101 in 1001 Update #11

Wow I can't believe it's September already.

I'm not really sure where the summer went! It just blows my mind to think that next summer I'll be getting married. I've still got a ton to do, and despite already having been engaged for a year now, I'm not that far ahead when it comes to wedding planning. Oh well, I'm not going to freak out about it for another few months. Then the craziness can begin.

I am happy to say that we had our engagement pictures taken by the lovely Heather from HRM Photography and I'm very pleased with how they turned out.

I love this guy

To be honest, I can't really recap the past month since it passed by in such a rush. I know I got my bridesmaid's dresses sorted, I know I nailed down a few accessories for my bridal outfit, I know I met with our minister, but it's all sort of a blur. I'm hoping that time will slow down a little bit now, and that I'll actually get to put in some time not only with the cool DIY projects I have planned for the spare bedroom (so I can finally do my first project reveal) but also so I can work on some of the customized things I have planned for the wedding.

I'm actually really happy it's September. I just love fall, it's probably my favorite season. I love the leaves, the crisp smell of the air, the lack of bugs, cool breezes, apples...I could go on, but I'll stop there. All of my nesting instincts kick in when the rush of summer is over, and suddenly I want to cook and bake, decorate, and get ready for Christmas!

Completed Goals:

2. Get my hair cut and highlighted (2/2)

14. Go one week without eating dessert for four weeks (4/4) - I did it! I'm pretty relieved to have accomplished this one, since I'm planning on making an apple crisp later on today
25. Plant a garden in my backyard and maintain it throughout the summer - I grew one cucumber, which I picked yesterday, and I am going to count this as a very small success, since for a while there it looked like we were not going to get any cucumbers! 
26. Grow and use three varieties of herbs (3/3) - I grew lemon thyme and lemongrass this summer, and managed not to kill them. I'm going to plant them in the ground, and hope that they survive the winter, since they're apparently perennials
69. Get engagement shots done (2/2) - I'm actually relieved to have this crossed off my list, I'd much rather be behind a lens than in front of one

70. Book a minister - the next step is to take a pre-marriage course of some kind, I'm actually (strangely) looking forward to it 

Goals I'm Working On: 
6. Go for a run/bike ride every week, weather permitting (48/143)
13. Eat a vegetarian meal once a week for three months (8/12)
32. Learn how to sew - I don't think this is ever going to be something I'm good at, but I hemmed a pant leg yesterday, with some of the messiest stitches I've ever seen
48. Go on one date night a month (10/32) - we went to the Western Fair, and I had SO MUCH FUN! I've never played fair games before, and Jeff kept laughing at me because I kept jumping up and down in pure excitement
49. Take a picture of Jeff and I once a month (10/32) - engagement pictures count, right? 

Completed Goals: 29/101

101 in 1001 Update #9 & #10

It's not the end of July yet, but since I'm crossing things left and right off of my list and I missed posting in June, I figured I'd post July's update a little early and June's update a little late!

This summer has been so busy so far! Work is absolutely crazy - I was warned it would be busy at this time of year, but I had absolutely no idea that I would be facing the amount of work that I do on a day-to-day basis. I find that it makes the days go by too fast!

Jeff and I have really been stepping it up in the exercise department. We are into our third week of Insanity, going for bike rides, and working outdoors. This is really great because...I just bought my wedding dress! Now that I have my dress as motivation I know I'll just keep pushing harder for the next year. I actually can't believe that Jeff and I have been engaged for a year now! When I think about how fast that year flew by, it honestly scares me (a little bit) to think of how fast this next year will go by.

I need to get a move on with some of my planning. We still need to meet with a minister and book a DJ, and I need to get my bridesmaid's dresses selected before my maid of honour jets off to England! I am going bridesmaid's dress shopping in the next week, so hopefully we'll find something awesome for my girls and I can check another thing off my list. :) I also created a wedding website in lieu of sending out Save The Date's, but I think it needs a little more tweaking before I send it out officially.

Not much else is going on right now since Jeff and I have been spending most of our weekends building stairs at our cottage, so nothing has really happened on our house. I do have some cool DIY projects that I'm excited to work on, so hopefully I'll get to those in the fall.

Completed Goals:
42. Go to the cottage for four weekends in one summer - With the stair project still ongoing, this one was easily completed back in May/June
45. Gamble in a casino - I must have forgotten to cross this one off when I crossed off #44 since they pretty much go hand-in-hand...
64. Go wedding dress shopping with my Mom - I said yes to the dress!
66. Pick bridesmaid dresses - I'm hoping that crossing this off doesn't jinx our upcoming appointment...
80. Finish changing my address
100. Take a yoga class

Goals I'm Working On:
6. Go for a run/bike ride every week, weather permitting (44/143)
13. Eat a vegetarian meal once a week for 3 months (7/12)
14. Go one week without eating dessert for four weeks (3/4)
25. Plant a garden in my backyard and maintain it throughout the summer - I'm hoping my cucumbers will grow a little more!
48. Go on one date night a month (9/32) - Jeff and I saw Man of Steel, and had our tasting at our wedding venue, so I'm counting that as a date too
49. Take a picture of Jeff and I once a month 9/32 - I need to step up the photos again, I still have time to take my photo for July!

I took this on our day trip to Rondeau

Completed Goals: 23/101

101 in 1001 Update #5 & #6....and #7 & #8...

Wow I'm so behind on my blog, it's almost time to do my update for #9! I was thinking I'd just combine them and get it all done at once, and hopefully also make it look like I got a lot accomplished at the same time (which I have not, so don't be fooled).

I can't believe it's been so long since I've blogged, but in all honesty it's been pretty low on my radar. I've discovered that I really love biking, and playing catch in our backyard, and gardening, and working on projects around the house, and pretty much anything other than sitting in front of my computer. Maybe that's because it's so nice out, or maybe it's because I spend all day in front of a computer at work, who knows.

The past few months have been super busy, but awesome. In February we spent a weekend in Niagara Falls, went snowboarding, went to a comedy show and actually went out to the bar! (And drank beer! That's pretty wild for me right now) In March I went to my first baby shower, I'm hosted Easter for the first time at my house, watched world figure skating live (and watched Patrick Chan win the gold!) and we've accomplished some things around the house. In April we bought our bikes and went out to the bar again, and in May we started building stairs at the cottage and going on a few 10-20 km bike rides. I have temporarily switched up going for a run once a week to playing squash for one hour once a week (I did that from February to the end of April), or going for bike rides a few times a week. So I actually made my target for the past couple of months and had fun at the same time. Which is always awesome.

I'm also walking with some of the girls at work for 30 minutes every day, so we get in over 5 miles of walking a week on top of the other exercise I'm squeezing in. I love being outside at this time of year!

Hopefully I can upload our photos from the past couple of months and do some recipe posts since I've really slacked off with those too lately. I'd love to blog about our Niagara Falls trip as well as post some other posts about what I have planned for our spare bedroom, so hopefully soon doesn't turn out to be almost six months from now!

Completed Goals:
44. Spend a night in Niagara Falls - we spent two awesome nights at the Marriott! 
52. Have a picnic with Jeff - we packed a picnic lunch and took our bikes to Rondeau for a day :) 
56. Kiss in the rain
72. Figure out what music will be playing during the ceremony
87. Cut down diseased birch tree in backyard - now I can get crafty with some of the cool logs left from the tree

Goals I'm Working On: 
6. Go for a run every week, weather permitting (33/143) - I'm going to have to start my C25K from the beginning, but I just hate running on a treadmill and I've sort of fallen in love with biking
13. Eat a vegetarian meal once a week for 3 months (5/12)
14. Go one week without eating dessert for four weeks (2/4) - this wasn't too hard to do last week because I kept falling asleep on the couch before I could even get a chance to eat dessert!
25. Plant a garden in my backyard and maintain it throughout the summer
34. Try 8 new foods (6/8) - I tried fried cabbage and liked it!
48. Go on one date night a month (7/32) - we had our Niagara falls weekend, went out to dinner a few times, and have caught a movie recently
49. Take a picture of Jeff and I once a month (7/32) - I have seriously been slacking with photos of us...I'm not even posting photos today since I'm too lazy to upload any right now

Completed Goals: 17/101

101 in 1001 Update #4!

Wow, that month flew by!

I started thinking that I didn't really accomplish much on my list this month, but in reality I actually managed to get quite a bit done, although a few things really slipped. Running 4 times a month certainly has slipped since after work all I want to do is go home and take a nap. I only managed to squeeze in two runs this month, so I'll basically have to start over when I go for my next run. I battled a cold this past week, which has been the one week where I felt I had the energy to go to the gym. Ugh.. I guess I'll try and make up for it next month while doing my year-end balancing at work, busy days ahead!

That said, Jeff and I got a lot done in regards to our wedding and we got some important stuff done on our house! Which makes me very very happy :) We started off the month by booking a photographer, followed that up by booking a decorator, and painted our spare bedroom (finally). Only two of those things are on my list, but I'm getting excited!!

Completed Goals:
63. Book a photographer - the lovely Heather at HRM Photography will be taking all our shots!
76. Paint spare bedroom - I'll post photos once I get it decorated... this may take a while...

Goals I'm Working On:
6. Go for a run every week, weather permitting (12/143) - ugh, this number is not where it needs to be
13. Eat a vegetarian meal once a week for 3 months (1/12)
29. Read 10 classical novels such as 'Pride and Prejudice' or 'Wuthering Heights' (1/10) - thank you Sherlock Holmes!
34. Try 8 new foods (5/8) - I tried brussel sprouts..I still don't like them. Yuck!
48. Go on one date night a month (5/32) - we ate in, but Jeff cooked and set the table all fancy

49. Take a picture of Jeff and I once a month (4/32)

65. Create our centerpieces and wedding favours - the decorator is going to do the centerpieces so all I have to do is the favours now!
77. Organize and decorate the office - it'll get finished eventually...

Completed Goals: 12/101

Bambi Got Run Over By A Civic

Does anyone recognize the song I was referencing?

Well it's a little lot late, but I'm finally getting around to writing about what happened to my poor car at the beginning of December. But first, I must warn you - if you have a great love for deer, don't keep reading this post. (Haha) I used to be one of those people who was against venison and hunting, always wondering who on earth could ever do that to Bambi's mom, but after a few events concerning a stupid deer...well let's just say that my position has drastically changed.

Until my deer incident, I'd never been in a car accident. No speeding tickets, no parking tickets, nothing. I actually took great pride in that. Well, that's all out the window now.

I can't put into words what it was like that morning. It's all somewhat of a blur because after it happened I was riding on a wave of adrenaline, followed by shock. I remember driving along (ironically, having just gotten my car tuned for winter & oil-undercoated), minding my own business, humming along to the radio when I saw a deer emerge out of the trees on the passenger side of the road. I remember clearly thinking "Oh, a deer! I never see one this close to the road, and it's running this way! Deer hop kind of funny....it's still running this way...there's no way we'll hit each other" and BAM! The deer slammed right into my passenger door...its back end smacked my rear-passenger door. I noticed that there was deer spit on my window.

Yes, those are some very detailed thoughts but that's probably the clearest part of the whole debacle. And all of this happened in just a few seconds, just long enough me to start braking (but not too hard, because I had noticed a car approaching in my rear-view mirror) but not long enough for me to have slowed down enough for the deer to hit the front of my car. In fact, I'm glad that it hit the side of car because it could have been so much worse if I'd hit the deer straight on. I actually didn't damage the front of my car at all, which made this an easy insurance claim. The deer fur on my car didn't hurt either.

I remember screaming, because I could see the look in the deer's eyes as we hit and it scared me. The deer pushed me a little bit towards the middle of the road but I didn't swerve. It was then that I was riding a wave of adrenaline, and wisely pulled over to the side of the road where there was more shoulder. I saw the deer stumble to the other side of the road in my rear-view mirror. I thought that there would be minimal damage (from a full-grown male deer, running full speed at me? That was dumb) and that everything would probably be fine. I was shaking so badly that I could barely dial Jeff's number. I think I was pretty incoherent on the phone, considering that I couldn't really tell him where I was. He told me to get out of the car to see if there was damage...and that's when I fell apart.

My first glimpse of the damage

This door was really dented too, it's just hard to tell in this picture

Yep, that's deer fur stuck in my door handle

As soon as I got off the phone with Jeff I heard my phone ring again. I was outside staring at my car, wondering how on earth I'd be able to pay for this much damage. My caller id showed that it was the company that I'd had a second interview with the day before. My heart stopped, because I knew that they were calling all the applicants to say either yes or no, and I just thought to myself 'please don't be more bad news...I won't be able to handle much more'. Luckily, it was good news :) I made my new boss laugh when he was going over the details when I said to him "I'm sorry I'm not soaking all this in right now, I just got hit by a deer and I'm on the side of the road talking to you!" This all happened within 30 minutes, which just goes to show you how quickly your life can change. 

Around $4700 in damages and a week later, I had my car back. The repair shop I took it to did a great job, and although the experience was a life-affirming one for me, I'll always be more cautious around deer now! 

Bambi, you better watch out, I'm gunning for you! 

101 in 1001 Update #3!

Wow this month flew by! I meant to update my running progress a few weeks ago, but I haven't had the chance since....I GOT A JOB!!! Wooo! After almost 7 steady months of job searching it finally happened. I am now an accounting coordinator at a large moving company. I started December 6, and it's been going very well so far! How I got my job is a fairly ironic story involving a deer and an isolated country road, but I think that story deserves it's own blog post. With that said, having a job is definitely the reason that I'm slacking with this whole blogging thing, as I thought I was getting a lot better at it recently. I've thought about adding a tab where I post recipes either weekly or monthly. At first I was thinking weekly, but when I come home from work I'm pretty exhausted, so I'm going to go with monthly. That was the new blogging development that I hinted at in my last update. So get ready for Menu Monthlies, where I will post a few of my tried and true recipes!

Moving on to my running progress, I was actually doing really well at the beginning of this month and did my four runs, but then I 1) Got hit by a deer and didn't have a car for a little while, 2) Got a job and was extremely exhausted after work every day, and 3) Caught a really bad cold and couldn't go out for a run anyways. With that stuff plus Christmas, I haven't been to the gym in at least 2 weeks. So the new year is a great excuse to step it back up! I did complete week 3 of my C25K with relative ease, and I may repeat it since I won't be as accustomed to running next week. I'm definitely getting more used to being up earlier every day and working, and since I'm over my cold now and have my car back I'm actually really looking forward to working it out at the gym again!

As for my 101 in 1001 list, this month I am adding one goal. This goal was incredibly important to me, caused me many sleepless nights, seemingly endless amounts of tears, and had me endure criticism from myself and others. You guessed it - the job thing. I never wanted to publicly put it on my list, but it has always been on there in my mind, so I've decided to put it in my freebie slot for my wedding. That may seem like an odd choice, but it's necessary wedding funding, so I say good enough!

Completed Goals:

59. Spend our first Christmas morning together in our new house - This was kind of a freebie, but it meant so much to Jeff, who really hasn't woken up in a home of his own on Christmas for quite some time

74. Get a job! (So I can start paying for all this wedding stuff) - I am so relieved now, it's cliche but it's really like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders!

78. Organize the storage area in the basement - We have finally gotten rid of our moving boxes in the storage area! 

85. Organize all closets - With the end of the boxes also came the end of the disorganization of our closets

Goals I'm Working On:

6. Go for a run at least once every week, weather permitting (10/143)

34. Try 8 new foods (4/8) - I tried venison this month after this whole deer incident (I never wanted to eat Bambi before he tried to run me off the road)

48. Go on one date night a month (4/32) - We're going on a New Year's date night tomorrow, we have reservations at a new restaurant and then we're seeing The Hobbit in 3D!

49. Take a picture of Jeff and I once a month (3/32)

Christmas Eve

58. Try three new restaurants together (1/3)
63. Book a photographer - We're meeting with a photographer in two weeks to see more of her portfolio, I like what I've seen so far!

I added one goal this month:
74. Get a job! (So I can start paying for all this wedding stuff)

Completed: 10/101

Christmas Decor

I love winter in general. Call me crazy, but I think that there is something incredibly beautiful and peaceful about watching the snow fall when you're inside, holding a cup of hot chocolate. When I was in school and stressing out over a paper or studying for exams, I would look out the window and see the snow falling and it would calm me down. An overwhelming feeling of peace would come over me, and I would think, 'I'm OK'.

I have always LOVED Christmas. Absolutely loved it. From the earliest time I can remember, Christmas has always been my hands-down favorite time of year. It has less to do with the whole presents thing and more to do with snow, Christmas music, the smell of Christmas trees, decorating, the baking, the meaning behind it, the food, yummy hot beverages like hot chocolate and apple cider, wrapping presents, and getting together and spending time with people I love. And that's only the beginning of why I think this time of year is awesome. I used to wake up around 5:00 in the morning on Christmas morning, just so excited to get my favorite day of the year started. I actually only stopped doing this when I was in university and slept in a little bit on Christmas morning, not because I wasn't excited anymore but mainly because I was just always overtired then. So get ready Jeff, I may be up at 5am this year on Christmas Day!

Thus, given my feelings regarding this season, I have been extremely happy the past few days getting all of my Christmas decorations together. I'm so excited to spend my first Christmas with Jeff in our own home, and I think that feeling of love, and creating traditions for ourselves has really pushed me into action. I got super inspired and created my own Christmas artwork, which turned out fairly well, so I thought I'd share my decor ideas here.

My countdown to Christmas is on!

My Charles Dickens village 

My "mantle" 

I painted this design based off of a greeting card I found

I found the idea for this candle on Pinterest

The inspiration for this display also came from Pinterest - love that website 

My table decor - I picked up a huge box of ornaments at Liquidation World for around $10!! I ended up using them in my table decor, decor for my mantle, and on my tree!

First Christmas tree in our house :) 

A look at the living room