A Week to Forget

So, I mentioned in my last post that I've been having some issues at work; and this past week, A LOT has happened related to my job.

As my title suggests, I want to forget the events of the last week - or at least forget the stress they created. But, this blog is here to document events of my life, so I'm going to give a quick summary of what has been going on, and what is going on for the rest of the golf season.

- I have to rewind to June, 7th, when I gave the General Manager my two weeks notice - I had decided to quit. At that point, the GM told me that he was not going to accept my resignation, he said I was important part of the club, and that he wanted me to rethink my decision. I didn't have another job to go to at that point, so I figured I would just stay at the club until something came along.

- I start looking for new jobs and sending out resumes; I contact my former boss to see if he can contact some courses in the area to help my chances at getting work at one of them

- On June 17th I meet with the GM and Head Pro at Loyalist Golf & C.C.; the 'interview' goes well, but they are clear about the fact that they don't have a position for me, but they will keep me in mind for next season

- On June 20th, the Head Pro from Loyalist calls me at work and says that a position has opened up, and asks if I will take it - I say yes!

- On June 21st I tell various co-workers at BQ that I will be leaving; I tell the Golf Pro first, then the GM and the owner (it was ironic that the owner was even on property that day); chaos ensues for the next hour or so (lots of discussion amongst management, all behind closed doors in the Pro Shop, while I'm behind the counter trying to pretend they're not a few feet away talking about me); eventually, I'm taken into the office and the GM tells me that he is aware of the two major problems I'm having at work (person A and B), and that they are going to deal with person A immediately (lay him off/fire him) and that person B will be gone by the end of the September - he says that he hopes that will change my mind about leaving; my mind is racing when I leave work that night!

- On June 22nd, person A is laid off - an immediate weight is lifted off my shoulders; I leave the shop that afternoon, feeling sure about my decision, I call the Head Pro at Loyalist to tell him about the changes at BQ, and to let him know that I will be staying there - however, I mention that if I leave, BQ would be down to 3 people in the shop, and he states that their shop is down to 2 people; I feel incredibly guilty and change my mind, I tell him that I will work the next day as planned (it was my scheduled day off from BQ anyway)

- On June 23rd I work an 8 hour shift at Loyalist; I learn more about the position, and feel a little apprehensive about taking the job; I finish the shift with a very unsettled feeling, and process everything on the drive home (that, by the way, is almost an hour, versus the 10 minute drive to BQ) - I decide on the way home that I don't want to change jobs (the commute is too much, and the shop at Loyalist has their own issues, and I don't want to come in in the middle of the season)

- On June 24th I go to work another shift at Loyalist, but tell the Head Pro immediately what I have decided; luckily, he is very understanding and supports the fact that I have to do what is best for me

- On June 25th I go to work at BQ, and despite a disagreement/argument with the Golf Pro, I feel confident about my decision to finish the season at BQ

So, there you have it. It was hard to keep all of that short!

It was a stressful and emotionally trying week...and it makes me that much more excited about my upcoming vacation!!! It's only three weeks away now.

Something I Needed to Read

I've been having a stressful week due to some work related things. I think I'll save a detailed post about this until next week, things aren't totally resolved yet, so I don't feel like sharing all the details until I know it ends well.

But, on that note...as I was reading some of my favourite blogs tonight, I came across this:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”

Matthew 6:25-27

I needed to read this tonight, and I'm glad that it ended up in someone's post.

Aubrey Chinkonde

Aubrey Chinkonde is our World Vision sponsor child, and he lives in Malawi, Africa! Anyone who knows me would not be surprised to hear that Curt and I are sponsoring a child from Malawi; I have traveled to Malawi twice, and it will always have a very special spot in my heart.

From the information package we received a few months ago, we know that Aubrey is a seven year old boy, his health is listed as 'satisfactory', he is in grade one and his favourite subject is music. He lives in Mpama, which is 35km east of Blantyre. Blantyre is a beautiful city that I had the chance to visit on my first visit to Malawi.

We received our first letter from Aubrey today, and it brought a smile to my face and a tear to my eye. I'm in love already :)

This is an excerpt from the letter:

The area favours crops such as maize, beans, and sweet potatoes. Aubrey would like to know what crops are grown in your country.

Aubrey says he lives in a grass thatched house made of bricks with two bedrooms.

Aubrey's future ambition is to become a Teacher after completing his studies.

(The letter is written by a community agent - so don't think that Aubrey speaks/writes in third person)

I can't wait to write him a letter! Which I hope to do later this week.

Father's Day

This year, I was lucky enough to be able to go to Acton to spend Father's Day with my dad. The whole visit was pretty rushed, Curt and I were only in Acton for just over 24 hours, but it was totally worth it.

When we got to town, we went straight to Tom and Krystle's - Nolan came to greet us at the door, and he had the funniest greeting for us. He says to me 'Hi Auntie Boo, it's been a long time, I haven't seen you since the Blackhawks win' (and, as he said the Blackhawks part, he was pumping his fist in the air!) I thought for sure my brother had put him up to it, but when I saw the look of surprise on his face, I knew that it was all Nolan.


This is a funny picture - look close and you will notice that Nolan has his finger in Abby's mouth! He was 'holding' her and she started to fuss a little bit, so he put his finger in her mouth and then told us that he was feeding her :) It did help her calm down, for a little while anyway.

We had a great family dinner with Tom and Krystle, my Mom and Dad, and my Nana and Aunt Mary. It was nice to have everyone together like that, sometimes our visits to Acton are so short and busy, I don't even get to see extended family, so the dinner was perfect.

After dinner, a few of us hung out in the hot tub for a bit.









Sorry for the picture overload, but I love these pictures from the hot tub, especially the first and second one, so I had to share them all.

On Sunday, we went to church and then enjoyed the chicken bbq that is a summer tradition at the church I grew up in. This was always a really big event when I was growing up - as a kid, we always got our Sunday School awards during the service, then had the bbq lunch, went on to an afternoon of games and races (with prizes!), and then finished the day off with a youth group baseball game. Now, when I was growing up, there were quite a few kids in the church, so it was a lot of fun. Yesterday was kind of disappointing though, there are very few kids in the church right now, and that is sad to me. Growing up in that church made me who I am - it helped me developed the faith that I have today. Whenever I'm home, and I attend services there, I often think about what I would do to change that if I still lived in my hometown. Anyway, this could be a post in itself, so I'll leave it at that.

Sunday afternoon was spent watching Tom's baseball game and hanging out in my parents backyard - it was a great finish to a great day and a half in Acton!

To Tom, Krystle, Mom and Dad - thanks for having us, it was great to see everyone, and we appreciate the way you open your doors to us when we visit!

And to Dad, I just want to say Happy Father's Day again, I hope that you enjoyed your day!

I Spoke Too Soon

Well, I'm happy to say that I spoke too soon, June isn't so boring after all.

On Tuesday, Curt and I both ended up with the day off. It was my scheduled day off, and Curt had an doctors appointment in Peterborough that afternoon, so he just took the whole day off. And, we took advantage of it!

We planned on doing some shopping downtown Peterborough, checking out some of the different shops and stuff, but didn't end up with a lot of time because we made a few stops along the way.

Our first stop was at the 'sales barn' in Hoards Station. This is something Curt has wanted to take me to for years, but it's not something we would go out of our way to do. But, Tuesday is sales day, and when we realized, it was obvious that we were going to have to stop. So, what is this place you ask. Well, it's a place for farmers to come together to auction off their livestock. Are you laughing yet?!? Curt has actually been there before, as a child, during an auction. His parents used to raise random animals...a horse at one point, and cow that they later took to a butcher. They had a little flea market type thing set up in the parking lot, so we browsed around it first. There was a farmer there selling all types of baby ducks and geese, they were just crammed on top of each other in boxes, and this little boy got away from his mom, ran to the box and reached right in and pulled out one of the little ducks. It was hilarious to see...and as I walked away I commented to Curt that the boy is clearly being raised on a farm, I just can't picture Nolan being comfortable enough to grab one of the little things like the boy did.

Next, we were going right through Campbellford, so we had to stop at World's Finest Chocolate. Always worth the stop and we probably have enough chocolate in the house to last a few weeks now!

We ended up rushing up and down the main street in Peterborough, only going into one store. We stopped at a neat pub for lunch, and then it was on to Curt's appointment.

The appointment was short, so from there it was off to Pontypool (a little place south-west of Peterborough) to play golf. We played Black Diamond Golf Club - I found their website and they had a great price, so that's how we chose the course. We were matched up with a single on the first hole, and although he was nice enough to play with, I didn't really enjoy the slow pace he insisted on playing at.

It was tough! The first hole was a LONG and intimidating par 5. The whole front nine was wide open and relatively flat, but the back nine was completely different, lots of trees and dog legs. I didn't enjoy the back nine because of the number of holes where you couldn't see where you were going...even when making my second shot I often couldn't see the pin. The other thing I didn't like was the fairways, they weren't flat, they had these huge slopes...so, you hit a decent drive, but your ball ended up rolling down these slopes, putting you in the rough. It was a beautiful day though, and it was great to have the time off with Curt.

Finally, Something Worth Posting About!

So, only days after posting that June has been a really boring month, something exciting happened, and I finally have something worth blogging about!

I came home from work tonight and Curt had a present for me. This would have been fun and exciting if it were a simple box of chocolates or something, but it was so much better then that. He bought me a Kobo! Now, you may not recognize that brand name, because it's pretty new, but it's like a Kindle (from Amazon) or the Nook (from Barnes and Noble).


We just saw a commercial for the Nook on the weekend, and we got talking about them. Curt kind of implied that he had thought about getting me something like that at one point, possibly for my birthday or Christmas, but he wasn't sure if I would like it. Obviously I told him that I thought I would really enjoy one, and he decided to surprise me with one!

There is no occasion for the gift, which is pretty fun. I haven't been enjoying work very much this season, so Curt said he just wanted to get me something to let me know that he appreciates me working, and putting up with the nonsense. Isn't he the sweetest?!?

From the limited time I've spent on it so far, it's great! The screen is so easy to look at, not at all like a computer screen. It came with 100 free books loaded on it, including 'Anne of Green Gables' which is a good sign! There are lots of other free books online, and buying an eBook is usually about 30-50% less then buying the hard copy.

I'm really excited to get it loaded up for our trip...it's going to be so much easier to take that in my carry-on then it would be to take two or three books to read throughout the trip.

I'm reading 'The Heart is a Lonely Hunter' right now, and I just started to read it a few days ago. The rush is on to finish it now though...I have to finish that one before I can start one on the Kobo, because as Curt said earlier, that's just the way I am! He's right, I'm kind of particular about that kind of thing.

So, I'm off to bed to read :)

June is Boring!

I've looked at our calendar a few times over the last few days, and no matter how much I stare at it, it doesn't change. June is a BORING month! We don't really have any plans, just work and regular day-to-day stuff.

Despite that, the month has gone pretty fast so far. And although I'm in no rush to see the summer come to an end, I am glad that it's almost July. It's still five weeks away, but on July 18th Curt and I leave for our trip to California and Arizona! Details have been coming together over the last few weeks, and it's usually the subject of conversation at least once a day...I also check the weather in Pasadena and Scottsdale daily (it's going to be H-O-T!).

Once we get June out of the way, the trip will come quickly...we have camping trips booked the first two weekends in July, and although camping is not my favourite, I'm glad to have plans that will help the time go by faster.

A Day Off is ALWAYS a GOOD Day

I think it's safe to say, yesterday was the best day of the summer, so far!

I had the day off, and it also happened to be Curt's Friday off. We had a pretty relaxed morning, and didn't really have much planned for the day, which was nice. The weather was beautiful, sunny and warm, so eventually Curt made his way outside and started working on some siding. We've lived in this house for over two years now, and there is a small section on the back of the house that never got sided! I'm pretty patient, but I did start nagging a little bit recently. Curt looked into having someone finish putting up the soffit, facia, and eavestrough, but when he saw how much it would be, he was motivated to finish up himself. I think an important lesson was learned through all of this...next house, start siding the back of the house, it's a lot less likely that you'd leave a portion like this unfinished at the front! I certainly wouldn't be so patient if it was something I saw everyday.

While Curt was working on that, I got a few jobs done inside, dropped off a few boxes of stuff at our local Christian school for their upcoming garage sale, and then did a bunch of gardening and outdoor stuff.

After a late lunch, we decided that we had been pretty productive for the day, so we decided to go golfing. After calling around, we decided to go to Trillium Wood. It would have been nice to go to Bay of Quinte, but under our new playing restrictions, we both would have been charged $30...we figured if we were going to pay, we should just play Trillium, since I haven't played there in awhile. Then, as we were checking in, the manager, who I know through work, came into the Pro Shop and gave me a complimentary round! Perfect! Imagine, I get a complimentary round at Trillium, but would have had to pay at the course I work at! Something seems weird there, doesn't it?!?


Golf was great, and Curt and I both played really well. Like I said earlier, the weather was beautiful, and it was a perfect day to walk the course. Curt shot a 93, even with 9 dropped balls, so that was awesome. And I shot 100, which I like to think is pretty good! Highlights of the game, for me, were definitely the birdie I got on the 10th hole, and the par I got on the par three, fourteenth hole!


In the background you can see the fourteenth hole, where I got my par.

After a round like that, I feel like I will be able to hold my own when we play in California and Arizona this summer. A trip I need to blog about, now that the details are coming together!

After the round, we picked up dinner, and enjoyed that before a relaxing night in front of the TV...for Curt anyway, Stanley Cup playoffs can not end soon enough :)