John's Christmas Present

I always have a pretty long list of things that John might want for Christmas (what can I say... I'm pretty good at remembering things he mentions/knowing what he needs). This year I decided to fix up his office for part of his present.

John's office - before

John's office - before

Since it's the smallest bedroom upstairs I'm fairly certain it will remain an office for a while so I figured it was pretty safe to redo. So the last day before his Christmas break I had a friend come over and help me with the project... and we got it all done while he was at work.

Luckily for us I had somehow convinced John that we should FINALLY finish painting the ceilings upstairs... and since we would be emptying out the rooms to paint the ceilings I also convinced him we should paint the walls while we are at it. This meant that the bulk of the hard work was already done.

New furniture wasn't in the budget so I had to work with what he already had in there. This meant that pretty well all the furniture that was already in there was going to stay in there. I did come up with a plan while he was away for work a week in November for how I thought his office could be arranged differently though.

He has a couple of newspaper clippings that he's saved for years... one was in a slightly damaged frame so I bought 2 of the cheapest frames from Michaels (using 50% off coupons of course). They were meant for a certain size of poster and the newspaper clipping didn't fill up the entire frame... but I wasn't going to pay for a mat on it so instead I turned the paper that came with the frame so that the white side was facing outwards to use as a mat... worked pretty well if you ask me!

John also had this slightly 3D picture of a hockey player (it's the middle picture in the line up of 3) that I had to figure out. I went to Michaels to ask about a frame for that but the frames that have enough space in them to accommodate something 3D like this were kind of expensive (and also not quite the right size) so after much contemplation I opted for just putting a nail in the wall and not using a frame for it at all (see the final pictures at the end of the post).

The wall colour. 

Below are some of the options I was debating on to paint one of the walls in his office... in the end I decided to paint all the walls a neutral colour and use some coloured curtains instead.

So I found the nicest curtain rod I could for an inexpensive price ($14 at Canadian Tire) and some inexpensive but still nice curtains from Walmart. Since his favourite team is the Washington Capitals (and he has a bit of stuff to do with that team) I wanted some of the accent colours to be either red or blue (hence me debating on blue as the wall colour). Which is why I opted for blue and white curtains.

The last thing I added to the room was a couple of floating shelves. This way he would have somewhere to show off some of his "toys", somewhere to put pictures, or just extra space to put something one day. I bought them at Jysk a while ago when they were on sale. I really wanted one large one (which is the size I ended up buying) and one that was the size down from this but they were 2 different shades of white which I didn't like so instead I got 2 of the larger sizes.

We also hung up his whiteboard so it's no longer sitting on the floor (and I guess if John wants to put it back on the floor he can).

I must say the finished product... is not too bad... and we got it all done in the span of 4 hours (while John was at work for the morning)

I also decorated his office door to be more present like

John's office - after
New curtains, pictures hung, brown chair added, and switched out his Winnie the Pooh lamp for something smaller and more neutral.

John's office - after. Pennants displayed, floating shelves installed, whiteboard hung (with festive message), Christmas tree added, and desk moved from corner to the longest wall.

$20 Sock Present

My friends and I did this last year where we filled a pair of socks up with some presents (in total it should all cost about $20) and have a white elephant type gift exchange. This year I thought of this an entire year in advance. I figured if I was left with a couple of extra pairs of Christmas socks they would be easily gifted elsewhere. Because of this I got 2 pairs of Christmas socks for about $3 which left me with about $17 to fill the socks with. I had also purchased nearly a year ago (or maybe it was 6 months ago during the summer) during Bath and Body Works semi annual clearance a bath bomb. I've never actually used one before but I was thinking of a specific friend in this group that would REALLY love it... so I got it on the chance that others would also appreciate it. Anyways, at this point I was at about $12 left to spend. I had something that I had bought that could possibly work with this group a year ago but it was too big to fit in a sock (so I'm using that at another $10 gift exchange instead). Then I remembered that I had seen these cute cactus things at Chapters about half a year ago on clearance. The odds were likely not in my favor that they would have any left in the city but then as it turned out they had a bunch of them at the location closest to me... still for the same clearance price unfortunately (shouldn't it have been even cheaper by this point?) and then for the last piece to finish filling up those socks was to buy an actual real cactus (in case the fake one wasn't up someones alley). John and I had a bunch of leftover plastic pots from our wedding favours so I used one of those to put it in a better looking pot.

It wasn't easy this year considering the restrictions that were placed on what we could put inside of the socks. No chocolates (and I had a BUNCH of Lindt chocolates that could have gone inside from our advent calendar). no chapstick. No tea and no coffee... and those are only the restrictions that I could remember. So, I think I did alright all things considering.

I was pretty close to choosing a yellow topped cactus but then I saw this one lonely red looking one and thought that better matched the season.

Luckily, socks are stretchy and will be able to accommodate the larger items... I'll just need to put a tag with a warning on it to roll the sock down instead of just grabbing things out of it so that the cactus stays intact.

The Perfect Homemade Wedding Shower Gift

That's right I said perfect.

Perfect for the couple that likes to eat.

Perfect for the couple that likes to spend time outdoors.

Perfect for the couple that likes picnics

It's... A... PICNIC BASKET!

I don't recall how I came up with the idea for a picnic basket.  I think I went searching for a shower gift at Winners and saw picnic stuff but thought I could find something better than what they were offering.  It turned out I could find something better than what they were offering and the price tag for better was indeed quite a bit more.  So I travelled down the interwebs hole of picnic baskets and eventually found a DIY one that I thought was perfect on Lovely Indeed!

Her instructions went flawlessly for me.  

BUT for the love of everything... make sure you get your basket of choice from Michaels and make sure you use at the very least a 40% off coupon.  I was lucky and went when there was a 50% off coupon because baskets are expensive!

Once I had the basket all put together I searched stores for the perfect dishes.  To be honest I think Superstore had better ones but I wanted to fill my basket with so many wonderful things that I went to Dollar Tree instead (Dollarama was more expensive).  The cutlery was the cheapest set from Ikea (it's picnicing people not dinner with the queen!)

Inside my basket I included:

4 bowls

4 plates

4 knives

4 spoons

4 forks

4 plastic wine glasses

napkins

reusable ice cube things

fancy juice

I considered also including some kind of platter, table cloth or picnic blanket, a snack, and I meant to add in some kind of game (like a frisbee)... I just forgot to pick one up.

I wasn't sure whether to include stuff for 4 people or 2 but went with the larger number in case stuff breaks or goes missing or they want to invite a couple of friends out for a picnic.  But I only made space in the lid for stuff for 2 people... 4 just wouldn't have fit.

I asked my friend the other day how it was all holding up and apparently everything is still intact so the glue that is recommended is absolutely the right glue for the job!  I'm mostly surprised about the button on the outside not coming off... apparently I did a better sewing job of that then I thought.  

Sidenote:  That button was a hard choice... was I getting the right kind, I wanted white but not glossy white so we painted it but the paint wasn't sticking... really though... who would have thought the hardest part of making your own picnic basket would be the button choice!

Oh, and I added the lovely flower on top because I wasn't wrapping it and thought it needed a little something extra.  You can make your own flower... just search "tissue paper flower" and I'm sure no less than 50 Youtube videos will come up.

Valentine's Day

I'm not one for making a big deal about this day.  Shouldn't we all be showing the person that we love that we love them every day?  BUT... I told John earlier in the week that I had come up with a good idea to do for it so I would take care of planning this Valentine's Day and he could start working ahead to next year (or you know, think of it February 13, 2017... whichever).  

But first...

I've rarely had a date on Valentine's Day so it has been a long tradition that I go out for a girl's night on (or around) Valentine's Day.  Why should all the couples get all the fun?  The girls I hang out with on this date have changed over the years (because people run off and get married) but the good times continue.  So on Friday, myself, and a few friends got together for dinner (and they had dessert - I didn't because I had an obscene amount at the classroom Valentine's Day party I was subbing in) hung out and caught up.  It was fun.

Then on Sunday, February 14th I of course woke up not feeling so great.  Why oh why am I always getting sick when there is a holiday (Monday was a holiday)!?!  You know how when you get sick there is usually one day that is worse than the others?  Well I wasn't willing to risk Monday being the more sick of the two days and postponing.... so the show went on.

When thinking about what we should do I thought about what John would want to do.... or what he likes to do.  

"Well... he likes camping" I thought to myself and so the plan began.

It was a pretty simple set up.  Hotdogs, chips, s'mores, carrots, and pickles (or you know... what I'm assuming is typical camping food) and of course... my fireplace.  I was a little nervous about someones marshmallow going up in flames (and they did... multiple times... those things are highly flammable!) and burning something important (such as my condo) so I put a pitcher of water by the fireplace (which we didn't end up needing... we just blew out the marshmallow fires).  I also took a couple of cushions off the couch and put them on the floor in front of the fireplace to make it more comfortable (then I covered it with another blanket so that we wouldn't get any ash or anything on the cushions.

I didn't get him much... 

While picking up the groceries for the indoor camping experience I took a wander down the candy aisle at Walmart thinking that they usually have some of their Lindtt chocolate on sale.. the only ones that were on sale were the dark chocolate varieties which just so happen to be his favourite.  So I bought him one and told him to open it before we made s'mores because he might want to include it with his (and he did).

I'm pretty sure he had a good time (and I enjoyed how incredibly simple it all was)...we called it a night early on because I wasn't feeling the greatest but at least the day wasn't completely ruined (by my illness... or you know an out of control fire or anything).

Hope all my readers, whether single or happily taken had a great Valentine's Day!

What I Gave This Christmas

Day 29

What I Gave For Christmas

First, with John's family the kids all drew names... I got his sister's name that lives up North so I bought her present forever ago it seems so that John's mom could bring it to her when she visited.  She got a rectangular pizza stone (which I found at Home Outfitters for a reasonable prince - trust me it wasn't easy to find it!) and a Sephora gift card.

I gave John part of his present early because his favourite NHL team was here at the beginning of December.  His present was 2 tickets to the game (and he picked me to go with him!)

But then I figured he needed something to open Christmas as well.  I was going to sneak the little Lego man (the middle item) into his stocking here but I didn't think we would be here at on Christmas so I just put all the items in a gift bag and brought it to his parents place.

What is everything?

Well, from left to right we have...

1.  An Ovechkin Christmas tree ornament.  The guy at the store told me it didn't look anything like Ovechkin and I told him that didn't matter.  What matters is that now John will have an ornament on his tree from this girl (because he has a bunch of different ornaments on his tree from different girls - his mom, his piano teacher, his Sunday school teacher.... he needed one from me!)

2.  Ovechkin Lego man.  John likes Lego.  John likes the Capitals.  John likes Ovechkin.

3.  This was the first thing I bought him... just a travel mug.  Why?  Because he doesn't have one.

Can you tell what the theme was?

I would like to think I really did well with his present... and I didn't even have to ask him what he wanted!

For my parents I bought them a gift card for ticket master.  I find them so hard to buy for so I usually end up getting them tickets to something.  Originally I was going to send them to a hockey game with my aunt and uncle but that kind of fell through when I needed to have the item purchased before I left on Christmas Eve.  So, now they can pick something that they actually want to see.

These were pretty much it... there were a few smaller ones and I think John put my name on his present to his parents (and I put his name on my present to my parents).  

Christmas Stockings

Day 22

Christmas Stocking Stuffers For EVERYONE!

Today I'm talking stockings... Christmas stockings (and what we're all putting in them)... except I don't think I'm putting anything in any Christmas stockings so well... I would say this is all a lie BUT if I needed to fill some stockings this is what I might include (or maybe I'll look back on this in a few years for ideas).

I can't imagine me spending more than $20 on Christmas stocking stuffers.... can you imagine if you have more than a few kids... just the stockings could end up costing a bunch!  So, shop smart folks.. Walmart has a $5 movie bin with many great movies in it... Michaels has 40% off coupons all the time... and well the Dollar Store has rows upon rows of stuff for under a few dollars.

Kids Stockings

- movies
- little stuffies
- travel sized games or card games
-  books
-  little toys
-  colouring books
-  stickers
-  headbands
-  socks, mitts, toque, scarf
-  candy, chocolate


Teen Stockings

-  make up, nail polish
-  movies
-  gift cards
-  books, magazine subscription
-  electronic game (I don't play any of these... but I'm thinking like Nintendo which is probably SO not in).
-  socks, mitts, toque, scarf
-  hair elastics
-  candy, chocolate

Adult Stockings

-  books, magazine subscriptions
-  socks, mitts, toque, scarf
-  movie
- gift cards
-  nail polish
-  small kitchen gadgets of some kind, coasters
-  ornaments
-  sunglasses
-  small notebook, pens
-  candles
-  tea
-  coffee

Presents for Everyone!

Day 20

Shopping For That Hard to Buy For Person

Confession:  I've got A LOT of gatherings over the next couple of weeks (just check out my Christmas Gatherings post!) and so I'm prewriting a lot of these last few days (my goal is actually to extend this right until the end of December... we'll see how that goes).  Not that I haven't been prewriting most of what I've already done... I just feel like these next few days might be obviously prewritten.... so you've been warned!

Anyways, this post is all about what to get for that person that has everything (or is just really hard to get a present for).  

Let me tell you folks, you are making it too hard!  This person is actually the easiest person to buy for... chances are you can get your shopping for this person done within minutes... possibly while you are doing your grocery shopping or from the comfort of your own home!

And here it is... the present that is sure to please that person that already has everything they could need:  

Tickets to ANYTHING!

Here is a list of tickets that you could get:

- Concert Tickets

-  Ballet Tickets

-  Comedy Show Tickets

-  A special event Tickets (like if Cirque du Soleil was coming or something)

-  Dinner Theater Tickets

-  Sporting Event Tickets

-  A Family Show 

-  Tickets to a play

-  OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT YOU FIND THAT THE PERSON MAY BE INTO IN YOUR CITY

OR... get them tickets and a hotel stay for somewhere outside of the city you live in if you want to be extra generous (or a bunch of people are contributing to the present).

Now, some of you are going to be all "but they already have season tickets to every sporting event, or "they hate the arts", or "what if they are busy the date that I get the tickets for".  

Well fine then.

(chances are if they really wanted to see whatever it is you got them tickets for they would change their plans though)

Go out and get them a gift card to a restaurant.  They can go out to dinner which means they don't have to cook it... everyone is still happy.

(psst,... this the one you could probably accomplish while grocery shopping... just check out their gift card section)

In a week or 2 I'll be (hopefully) doing a post about what I got others for Christmas and I think this ticket/gift card idea is going to work with 3 people that I'm buying presents for.

I'm sure there are other things and ideas of what you could get that person that already has everything though... so leave your ideas in the comment section below!

Volunteering at Christmas

Day 13

Volunteering (and giving) At Christmas

Things are getting a little serious today for Blogmas.  Many of us are very blessed and live in a world of some sort of privilege.  BUT, at the same time many people do not live in this same privileged world.  It's wonderful to receive presents and eat lots of delicious food at Christmas time and I just think we should all be a little more willing to help those in need.  This year, I spent my time and money helping one local family and 2 kids overseas.

Not to guilt you into doing anything but you could consider giving up your morning coffee for a couple months (or find a cheaper alternative) in order to do something.  My old pastor would always tell us that if we owned a car we were in the top 10% (or so) of the richest people in the world.  He would often direct us to Global Rich List so that you could see just how rich you are in comparison to others.

Every year some friends and I sign up to do a Christmas hamper for a family in need in our city.  I usually spearhead the project and it usually works out quite nicely.  Basically, you sign up for a family of a size that you are willing to help (since it isn't just me and a couple friends I've requested a family of 8 or more the last couple years) and you buy groceries for the family (for a Christmas dinner and other stuff to last them a little while) as well as presents for any children.  When I spoke with the mom of the family she told me she was trying to implement a family game night and the kids loved books so this year we went above and beyond and put together a little collection of games and books for the family as well.

I think that it is important to note that no matter where people live they could still be struggling at Christmas.  It isn't for us to judge how well off a person is because of the car they drive or the house they live.  Things could be gifts, maybe they bought their house before they ran into trouble and have it all paid off.  Anyone could be struggling financially this Christmas.

Anyways, I would like to think, that is is super easy to do... what I always do is print off (or write out) a list of all the items we have to get and get my friends to sign up for different ones.  Then I take a collection for the presents and go out and buy them.  

Here is our collection of presents!

hamper presents

 and here they are all wrapped under my Christmas tree!

The project I help with for overseas is Operation Christmas Child.  John and I put together these boxes a month or two ago and dropped them off at our church.

Super easy to do... just a trip to the Dollar Store and Shoppers Drugmart and it was done!

Don't have money but still want to give something back?

Consider giving your time.  There are lots of organizations that need volunteers.  It could be anything from a nursing home to a soup kitchen to a pet shelter.

Shovel your neighbours walk

Organize a neighbourhood clean up

Bring cookies to your neighbour.

and I'm sure there are so many others.

I've been reading a book about paying it forward... I think that is the kind of attitude more people need to have... to do something nice for another and not expect anything in return.

Then today I heard a story on the news about a person giving someone money to call a lock smith for no reason whatsoever... with the extra money that wasn't spent this person that needed the lock smith bought and donated some toys to a local charity.  This is awesome.

Are you going to volunteer this Christmas season?

What are you going to do to give back?

The Gift of Giving to Others

Our "shoe boxes"

At our (John and myself) church they started their
 Operation Christmas Child stuff so we picked up a couple of boxes from there and headed to the store Sunday afternoon.  I knew going in that it would be incredibly easy to fill those smaller sized boxes that they give us (or maybe the correct word is difficult because the stuff we wanted to buy was too big to fit inside!).  So we opted for not using those shoe boxes and instead bought some reusable bins from the Dollar Store.

We were thinking about what would be the most unlikely age/gender to receive gifts and John had heard that it was the older group (ages 10-14) that were normally left out... more often the boys.  So we decided to fill 2 boxes for the boys in that age group.

It makes me so happy that what we are doing will give a couple boys that may not have ever received anything for Christmas or for a birthday ever their very first gift.  That they can experience the joy that receiving something for nothing is.  Of course Christmas shouldn't just be about giving gifts... so I also hope these boys get to celebrate with friends or family or people that care about them this year too.

Some of the things we put in the shoe boxes

The good news is that these boxes aren't due back (at our church at least) for another couple of weeks so if you want to fill one you definitely still have time!  Simply head over to the Operation Christmas Child website to learn where the closest collection center to you is!

Ways to Stay Cool During a Heat Wave

Just stay inside!

Hopefully everyone else around these parts had some kind of air conditioning this past week... I think we were around 40 degrees with the humidex most days this week!

Needless to say I DID NOT spend much time outside this week.

What I did do was...

1) I ate popsicles
I make smoothies most mornings (smoothies that include a couple handfuls of spinach I might add).  I fill a glass with it and whatever is leftover I put in a popsicle mold.  All those popsicles came in handy this week!

2) I turned on my a/c.  I don't keep it on too often... just to keep my bills lower but this week I spoiled myself and I had it on A LOT (in comparison to what I normally would)

3) Slumber party in the living room!
I only have a window a/c unit and it is located in my living room.  So I dragged an extra mattress into the living room and camped out there for a couple nights.  Then John came over and I felt obligated to turn my living room back into a living room.

4) Go to the mall!
The mall is a cold place to hang out.  I bought some fancy new pants (for $12 each because they were on sale!) and a bathing suit top - just the top.. I didn't like the bottoms.

5)  Swimming
When one has a pool one should take full advantage of it during hot days

6) Visit Friends with central air!
I went to life group which got relocated to my cousins... because she has central air.  I brought us pizza and pasta for dinner before everyone else arrived.

7)  Free Ice Cream!
During life group the person that brought dessert refused to take the ice cream he brought home.  So I took it.  It's been yummy!  John and I also went for gelati on Monday.  I had salted caramel and blood orange.  It was delicious!  On Tuesday we for a boat ride down the river for ice cream with my family too.  So 3 days of ice cream... not too shabby.

So that's been my week of staying cool

Other than that my friends and I visited the Chile (chilly?) pavilion for Folklorama and went out for Greek food beforehand.

This weekend is sort of a lazy and relaxing weekend in the city.

Saturday I made some Tagalong Cookies and worked on some T.U.S.C most of the day (in hopes I might be able to use it at a job I'm still waiting to get for September).

I also made this delectable meal.

don't worry I cut the strings off before eating it!

Today the plan is to head over to John's to make his dessert for life group (he is going away for work but still wants to supply his dessert - yes I offered to supply it for him!) in the evening and then head to bed early because I actually have to get up early Monday!

Hope everyone managed to keep cool this past week!