Of getting things done and ex-coworkers.

Hmm. So I just looked and my escape-the-room experience was back on July 24. We have been without a functional bathroom door since that date. Every once in a while I would think, "We really need to look after getting ourselves a new bathroom door and hardware for it," but not act on it. At one point, soon after the incident, my husband and I actually went out and looked at doors and hardware, but decided to put off purchasing them until we could run our choices by our landlady (i.e., my DMIL), who I think was on a retreat with the young people of our church at the time. After that, we just kept putting it off. Thankfully noone who's come over between now and then has had to use our washroom (we could have sent them upstairs if it became an issue, but it's a little embarrassing to have your only washroom out of commission), but we have planned company coming over next weekend (not this one, thankfully) for a longer amount of time (the duration of at least one Scrabble game plus chatting before and/or after and probably some snacking, too), so the situation is a little more urgent now. Today we finally went out to Rona (again), picked out a door (the same one we picked out before), gave one of the lumber guys all the dimensions we needed said door cut down to (the drop ceiling in our basement apartment leads to our required door height being non-standard), paid for it, then drove home to get our old door to take into him when it became clear that our estimate of the placement of the doorknob hole from the edge was a non-standard width and we needed it double-checked (and to allow them to see all the dimensions better)...then I had to drive it back on my own because the door was just a little too wide to allow one of the rear seats to be left up for hubby (well, without having the door stick out the rear of the car, anyway). The cutting of the door won't be done until probably Tuesday morning, so we walked out of Rona having paid x amount of dollars yet empty-handed, but at least we have got the ball rolling. Tuesday we'll pick it up, get a doorknob and install the door plain for now; we can stain it at some undetermined point down the road (let's see how long that takes ;)), but at least we'll have a functional door for Scrabble day.

This Rona used to be a Lansing Buildall location. It happens to be the location that's across the street from my parents' place...and the one I worked at for a little over two years while I was still living at home. The funny thing about retail is no matter how high the turnover rate for a company's staff, it seems to be that there are usually a few people who weather all the changes and stick around many, many years with the same company. Like I said, I worked for Lansing for a little over two years, and it's been six years since I left my job there. Well, today while door-shopping I spotted, called out to and chatted with my old boss for a while, who had lots of stories to tell me about other people I used to work with (and some of whom are indeed still there) and called one of my other former co-workers out of the cash office to exchange greetings. So I got two hugs today while door-shopping. Just goes to show that even though the few times I've been to Rona since leaving their employment I haven't recognized any of the cashiers doesn't mean all my old friends are gone. Oh, point that will be relevant later: both my friends I saw today mentioned that they keep looking for me every time they go to a particular Black's, which is where I worked after I left Lansing's employ and where I did see each of these ladies at least once.

After coming back home to pick hubby up again, we went out for a cheap McD's lunch (not my favourite place to eat, but it's a cheap date when you've got a 2-can-dine-for-$7.98-plus-tax coupon :)), and then guess where I had to go? Well, I was originally going to go to Wal-Mart to do some photo printing, but after hubby's protests about how much he hates it there (and really I can't blame him), we went to Black's. There I saw my former co-worker Kate, to whom I said, "Kate, you're here like every time I'm here!" (It's pretty much true.) We chatted, I placed my digital printing order, we'll see each other again tomorrow when I go to pick my pictures up (yeah, apparently she's there a lot, though she's looking for something in her field now that she's done school). No hugs at Black's; I guess my relationships with people at Lansing were different than the ones I had at Black's, or the people were different, or...who knows.

This is when I feel like I should be talking about running into more former co-workers from my York research job or the Ice Gardens, but no, I didn't see any of those people today (not yet, at least). However, I did get a call from the Ice Gardens this morning! They finally hired an Office Manager, who saw my name on the list of Guest Services staff and was kind of wondering what the deal was. So I've finally told the Ice Gard--er, Canlan Ice Sports York that I'm no longer available to work there. I am getting a clear idea that I'm going to be way too busy with teacher's college (and trying to get everything else in life, like cleaning and sleeping, in around my studying) to even think about taking on any sort of employment this school year. I guess that's in the "getting things done" category, too.

Something else we got done today that is exciting: remember that I mentioned that I finally paid off our line of credit back in July? I mentioned that I was going to take the $ that had up until then been directed towards paying off that loan and start directing it instead towards paying off my husband's student loans come September (using the unneeded funds from July and the whole of those funds from August for textbooks for this year's studies first). Well, September is here, so today I got hubby to call up the bank and increase the amount of his monthly student loan payment--we pay this by direct deposit so we had to let them know to change the amount of each automatic transaction from now on. It was a quick phone call and the change has been made; our payments starting at the end of this month will be in the new amount. If I follow the rest of the debt-reduction plan I've set up (which involves using a certain amount from next year's tax refund as well as redirecting our payments to pay off hubby's provincial loan once his federal loan is paid off), we should have those debts cleared away in December 2007, which isn't really that far away, hooray! When I am hopefully gainfully employed come September 2007 I will then be able to use my earnings to buy out our car (the lease is up in April 2008 and the car has such a low kilometerage on it that we'd be crazy not to buy it out), pay my own school debt (a mere $4500 borrowed penalty-free from hubby's RRSP under Ontario's Lifelong Learning Plan) right off, and then start saving up for a down payment so we'll no longer have to live in a basement and will have some room to think about having a family. (Er, forget I mentioned the family part...that's a ways away yet and there's no need to be thinking about these things too early :).) So I'm all happy and excited about how our financial life is shaping up and how we are slowly but surely progressing along our path through this thing called life. Sometimes I wonder if we should also be re-examining our charitable giving and perhaps increase it, but I think the reason I keep getting turned down for bursaries and loans might be that according to how much hubby makes I should be fine for school and so on, and that part of the reason we don't have the kind of money these institutions think we have is because we keep giving it away (which I'm fine with; I think that's as it should be). It does give me pause when I consider that only 8% of the world's population has a car, though...and that includes us.

Well, I am off for now as I have other things to get done...I made some squares for my church to sell at our annual carnival tomorrow and they need icing; I need to finish tending to the laundry I started earlier; and hopefully I will actually get some more stuff done related to school like I'd planned to today. I just love getting things done :). Talk to you later...