Downtown Living

When we moved to Alberta from the North, we lived in a city which is just next to Edmonton. I used to drive to Edmonton for work and at first I did not mind it. In the winter time it was hard especially when we get a lot of snow. Then we moved to Edmonton and it was closer to work and most of jobs I had, I worked in the same building which is very convenient. I had a job I took and I could move downtown, which I did not really like at first. I thought about the noise, the homeless and all sorts of things. But it grew on me and I must admit I like the convenience of it. I can walk to the grocery store, pharmacy, theaters, my dentist, eye doctor and to work. There are restaurants, pubs, coffee shops and diners of all kinds of cuisines. Now I don't think I can go back to the suburbs.

Just last week when I was out for my walk I took again pictures of the different things I see.

That is the Provincial Legislature on the top, one of the fountains on the grounds and another big planter close to the government centre.

I remember this water feature on the Legislative grounds, a while back we would walk at lunch time in our flip flops and we will wade here and enjoy the cool water especially on a hot day.

The Legacy of an Adopted Child - Part 2

The year was 1984...my husband (now ex) and I travelled to the Philippines to attend my grandmother's funeral. While there, we met a few of my college friends and at one of these meetings, the topic of adoption was brought up. At that time I had been married for 11 years and never got pregnant. At another meeting, a close college friend talk to the nuns at the college I attended and suggested to us to visit this one particular orphanage. We did and had a very informative conversation with one of the nuns. After coming back from the trip, we decided to call Social Services in our city and got more information about international adoption.

After a few months of talking and getting more information, we finally decided to apply for international adoption. So we started filling out forms and getting documents and having home study done, applying for security and police clearance. A year later, our application was approved, now it is choosing the child we would raise. I believe we were offered a cute baby boy but with heavy heart we had to decline for medical reason. Then another baby boy was suggested and I remember very well that one of the nuns had mentioned that he looks a bit like me so it is a good match. After reading all the information they sent us, we decided to go for this baby. In August of 1986, we finally signed all the documents. At one point in time, the nuns asked what will I do if I get pregnant while the process is going on and I replied we would still go through the adoption. In September of that year, I was doing exercises with a friend of mine and I complained about soreness in my breast and she said...You are pregnant! I said I could not be. To make long story short, I went to see my doctor and he confirmed that indeed I was pregnant. A few months later, while I was on my regular check up, he wanted to do another ultra sound as he told me that he is concerned that I could be carrying twins. When I told my husband this, his comment was...oh we have to get two cribs. I screamed at him, and said gosh you are worried about two cribs, I am scared of how we would take care of 3 babies. It felt like I was carrying triplets.

Netflix and Bollywood

About 3 years ago, my son subscribed to Netflix. He enjoyed watching the shows, tv series, documentaries and indie movies. Last year I decided to try and watch Netflix. I was interested in the documentaries about travel and cooking and military documentaries. I also enjoyed watching indie and international movies. One night while going through all the international movies, I decided to watch a movie from Bollywood. I have watched a French movie before and it was very interesting. The only thing is I had to get used to subtitles which I am very good at now after watching all kinds of movies. The movie I watched was Jab Tak Hai Jaan. It's a romantic movie and the story was quite interesting. After watching that and a few more, I had been watching Bollywood movies. I have my favorite star and I just choose the movies I think would be good. A former office mate of mine was kind of making fun of me. But I just told her, it's my entertainment like yours is going to the casino and losing money. I listen to some of the songs too, before I would kind of laugh at the movies because there is an interesting scene and all of a sudden they are in an exotic place singing and dancing. The nice thing is they shoot in different parts of the world so you see what the country looks like.

Here is a video of one of the songs and it was shot in Iceland. Enjoy.

Update....Pokemon Go

I am now Level 14, it was a lot slower than the first week as I have been encountering the No GPS signal found which makes it hard to catch or load balls. I just walk and sometimes I do not even try to catch any pokemon where there is no GPS. I have done every tip on internet and it does not help. 
On my walks to different areas of downtown I decided to take a few pictures of planters outside different buildings. After September 10, I will walk by the new Rogers Place which is our new arena in downtown and take pictures.

Here are some of the few pictures of planters. Now, I can post pictures. Just this weekend I was trying to upload videos and it won't play on my blog so I will try and find out why. I also have posts done waiting for videos to upload and work.

Flowers

Every summer since I started with this company, I get fresh flowers for my desk from our Operations Manager. He loves to garden and has collection of dahlias. He brings them on Mondays and would last the week or bring them on Thursday and I take it home to enjoy for the weekend. Lately he has brought some gladiolas as well.

Here are two arrangements I did with the flowers he brought last week. They lasted for about a week.

Legacy of an Adopted Child - Part 1

This is the title of a poem given to us by the nuns at the orphanage where we adopted our oldest son. It was printed in a nice paper and the letters were blue. The author is unknown. 

Once there were two women,

Who never knew each other

One you do not remember,

The other you called mother.

Two different lives

Shaped to make yours one.

One became your guiding star,

The other became your sun.

The first gave you life

And the second taught you to live it

The first gave you a need for love,

And the second was there to give it.

One gave you a nationality,

The other gave you a name.

One gave a seed of talent,

The other gave you an aim.

One gave you emotions,

The other calmed your fears.

One saw your first sweet smile,

The other dried your tears.

One gave you up- -

It was all that she could do

The other prayed for a child

And God led her straight to you.

And now you ask me

Through your tears,

The old age question 

Through the years:

Heredity or environment

Which are you a product of?

Neither, my darling--neither

Just two different kinds of love.

I still have that piece of paper in mint condition and I have given a copy to my son when I believed he could understand the meaning of the poem and might help him deal with his adoption.

Excellent Customer Service

After my post on bad customer service, I have this post to balance my experience with two companies. One is Wireless Wave where we ended up upgrading our phones. As soon as we got to their kiosk on the second floor of West Edmonton Mall, we saw they do Fido phones. And we also saw that the phone is $400 which is what is on their website. The two guys right away asked what we wanted and upgraded our phones without any hassles and even saved us money on our plans. They also suggested tips on how we can request Fido to waive reconnection fees. All in all it was a pleasant experience. They even transferred my data to the new phone. We also got accessories for our new phones.
The other company where I get excellent customer service is Shaw Cable for our internet, phone and cable. Every time I call for some information or technical support I always get superb customer service. They are all patient, helpful and giving tips on how to save on my bundle. Just today I went to their store and picked up a new WiFi modem so we can get internet 150. When I got home I had problems with the modem and called and of course very helpful. I got all my devices connected to my WiFi as the guy asked me to try and do it all while he was on the phone with me. So now I am all set and now we have super fast internet.
Since I have not been blogging for a while, and have a new phone, I am relearning how to post my pictures. I have drafts of post waiting to upload my pictures and since this is a long weekend I will try to get that done. So bear with me with my no picture posts for a short while.
Thank you again to Wireless Wave and Shaw Cable for very excellent customer service.

Have a great long weekend every one. Thanks for stopping by.































































excellee

Kindle Fire HDX

This device really really sucks. I bought mine two months after it was released. Since it was fairly new, there was not a lot of reviews. It worked for a long time and then all of a sudden, started losing sound. I went on internet to look for solution and found a few that worked. Then nothing I do would solve the problem. I tried to find a number to call Amazon. Nothing, no phone number anywhere I looked at. Finally I emailed and it says there that they would reply on 24 - 48 hours. Now since this Kindle Fire is only good as ereader or checking my email, I will just blog about it and next would be Amazon depending on how they handle my complaints. I'm not buying anything from them, maybe just free books or games since those are the only things I can do with this now useless crappy device. So it will be back to using my laptop now.