It wasn’t until I saw that my previous post was entitled “Enter, enter, the first of November” that I realized how long it’s actually been since I’ve blogged. “Busy” doesn’t begin to describe it.
One thing I’ve been busy with recently is getting the apartment ready for Christmas 🙂
I’ve got a load of dishes in the washer right now, and once I’m done blogging, I’m prepared to go make cookies for a couple of hours. In the mean time, though, here are some pictures of the Christmas festivities around our place:
We love our coffee enough to hang our love on a tree. Caribou when we’re in the states and Tim Horton’s when we’re not 🙂Detail of our TreeOur tree, 2013Snowman with his extra large double doubleLarge chai latte with a shot of cinnamon and a shot of espresso. yum.In memory of DamonWe stayed at the Nicolin Mansion for our Honeymoon ❤We toured the Coors brewery with Lori and Ross when we went to visit them 🙂Monogrammed ornament 🙂 It was originally to celebrate Jeff’s first Christmas in the states, but now his initial is mine too! (Our 1st Christmas as a married couple, awe)In memory of Otis, our duh-dog who was half pit, half bull, all awesome.In memory of Dutch, my favorite Rottie.I love the photo ornaments we have on our tree. Get ’em at Snapfish.comOur tree is topped by a serene angel this year. Her head is just shy of our ceiling.The paper ones preceded the real onesCandycanes in the snowView from the balconySkinny SantaBowl of Balls w/ BowBowl of Balls 2
This month, Jeff and I moved to a new apartment. The last couple weeks of July were spent finalizing the boxes and cleaning up the domicile we had been occupying for the past year. It was no small feat! In between all of that, my brother and his girlfriend moved to their new apartment and my mom got the notice that she has to move, too.
So, yeah. July was an absolute BLUR!
When it was mine and Jeff’s turn to move, we had to hire movers because our friends and family were all either at work or out of the country (drat!) We hired “Right Choice” movers and it seemed like the best idea at the time. Two guys came out with their truck and we set to work hauling all of the big stuff. We had to prioritize the heavy stuff so that we had help with it, but all in all it took seventeen hours from the first box to the last box.
Other things that happened in July:
Jeff bought me a Super Nintendo Entertainment System and a few games to go with them… I’m THISCLOSE to beating Act Raiser 🙂 Happy Birthday to me…
My phone took a dive while helping mom get ready to move and the screen shattered. I’m such a social media addict, though, that I still used it for the 4 days it took to get a replacement… what’s a little glass dust? I still managed to stay pretty steady on my photo tracker…
My brother had his first gig with his band!! He plays in a ZZ Top cover band called CC Top (they also do Credence Clearwater Revival) and they played at a local bar for a good sized bar audience. The pic (upper right corner) is of our mom and Steph starting the dance floor 🙂
Also of note, I found a great place to host my sister’s wedding shower (2 weeks!), I walked a 5k with a good friend (1st one of the year), and we got our library set up. Life is certainly good and we’re counting our blessings.
Next up for us in this crazy year is helping mom move, going back to school for Fall Semester, Christmas in Canada, etc. We’re looking at all the requirements to do our immigration paperwork, and it’s staggering. I wanted to get it submitted within the next week, but last night I was sitting on our patio reading the fine print and realized that if he leaves the country while the application is pending (even for just a short time), they’ll consider the application abandoned and he could be banned from coming back 😦 Why does everything have to be so complicated? As if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s this hilarious joke at the end of the paperwork… It’s called the “paperwork reduction act” where they estimate the amount of time to be about 6 hours per application and if it takes longer than that, you’re supposed to report it. But the thing is, the instructions were around 8 pages long just telling you how to do one form, but in the instructions it says you have to do every other form too! I haven’t looked up the instructions for those yet, but I added 4 forms to the list that I didn’t have before… I’m just hoping the fees don’t add up as fast as the form numbers…
Our friends, Anne and Errol, were inundated with crock pots at their wedding. Well, Jeff and I were inundated with party platters and serving ware. We love ’em but Jeff and I are quickly realizing we don’t host enough parties nor have enough cupboard space (currently) for all that we got. Well, this one was super cute and I wanted to put it it use so I set it up tonight as a make-up/beauty stand in our “guest” (read: main) bathroom. It’s entirely too large for the space (it overhangs the sink by about an inch!) but I love how it neatly organizes my things.
When we move, the bathroom counter will be even smaller, which bums me out, but I also have a plan to keep my dresser cleaner* so hopefully this can live on my dresser in the new place.
*My mom taught me not to wash clothes until they’re dirty, so, since I work in an office environment, I’ll wear clothes 2-3x before I wash them but I won’t put them back in the closet. I fold them** and lay them neatly** on my dresser.
**They get tossed however they land and I just hope they don’t wrinkle.
The plan for the new place is to hang towel racks or jacket hooks on the wall near the dressers so that I can hang the clothes up without hanging them in the closet. I’m *really* hopeful this plan works out so that our bedroom can be tidy 🙂
Do you have any creative cleaning/organizing tips? Feel free to share in the comments below.
So, I know that the pictures are not the highest quality… it was kind of late in the evening and I did not take care with the lighting. I just *had* to let you know, though, that in 1 week, I have gotten far enough with the unpacking process that I could actually start hanging things on my walls ❤ This first frame is showing some of my original art work. Left to right: Anna, Circus, Opeth (top) – by my brother, Taz (bottom), Kawaii Not t-shirt cut into wall-hanging, and a fairy sketch.
These cutting boards were made by my mom when she was younger than I am now and they make my (tiny!) kitchen feel so home-y. I can’t decide which one I like the best. It’s probably the puppy, though, because I want a dog and have two cats instead.
They are LOVING it, by the way. They neglect the cat towers in favor of the (awesome) windowsills. I swear they were BUILT for cats. Here’s a pic of Taz exemplifying how perfect they are for the feline variety:
I think that best of all, we actually have an office now. I have been sleeping *so* much better now that the computer is not in the bedroom. I would love to say that I am better able to study as well, however, I am still as much of a procrastinator as ever in that I am writing this entry instead of working on my English homework…
The best part, is that my office can showcase some of my nerd geekery:
My desk is nowhere near finished and does not even have a computer set up on it, so please excuse the mess in the bottom of the frame. Instead, feast your eyes on these fab internet marvels:
It kind of makes me sad to list all of those out… mostly because I haven’t had time to keep up with hardly ANY of them. In gathering the links, I found out that Blankit Comics kind of stalled out, but I was happy to note that flakypastry updated just yesterday.
If you’re looking for something to do, definitely check out some of those links. There’s something for everyone 🙂 If you need kid-friendly stuff, check out dreamland chronicles. If you need adult-friendly stuff, check out girls-with-slingshots. If you just want a great story and not necessarily humour, check out requiem.seraph-inn.com Sarah Ellerton is quite the talented writer.
Okay 🙂 Off to study before I run out of time. Have a fantastic weekend!
If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some. – Benjamin Franklin
Had a busy busy weekend, for sure. Spent money like we were rich, except we’re really not. I’m not even going to talk about the Weight Watcher’s meeting because it was yet again uninspirational. /sigh. Breakfast with Runa afterwards, though, was pretty cool. I actually tracked my breakfast–of course, that was the only meal I tracked this weekend, so not sure how many points I would win for that.
I’m still on my chocolate/sweets kick. A candy bar a day is NOT good for you, and I know that, and yet I still seek it out. Today there were 2 Godiva truffles, 2 ghirardelli caramel squares and 1 hershey’s kiss. And I wanted more. I would say that this is a story for another day, but the reality is that it is a story for every day, at least for me, over the past few weeks. No wonder I’ve gained nearly 3 lbs…
Moving on.
Saturday had the same gamut that I usually run. After school on Saturday, though, Jeff and I went to Target to get some meds for this cold that I’m fighting. Since it was in such close proximity, we stopped in to Verizon and finally replaced my phone–an original DROID that had a bad case of confusion. My old DROID would not let me hang up calls, sometimes wouldn’t recognize that I was swiping to unlock the phone when someone was calling, wouldn’t open the app I was asking for, but would open unrelated ones, would take pictures that were half black half color…. And it didn’t really matter what I did, it was unreliable at best. I have replaced it now with a Motorola Droid Razr… in purple. Because it’s an awesome color.
Motorola Droid Razr (Purple)
Mom had mentioned that there was a clearance sale of jewelry at the mall and so I convinced Jeff that it was a good idea to stop by. The first place we looked had friendly staff, but we didn’t find any engagement rings that we just NEEDED to have. We went a level up and found a beautiful diamond solitare that I fell in love with:
Now it's official-official, not just facebook official!
We decided to go ahead and get this beauty now instead of waiting until March, and since we were applying for financing anyway, we replaced Jeff’s watch while we were at it. On Sunday, we signed the applications and got our deposit turned in for the new apartment that we plan to move to in May. I think I’ve managed to spend more money in a span of two days than I usually would over the course of a year.
I went to dinner at my parent’s house tonight, so I could show them my new ring and Jeff’s watch. My papa-bear burst out laughing when Jeff showed the watch to him. I was perplexed until he showed us his watch alongside Jeff’s–we bought the same exact watch that my step-dad has. LOL! We were highly amused. I guess it’s true what they say, daughters find husbands like their fathers. (So, fathers out there–treat the momma’s right because your daughter will find a man just like you, for better or worse.)
Tomorrow morning the plan is to join my mom at the 6am class, so I should boogie off to bed. No menu in today’s post because it simply didn’t get done with everything else going on. We also did not go grocery shopping, so tomorrow is going to be interesting when it comes to food… oi oi oi…
The good news is that I have some time on Wednesday that I should be able to dedicate to food prep, and I’ve got some great ideas pulled from Pinterest for batch cooking and planning, so look forward to that. 🙂
Thanks for reading! Have a great [insert time of day you’re reading this here]
MegsFitness 