.winter hit.

So this weekend Edmonton was the coldest place in Canada, hitting -46 (-59 with windchill)!
Thankfully, I was in Calgary, staying warm and cozy in my apartment (yes, with the yuletide fireplace channel on tv. I am a nerd). Jenn and I ventured out to a mall on Saturday, which was a bad idea considering all the crazy Christmas shoppers. But other than the parking being insane, the mall itself wasn't terribly busy, and we had some success finding sales for ourselves. (And yes, I do feel slightly selfish to have gone shopping for myself at Christmas time, but I haven't neglected my Christmas shopping, I was just really on top of it this year.)
On Saturday night I went to the Awaken Christmas party (we rocked some karaoke), on Sunday I stayed home all day and set up our psychedelic Christmas tree and baked muffins, and then went to church.
And then Monday arrived, in its glory.
Erm...
My car is currently dead. Will not start. Steve suggested that I try swearing, as that may help. I decided not to take him up on his suggestion, and the booster cables also let me down. I tried calling AMA, putting that trusty CAA card into use...but their phone lines were busy. Too busy to even get put on hold. And then I got through once, to be put on hold, and they randomly hung up on me. And since I don't feel like waiting until midnight for them to fix my car, which is probably when they'd be able to get around to it, I'm going to "do as Calgarians do" and wait for a chinook. (and also try the jumper cables once more tonight.)
Unfortunately, in the mean time, I still have to go to schools to teach. Thankfully today I could use Jenn's car, and I'll probably have to use it again tomorrow. But I NEED my car to be working on Wednesday, because I'm going to be teaching in Carstairs, and she'll be teaching in Calgary at the same time.
So it's somewhat annoying that my car is dead, but not the end of the world.
But shortly after arriving at work, Jenn came running down the hall with the news that the bathroom is leaking sewage. Gross. The pipes froze, and the sewage is backing up into the bathrooms. So we immediately made some calls, but ultimately ended up having to close the Centre for the day. (It's tough to do pregnancy tests without access to bathrooms...)
The plumber did make it to the Centre to fix it...but apparently the leakage has spread into the classroom. Where we were supposed to hold our client Christmas party tomorrow. Not to worry, we have a backup location at a church just a few blocks down on the C-train line...but this complicates things greatly. We have TONS of presents and decorations and things to move there tomorrow, plus we'll have to redirect all our clients to the party.
Also, we've been calling the appointments to try to reschedule them, as well as continuing to make new appointments with clients phoning in today. Normally we've got an office full of people answering phones all day; today it was just Jenn.
So thank you, winter, for the chaos you have provided. You certainly keep life interesting!