Can I go home now?

I just saw the most hideous looking spider in my office. It was crawling up the wall, and one my coworkers was in there with me, so he grabbed it by the web and put it on my desk... THANKS BUDDY! Then, I knocked it off my desk with a book so that I could stomp on it, but then it crawled under my desk and I have not been able to find it since. I am totally grossed out. I have never seen a spider like this. It was big and black with yellow markings. I'm scared! I keep thinking it's going to start crawling on he or something. Makes me really want to leave my office. Is it 5:00 yet?

I know, I'm being a baby.

100 days now!

The countdown to the wedding continues, and as of today, it’s exactly 100 days! Getting closer! Tomorrow we’ll be in the double digits!

Things I’m working on currently for the wedding:
1. Compiling mailing addresses and getting the ones I’m missing.
2. Get map and reception card finished and printed out.
3. Address invitations - mom is helping me the weekend of June 23. We want to hand address them, so between the 2 of us, I figure it will take an afternoon.
4. Week of June 25 – invitations go out, provided we get them all addressed the weekend prior!
5. Transportation for the big day. I looked into getting a limo, and it would be $450 for the 2 hours we’d need it. So, I think that’s a little expensive. I’m thinking of renting a mini-van - we can get one for the whole weekend (Friday to Monday) for $150. That way, we’d have a nice, clean vehicle for the wedding party to ride in to the reception. I think that would also be good because I can pack it up with all the centerpiece stuff and other things for the reception venue for when we go to decorate it the night before the wedding. So, that’s what I’m leaning towards.
6. Ceremony music – still need to meet with the musician… I would like to do that before the end of June, if possible.
7. Ceremony readings – I have someone in mind to do the readings, I just need to ask him. I think my mom already mentioned it to him, so he knows it’s coming.

I think that’s it for now; that’s enough to keep me busy for June in terms of wedding stuff. And we still have more we want to do at the house. And we have a wedding to go to on the 9th. So, it looks like it will be a very busy month!

I am looking forward to Saturday; looks like it’s going to be a gorgeous day to go to the zoo! Very excited; I haven’t seen lj since February! And it will be the last time I see nej before Goose Bay! Should be a great day.

My butt muscles hurt…

Saturday, I decided to plant some flowers in my garden, and wow, was I ever sore yesterday! It took me about 3 hours, since I had to weed the garden, rake it all, pick out all the rocks, and then plant my 48 little flowers. I bought myself a kneeling pad, but I guess spending 3 hours bent over really used my butt muscles or something, because I could barely walk yesterday! Who knew gardening would leave me in so much pain? I really enjoyed the gardening though, just not the aftermath. I’m thinking it was just using muscles I don’t normally use, so I’m hoping in the future, I won’t hurt as much! My garden looks really nice now though ;)

On Friday evening, CT and I went all over town looking for patio furniture and we found a set at Home Outfitters that we really like. So, we are likely going to purchase it this weekend. It is exactly what we were looking for: a sturdy table with 4 comfy chairs. We didn’t want a huge set and we didn’t want chairs with cushions either, and we didn’t need an umbrella. Most sets had all 3 of those! But, when we saw this one at Home Outfitters, we knew right away it’s the one we want. The table has tiles in the top, which is neat because you can buy any 12x12 tiles to put in if you get bored with it and want to change the look of the table.

My dad also came by to help build the stairs for the deck, so now those are on too! All we need now is the railing, which isn’t a huge rush. I’m hoping sometime in the next month or two we can get a railing up.

CT and I watched Pirates 3 and I thought it was pretty good. Very long, but I wasn’t bored at all. And Keith Richards was in it as Jack’s father, so that was entertaining.

EDIT 1:13pm

Oh, I forgot to mention that today is my half birthday, I am exactly 26.5 years old today - teehee! And yes, I'm silly!!!

Sooooo glad it’s Friday!

The meeting with the pastor went well last night. It was more of a pre-marital counseling type thing and I’m glad we did it. We discussed a lot of issues that relate to marriage that could cause problems if each person has different expectations (i.e. finances, division of labour, other interests outside the home, child upbringing, etc.). CT and I have very similar views on most things anyways, so that made it easy. We have one more session with the pastor planned for late June, and then that will be it for our pre-marital counseling sessions.

Only 8 more hours until the weekend – yay! I want to continue to get the house fixed up, and I am really looking forward to doing some gardening! And I really hope CT and I find some reasonably priced nice patio furniture for our brand new deck!

Okay, one question for a Friday morning: I am thinking I will wear my iron ring for the wedding since it’s part of who I am and I am proud of my accomplishments in that regard. What would you do – wear it or not?

What a nice, summer day out there!

The sun is shining, it’s a nice 30 degree day, life is good ;)

So glad it’s almost the weekend – yay for short work weeks!

This coming weekend, I am going to do more work around the house. I am going to plant some flowers in my garden in front of the house. CT and I are also going to go look for some patio furniture. Because now that we have this nice, new deck, we need something to sit on! Just trying to decide if we want more lounge-like chairs and a coffee table type thing or if we want a higher table and chairs (more for eating meals on). Hmmm. I guess we’ll go look and see what’s available. Don’t want to spend a lot of money either. I hope we are able to find something nice.

And if I’m feeling really ambitious, I may scrape the loose paint off the roof to the deck as well as the garage so they will be all set for painting! The work never ends!

I am also hoping that my Dad will be able to come by to put the finishing touches on the deck because we still need a railing and stairs. That might not get done this weekend though, but hopefully soon.

Tonight is our second meeting with the pastor, so I’m sure that will go well. I have picked the readings for the ceremony, so that’s one more thing to cross off the list!

Dress fitting

I just scheduled my first dress fitting for Saturday, July 14th at 10:00am. Very exciting!!!

3 trips to Home Depot , 3 trips to the landfill, and 726 nails later…

The weekend started with me leaving work at 3pm on Friday – yay! One of the managers came around and basically told everyone to go home. So, mom and I went for a 10km walk with Koby on Friday afternoon, that was great! I then relaxed for the evening.

Saturday started bright and early with deck work. We tore down the old deck (which took a few hours) and mom and I took 3 trips to the landfill site to get rid of all the old deck material. We then bought the material for the new deck – who knew wood would be so expensive! I consider myself lucky though since all the labour was free ;) By the end of the day on Saturday, we had the old deck taken down and the frame for the new one up.

On Sunday, the new deck was finished by 3pm or so. It doesn’t have a railing or stairs yet, but we can use it now. I love it! It is the same size as the old one (12 ft x 15 ft), but this one is so much better since it is level and safe to be on (unlike the old one that was rotten and unsafe). Of course now that the deck is all nice and new, it is really noticeable that the roof above the deck needs to be re-painted ;) The garage needs to be re-painted too, so I think we’ll tackle those when we have a free weekend this summer.

Needless to say, CT and I were pretty tired and sore yesterday so we just took it easy and watched a couple movies. So nice to have an extra day off!

This week, we have our second meeting with the pastor on Thursday, so I hope that goes well. I guess that means we need to get going on choosing our readings! So many decisions…

Long weekend, here we come!

Very excited about the long weekend. Even though I’ll be working like a dog ;) We are re-building our deck at home this weekend, so that will be a ton of work. But then we’ll have a nice new deck to enjoy for many summers to come. I was originally planning to skip town to be with the girls this weekend, but then a few people have backed out of helping with the deck, so I need to be home to help. Tomorrow, we are going to demolish the existing deck, so mom and I are going to be making trips back and forth from the landfill site all day to get rid of all the old deck material, as well as a huge brush pile in our backyard (it is no longer a jungle!) as well as a bunch of junk the students left when they moved out a year ago. It will feel so good to get rid of all that stuff! Then Sunday and Monday, we’ll be building the new deck. I’ll get to perfect my skills with a hammer, look out ;)

Good news!

I forgot to share some very exciting news: my mom got a full-time job as a professor at the university starting in the fall! She starts 2 days after my wedding, actually. Good timing, or what?!? She will get paid twice as much as she does now and she’ll have medical benefits. This is a real answer to prayer since with all the medications my dad is on (since he doesn’t have a pituitary gland anymore because of the tumour he had removed 7 years ago), they have been spending loads of money every month paying for his medications. Now at least some of that will be covered with the medical benefits, and my mom will also be making a decent wage, more than she has ever made in her whole life! So, we’re really happy with that news!

Technically, she will need to re-apply every year to renew the position, but she has spent the last few years in that department at the university getting to know everyone and proving herself working a bunch of part-time contracts. So, I am pretty confident that they will hire her back. She is talking about starting on her PhD in about a year so that a few years down the road she can have that. Tenure track position, here she comes! ;) I’m so proud of her.

Where is the sun today?

What a gloomy day. It was so dark this morning that I didn’t want to get out of bed. I would have loved to pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep. Too bad it wasn’t Saturday, oh well. I don’t mind that it’s rainy and gross now, I just hope it is nice on the weekend since CT, my dad, his dad, and my brother Alex are going to re-build our deck. It is old and rotten and really needs to be re-built, so it looks like this weekend it will get done. Yay! Then I’ll have a nice new deck to sit on this summer. Then I’ll have to get some nice patio furniture to put out there! Very exciting!

Hopefully I’ll actually have some time to spend on my new deck since the summer is filling up quickly! It’s going to be a busy summer, but it’s going to be loads of fun! Hard to believe it’s only 115 days until the wedding now. I started counting at over 300! We’ve come a long way!

Some wedding tasks complete!

I had a pretty good weekend. Got quite a bit accomplished with respect to the wedding stuff, even though I was not feeling well for a couple of days.

We decided on the rest of the reception music. So, for the “planned” dances, we’re doing “When I see you smile” for the first dance, “Thank you for loving me” for the mother/son and father/daughter dance, “stand by me” as the wedding party dance, “girls just wanna have fun” as the boquet toss, and the mission impossible theme for the garter toss. We listened to a lot of songs, and these are our favorites. So, we sent this off to the dj and will set up a meeting with them in the next few weeks. We also have to provide a list of any songs that we definitely want played during the dance. I have a running list going. Anybody have any songs they would like played during the dance?

We also booked our flights for the honeymoon, so we’re all set! We leave Toronto at 9:30am on Wednesday, September 12, so we would need to be at the airport at around 6:30am or 7:00am. So, if we were driving that morning, we would need to leave our house around 5:00am. The other option is to stay in one of the airport hotels the night before, some of them offer free parking for up to 2 weeks when you stay there. It would be about the same price as if we were to drive up that morning and do the park n fly for 12 days. I guess I’ll have to think about which I would prefer. We get back to Toronto on Sunday, September 23 around 7:30pm, which means we’ll be home around 10pm, so that’s nice, not too late. I have the following day off work too just to get back into the swing of things and have a day at home before I start back at work.

CT and I picked up our wedding bands on Saturday and they are gorgeous! We both love them! I can’t wait until I can wear mine. Of course, I tried it on a couple of times, and I think it looks really good with my engagement ring.

We also booked the back room at Kelsey’s for our rehearsal dinner. It’s a bit of a drive from the church, but not too bad, not more than 15 minutes.

We have our second appointment with the pastor booked for Thursday, May 24th.

Things are coming along well in terms of my May tasks!

On Thursday, I will have been at my job for 3 years. Hard to believe it’s been that long! If I had my act together a few years ago and submitted my pre-grad experience to PEO, I could have applied for my P.Eng. this month. But, since I haven’t submitted any of my pre-grad experience, I don’t really think I can at this point since it was from 2002 and 2003. I can submit my last co-op term though since it was for my current place of employment. And if I have some free time (ya right!) in the next few weeks, I may see about submitting my 5th co-op term as well. They may say it’s been too long, but they may still fill out the form, who knows. If that’s the case, then I could apply for my P.Eng. at the end of the summer.

I really have to decide about whether I am taking CT’s last name for work and social life, or just social life and keep my last name for work. I’m thinking I’ll take his last name for everything, that’s just a hard adjustment because I’ve had my last name my whole life and I really like it. Not that there’s anything wrong with CT’s last name, I just like mine better. It’s shorter and easier to pronounce. But, I think there’s something very bonding about once we’re married, we have the same last name. And then once we have kids, our family will all have the same last name. In terms of work, I guess it’s no big deal to change my name, and I guess in some ways it’s better if I wait until after the wedding to apply for my P.Eng. because then I can get my stamp in my married name. What do you girls think? Will you change your name when you get married? I always thought this would be an easy one for me. I thought my answer would be “yes” without hesitation. It’s just a little difficult since I’ve had my last name my whole life and it’s part of who I am. I guess it just takes a little adjustment.

4 months and counting…

Things are moving along well in terms of the wedding planning. Are you totally sick of hearing about it yet?!? I hope not because that wouldn’t stop me anyways ;)

Things we are currently working on:
1. Trying to finalize the music for the reception. We have our first dance song picked out (When I see you smile by Bad English), and we think we have the mother/son and father/daughter dance picked out (Thank you for loving me by Bon Jovi). We decided to combine the mother/son and father/daughter dance into one. Now we just have to find a song for the wedding party dance. We’re thinking the wedding party would dance with their respective dates instead of the traditional way of doing it (best man with maid of honour, etc). What do you girls think about that? Any suggestions for a song?

2. We need to meet with the ceremony musician. I haven’t worried about this too much yet since she is a family friend. But, I do think it’s time we discuss the ceremony music.

3. Need to book a place for the rehearsal dinner. CT’s mom asked me to look after booking it since she’s out of town and doesn’t really know about booking a place. CT’s parents will pay for it, but she wants me to find a place. I’m thinking the back room at Kelsey’s would be nice. They have a separate room that we could have. And since the wedding meal is going to be formal, I thought the reception dinner could be more casual. I’ll have to look into booking that room.

4. Need to make reception cards to enclose with the invitations.

5. Need to book flights for honeymoon. I just checked today and they dropped in price, so I’m thinking we should jump on them now!

6. We need to meet with the officiant for our second appointment (of three). I’m going to try to set that up for sometime in the next 2 weeks.

7. Going to bottle the white wine for the wedding on Saturday. And we need to make labels for the wine. Turns out we are going to have LOTS of wine at the wedding. CT’s dad is making 3 cases of red! I think we’ll only use 2 for the wedding though. 2 cases of red and 1 of white will be plenty of wine. That’s like 80 bottles of wine for 100 people! And some people don’t drink, so it’s pretty much 1 bottle per person. It’s gonna be a good night ;) Of course, we don’t HAVE to use all the wine, anything we don’t use, we can take home. I would just hate to run out. There is a bar there too if people don’t drink wine.

Okay, here’s a question. I know it’s “bad etiquette” to make people pay for drinks at a wedding, but if we have that much wine available for free, plus non-alcoholic beverages for free, do you think it’s acceptable to make people pay for other alcoholic beverages they may want? My mom is really scared to have an “open bar”, she thinks we’ll be left with thousands of dollars to pay in a bar tab. That’s why I thought if we have all that wine available, if people really need a different type of beverage, they would need to pay for that. That way we won’t be surprised with a crazy bar tab.

If we could get that all done in May, I would be one happy camper! Things are coming along well.

Successful shopping day

I had a great weekend. On Saturday, mom and I went to the Markville mall in Markham. I got 3 pairs of shoes and a great dress for my friend’s wedding which is in a month. The first pair of shoes I got is a white pair of dressy sandals to wear for my wedding. I wanted something dressy and comfortable with not too high of a heel. I also wanted to get some dressy flip-flop type shoes to wear during the reception, and I found some really cool flip flops that look really elegant on. It was funny the sales guy came up to us and said “okay, so you are looking at white shoes, and you have a beautiful ring on your finger, may I suggest these”. Very perceptive. I’m glad he did suggest them because when I tried them on, they were exactly what I was looking for! I could even get away with wearing them for my entire wedding day if I wanted, they are dressy enough. Depends on how well I can walk in the other ones. Always good to have a backup though because I don’t want to get sore feet dancing at my wedding!

I also found the cutest dress for my friends wedding next month. It has a pattern and is different shades of blue, and it has some black and white too. I love it! Makes me feel super skinny and sexy when I put it on. Once I found that dress, I went back to the store that I got the first pair of shoes and got the same ones only in black so I could wear them with my new dress. Very successful shopping trip!

The funniest thing happened to us on Saturday. I got this flyer in the mail from a store in Markham that advertised hundreds of dresses, all for up to 80% off! It said it had wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, mother of the bride dresses, evening and formalwear dresses, etc. So, it sounded like a great place to check out. So, mom and I decided to head over there because she still needed a dress for the wedding we’re going to next month.

Turns out this store was in the Pacific Mall which is an Asian mall. Which is fine, it’s just that we were the only blonde people in there. Everything was in the Chinese characters, so it was very difficult to find our way around. After wandering aimlessly around the mall (there was no map of the mall so we couldn’t look up where this store was), we finally asked a security guard. Well, we finally found the store, and it was about the size of a small bedroom. And very crowded with people. So, we couldn’t even get in. And I doubt they would have had anything in my mom’s size anyways. It was a funny adventure though! We both laughed about that.

Yesterday, I met CT’s grandparents. They are very nice. It wasn’t that difficult to communicate since Carlos, his mom, and his dad were there to translate. I think they really like me because they both gave me a huge hug when we left.

So, back to the grind, another work week. I’m going to do my best to exercise after work every evening. I did well last week, so I want to keep it up!

Happy Birthday to Zeke

For those of you who don’t know, Zeke is my 2001 Toyota Rav 4, which I got exactly 6 years ago today. Hard to believe it’s been that long! He’s been good to me in the 6 years I’ve had him, and I’m looking forward to many more years together! I can’t see parting with him anytime soon. Even if CT and I do decide to get a new vehicle at some point, I have a feeling we’d be trading in his 1998 corolla and keeping Zeke a little longer.

Halfway through the workweek…

Which means only another 2.5 days of work until the weekend – yay! On Saturday, I am going shopping with my mom in Markham. We are going to a wedding of a childhood friend of mine in June, so we want to look for dresses to wear to that wedding. I also want to find shoes for my own wedding. I hope I am successful! I’m not really that picky, I just want something nice looking, comfortable, with little or no heel. But still dainty and elegant looking. I hope I find the perfect shoes!

On Sunday, I am going to CT’s parents house for a visit. His grandparents just moved to Canada from Portugal a few months ago and are taking turns staying with each one of their children. Well, they just moved to CT’s parents house last weekend, so now I finally get to meet them! They don’t speak any English though and I don’t speak Portuguese, so this could be interesting. CT’s parents will have to translate for me. CT speaks some Portuguese, but not much. He may pick it up again though once he gets into it, we’ll see.

Hmmm, what else. I have been pretty proud of myself in the last few days. I haven’t used any of my flex points for the week yet and I have worked out every day for the last few days. And I am planning on working out tonight, tomorrow, and Friday, so that will be 6 for 6, I think. Then I’ll take Saturday off, and likely work out on Sunday again. I really need to get serious since the wedding is just a little more than 4 months away now! I am relieved to know that my dress fits though. If it was way too small, I think I would be totally freaking out right now. I just more want to get toned a little so I look good in a bikini on my honeymoon ;)