the screaming pages

I gave up and went to bed at 11pm last night still not having managed to file our taxes.  As soon as I arrived home from work today I visited the CRA site and managed to get the files loaded into the system.  We managed to beat the deadline by a few hours and it was a horrifically stressful experience filing taxes this year.  Next year I hope we’ll have all our paperwork in time to go back to filing in February.  Much better to get it all out of the way earlier.

On top of getting the tax files off today I also moved all my old blog posts from my 2003 trip to India over to WordPress.  I haven’t selected a new photogallery software yet, so for now none of the associated photos have been uploaded.  Someday I’ll take a few hours and re-read the story of the trip.  There’s so much I’ve forgotten over the years.

Last but not least the hubby got his confirmation back today that he does not need to report for jury selection.  Apparently military members are excluded from sitting on juries.  As officers of the government it’s a potential grounds for appeal if he were to serve on a jury.  This is the second time a summons has appeared at our house.  I was scheduled to be in India during the trial dates when the first summons arrived and was excused as well.  It’s a good thing we vote or I’d think we’d have little opportunity to complete some of our base civic duties…

Got my fingers and toes crossed that it will stay that way.  In the meantime I’m gracing everyone with my shiny new “green” theme.  If all does not go well on the weather front here this might be the only lush and verdant sight my poor eyes do see for many moons.

I’m a little annoyed with my hosting company today.  My site was down for over 8 hours and everytime I checked for an update there was no new information.  At noon they were promising it would be fixed within 30 to 60 minutes and 4 hours later I was still without the means to share my new theme or check my email *sigh*

I shouldn’t complain.  On the whole they’re pretty reliable.  *knock wood*

My exams have come and gone. All those hours days spent on completing online practice quizzes and reviewing flash cards appear to have paid off. I’m confident I passed the exam. What remains to be seen is the final grade. By my rough calculations it could be anywhere between 65-90%. I suck at judging how well I do on exams but I’m usually pretty accurate when it comes to pass/fail predictions.

To top off my day I spent the afternoon with my friendly neighbourhood (not really, he’s located 1/2 across town) dentist. On the 30 minute drive to see him I was nearly rear-ended 3 times by a cell phone toting drunk monkey. Granted, the first time she nearly hit me was BEFORE she picked up her cell phone. It wasn’t until she attempted to answer her phone that she had her second near miss and the third happened about 15 minutes into a 25 minute conversation. *sigh* I can’t believe how stupid some drivers can be. If you’re not paying enough attention to notice when the lights turn red and when the vehicles in front of you have activated brake lights on when you’re not on your cell phone what in the hell do you think you’re doing when you start juggling a cell phone between your hands and randomly stomping on your brakes.

The dentist appointment went as can be expected. Lots of care and concern. Jokes about biting and whether or not the members of the dental office read my blog (I have no clue if they do). It ended with another appointment being booked for 2 weeks from now. What can I say? I’m either a glutton for punishment or I want all the extra work done on my teeth before my awesome insurance turns into dull everyday type dental insurance.

On the drive home I was once again playing the “don’t rear-end me” game with the driver immediately behind me. This one was extra adventuresome as he chose to talk on his cell, smoke, and drink coffee while driving.

Earlier this week my boss felt obligated to remind me that I’m supposed to be celebrating finishing my courses and writing my exams and not piling on the torture. This, of course, was her response when I told her I had a dental visit scheduled for an hour after the exam. In honour of her sage advice I’m going to wave my LIVE tickets in the air for the next hour or so. *nyah* Yes, I have tickets to LIVE this evening. Assigned floor level seats in the second section. *thuuupppt*

End result: No karaoke planned for this evening but lots of great music on the horizon.

I really do hope this snow dump will begin melting soon.  Of course, to do that it would have to stop snowing!  We’ve a good foot (or more) of snow on the ground and Drew was out shoveling yesterday.  You’d never know he bothered as the patch of snow that’s drifted down or blown in has replaced most of the work he’d done.

When we moved to Edm in 2003, it was snowing.  It continued to snow at least once a month right up until the first week  of July.  I remember being completely shocked until Drew reminded me that we’d moved both west and north.  About 600 kms north of where we’d lived previously.

There are some wonderful things about living in a northerly city – considering the many  territories and cities above us, I categorize Edm as northerly instead of northern – but the continuous winter is not one of them.  Spring tends to arrive very suddenly, trees budding one morning and full leaves arriving short days after.  The evil humoured ones among us would already argue it’s been and gone seeing as it was hovering between +15 and +20C a few short days ago.  The crocuses have been and gone and my tulips were – before the snow dump – coming along nicely.

To deal with the evil’s of snow I’ve decided to call a snow day and not drive to work today.  Granted, I’m just taking an extra vacation day so I can study for my exams later this week.  It seemed a good idea at the time.

On Saturday I was sitting in the basement giggling away to myself after reading about Joy and Aims picnic experience on Friday.  While it has been known to snow in the city well into the summer months I was feeling rather smug that the snow the meteorologists had been calling for hadn’t yet reared its ugly head in the city.  Of course, a few short hours after I’d read Joy’s post the white flakes started to fall.  It’s now been snowing for 2 days straight and isn’t scheduled to stop until sometime next week.

Shoveling snow this morning to clear walkways has only made a dent.  More snow has replaced the piles we removed this morning. I suppose this is supposed to teach me to keep my mouth (and typing fingers) shut when it comes to the weather around here!

School Update: My history term paper made it in under the wire and I have a few small assignments left to finish before Monday in order to complete the class.  After that I’ll be in “hurry up and wait” stage until the final grades are sent out.  My psych exam is next week and I’m busy trying to cram as much as I can into my little brain this week. My summer session courses have been selected and the textbooks have arrived.  I believe they start the first week of May.