5C's Que Pasa

When in the USA last month Colin and I shopped at JC Penney where the clerk at checkout talked us into getting one of their credit cards and getting a 15% discount on our purchases.  We did not want a US credit card as it is too difficult to make payments.  According to her things have changed and you can simply go online and pay off your balance with your Visa Card which is how I wanted to pay in the first place but okay we’d go for it and save the 15%.  Well so far it has cost us 80% grief.

There is no way we can pay the JC Penney bill with our Visa card unless we go into one of their stores in the US in person!  Well that is not going to happen any time soon.  I refuse to go to the bank or post office and spend more money than I saved to mail in the payment using a money order.  On principle I will only pay that bill with my Visa card and I have cancelled our account with JC Penney.  Now they are hounding us to make the payment.  We are quite willing to pay but on our terms, the terms we were talked into opening the account with in the first place by a misinformed JC Penney employee.

It seems that JC Penney has no one to deal with or to discuss this issue with as they have a financial institution who handles this end of business and they will only talk money, not what the employee said.  Now we are getting calls, close to daily, wanting to speak with Colin.  Colin’s name is on the credit card as I did not have my ID with me that day nor know my SIN by memory as he does so the credit card was issued in his name.  So when this financial institution calls they will only speak to Colin because of Canada’s Privacy Act.  They won’t even tell me the name of their company!!  Finally yesterday Colin happened to be home when ‘they’ called.  Great, now we could get this resolved.  It got worse.

The lady would not talk to Colin if I was on the other phone line listening in and helping answer the questions.  She said she was not allowed to even have me listen to the conversation as it was illegal.  Now that is really going too far!  First off I do all the banking and all the legal stuff, that’s my job in our family.  So we are at a stalemate as Colin does not know the answers to the questions and I am not allowed to supply them.

We have had other issues in the past because of the Privacy Act but usually Colin just takes the phone for a moment and tells them to talk to me as he had no idea what’s going on and then I continue on and deal with the situation.  So who knows how this will all end up?  Very frustrating and not worth the 15% savings!!

Meanwhile yesterday we got to see the steel foundation for the new home!

For those following the cement pour, it is finally happening right now!!!

Tags: 319, Privacy Act

Yesterday just zipped by with all the decisions and changes that had to be made.  Good thing Colin was able to be here.  I was disappointed that the crew packed up and left early at 4PM.  It is a 5 day job and they are trying to get it done in 4 days but not if they aren’t here.  We are already foreseeing problems installing the new irrigation on Friday.  Our irrigation guy came by about 5PM yesterday and pointed out that the cement guys should have left us some of our sod and soil, now he has to bring it in to fill in the gap they made because of the forming  ( at our expense ) and of course the grass will be a different type.

Of course we had to have the one obligatory pipe broken! It has been hidden for at least 15 years and finally after many discussions with almost the entire maintenance department ( coming back and forth ) it was decided to simply cap it and cover it with cement.

Finally about 6:30PM life settled down and we went to the local Italian restaurant, Ricardo's here at Holiday Park. New friends and our new neighbors on the lake front joined us. Karen & Lyle are from Calgary, Alberta but don't plan to move here for a few years. Meanwhile they will just enjoy their RV on their beach site a few times per month.

I really wanted that first bite of dark chocolate mousse but had to blow the candle out first. I love the serving dish!

Colin's card to me was just so perfect that I had to share it with you. When you read the words you will understand how it describes our lifestyle perfectly....at least we get to have both in our lives.....I left out the mushy part of the card!!

……and so today begins……a forecast of 40% chance of showers later today, not sure how that will affect the cement pour….and…are you ready…a new foreman for the cement job who knows nothing about the task at hand!!  Time to get dressed and get out there to do me some supervising!

Tags: 319, friends, Holiday Park

In the honour of my birthday today, S & K Forming, our concrete crew showed up!  Woooohoooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!  Plus it stopped raining so it looks like we will get the cement completed this week.

Thank you for dropping by...

Shortly we were into chaos....guys working everywhere. It was so windy that the lake had whitecaps and we are all cold! Thanks for the birthday call Gramma Katie but I was standing out here when you called this morning so I couldn't talk too much.

What a way to start the day, lots of quick decisions that could only be made once the hedge was pulled out. Some things not what we had visualized but hopefully it will all come together over the next few months.

In addition to those wonderful gifts the steel framing on our new home is being started today.  Colin has been too busy to realize that today I add another digit to my numbers but I will get him to take me out for dinner simply cuz I am not cooking.

We got a lot done over the weekend including pulling out our wind wheel. Not sure where it will go on the new site yet.

As long are the girls are warm and have full tummies they are happy.

Somehow I think this will be a birthday I won’t forget:)

Tags: 319, The girls

Recycle, recycle, recycle!!!

I think we are all now doing it to some degree.  It is even catching on in many parts of Mexico.

Here at Holiday Park Resort, recycling has become a huge thing, they have even won civic awards for what goes on here.  We have an area for cardboard only, another for light bulbs, another for household batteries, another for normal glass and a huge bin for plastics.  There is even an area for visitors to the park to drop off their wine & liquor bottles, soda cans, etc. if they don’t feel like returning them to the store, which one of the clubs in the park recycles and uses the money for the good of the park.

We of course have the huge dumpster for the rest of the stuff but here we go one step further.  If  you have something of some value to throw away it is usually placed in front of the dumpster giving someone else the opportunity to pick it up rather than send that item to the dump forever.  Many people have recycled plant pots this way, bicycles, even food in its original package.  I have seen wine racks, shoes, an ironing board, a toaster, lamps, you name and it has likely been out in from of our dumpster.  The amazing thing is that most of the items are claimed by someone bringing their own garbage to the dumpster.  Now that is true recycling.

With all the packing we are doing there is also a great deal of stuff being chucked but much less is finding it’s way to the landfill.  We went to Rona to dispose of half filled paint cans.  Canadian Tire accepted our various bits of oil in a few containers.  Colin researched online on how to dispose of our hundreds of CD’s.  He discovered that it can take a million years to break down CD’s and the jewel cases.  Staples in both Canada and the USA will accept these and recycle them for you.  Bet you didn’t know that.

This new home of ours is going to be as green as we can make it, from flooring, to hot water on demand, to the furnace, to finding low energy appliances, low E glass windows and whatever else we can find.  Our world deserves our effort!

Tags: 319, ecology, Holiday Park

Do you have a bucket list?

I went to a funeral yesterday.  Only my second ever funeral and it hit me hard.  It was more a celebration of life for a friend here at Holiday Park who died much too young at 66.  This was the fourth friend we have lost in a month!! Of course one begins to think of our own mortality.  I also wonder if I am truly living my life to the fullest each and every hour of every day.  What is important?  What isn’t?

Colin’s Mom, who lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is going to turn 98 this October and she is still going strong, taking the city bus to the mall, grocery shopping and cooking her own meals.  She says she is not ready to die, that she isn’t ready to kick the bucket yet.  We asked her if she had a bucket list?  She had never heard of the term before.  So now she is working on her bucket list.

There are all kinds of bucket lists, places to travel to, a special style of dance you want to learn, a new language to absorb, to run in a marathon, to go out to a new restaurant once a month, to read a book each week, to get out in nature and smell the lilacs of spring, to learn a new craft, to sing in a choir and on and on.  What do you want to do before you die?  Better start making a list……

Tags: friends, health, Life