private benjamin???

I very rarely mention my two daughters on this public journal anymore, at least not since they technically became "adults". I feel that its really not my place to determine what portion of their lives should be made available for public consumption. The moment that they decided they were ready to take on the big bad world they became independent from us. Now as long as they were minors living under our roof, following our rules, their proverbial arses were ours and were fair game. Now that they are both in their twenties, I do try to respect their privacy - for the most part! Like everything else in life though, there are exceptions to every rule. This would be one of those times.

Plus, anytime a parent is bursting with pride, they get to tell everyone and anyone who will listen the reasons. After completing high school, Sara decided that she didn't want to go directly to any post-secondary institution. She felt that a break away from studying would be the best course of action for her. Obviously, both Jim and I had very mixed reactions to this announcement, but what could we really do to change her very set and stubborn mind? By far, I was the most supportive of her decision. In fact, I think it would be pretty safe to say that Jim and I were in fact, diametrically opposed to it.

Personally, I could empathize with her desire for a break and a change in routine. I went directly from high school to an unbreakable and continuous period of 7 years university and college combined. During this time, I did manage to complete my Honours Bachelors of Art in History at University as well as my Business Management Diploma with a Marketing Certificate at College. By the time I was through all of this, I was exhausted. I did make one futile attempt to take a break for one semester, but that never did work out.

Between my second and third year at Uni, my best friend and I decided to spend that summer exploring the British Isles. We had an amazing time and as the summer started to fade making ready for the fall, I decided that I wasn't ready to return to Canada so I made arrangements to stay an additional few months. My intention was to leave at the very earliest just before the Christmas holidays. I'd found a bar job in London, and one of my cousins got me a bed-sit. All of my Mom's family lived in London, while all of my Dad's lived in Dublin, Ireland so even though I was a few thousand miles from home, family was never too far if I needed anything.

Just before the fall semester was to start in Canada, I got word that my Dad had a massive coronary and was in very poor health. He was due for open surgery by the end of that September. With this bit of news, all my plans instantly disappeared, but then, they no longer seemed quite as important. I figured the British Isles would end up being around a long time after my Dad had gone, so I decided to return to Canada with the intention of going back overseas once he had left us. Even though he'd been given less than five years to live, they hadn't factored in what a stubborn Mic he could be at times. didn't he go on to live an additional eighteen years once he'd had the open heart surgery?

Anyway, I seem to have gotten off topic...Now Jim dropped out of high school before his sixteenth birthday, and while he didn't immediately regret this decision, by the time he was in his early to mid-twenties, he knew that it certainly hadn't been one of the better decisions he'd made in the past. While he did eventually go back to complete his high school education, he had to do this while working full time and a family at home. This didn't seem to matter to Sara as nothing he said could make her change her mind. So, off she went to join the workforce.

Luckily she had been forced to attend a bilingual public and secondary school so she was fluent in both English and French which gave her a bit of an edge over others. she managed to get a nice enough office job with a starting wage of almost$14 an hour. Unfortunately at the end of May of this year, she fell victim to company layoffs and found herself suddenly without a job. To make matters even worse, her former employer was beyond negligent in issuing her Separation Papers, an absolute crucial document required to receive any amount of Employment Insurance - used to be called plain old Unemployment Insurance. Whatever. She ended up having to wait nearly three full months before she managed to get this paperwork released. While one will not receive any monies until this document arrives and is entered into the recipients file, the lack of the document doesn't prevent someone from at least getting their claim started.

Now in the interim, she still needed money to get by so who do you suppose got this honour? Yup, me and Jim. By the time these three months finally came to their end, her father and I had forked over a grand total of just over $4000 - three months rent at $525/month, her personal hydro payments, telephone bill, groceries, some summer clothing as well as a few slightly more formal articles of clothing appropriate for future job interviews, an air conditioner for her frightfully boiling hot apt, and a boatload of cash for misc crap.

By the end of all this, this education vacation, I mean break, was not looking quite as attractive as it previously had. Of course, the moment we started handing over a substantial amount of money to her on a regular basis, Jim felt that this now gave him the right to start pressuring her to return to school - these kind of favours never seem to be given without some sort of strings being attached. Like Jim said to me "what goes around, comes around..." obviously referring to all of the crap we'd been forced to endure every time we got money from his parents. Ironic, isn't it?

Again though, Sara would not waver. She felt confident that she'd be able to get another decent job and had no intention of returning to school just yet. While I admired her tenacity, and was so very grateful and happy with the decorous way she handled herself through all of this, I've never really been able to understand her aversion to being a student. If I could have gotten paid, I'd still be a student. I truly loved school, loved to learn, loved being intellectually stimulated, couldn't ever get enough. I also know that I was fairly unique and pretty much alone when it came to this, but that never seemed to matter. Discovering computers and the internet just over a decade ago turned into being a near religious experience for me personally. I still think the internet is one big encyclopedia dying to be read. Some of my bookmarks are downright embarrassing and definitely nerdy.

And once again, it would seem that my daughter had made the right decision regarding her future after all. She obviously knows what she likes and doesn't like, and isn't prepared to settle or compromise in achieving these. Good on her. Recently, one of her friends mentioned that there were going to be five civilian internships with the army available. She researched the specifics, and once satisfied that this could be something she'd, enjoy submitted cover letters and her resume. She'd been advised to apply for all five of these positions even though each one was different.

First she had to attend an orientation session to become familiar with what this position would entail and to determine whether or not the applicant wanted to continue with their application. She came home excited beyond belief eager to continue. Her initial interviews went so well, that even before she got home from the first one, there was a call made to her praising her interview. She was advised by the Interviewer that, while she could not officially offer her one of the positions at this time, she could say with absolute confidence that Sara would definitely be receiving an offer of employment for one of the five. she said that of all the people she had interviewed, Sara stood head and shoulders above the rest. She said she couldn't remember an interview with an applicant ever going as well as theirs did.

After I got over the shock that it was indeed my daughter they were talking about, I was over the moon. What Mother wouldn't be proud to hear all of this about their child? She starts her new position on October 22, 2010. She still does not know exactly which of the five will be hers, but she has been told it will be one of two. She will either be an Admin Assistant to one of the senior officers stationed at Wolsey Barracks here in London, Ontario or she will be working in one of the Army's labs as a Technician. She says she is glad that the final choice is not hers as she wouldn't be able to choose between the two as she'd like either one of them equally. Starting pay is just over $30 000/annually and after her three month probation ends, she will receive benefits as well as be eligible for funding should she decide to pursue a post secondary education while employed with them. How's that for a wee bit of irony?

Obviously, I'm now more than pretty confident that she'll be able to navigate and manage her way through life on her own fairly successfully. Looks like her head is screwed on right - certainly better than mine has been during specific periods of my adult life... hangs head in shame for a moment...Can't imagine anyone who has recently graduated from Uni with just a general 3yr or honours 4yr degree getting much more than what she shall receive for a starting salary either - unless graduating from one of the Uni's professional schools but that's an entirely different universe.

So, a toast to my beloved daughter. I hope you know how truly proud and supportive I am of you. I've got faith that you can accomplish anything that you set your mind and heart towards with great ease. Good luck...

peace, love and happiness..

The Return of the Thin White Duke...or sickgirl finally reconnected her internet...

And she is back...not with a bang but a whimper! Kidding. Finally, I've gotten off of my lazy arse and had the internet reconnected at our new place. I suppose that its been long overdue as I'm rapidly nearing my two month anniversary at my new job. My how very easily time manages to slip away.

All is extremely well in my little part of the world although a little bit on the busy side but I honestly prefer it this way rather than the other. Idle hands and all...My new job has been going spectacularly well which definitely has been an extremely pleasant and welcome surprise considering how shattered leaving the previous one had left me. Even though I was having my share of real negative and depressing thoughts regarding the whole employment situation barely two months ago, I managed to keep my head above water and did not succumb to temptation. Yes, there were some floating thoughts in that particular direction because that would have been an easy way out but these thoughts managed to float on by. I knew that in the long term this would have done no one any favors so it was surprisingly easy to ignore the short term temptations.

I wish that I had a bit more time right now to really post a proper update but I've got to run as it is starting to get late and although I don't have to get up at an indecent hour for work, I do have to meet my Mother in the morning for a bit of shopping and lunch and I want to be in fighting form. The last thing I want to look like when we meet is all haggard and tired cause I'm not up for one of her lectures, blah, blah, blah. It can most definitely be a bit on the petty side on my part, but because of our history I usually ensure that I'm looking better than fine whenever we get together. This is a story for another day so for now, you'll just have to use your imaginations although I'm sure there is another daughter out there with an identical type of mother who knows of what I speak!!!

P.S. You may have noticed that I've added three other posts although they've all got dates from November 2007. After my internet had been disconnected from our previous address but before I dismantled my computer for our move, I continued to write entries saving them to my hard drive until a moment just like this one could arrive!!!

Day By Day

Well our first day went as well as I had hoped. It kind of dragged the first part of the day but once we had finished lunch, the rest of the day went along at a nice pace. My nerves are not so much of an issue any more which obviously is a good thing. Right in the middle of all this chaos I decided that lowering my daily dose of methadone would be a great idea. Duh!!!

The first week that I dropped - I went from 80ml to 75ml - didn’t even seem to notice the drop although I somehow managed to go to the clinic each day at approx the same time so I was on a pretty regular 24 hour schedule. Today I didn’t manage to make it to the clinic until just after 6pm and by this time, almost thirty fours hours had elapsed since my previous dose. While I didn’t feel that it was glaringly apparent I was out of kilter, I definitely felt a little off.

I had none of the tell tale typical "withdrawal" side effects but by the time I was finishing up work for the day my body certainly was starting to feel achy all over as well as becoming kind of stiff. My skin also started to become extremely sensitive to near everything. The contractor that arrived to steam clean the bedroom that is to be Sara and Katie’s had been working barely ten minutes - plus I was three rooms removed from the room that he was cleaning - when I could feel my skin start to break out rapidly in hives. I could not get out of our new apartment fast enough. It was most disturbing.

So what we’ve decided would be the smartest thing to do is to go to the clinic each day in the morning before we have to start work. Even though we have yet to move over to the new building, we have started to manage it and currently we are working Monday to Friday 9am until 5pm so we’ve got plenty of time to get our daily dose prior to work. This way also, we’ll have the benefit of the methadone’s full effect I should imagine as well as continuing with a fairly regular schedule.

Plus the last thing that anyone really wants to do after a full day at work is to have to face a crowded forty minute bus ride halfway across town. Much better to get this all finished first thing. No more worries.

Bright Beginnings

OK so in just over an hour I am due to start my new job. To say that I am nervous would pretty much be the understatement of the century. Yes, I am definitely excited and extremely grateful that I have a new job to go to considering it has barely been two weeks since I lost my last one. But, still...

I’ve not yet recovered from the fact that very shortly we’re to lose what I have come to consider our home. We’ve been displaced for all intent and purposes. It sickens me and has made me more bitter than anything else has ever done before in my entire life. This alone is something to be sure.

Now I Am At Peace

Well we are now pretty much settled into our new job and home. The first month is behind us and seeing how we both managed to survive the insanity of managing a 240 plus unit luxury highrise thus far, it can only mean smooth sailing from here on in! So far, so good. I wasn’t quite sure what I would actually think about this position when we first started, but now I have to admit that I actually really enjoy it.

Our “hours” are 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday plus we are “on call” every other weekend and every Tuesday and Thursday night, so not so bad. We got our first full pay check almost two weeks ago and after taxes, we cleared just shy of $1200 which is pretty darn good when you take into consideration that our rent, utilities, cable, phone and internet is also looked after before we actually receive this pay. We literally have no bills to speak of any more, so when this is factored into the whole equation, a net amount of $2400/month to use as our disposable income is pretty kickass. It’s definitely the best place financialy that we’ve been able to manage this past decade.

On top of this, I also receive $565/month from my father’s estate and I will for the next fourteen months to come, plus, Jim gets $200/week or approx $800/month from his parents and will continue to receive for the next few months also. So altogether, it looks as if we now have a take home income of $3765 each month for the very near future. Finally I’m in a position to buy new furniture for our entire place - have already started with new furniture for our bedrooms and dining room!

I know that its only money and up to this point of my life, I have been the farthest thing imaginable from materialistic, but as my girls get older - and I guess as I, too, get older - it suddenly has started to seem kind of important. Spending the previous five years living pay to pay certainly hasn’t done anything to help this mindset either I must admit. Please don’t crucify me yet, either as I’ve not suddenly taken to getting down on my knees to thank the god almighty of money - not yet, anyway!

One Day At A Time

Well I guess that I should fill you all into what has actually been happening in my life recently. Me and mine have been fairly busy as we attempt to adjust to our new home as well as new jobs, not to mention the simple fact alone that I’ve had to adjust to the fact that I was actually returning to work after such a long period of time off!

With my arm being in the shape that it is now in, coupled with the fact that I had pretty much burned myself out doing tech support just prior to my leaving my job last year, I knew that once the decision had been made for me to return to work that I was going to have to have some form of plan in order for me to be able to try something completely different.

Well, I am pretty confident that I’ve succeeded way beyond my wildest dreams in this particular area.

So please bear with me a little bit. Yes, Jim and I have been doing great with our recovery and MMT, and we certainly are no longer spending the shocking amounts of money that we had been just a year and a half ago. By some sort of miracle we have also managed to dig ourselves out of a pretty deep hole and are no longer in debt. Period. Full stop. Yet, at the same time, we also found ourselves struggling to make any significant financial headway. I know that a combination of events somewhat sabotaged us - my arm breaking didn’t help but it did pretty much result in us having only one provider which just happened to occur at the same time that we experienced another adult sized person joining our family. Yikes. At least we managed to stay afloat.

This situation certainly was fine for the short term but I was beginning to find the whole thing somewhat untenable. Each time I came back from looking at the size of apartment that ideally I wanted in a luxury high rise, the more frustrated everything became. Realistically we were going to have to pay approx $1500 plus on average each month for what I wanted. That amount seemed pretty far out of my reach for the immediate future. Or was it? One day I had a magical and utterly brilliant idea.

Jim and I own a 23 unit, three story walk up apartment building about a half an hour out of town and have owned it since December 2000. This is to be our Freedom 55 as the mortgage will more or less be paid of by then so that when we “retire” we’ll have 23 units multiplied by whatever the rent will be then all to ourselves - less any monthly operating costs, etc. Currently Jim also draws a monthly salary from this business and does the lion’s share of any work required which ends up averaging approx 15 days per month give or take. We also pay one of our tenants a small monthly stipend to keep an eye on everything as we don’t actually reside at the property.

From here, I more or less expanded my idea in the hopes that we could apply - and hopefully get hired - to some of the more desirable high rise apartment buildings in London for the position of Building Manager. I ended up spending a good six plus months researching the various property management companies as well as the types of properties that each company owned. I finally narrowed our choices down to three although I was a little bit unsure of my third choice. As it so happened, we actually got hired by my number one choice so you can well imagine how utterly excited and happy I was. Jim and I are now Building Managers of the property in the photo above this entry.

We started our jobs exactly 12 days ago so we are very much newbies to this particular experience. When I was doing my research, I based my choices on said company’s properties with no actual knowledge of what kind of renumeration that would be offered. As it turns out, this company not only has spectacular buildings, they also have a renumeration package beyond compare.

As well as receiving a three bedroom, two full bathroom 1425 square foot apartment valued at $1500 per month, the company also pays for all of our utilities, telephone, cable, internet and newspaper delivery daily at our doorstep. In three months, we will also have a full benefit package. Our starting salary is $36 000 with a raise also in three months and from then on, a raise on an annual basis. On our third day of employment, I received a call from their main office advising me that our computer was ready for pickup!

I sure am hard pressed to find too many more companies like this one! Of course, I’m sure that you are all thinking that there has to be a catch somewhere and I don’t blame anyone for thinking that either. I sure as heck was waiting nervously for the other shoe to drop so to speak and as of today, I’m still waiting. All of their employees are long term ones with the average length of time with them approx ten years. The only reason that they even had an opening was that they had just completed building a brand new sixteen story building.

Wow, eh? What absolutely blows my mind right now is that we no longer have any bills at all to pay. I asked Jim what I was going to do with my daytimer from now on…That’s not an absolute truth as we still have to pay $300 total each month for our methadone but this too shall disappear in less than three month’s time now. Cool n’est pas?

Moving On Up

Once again it seems as if its been an eternity since I bothered to do any updates which is my bad but this time I have some really valid excuses. Just this past month alone we have moved house at the exact time that I finally returned to work after almost a year off. Wow, my head is still kind of spinning!!!

First let me tell you all about our move cause this in itself is a huge reflection of how far Jim and I have managed to come this past sixteen months. We had been living in a decent enough spot but it certainly wasn’t near as nice of a place that I had been accustomed to, so for me, it very much felt like a step backwards and the entire time that we were there, it was a constant struggle for me to remain positive. I literally loathed eveything about this place and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

More than anything else though, it was a constant reminder of what we had been forced to settle for due to our addictions taking precedent over most everything else.  Each morning that I woke up still living under that same roof was another day where I felt like a massive failure regardless of what other successes we were experiencing. I literally could not escape these feelings although the flipside was that this environment became a huge motivator for change and if change meant putting every spare penny away so that we could afford to put a deposit down on my dream home then so be it.

And it worked fabulously as I am now sitting in my massive new bedroom of our three bedroom, two full bathroom 1425 square foot apartment condo. This is a huge step up for us as previously the four of us - plus we now have six cats cause of the newborn kittens - were crammed into a rather small two bedroom where our bathroom only had room for a shower and no bathtub. The two girls were forced to share a bedroom that barely measured 10′ by 10′. Truly depressing. Now the girls have one bedroom that measures 16′ by 13′ and another that measures 12′ by 19′.

They’ve actually decided to continue to share a bedroom and turn the extra room into a tv/lounge room so that when they have friends over, they won’t have to invade our space. Personally, I think that this is a brilliant idea although right now we don’t have any furniture for it but this situation shouldn’t last too long.

One of the other things that had been bothering me at our old place was the state of our furniture so I decided that when we did finally move, I was going to leave most of it behind and start anew. The girls had been sharing Sara’s double bed but Jim and I decided to get them their own beds once we moved. They picked out these matching solid pine single bed frames with a rail round three of the edges. We also bought them new mattresses for each of their bed frames as well as matching three drawer bedside tables. Sara picked out a really funky brushed silver floor lamp that fans out to approx six separate lights - hard to describe but its really cool!

We got a complete bedroom suite for ourselves - head and foot board, two side tables, a short, long nine drawer dresser with mirror and a tall, narrow five drawer dresser in the darkest brown wood - almost black - that we could find. The handles of our suite are very plain but are done in a brushed silver that looks fabulous. We also bought a new dinette set - a 3′ by 3′ bar table -  means that it is taller than normal or 36″ tall - with four matching wooden chairs with their seat cushions covered in a taupe microsuede. This set is also the darkest brown that we could find.

That’s all that we could afford for the moment but we’re off to a good start. I’m so excited and can’t wait to get our new furniture - it doesn’t arrive until this Wednesday which is now only two days away!

Must dash as I’m up to my eyeballs in laundry.

A Time To Live

A wee bit of excitement on the home front these past two weeks or so. The day before my 43rd birthday, my daughter’s cat had a litter of five kittens. The mother seems to be doing exceptionally well too. This is my first experience, believe it or not as I was denied the privilege of having any kind of pet as a child! I was just as excited as the kids were.

My birthday came and went with relatively little fanfare. You reach a certain age and I guess you really don’t need to be reminded of your diminishing youth. My Mother took me out to lunch which was quite nice all things considering. By this I mean that I have just recently started interacting with my Mother after a seventeen month separation - this is too long a story for today but shortly I think that I’ll be strong enough to share all of its miserable bits with you. My girls bought me a beautiful blank notebook for me to use as my journal and another “coffee table” book on decorating cause that’s one of my passions!

Monday of this week there was a bit of a tragedy in our house as one of the kittens passed way. Unfortunately it was Sara that made the discovery when she had gotten home from school. Jim and I were on our way home when she called us screaming and crying. She took it exceptionally hard and spent most of the night crying and mourning over the loss of the little kitten. We talked quite a bit and the next day she came to me to say that while she was still upset, she would be able to get over it.

So life and death were the two themes of the past half month but at least we’ve all been able to see that silver lining. I will remain an optimist a bit longer it would seem. Cheers!!!