Merry Christmas!

This will likely be my last post before Christmas. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a fabulous New Year!

I have a potluck at work today, so I made pasta salad last night. My first time ever making pasta salad. I taste-tested it, and I’m not really sure it turned out all that well. I think it tastes too much like egg and mayo. Think deviled egg taste. And I didn’t even put as much mayo in as the recipe called for! I guess I’ll find out at lunch if people like it. It’s alright, just not great. Oh well, it was my first time making it, so I guess I’ll know what to change for next time.

We also have a gift exchange today. I brought a really nice wine box which has a corkscrew, wine topper, wine pourer, and one other wine gadget in a nice box with enough room to put a bottle of wine is as well. So, I put a bottle of my wine that I make in it. I wonder what present I will get from the gift exchange; we are doing that right after lunch.

Can’t wait until the workday is over! I am hoping my boss will let us leave early today, we’ll see. I may be here until 5, I will just have to wait to find out if he’s in a good mood! Last year, he came around at around 2pm and told everyone to have a Merry Christmas and to leave early. I think I was out of the building in 5 minutes flat.

I’ll be spending the evening at my parent’s house working on the scrapbook. Then tomorrow, I have a massage and then back to parent’s house to finish the scrapbook. It sure is a lot of work! But I think it will be fabulous.

Sunday and Monday are 2 family Christmases (mine and CT’s). Then I have the rest of next week off! I’m sure it will go by quickly since I already have plans to visit with several friends and I want to get my house more organized, etc. But definitely looking forward to the time away from the office! I love my job, but I need a break!

EDIT 1:51pm:

WOOHOO! Boss just came around and told everyone to go home. I'm outta here until next year! Yay!

Is this week over yet?

This workweek seems to be going at a snail’s pace. I’m sure it’s because it’s the last few work days before Christmas and I am really looking forward to having next week off! I have a big report that I wanted to get the draft completed this week, not sure if that’s going to happen. Should be close anyways!

This week, I got a letter stating that I have an opportunity to buy shares in the company. The good thing is they are offering me shares at a certain price and I have 3 months to make a decision. They also gave me some financial reports and I had my mom look them over since she just finished her MBA. She said we are doing very well, have a good asset to liability ratio, so it is definitely something worth investing in. I was offered shares at a really good price, and I would get paid dividends on any profits. Definitely an opportunity I can’t pass up. The only problem is this is bad timing for me money-wise since I’m trying to pay for my wedding. But, since I have 3 months, I am going to try to save some money between now and then and my grandmother has offered to lend me some money as well. So looks like I will be a shareholder in the company in a few months!

I am *loving* my new treadmill! I have used it 8 of the last 9 days. It’s great! I love the fact that I can watch tv or a movie while I work out. I even used the little built-in tv on the weekend to watch a movie. I hooked my PS2 up to it, so I can watch movies. I am just not sure if I can watch tv on it since we have satellite, not cable. I’m sure there is a way, but for now, I use the big tv to watch tv (I just have to turn it and turn the volume way up) and the built-in one to watch movies. I am definitely noticing a difference: my clothes fit better, I look like I’ve lost some weight, and I have more energy. The scale doesn’t really show a difference yet, but I’m sure it will soon!

Only 1 week until Christmas!

I had a great weekend. Only 1 week until Christmas! I got the majority of my Christmas shopping done on Saturday. I only have 1 more present to get, and it’s a gift card for my dad, so I will pop out at lunch once this week to get that. I was quite pleased with myself. I got a lot of great deals and spent only about $250 total for all my Christmas presents this year. Not too shabby! I was able to score some really nice picture frames at a liquidation store, 3 for $15 for 5x7 and 8x10 sizes! And they are Martha Stewart brand! So I bought 9 of them ;) I needed 4 of them for giveaways to family with our engagement picture, so that worked out well. I spent the evening wrapping all of my Christmas presents. It felt so good to get that all done!

Mom and I worked on the scrapbook on Saturday, although we didn't get as much done as we would have liked. We got 4 pages done, so we still have a total of 14 pages left to do before Christmas. I am hoping my mom will do a few pages this week and then I guess we will finish it up on Saturday.

So only 5 work days left before Christmas! And I have all of next week off (using vacation days), so after Friday, I won’t have to come back to work until January 2nd! Yay!

I hope everyone has a great week!

Holy big bonus!

You know how I said in my previous post that I was hoping that my winter bonus was large enough to cover some of my treadmill cost? Well, I just got it and it more than pays for my entire treadmill! Wow! I was expecting maybe $300, and I got almost $1,200!!! I am so surprised! I guess my company is doing really well right now. Our bonus is based on the company's profitability for that period, the employee's duration of employment for that period, salary, and level of responsibility. The company only started 7 months ago, and we are kicking butt! We get 2 bonuses a year, one in the winter and one in the summer. I doubt my next bonus will be as high as this one, but still. I am so surprised! What a nice way to end the workweek!

Things I am going to do with my bonus:
1. pay off my Visa balance (I was just complaining this morning that for only the second time in my life, I couldn’t pay off my full balance this month, well now I can!).
2. save the rest to pay for my treadmill which will show up on next month’s Visa bill.

Yay! That extra money couldn’t have come at a better time, since I was already tight this month since I gave the photographer a $750 deposit. This wedding stuff is expensive! I’ve already spend $2,250 (on photographer and reception venue deposits) and the wedding is still 9 months away! But, the good news is, there shouldn’t be any other major expenses until closer to the wedding. The main things are taken care of.

This weekend is a little less busy than the past few, which is what I need since I need to finish my Christmas shopping! Tomorrow, I am going to bottle wine again with mom, this time for a batch for her. Then we are scrapbooking for the afternoon. We’re hoping to get the scrapbook for Oma close to finished since there isn’t a whole lot of time left before Christmas! On Sunday, my mom, CT, and I are going out for dinner with some family friends (that’s what I’m calling them now instead of my ex’s parents). So, it is a busy weekend, but I have some breathing room. I want to have all my presents bought and wrapped by the end of the weekend, that’s my goal!

Check!

The meeting with the photographer last night went really well. I was very impressed. He is very easy going and flexible, but also very focused and professional. The price is right as well. With taxes and everything, he’s about $2,000, which is a good $1,000 cheaper than a lot of the other high-end photographers. His price includes the entire day of photography with him and an assistant (from bride getting ready to an hour after the first dance), all proofs are mailed to me approximately 2-3 weeks after the wedding, I get all full-resolution digital negatives with written release of copyright (so I can have prints made wherever I like), a DVD slideshow to view photos on my tv, a website that I can direct family and friends to so they can view all the photos and order any prints from him directly if they would like to. That’s all I can remember off the top of my head. Mom and I were very impressed, so I gave him a deposit and it’s all set. I now have a photographer… yay! One big detail I can check off the list.

I used my treadmill for an hour both on Monday and yesterday. I love it! It’s so convenient. Yesterday it was 8:30pm before my mom left, and I still had time to work out after that, it was great! I have it set up in the living/dining room, where my bike trainer was, so it’s in line with the tv. CT and I watched tv together for an hour while I was on the treadmill and the time went by really quickly. I think it’s going to be quite easy to fit in an hour a day when I can watch tv at the same time! So, I’m going to make a real effort to use it for an hour almost every day.

What was once lost…

Has now been found! CT found my long-lost boots that I have been missing since the move! Yay! I was so happy to see them! Turns out they were where I thought they were; I guess I just didn’t dig in the pile deep enough the 4 times I looked in that closet ;)

So of course I had to wear my boots on Friday night my company Christmas party. It was a good time! Dinner was excellent and all the wine I could drink. I have never eaten dinner at 10:30pm though… it was midnight before we even left the restaurant. We then went to a martini lounge next door and I had a few more free drinks. I definitely got a little drunk, but I didn’t make a fool of myself, so it’s all good. I got to bed around 3am and then had to be up at 9am to go to the spa with mom. It was very nice… I almost fell asleep during my pedicure though! After that, mom and I went out for sushi and then went to shoppers. Mom got a flyer in the mail saying that she would get $200 of free stuff for using 75,000 points. She was short 10,000, so she offered me half of her total free stuff for giving her 10,000 points. So, of course I did that and then we each got $100 of free stuff! It was awesome! Then we went to her place and started the scrapbook for Oma for Christmas. We only got 2 pages done since it was 4:30 before we got there, but we’re going to work on it again on Saturday, so we will hopefully get 8 or 10 pages done that day. We want to do approximately 20 or so for the scrapbook. It’s a lot of fun! I would like to do a couple of scrapbooks for myself sometime when I have some free time, which is definitely not now!

The get-together between my parents and CT’s parents yesterday went amazingly well! They got along sooo well. My mom had met CT’s parents before, but not my dad. My dad and CT’s dad are like twins, in looks and personality, so they hit it off right away. Very cool.

And I have some news! I did some research on treadmills on Thursday and Friday last week, and I found an awesome one on sale for half price! Regularly $1800 on for $900. Here are some details on it. So, I called the store to see how long the sale was on for, and it was only on sale until Friday night. So, I went in after work, and it was exactly what I wanted, so I got it. I would never be able to find one with all those features for that price. It had everything I was looking for. I wanted: at least 2.0 horsepower continuous-duty motor, power incline, low impact deck, good warranty, steel frame, good sized belt. And this one has all of that and more! It even has a built-in TV! That wasn’t the selling feature for me, but it is a cool bonus! It was still way cheaper than anything else comparable in terms of the features, even if you don’t consider the tv. So, CT and I put it together on Saturday night. I was away most of yesterday, so I haven’t had really used it yet (just tested it to make sure it worked), but I am going to use it tonight! My goal is to use it for an hour approximately 4 or 5 times per week. I put it on my credit card, which means I don’t have to pay it off until mid January, so I think I should have the money by then. I’m getting a Christmas bonus this week from work, so that should pay for a good chunk. And I think I will ask for money from my family for Christmas, so between all that, it should be at least half paid for.

So tomorrow evening, I have the meeting with the photographer. I hope this one pans out since there aren’t too many available photographers on my date! I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

A nudge from nej

I know I haven’t been posting too much, it’s December, what can I say. Things are so crazy busy!

I have my work Christmas party tonight, so I am really looking forward to that. I have saved some flex points for the occasion since I probably won’t be able to say no to dessert tonight!

This week has gone by really quickly at work, which is a good thing! Only 2 more weeks of work before Christmas. I still don’t know how much time I’m getting off at Christmas, but I really should get on that since it’s coming soon. I have 3 vacation days left, so I want to use those for Dec 27, 28, and 29, so that my last day of work would be Dec 22 and then I wouldn’t come back until Jan 2! That would be awesome!

I have been thinking about getting a treadmill. That would be awesome to have one at home because then I could use it almost every day. There are some on sale at Sears right now, but a good one that I can use for running would probably be approximately $1,000. I'll have to give it some thought. I wouldn’t be able to get one until January anyways since I am broke this month. That may be what I need to get my weight loss kick-started though. If I could walk/run for an hour a day, what a difference that should make. And I could do it while I watch tv! I know they have treadmills at the gym, but getting to the gym seems to be rather difficult for me. Unless I am meeting my mom there; then I actually go. Carlos did mention to me that his parents have a treadmill they rarely/never use, so maybe they’d be willing to sell it to us.

Other than that, not too much else new here. Oh, except I got another email from my ex. Strange. 5 years after we break up he all of a sudden wants to be friends with me or something. I’m not sure if his marriage is on the rocks and he’s missing me, or he’s just remembering old times, or what. It is a little strange though. I am not bitter anymore; I am WAY better off now. I just found the timing funny with everything that has been happening in my life (upcoming marriage, great job, new house), NOW he emails me.

Weekend was great!

I enjoyed my long weekend even though it was jam-packed. On Friday, I went to the gym with my mom and then she came over to watch Grey’s Anatomy (which I tape and watch on Fridays). Saturday, was CT’s company Christmas party. It was good, although very disorganized. The invitation said that there was a cocktail hour from 4:30 until 5:30, and then dinner would be served between 5:30 and 6. So, we arrived at 5:15 thinking that would get us there fashionably late, but we were the 2nd couple there! I guess they had changed the start time and not told anyone in CT’s group at work. People didn’t arrive until 6:30 or so, and the dinner didn’t start until 7:30. And they had to have the place cleared out by 9 (it was at a nightclub), so the dinner was very rushed by the time it finally started. But, despite all that, we still managed to have a good time. We stayed until around midnight or so and then walked home.

On Sunday, we went to CT’s parents house for lunch. CT’s mom bought me an 11-piece cookware set for my birthday. It’s really nice! Can’t wait to use it ;) Then, late afternoon, we went to my parent’s house because I had to give my mom high-lights and then was my birthday dinner with my family. I had requested spaghetti with homemade noodles (my mom has a pasta maker), and I guess the motor on it went because what was supposed to be an easy meal ended up being 2 hours of my mom standing over the pasta maker getting very frustrated trying to figure out why it wasn’t working. My dad ended up getting really mad (because we were all starving at this point) and he threw the pasta maker in the garbage and we had the pasta out of the bag after all. Had I known it was going to be such a hassle, I never would have asked for that; usually it is quite easy :S From my family, I got a trip to the spa with my mom (we are going on Saturday). From Oma, I got a bag of radishes. No joke. Actually, she had given me some money last week towards the deposit for my reception venue and told me that was my birthday present. It was just funny since the people at the table didn’t know that, so when she only gave me a bag of radishes, it was strange.

Yesterday, CT and I had the day off and headed to Toronto for some shopping and then went to see The Who. We shopped for hours and intended to do our Christmas shopping, and both ended up just buying things for ourselves. After a whole day of shopping, all I bought was an $18 pair of jeans. I was proud of myself. I almost bought a new pair of boots at Transit, but they were a little small on me and they didn’t have the next size up. I will try the Transit in town here because I really liked them! So, I didn’t get my Christmas shopping done, but I do have it planned in my mind now what I’m going to get everyone. So that’s half the battle.

The concert last night was really good. Amazing, in fact. Every song they did was awesome, but I especially liked Baba O’Reiley and Don’t Get Fooled Again. Man, even though Roger and Pete are old, they can still rock the house! They played for over 2 hours and it was great.

This week will be filled with work, some trips to the gym, and my company Christmas party on Friday. Next weekend is already full since I’m going to the spa with my mom on Saturday morning, then we are spending the afternoon scrapbooking (we are making another scrapbook for Oma for Christmas), and then on Sunday, is the big meeting between my parents and CT’s parents. My mom has met his parents already, but my dad has not. I’m sure they’ll all get along fine. I am looking forward to it actually.