HELP!

So, it looks like Grant and I will be staying in our bachelor suite, for at least another 6 months, and I'm at a loss as to what I can do to make the space more usable, and to get (and keep) everything organized. Anyone have any suggestions (or the spare time to come and help me organize our apartment)?

I can provide pictures if needed.

Right now I'm at a loss, and really, really need to get it organized.

Making a List and Checking It Twice...

As Christmas is fast approaching, I'm constantly thinking about what still needs to be done before the family events. Unfortunately, the list keep growing instead of shrinking.

To Do:

Finish making 2 gifts (actually got one done tonight, just have to do the second one)
Wrap gifts (which involves finding boxes for odd shaped gifts, printing labels, and then finally wrapping the gifts.)
Shopping for food supplies for Bell Christmas at Steinbach.
Figure out how I'm getting to Rygiel Christmas at Mitch and Carmen's.
Packing up gifts for Rygiel Christmas and Bell Christmas, and make sure I don't put something in the wrong bag.
Make sure there is gas in the car for driving out to Steinbach and back three days in a row.
...and last but not least, have fun spending time with family.

As least I'll time to recuperate after all the fun is over, since I'm still looking for a job.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

Reflections on my 28th Year

Since my birthday is coming up soon (8 days to be exact), I've been thinking back on the past year and how many changes occurred over the past 365 days.

Getting married in January, and moving into Grant's apartment was a big adjustment, but we are getting settled into a routine, and one of these days, hopefully, I will finally get the apartment organized.

In February, I had my Gall Bladder taken out. I had a couple of attacks over the past couple of years, and thought that it was probably a good idea. One thing that I haven't done a good job at since the surgery is changing the way that I eat. I'm hoping to work on that this next year.

At the end of March, I left my job at Lakeview to take a job with a friend from church who wanted me to be the Office Manager for the plumbing and heating company that he had purchased. Unfortunately, the job didn't work out, and I was laid off at the end of September.

In July, we had a Taylor family reunion at Clearview Christian Camp at Kenosee Lake, SK. It had been quite a few years since all the aunts, uncles and cousins had been together at the same time. It was a great weekend of visiting and catching up. We were only missing one family memeber who wasn't able to travel due to health reasons. I hope that we can have more of these reunions over the years.

September saw Grant and I heading to Edmonton for our honeymoon (I know we got married in Janaury, but we couldn't take the time off then to have our honeymoon). We spent three days at West Edmonton Mall taking in the Water Park, Sea Lion Show, Black Light Mini Golf and 10 Pin Bowling. We also playing two nights of Buzztime Trivia at one of the many trivia locations in Edmonton.

The highlight for me of our time at West Edmonton Mall was during the Sea Lion Show, when I was selected to help out in the show. After, I was able to get my picture taken with one of the sea lions, and he snuck a kiss in.



Not much has happened since returning from Edmonton, except for me job hunting. I haven't been successful yet in finding a job, but I'm hoping that something will come up soon.

Frustrated, but working on it

I'm still feeling frustrated about things, but I've decided that it's better to set 3 small(ish) goals for myself, and try to get the apartment more organized this way.

Todays goals are:

1. Clean off coffee table and organize everything that came off of it. I don't have a before picture of what it looked like, but here is a picture of the result.


2. Dishes - unfortunately, I haven't been good about keeping up with dishes everyday, so there are quite a few that need to be washed (though Grant did up lots of them on Monday).

3. Enter receipts into Microsoft Money - I want to a better idea of where my money is being spent, so I'm going to start using Microsoft Money to track spending (I can use multiple categories for one receipt with this program). Hopefully this will help me come up with a better budget and see where changes can be made.

I'm going to try and post my goals on a regular basis so that I can have some accountability.

Date Night

This past weekend was a very busy weekend, but at the same time was very relaxing. Grant and I went to play Trivia at lunch (the bar where we play was hosting a UFC night on Saturday, so playing Trivia isn’t enjoyable on those nights). We left there about 4 and came home and packed our suitcase. Grant had won the “Romantic Package” at my work Christmas party, and in there was a gift certificate for a night at the Inn At the Forks. We decided that since we weren’t playing the evening Trivia games, that we would have a date night and use the certificate before it expired. We checked into the hotel about 5 and then got ready for the evening. We wondered around the Forks Market for awhile. There are a lot of nice shops there. I did some window shopping (Grant was very patient with me, as he doesn’t like shopping). We then went to Muddy Waters BBQ for supper. It was very delicious. We were very full by the time we left. We wandered around the Forks again for a bit. There was a “busker” outside the Johnston Terminal. He did painting entirely with spray paint. It was quite amazing to see the process, and to also see the end product. I didn’t take any pictures because I didn’t know if I should. We then headed back to the hotel for the evening and relaxed.
















Sunday, we had been invited to join Grant’s cousins, Aunt and Mother at the cabin they were renting at Grand Marais. They were going to be checking in around 3 and told us to come by about 5, so we headed to Grand Beach for a while first. It was a blast. The weather was basically perfect for a beach day. It wasn’t too hot, too cold, or cloudy. We both ended up with sunburns though. I had made a point of buying sunscreen at WalMart before we left the city, but it ended up in the bottom of the beach bag and I had problems finding it and gave up. We spent about 3 hours at the beach and then headed to Grand Marais and the cabin.



We headed out as a group to find supper, and found a great little food stand just across the street from where the cabin was. Most of us tried the bison burger and it was great. After supper, Grant and I went for a walk around Grand Marais with Glen, Gloria and Keya (their dog). It was a very nice, slow, relaxing walk. On the homestretch, we managed to find an ice cream stand, where we got some ice cream cones (Grant had a milkshake), and went back to the cabin to play cards.
















We are both looking forward to the Taylor family reunion this weekend at Kenosee. Unfortunately, Grant wasn’t able to get Friday night off, so I’ll be heading out to camp with Charlotte and Grant will drive out on Saturday morning to join all of us. Then we will head home together on Sunday.

I’m sure I’ll have lots more to post next week.

I Give Up

You'll notice that I've taken my 101 in 1001 list off of my blog. I've made the decision not to continue with the list at this time. I was beginning to feel very overwhelmed by some of the items on my list, and felt that they were ones that would never get completed. Some of the items on my list did get completed, but they were the simple ones that I put on there.

Instead, what I'm going to try to do is to set daily and weekly goals for myself. If I get a chance, I'll post them on here at the beginning of the week, and report back as to how they went.

I'm still feeling very frustrated about everything. Sometimes I just don't know what to do.

4 of 52 (a couple of days late)

I had purposely put off writing this week's update, cause I knew I had an Eye Specialist appointment on Monday, and figured I would do my post on Monday night. But I spend most of Monday night talking to my sisters and my parents to let them know how the appointment went. Then last night, I vegged in front of the TV all night, so I didn't get it done last night either.

Last week went pretty good, except for the computer at work. It started acting up again on Monday, and by about noon, it had crashed (AGAIN). So my boss took it into the shop, and we didn't get it back until Thursday morning. It worked OK for about an hour until I tried to install the printer, and then it crashed again, so back to the shop it went. This time while it was in the shop, they discoved that it was a defect in the hard drive, and they replaced the computer for free (we only purchased it at the end of March). So that was stressful to watch all my work pile up, and not be able to do any of it.

As I mentioned earlier in my post, I had an Eye Specialist appointment on monday. It was discoved quite a few years ago that my IOP pressures were higher than then they should be. At that time, I was put on glaucoma drops (I don't have glaucoma, but that is what they use to get the pressures down). I was on the drops for a couple of years, though I'm horrible at remembering to put them in. After a while, the pressures went down (even though I had forgotten to put the drops in for quite a while), so I went off of the drops. Back in March of this year, I got my eyes checked, and the pressures were back up again (even higher than they were before), so I was refered to an Eye Specialist again. I was again put on glaucoma drops, but I kept forgetting to put them in. When I went for my follow up on Monday, the pressures were still as high as they had been the previous appointment. The specialist made the suggestion that I get SLT done, which has an 70 - 80% success rate, and then I won't have to worry about remembering to put drops in everyday. So, I get my right eye done on July 21 and my left eye done on August 13.

That's about all that is new here.