Tuesday 27 September 2016

Marriage Councelling

Over the last 2 or 3 months John and I have meeting with the pastor that is going to marry us and going through this book:



But guess what?

On Friday we finished our last session!

Guess that means we are ready to be married.

Huzzah!

To anyone debating on whether to do marriage counseling or not my vote would be to do it.  In fact if you have the choice I'm not sure why one would opt to not do it.  There were a lot of questions and things John and I talked about because we went through this book that we likely would have never thought to talk about before getting married.  Hopefully we just dodged a couple of big arguments because we did it.

17 more days

Tuesday 20 September 2016

We've Registered!

.. A while ago

And let me tell you... I've noticed a few things that you don't realize when you are always the person purchasing items off others' gift registry's and never making your own.

1.  I distinctly remember thinking someone was crazy for putting a $30 (or so) paper towel holder on their gift registry once... now I understand... we just scanned stuff at the store and often tried to go with the cheapest option (when we weren't concerned about colour and what not) but it isn't like there is a wide range of prices at just one store.  So we scanned the items anyways knowing that we weren't attached to any specific brand and if someone found that citrus zester for $5 instead of the (probably) $15 one we found... we would probably be perfectly happy with that $5 one too.

2.  I got reprimanded by one of the sales ladies at one of the stores we registered at for checking prices because... see above.  I just don't want anyone to think that the $150 waffle iron is the one I want and no other will do... when the one right next to it was only $40 and would definitely do just fine!  So I continued to check prices... I just did it a little more sneakily.

3.  Neither of the stores we registered at sold a Swiffer Wet Jet and I really want one.  I don't like sweeping/cleaning floors at all (in fact I've already told John - and I'm sure he's forgotten, that the floors are his job to clean!)... maybe the Swiffer will make me want to do it a little more often though.

4.  I also couldn't find mustard yellow bath towels (bath, hand, and face clothes).. I want a yellow and grey bathroom... someday... maybe.

5.  Pots and Pans are expensive!  Our plan was to go with some open stock pots and pans but... do these even exist?  We couldn't find any.  So we didn't register for any.  The 2 places we register offer us discounts on our registry after our wedding for up to a year.  So when we find ones we like we'll just add them to the registry and go purchase them ourselves.

6.  You know what else is expensive... Kitchen Aid attachments.  I registered us for an ice cream maker attachment though because it was on sale for under $100.  Then it went back up to regular price and I sort of felt guilty about leaving it on there...  Another purchase to make with our discount cards!

7.  Our most expensive item is a lovely Dyson vacuum that would be oh so wonderful to have but we aren't expecting it... that might be a purchase that we use our savings card on within a year after our wedding.  Otherwise, everything else is pretty reasonably priced (I hope!)

8.  We've had some people get stuff not on our registry and I (we) don't mind that either.  The games we received are awesome!

9.  We've also had people get stuff off our register from a different store.  I (we) don't mind that either!  I just go online afterwards and remove the item from the gift registry myself then.

10.  Finally, John had some fun while registering for items.  So on our list you'll find 1 hula hoop, maple syrup (which we actually got), an Olympic sweater, a pizza maker (which is apparently a serious addition despite what I may think), and I think there may be some fancy cloth napkins on there as well.  I left them all on though until our most recent shower... when I went on an updating spree and deleted things that we had received and deleted things we didn't really need (like that hula hoop).

And just a tip... before we headed out I looked up a list of things online that people register for, regretted registering for (because they don't use them), and wished they would have registered for.  This really came in handy and I made a list for John and I (before looking these lists up I had like 5 things on my list and was stumped.. so it was a HUGE help!).  Once we registered for an item that was on the list I checked it off so that we wouldn't forget and register for a second one.

But what's most important to note with our gift registry is that we don't NEED anything... Nor do we expect anything.  We are super grateful for the showers that we have already had and for everyone's generosity.  And we hope you feel like we appreciate them.  Because we do!

In fact people have been VERY generous.  My spare bedroom is now officially the present room... until we move into a place with a much larger kitchen that can hold all these precious things.


I've already used the breadmaker (which is why it is out of it's box)

Psst... want to know a secret?  If you look closely you can catch a glimpse of part of what we are giving away for favours.  I've been spending my evenings tracing and cutting out 150 circles just for them!

Friday 16 September 2016

Making Room

My goal over the summer was to make sure I made room for John to potentially (I say potentially because we are house hunting) move in here after our wedding in October.  I don't think I would be too happy to go from having all kinds of space (not that he really has all kinds of space now) to hardly any at all so hopefully my efforts will be noticed (and appreciated).

I have a walk in closet so I wasn't concerned about that at all.  It's probably big enough for 3 people... so if it isn't big enough for mine and John's things we have a problem.

I have 2 dressers (one is in the closet) and I think I've managed to get 4 drawers in total between the 2 dressers emptied.

I have 2 nightstands.  One is (sort of) emptied for him.  I say sort of because I store extra sheets and pillow cases in the bottom drawer of both nightstands.  So he technically has as much space as I do there.

There was never much I could do about the spare bedroom.  We'll have to figure out a way to move things around so John has space in there for his computer.  Since I only use my laptop I imagine packing up my desktop would be the best solution.

But my biggest accomplishment was tackling the indoor storage room (I have outdoor storage as well and I'm hoping we'll be able to store both our bikes in there).

Here is the before photo:


And the after photo:


Those random green bags on the floor I usually keep in my car... they were just there because I had just gone grocery shopping.

Or maybe we'll find a house to buy and have much more space!


Tuesday 13 September 2016

My Closet

A week ago I picked up a little something, something and hung it up in my closet... can you guess what it is?


Friday 9 September 2016

Ice Cream

You scream, I scream, we apparently ALL scream for ice cream.

Cake Batter and Golden Oreo Ice Cream
Well guess what, I've found a handy little way to make it in your very own home... no fancy ice cream maker required.

All you need is a can of sweetened condensed milk and 2 cups of heavy whipping cream.  The rest is pretty well up to you!

I found the recipe on The Comfort of Cooking.  The first one I made (which was not one of hers) was a chocolate peanut butter one.  So I used her Double Chocolate Pecan Ice Cream and just scooped in a bunch of peanut butter and left out the chocolate chips and pecans.  It was quite good.

The second one I made was her Funfetti Cake Batter Ice Cream.  I just left out the sprinkles and tossed in some crushed up Golden Oreos.  This one was also pretty good (but I think I like the chocolate one better).

I want to make a couple more while the weather is still decent.  I'm thinking I'll make a vanilla one but add a bunch of bananas to it.  Then another vanilla one but add a bunch of crushed up regular Oreos.  

You should probably try it... it's pretty easy.