Thought I'd say hello...

so.....HELLO!!

See, that's me!  I do exist.

I've missed you guys. I mean, REALLY missed you guys. I thought I should give you a little update on my situation....the GOOD, the BAD and the UGLY.

The Good:

• last weekend Michael and I went to Chatham to help a friend celebrate her 50th birthday. We had a great time, so many laughs and so much dancing my knees are still recovering!

I'm with the band :)

• my daughter is now officially a graduate of Western University!! One more year of post-graduate work and hopefully she'll then be gainfully employed.  She is gainfully employed, don't get me wrong, just not using her degree yet!
• only 47 days til we hit the road to PEI!
• only 778 more days til I retire!
• both my electricity and natural gas were only $45 each!!! I budgeted $55 each so saved $20
• I paid $83 interest on my now non-existent line of credit - the last interest payment and now I can close the account!
• made my 4th $88 payment to my mastercard to cover my half of the cost of our new TV, only one more payment to go! 

The Bad:

• unfortunately those are the only GOOD numbers! I would advise you that if you take a week or so off from posting don't also take a week off from keeping track of your money or if you're like me the money will grow wings and fly away!!  I have made the following purchases - the lovely "fire burner" as seen in my last post (it arrived safely via UPS); two fans, a frying pan and a pair of sandals from our local Zellers - it is going out of business (it's been bought up by Target!!), a few much needed (not really) clothing items from Talize (a little retail therapy - $40 worth), lots of stuff for school which will be reimbursed to me eventually, and I paid my May installment of PEI property taxes - $288.  I guess that's not so bad. I'd rather use fans than the central air since electricity is so pricey these days.
• I only have $76 of misc $$ left to last the month plus $30 in my wallet. This isn't going to be enough as we are going away for my birthday weekend in two weeks.  I didn't plan that too well now did I?
• Michael has had his hours cut back at the shoe store and at Jambalaya
• I have yet to pay the $74 for my car's license sticker...grrrrrrr.....looks like I won't be saving as much as I thought this month!

The Ugly:

• the work situation I'm in continues to be UGLY!! Although I have an additional educational assistant it hasn't lessened the violence. I don't think I have any other choice but to do a work refusal.  In the words of the Health and Wellness person I have contacted:

"It sounds like you are working in a land mine with

explosions ready to happen at any minute and I don't know how you have
done it!"

     I have the option of taking a stress leave and while that would help ME it wouldn't do anything about                      the classroom situation.  Unless a miracle happened.  So it looks like I need to bite the bullet and take a stand. I wish I didn't have to do it, being the introvert that I am I hate to have the spotlight shone on me but once in a while you have to go outside of your comfort zone to enable change to happen. 

So here goes....