Pre-Christmas Madness

Between the storms (which closed school for kiddo), hubby being sick and being stupidly busy trying to track down a hacker on the server at work, last minute shopping, and the usual insanity that increases tenfold at this time of year, it's been a busy week. So... here's the highlights.

Storms -- wow. I have never seen so many trees down after a storm. I feel a bit bad for the BC Hydro crews who haven't had much time to rest all week with three windstorms in a row. Tens of thousands of households and businesses in the region were without power for at least part of the week. We managed to escape that fate (::knock wood::) though we had candles and flashlights at the ready. As I mentioned though, kiddo's school lost power twice. Once on Monday for just a couple of hours and on Friday -- no sooner had she been dropped off when hubby got a call to pick her up again due to having no heat. When we drove out to the Westshore yesterday, the whole area smelled like a Christmas Tree lot!!

Speaking of trees... Christmas Tree -- we had decided to get a cut tree this year, as we gave away our artificial one last year. I had spotted a little lot close to home, run by the Kiwanis Club, that had some nice, natural looking BC trees. We ran some other errands Friday evening, thinking we had plenty of time, then arrived at the lot around 6:30 only to find it closed!! I was soooooo frustrated. It meant we had to come back on Saturday without kiddo to get the tree, grrr, but I did find a nice, albeit wonky, tree. It's pretty much backless which means we can snug it up against the bookcase. However, it needs more than the 300 lights we put on there, so I have to go out this afternoon to get another 50 or so.

Errands -- yesterday, despite hubby being sick (very sick... I felt bad) he decided he wanted out of the house... so we headed out to the Westshore to run a number of errands: (1) Glenwood Meats -- about 20 lbs of meat (various forms of sausage, chicken, beef, and bacon) for $55. We have been totally spoiled by the quality and value of the meat from Glenwood, and we buy very little meat elsewhere any more. (2) Island Ink Jet -- drop off our printer cartridge for refil. They had some trouble because the blue tank had all but dried out. So they took a looooooong time. But they did eventually get it going again. (3) The Evil Retailer (yeah, they're all evil, but I hate even admitting I shop at the place with the Smiley logo) -- for a bunch of basic consumables which had run low -- paper products, kitchen wraps, bathroom personal stuff... you know. (4) The tree (see above) which we got on our way back home, along with fast-food lunch that disagreed with me terribly (urrrrrr).

And what would the holidays be without a rant? ... I've been annoyed by a host of little silly things... but this item really got me wanting to rant. Care of the Shopping Network, they suggest as a last minute gift, the Creative Kids Basket. I assure you there is NOTHING creative about this basket -- in fact, it isn't even pictured as a basket! It is a BAG full of CANDY. And not even good candy, just crappy sugary junk. To add insult to injury, the price is $36.49 PLUS $10 shipping!! There's no way the contents cost more than $15, and the bag maybe $2 -- in fact the whole thing could be pulled together from stock in any dollar store. Bah.

OK.. off to run more errands (We're out of coffee!! Oh the HORROR!).