As of Tuesday I needed to take a new route to work. I don't know for how long. I saw a few signs saying that the road would be closed from X street to X street. Right in the middle of my commute. So I'm back to taking the Yellowhead. It's a mini-freeway. Sorta. It has a ton of stop lights and three lanes of traffic moving (or not moving) in each direction. I think my evening commute is definitely shorter, but the morning one seems longer and slightly more frustrating. Or maybe after three months of walking 10-15 minutes to work and only having to occasionally wait for a car to go by has spoiled me. I will take a drive down on the weekend and see if I can go back to my usual route next week.

I headed to the West Edmonton Mall (WEM) on Tuesday afternoon to catch a movie and walk around. I have my usual parking area. I figure the more I park there the less likely I am to not lose my truck. Cause lets face it...that is a lot of parking lot to cover. And if my mother and I can misplace our car at the Charlottetown Mall parking lot I can certainly do it at WEM. Unfortunately or fortunately most of the stores I go to are at the opposite end of the mall. It just means more window shopping and I guess a bit of exercise.

What I noticed at the mall was that there are a lot of "Coming Soon" signs around the mall. I never noticed before how many empty stores there were but I wonder if perhaps there are more stores that have closed in the past 6 months than in the past year. Is it the recession? Is it that I just happened to notice the signs? Is it just lease turn over time? I'm curious. Thoughts? Has anyone else seen businesses closing around them?

Work ended on a high note today. Maybe it was just because I left almost on time. Maybe it was because I got taken out for lunch (unofficial meeting). Maybe it was the weather. It is pretty rare I get out before 5:30, or even 6:00pm. The thrill when I turned into the parking lot at my building and noted it was 5:32pm was pretty awesome.

I should do some additional work on my necklace...mmm, maybe tomorrow night.

My friend K is making me feel lazy. On her two days off all summer she spends one day hiking. Every week she picks a new place to hike. She is a real inspiration. Keep up the awesome work K.

I need to do some more cooking. My butter chicken from the weekend is gone. I gotta say it is soooo much easier to have a big pot of food to serve myself from every day for lunch or supper. I might...try baked beans. I have lots of beans, I can cook them in the slow cooker. Hmmm. I just might. Ok...off to search for good baked bean recipe. Good thing I don't share an office at the moment. :)

Almost forgot. I had a call from Canada Post today...apologizing. Yep, they admitted they screwed up! I had my mail temporarily forwarded for three months this summer. The mail was being forwarded to the office here in Edmonton. They would put it in the regular parcels to Cambridge Bay. No problem. In mid-July it ran out. I was expecting a few (ok, more than a few) pieces of mail upon my return. Oddly enough the box was empty. Figuring I was just un-popular I wasn't overly concerned until I listened to my messages. My insurance company had called to see if I had moved. My renewal had been returned. I still didn't really worry about it until the following week I went to the bank and it was on my record that my mail had been returned. I promptly called Canada Post and asked what was going on.

Oh, no worries maam we will make sure your mail is no longer returned and will start having it delivered again. It will take up to 5 days. A week goes by and still no mail. I called again today. We went through the whole thing....again. Then about 2 hours later I got a call from Canada Post apologizing. The regional supervisor heard about my issue and felt terrible. He had been on vacation when the first call came in and now that I logged a second one he took on the case and personally contacted my mail carrier...who he assured me was one of the best. I told him thanks, he said don't thank me. And he apologized again.

By this time I was concerned about my mail...my visa had fraud charges, Shaw had called regarding the equipment of theirs I have and my returned mail. My new visa card has not arrived, my insurance renewal has not arrived...it all worries me a bit. The visa really worries me. I will call them again tomorrow and check on it.

At least I feel safe in knowing that I will soon be getting my mail again...I hope.