One-minute celebrations!!

3:40 p.m.

At MCC (the church that we go to), there is a tradition where - at the beginning of the service - anyone with anything to celebrate stands up and says 3-4 words to that effect. Then applause once everyone has had their turn.

If we had gone to MCC last Sunday, I would've broken the word limit.

"Passed exam! Bought a house! Selling a house!"

Yep - finally passed that dreaded PMP Certification Exam on Friday, Sept. 23. Used up the whole 4-hour time limit too....3 hours and a bit to answer everything, and the rest to review what I marked. Literally finished review with seconds to spare. That's certainly one exam I won't look forward to taking again. Now at least I can read other stuff after work now. Stargate Atlantis, here I come!!

Then did I mention that we bought a house just the night before the exam? Yep, there's that too. Pick your stressors, I always said, but *man* this was right up there. Wonderful drama, too. One thing I'll never forget that night is the sight of their agent walking out in the rain (turned out he quit, but our agent - bless him - convinced him to go back and stick with it). It was the poor guy's first transaction, as it turns out. ("Poor" guy?!? He sold a million dollar property the next day!)

And, of course, we had to start working on selling the condo right away. So it was declutter time! Had to haul stuff to rental storage just so we can bring down some stuff.

....Did I mention we're leaving for our honeymoon next week? Yep.

The good thing is, we had an agents' open house today. We've now got 6 appointments lined up soon after, with an open house over the weekend. Looking good so far. Of course, this makes working from home tomorrow a bit tricky. It will be like working in a museum (no fingerprints allowed!)

Don't tell him....

Hi. My name's Gappy. Gappy the Bear. Don't tell my master I'm using this. He's in the other room...studying. Kinda cranky actually. But I know I'll be okay, 'coz he loves bears.

It didn't help that he had a migraine on Monday. Took the whole day and night, that one. Funny thing, though, is that while this was going on, he and his hubby finally made up their mind about the house they wanted to buy. Drove out and looked at it one more time too. (...i hope there's room for me....) Poor master had to run off at one point and, well, do what people with migraines do (mark their territory?).

Poor hubby had a hard time too. Came from Aussie and all, jet lag included. Imagine taking care of puke boy in that state. Fun was had by all.

Then, when he got back to work, his close-to-a-million-dollar project took a turn for the unexpected. Let's just say it made him madder. That's why I snuck out of the room. Didn't want to be in the way.

Oh...actually, I spy him making dinner. Wonton soup? I guess hubby's not around. Oh yeah...he's at that underwriter's conference. Having more than wonton soup, I suppose.

Can I say something, though...?

Hubby really took care of him. Really, really took care of him. And they're really sweet together when they're in caring mode. You know what? I think I'll keep them both :))

Perspectives

12:12 p.m.

This morning while driving to work, I saw a panhandler making her car-to-car stops underneath the Gardiner. Funny thing was, she was perky, smiley, basically being very pleasant and cordial as she walked about. Sad to say, she even looked happier than a lot of folks both in my personal and work life that have so much in their lives. If she can be so happy under her circumstances, I thought to myself, then what is it that makes it harder for us to be in the same frame of mind? We who have roofs over our heads and food in our stomachs?

I know I'm at fault at times, but we do tend to forget what is important in our lives. Sure, we can bitch about how things are going so bad in various aspects of our lives, but we do have to remember that nothing in life is perfect. We are all born with the tools to withstand struggles in our lives because these struggles will come inevitably. The question is, do we use these tools to cope, or do we throw our hands up in the air and wail about how unfortunate we are?

Remind me to read this post again when I feel like crap. I just hope that the girl I saw this morning realizes that she may have actually given more to other people than whatever she got from them.

Wednesday twiddle-thumb day

1:25 p.m.

There was a power outage this morning for 5 minutes when I got in....natch, when the power came back up, we couldn't access our network all morning. Just came online now....still, the system response time is pretty darn slow. Makes me wanna take my keyboard and shove it up the (*^(%&$*%#.

System outages should be billed toward the department in order to keep track of department-wide downtime. Charging it to each project is cumbersome since you'll have to pull in all the projects to get a summary. Discuss.

Madras Shrimp Night!!!

7:59 p.m.

President's Choice Indian Madras sauce rocks!!!! I made shrimp with it tonight along with President's Choice Texmati rice (so much easier when you have a rice cooker....thanks to Junn). Hmmmmm.....I had to stop myself from getting seconds. Lordy, I've got enough for three meals!

All it takes is one bag of frozen shrimp, defrost then stir-fry on medium for 5 minutes, reduce heat then add sauce and simmer for 10 minutes. Voila!

Now doesn't that look good.

Well, off to study land once more. I've going to treat myself to some baklava I bought at Rabba's....or should I finish off that 2-week-old mango bar...? By the way, I have to say that I went to *the*most*boring* seminar today. It's called EPM (Enterprise Project Management) Phase 1B....talking about this new repository that we now have to use for Project Management. For the love of me I can't see how this is any better than what we're using right now. Oh well....maybe it will get better.

....I wonder how much our phone bill will be after Marc comes home....

Just another Manic Monday

2:18 p.m.

Finally got to set up my first-ever blog! Sure beats the heck out of having to write in a journal...unless someone decides to give me a Mont Blanc pen! Until then, keyboards are the way to go. Now if I can only figure out how to give my profile a picture.....

Hot afternoon here are at work - we were stuck in a conference room that seems to have the heater on all the time, even at a 32C day! But I feel great anyway because we got a lot out of that meeting. I'm glad I have really competent folks working with me on this project.

Just stressing about that PMP exam in a couple of weeks. Hopefully my 2-hour-a-night study schedule helps.

9:06 p.m.

Bwahahaha! Finally got that dang photo down to 50KB!! Now there's a face to the name (okay...better go back to studying....this benefit/cost ratio and payback stuff is killing me!!!)

Can't talk with my hubby at the moment...crazy colleague keeps peeking over his shoulder. So a moratorium on yahoo! chats is in effect! Just wait though.....it will be lunch there soon Down Under (should be 11:00 am-ish by now).

Did I mention I got those pretty-pretty Trafalgar bags from my friend Nestor? They look nice....apparently they're a lot better than the rainbow-coloured ones they used to have a while back. Hmmmm...then again.....

Okay...better get back to studying (fer real!!!)