Doing my Civic Duty

I voted today!! I haven't voted since the federal election that happened in highschool! This is not because I had a lapse in my appreciation of my "civic duty" but rather because I have not been around to vote. So today I voted in the municiple and city elections.

A big issue on the election platforms, or at least on the minds of many voters, was the proposed development of sensitive land on the outskirts of Waterloo. Our area depends on ground water for our drinking water and ground water depends on wetlands and different morains and recharge areas in order to keep the levels up and to keep the water "clean." The proposed development is on the edge of one of these morains and would be built on a so called recharge area. There has been research done and apparently it suggests that the development won't hurt the morain or jeopordize the drinking water. Whatever, I do not have the knowledge or understanding to say whether that is true or not. What concerned me about the whole thing was the attitude of city council when the thing came to a vote. The majority of the council stated that they did not think it was their place to get in the way of progress or development. I strongly disagree with that statement and my voting today was my way of voicing that. Apparently other people agreed with me. If development is potentially detrimental to the community or in any way endangers the future of the community it is not only the council's place to get in the way of it, it is the council's duty to! Do they think that corporations and developers are going to be acting in the community's and the environment's best interests?! Hopefully now that we have a new mayor and several new councillors future issues of this nature will be handled differently.

And so ends my rant on local politics.

Tupperware party

Ok, so I am hosting a tupperware party. There is something a little weird in my mind about me, of all people, hosting one of these things. In my defence I got roped into hosting it by opening a thingy at my cousin's wedding shower. I wanted to win the ice cream scoop but I won a free party instead and since it gave my cousin extra money to spend, I am hosting it.

Actually it might be fun. I am inviting people I haven't seen in a while, all my regular friends and new friends from both my jobs. So it will be interesting to see all my worlds collide!! Also, two of my friends have babies and both are bringing them!! extra funs with babies.

So all of you who are too far away, you can whistfully think of all the fun and skor cake you are missing!! :) The rest of you should just come. :)

Crazy week of crazy

First of all, apparently when I set my blog settings so that anyone could comment, I accidentally changed it so only members of my blog could comment. Oops!! That mistake has been remedied. Thanks to Steph for pointing it out.

Next. My life is crazy. I know everyone else's is to, that I am not alone in the craziness. That makes me feel better. Misery loves company right!?

Last week Arvato, the office place where I work, had a recruting thing at the mall. I got to help. Now this may sound exciting but really it involved me being paid to sit in the mall and read, write letters and talk to the occasional crazy person. Ok, so actually that is pretty exciting! I wrote lots of letters to South Africa that I have yet to actually put in the mailbox, I read four books including Rereading A Swiftly Tilting Planet which made me happy. However, I realized that when I bought the "trilogy" I got that, A wrinkle in time and An Acceptable Time. Um... SOmething is missing...

Recently at Zehrs we have been collecting donations for "Toonies for Tummies" which raises money for breakfast programs in schools for kids whose parents can't afford to give them breakfast every day. This is a good thing. It feeds the hungry.

During the week leading up to halloween (wow I have not posted in eons!), a lady came through my till. I asked her, "Would you like to donate a toonie today to support toonies for tummies and school breakfast programs for hungry children?" She said no. She started ranting about how in North America people spend billions of dollars on candy for halloween and there were hungry people and that was wrong and so she wasn't going to give money to that. I got confused and thought that maybe she had misunderstood what I had asked, and that she thought we were raising money to buy candy or something, so I calmly and polietly pointed out once again that we were raising money to help hungry kids and that if she were concerned about hungry people this would be a great opportunity for her to do something about it. She kept ranting about how she wasn't going to donate because there were hungry people and halloween is a waste of money when there are hungry people in our area....

I do not understand the way some people think. If someone can explain to me how not donating to help hungry people is a good way to take a stand that there are hungry people, I would be interested to hear it....

miscalculations

I had a very stressful thing happen the other day. I checked my bank balance yesterday and checked my account activities from the bank machine to make sure a check I wrote to the National Student Loans people had cleared. It didn't show up, and I didn't have enough money in my account to cover the check. I freaked out that I had somehow miscalculated and got very stressed. I borrowed 200.00 from my parents to make up the difference and quickly put it in my account so I would have 12.34 left in my account when the check cleared. Relief. Just now I checked my account online and it did list the check as cleared, last week!! So I didn't miscalculate, the bank machine was just really mean!! So now I have lots of money and I don't have to have a panic attack. All is well with the world.
Oh the drama of student loans!!