Alas, it is going to have to wait.

My father is turning 80 in March and we’ve decided to throw him a party. This means I needed to purchase a plane ticket. My plan was to use some air mile points I’ve acquired to offset some of my fare, thereby making it possible for me to afford a new tattoo.

But you know what they say about the plans o’ mice and men? (Quick aside: Robbie Burns Day is on Wednesday. Get yer haggis on, everyone!)

Me being me, when I went to purchase my ticket, I entered the wrong expiry date for my credit card and failed to realize my mistake until I went through numerous trials and a lengthy conversation with the customer service staff from my credit card company. In the end I was able to purchase my ticket. But, in all the confusion, I neglected to apply my points and paid the full fare for my flight.

Oops. Guess the perfect tattoo is just going to have to wait a bit longer. My father’s only going to turn 80 once and the tattoo idea isn’t going to be less perfect in two months – or even two years – from now.

Ouch! It makes me wince to look at how tightly bound her boobs are.

Jeesh. When she won for Evita, her post-pregnancy/lactating boobs were larger and her décolletage was even more displayed.
No where near as awful. No wear near as painful looking.

Madonna now officially takes the “Bad Boobage” crown from SJP.

During my “sabbatical” I did a large cross-stich piece for Goalie Joe and posted photos of the end result. After finishing it, I took the next couple of months off of crafting. Unfortunately, I found myself spending my time in the evenings either piddling around on the internet and/or stuffing my face with food I don’t need to eat.

So, I started another cross-stitch project this weekend. This time around, it’s the “Angel of Christmas” for my mother. I hope to take photos of it each week to mark the progress on this site.

Hopefully, this will give my blog a regular feature I feel it needs.

And they did.

I may not have left my last job on my own terms, however, I am tremendously happy that I am no longer there. When I left work yesterday, I found myself looking forward to being back on Tuesday. Not to say too much about the new salt mine, but I work with a great group of people and am experiencing a level of respect that I haven’t in a long long time.

I’ve also started making changes outside the workplace by volunteering for a couple of different organizations. (One is just starting up and there hasn’t been a lot of stuff for me to do with it.) It’s meant that my life is fuller than it was last year adding to my overall happiness quotient.

However, as I sit here, I find myself thinking that I still have a lot more changes to make in my life to make myself feel even happier. I’m just not sure where to start.

I will, however, say that I’ve been missing Joe Louis a lot lately. Since I started at the new salt mine, I’ve had a ton of thoughts pop into my head that I’d love to share with her. Sadly, it’s not going to happen. References to flow-bees and rock polishers will go unsaid.

I’ve been slowly getting things together enough that I feel ready to celebrate Christmas, as much as I do. I spent last weekend baking. I’ve decided to ship some stuff up to my parents because my mother broke her hip last month and I thought baked goods would be a good gift this year. Last night, in a 2 1/2 hour shopping frenzy, I did all the shopping I plan on doing for Christmas. All that I have left (after baking a bit more) is to get things wrapped up and the cookies shipped, which is my plan for this weekend.

Hopefully, come January, I’ll have more energy to write something here or more that I want to write about.

For the past couple of Saturdays I’ve even had somewhere to be at 10:00 am. Tomorrow I need to be somewhere at 9:30 am. I also have plans for the evening. I don’t remember the last time I had plans on a Saturday night that required me to be dressed in anything that wasn’t pajamas.

Part of me is enjoying the feeling of having stuff to do that is more fulfilling than watching hours of television. Another part of me is starting to worry about finding time to do my laundry, never mind my Christmas baking.

I guess I need to learn to relax and enjoy being more engaged with the world than I  used to be.

I decided to use a Canadian stitching supply on-line store: Stitch-it Central as they had the beads I needed. The beads were $1.55. Shipping was $5.95! Sadly, I didn’t need anything else. After taxes, the order costs $8.40! I placed the order on October 11th and didn’t receive the beads until October 28th. 17 days! After waiting for 11 days, I checked on the order and was told it shipped on October 17th. Okay. So, the mail took 11 days to get from St Thomas, Ontario to Vancouver, BC. Kind of slow, I’d say. When they arrived, the postage on the package was $1.25! $1.25! That’s a pretty damn steep markup to $5.95. Considering the order wasn’t filled for 6 days, I really think it’s outlandish to have been charged so much.

Even though I’m complaining, I’m not going to try and get a refund as I really needed the beads. I’ll just never use that site again.

But, get this:

On October 23rd, I received an email telling me that something I ordered from the UK was shipped. The shipping costs of £3.08 is the equivalent of $4.99 Canadian. The package arrived on November 1st. That’s 11 days. 11 days to get from Great Britain to Vancouver. For less money! What’s up with Canada Post?

Well, I’m not going to bitch too loudly about them. Yesterday I mailed a parcel to Red Deer, AB. I paid for 2 day service because I was shipping something perishable. It arrived today! Basically, it made it there overnight. That’s better service than I paid for.

To sum up: Canada Post has uneven service, British mail ROCKS!, Stitch-it Central will never get my business again, and

the project turned out fabulous!!