Weekend to Do List

As per usual it’s a busy weekend at our household.

• grocery shopping
• dollar store
• pedicures (maybe, my feet are gross)
• bowling banquet for me
• slo-pitch game for Amy and I
• pick up the boys from Scout camp
• garden/outside work
• work on getting Charlotte’s birthday presents finished

Tonight is the night for my bowling banquet

We’re going out for dinner at a local italian restaurant and having our awards ceremony.  I talked about it a few weeks ago…it’s a cash league and I was lucky enough to win a few prizes.  Can’t wait to see everyone…always have good times at bowling and I am so glad I went back.

Charlotte’s birthday is Canada Day (isn’t that cool that she gets fireworks on her birthday).  We’d like to get a head start on her gifts this weekend.  Not exactly sure what she wants…she hasn’t given us any ideas.

We also need some sand toys for our 2 little sandtables that we have out back.  The kids are itching to play!  We’ll get a few little things from the dollar store.

That’s about it…what’s on your to-do list?  For my American readers, just want to wish you a Happy Memorial Day weekend!!!  Any special plans?

Summer Fridays

Every year my company offers their summer hours program.  It started last week.  Basically we can leave on Fridays at noon, provided that we’ve put in our full 35 hour obligation for the week.  Due to the fact that we need coverage all day on Friday, we split the days between our team…so every other week we can leave at 12 noon.  Today was that day for me!

I love it because during the last weeks of school, I can run a lot of errands on the Friday afternoon.  Today we went over to the Safety Superstore and invested in a couple of products to stop our little Meri, the menace, from being able to open the sliding glass doors and letting the dogs out (which she has done on a few occasions).  More importantly, it will stop the kids from just wandering outside any time they want. 

Throughout the summer, we use the summer Fridays to plan excursions for me, Amy, and the kids.  We plan to use these to the utmost this summer.  We live about an hours drive away from Wasaga Beach, so I am hoping we can take advantage of that.  We’re also getting passes for the Science Centre, so we’ll do that if it’s a rainy day.

Our city is installing a new splash pad, RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from us!  Can I get a yahoo?!  Now Amy will have a nice place to take the kids to cool off on a hot day.  Amy doesn’t drive, so she’s limited on where she can take the kids.  Having a splash pad in walking distance is a huge plus!

Does your company have a summer hours program?  Do you have any summer fun plans?

I’m off to get my baby boy from school…because I have the afternoon off!! YAY!!

Sealed Pot Update…

Back in December I joined Saving For Travel’s  ‘Sealed Pot Challenge.  What is it you ask?  Well SFT can explain it better than I here’s the explanation from her blog:

THE NEW SEALED POT CHALLENGE

WHAT’S IT ABOUT????

Well,little bits and bobs of money are squirreled away in an assortment of SEALED POTS and the result is….A NICE CHUNK OF MONEY JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS, OR TO PUT TOWARDS HOLIDAYS… OR A TREAT, OR LOTS OF FUN when we open them in DEC 2012!

Following the CHALLENGE couldn’t be easier as you simply get a pot (mine is an old gravt tub but others have posher types), make a hole for cash (if not provided), make sure it’s sealed so you can’t open it, chuck your spare cash in it and then ON THE 3RD DEC WE WILL OPEN THEM TOGETHER! It’s not a competition, we just will support each other here to keep going with ANOTHER CRAZY SCHEME TO SAVE MONEY!

So far we are ROCKIN’ the challenge!  We did so well we had to graduate to a second sealed pot.  I picked up mine at Dollarama for $1.25 each plus HST (of course).

Our first pot weighs in at about 4.5 pounds and it was full on March 25th!  The second one is at about 3 lbs at the moment.  We put everything in there, including loonies and toonies.  Sometimes an odd $5 bill gets crammed in as well.

We know for sure that we are going to at least buy a new camera for Amy.  A few years ago, while we were in North Bay, someone stole our diaper bag, which had Amy’s Canon in it.  I purchased another camera for her, a Nikon, but we just do not like the camera or the quality of photos we get from it.  I am hoping that we have enough in the pots to buy something like this for her:

Canon Rebel T3i 18MP DSLR Camera Kit and Canon 55-250mm Lens

Right now this particular kit is retailing at about $1000.00, so I might be getting a bit ambitious.  I guess we will have to wait until December 3rd to find out!!  I am hoping to at least buy the camera…the bigger lens might have to wait

Is anyone else participating in the challenge?  How are you doing?

The One Where We Planted the Garden

Today was the day, we finally cleaned up our yard and planted our garden.  To put it mildly, it was a disaster!  I didn’t even take any before pictures because I am terribly embarrassed at how bad it looked.

We had weeds all down the side of the house.  They are now all cleared but the grass that the builders put down was completely dead.  We are going to put it on our 2 year Tarion in the hope that the builders will replace it (doubtful, but worth a shot).  At least the weeds are gone.  We put down some seed and will water this evening. 

We weeded the both front gardens and planted both, one with perennials and one with annuals!

We have a corner garden beside the front steps.  In there we planted perennials.  We wanted something fairly easy to maintain, that we wouldn’t have to plant year after year.  Last year we went out to my Aunt Shirley’s and got some hostas and true geraniums.  We planted those and also purchased two sage plants (they smell so good!).  In the very back of the garden we planted the recycled seed paper that Andrew made us for Mother’s Day.  Not sure what kind of wildflowers are going to come up, but it will be awesome to see if they sprout and bloom.

We have a Red Maple on our front lawn that the builders put in.  It’s a really nice tree and will be gorgeous once it matures fully.  They had it in place with two wooden stakes.  We took those out and then planted some annuals.  We picked Begonias and Cape Daisies.  Since the builders put mulch around the tree in the first place, we decided to get some new red mulch.

My favourite part of my garden is my solar light!  My friend Kathy bought it for me for my birthday and I LOVE it!!

We gave our little slide and climber that is now too small for our kids, to our neighbour two doors down.  Amy went over and knocked on the door and asked them if they wanted it.  They asked “How much?” with a quizzical look on their face.  Amy said “nothing of course,  we want to give it to you”.  Worked out well because it was their youngest’s 2nd birthday today.  We carried it over and the little one was over the moon and started climbing on it immediately.

I guess our little deed gave us some good Karma, because a little later on our friend, Geena, came over with a small picnic table.  The 4 littles are still small enough to enjoy it.  Thank you so so much, Geena!!

What did you do this glorious Victoria Day?

Sunday Night Chit-Chat ~ May 20, 2012

Uncle Bob came and gave us a ride on his motorcycle!

Reading?

• I just finished 50 Shades of Grey and I am back at The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

Watching?

We used to have HBO before we bought the house, so we saw the first 4 seasons of this show, but missed season 5, so I am hoping to convince Amy and Shane to watch a couple of episodes tonight.

 Listening to?

 

• Robin Gibb passed away today, so sad.  The video is Night Fever by the Bee Gees.  LOVED them when I was a kid

Cooking/Baking?

• We grilled hamburgers today.  They were really tasty!  Other than that, I didn’t bake or anything.

Happy you accomplished this week?

• Got to see my parents today when we went out for lunch.  They only live a few miles away and it’s still hard to see them on a regular basis because they are so busy! 
• Amy and I also went out shopping with $300.00 that we saved for a summer clothing budget.  We got a ton of stuff and almost completely outfitted Meri and Charley.  All the boys got a few items, Amy and I bought 6 pairs of pants and 15 tops, and got Shane a couple of shirts.  Talize had buy 3 ladies t-shirts/short sleeve blouses, get one free.

Looking forward to next week?

• My bowling banquet.  I am getting the high triple prize money and we also won playoff champs for our series, so I will be getting some money for that.   I am going to tuck it away and buy myself some bowling balls in the fall.
• Baseball on Sunday morning

Thankful for today

• My parents!  We had a lovely time out for breakfast with them (and my brother, his girlfriend, and her cheeky 17-year-old, LOL ).  Love them lots!
• My brother!  Who took time out of his day to come give the kids a thrill.  He brought his motorcycle over and gave them all a ride.  Well, Meri just sat on it, she didn’t want to ride, but she still had fun.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!  To see what other’s are chatting about, hop on over to My 1/2 Dozen Daily

The Weekend is Looking Fine!

Look how gorgeous it’s going to be this weekend!!

Long Term Forecast Updated: Friday, May 18, 2012, 16:00 EDT

• Day
• Night

	Saturday May 19	Sunday May 20	Monday May 21	Tuesday May 22	Wednesday May 23	Thursday May 24
Conditions 6am – 6pm
	Sunny	Sunny	Cloudy periods	Scattered showers	Variable cloudiness	Sunny
P.O.P.	10%	0%	20%	60%	30%	10%
Conditions 6pm – 6am
	Clear	Mainly clear	Isolated showers	Isolated showers	Variable cloudiness	Mainly clear
P.O.P.	0%	10%	40%	60%	20%	10%
High	27°C	28°C	25°C	23°C	22°C	22°C
Feels Like	29	32	29	-	-	-
Low	10°C	14°C	15°C	16°C	14°C	14°C

Up here in the Great White North, the Victoria Day long weekend is the ‘unofficial’ start of summer.   Also known as “MAY TWO FOUR” weekend (some say because that’s how many beers are in a case of beer, lol).  People usually open up their cottages or plant their gardens, or go camping.  There’s nothing like a 3 day weekend!

We have lots to do this weekend (don’t we always?).  Amy and I are off to grocery shop tonight.  Tomorrow we are going scrapbooking for the day (yeah, we’re spending a nice day indoors, lol).  Sunday we’re taking my parents out for a combined Mother’s Day and Father’s Day brunch. 

We’re also going to plant our gardens.  We went out last week and bought red wood chips to go around our red maple out front.  We bought some decorative fencing and some annuals to go around the tree too.  Then we chose some perrennials for our side garden go along with the hosta and true geraniums we got from my aunt last year.  We have to mow the lawn, dig out the weeds, put down some grass seed, and plant the flowers.  Should be a lot of fun (ugh, not).

I hope to rest on Monday…as much as our kids will let us!

What are you all up to this weekend?

Thursday = PAYDAY!!

I love Thursdays…have since I was a teenager.  It’s pretty much always been my payday, even since my very first job.  It was my dad’s payday too.  Every Thursday, Mom would meet Dad at the mall and he would deposit his paycheque at the bank (cause, well, there was no direct deposit back in the mid 1980′s).  Then they would go out for dinner at Steak’N'Burger.  Sometimes, they let my brother and I join them.  At that time, I worked at The Bay in the Candy department…loved that job, got paid REALLY well compared to what most places paid at the time.  For instance, I started in 1986 at a local bakery/deli, and minimum wage for students was $3.15 an hour.  A year later, I started at The Bay and made $8-something.  I thought I was rich!

Shane and I get paid on opposite Thursdays, so there is always a pay going into the bank.    I have been anticipating this particular one because today, TODAY, we finally paid off the line of credit that was converted into a loan about 2 years ago.  I went on-line and paid off the last of it this morning. 

HAPPY DANCE!!

That frees up $500.00 a month.  Well…not exactly free up cause we’re going to start putting it on another card, but you all know what I mean.  It will be so nice to see a ZERO balance on that one.  Kick it to the curb, we are done!

Tonight we’ll be scouring the flyers and making our menu for the week.  We finally have delivery of the local paper with all the inserts after an almost 2 year wait (they don’t start delivery until the actual construction is done in the subdivision).  Another great reason to love Thursdays:  It’s FLYER day…LOL.

I took out $420.00 out of the bank for the variable expenses. and  I transfered $100.00 into our vacation fund, and transferred $50.00 into the EF.  The EF is now sitting at $786.98.

We’re getting geared up for the long weekend here…will come back and post about that tomorrow.  I hope you all have a wonderful Thursday evening!

Not Feeling It Lately

Sigh…haven’t been overly productive on this blog of late.  Just haven’t been particularly inspired, I guess.  I think I am kind of burnt out a bit too and I needed a bit of a break from writing. 

I haven’t been particularly productive on my hobbies either!  I only just picked up a crochet hook last night to finish up a gift for a friends upcoming birthday.  I did something to my shoulder about 2 weeks ago, and it’s finally feeling better, so I am going to make a hat tonight while I watch the season finale of Criminal Minds (anyone else a fan?).

Mother’s Day came and went.  It’s a very bittersweet day for me…my mom died when I was 18, so it’s a big reminder of the fact that she’s just not here to bring the flowers to, or just even hug and say “I love you”.   I have a little cry in the morning and then put a smile on my face for the rest of the day.  Our kids bombarded us with cards and handmade gifts, they were all very sweet!  Then Amy and I went and played in our very first Slo-Pitch game.  We. Had. A. Blast.  We even managed to connect the bat to the ball, even though we didn’t get a base hit…LOL.  No matter, the ladies were great and they laughed right along with us. 

We’ve also have had a few sick kiddies this week.  Meredith started throwing up on Friday night/Saturday morning…then Andrew caught the bug and then Charley.  Andrew and Charley seemed to get over it quickly, but poor Meri has had it for days!  We thought she was over it yesterday, but nope, she had another episode last night.  So far, she’s been fine today.  Let’s hope that is the end of it.  None of the other 3 got it, thank goodness.

Hoping to be back tomorrow to do a bit of a post on where the money stands (we have an accomplishment to announce).  Hope everyone has a great night!

Thought for a Tuesday…

Yesterday was a sad day…the world lost a gentle, beautiful, courageous soul.  She was a friend to many, daughter, sister, cousin, auntie, and most of all;  loving wife, and mother of two beautiful children.  I knew her back in school, and over the last couple of years, many of us reconnected with her over Facebook.  We watched her battle cancer with courage and resolve, and always with a smile on her face. 

With Mother’s Day coming up here’s a thought.  Perhaps, instead of (or in addition to) a nice gift for your Mom, consider making a donation in your mother’s name for a cause that is close to her heart.  My friend Carla already did that with the help of her fellow blogging friends.  I made a donation to The Ride to Conquer Cancer on behalf of my friend (she was training to ride in this years ride).  It doesn’t have to be a lot of money, even just a few dollars.  Even a small amount can make a big difference.

Hope you’ll consider it.

Thanks!

Sunday Night Chit Chat ~ May 6, 2012

My 11-year-old FINALLY riding a bike…more to follow

Reading?

• Still the Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest

Watching?

• I am watching Dateline NBC right now.  It’s part of their “My Kid Would Never Do That” series.  This one is about discrimination and whether or not teenagers recognize how hurtful ethnic, religious and racial comments can be.  It’s interesting so far. 

Listening to?

• Just the television and the diswasher running

Cooking/Baking?

• Absolutely nothing today!  We ordered pizza in (and yes it’s within the jar $$ this time!).  We forgot to take out the chicken this morning, and Amy and I were just too exhausted today to cook.  Neither one of us slept well last night

Happy you accomplished this week?

• Well, can I write about what I am happy my 11-year-old, Allen, accomplished?   Allen is pretty timid when it comes to “rides”.  He doesn’t like carnival rides, doesn’t like to go fast, and doesn’t like being out of control.  He has outright refused to learn how to ride a two-wheeler because he was afraid of falling off.  We’ve left it alone, and just let him be.  With some gentle coaxing from Shane this afternoon, Allen finally conquered his fear and learned to ride a two wheeler.  We are so very proud!!  Amy and I were crying and Allen was very impressed with himself and couldn’t stop beaming:

Looking forward to next week?

• Last week of bowling for the season
• Amy and I are starting to play baseball next Sunday!!!  OMG we are going to be terrible, but we thought it would be fun and get us a little active.  It’s a women’s league, and everyone is over 30 (or maybe 35, can’t remember).  Thank goodness it’s just for fun…looking forward to lots of laughs

Thankful for today?

• My bff from highschool, Michelle.  Today we met for lunch and we have not seen each other since our boys were both wee (about 10 or 11 years ago).  Michelle and her hubby, Peter, and son, Josh live out in British Columbia and before that went to school in Boston, MA.  Needless to say, she’s been away from Ontario WAY TOO LONG (that’s a hint, my friend, if you’re reading).  It was so amazing to see her.  She brought along her sister and niece (and I brought Amy and Meri along with me) and we had a lovely lunch and a great visit.  Of course it was way too short and I am already missing her like crazy.  It’s a blessing to know that you can spend so much time far apart, but still be as thick as thieves once you’re together.  Need to start saving for a trip out west to spend more time!  I am also a bit of a dummy, as I forgot my camera…good thing Michelle had one. 

Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!  See what everyone else is chatting about over at My 1/2 Dozen Daily