I'm Not Accepting Any More Mail!

This morning, Keira and Anika cried and fought ALL morning. This afternoon we went out to get my nails done. I have a date (ooOOOOoo) this weekend so thought I should take the opportunity now to get my nails filled because I likely won't have any time for the next couple days. I found a lady that does Gel Nails from home AND she runs a daycare, SO I could bring my kids and get my nails done. The perfect solution to my crazy life. Well as it turns out the last time I got my nails done I got Acrylic. Apprently Acrylic and Gel don't mix. OK fine, so we'll take them off and start from scratch. Normally in a nail salon this takes all of 10 min (if the nails are stubborn). They usually just slide a thin strong object under the nail and it slides off. L, the nail tech, who has had her licence since Dec 08, was a little worried about pulling the nails off like that cuz it might ruin the nail underneath. For the next 1.5 hours, she filed, and scraped, and tried to break the nails down with acetone while my kids had a few meltdowns and Keira pooped her pants. After the 1.5 hours L managed to remove 7 of the 10 nails and said I would have to come back another time to finish up because both of us just didn't have time. So I paid her $10 for removing 70% of my nails because I felt bad for her. When I got in the car I slid one of my thumbnails under the other two nails and popped them right off. Then I managed to wiggle the corner of the last nail until I could get my teeth under it and ripped that one off too. 3 nails in 30 seconds flat. Now I need to figure out how I'm going to get my nails done!

We then drove out to Magrath to check my mail and pickup my damage deposit cheque from my old landlords. I realized it was pretty late so stopped off at Burger King to get some yucky dinner. I ordered my burger with no ketchup. About halfway to Magrath, I open my sandwhich and see the little tomato crossed out on the packaging. Apparently tomato and ketchup sound the same said through a drive thru speaker. Or maybe because ketchup is made from tomatoes, they thought I wouldn't know the difference. grr. I HATE ketchup.

Next stop - post office. Where I received the following:

1. Government Cheque for $300 (from last month, that I totally forgot about that obviously came late) YAY
2. Tupperware junkmail - blah
3. Huggies junkmail - blah
4. Bank statement reminding me that I only have $0.63 in my bank account as of the date of the statement - thanks for reminding me how poor I am
5. Another bankstatment saying that I have $67. Oh boy. So in total I have $67.63 to my name.
6. more Huggies junkmail - I guess because I have two kids in (cloth) diapers, I need twice as much junk????
7. Scotiabank junkmail trying to get me to buy Life Insurance - toss
8. Electricity bill - $370.36 for my single wide trailer for a month!!!!!!!! THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY in case you thought you read that wrong. This is with no previous charges owing or anything. ONE month of Electricity!
9. Income Tax stuff - another reminder of how much money I DON'T have.
10. Telus bill with $33 more owing that it should be because they didn't fix the long distance problem from last month.
11. Divorce Papers - which state that I am signing the house over to P. WHAT???!!! Why would I just GIVE him the house? His lawyer is pretty good, so I'm actually (a teensy bit) surprised that she would change something so big from our agreement. Apparently she thinks I deserve to walk away with nothing. WRONG!

And THEN I went to pick up my damage deposit cheque from my evil ex-landlords. My damage deposit was $720. I lived in the trailer for 3 months. They gave me back a cheque for $416.50. Apparently I did $300+ worth of damage in the 3 months that I lived there.

When I took the trailer, I was desperate for a place to live and they knew that and took advantage. My kids and I were going to end up on the street. My understanding is that they had recently purchased the trailer and were getting it ready to rent ie: putting in new carpet/lino/countertops and painting.

They got the new carpet and lino in, slapped on very thin coat of puke green paint on the walls and put in the new countertops (the sink was installed AFTER i moved in). The first night I didn't even have water. I was OK with not everything being completed because after 4 months of moving from house to house, I was just grateful to have a roof over my head where I didn't have to worry about me or my kids bothering anyone.

The landlords hadn't cleaned up from the reno's and I told them not to worry about it, I'd vacuum up the sawdust and do whatever cleaning needed to be done.

The first couple week I was there I spend HOURS bleaching the bathroom ceiling and walls due to cigarette smoke. I replaced the showerhead because the cord was yellow and full of smoke and stunk so bad when the water turned on. I wiped down walls where the smoke was running down the wall. I vacuumed up all the sawdust, wiped out the cupboards, cleaned the oven (that I'm pretty sure hadn't been cleaned in over 5 years), cleaned the fridge etc etc.

Then, I lived as a single mother of 3 ages 3 and under and tried my hardest to keep up on things. I'm actually pretty impressed with myself because the only time the dishes really piled up was the times the sink was plugged so bad both sinks were full of water. I vacuumed at least once a week and cleaned the bathroom. Near the end it was untidy, but not unclean.

I then spend days packing and getting things ready to move mostly by myself (with a bit of help here and there from friends) with my 3 kids in tow.

On the last day, I managed to get over there in the morning and spend 3 hours washing walls, vacumming and spot cleaning carpets, vacumming window sills, bleaching the bathroom, kitchen counters, floors etc.

When we did the walk through and I gave back the keys they checked every tiny nook and cranny in that place (which is funny because I don't even think they went in all the rooms when I did the walk through moving in). Curtis picked up 3 tiny crumbs out of the carpet by the step to the front door and a staple. A STAPLE, and I don't even own a stapler, and then accused me of not doing the carpets. There were also a few crumbs on the counter - which I bleached and cleaned and he reprimanded me for not even having the decency to clean their new countertops that they installed. Then he opened a cupboard and I guess while the kids were there when I was packing and cleaning, they took some of their crayons and left them in the cupboard. They checked the stove and the fridge and said it wasn't clean enough. I then told them I didn't realize I was their professional cleaner because they were filthy when I moved in and I have left the trailer in 10x's better condition than when I rented it. They then said there was "stains" on the carpet. What they were is one small spot on the living room floor and one small spot in the kids room where I had hand scrubbed something out of the carpet. I put too much soap in and not enough water so left a wet looking round mark which would have come up with a wet cloth.

Attached to my measly $416.50 return is a receipt for 5 hours of professional house cleaning @ 25.00/hr and a steam cleaning receipt for $178.50 where it shows that they shampooed FOUR rooms and the HALLWAY. Might I remind you, I lived there for 3 months, and I OWN a carpet shampooer.

I am so emotionally drained that it seems to me, life just keeps going down hill.

So to leave this on a good note, I'm going to start leaving '3 good things about today' notes at the end of my posts.

1. Keira was teaching Anika today how to sing I Am a Child of God. It was so beautiful. And when they were coloring, she was telling Anika about Jesus.

2. I got 2 loads of laundry and the bathroom cleaned today.

3. I feeling 80% better than I was yesterday.