for themselves."A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions," an Ontario border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a drop of drinking water. "They did have a nice little Napa Valley cabernet, though."

When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about the McCain administration establishing re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to shoot wolves from airplanes, deny evolution, and act out drills preparing them for the Rapture.

In recent days, liberals have turned to sometimes-ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizen passengers on Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney hits to prove they were alive in the '50s."If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we get suspicious about their age," an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies."I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history and English majors does one country need?"

coffee+tylenol cold=survival

On top of the insanity of trying to finish unpacking and settling in, I've been travelling a tonne with work right now and there is no way I could survive without coffee and my tylenol cold. Many of you might wonder how the survival of a nice lds girl and coffee are related, so let me explain. There are lots of terrible smells on air planes. There was the lady who took off her shoes and the smell was a terrorist act as far as I was concerned and another flight had the awful throw up smell. And the worst part is there is no where to go. But fortunately I have discovered the miracles of coffee. I ask the flight attendent for a packet of coffee, take the plastic off, put it in hanging out over the seat pocket and voila, air freshner. The best part of the coffee is that it doesn't just mask the odours with coffee smell, it actually absorbes the odours. I think this must be the purpose God was thinking of when he created the coffee bean.

Given all the stress needless to say my body is losing the battle against of the viruses out there, but that is where the tylenol cold is saving me. I'm all about control symptoms at this point. I'm hoping that this is the end of the craziness with work, but it can be hard to sometimes.

Bathroom Reno's

Putting a bathroom back together is much harder than tearing it apart. Let's just say there were a few nervous break down tears. My beautiful large tub. It is 38" wide in the middle. Well not exactly 38". I made the discouvering that the measurements on the box is not necessarily completely true. The tub is 24" deep, but that means from the bottom of the tub to the top of the tile flange and not how deep the tub actually is. The tub was actually very tricky to get into place because it is wider and deeper than the previous tub. The trick is to roll the tub into place.

These are my sinks and counter in the linen closet. It was soooo heavy that we had to get the movers to carry it upstairs.

This is my dad and the dog zack in the chaos called the living room.
More chaos in the dining room.
Me installing the denssheild behind the tub. It's better than concrete board. It's lighter and easier to cut and install and more water tight. Even if water gets behind the tile, the denssheild never rots.
My dad contemplating how to get the 60 and 1/8" vanity into the hole that goes from 60 and 1/4" to 59 and 3/4". We ultimately decided only to put the drywall above the vanity on one side to give the extra bit of room we needed.

Zack supervising the work.
The vanity in place. It actually went in pretty smoothly.

The counter and sinks is never coming out without a sledge hammer. Besides being incredibly heavy, it is wedged in.

Me tiling and yes I'm wearing a shower cap. I didn't want to mess up my hair.
I started off putting the morter on the walls, but found that it was alot easier to back butter the tiles and then place them on the wall. I'm glad I went with large tiles. It was so much work. This was one of my nervous break down days. I was a basket case by the end of the day and I still wasn't done.

Me putting the last tile in place. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!
The shower done!

My friend Laura teaching me how to grout.

More grouting.
The beginnings of the cork floor. The key is to make paper templates for the curve around the tub. This part actually went in very easily.
The hard part was putting in the last row. When I bought it, they failed to mention that I needed a pull bar to click in the last row against the wall. I ended up going to 5 different hardware stores looking for one, because every where was sold out.

My done tub and walls. I was painted the one Saturday night till 11:30, so I could have a shower the next day for church. This was another one of my nervous breakdown days. I just really wished I had some moral support. I love my shower, but I'm not sure I ever want to do renovation again.

My mostly finished sinks. I still need to caulk along the tiles.
My new light fixture.
New towel racks. I still have a bunch of finishing to do like base boards and trim etc... The fan is a serious problem, because it has to be install from the attic. For now I'm just keeping the window open.

Right now I just feel like renovating and moving at the same time is just a bad idea. I might feel differently a couple of months from now, but I'm writing it down so I remember, so I never do this to myself again.

Outsmarted

I bought a heavy duty tape dispenser for my boxes and have been completely outsmarted. Why on earth would they sell a tape dispenser without instructions on how to load the stupid thing? I went to the scotch tape website to see if they had any instructions and nothing! So now I have a totally useless tape dispenser and I'm still fighting with the roll of tape and scissors. URG!

A better frame of mind

I'm in a much better frame of mind now and decided to take off my previous post. I think all the stress of buying and renovating my house, just pushed my frustrations of dating over the edge. Now that I'm thinking clearly again, I've decided to issue an invitation to all my friends that want me to visit. I have one free plane ticket any where in North America and will use that ticket to visit the person that can find someone for me to date that meets the following criteria.

1. Worthy priesthood holder and all that that implies.
2. Smart. I would ideally like someone smarter than me, but will settle for as smart. Also, smart in different ways than me would be ideal.
3. Has a sense of humour. When the dishwasher explodes and I'm up to my armpits in suds, does he swear or does he have a hard time running to shut the water off because he is laughing.
4. Has a means to support a family. This doesn't need to be luxurious, a modest home and lifestyle is all that is required.
5. Completely irrational about how beautiful I am. Please feel free to show my picture from my blog.

My wish list:

1. Willing to relocate to Edmonton
2. Loves to camp and canoe
3. Enjoys art and opera
4. Willingness to have a diversified palette.
5. Preferably never been married. Or at least no ex-wife that I would have to deal with. I don't have a problem with kids, I just want to be the only mum.

So start looking, get your husbands looking, leave no stone unturned. As a side note: included in my visit will be one night of babysitting so you and your husband can have a hot date.

Bathroom Demolition

This is my friend Rebecca's husband Terry. She was good enough to spare him for the day to help me out. He was in charge of capping off the plumbing. Note the hole in the wall. There was the appearance of the access panel for the bathtub there, but when Terry removed the panel the wall was completely solid. Needless to say a hole was cut. This is my friend Marlene, the demolition expert. She has been known to tear down walls while her husband is at work. It's a good thing her husband is a put back together expert. Next to her is my neighbour and very good friend Jason. He was getting a little frustrated with my constant reminders to wear the safety glasses I bought for everyone.
This is Terry pulling the tub out. We thought this was going to be the biggest problem, but it turned out to be fairly easy.

Jason trying to drain the toilet. A small funny. I asked Jason multiple times if he had shut off the toilet valve. He assured me that if had. So I'm down in the basement turning the water back one to test to see if the caps worked that Terry put one. And all of a sudden I hear "TURN THE WATER OFF! TURN THE WATER OFF!". I get upstairs and guess who didn't turn the valve to the toilet off and was now a little bit wet.
This is the rotten wax seal from the toilet. Turns out the toilet was leaking and the floor around the toilet was rotten and the dry wall from the ceiling in the half bath below was rotten.

Taking out the sub-floor. This turned out to be the hardest part of the day. If the rest of the house is build as well as the sub-floor was, I have nothing to worry about.

This is the hole and plumbing for the toilet.
This is the plumbing for the sinks.

Or should I say the bank's house

Tonight I signed all the paper work for the house. Everyone told me that I would probably be having an anxiety attack while I was signing and would second guess myself, but this just feels right. My lawyer, who happens to be one of my best friend's husband, kept commenting on how calm I was. I think the Lord knew that I would need time, and so it took me over a year to find the right place and get my money together. Not to mention the 5 weeks of haggling over the price. As I was signing all the forms I couldn't help but think how unnecessary all this would be if everyone were honest.

I think I may also be starting to have decision overload. Between picking paint and counter tops and outlet covers, I'm starting to worry that I will make the wrong choice. I keep telling myself that it doesn't matter in the end, but I can't help being a little crazy.