Bad Day?

So go here and click on the Top News Stories for Tuesday October 2nd video. This crime spree happened yesterday morning in my quiet village (too small to be called a town) of Stirling. We only have 800 people in Stirling and something crazy like this happens. The house that was crashed in to is just down the street from us. Tim is their home teacher and we were just there on Sunday. The lady that had her jeep stolen is our neighbour (3 houses down). Just crazy. This guy seemed to be having A VERY BAD DAY!

And then last month we had a shooting in Stirling. What the heck?

You not want yer food!

Tim and I love Chinese Food. It’s at the top of the list for us. We decided to go out on a date. Our plan was to do dinner (Chinese food) and then go and see Transformers. Well we didn’t have much luck. We went to our favorite Chinese food restaurant to find it closed and FOR SALE. Crap! We decided to go to the Chinese restaurant that shares a parking lot with the movie theatre. The restaurant was pretty much empty. There were a few tables (with their food already) and two ladies waiting at the front for their To Go orders. Perfect right? Wrong! When our server (a middle aged woman from Russia) brought us our water we placed our order: the Dinner For Two plus three Eggrolls. Simple right? Wrong! The restaurant quickly filled up behind us. After sitting there for 25 minutes we got our three eggrolls. And then we continued to wait and wait and wait for our meal. Our server was the rudest person ever. To the tables next to us we’d see her come and drop off a plate of food by slamming it on the table and then turning away quickly without saying a word. And to add to our irritation the phone in that place would.not.stop.ringing! The ringer must have been on high. It was so loud that at times I sat there with my ears covered (yes, THAT loud). Finally 40 minutes in we got our plate of steamed white rice. We thought our meal was finally coming. Wrong! After another 10 minutes (the steamed rice was now cold rice) and seeing 4 tables that had come after us receive their food and finish their food before we even got our meal, we were beyond ticked. The show was starting! We got up and stopped at the front to pay for our three eggrolls. While we were paying our server comes out of the kitchen and says "You not want yer food!". We told her that we wanted our food 45 minutes ago and that since we’ve been there we’ve seen other tables, that came after us, finish their meals. Well her excuse for them getting their food (which was the exact same Dinner For Two) before us was because we had eggrolls. Oh my bad! I didn’t realize that if you ordered eggrolls then you had to wait an hour for your food. No tip for you!

We went to the theatre hungry. I had a hot chocolate and Tim has theatre nachos (not so yummy). But the show was awesome!

Good-bye Straggly Hair

I cut it off. Well Kimmy cut it off for me. It was just looking way too ugly. I had straggly hair. And the pictures from Britnee’s grad confirmed it. It needed to go. Six inches...gone. It feels much better. Hmm, not even a slight wave in my hair. I wonder if the moosh could share some of her curl with me.


Here are some before, during, and after pictures. I had to zoom in on the after picture and it's not a good one, but it gives you an idea. I'll have to get a good picture of me with my new hair cut. Which will be pretty tough considering I'm the picture taker (I don't dare call myself a photographer) in our family.

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

Slacker Blogger

I’m behind a few posts. I haven’t even posted the video to go along with this yet. I have things to tell ya all, but I just haven’t had the time to write it out and post it. So I’ll start to play catch-up today.

Credit Cards

I just got a call from my MasterCard company this afternoon. The guy tells me that he’s following up on suspicious transactions on my card over the weekend. Ummm, excuse me? I wasn’t using my card over the weekend as I was out in the mountains (with no cell service) camping. Anyways, I guess someone got my card number and booked some flights with Air Canada and did some online shopping at La Senza (something sexy for Father's Day?) and a few other things. Anywho, I have no clue where someone would have gotten a hold of my card number. I still have the card, Tim doesn’t have a supplementary card, and I have NEVER used it over the phone or internet. That leaves me with three options: 1) Someone intercepted the supplementary card application that I sent in for Tim; 2) I never received the cheques they said they were going to send me...I just thought they were slow; or 3) Someone at work got into my purse. Well at least my MasterCard company (President’s Choice Financial–who I’ve sung praises about before) caught these "suspicious transactions" a month before I received my statement. They’ve cancelled my card and I’ll get a new one in a few days. And I won't have to pay those charges.

Pet Peeves

I hate when people in public washrooms put the toilet seat cover down over the toilet seat. I try my hardest not to touch any part of a public toilet so when these people put the seat cover down then I'm FORCED to lift it. Yucky! Seriously people, just leave it alone. I'm not a germophobic. It's just that it's a public washroom and well you get my drift.

On the topic of pet peeves, I have a few of them.

Another would have to be DRIVERS. And that is all drivers on the road except for the vehicle I'm in. I have so many issues with other drivers I don't know where to begin. Some of my major ones are: driving below the speed limit, not signaling (thank goodness we got our trailer signal light working), tailgating, not knowing how to merge, etc. The list goes on, but my number one driving issue is a Utah Road Block!! For those of you that don't know what that is I'll explain. It's when there is supposed to be a fast lane and a slow lane EXCEPT some idiot has decided to go into the fast lane and drive side-by-side with the slow lane vehicle therefore creating a road block. People in Lethbridge are great at this. But it's named after Utah cuz Tim spent two years there on his mission and told me how horrible it was there and then we drove all the way to Vegas last summer and the only traffic problems we had was the Utah Road Blocks in Utah and the minivan with the Utah license plate in Idaho. Now I know I have a lot of people from Utah that read my blog and I'm hoping you all are the exceptions to Utah drivers. But rest easy cuz the Utah Road Block happens in Alberta all the time.

But my number one pet peeve is leaving the cap off the toothpaste. It takes only 0.5 of a second to put it back on. This stems from sharing a bathroom with my sister. She was horrible for this and therefore I always got nasty, crusty, dried out toothpaste. I haven't had this problem with Tim, thank goodness. It's cuz I buy those flip cap toothpastes now. However he does threaten to leave the cap open when I forget and leave my wet towel lying on the end of our bed (yes, that's Tim pet peeve).

So now it's your turn. Tell me your pet peeves. And for those of you that read this blog and never comment...well here's your chance as well. Let me in on your pet peeves. And Casey, you can't say newlyweds, socks in the middle of the floor, or 11 yr old girls.

Hoodoo vs Mountain vs Poo

Well Casey, I've never heard of someone using hoodoo as another word for poo. Lucky cuz I sure didn't want to be climbing all over giant piles of poo.

Now here's your geology lesson. A hoodoo is also not a mountain. It's a thingy all of it's own. Now remember that Tim & I live in middle of the bald prairies and we found the Writing on Stone hoodoos near our home. We travel to my parent's place in BC to find lovely mountains. Please see exhibits A and B.

Exhibit A



These are funny shaped rocks that are fun to climb on, but if you need a better definition check this out. Ms. Wikipedia explains it a bit better than I could.













Exhibit B


These huge mountains are in Jaffray, BC. Not just funny shaped rocks.

Camping...too much work!

Today we're going to go camping for the first time in our new (to us) trailer. But I was just wondering if ANYTHING could go right. We've had such a hard time getting things ready.

First off, all last week Tim worked on the lights & brakes wiring on our truck. Now Tim's an electrician, but wiring a truck for trailer lights and brakes isn't the same as a house or a motor. All done..the truck plug was corroded.

Then there was the electric brakes on the trailer. Now if we could only get the wheel off to look at the brakes we'd be doing well. Five people trying to loosen the bolts (yes bolts, not lugs) and four of us give up. An hour later Tim yells, "Are you kidding me?" What is the deal with Righty Loosey & Lefty Tighty??? Was someone smokin' crack when they put left threaded bolts on the wheels instead of sticking with a right thread. Lefty loosey is useless to us from now on? Problem solved.

Have I mentioned the water pump yet? Let's try it out. Works not bad, but there's a little leak. Perfect all we need to do is replace a seal. Now let's take the pump apart to get the seal off so that we know what to buy. Ooops, now we cracked the pump. Off to the store to buy a new water pump for a 1977 trailer. Five stores later, we find a pump. $100+ out of pocket and hopefully Tim knows some plumbing. All fixed.

And last night Tim worked on the tail/signal lights of the trailer. Easier said than done. Can't just replace the fixtures, we (and by "we" I mean Tim) needs to run all new wiring. Okay that's done..let's see how she works. Tail Lights--good! Right Turn Signal--good! Left Turn Signal--crap, both the right and left are flashing! The clock reads 11:30pm...oh well, we'll just make right turns all the way to the campsite.

While Tim worked on the lights last night I tried to pack the trailer. Supplies all fit with tons of storage to spare. Great! I tried to pack the food that I picked up at the grocery store on my way home from work. Problem #1: Why the heck won't the stupid trailer fridge get cold? It worked just the day before. Hmmmm guess I'll just have to use the fridge on propane. Problem #2: Where are all my groceries? I'm missing stuff. Did I put it in the trailer--no! Did I put it in the pantry--no! Did I put it in the deep freeze by mistake--no! Then I call the SuperStore (which is difficult cuz their number is unlisted, but I got it now). "Miss SuperStore, do you have some green onions, wine gums, granola bars, etc there that I may have left behind?" "Yes dear, we do. Bring your receipt in to prove what you bought and I'll give you the items you just listed." "I don't have my receipt. Can't you just give them to me? I just listed off a half dozen of completely random items--do you think I just guessed that someone left those behind in a single bag?"

April Showers?

I thought April showers bring May flowers. April snow brings nothing but tears. I'm so ready for warm weather. Enough of this snow and crappy roads. My sister-in-law and I have to go to a funeral an hour drive out of town today and the roads suck! Tim is making my drive to his shop and switch him vehicles. He said I should take the truck with 4 Wheel Drive as it'll be safer on the roads. Too bad it's so dirty inside. Oh well, better safe and dirty than sorry and clean.

Tim's birthday/graduation party was a hit on Saturday. I'll post more about that later and add some pictures.

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

THE GOOD

I'm 24 years old and my dentist told me this morning that I still don't have any cavities. Yep, never had a filling in my life. My perfect record is still in tact. And that's the good.

THE BAD

I have three wisdom teeth and they all need to be pulled. Luckily I don't have the fourth or it probably would have needed pulling as well. I have my consult for this on March 26th. And that's the bad.

THE UGLY

I apparently need braces to pull my jaw/bottom teeth back. My jaw slides forward when I'm relaxed or sleeping and my front teeth line up instead of my bottom teeth being a bit behind. I guess this will stop me from grinding off my front teeth compeletely...so the dentist says. And that's for sure the ugly!

If ya don’t like the weather...

...wait 5 minutes and it’ll change. Which is so true in Southern Alberta. We are just all over the place with temperatures. Last week Tim & I washed our car outside in +10 C and the next day it started snowing. We had crazy snow earlier this week where we built a snow cave and I got stuck in my driveway twice in one day. And then there’s today. It is gorgeous outside. The sun is shining and it’s super warm. After a week I was finally able to drive my car to work. (When it snows I can’t get the car to the Lab that I work at. It’s a 7km drive down a nasty gravel road and when it snows the County of Lethbridge doesn’t plow the road. It’s too deep for my car.) How the heck does the weather change so drastically in less than a week?

Snow Stuff

It's been snowing like crazy here the past few days. Last night when we got home Tim drug me outside and said we were going to "play in the snow" for a while. I bundled up and headed out.


First off Tim had to through our dogs' ball at our satellite dish to knock the snow and ice off of it. It wasn't working. And after that fix he headed off to the backyard to build a snow cave.


I guess he made them a bunch of times when he was a kid or something. Anywho, it's huge in our yard and took forever to build. First we had to pile all the snow up and then dig out the inside. Diesel and Dexter thought it was the best dog house ever. It was about -20 C last night, but inside the cave it was super warm and really steamy. The lens of my video camera kept on fogging up. I have to say, I was pretty impressed with what Tim and I built. Even my cousin next door came over and climbed in to check it out. Here are some pictures of the igloo and as soon as I figure out how to post video (I'm new to this stuff) and put that on here as well.

Oh Superstore!

Dear Superstore:

Even though you ticked me off last month by only giving me a free block of cheese after my purchase of over $250, I came back to you.

Last night was my monthly grocery shopping night. Yes monthly, but don’t take it personally–I just hate grocery shopping. Anyways, my husband and I stopped by after a long day of work and school. You see, today I’m hosting a Pampered Chef show and I need to buy the ingredients for the different recipes that my sister-in-law will be preparing at the Show. I gathered up everything I needed, minus a few that I wanted (why don’t you carry watermelon and why were your strawberries fuzzy) and proceeded to the cashier.

As usual I didn’t get the free gift (not cheese, but chicken strips this time) as I was just shy of your $150 marker. However I finally decided to use my PC Points to pay for my groceries. I have to say I was pleasantly surprized to find out that I have tons of points (I’ve never bothered to check how many I had) and that the points paid for all of my groceries that evening and even left me with another $70 to use next time.

For the reasons mentioned above (free gifts & PC points) as well as the "no fee" bank account I have with you, my super low interest mortgage that you gave me, and your contacts lens that are much cheaper than anywhere else in the city, I will continually come and visit you.

Sincerely,

Me

Wheel-of-Fortune

I'm Having A Party

Hey you! I'm having a Pampered Chef Show next week and you're invited. Oh and bring along a friend or two.
Date: Wed, Feb 7th
Time: 7:00pm
Place: Ashlee's House in Stirling

Let me know if you can make it so that I can plan the menu (there will be yummy food). Leave me a comment saying you're coming or send me an email at ashleenilsson@hotmail.com and I'll send you my address and a map if you need one.

Stupid Photo Thingy

Why is it that when anyone else posts pictures on their blogs I can click on the photo it expands to full size. But mine won't. When I click on them they do nothing. What am I doing wrong?

What's New?

Haven’t posted in a while...no good stories to tell I guess. We got our satellite installed last Thursday. If I wanted I could watch Oprah from 8:00am until 11:00pm (Oprah’s not my weakness, but for some that’d be awesome). I do love that I can watch Days of our Lives in the evenings now though. Way more channels and much clearer. We had three "snowy" channels downstairs in our living room and four "kinda clear-ish" channels in our bedroom upstairs. We’re really moving into this new age stuff. Tim has TSN now and loves it. Boxing is on all the time.

What else? I’m still working away. So nothing new there. Tim’s still at school and we’re surviving on one income (I guess it’s practice for when I’m at home with our baby). But all is well. At least he'll be completely finished with schooling when he's done this time.

We’d like to buy a new car. Actually a new, used car. We’re not sure that’s the wisest thing to do right now while Tim’s in school. But driving the truck 100 km every day for me to get to work is not so nice on the pocket book. Truck = 20 mpg and Car = 50 mpg....and you wonder why we’d like a car. However we would keep our truck as well cuz we have dogs and horses you know. The car dealership was trying to talk us into leasing a car (not so smart for us). Our families live out of town and WE live out of town. Getting to work and trips to see family last year alone was 32,000 kilometers on our truck. And we only lived out of town for 6 months. However we did drive to Vegas.

Tim’s super busy with the Fire Department. Not putting out fires...mostly just training and other courses. He was gone all last weekend and will be again this weekend. Not to count the meetings he has on Wednesday nights. In March he gets to start some of the EMT courses. He’s wicked excited about those.

And I made this matting for The Living Christ and A Proclamation to the World. Took me forever as I'm not too crafty. I ended up hanging them going up my stairs. They look pretty darn good. Except for the non-matching paper. I'm going to have to buy some paper to match the Proclamation and print The Living Christ on it. They look silly hanging on the wall two different colors.
And that’s that.

Cheese?

Have you ever gone grocery shopping at the Superstore? Well Tim and I do all the time. It’s been awhile since our last trip, so we needed a ton of stuff yesterday. You know how in the flyer they alway have a coupon for something that you get if you spend $150 or $250 that day - well finally Tim and I reached the $250 one. Now they keep changing those flyers, but a lot of the time it’s if you spend $250 you get $50 off. So when the cashier told me $255 last night I thought, "Sweet, here comes my $50 off!" Not the case for this week’s flyer. Instead I got one sweet block of free No Name cheese. Which I suppose is better than what my sister got for spending $400 at Christmas...some bag of nasty looking shrimp. That's okay Superstore - I'll still come back to you.

Windy Windy

Wind, wind go away! Come again another day! (Or is that a song about rain?) I hate the wind. Yes, we have no snow because of the wind, but I’d way rather have snow. This wind is driving me bonkers. Oh and if you think Lethbridge is bad – you should live in the middle of a field out in Stirling. Last Friday night was the worst since I’ve lived in Southern Alberta for sure. We woke up in the morning to find our Christmas decorations (outside ones) spread all over our yard. Tim took them down Friday after school and put them in those huge Rubbermaid containers. We found the container at the end of our driveway...empty. And then Tim went into the backyard to feed Diesel and Dexter and found some of our shingles on the ground. Sucky! Tim was all panicked cuz we were supposed to get rain or snow that evening. So we made a quick trip into town to pick up some shingles...no such luck. Apparently our shingles are a special order and Home Depot and Totem didn’t carry them. We went home and Tim used some leftover shingles that he had from our shed at our old house (totally the wrong color). Remember me telling you how steep our roof is...well my husband climbed it in 110 km/hr winds. He couldn’t climb up the back of our house on the gentle slope cuz the roof is too high and the ladder wouldn’t reach. Tim got the singles replaced by laying over the peak of the house (couldn’t stand on the steep side), but it was too cold for the tar to heat up and stick so he had to nail the bottoms of the shingles as well then put black dots of tar over the nail holes. It’s very pretty, but at least he beat the snow that came later that day. I’ll send him back up in the Spring on a less windy day, with warmer temperatures, and the matching shingles to do it all over again. Here are some pictures to prove he was up there in that wind on Saturday. I totally forgot we had a video camera or else I would’ve videoed him crawling up the roof too. Oh and no, we didn’t use a rope. We didn’t have one long enough.

Ashlee's Asian

You'll only get this if you've seen You, Me, & Dupree. "No you can't have it back! And why is it all Asian?"