So much fun!

For Christmas, at my request, my bf bought me EA Sports Active and it's been sitting in the box for the last couple of days while I was busy shopping and playing Lego Star Wars.

This morning, deciding that I don't need to wait until January 1st to start working out again, and realizing that my basement is still a disaster leaving both the bike and treadmill un-useable, I opened the box. I honestly wasn't expecting much from it. Wii fit is fun but mostly for the games, I find it kind of boring after a while. EA Sports Active? Wow, it was fun and super challenging! It made me do 2 reps of squats. SQUATS! I hate squats. And lunges! My legs are pretty much jello right now. This tells me 2 things, I'm in pretty bad shape, EA Sports Active is a good workout!

It only took me about 22 minutes to complete a variety of activities including the aboe mentioned squats and lungers, also a couple of more toning exercises using a resistance band, some running, in-line skating and boxing. Fun! According to the game I burned 126 calories!

I can totally see myself using this regularly on top of my running.

And speaking of running, I need to get my basement organized so I can start using the treadmill again. I want to sign up for my first 5k in May and I know it's not a very far distance, I'm super nervous about it and would feel better if I could start running now!

Normally Wednesdays are grocery day in our house, but since my bf is off tomorrow I'm just going to go in the morning when there should hopefully be less people. I should need too much since we've got a party on one night and I'm planning on making turkey another. Also, this week a couple of our planned meals didn't happen since I got home too late and made something else on the fly. I have a lot of things to use up in my fridge and I want to do so with the least amount of waste possible!

A Star Wars kind of day

For some reason, probably because it's cold as all hell out there, I can't seem to warm up tonight. I've made about 4 cups of tea, I've put on my brand new super fuzzy & warm pjs and I'm hiding under a blanket.. nothing's working!

Today was a fun day, but fun days have a tendency to go by way too fast! My mother called me up this morning to see if I wanted to go back to Danier Leather with her and my aunt. The leather jacket I bought for my bf's bday? My aunt had bought one for my cousin yesterday and now my uncle wanted one too. While we were there my mom found on that was a Tall size so she also bought one for my dad. I'm going to crack up if ever we all go out and the guys all wear their coats!

After that purchase we went to St. Laurent mall. Last year my mom had given me 2 $25 gift cards for the mall and they were about to expire, along the way I got another $25 card too so I was looking to spend them. St. Laurent also has a Danier store and I found a coat I loved there for the right price. No more coats now though, I seriously own more than enough!

We also hit up Costco on the way back home. My mom bought a wii yesterday and she wanted to go back and get the wii fit. Since there's some kind of pull between me and Costco and I can't seem to walk out of there without spending money, I bought, for my wii fit the Everlast weights & platform for the step-ups. Also, they had these running shoes at a good deal. I swear by my Asics, but these Avia shoes are pretty comfy from what I've gathered wearing them around the house. I'll probably keep them at work for when I go on walks at lunch.

After all of that shopping it was Eggroll time! Finally!! My mother used to make these all the time when I was a kid but she hasn't made any in YEARS! We threw some cabbage, carrot, celery & green onion into the food processor, I chopped up some turkey, some pepper & fleur de sel and we were ready to make eggrolls!! It was really fun too! My mother insisted on deep frying hers for a couple of minutes to 'start them off' but I wasn't having any of that. I pulled out a Pampered Chef stone and baked mine on there. They were just as good, if not better than the fried ones! I seriously love Pampered Chef stones, I cook everything on them. I ended up coming home with about 20 (!!) eggrolls. My mother has another 20 and the final batch of 20 are going to my aunt, uncle and cousin tomorrow.

Mom and I always hang out on Saturdays and we usually go shopping... and we're terrible influences on eachother. We were talking today about having to stop that but still wanting to do stuff together, so we're going to look into doing more active things, like perhaps cross country skiing, or hiking. Another option we talked about was getting together to cook or bake like we did today. If we could cut down our shopping to 1x/month it would be an improvement!

While I was at my mom's I set up her wii for her since my dad wouldn't do it. She played around with the wii fit for a bit and she loves it! I'm glad since i've been telling her to get one for ages!! When I came home, after the kitchen was cleaned up and the bf was in bed (he's back at work already and gets up at 4:30am!), I dusted off my wii fit and played for about an hour. I'm not proud to report that I've apparently gained about 12lbs since this time last year which was the last time I used my wii fit! Whoops! I was already planning to get back on track though, so I'm not freaking out over this.

It's snowing again!

Let me tell ya, online shopping can be a dangerous thing! I've been perusing the Stah Teas website and there's so many flavours we don't have available around here that I want to buy!

Also dangerous, time wasted playing video games. My bf bought me the lego star wars game for the wii and I accidentally just spent about 2 hours playing... it's so much fun but not really worth all of the time it steals away from me!

If I was my camera cord, where would I be?? I seriously need to find it because I want to start posting pictures! I find they always make the blogs I read interesting and that's something I want to do here too!

My mom came by last night to bring me my Christmas presents. That woman seriously spoils me. She had already bought me 2 things, a gorgeous necklace and a leather jacket, but on top of that I also got another necklace with earings and ring, shoes, clothes, a beautiful giraffe statue, the perfume I have been coveting, and other stuff I can't even remember. I love my mom!

Today we went out for some more shopping. We went with my aunt this time and she wanted to go to Danier leather to get her son & husband a leather coat like I had gotten my bf. It wasn't as crazy today as it was on the 26th, but they had the same deals.. I guess the advantage to going early is that you're more likely to get the sizes you need.. I needed nothing though so I walked out empty handed.

Then we went to Costco. Costco is always such band news but I LOVE going there. I walked in needing toilet paper & cheese strings. I walked out with those things plus some cat food... my poor cat has been stuck eating dog food all week since I keep forgetting about him! I also bought dog treats, we ran out about 3 months ago and as much as they love getting carrots as treats, every once in a while they love their cookies too! Plus, the dog treats were on sale! I also bought myself 4 new tops for running. 1 tank, 1 tee and 2 jacket-type things. Two of the items were on sale, 2 were not. I'm in need of some new running clothes though so I'll just pull that money from my slush fund account.. it's what it's there for!

Our last stop was the grocery store. I had forgotten to thaw out some fish for dinner so I ended up buying some tofu, garlic bread and some brocoli slaw. For dinner I ransacked the fridge, I chopped up some brussel sprouts, garlic, zucchini & green onion as well as 1/3 of the tofu and cooked everything up in some olive oil, I then added some left over marinara into the mix. For some reason I had no spaghetti in the pantry but I did find 2 half used bags of Farkay noodles, so I cooked those up and mixed everything together. I served that along with half of the garlic bread and the brocoli slaw tossed with some sunflower seeds & Asian Sesame dressing and it was a super good dinner! Plus, lots of leftovers!

Tomorrow's plan, for serious this time, is getting some cleaning done! Other than the kitchen not much else got accomplished today! And tomorrow is also eggroll making day at my mom's. She's a late riser though so I know I can get some quality cleaning done at my own house before she even gets out of bed! I can't believe that tomorrow is already Tuesday! Vacation always goes by so fast!

To buy or not to buy...

In our living room we have an old reclining sofa and love seat that my parents gave us about 3 or 4 years ago when they got new leather sofas. These are about 20 years old and super dated but they're still comfy so we took them. The loveseat is still in great condition, the couch however is showing serious signs of wear & tear. I'm guessing having 2 dogs that are regular fixtures on the couch doesn't help much either!

I was browsing various furniture stores for boxing deals in case I found a new set that was at a good price and I came across a couch, chair & ottoman that I quite liked and I've spent ALL DAY debating whether I should order it or not. Shipping is free and it would be here on Thursday which is great since I'll be home. I have about $1300 in my House account which is where I regularly put money aside for purchases such as thing, however about $800 of that is reserved for putting in a fence in the spring. I could probably replenish that in plenty of time but then I remembered I could cash in some savings bonds and only take about $300 from that account.

It's been hours of me deliberating but I've finally closed the window and I've decided to wait. The difference between the regular price and the sale price ends up being only about $250 which is still quite a bit of money but it's not like it's a deal of a lifetime type of thing. Plus, the couch looked real nice on the picture I saw of it on the internet, but I'm guessing the smart thing to do would be to at least get my butt to the store to see it in person first before I actually drop $1200 on the set!

So it looks like I'm going to be stuck with my old couches for a while still but I'm ok with that :D

Boxing Day!

I am LOVING being on vacation!

A recap of the last few days:

Christmas Eve
The Reveillon was mostly fun. We got the my aunt & uncle`s at around 8:30, we sat around and chatting for about 20 minutes and then my cousin & uncle ordered `The Hangover`on pay-per-view so we all sat down to watch it. About halfway through, around 10pm we paused it to sit down and eat dinner. My aund had made fondue so we had a choice of beef, chicken, cheese and various veggies. It was delicious but eating so late was kind of a weird experience. After dinner we went back down to finish the movie and then back upstairs to open some gifts. My aunt & uncle bought me a warm zebra throw and a zebra statue.

Christmas Morning
The bf and I woke up and after I failed at making coffee 2x he made a pot and we settled in to open gifts. We had set a $200 limit and I`m pretty sure I went over by a bit for him, I`m ok with it. Everything I bought for him I got fantastic deals on so he got a lot for $200! I`m very happy with what he got me, some books, some dvds and a couple of wii games.

Christmas Night
The plan was to drive to the in-laws who live about an hour away. Dinner was supposed to be sandwiches but my MIL ended up doing the whole turkey dinner. We played wii for a while and then ate and opened gifts. We left to come home at aorund 9:30 and on our way home we passed 3 different cars that had spun out into the ditch. I hate driving in the winter so I stressed a bit, but I just slowed right down and got us home safe and sound.

Boxing Day
Today was actually pretty quiet. I slept in late, getting up at 10am and I ended up going out with my mom to shop for a couple of hours. Danier Leather was having a sale so we checked that out. My mom ended up buying me a nice leather coat as a gift which I super appreciated. I bought my bf a coat, his birthday is coming up on January 27th and he`s been talking about wanting a new coat. Plus, I could not pass up the deal, a $400 jacket for $99? Amazing! I hope he likes it! Aftwerwards we went to the mall and I bought the bf a Mustang Page-A-Day calendar at 50% off, I got a Black Lab one for myself and a blank journal to use as my 2010 agenda type thing. I also bought a purple pair of faux-uggs to wear around the house because they are comfy!

Tomorrow
My mom and I are probably going to get out to another mall. I still need to find more things for the bf's birthday. It kind of sucks having to go out and buy more gifts so soon after Christmas, but on the other hand, with all the sales I usually find some pretty great deals! My Godchild's birthday is in March so I always try to find stuff for him too. Also, my birthday is in February so I'm on the lookout of what to ask for!

My mom is then supposed to bring me to her house so we can spend the rest of the day making some homemade eggrolls with all of her leftover turkey! She also apparently has some Christmas gifts for me too which I totally wasn't expecting. I got an early present from her last month and then she bought me that jacket today... she always spoils me SO MUCH.

I would also like to get some cleaning done around the house. At least the main floor since it's where we spend pretty much all of our time...though my day seems like it will be pretty full already!

Anyhow, I hope everyone had a safe and merry Christmas! Presents are always fun but my favorite is by far spending time with family and friends. And talking on the phone to those who live too far away.

Santa`s current location is Egypt!

It's currently 4pm and I still have 4 hours to kill before going over to my uncle's house for reveillon so I figured I'd drop by and post.

December 23rd was pay day so a bunch of money got transferred into my various ING accounts.

$25 - New Laptop Account
$75 - House Account
$75 - New Car Account
$50 - Slush Account
$30 - Presents Account
$5 - Medical Account (I get reimbursed 80% so this is to cover the difference)
$25 - Non-Registered Mutual Fund
$75 - RRSP
$125 - Canada Savings Bonds
$50 - TFSA aka Emergency fund.

Since I maxed out my CPP & EI a couple of pays ago, I've been transferring the extra to various accounts and this pay period it was an extra $121.97 which I put into my TFSA.

***

Today was an unofficial half day at work so I went in to get a few things done before being off for all of next week! Since our group does a whole thing with Santa and his elf everyone brings in their kids so it was a lot of fun to hang out with all of them and share in their Christmas excitement!

I sat with them and watched Santa arrive and then take a seat and start calling up each child to give them a gift. To my surprise my name got called out to go and get a gift! My father works for the same group and he'd slipped in a gift for me as a joke, lol! So I got to go and and get my picture taken with Santa :D

After all of that excitement I went up to my dad's office and had a couple of glasses of wine with his staff. They had a table full of food & desserts so that was a fun time also! We ended up leaving around 12:30 and I came home and immediately took a quick nap! I didn't get very much sleep though so now I'm slowly drinking a cafe mocha to get some caffeine in my veins!

***

Lastly I have a quick health update, apparently the ENT specialist saw my scans and wants to see me sooner rather than later, so I was able to get an appointment to do that at the end of January. I'm not sure if I should be worried or not since I was initially told it could take much longer to get an appt but until I hear anything I'm not even going to stress about it. It's not like I can do anything to change my situation.

***

I am so excited for Christmas!! As soon as my bf finishes wrapping up my presents we're going to watch the 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Christmas Special` I`ve been wanting to see it for so long I hope he`s done wrapping soon!!

This week has been flying by, it's not even funny!

Today I was a little bit bad. I went out and bought a bottle of spiced rum, I used a $25 gift card my bf received as a secret santa gifts, I had to pay the $1.95 extra to cover the difference. At lunch my coworker talked me into getting Thai food so that cost me another $11.25. The we started talking about the movie Elf and since I don't actually own it and it's my favorite movie.. we went down to HMV and each bought a copy, so that was another $14. Totally worth it though.

When I came home I noticed that I'd missed the Purolator delivery guy by about 20 minutes. So now I have to drop by the post office tomorrow afternoon to pick up my Garmin Forerunner! I've decided that since it is in fact a gift to myself for Christmas, I'm going to not open it up right away, I'm going to wrap it up and stick it under the tree! Sadly it's still going to be the ONLY gift for me under there since my bf is the king of procrastinating. None of my gifts are wrapped yet! In fact, they're all still sititng in the same Amazon box they were delivered in!

1.5 more work days and then it's 10 glorious days off!! Tomorrow my goal is to find myself a cute little notebook for 2010 and then that's it for shopping for me!

I used to be a little bit shy.

I can`t find my cord to hook up my camera :( I made a delish lunch today which I took pics of. Also I baked some tofu fries. Hopefully pictures will come later.

This morning I accidentally woke up at 11am! I can`t even remember the last time I slept that late, apparently I`ve been accumulating some serious sleep debt. Normally sleeping in for me is getting up at 7:30 or 8:00! I haven`t come close to finishing my to-do list but I`m comfortable with that. After these next 4 days of work I`m off for 10 days straight so I will have time then to get caught up on all my chores. I did manage to get 2/3 of the kitchen clean, the rest will be done later. I also vacuumed 2 floors & 1 staircase and did a load of laundry. It's better than nothing.

What I really need to get motivated to do though is clean up the basement. It's such a disaster down there that I can't motivate myself to go down there to run on the treadmill. I should take a picture but it's seriously such an embarassing disaster!

Smiling is my favorite!

Elf is playing on tv!! It's my favorite Christmas movie and I can't not watch it...so there go any plans I had of being productive tonight! And despite my plans of getting many things crossed off my to-do list today, I spent the day shopping with my mom and therefore got absolutely nothing accomplished. Whoops!

I was certain that this being the last weekend before Christmas the malls would be insane... Surprisingly, we went to 2 and they weren't! We even went to Walmart and it seemed no different than any other day.. I'm very grateful for that!

Last year for Christmas I got $100 in gift certificates from the second mall we went to. Since they're about to expire I was hoping to find something to spend my money on but I wasn't so lucky. I found one bright pink trench-like coat by Peppercorn I really loved, but they didn't have the size I need :( And I didn`t want to just buy something for the sake of buying so I walked out empty handed. I``ll go back after Christmas and hopefully fare better. I think I`ve decided though, if I can`t find anything I`ll either get some running clothes, new shoes or a new watch.

As for Walmart, I did some impulse shopping but I was mostly good. I spent about $23 on some peppermint tea, a new Tetley tea, some tofu, pancake mix, frozen blueberries, cream cheese and a couple of treats for the dogs. I resisted putting many more things in my cart though, including a couple of magazines.. so I`m calling this a successful outing.

All those shadows coming after you

I'm trying very hard to motivate myself to get something accomplished tonight but I can't seem to even do that!

I think I might just give myself a break for the night. I'll prepare a to-do list for the weekend and then settle in to watch some tv before bed.

Normally on Saturdays I spend the day with my mom shopping or running errands, however we talked about it today and we agreed that if we do end up going out tomorrow it won't be for very long as the malls/shops will be INSANE due to it being the last weekend before Christmas! I kind of hope I don't have to go out, there's a lot I want to get done around my house!

In other news, I had to leave work early today for a doctors appointment. It turns out my CT-Scan results were in already. The appointment was a big waste of time sadly, my doctor just confirmed what I've been complaining about for the last 3 years... I have issues with my sinuses! The scan showed thickening of the bone due to multiple untreated sinus infections & also multiple cysts. I kind of laughed bitterly at the 'untreated sinus infections' I've been begging my doctor for something to help deal with the pain when I have them but she always tells me "You've lived with these problems for so long, we should just wait until we've finished all the testing." So frustrating!! I'm now being referred to an ear, nose & throat specialist but I was told it would be 3-6 months before I would get an appointment. SIGH. I should note though that since the weather got SUPER cold my sinuses have been better so I feel bad complaining at all.

Ok, I have a to-do list to think about now :D

So, So Cold!

It's really amazing how quickly the time has been flying by! I honestly cannot believe that Christmas Eve is a week from tonight!! I'm very excited :D

This year I have an aunt, uncle & cousin who just moved to town so Christmas Eve will be spent with my parents, them and my bf. I come from a French Canadian background so we'll be doing a Reveillon. I haven't Reveillon'd since I was a kid! The plan is to get there around 8, drink and hang out and then dinner, fondue, will be served at 11pm. We're skipping the whole midnight mass thing in order to drink some more. I do work on Christmas Eve morning though so I think after a couple of drinks I'll be pretty tired! I tend to be in bed by 9pm every night!

On Christmas Day we'll be driving about 45 minutes out of town to spend the evening with my inlaws, me, my bf, his brother and their parents. The MIL isn't planning on a big dinner, just sandwiches and finger foods which is fine by me! We'll exchange gifts, play some poker and call it a night. Very simple but also very enjoyable.

My parents are doing an actual Christmas Day dinner but we'd already commited to the in-laws so I'll miss that which kind of makes me sad, but we'll be seeing them the night before anyways. Plus, they already knew we had plans on the 25th.

Coming up soonish I'm going to post myh 2010 Goals/Resolutions. I've been giving this a lot of thought for the last couple of days and I can't wait to put them out there and start towards achieving them!

Weekly Meal Plan

Tomorrow is grocery day so I`ve prepared my weekly meal plan for December 16th - 22nd. I normally pick up my groceries at the Sobeys by my house but due to certain circumstances I`ll be shopping at Metro this week.

Wednesday - Guidilles
Thursday - Sole Florentine w/ Buttered Beans
Friday - Penne w/ Smoked Salmon
Saturday - Sesame Beef & Broccoli
Sunday - Goulash
Monday - Farfalle w/ Sausage
Tuesday - Salmon Croquettes w/ Dumplings

Most of the recipes this week are from SOS Cuisine which is a meal planning site that I LOVE LOVE LOVE. I think the only one that's not from the site is my dinner for Wednesday. I'm pretty sure that hardly anyone knows what a Guidille is and therefore I will make a post all about them when I've made them!

Overheard in the office..

Actually, this wasn't even overheard, this was an actual conversation I had with a coworker of mine.

R - My boyfriend just called, he got $2000 extra!

Me - Really? That's great! Good for him.

R - Yeah, his credit card limit just got raised from $750 to $3000. Whoo hoo! So we're going down south after Christmas AND he's going to buy me an iPod Touch for Christmas

Me - ...

R - This is the best day EVER!

Me - You do realize that this is CREDIT and not money that was given to your boyfriend, right? He'll need to pay it back.

R - Yeah, but that`s his problem. He`s already declared bankruptcy once so if he needs to do it again then whatever.

Oh my god­. I couldn`t believe that I had this conversation with someone for real. I mean, I was never always debt-free but I like to think that I was, at least to some extent, responsible about money!

Crazy,

Merry Christmas to ME!

I just ordered myself a Christmas present! I've been wanting to get one of these for a while and I just couldn't wait until my birthday (feb) to get it!



I am VERY excited!!! It should get here by the end of the week and though it was paid for by visa, as soon as I see the transaction go through I'm going to transfer the funds to pay it off immediately. I love that I have savings on hand for semi-impulsive purchases such as this! Now I feel as though I need some new running outfits!

I was going to post my weekly menu plan today but it's going to have to wait until tomorrow. I actually got my plan done for the next 2 weeks but I forgot all my papers at work.. whoops!

Our love's the only truth

The closer we get to Christmas the busier stores are going to get, this is why I've decided that tomorrow I need to get most, if not all of my Christmas shopping done.

I need to pick up a French Christmas card to mail my god child's gift card.

I need to mail god-child's gift card & also package for my little cousins.

I need to go to Baton Rouge to get gift card for the in-laws and I've decided to also get a gift card for my god father & aunt.

I need to go to the LCBO to pick up a bottle of wine for my uncle.

And finally I need to get to Costco to get some beer for the bf as we're starting to run low.

After all of this the last thing on my list will be my dogs and I've decided to just wait for the after Christmas sales to get them new toys.

Coming up tomorrow I'll have my weekly menu plan which I'm working on now.

Jumping Right In.

RBC 1 .. TD 0

I'm in the process of transferring all of my banking over to TD from RBC. In the past, my bf and I would transfer eachother money within our RBC accounts and it would always appear right away, but now that we're with TD we've discovered that it actually takes a whole business day for the transfer to occur. We called today and since he transferred me money after 6 on a weekend, I won't have access to these funds until 6pm on Monday! It's crazy! But it's also ok since I don't immediately need access to the money, it's just 'good to know' info.

Spending Report:

I spent the whole day out braving the malls today and I'm happy that I managed to end my day with my patience intact and my spending under control.

At the Signatures Craft Show I purchased a small gift for a friend at work, after tax I only spent $10.11

At Winners/Homesense I picked up a $25.00 Gift card for my bf for his Secret Santa exchange at work. He'll be paying me back for that purchase.

Besides that my only other purchase was at Walmart for 1 gift, Christmas Supplies, deoderant and a magazine, here's the breakdown:



Everything fell within budget, the only 'extra' was my magazine.

I'm almost done my Christmas Shopping after this! On Monday I have to go pick up the restaurant gift card for my in-laws, mail my 2 little cousin's presents, my god child's gift card and then find a gift for my godfather and aunt and I'm done! Actually, I also have to find something for my dogs but I think I might just wait and get them stuff during the after Christmas sales.. they won't know the difference!