Nearing the end of the month

The first couple of weeks of January went quite well (compared to December, which was hell). Then last week, things got very stressful again. But, I managed and there were no tears shed, which is improvement. It meant I had to work a bunch of extra hours, but I did what I needed to. And instead of thanking me for my effort, my boss thanked another guy for staying a couple of hours late one night to get the drawings done for one of the projects I’m working on. I laughed out loud when my boss thanked that guy and not me. He thanks him for putting in an extra 2 hours, but I get no thanks for putting in an extra 9 hours that one week when I have a toddler and child care arrangements to juggle? GRRRRR!

If it weren’t for the mentorship they are providing me, I would be outta here in a heartbeat. But, I am learning a lot from my mentor and am gaining valuable skills, so I want to stick it out here for at least a couple more months so I can learn all I can from my mentor.

In my meeting with my boss last month, he said probably 5 times during the meeting that the mentor is here to mentor the company, not me. So, that was drilled into my head. Then, I found out last week that the mentor said no to mentoring the company and only wanted to mentor me. Ha! Too bad for the company, but awesome for me!

In other news, our basement renovation is in full swing. We were originally planning to wait until spring, but my dad is off work right now and will be busy in the spring, so we decided to make use of his free time while he has it! So, he has been working on our basement for the last week and a half and we’re at the stage now where it is being primed. So, the painting can start early next week, most likely! I am hoping to have it almost done in time for Julie’s 3rd birthday party next weekend so we can show people.

When we bought the house, the basement was unfinished. We are finishing one area of the basement to make it into a home office. It will become my office if I decide to proceed with my own business.

Then eventually (as in sometime in the 5 years) we will finish the rest of the basement. Half of the remaining space will be a laundry and storage room and the other half will be a family/rec room. That’s the plan anyways.

For those who are keeping up with the law suit saga, we finally have a copy of my uncle’s affidavit of documents. I had to submit our documents in early December. The deadline was Dec 11, which is a court ordered deadline, so on Dec 12th, our lawyer phoned my uncle’s lawyer to get a copy of his affidavit. He responded with “oh, we haven’t done that yet, we’ll need some more time”. You’ve had months! Really made me mad that he could miss a deadline like that. But, he got his act together and submitted just before Christmas.

So, we got a copy of the documents last week. All in all, he really doesn’t have anything. He has some statements from one select group of Oma’s friends (whom she was estranged from for awhile) which basically explain Oma’s deterioration with dementia. One even went so far as to suggest elder abuse on the part of my mother because she found rotting food in Oma’s fridge once and Oma smelled sometimes. The truth was Oma refused to shower most of the time and my mom did seek help for that very issue from the Alzheimer’s society. I fail to see how that is my mom’s fault. All the statements are dated within a couple days of each other, so I know my uncle solicited those statements. And they are dated the summer of 2009, when Oma was just beginning to seriously deteriorate, so it did take a little time before my mom clued into things and figured out how to handle things.

They also claim that my mom was isolating Oma from her family and friends, which is a total lie. Oma had a very active social life and never declined an invitation from this group of friends. So, I really have no idea how they can claim that. We can prove otherwise.

He also has a hand written note from Oma to her first lawyer stating she wants her Will reverted back to the previous version (i.e. the one Ken wants). But, that letter is not witnessed, so I’m sure my uncle dictated that to her. So, I’m not worried about that.

So, overall, given the evidence, I really think we have a stronger case. We are going to meet with our lawyer on Feb 16th to discuss things and we’ll see what he says.