And angry, frustrated and a million other things. Being having a few strange \”moments\” as of late, none of which I care to discuss. I have a TON of e-mails to respond to, been contemplating a career change and I can\’t WAIT for my vacation to come which thankfully is soon however not soon enough!

Motivation, yeah I pretty much lost that somewhere along the way. I\’m hoping after my vacation which won\’t be much of a break due to the fact that family will be following me home… So I took an extra 2 days off of work to accommodate them and my various appointments that I have when I come back anyhow. My hours have been cut back at work which is no shock since its summer and hotter then the armpit of hell on more humid days. We have A/C that does next to NOTHING… So of course who wants to come in and eat at my work when you need a personal fan at your table… Its only for 8 weeks I can deal its only a 5 hour/week loss so not too bad.

I\’m mostly looking forward to my tattoo appointment. I haven\’t been tattooed since JANUARY and I\’m dying here! Must call Tim to confirm my appointment, head to Berri metro & buy my greyhound ticket in advance to save money and a million other things… So yeah nothing really exciting to report, just figured I\’d post something cos well you know, that\’s how I roll 😉

Good old Quebec full of slum lords, too many politics and really random holidays like June 24th aka La Fête nationale du Québec Which means a paid day off of work YAY!  So my friend & co-worker Krystal decided that she was going to have a bbq at her house because none of us had to work the next day.  I was on the fence about going because I was tired and really just wanted to go home and relax since I was so stressed out over a million things but then I thought nah I\’ll go home, shower and what not and head over because I don\’t go out much & it would do me some good to get out of the house.

So I headed over & it was fun, best time I\’ve had in a while!  Got to meet some new people, got molested by Krystal\’s boob licking dog Maya & got more action from her in one night then I do from John in a month lol.  The we all started craving Doritos so I headed over to Couche Tard to get some and that\’s when it all started.  The leering, the stares and the comments from the group of guys that were in there.   I know I\’m not ugly and I do call a lot of attention to myself through my tattoos and I happened to be wearing shorts that night but I as always blew it off.  I DO NOT like getting hit on, it doesn\’t make me feel better about myself and when I have PMS & I\’m 1/2 in the bag it irritates me to no end!  Anyway made it back and I was debating do I take the night bus or do I grab the metro but I wasn\’t ready to leave so I said screw it I\’ll take the night bus which wasn\’t due to leave until 2:10 am. Which just may have been an epic fail on my part!
Jesus Christ, in the 10 minutes I had to wait for the bus I happened to \”run into\” one of the leering guys at the dep from earlier who WOULDN\’T stop talking to me and I almost punched him in the face, some guy asking for directions offered me a ride home (yeah because I want to become a statistic? no thanks!) and several other offers that I of course refused. This poor woman who was walking down the street who was only checking out my leg work scared the crap outta me because I didn\’t see her at first and she said to me in French oh I\’m sorry I just like your tattoos.  All the while I\’m texting John with updates and having a fit while waiting for the bus.  I don\’t know that area very well & while I can hold my own being in a strange part of town drunk @ 2am isn\’t the best place to be alone.  So apparently I\’m a hot commodity in Verdun, who would have thought?  Next time I\’m wearing pants.

In other news…  I got a rude awakening on the 24th by a general contractor who should be thankful I was home…  I got my new water tank installed YAY!  I also got new  baseboard panel for the heat as well so maybe, just maybe I won\’t freeze my ass off this winter!  He\’s coming back on Monday since we have a long weekend for Canada day to install the thermostat and fix my leaking ceiling which I believe he was here today taking a look at it because its leaking from upstairs and in turn ruing my ceiling and floor here.  So that was nice, and a huge load off too!  However that still doesn\’t solve the insulation issue I have with the wall that faces the outside…  As in there isn\’t any at all!  So me being the crafty DIY decorating diva has decided to take matters into my own hands and solve that problem as well.

I went to home depot in search of polystyrene sheets that were 1/2\” thick but they didn\’t have any that width so I searched around and found very economical Styrofoam insulation instead (23.00 for 7 sheets of it!) which is even better because its easier to carve, doesn\’t cost a lot of money and will still act as an insulation barrier as well.  So I installed plastic sheeting first and then nailed the sheets to the wall which sucked because I still have electrical outlets and what not to work around so that was interesting to say the least. Thankfully the wall itself isn\’t very large so fairly easy to cover for the most part. I don\’t know if this is going to help or not but one would think it would at least to a certain degree! So once that is fully installed I\’m just going to take some plaster Paris and do a very light texture over top of it because the Styrofoam isn\’t smooth enough on its own to paint. Whatever I have left over I\’m going to use underneath my kitchen sink because that too is draft central.

So because my new baseboard heating unit is shorter then the old one, you can see the old paint that was there so that needs some repair work which I also plan on doing this afternoon/evening because while I did like the look of the paint job that was here I prefer something that more to my liking and will paint the hallway/kitchen area one color and I plan on doing a really nice faux finish on the living room walls. I already painted my bedroom & bathroom door white & re-painted the trim and it already looks a million times better! So whomever moves in here after I leave should be happy with not having to freeze in the winter, and not worry about their hot water tank going to hell, can\’t say they\’ll appreciate the decor but to each their own!

I\’m pretty sure I made it past the worry about dry socket stage YAY!  There\’s still some residual sensitivity but nothing I can\’t deal with.  I was poking around the one area and it seems that my gum\’s are regenerating quite well which is good!  I fear for my back molar though because that one is actually attached to 1 of your nasal passages and guess what I got now: A bitch of a cold!

So I go from extreme nerve pain, to surgery, to recovery then BAM cold time!  It started on Saturday in the afternoon with some sneezing fits and then by Saturday night I was feeling pretty gross and stayed home the rest of the night and most of Sunday.  I only went out on Sunday to run a few quick errands to pick up some party food for my birthday party on Saturday since it was on sale YAY and then pretty much vegged out at home.

In any case I was REALLY happy to get my tax return!  This means I have extra vacation cash, paid some bills off and I NO longer owe EI from an overpayment I got while I was on unemployment back in 2006 I think YAY!  That was a nice surprise to wake up to since June kills me with birthdays and holidays grrr.  I have to ship out my nieces gift ASAP since her birthday is on the 16th and I don\’t always trust Canada post to get it there on time and I have a secret stash of goodies that I have to send off to Ania which I am certain she will enjoy 🙂

So aside from that I really have nothing new to report per say…  I have pictures that I really should get around to uploading on here and showing some stuff off.  I\’m trying to find a good widget or plugin for this thing to create thumbnails as opposed to huge pictures.  I\’ll figure something out eventually!  Hard to think straight when your so congested and a little loopy from allergy/cold/pain medication.

On a sad note my friends dog had to be put down.  When we used to work together, I would save the scraps from the roast beef and send home a care package with Clint for Koko which of course was the 1st thing I thought of when I had heard the news.  So with a little help from rainbow bridge , stealing \”borrowing\” pictures of his and his S/O facebook album\’s and my not to shabby graphic skills I made him a present ( this was a prototype, I actually centered it better and added more elements):

He really liked it!  I had it printed on an 8×10 and had it matted and framed into a 10×15 frame for him.  He was AWESOME to work with, a great boss and helped me out a lot and I knew that there would come a day I could pay it forward in a way and do something nice for him.  I was pretty pleased with the end result, which I can\’t find a copy of at the current moment, but you get the idea.

First thing first…

VOTE FOR CARLY!

My lovely friend gay boyfriend Jeremy is in town and that makes me SO happy!  I adore him and I haven\’t seen him since last summer and I Miss him terribly!  So tonight Donna, Jeremy, myself and whomever else cares to join us will be heading off to the gay village to hit up the drugstore (a bar, not a pharmacy lol) for a few drinks and to catch up and Jeremy and I are going to go out for brunch on Sunday which is always nice!  We\’re on a mission to find a girlfriend for Donna 😉

So I am quite excited about that!  Donna and I went out Tuesday night and had a blast!  We went out for dinner to Schwartz\’s which I have never been to in spite of that fact that its pretty famous here and I\’ve lived in this city for 5 years now.  Now I am not exactly a smoked meant connoisseur in the least but I am a Chef and I know good food and I thought it was high time I seen what all the hype was about…  Yeah i\’m not exactly sure what to say about that experience other then it was slightly over-rated to say the least.  Its your typical diner, crazy busy, packed to the gills with people and you have to share tables with strangers, thats just the way it is.  Which didn\’t bother me because the 2 younger guys we were sharing a table with made me laugh.  Don\’t get me wrong the food was good but it wasn\’t this mind blowing experience I had thought it would be…  I\’ll go back for sure but I think I\’ll order mine lean next time.  Mine wasn\’t too bad in terms of being too fatty but Donna\’s dear God I think her sandwich had more fat then meat!  Fries were decent and they had dark cherry soda which I hadn\’t had in a really long time so that was a nice treat.

En route to the deli, we spotted this AMAZING crepe place that has their wares displayed in the window sealed in acrylic so you could see what went into each crepe but sadly it closed at 8pm and we missed out by all of 3 minutes, so sadly we didn\’t end up going. I however was on the quest for dessert since the idea was put into my head! It was still early and a beautiful night so we decided to head back into the downtown core to find some ice cream and a terrace to park it and just hang out. So we went into Sucre bleu which is a quaint little candy shop FILLED with retro candy that I enjoyed as a child so that was great fun. We also found this darling little fondue/crepe place that was full so we made a note to go back and visit and soon! We ended up at second cup (Exciting eh :p) and sat out on the terrace having vanilla hot chocolate (regular hot chocolate with vanilla added) which was yummy topped with a smidge of whipped cream and chocolate shavings and I had some rather generic and dry tiramesu which is usually my favorite dessert but this was somewhat disappointing! I flung some of my hot chocolate on it and then it wasn\’t so bad.

Then we headed home because it was getting late and I really had to pee! Neither one of us would use the bathroom there, too many creepy people in that part of downtown!

Earlier this week, I finally got around to trying my 3 musketeer\’s dark chocolate mint chocolate bar which Donna was kind enough not to eat on me lol.

I only like dark chocolate when its paired with certain things and mint is def. one of them!  It was interesting to say the least.  My favorite dark chocolate/mint combo is york peppermint patties, I LOVE THEM!  Anyway I was curious about this chocolate bar which is more expensive then your average run of the mill chocolate bar ($1.39 in case your wondering).  The nougat is the same as their regular bars except its white and minty.  Not overly minty though, I thought it could have used a little more.  Covered in dark chocolate which wasn\’t too bitter which was nice.  Overall it was good, not something I would buy all the time mind you but would munch on again should the craving arise.

I also had John over for the weekend and we I made steak (John isn\’t allowed in my kitchen) and I don\’t know if it was the cut or what but I tell you, it looked like brains when it was finished cooking!