Haysom's Earth Hour

You will be happy to know Keith and I participated in full with our Earth Hour night. We not only turned every thing off we unplugged everything other then the fridge and deep freeze.

We didn't go into the fridge at all during the evening nor did we use any electronic device even if it was not plugged in. That had been my choice. In case you are wondering what I am talking about..just google earth hour for all the information but the gist of the matter was every single person was to turn everything off by unplugging for one hour.

Keith and I got the emergency candles out throughout the house and then we got our Domino game out. We played in the candlelight and had a blast!! and even when it was past the hour we kept going. It was nice for a change, no TV, no computers, no cells or phones ringing 24/7.

But do you know what saddened me the most? Was the fact that we have treated this planet so badly that we now have to do this to try and put a band aid to over the owie. I think this Earth Hour needs to be advertise more and earlier so others can participate. But all I can do is do it myself, help my family do their part and go from there.

Blue Jeans

Ok I am so fed up with trying to find blue jeans it is maddening! I love wearing blue jeans I could wear them every time I went out if I could but I have one pair. ONE.. tons of shoes and purses but one pair of jeans. Why you may ask???? well cause designers can't get it through their thick heads that one size does NOT fit all.

Ever see those women's magazines where they have an article that states "Perfect fitting jeans for every size"? Well they lie. They never have any that fit me. Let me state the problems in getting jeans for me:

1. I have 36" inseam which is pretty impossible to get women's pants past 34" if you can even find them in the first place never mind with 36" legs.

2. My waist is actually on top of my hipbone. That's not possible you say. Yup it is. Ask those who I have to prove it to - ask any salesclerk that has argued with me that it isn't possible.

3. My waist line is a lot smaller then my actual hipbone measurements so to have them fit properly across my butt so I can actually sit down in them, they leave a big gap at the small of my back which annoys me

4. I REFUSE to wear low risers. That is just gross and I will not lower my standards by wearing pants that show the end all be all of my backside

Get the idea? When I was first starting to lose my weight I didn't want to keep buying brand new clothes as they would be too big in a month's time so I started shopping at Salvation Army (which has AMAZING clothes!!). Lo and behold if I don't come across a pair of jeans that I must have made in my previous life!! They still even had the tag on it so obviously someone had bought them then got rid of them without wearing them but they had obviously been made for JUST ME!

The inseam is exactly 36 inches, the back does not gap, the top of the inseam sits perfectly where it is supposed to be, they never ride up, I never have to hitch them up cause they are sliding down and they are the perfect shade of faded blue. Well after 4 years of wearing them almost non stop I have known for some time that I need to replace them. Not very easy. I thought fine they are made by the Gap so I can just go there and buy them. They are quick to tell me they no longer make that kind as not enough sales were made to warrant them continuing the line!

Are you kidding me???? What happened to all the ones that did not sell? Are they sitting in some warehouse somewhere? Can you check please? I don't know, I don't know and no I can't check for you. Good thing I am not a Gap customer cause service like that I can do without! I finally found a pair the other day that were almost long enough (almost being the operative word )and fit across my hips and today I wore them when out with my daughter shopping. And the afternoon was spent, tugging them up, pulling my shirt down to cover the gap at the back, pulling at them down my legs cause they kept riding up every time I sat down.

Sigh... back to the drawing board :(

temperatures

Ok I am so seriously tired of this weather and obviously so is everyone else according to all conversations with family and friends throughout Canada and US lately. You know how you always hear that no matter how bad things are things are always worse elsewhere? Well I decided to google temperatures and right now in Vostok, Antartica it is -61 degrees without windchill!!!!! Hmmmm not so bad here anymore!!

saga of the eyeball

All right so here is the scoop of my eyeball. For those of you that have no idea what I am talking about let me bring you up to speed. About 3 weeks ago in the middle of the day I started getting bright constant flashing in the outside of my left eye. I usually get 'Auras and ziggly lines" before a migraine so assumed I was going to get a whopper although I have never had flashing lights. Remember the parties from the 70's that had strobe lights? Now don't pretend you are too young to remember those!! But all of a sudden after about 5 hours or so of this constant flashing, it stops to be replaced with a black splotch in the middle of my eye. I thought I had some old mascara still on my eyelashes so washed my face but nothing. By the next morning it was still bugging me so I went to the walk in clinic to get it checked out. She felt there had been retinal detachment so suggested I went to the ER.

So off I go, they checked me out and sent me to see an opthamologist. He checked it very carefully and explained to me that there had been no tears in the retina and that I been very lucky. He said the black splotch was actual debris from the membrane and that my body would reabsorb it and it would be all fine.

Fast forward to this week and I had my doctor send me to see a 2nd opthamplogist for another opinion as my splotch was still there. I knew my eye strained was still there and added headaches. He did another through check and this was his explanation:

When you are young the back of your eyeball is the consistency of a tennis ball. When you get older the consistency turned to something like jello or jello pudding. Still solid but kind of "sloshey" that if you had it in a box and walked around with it the contents would be sloshing around in the box. Eventually what would happen is this pudding consistency would weaken and start pulling away from the back of the retinal wall at the back of your eye. When you really are getting older this what was once a tennis ball is a pool of liquid. He said it upsets him when other peers say debris will reabsorb leaving patients thinking in a couple of days you will be all and when it doesn't happen they get upset.

Basically he said there is nothing he can do. They will not go in to remove the debris. I said I have to wait for this "middle stage" to work and turn into liquefaction (no word of a lie that is what it is called). He did say that my left eye has perfect vision, better then perfect vision actually. My right eye has not so good and has astigmatism really bad what every that means.

So now I have an eyeball that used to be a tennis ball now is a bowl of jello pudding and am waiting for it to get a water ball.

How as your week?

Taking Chance

I don't normally post movie reviews as there usually isn't a whole lot of worthy movies out there these days but last week Keith and I watched one. It is a true story called "Taking Chance" by Keven Bacon. I am including a trailer but it is by far the MOST ABSOLUTELY MOST heartbreaking, tear jerker movie I have ever seen in my entire life.

It begins with a soldier's dying in combat in Afghanistan. Then it continues with the transport of the body home and the steps that goes from death to being returned to their parents continents away.

There is one scene that all of a sudden a trucker drove by the hearse with the Lt. Colonel in with the deceased soldier and all the other drivers knew that was a dead soldier in that hearse and he passed the hearse and went around the corner with his lights flashing at every car coming towards the hearse and one by one they turned all their headlights on and turned around to follow them back to the hometown to give me a soldier his welcome home. I don't want to give more of the movie but if you don't watch any more movies please see this one. You will regret not ever seeing it and it will touch your entire life if you do

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehWAxdLSoQM&feature=related

best of face time with Facebook

Ok I know some people have a thing about Facebook..that they can't be bothered with finding people with their past etc etc. I was like that for a long time as well. But as most of you know my sleep is pretty much non-existant so I decided to try it out in the middle of the night one day. It was more difficult for me as all of my female friends would have been married and with not knowing their married names I was steimied.

But then I noticed one day that someone had their maiden name down along with their married name and I thought uh huh!! So over the next while every I started finding as well as being found from school mates as well as friends from Regina.

Some were just a one or two messages people and yet others were chatters every day, sharing pictures etc. Now you know I had decided last month that I was going to work harder at doing face to face time rather then online. Well this past week, I did some face to face time with 2 of my school mates. One I had seen at our 10th year reunion but the other I had not seen in 35 years since we left school. She had been at the same reunion but we had each been there different nights of the weekend.

We talked for hours but we finally seperated to go our different directions. It was a couple of hours of "Remember When" and who did we have secret crushes on in high school. Ironically all of us had just recently gone through medical nightmares and we had that bond in common although personally I would have loved to have bonded in some other way then with breast cancer but we had something to talk about.

I was told that things haven't changed much in 35 years that I still like doing all the talking... seriously... I do not talk THAT much! hehehe When we hugged hello and goodbye it wasn't this citified stuff that people do these days of hugging but no body contact. Our hugs were small town people hugs.. the kind that you squeeze on tight to never let go, smiles are genuine full face smiles not these little fake smiles that somehow never reach your eyes. It just reminded me of some of the benefits of small town raisings and I miss it. Leo and Carol.. this was a day I will not soon forget!! Although NEXT time I suggest you both stand on a stool instead of making ME scrunch down so we were all the same height.

Yeah for Facebook!

Up and Down like a yoyo

This week has been one filled with turmoil and one I do not care to repeat. I got a call from one of my brothers on Thursday to tell me my favorite aunt from my dad's line had died. Her cancer had come back and it was agressive. One of my brothers and I were distraught to say the least. Then the next morning my mom calls me again but this time she tells me one of my uncles on my mom's side that I was close to had also died. She asked me again about what I talked to her last year when she came to visit when I had my surgery. I explained the plan of salvation again to her and about eternal families. My words seemed to bring her comfort as she wasn't crying when we hung up. But it didn't help me at that moment as what was in my head was not in my heart.

That very night, one of our daughters in law was baptized in our church by our son Jody. She was in her long white dress and one point she was standing on her own, being very quiet and I could sense the Holy Spirit around her protecting her. I just wanted to cry and hold her.

At 3:30 that morning I got another phone call and by this time I am not wanting any more bad news but it wasn't. IT was telling us about our new granddaughter. After I got off the phone, there was no possible way of going to sleep so I laid in bed and thought about those 4 separate items in my life that had happened in a 3 day period and how ironically they all pertained to the Plan of Salvation that I so firmly believed in.

It reminded me that we all have steps to complete before our roles are done. We have to be born on earth, we have to be baptized, and we have to die. Not too many can say they honestly went through the same in the space of a 3 day period. As I still lay there I realized I am a fine example of "it's not always enough to have faith in Heavenly Father - you also need to have faith in His timing" Not always remotely on the same chapter let alone same page.

I spent the rest of today thinking about this Plan of Salvation and how it affects me personally and I will endeavour to work it out of my head so that I can be of better service while I am still here on earth.

Ad we now have 14!!

I would like to introduce you to my newest granddaughter Aoibheann (pronounced Ee-veen)Bree Holly Siever was born 03:38, 1 March 2009 in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. She weighed 3 kg (6 lbs 10 oz) and was 48 cm (19 inches) long.

Being Grateful

Today at church we had a lesson on being grateful. It was discussed that at times with all the negative news around us, all the busyness of our lives that we don't take the time to appreciate all the goodness in our lives. So right now I would like to say what I am grateful for right now in my life.

-to be alive
-to be married to Keith
-to have the children and grandchildren that Heavenly Father has blessed me with
-to live in such a beautiful place surrounded by mountains and water
-to be free to worship God the way I want
-to still have my mom alive
-to have brothers and sisters in laws that love me
-for my job
-for the staff that work with me
-for Keith's priesthood
-to have a husband who loves me as much as he does and who never goes a single day without telling me how beautiful I am
-for my almost sisters
-for the friendships that I have cultivated over the years
-for finding new cousins this past week that even though we are 5th cousins twice removed, it still is new family and I can never have too big of a family
-for my passion for genealogy
-to live at a time where modern technology has allowed me to keep connected with family and friends from all over the world. (and yes I know I complain about too much electronic static hehehe)

And finally yes I am even grateful for my cancer. Because it more then anything else has taught me how precious life is, how precious my family is, how I can never EVER stop being grateful for all that I have in my life. Today I am able to breathe, to love, to be loved, I can play house with my granddaughters and play video games with my grandsons; I am able to have them over for sleepovers, I am able to share family traditions that are such a part of who I am with my children; I am never too old to learn new things, I can still find joy at walking along the water at 6 in the morning with my children and grandchildren and forget that my joints hurt; I am able to grow old with my husband knowing that even when I am very old rocking in my chair in the back yard that he will still be there to help me up and give me a wet willie :)

Today I love my life and am very grateful.

Sally wants....

Ok this is HILARIOUS!!! I have been laughing so hard doing this that it actually has been helping the strain and dryness in my eyes from the drops cause I have been crying laughing hehehe. This is what you do... go to your google search.. and type in using quotation marks the following "your own name wants" such as "sally wants" and then copy the top 10 page links it gives you. You can also do "your name needs" . Then let me know what yours says :)

1. Sally wants a man she can call her own

2. Sally wants full track for free (not sure what track I want but ok)

3. Sally wants to go MP3 searching

4. Sally wants can't talk but her drawings kick butt :)

5. Sally wants to go

6. Sally wants to be taken for granted

7. Sally wants some of these photos

8. Sally wants me to give her what she wants (well DUH!!0

9. Sally wants bbc please

10. Sally wants to be a surgeon

grandsons vs granddaughters

HUH!! Bet you thought I was going to post a conversation that I had with one of our granddaughters huh? FOOLED YOU!! I am going to post about one with one of my grandsons hehehe

We are on on the first leg of our trip to Hawaii on the train to Seattle. Our 11 year old grandson was sitting beside me and we were just chit chatting. He kept saying I love you Nana and who's the bestest Nana etc. I would say thank you and then we would talk about stuff some more. We also would read our books and play card games. He kept snuggling against me and I would have my arm around him. At one point in the middle of reading this conversation starts:

Dallas: I love you Nana
Me: (smiling inside) I love you too Buddy
Dallas: (as he rubs my arm that is around him) you have soft skin Nana
Me: Well thank you Dallas

chit chat for a couple more minutes

Dallas: You really have REALLY nice skin Nana
Me: Well thank you you are really REALLY sweet for telling me that
Dallas: You smell soft too Nana
Me: "chuckling inside " Did Jen (his new to be step-mom) tell you to say that to me cause I let you come on the train with me?
Dallas: oh no I just said it cause it is true
Me: Well thank you again

chit chat for a couple more minutes then back to reading our books then all of a sudden this pops out of his mouth

Dallas: Remember when I said you had soft skin?
Me: Yes
Dallas: Well I was trying to remember what it was soft like and I just thought of it. Your skin is soft like rubber
me: (uhhhhhhhhh)
me: Well thank you Dallas... is that a good thing to have skin that feels like runner?
Dallas: Oh sure Nana, your skin doesn't feel like a bunch of bumps and rough like elbows, it's soft and smooth like rubber

then he curls back into my side and goes back to his book. I sit there stupefied thinking is that supposed to be a good thing? I mean a couple of months ago I had a granddaughter tell me that I was Barbie pretty but now a grandson tells me I have skin like rubber. Tonight I remembered to tell Keith aboht the conversation and we talked about how different boys were then girls and how they gave compliments. With a new grandchild coming in a couple of weeks we talked about what we thought it might be. We have 9 girls and 4 boys now and I am sure the males in our family would really like testerone to enter the gene pool. So when Keith asked me what I would rather have I just smiled and said well to be honest as long as the baby thinks I continue to look like a rubberized Barbie I am happy. I mean seriously what more can a Nana ask for????

Now you see it, now you don't

So this morning I went to print the agenda for my executive meeting and I get a window on my screen saying I have no printer. I looked at the printer to make sure it was on and it was so I turned it off then back on again checking all the connections thinking it never got connected when they rehooked my computer up while I was gone but everything was done so I tried again. Nothing. Great. So I got the cd for the printer driver pop it in the cdrom to install it and nothing. Oh yeah... my cdrom not working was what started this whole mess 2 months ago when my computer went on the fritz!!!

UGHHHHHH going to be a great day I can just tell.............

Face Time

I recently saw a commercial from Dentyne that really struck a nerve in me. (see link for video below). It didn't rub me the wrong way as in offensive but what it did do was make me realize just how little time we actually spend doing face time in this day of so called modern technology. Any of you that have been around me long enough either in person or through the internet know that I have an issue with how much we depend on technology to communicate. It came to a head more apparent to me over the last couple of weeks in 3 seperate incidents.

First was a conversation on the phone with an old friend from back home. At the end of our talk I asked for her email address to keep in contact and she said she didn't even have the internet. Then I gave her both my phone numbers and she chuckled. I asked what was so funny and she said that I sounded so sophisticated with all my "tools to talk" with. I asked how she kept in contact with her kids that were in high school and she said with trust. None of her kids had internet at home, no cells, no anything. If they were going to a friends she got the friends phone number at home to check. She said she didn't need to be paying for cells for her kids to hike up charges talking to their friends they just spent all day with.

Secondly, when we were in Hawaii I used Keith's work digital camera. I wasn't sure how many pictures it held so every day I would download all of them. (Trust me, the ones I posted on Facebook weren't nearly the same number as I took.) My oldest son was also using my laptop to download his pictures onto to save his memory. Another son was downloading his pictures onto his laptop. While I was unloading all these pictures I would check my mail and talk to Keith etc. At one point I left a message for my DIL that was just across the hall from me jokingly telling her it was her turn to go set the table. Later that day I got a message from a friend saying she thought it was my daughter Lareta who had not gone with us. I said yes that was right so she asked who Mary was I told her my DIL and she said didn't she go with you and I said yes she is here with me and then my friend said I don't get it if she is right there then why are you messaging her instead of talking to her face.

Lastly, lately I have been noticing that when we go to family and friends home to supposedly visit, we are finding ourselves sitting there watching people juggling laptops on their knees, playing video games, playing computer games etc. And I think I could have stayed home curled up on the couch reading a good book.

So when I saw this commercial it hit home how little we do actual face time with other people. But I can not control what other people do but I can control what I do so my own challenge for the next couple of weeks is to do more instant face connection with my family and friends. Obviously actual face to face only with those that live here and phone connection with those that live away. I will keep my computer yakking time for middle of nights when I am wandering around the house like now or when I am alone. I will endeavor to cut some of these electronic apron strings down a tad.

I shall keep you all posted but please do check the link for the commercial. I would be very interested in hearing if you feel the same or whether I am completely off my rocker.


http://www.splendad.com/ads/show/2693-Dentyne-Face-Time-Rain-On-Me

Vows and stuff

Recently I found out that it now makes 4 couples from our old friends in Regina that have gotten divorced. To say I was surprised is to minimize it big time. I found out about the last couple just before we went to Hawaii and I had a lot of time to reflect on my own marriage, on my parent's marriage and watching 3 of our sons with their wives on vacation, their marriages and I wondered what happens to that magic that we all experienced on our wedding day? Do we really have rose colored blinders on? Do we really know who we are marrying? Does life get in the way of "for better for worse, for richer for poorer in sickness and in health for all time and eternity (or till death do you part for those that aren't members of my faith)"? We raised our children the exact same way and yet all 3 of our sons that were in Hawaii with us treated their wives completely different.

When does one decide where you get to the point of no return? After one chance, two, three, none? I remember way back when some political wife took her adulterous husband back and Hilary Clinton made a comment that put women all over the world up in arms by saying "I'm not a little woman that "Stands By Your Man (from Tammy Wynette song)".. but when the shoe fell by her bed she did stand by him.

Do you just go by sheer emotion, lack of being able to trust again, forgive and forget as Christ did many times over? When do you step up to the plate and say I don't think my name is spelt D-O-O-R-M-A-T? What makes one person leave after just one "offense" yet another stick by their spouse through it all?

By no means am I writing this to offend anyone that has ever left their spouse for any reason. I am just curious at to what other's line of no return is. I know the day I met Keith I told him flat out if he ever laid a hand on me or even looked like he was going to, he would never see me again. To me that was my line of do not cross. Am I too naive to think there isn't anything that can't be worked out other then abuse?

Life's lessons learnt

We just got back from a week's vacation in Hawaii and I realized I learnt a few of life's lessons while there so thought I would share them with you :)

~I did not die while not watching one or more of my regularly watched TV series while on vacation

~Some of my grandchildren are more mature then some of my children

~You can not please all of the people all of the time, in fact at times you can't even please some of the people any of the time

~The things that I thought would really thrill all of my children did not but the things I thought would just be so so thrilled MOST of my children.. go figure

~You cannot sleep in on vacation

~There is no life in the fast lane in Laie Hawaii. Nobody honks at you as they speed past your car, no one swears at you or gives you the one finger wave as you slow down to look at something, other drivers will actually slow down to let you in their lane when you turn your signals on and then will smile and wave at you rather then speed up to stop you from going in front of them

~grandchildren will not wither away without playing video/computer games all week and adult children will not collapse without their WOW or Everquest for one week

~people still have to go to the bathroom just as soon as dishes have to be done

~I never thought I would need a time out on vacation

~5 year olds make great sleeping buddies

~where else can you pop down to the beach at 6am in your jammies to watch the sunrise

~small wonderful things amuse small wonderful minds like "Nana watch... my footprints keep disappearing every time the wave comes in"

~family members' best behaviors in a couple hour visit at home becomes more difficult to maintain in a 24/7 situation with 12 people hanging around.

~family vacation is not a true vacation with half the family missing

~my mind and body could not enjoy themselves when my heart and soul was at home

~I love LOVE rain shower heads!!!

~I am too old to fly the red eye

~I have too many health issues to travel a 6 hour flight and a 4 1/2 hour train ride and a 1 hour car ride at the beginning and end of it all in a row.

~there are actual places that don't have stores open 24/7 so you actually have to plan your shopping instead of just popping to a store at 9pm to get milk

~there are actual towns that all the businesses are closed on Sundays YEAAAAA

~Never get in a car with a driver who does not have a proper map, does not have an address of a place they are going to AND that has back seat drivers!

~I would never drive 20 minutes one way to get Starbucks every day:) Sorry Jen hehehe

~As much as I loved Hawaii and sharing it with my family I now have more empathy for Dorothy as I clicked my heels together 3 times saying "There's no place like home there's no place like home there's no place like home" and voila I am home. Home is definitely where the heart is and my heart is here.

Monday Memory - Lareta

Yesterday I have to say in all honesty was a crappy day.. can I say that out loud without it being a swear word? As the day progressed it got worse and worse. Just when I thought it could not get worse I thought I had "lost" 6 out of our 13 airline tickets. I had gotten an email from the travel agent last week with the numbers but never really looked at it. Yesterday I get an email from one of my daughters in law asking for the itinerary so I opened up the file. That's when I realized I was short. Quite short. I started panicking checking our receipts to make sure we had actually paid for all those tickets but of course I can't put my hands on it as we had paid for them before I went in for all my surgeries and Christmas. I am really freaking out.

At one point I asked Keith to check the airline site on his laptop as his has a larger monitor and I thought maybe I couldn't see a "NEXT" button on mine but he couldn't see it either. After a couple of hours of sheer panic I realized that the rest of the family were under their own name and not our last name. DUH! I had assumed that I had booked the flights, paid for the tickets that all the reservations would be under one number under my name. What can I tell you. I use small town logic.

By that time I had such a nasty migraine I told Keith I was going to bed even though it wasn't even 10 at night. I lasted in bed tossing and turning for 2 1/2 hours then thought this is insane, I needed to shut my brain off somehow that I needed to relax. Then I thought of my daughter Lareta. Which is where today's memory is coming from. When we lived in Regina, Keith worked out of town a lot. Lareta started sleeping with me from the time she was a very little girl. It was our special bonding time. Living in a house with 5 males and raised toilet seats didn't give us much alone time just for girls.

After we moved here, Keith still ended up working out of town, not nearly the amount of time that he used to but still did enough. In Lareta's last year of high school, she started going through periods of really bad dizzy spells and ended up having to do some home schooling with a tutor. But on days where it was just us, we would lay in bed till very late at night propped up on a bazillion pillows reading books. We are both avid readers of everything and anything and would just lay there reading. Of course which meant we HAD to sleep in till noon :) If it was the weekend we would stay in our jammies all day, push the couch up closer to the tv (this was before we got our 50"), curl up under a blanket each and watch movies!

She made this wicked cooked butterscotch pudding and I make the best homemade hot fudge sauce and we would alternate these eating them ;) YUM! After she got pregnant the first time, we would go for a walk every day, well ok I walked she waddled hehehe, but we would walk to the mall and go for lunch then walk back. I remember telling her that this would all change once her baby was born and she would say no way Mum, we will always be able to do this. I would tell her yes we would but it wouldn't be the same.. there would be babies and diaper bags, car seats, strollers etc.

Mum was right of course. Now at times, by the time we load toddlers and babies in car seats, throw 2 strollers in the trunk and get our bags in, we are ready for a nap and we haven't even gotten out of the yard yet! I wouldn't trade any of my grandchildren for that one on one time with her from the old days but I have to say I miss those days. As I thought of our times together, I got sleepier and more relaxed. One of my last thoughts was to thank my Father in Heaven for giving her to me. I have told her a thousand times over the years that He knew I would only have one daughter so he sent me the very best. I smiled as I kept her face in my mind as I drifted off to sleep. I can honestly say that my best girl friend that lives here is my daughter Lareta. And that memory will remain with me till the end of my days.

Parking near water's edge can be tricky :)

Thought some of you in a deep freeze on the prairies might find this funny :)

Debit/Cash user inequality

This week I had to go downtown Vancouver for a doctor's appointment. By the time I had walked 8 blocks towards the skytrain station I was freezing walking so decided to cut through Pacific Centre Mall to warm up. I stopped at the food court to get some lunch. I handed over my debit card to pay for it and get told that there was a charge for using my debit card. As I am waiting for my food I see a sign on the cash register that says "To keep costs fair for all our customers there will be a small charge to our debit customers". WHAT??? How is charging ME being fair to ME? I am part of "all our customers". How is charging me being fair to say cash users? Well ok I can see how cash users would think it would be fair to them if I get charged rather then them being charged. Why are cash users not penalized for say the staff having to count all the cash at the end of the night? I should get a reward for not paying with cash in that respect.

This is discrimination. Yup yup yup it is and I am going to take this to the higher court then the food court.

Life in the fast lane

Well I just want to go on record to say that way back when computers first came out I said they would be the root of all evil. I said it over and over again as my husband and 5 teenagers tried convincing me otherwise. In our family the rule had always been majority wins when things came to a family vote (unless it was something I wanted then I overruled everyone..hey I'm the mom it's in the mom rule book I can do that)and I was outvoted. So we got a computer. It was used for mostly word documents and for the kids to use for typing papers. Then our typewriter (remember those?) broke down and I had to do some typing so one of the boys taught me how to turn the computer on. Don't laugh!! This was serious business. Now this was back in the days before you even used a mouse and had to use the F keys to do things with.

But over time I got the hang of it and actually got to the point where I could whip my way around it. At one point I became a property manager and managed an apartment building among other things and wanted to use the computer to do spreadsheets etc to make my life easier. So I took a correspondence course and part of the course was putting a computer together from scratch. I passed the course with flying colours.

Then the Internet came around and now the roles were reversed. Keith kept saying no no no we are not getting it, it's not going to be good etc etc.. but one of our sons and daughter in law had moved to Alberta and all our family were across country and I needed to be able to contact them without waiting for snail mail to get around to me. So I overrode him and got it. Then slowly he got the hang of it and away we went.

Part of my job as a hotel controller was keeping track of everything financial and my days of learning spreadsheets came in handy and I whizzed my way around everyone. I loved it. (Yes Kim, I actually knew how to do them before you hehehe). My life revolved around my computer. Not very often did I need to have someone come and fix something and most of the time people came to me to help them with their computers.

I learned how to scan pictures which now made my life as a grandmother so much easier and fun. I could make videos and my scrapbooking took off. I have always been a fan of family history and my file holds probably close to 5000 names and tons of information. I backed things up with regularity knowing I never wanted to lose any of this precious cargo.

Then Fibromyalgia kicked in and remembering how to do things became a chore. Things that had been once so easy for me became a struggle. I mean how do you go from being able to make up formulas for millions of dollars to not being able to remember how to use the calculator on the computer? Hardly a week can go by without a message to our son Kim that begins with "Kim are you busy? I ned help."

Another nice thing about the Internet. You never see your kids roll their eyes at you and your requests hehehe. A couple of years ago I decided to write a history book for my dad's side of the family including pictures etc. I sent out numerous emails to my aunts and uncles asking for updates of pertinent information and current pictures of their families. This all got stored on my hard drive.

Then I got the job as Director of a family history centre and started to work on new programs etc. I finally got new flash drives and started sorting through my massive amounts of information that was on my computer. My plan was to have one flash drive for my work, one for just pictures, one for my personal things, one for my family history and one for my book I was writing.

Then the cancer came and the multiple surgeries with recuperation. It took all my energies just to keep up with the basics. At the back of my mind I kept thinking I have to start transferring all this onto my new flash drives but I was always ending those thoughts with "as soon as I am done this". The FM took care of the short term memory losses and when I did have the time to do it I just never remembered to do it.

The last couple of months my main computer started getting slower and slower. I tried doing everything I knew to do to try and locate the problem but nothing ever showed up as the cause. I asked Keith to take a look at it but he would get so frustrated every time he went near it as I would sit beside him asking "why are you doing that, why is that necessary, what does that mean, how is it coming along" etc etc:. He would ask me what I had done and why did I have so many programs and I didn't need this or that and I let the kids on the computer too much instead of making them use their computer (which was an old one and too slow for them they liked mine way better). It just became a bone of contention between us. I kept explaining to him that he needed to explain to me why he did what he did and how he did what he did so if it went down again I could fix it on my own as he was always at work etc. But he kept taking it as I didn't trust him to fix it.

I hated asking him to check on it as he was always so tired by the end of the day with his own work to do. But eventually it just got slower and slower. And then the big day came last week when I decided ok this is it, I am NOT doing another thing till I transfer all this information onto my new drives. I went to pop a cd in the drive to listen to some music while I worked and noticed it never came on. I pulled the cd out and put it back in thinking I hadn't inserted it properly. But same result. So I checked the properties and it didn't even show that drive at all... groannnnn now what.

I called Keith and asked him what to do and he said just turn it off it might just need to be rebooted. So I did. Except that when it went to turn back on it now said it would not reboot and I needed the start up cd to boot it. GREAT. When Keith came home he took a look at it and said he had no idea what had happened and that he didn't have a start up cd for it as it had come already installed when he bought it for me 3 years go. He could tell from the look on my face this was not what I wanted to hear. To say I was feeling stressed was to say the least.

All I could think of was that I was in the middle of writing a book and everything was on that computer. Everything. Many many hours worth of writing and drafting. Hundreds of hours of putting pictures in proper order never mind having scanned so many of them. All my contact information was on there. The only thing that wasn't on there was all my files for my work. That was on one of my flash drives but only cause I had to be able to take it to work without hauling the computer with me so thank goodness I had the sense of transferring my files for that. But that was not what was on my mind at that moment. All my files for Hawaii was on the laptop so that was fine too. But what I needed the most was my book.

So on Monday I happen to go visit a friend from church and happen to mention what was going on. She said oh by the way her husband is a very skilled computer specialist. That is his job and he does everything from building computers to writing programs to everything in between and would I like him to come take a look at it? What? Are you kidding me? Would I want to? YESSS!!! DUH!!

So last night he showed up with his tools and some other kind of program the he could use to test things without having to use a boot up cd. It didn't take more then a few minutes before he said that my hard drive was just old. OLD? it is like 3 years old. Well apparently in computer lingo that is old. He said it is just like any other commodity. At times you can buy a new thing even a new car and drive it for years with no problems. Other times you buy a new car and you have nothing but problems almost since day one.

He did a little of this and a little of that and every now and then would come out into the living room to ask me a question. I was a very good girl and stayed out of my office the whole time to give him some room. It was very difficult though. This was my baby he was working on.. and Keith was talking up a storm with him all the while I am thinking they are talking about me, they are comparing notes on women and how they know nothing.. which of course they weren't.. only in my overly imaginative brain they were.

After 3 hours he finally delivered the news. My drive was deader then a doorknob. I needed a new one. He said he was going to take it home with him and see if he could get a program that would work at being able to transfer everything over to a new drive. At that point I started to hyperventilate internally. You mean as in take it out of the house? As in my computer now has a hole in it? As in I have no files? What other options do I have? Well.. back to the drawing board for the men.. Keith uses an external hard drive for his work as he stores blueprints and a lot of very large files from his work computer at his office and is able to bring it home to work on his laptop. So they decided that he would try and transfer my files from my computer to this new drive so that if my hard drive was just too dead I at least did not lose my files. Then when we get back from Hawaii I wll have to get a new drive.

Ok that worked for me. So the tech worked on doing that. After he was done he did one more thing before he left and then asked me what my admin code was so that he could reboot it from his place...uh... I have no idea.. I gave him the code I always use when I start my computer up but it wouldn't work. He said I needed the admin code that I had set when I first got the computer.. uhhhh that was 3 years ago... you know I have literally very little short term memory right? You want me to remember what I entered that long ago? So my homework is to try and figure out what I would have used while he works on it.

So to make a very long story short, remember way at the beginning of the post when I said computers were an evil thing? Well see? I was right!!!! This living in the fast lane really sucks. This would never had happened with my albums of pictures and my notebooks of writings for my book. It wouldn't have happened either with my old typewriter.

Monday Memory - Flying old vs new

Again I am one day late with my Monday Memory but I have had so many problems with both my computers lately that I can barely get my emails read and some of them answered before it shuts down on me. Good excuse huh?

So my memory today has to do with flying. On airplanes flying not on drugs flying :) I remember in my good old days that when I would want to go somewhere I would just call the airline, tell them what I wanted and then show up on flight day with payment in hand even if it was cash.

Times have changed a lot. After just booking flights for 5 from Alberta to here and then 13 flights from here to Hawaii I have come to believe that things are not made to help with customers. The bottom line is how much money can we make off these people that want to get from point a to point b at the same time do it with the least amount of amenities.

We used to always get a snack AND a meal if your flight was more then just a short jaunt. You could also bring these on board with you to eat/drink. Blankets and pillows were free for the asking. Headphones were free. There was room for your legs to move. Staff worked at getting your business and keeping it.

Now.. this is what I get. There's no longer free checked luggage. You have to pay for each bag you check in. If it is one pound over the limit you pay dearly. You no longer get a free meal. Your snack where once was a muffin or cookies or fruit with cheese and crackers etc is now a small pack of overly salted pieces of cardboard. You no longer can even bring a bottle of water through security with you. Oh but you most certainly can buy bottled water at the airport kiosks and food to take on the plane with you. Yup at 4 dollars per small bottle of water, you really want to jump at those prices.

I worked my butt off to get gold status with my airmiles over the last couple of years as I knew I would be booking a lot of flights. When I went to use them to book I was told I could not use my status for this flight from Alberta to Vancouver. Why not? I am supposed to get 40% off the airmiles needed with gold status. Well yes I am told... but only on pre-selected flights. Well so then why did I work that hard for to get the status in the first place????

Not only that but I am limited to one flight each way. One is at 5am. Ever try getting a family of 5 ready to get out the door to be at the airport that early in the morning?? Why do you only have 1 flight? Well cause there are only so many seats per flight used for airmiles the rest are for regular fares. Ok well let me use a different airline. Sorry nope can't do that for you either. There is only 1 airline and that is Air Canada. But I can use West Jet with my airmiles. Yes you can but West Jet doesn't fly to Lethbridge. Groan.

Ok fine... do I have a choice? So let me see if I have this right. I can't fly on the days I want cause you have no seats available even though I just checked with Air Canada online while you had me on hold and saw that they had plenty of seats available, I have to get my family at the airport at 5am plus have to transfer in Calgary, they can't bring their own water on the plane, I can't get 40% off because that is only available on flights YOU tell me I can use it on, they can't go home on the day they need to be back for the same reason that you already told me do I have it correct? Yes I am told.

well obviously I need them here and have no choice so fine book it.. ok that will be $691.97. Uhhh no I am using my airmiles.. yes we know but these are for taxes. WHAT?? What taxes.. GST and PST do not add to that. Well no but there is airport improvement fees, other airport fees as well as fuel surcharges. WHAT? Are you kidding me? Do you realize that gas is down 50% in the last year? Why have the fuel surcharges not gone down? I don't know ma'am.

I get the information about Sea-Tac airport to find out what is admissible or not and it has taken 3 of us to translate their terminology into plain English so that we could understand it. But I can almost guarantee that we still are going to have to throw something out that we brought with us cause we understood it to be fine.

So to bring it all to a head:
Free flights with airmiles: free but pay taxes the cost of 2 full flights with West Jet
Free headphones for movie: no
Free blanket: no
Free pillow: no
Free meal: no
Free snack: no (salted Styrofoam does not count as a snack)
Free checked luggage: no
Free smiles on flight day: I'll get back to you with that one
Being able to go on a family vacation with our children and grandchildren: Priceless and still worth the hassle. But man I miss the good old days