Paid off a credit card

On Friday, I paid off a credit card that I've had for over a decade. It felt good.

I actually had to call customer service to get the final payoff balance. I had to wait another seven minutes on hold to have the woman calculate it.

I was on hold for nearly half an hour. At least I got the payoff total that I needed.

That's one problem about Canadian banks. They aren't upfront with your final balance. You are expected to pay what you owe on your statement. You then wait for another statement that calculates the interest.

I like how my bank in the US does it. There's the payoff balance and your statement balance for credit cards and lines of credit. You know exactly how much to pay off. You don't need to call customer service to have someone calculate the payoff balance for you.

Weird, Canada.

I'm happy that I have got rid of a loan and a credit card so far this year. My financial situation is looking better.

Progress and plan of attack on an massive spreadsheet

I spent Tuesday working on a page of updates. It took me a good eight hours of thorough work.

I have roughly ten pages left. I am going to copy and paste content as-is. It's not the best method, but it does make my documents complete.

Once all that is done, I'll cycle back and do my thorough fixes. It's my current plan that will definitely get the content in by end-of-day Wednesday. If I can't get my thorough fixes in by Wednesday, that's okay. I'll continue fixing them for the next software release.

I dislike scope creep. An additional 2,000 rows of information in this one spreadsheet was completely unexpected.

Travelling in December and January

The other night, I booked my first flight in over 1.5 years. I am flying to the States just before Christmas. I'm spending three weeks there.

I am hoping that it'll still be safe to travel by then. I am there to attend three hockey games and to pay my respects to my friend.

I am contemplating whether I want to fly in late November. I can see two hockey games and work away from home, but away from home, if you catch my drift. 

Travel plans

I am contemplating travel. If I were to go somewhere, it would be stateside to pay my respects to my friend who passed away earlier this year.

It's not a normal travel goal to have. It is mine, which is normal to me right now.

I can fly to the States. I need to do a COVID-19 test, prove that I have been vaccinated, and take plenty of time to travel.

Part of me is excited. Part of me is not looking forward to the extra overhead associated with travelling during a pandemic.

I haven't decided when I'll head down, but it will be before this year is over. I'm hopeful and optimistic. I'm also overly cautious.

Today's second shot day and my last week before vacation starts

Later on today, I get my second vaccine shot. I am looking forward to getting it. Here's hoping that all goes well.

It's supposed to rain for most of the day That's unfortunate. Luckily, I have an appointment and won't be waiting outside for hours like folks were doing over the weekend without one.

It's my last workweek before I take two weeks of vacation. Let's get this week over with!

Vaccine and patios

Businesses are slowly reopening. We are able to dine on patios. It's optimistic.

I was supposed to meet a friend on Saturday to have a bite to eat on a patio. She ended up getting her second vaccine shot on Friday and ended up feeling sick. So, I offered to cancel our reservation.

My friend got sick after her first shot. It doesn't surprise me that she got sick after her second one.

The woman at the restaurant was great. She was pleased that I took the time to do the cancellation.

I just learned that our province has made a timing change for the second vaccine. My second appointment was twelve months after my first one. It's now reduced to eight, which means that I can get my second shot at the end of this month.

It's cool. I'll need to wait to see how to reschedule my second shot.

COVID-19 is scary

Last weekend, I placed a food order for pickup this Saturday. I just found out that a supplier that this business works with has team members that got infected with COVID-19. Ugh! I hope that those affected will be okay.

Canada is ramping up its vaccine supply. Every adult is expected to get one shot by the end of June. It's a good sign.

The business has found a new supplier, so I'll be proceeding with my food order. COVID-19 is so scary. I can't wait for the day when we kick it to the curb.

New year's eve

It's new year's eve. It feels odd. I also feel some sense of relief.

I can't wait to get rid of 2020. I am hopeful that 2021 will be better. It's the optimist in me.

I may venture out later today. For now, I'm off to bed.

Early start and a new modem to come

Yesterday, my workday started before 7 am. It's nice wrapping up work early. In my case, I ended up working a bit more because only one person was in a spreadsheet that I needed to update. It's much easier to update dropdown menus when there aren't a ton of users in the same shared file.

I do have an update on my Internet issues. Naturally, a test was done before 6 am and the signal was fine according to my Internet service provider. Of course, it was! I had rebooted my modem before I went to bed and I expect the signal to be strong when I'm not fully using my wifi!

Anyway, I am getting a new modem shipped to me this week for free. That's good news. This modem has two wifi bands. We'll see how things work out. I'm optimistic.

Profile photo change and its aftermath

I recently changed my profile photo on a social site. I don't make this change often.

I have been getting a number of nice messages from men. They like my smile. They say that I'm beautiful. They want to talk to me.

It's flattering. It sounds like I made the photo change on a dating site, but that's not the case. We'll see what happens.

Thoughts about the ex

Now that I am on vacation and the craziness has died down, thoughts about my ex-guy pop into my head. I hope to find a nice man in the near future. However, it still doesn't sit well how the ex ended our relationship.

It's natural for me to try and figure out what I did wrong. Frankly, I still think that he changed and simply wanted to do his own thing. I have accepted it. I just didn't like his spending months treating me like dirt by not communicating with me. His decision made 2019 not my best year. Yet, I have managed to get by.

I wish that I could shut down these random thoughts when things aren't busy in my life. I need to work on it.

My heart's healing well!

My ex-guy's car has been parked at our workplace's parking lot for a month. When he first parked his car there after we had broken up, a ton of emotions came flooding in. Sad. Heartbroken. Angry. Hurt. Probably more.

I worked from home Monday through Wednesday this week. I returned to work yesterday and his car was no longer there.

I felt okay. That's a good sign.

I'm still healing, but I'm making decent progress.

Ending my weekend with an upset stomach and looking ahead

The weekend has come and gone. I like how relaxing this weekend has been.

Unfortunately, I must have eaten some food that was off. My stomach was upset a couple of hours ago. All seems well now. It's not the end of my weekend that I was expecting!

It's crazy that it is November. This year has flown by. It hasn't been the greatest for me. I am optimistic that things will improve in my life, though.

The breakup - for the third and likely final time

It has been well over a week. I needed some time to think about what had happened. The problem is that I have been pretty active and busy that I haven't had a chance to grieve.

My guy decided to call it quits. Quits means romantically. He wants to remain friends.

We have been together for years. For me, the withdrawal symptoms of not being affectionate towards someone have been tough.

I am oddly taking this breakup well. In the past, when he previously broke my heart twice, I was devastated each time. I sobbed and cried.

This one still hurts. I tear up now and again. I haven't gone into full-fledge sobbing or a good cry, though. Perhaps he has changed. Perhaps I have, too.

I am more active now than I was the last two times that he broke my heart. I go out of various meetups. I am working on blog posts here and my side projects. Work has kept me busy.

I am only sad at night when I am not on the move. I sit on my bed, look at my purple sheep named Woolly, and go back to the exact moment when my guy gave Woolly to me.

I don't have that feeling of getting rid of all his stuff. I hug my purple plush sheep and I'm good. He is always smiling back at me.

In the past, I had to sever any relationship after we broke up. Part of me still wants to, as it has aleays been easier for me to heal. There were recent periods when I would say hi in a text message to him and I wouldn't get a thing. He would not communicate with me for weeks. I knew that something was up.

I said to him that if we were to be friends, I need better communication. Otherwise, I am perfectly find saying goodbye to him forever. He said that it wouldn't happen. In this regard, as much as he is my best friend, he actually needs my friendship more than I do of his. I will give it a shot. If I hate what we have, I will walk away. I have no regrets.

He didn't break up with me because he found someone new. He just has other side projects going on that love and sex have taken a backseat. I have always been accommodating to his needs. For me, I know that I deserve better. I am willing to find it with someone out there when I am ready.

In the meantime, I look forward to spending time with a good friend this weekend. Work is driving me crazy. My guy and I have had lunch a handful of times over the last 1.5 weeks. We have been good.

He asked me if I wanted a hug last Friday. We hugged. I needed it. It felt different, but it felt comforting.

Kelly Clarkson's song, Stronger, got me out of moments of sadness earlier this week. I will explain more in another post.

I am okay. It is a life shift. I'm not even sure if I can call him my guy here. I will probably need to think of a better name.

Back in the training saddle again

Monday was my first day training my new student. All went well, except that her laptop didn't arrive at work on time. We had to get a loaner.

She's fitting in well. I am pleased.

My manager treated her to lunch. I was invited, but had to pay for my own meal. Hey, it could have been much worse.

I am looking forward to the rest of this week.

Optimism with finances

Things are looking good with my finances. By the end of this month, I should have paid off a credit card that started my debt issues. It has been a lot of hard work to pay it off. I am glad that I'm nearly there.

I have a loan that should be paid off by late May or early June. It's difficult to predict when the last payment day is. I made extra payments, which is throwing off how the last day is being reported. I dislike how inflexible computer systems are.

Anyway, I estimate that sometime in June, I will have more income to build up my emergency and retirement savings, and continue paying off more of my existing debt such that I don't need to care about maxing out my credit cards.

I'm so happy with my progress.

Bonus pay coming soon to my chequing account

On Monday, it was confirmed that my bonus pay will be deposited at the end of the month. I am excited!

I have a loan that will be completely paid off at either the end of May or early June. I am putting this bonus pay towards paying off a credit card. I will be in decent financial shape come the summer.

It's nice to look ahead and see how bright my financial situation will be. Yay!

Foot and muscle pain sucks when you want to sleep

Now and again, I get muscle spasms in my right foot. It was pretty bad last night. I woke up at nearly 4 am to pain.

I can't recall how many ibuprofen pills I managed to take. It was strange, but I had a mini panic attack. My bedroom was getting hot, mainly because of my tossing and turning in bed along with the heating kicking in. I had to drink some water and eat a protein bar to ease things for me. I also took long breaths, which helped.

I didn't go back to bed, but I had a conference call at 7 am. I said hi at the beginning and actually fell asleep for nearly two hours. Hopefully, I wasn't called upon to say anything. This meeting call ended up being just under four hours.

Part of me wanted to call in sick. However, I took it easy working from home, as the muscle pain lasted all day, with it dying off right about now.

Some days are rough. Here's hoping that tomorrow will be much better.

Honesty about anxiety and depression at work

I had a decent talk with my newest addition to my team. One of my students and I were training her on Monday. At the end of the session, what I didn't expect was this woman sharing that she has been depressed and anxious for two years.

It hit home for me. I have been there. So has my guy.

The good news is that she is on medication, which has put her back on track. She feels good. It shows. She is funnier during our team meetings.

I was impressed that she trusted us to share what she has been going through. Add to that mix the fact that her past two team leads have said negative things about her with little justification and my manager asking her to submit weekly reports (she is the only person on our entire team doing this task) can add to that depression and anxiety.

I thanked her for sharing all this information. I told her that I'm happy that she is on my team. She seemed to be absorbing the information well. She also asked thoughtful, intelligent questions today. She has potential. It probably hasn't been noticed by others.

I'm optimistic. I let her know to leave the baggage and negative past work experiences behind her. We are working with a clean slate now. She appreciated it.

More snow

It has been a rough winter. When I wake up on Wednesday morning, snow will begin to fall for the entire day.

Oh, joy! We are expecting anywhere between ten and fifteen centimetres of snow.

I work from home on Wednesdays, so I'm good staying home. I am looking forward to warmer weather, though.