My little Miwo (Milo)

Yesterday I made the terribly long drive to Ottawa with Alex to pick up our new son Milo. He is SO freaking cute and OMG tiny! lol

Maya (our other devon rex kitten) is 7 months old now (only 4 months older than him) and is 3 times his size. CRAZY!

He is beautiful. Dark black velvet face with a beautiful white tear drop muzzle, black legs with white paws, and right now his back is a very dark grey colour (like a smoke black). I think that might be because he is already going through his first moult, but I would LOVE it if he stayed that way...teehee.

I've taken a ton of pictures of him already just haven't had time to post them. I had him out pretty much the entire ride home. He was sleeping in my lap, and he was playing in my lap also. The only time he was in his carrier was when I made him go eat/drink and the two times that we stopped at gas stations to grab a bite to eat. Such a doll.

Completely different once we got home, he's quite skittish yet, but he's not used to being in such a large space, having an ENTIRE house to roam through, lol. He's taken quite a liking to Maya and Alfie, and thank goodness, Alfie our big bully is actually playing with Milo, not trying to KILL him like he did with Maya. Good boy! He's a little rough, but he's like 5x his size so, he can't help it, lol. Milo isn't exactly cuddly unless he is sleepy and doesn't like to really be touched if he's in playful mode. But, it is only his first whole day with us today so that may change in time. I'm just so used to my little velcro cat Maya that it's strange to not have one want to be attached to my ankles, haha.

Anywahoo, I will try to get some pictures of him posted tonight or tomorrow....or some other time, lol. Later!

My New Puppy! .... whoops, I meant Kitten!

So it's been decided by the breeder and I will be getting.....drum roll please................



The black and white male!!! The black boy ended up being a breeder/show kitten.
Here is the most recent picture of the little gem:

Definitely looks a lot cuter eh? And a LOT less like a puppy dog, haha.
I think I've almost decided on the name Milo for him...not as good as Merlin, but I think it suits him! Then (if anyone cares) I was thinking his pedigree name could be "Raya's Pup in a Cat Suit" because he looked like a boston terrier when he was quite young, and we all know he's going to act like a dog! haha.

No ETA on when he can come home yet, but I'm figuring around end of September/beginning of October because he's only about 5 weeks old at this point.

Enjoy!

Having Neighbours REALLY sucks...

Now that Alex and I live in our own place which we OWN, we thought that we would have a lot more freedom and a lot less annoyances. Well, we were wrong.

Our neighbours on the left side moved in last week and it's been nothing but trouble since Day 1!

First they were parking in our driveway and blocking our space for the first couple days...OK well they're moving in, so I forgive them for that, but then they're parking part way in OUR driveway...not cool!

Then, in the middle of the day, Alex was playing music while doing the dishes and the chick next door comes over and tells him to turn the subwoofer down because she can feel the vibrations next door and her baby is taking a nap... so he apologizes and turns it down.

Yesterday, I was upstairs on the computer writing up my new resume and to help with the boredom and lack of motivation, I played some music to pass the time. I then left to pick up Alex from work and my brother/mother for dinner and returned to a note on my door once again stating that we need to turn down our subwoofer. OK, well firstly, the subwoofer for my computer isn't THAT great and it wasn't turned up all the way, AND it's not even on the floor so I'm not sure how much in the way of vibrations the would feel. Anyways, I went over there and talked to her husband and told him that I wasn't making much noise, I was just upstairs writing my resume AND when I was downstairs watching TV I felt some major vibrations and some loud banging coming from their house. I didn't complain because I know what it was - the washing machine. On the spin cycle it spins at extereme speeds and because it's on the main floor it causes some massive vibrations. I didn't complain... I said that we'd try to keep an eye on the sound.

Honestly though, this is f'ing crazy. I don't give a rats ass if their baby is trying to sleep. And why is she making her baby nap at 4:30pm...that seems a little bit late for a baby to take a nap. Aside from that, she doesn't really have any right to complain because it's in the middle of the day, and quite frankly, I can be as loud as I damn well please!! I'm pretty sure the police aren't going to do anything unless I'm making a lot of noise after 11:00pm, which is standard, and fair.

This drives me absolutely crazy and made me so upset. I just want to write a note on their door telling them to fuck off and get over it. If they didn't want to hear any sort of noise, then they should have bought a house or a semi instead of a townhouse. I hope their other next door neighbours are young too and make lots of noise so they can have a fun time trying to get us both to shut up.

I want some opinions on this though from everyone. What I'm thinking is that every time they write a note and leave it on my door, I will keep it. They have been writing the times on their notes thus far so that should help me later on...BUT, if they keep that shit up, I'm going to report them for harassing me because there is no reason why I can't play my music in the middle of the day, and honestly I'm not even playing it THAT loud. The funny thing about that as well, while living with my mom in her condo (which was cheaply built so probably less insulation and space between the walls etc.) we never once had a complaint from either neighbour and we would watch movies in the middle of the night, fairly loudly, with the subwoofer turned up all the way (upstairs, which is worse because their master bedroom would have been adjacent with my bedroom). So what I think is that this chick has a giant STICK up her ass and she's just pissed off because she's at home all day with her baby and she wants a bit of a break while her baby naps. Whatever...vibrations are not going to wake up a baby, if anything, it would probably be soothing for them, lol. And a tiny bit of noise between the walls isn't going to disturb the baby either.

God, it just completely INFURIATES me because now I have to be constantly worried about whether we're being too bloody loud or not. That means that if I want to stay up late on a Friday night and watch a movie with my SURROUND SOUND, they're probably going to come a knocking and bitch at us about it.

Well you know what, they can call the police if they want to because what can they legally do in the middle of the day? NOTHING! And if the cops come, I'll make the come in my house and play the music for them as loud as I normally would and see if that is a problem with the police.

JERK OFFS! I knew I was going to hate my neighbours, I just hope the ones on our right side aren't as freaking petty because this is bloody ridiculous.

Please people, I want your opinions on what I should do or if I'm actually in the wrong here!!!
Thanks guys! =D

Forced Department Switch!

Currently at Rogers I work in Cable Fulfillment, which is a fairly easy position most of the time.

You have a 50/50 chance of getting either a dealer or a customer on the phone. With dealers/retailers they just spat a bunch of information at you while you setup an account for them and add services to it for the customer. Sometimes you get some real jerks calling in who treat you like dirt (there are dealers who have the same problem with reps so...). You get the ones that have no idea what they're doing, or they have NONE of the customer's info so it takes you 3x as long to get through the call, or finally they try to use a promotion that the customer isn't eligible for and then argue with you about it for 10 minutes. If you get the last rep, sometimes they will hang up in a huff, or other times they will pretend to understand, but they will (I'm going to stab at 100% of the time) call back at some point to try and get the promo added on via another rep. They think we don't write notes on the accounts or something, haha, fools!

Then there are the customers, which are pretty good most of the time. The only real downside (and I would say is at no fault to our customers) the new retail promo we have for HD is disappointing due to a 1 year commitment latched on to it. Most customers become pretty unhappy about that, I can't really blame them. Anyways, customers are fine because then we can sell them things and most of the time they aren't rude, they expect you to be there to help!

OK, so this week many of us were notified that we were being recognized as being in the top 20% in sales in our department (wow...). What does this mean for us? We are being moved to "Converged Sales" where we will be expected to sell, sell, sell and meet some ridiculous sales targets. Personally, I'm not a sales person...really, really not! I'm not overly comfortable with it, and I definitely hate sounding pushy. So this is now my job, to be forced to go beyond my comfort level and get customers interested in our services.

There are pluses to working in Sales of course...
- never have to work Sundays (until they change that...)
- never work past 9pm (this makes me very happy)
- still make the same salary
- potential to make more due to sales (maybe not a plus for me)

And there are negatives as well...
- no more quarterly bonuses (I was really hoping for those, although they seem to not exist,lol)
- have to meet certain targets in order for our sales to count for anything
- constant stream of calls (whereas now we are so relaxed)
- there are others I can't think of, lol

Our training starts on Monday and we'll have to work 4-midnight for 7 days. I'll get over that, no big deal, even though for some strange reason Alex seems to have all 11:30-8's aside from one shift over that time. What are the odds!

I am a little apprehensive about this move to another department. It's not really a promotion per-se, it's just a move, so to me it's not a big deal in that respect as I really don't plan on having another job that has anything to do with selling anything. I'm worried about not making my targets and then being constantly pressured by my manager about it, trying to find out why I'm not selling things. I could tell the truth...I hate selling things, but regardless of what department I'm in, it plays a part in my position there, so I don't think the truth is relevant.

I guess we'll see how things go, and hopefully soon we'll find out a heck of a lot more, because so far, information as been lacking.

The other awesome part, my acting TM (she rocks) got me some time off for my move which if I stayed in fulfillment I would have NEVER gotten as there was no availability to do so!! Not even a slight possibility of getting them. So they're all booked and now I have almost 1 week off after I move. I might have to work 1 or 2 days the week after our closing, but I'm quite alright with that! =)

I will update with what I learn over the next week or so.

Official Closing Date!

Alright, so we've finally heard back, and our closing date will be July 18, 2007! Woot woot! The nice thing about that date is I have the day off, and we will be able to get our keys by 4:00pm at the very latest, so that is awesome news! Now we just have to sign the amendment papers and everything will be official.

Now if only we could get other things straightened out! lol.

We are planning to move in on July 21, 2007, so anybody that would be willing to help, it would be very greatly appreciated!!! =D

Lates.

Exciting news!

Since our house is now "completely" finished on the inside, we have the option to move up our closing date! We're looking at mid-July as long as both of us can get the appropriate time off! We will be sitting down tonight or perhaps tomorrow morning to figure out which day we are choosing as our closing date!

More details to come...

(btw, this also means the date of the housewarming will move up substantially!)

Monika - aka Mona

I went on a very long drive yesterday to Orleans and back, and let me tell you, even though I had to do the driving there AND back, and by the end I was quite exhausted, it was more than worth it.

When I got there I signed the kitten contract and she then informed me that she thought the blue-eyed white kitten would be better suited to me. So not the kitten I was expecting to get. She let me know the gold-eyed white that I had chosen from the pictures was very shy where has the blue-eye was pretty outgoing and personable but in the end it is up to me. We ended up going into the nursery to play with the kittens and it was probably the greatest experience ever. They all climb up on you and sleep in your lap and they all just want to be with you! The pictures definitely don't do them justice at all either, they are freaking GORGEOUS, and oh so tiny! hehe Ultimately, I did decide to go with the blue-eyed white which is kind of what I preferred in the first place but had sadly made my decision on the look of the kittens in the pictures and her picture wasn't very flattering, lol.

Long trip home with lots of whining from my little girly in the back seat but luckily my mom took her out a few times for some much needed TLC!

She is absolutely amazing and I could not ask for a better Devon Rex kitten. I am so much in love with her already and she has taken to me so quickly. She even spent the whole night sleeping with me...well aside from 6:00 am when she felt like playing and decided to wake mum up, haha.

I think the hardest part of everything was choosing a name for her, and I'm still not sure if it's the one I'm going to stick with. She is very petite, graceful and feminine looking so she needs kind of a girly name. I've decided on Monika - Mona for short (which is what she'll be called) - which means "little noble one" or if you go with the Mona meaning "desires; wishes". Cute name I think, and we'll soon find out if it suits her. I went through so many different names that I thought would be OK but none of them seem to fit!

The only downside...yes there must always be a downside...Alfie, Alex's kitten is about twice her size (she is VERY petite - only 1.5 weeks younger than Alfie) and he doesn't seem to like her. He has been trying to maul her to death since she got home. She now hates him in fact and hides from him. When he comes near her, she growls and hisses at him. She was perfectly fine with him before he started viciously attacking her, and I really mean ATTACKING! So we're not too sure what we're going to do. She's always going to be smaller than him, even when she's an adult she'll be half his size! They are VERY petite cats...... so, anyone want a kitten? lol. That is worst case scenario, but he is being very very bad this week and he's even attacking me so we're not sure what his problem is.

Now the good part....pictures!!! =D