Told You So and Mystery Chicken

It was an interesting day today. It was one of those "hit the ground running" kind of day. Thankfully, there were no major fires in my little bubble but there was a big one burning away with the big project. And I knew there would be. I called it. Weeks ago in fact. And I had a very opportune "I told you so" moment, but, alas, I opted for the moral high ground and kept my mouth shut.

I wasn't being a neigh sayer by any means. And this wasn't me being negative. I was being quite realistic. You see, I've done 3 previous projects that were very similar to this one. And there were issues with each and every one of them. And this time around, we had 2 newbies working on it and one not so bright coordinator over in group in charge of projects like this. So I'm pretty sure it was doomed from the start. Add in the fact that my previous (and very disliked) supervisor was the one originally in charge of it for our office and it was definitely doomed. But cooler heads prevailed today. My new supervisor got on it and fired off some emails and got some balls rolling. I jumped in too and lent a hand to the IT guys.

All in all, the day ended well and we're on our way to getting everything resolved. Which is good since we have 15 new people starting at 8:30 tomorrow morning. I'm with them (along with the recent addition to my team) until roughly 10:30. Should make the morning go by pretty quickly.

Speaking of work, I got official confirmation that the evaluation board for a process I applied on, has found me to be "qualified" for the position and I have been placed in the pool. That's two pools I'm in now. I'm excited to be in both pools. It was hard work getting there, but it's a little bitter sweet. This means that 2 other organizations has deemed me qualified to be doing the work that I'm currently doing, but my current organization doesn't acknowledge that I'm doing work above level. Just a wee bit frustrating.

I stopped at the grocery store after work to get milk, bread and veggies. I got milk, bagels, ham and raspberries. Totally forgot about the veggies. LOL. The raspberries were on sale and I find that they go bad super fast so I decided to use them up tonight. I whipped up a batch of lemon-raspberry yogurt muffins. I think they turned out pretty well. I'll take a few to work to share with a couple co-workers and we'll see how well they go over.

I bet you're wondering about the mystery chicken mentioned in the title of this blog eh?

While my parents were here, we stopped at one of my mom and I's favourite stores: Giant Tiger. They had my favourite stuffed chicken breasts on sale for $1.87/pack. Couldn't pass that up. Only problem was, we weren't going back to my apartment, we were going onto their hotel. No problem says dad. There's a freezer in the mini fridge in their room. So I buy 4 boxes: 2 ham & swiss and 2 herb & garlic. We get back to the hotel and try to stuff the box in the little freezer. Won't fit. So we decide to take the chicken out of the boxes and mom stuffs them all in to a bag and then we stuff the bag into the freezer. They fit! Only problem is, there's now no way to tell which flavour is which as they all look the same. D'oh! So now I have mystery chicken. And they threw out all the boxes, which had the cooking instructions on them so I had to wing it and go by memory. It worked out well. I ended up with Ham & Swiss tonight (which is what I wanted). I think I have the same one for lunch tomorrow too. I guess I'll find out at noon hour tomorrow which flavour it is.

Got to go and get some sleep so I'm bright eyed and somewhat alert for my day tomorrow.

Good Night!

Sarah

Duck! (because I don't have a photo of a chicken)

The Moth Saga Continues

I found my missing house guest (aka, the moth) around 11 this morning. It was hanging out on my window sill, behind the curtain. Being the kind hearted person I am, I decide to try to pick it up and toss it outside. I gabbed a kleenex and tried to pick it up. I failed and it flew into the curtain. So I tried again and it once more escaped and dropped like a rock...into my baseboard heater. Sigh. I have previously dropped a spider into it and the spider came out the bottom and tried to run away before I squished it, so I was hoping the moth would go right through too. No such luck. I haven't seen it since. Sigh.

I did, however, get a pesky fly out of my apartment this evening. It was flying around before bed and I got it out of my bedroom by turning on the hall light and once it was attracted to that, I shut off the light and ran to my room and closed the door before the fly could follow. I woke up to pee around 3am and the stupid fly was attacking the night light in the bathroom. This morning, it was on my balcony door, so I just opened it and shooed him out. Problem solved. Too bad the moth wasn't that easy to deal with.

It was very hot here today, so you know what I did? I turned on the oven, twice. The first time was to bake a loaf of Avocado Banana Bread (with dark chocolate chips) and the second time was to roast the chicken breast that I bought at the butcher's yesterday. Both turned out incredibly well. I made a nice salad for lunch tomorrow, using the veggies I got yesterday, and I topped it with some feta cheese and some leftover chicken from tonight. The only problem with baking today was that my apartment got warm, even with the AC and fans running. It's cooling off now, which is nice, since it's almost bed time.

I used my spare time to read and catch up on a summer tv show. I really should have cleaned or done the dishes but my body seemed to want the rest so I did what it asked. This just means that I have to pick up some groceries after work tomorrow and do up the dishes too. Laundry might be a good idea for a night this week too. LOL. I need to find a man who likes to clean.Seriously. I will happily cook every night so long as someone else cleans up the mess I make. I'll even do the laundry too if someone else dusts and mops. I think it's a great trade off!!

Anyhow, it's time to grab my book and read for a bit before turning in. Back to work tomorrow.

Good Night!

Sarah

Not the one in my bedroom but you get the idea. LOL.

Sleepy Thursday

After all of my excitement yesterday, you think I would have passed right out. But no. Firstly, my hot, soothing bath backfired. I was too hot afterwards and couldn't get comfortable in bed. Then I tossed and turned for what felt like hours. I kept waking up too. I think the sound of the plows going down the road might have been the culprit there.

This is what I woke up to this morning:

I am truly not impressed. Even more so since it's STILL FUCKING SNOWING!!!!!! We're supposed to get another 2 cm tonight and 2cm tomorrow and 2cm Friday night and then a 60% chance of flurries on Saturday and a 40% chance on Sunday. Give me a break! We're already pushing 30cms over the last 24 hours. The damn snowbanks are as tall as I am. Crossing the street has become an extreme sport because you either have to climb over said banks or risk traffic going around them. Stupid weather. This is the most snow Ottawa has seen in 4 years. I guess we were due. Thankfully, the buses were running better this morning and this evening. Hopefully they keep it up for tomorrow. I hope the snow crews come by soon and remove our snowbanks too. I'll have to take a photo of the ones out front tomorrow. It looks like the front of the building is being eaten by giant snow monsters.

Trying to wrap my head around some travel plans for mid to late spring. I'm going to Montreal in April, I just need to pick a weekend and then I'm thinking of going home in May for my bday and my Great Aunt's bday. Mine is a semi-milestone and hers is a major milestone. I haven't seen the family since Christmas (and still haven't forgiven my rat fink brother for giving me the stomach flu at Christmas) so it would be very awesome to see everyone again.

Today is my mom's birthday :) By the sounds of it, she had a pretty decent day, except for the part where my brother broke in and ate all the chips - LOL. Thankfully mom came home and stopped him before he moved onto the cabbage rolls and chocolate cake. This is mom celebrating her bday last year:

It's safer for everyone if you don't ask me to explain that photo. All I'm going to say is that it was my Uncle David's fault. End of story.

I'm very excited by the fact that tomorrow is Friday. I've only worked 2.5 days this week (had French this afternoon) but it still seems like an insanely long week. I did a lot of cooking this week, so maybe that's why it seems longer. I dunno. I made some very amazing Monte Cristo Chicken Cutlets for dinner and a pineapple angel food cake for dessert (1 box angel food cake mix, 1 20oz can of crushed pineapple: just mix the 2 and nothing else. Bake for 25-30 mins and enjoy. So flippin' good!). Guess I was feeling domestic this evening :)

I really need to get some shit together this weekend. I need to mail away 2 bday cards and I have to mail home bday gifts for my mom, brother, nephew and niece. And I might get around to mailing a crazy belated bday and Christmas gift to someone else I know too. Canada Post is going to love me.

Ok. It's sleep time. I keep pausing to think of what to write next and I almost nod off. Oops.

Good Night!

Sarah

More snow from this morning.

Cheap Chicken and A Man In A Skirt

It was a very successful day out shopping with Stephanee. To start off, I had awesome hair today. While killing time this morning, I decided to break out the hot curlers and go to town. It was very fun "Saturday Hair". We managed to avoid getting into any real trouble. Steph did get a rather nasty look in the Dollarama from some lady after Steph laughed just a little too loud. And I found the perfect santa hat for myself there too.

We also discovered and awesome deal for lunch/dinner. There's a place called Scores, which it a chicken place (Like Swiss Chalet or St. Huebert) and it's got an all you can eat soup/salad bar. Well, as we discovered, when you order the 1/4 chicken dinner, not only does it come with a side, but it comes with the free salad bar. So for a grand total of $13.28 (with tax), we got a 1/4 chicken breast, fries, dipping sauce, a roll and all the soup/salad/fruit we wanted. We got our money's worth and both left with a take out container of chicken. Super awesome! And the waitress was great too. So all in all, it was a good call.

Moving on to Walmart...it was a mostly routine visit until...we were just making out way to the cash when some fun t-shirts caught our eyes. While we were looking at them, I looked up and saw a man walking by. He had grey hair, a really long beard (think ZZ Top) and was wearing a women's padded white spaghetti strap tank top and short cut denim skirt. It was a total "People of Walmart" moment. Wow. Really don't know what to say about that.

I managed to get a new light weight winter coat at 50% off. I love surprise Saturday sales. They rock.

Tomorrow Steph and I are at it again but it will be a much more somber and dignified day. Or at least the morning will be. We're heading downtown for the National Remembrance Day ceremonies. Then we're hitting a craft sale and Costco. I trip across the river to hunt down jeans for Steph might be in that mix too.

I hope that everyone takes a moment tomorrow to reflect on what living a free country truly means and to think about all those people who came before us. All those who fought bravely and proudly and some of whom made the greatest sacrifice of all - so that we could have that freedom. And please don't forget the ones who continue to serve for our country. Lest We Forget.

Good Night!

Sarah

Hair - with the fun curlers in.

 

Finished product. Lots of curls!

 

The fun "Princess Santa Hat" that I found in the doller store.