My car has needed a new struts in the front for a little while now and I have been putting it off because I would end up loosing the car for a few days while they did it. I know not a very good reason… would I rather loose it for 2 days while they fix it or have something more happen because of it and loose it for a week or worse. My logic is rather faulty at the moment… Now, it seems there is something else wrong with my car. Ever put your emergency break on on a hill and then drove away forgetting to take it off? The car feels sluggish like it is breaking (obviously!) and sometimes you get that rubber burning smell. Well I do not have my emergency break on and it is doing that. Minus the burning smell (thank god). It kinda feels like that or like it’s just stuck in gear or something and is not changing gears. So now I need to take it in and have someone look at it. It’s fairly new too, a 2008, so I am hoping it is nothing serious. Nothing the warranty won’t cover hopefully.

Lizzie posted on her blog days that she will alway remember. I agree there are always days that you will never forget. Something so significant happened that you will always remember that day. Mine aren’t all specific dates in history. More just dates in my life that I will always remember. Here’s the 2 most memorable days in my life. That’s not saying that there aren’t more…

9/11

I’ll start off with the same one. As it was memorable and affected so many people. All over the world. For some of the same reasons and for some different ones.

I was at work. I was working at The Bay (a large Canadian Department store)  in Mic Mac Mall. I was behind the counter and the televisions where off to the left in the furniture department and we could clearly see them from behind the counter. I was ringing in someones transaction and just happened to glance over at the TV as I saw the broadcast of it happening I thought it was something someone had “computer” generated as I could not here the sound. Then someone said “Turn it up!” So they did. Just as the second plane hit. My mouth dropped open and the girl I was waiting on said “What is it”? I could only point. Then she stared in shocked horror too. We both went over there and she grabbed my hand (she was a complete stranger) as she started to ball when we realized it was real. I do not remember much of the rest of the day. I had to go home because my Dad was in New York or New Jersey and we were not sure where. Turns out he was very close…

Rolling my Car

If you’ve ever been in or seen a car accident you know how traumatic they can be or how it’s something you will never forget. I’ve only ever been in 2 that I can remember and neither one of them was that great but I really must have had someone on my side during one of them. It was on February 14th of last year (yep,Valentines day…) and I was in Halifax because I was getting some last minute stuff done before I went to Afghanistan. I was leaving for Ottawa for training in about 3 weeks and needed to all the paperwork ready for my passport and work visa and to do something with my boyfriend at the time. He never showed so I left. I was driving back home and it was snowing pretty heavily I was supposed to stop at Martock and pick up my brother on the way home but when I got there he had already gotten a ride home (thank god!) so I left and was driving towards home and there was a curve up ahead, same one I had been around a number of times.

And I lost control. I hit a patch of ice and couldn’t see where I was going and I new I was going to hit the guard rail and it wouldn’t be good. Only… there was no guardrail and I went right over the side and down steep hill. Steep enough you can not walk up it. There is a river down below. A small one but deep enough and fast enough to drown someone easily. The incline was also covered in trees. Large pine trees and some small ones. I hit a tree and flipped the car onto the drivers side. And slid through the snow down the hill hitting more trees along the way till I hit another large one which flipped my car onto the roof and I rolled sideways down the hill heading right for the river.

Luckily I hit another large tree (if you could call that lucky) which flipped me back onto my side and then upright and I ended up with my car in the water facing upstream. It quickly started filling with water and I panicked and call my ex-boyfriend then 911.  I managed to get out of the car (by breaking a window) and thankfully the snow was hard packed enough to not just roll away as I pulled myself up the hill by grabbing onto trees (the ones that were left anyways) and soft enough that I had something to help me get up the hill. It took a number of tries and I kept sliding back into the water and under the car.

Finally I managed to get up the hill and onto the road but I was scared someone would hit me in the snow storm so I headed for a bridge I new was up ahead hoping that I could get to a house that was just after it. Someone came along though and found me. But they couldn’t even see my car (pictures of the car and accident site on my facebook) from the road it was so far down and didn’t even believe me at first. My car was totaled but I was unhurt mostly (sore and hurt my neck and back a little but no lacerations or major injuries)!

The Day I arrived in Kandahar

We had training for a week prior to going and I had “months” to prepare myself for going. I was all excited and scared at the same time. I kind of knew what to expect but it was still a bit of a shock when I landed. As we were approaching I was listening to my mp3 player and I had my Nikon CoolPix (mine is an 8MP one from a year or two ago but you get the idea) out taking pictures. I did not take my good camera as I was scared sand and bugs and stuff would damage it but now I am wishing with the money I made there, and since I could have easily just bought another one, that I did take the good one. Anyway I was taking pictures and the guy in the seat beside me asked me to put it away and said that I needed to make sure nothing that could move was out. IE put everything away in the bag under your seat… So I did. And you have no idea how thankful I was that I did! Next thing I know were went from being in the air (way way up) to on the ground in a matter of a minute or less. It was a fast landing. My first days there were filled with trying to get all the ID’s I needed on base and settling into my 6×8 foot ‘room’ in my tent. And learning not to wear shorts and short sleeves as the sun burns! Sand got in everything. Even places you didn’t know existed! And it smelled. Really bad. But in the end when I left I had a lot of good and bad memories (like falling and biting 1/3 of my lip off… thankfully it was on the inside and grows back to a point but leaves a scar) to bring with me. And I was kinda sad to leave.

Maybe I will think of some more later. But that’s it for now…

I was listening to the radio this morning on the way to take Keith in to work. They said this winter was the warmest winter that Halifax has had in 63 years! Imagine that. And here I was finding it cold. I did miss half the winter last year. The coldest part of it anyways. Maybe that’s why I found it cold this year? It’s starting to get warmer in them morning though. I can feel it in the air.

I want to plan a trip to peggy’s cove and maybe go the lighthouse route and get some good pictures of some Nova Scotia Lighthouses (and maybe New Brunswick and go visit Gram). I took this one a few years ago with my Mom in peggy’s cove on an old digital camera we had. Considering the fact it was only about 4 MP it turned out ok. But this time I want to use a better camera. Maybe I can have a new one by then. That would be awesome. I am going to start saving up for one here soon. I’ll sell the old one and maybe get a little of the money back I put into it. Camera’s are getting much cheaper to by now then they used to. Or maybe they are just better camera’s for the same price as the older ones…

I can’t wait for summer to come. But I will savor spring while it’s here cause I love the cool sunny weather before the hot sun comes. I’m looking forward to going for walks along the beach and taking pictures. I miss laying in the sand and feeling the sun on my face. Yeah I know it’s not good for you but I wear sunscreen and cover up as much as I can. I tan a little sometimes but it’s hard not too. Besides last year my tan was all from being over in Kandahar anyways. I burnt quite badly there a couple of times using SPF 80 sunscreen! It just did nothing. But anyways I really am looking forward to getting out and being in the water. My parents have a pool that they are going to put up. They had to take it down when they moved but I’m sure Keith and I will go help them put it back up and level out the ground. It’s a rather large one (19 feet across or something like that) and it’s over 4 feet deep so it’s a good size.

Anyways I guess I should go get some housework done. I have a list a mile long.

• Wash the dishes
• Clean the litterbox
• Clean the bathroom
• Clean the kitchen
• Vacuum
• Dust the living room and bedroom
• Fold laundry
• Put laundry away

And the list goes on…

I’m really itching to do my own theme for WordPress. It’s been a long time since I fully designed and coded anything. I have an idea though. I am allowed to bring a laptop to work as long as we don’t get carried away and ignore calls and chats, so my hope is that I can find a small laptop or netbook on Kijiji for about $250-300. Then I can install everything on there (just have to by a portable DVD drive) and keep it right at work. No carrying a bulky laptop (which Keith’s not too keen on anyways) back and forth to work. I think it’s a good idea… hope he feels the same.

I’ve been looking for things to do here at night anyways. The night I’m on the phone are busy but the nights I’m on chat are pretty boring. Hours with nothing to do. At least I’m getting paid to sit here right? I’m not complaining at all!

I’m getting excited. One of my Christmas presents from Keith was tickets to see Our Lady Peace Sunday @ the Metro Center! I can’t wait! I have been looking forward to this all month. Well longer then that really. I have not really listened to their newest CD. Mostly because I have not listened to much of anything lately other then the radio. I can never remember to by blank CD’s to burn stuff for my car. And my IPod Touch is broken It died last year after a car accident put it in a freezing river.

Apparently that is not good for IPods… neither is putting them through the washing machine either lol! Yes I have gone through 2 IPod Shuffles, an IPod nano (Brought that one to Afghanistan with me! Sand does wonders for electronic equipment!)  and an IPod Touch (16 GB one too, I was hoping there was a way to fix it but no luck so far) in less then 2 years. I don’t mean to be so hard on things, I just happen to have bad luck!

It’s been roughly about 8 months since I came back from Kandahar. So much has changed! But for the good. I’m finally feeling like things are starting to go in the direction that I am looking for. I started a new job last Friday. It’s a call center. However, it’s such a small one that it really doesn’t feel much like a call center at all. It’s for an e-mail marketing company. I wont mention which one. Just for privacy reasons I guess more then anything. But so far so good. It’s really not all that complicated.

Everything else is starting to work out too. By getting the new job it’s finally putting us financially where we need to be to get ahead. There is so much that I want out of life and it’s finally starting to come together.  We are hoping to move out of our apartment in the next few months and maybe find an apartment with 2 bedrooms and a balcony. Can’t forget the balcony! Keith really wants one. So the search is on.  The hope is that we will find a superintendent job in a building and get at the very least our rent for free. If nothing else. Every little bit counts right?

As it is we are in a building that does not allow cats and we have a kitten (so does a number of people in the building…) so we hope to find a cat friendly apartment as well. Had to drive to Chester to bring Midnight (the cat) to my parents for a week while they replace our apartment windows. Hopefully that wont take very long…