Merry Christmas and more!

Hi, there! It has been a while. I hope that you are well.

I'd like to wish you a happy Christmas with family and loved ones, if you celebrate it. This year will be the first time in years in which I am not cooking a turkey dinner. 

I just came back from a week in the Twin Cities and Winnipeg. I ended up catching a nasty cold. I have been sleeping it off for days. Right now, I feel the most energetic in days. I still have a phlegmy cough. At least I am on the mend and don't have to go back to work until the second week of January.

I was too weak and sick to hit the grocery store. I'm fine with soup and items that I have at home. It's just not a full-blown turkey dinner that I typically make for my parents and me.

On Christmas eve, I had a financial counselling appointment pertaining to my consumer proposal. The Teams link didn't work. I sat there waiting to be admitted. I cancelled the call, which prompted the woman to say that we could do it over the phone.

I have a lot of thoughts about my consumer proposal. I am happy with it on the whole. The firm preparing those who are going through one for the first time needs to provide more support.

I hope to write more here. It has been a challenge trying to focus when my blog has changed its original purpose. It will be about whatever I am experiencing in my life. I haven't thought about spanking in ages.

Consumer proposal for debt and bank account change

I have been swimming in debt for a while. It felt like I wasn't progressing with the high interest that I was paying on my credit cards and loans.

I decided to get help. I'm currently in the process of getting a consumer proposal. It's a government program that involves repaying a portion of your debt. A licensed Insolvency Trustee negotiates with creditors on how much you need to repay.

This proposal consolidates the debt into manageable payments. It freezes debt interest charges. It also reduces stress.

The catch is that I needed to change banks. I can't have a credit card that is a part of this proposal with a bank account that gets my pay directly deposited. When this proposal is approved, sometimes credit card companies will take money from your chequing account to pay off the credit card before it is communicated that the proposal is official.

I had to change where my paycheque would be directly deposited. The change was straightforward through our Dayforce site. 

I was a bit stressed out that I did this change on Thanksgiving Day and it was immediately approved. I didn't know when the change would kick in. Would it be seamless or would I get a cheque mailed to me?

Well, all that stress went away. My pay was deposited last night, which was early. My payday is officially on Thursday. Bi-weekly.

I'm relieved!

I asked about how long it will take for my consumer proposal to be official. I got 1.5 weeks at least. I'm approaching one week on Friday. We had Thanksgiving Day, so I need to take that day out in my calculation.

Wedding proposal and groping butts

Ah, a fun wedding proposal! I like how all the guys didn't seem to mind getting their butts groped. I like how the woman knew exactly what her guy's butt felt like.

The proposal video is cute. Go watch it!

Issues and a proposal

It's nice when you make a point and folks side with you. My motto is to give it a try, say what you need to say, and see what happens. It's better to say what you need to say than regret not saying a thing.

At work, a number of us were given a task to drive projects to their completion. My counterpart borders incompetence. She decided to assign a number of folks deadlines, including me. I pointed out that she can't arbitrarily assign deadlines to folks who need to do the work without consulting with them.

In an e-mail, I pointed out the issues that I have encountered trying to get various folks to collaborate on a single document of which they own certain sections. The idea that I need to work with them on deadlines and such was time-consuming.

Instead, I proposed a different way to get this work done. The leader of this group liked it. She held a meeting with us. On Friday morning, we ran through my proposal and it was approved. Go, me!

The catch is to strike a balance. It is one thing to list all issues encountered. It's also helpful to suggest a new approach.

I don't like inefficiency. It makes sense that I would speak up. Otherwise, I'd be miserable wasting not only everyone's time and effort, but mine, too.