Category Archives: Life

Our First Family Day

This year, BC added a new winter holiday: Family Day. However we were not in BC to enjoy it. The good news is that it already was a holiday in Alberta! So even though we didn’t get to enjoy the first of a holiday, it was still a first for us.

Our day didn’t look much different than normal though. I washed diapers, Tim played video games. We hung out in the living room playing with Calvin. I made cookies, Tim wrote a story. I changed diapers, Tim didn’t. The only thing different was that we went grocery shopping together! Yay family! And then for an extra different thing, we treated ourselves to some Tim Hortons (yes, it really is a treat; I don’t think we have gone there since we moved here). And lo and behold, Roll Up the Rim is here! It was a nice surprise. And our treat to ourselves expanded because both of our cups were winners! One free coffee, one free donut. Yay!

And that was our family day. No fancy outings. We have limited imaginations when it comes to thinking of stuff to do. That may make our lives seem boring to some people, but I like it. And I like my family.

Here’s to a four day week!

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Throwback Thursday: How I Met My Valentine

It’s Valentine’s Day!

To me, that means I make food that I know Tim really really likes. Oh, and I made him a little card and stuck it in his backpack for him to find when he got to work. We are not big celebrators of this “holiday” or even our anniversary really. To be fair, we have only had one anniversary and we had a two week old baby at the time.

Anyways, I thought that today would be a good day to document how Tim and I met.

When I moved to Victoria in April 2008, I subletted half of a room in a house from the niece of a family friend. The other half of the room was rented by Kate. We were room mates for a few months, and since I didn’t have any of my own friends, I hung out with her and her friends. One of her friends was Tim. We attended the same parties or get togethers a few times, but being both introverts  we never spoke a word to each other. I knew Tim as Kate’s geeky friend who liked Nerf guns.

In the Winter and Spring of 2010, Kate and I were room mates once again. And Tim lived only a couple blocks away from our place. Kate would go often to hang out with him on the weekends if I had to work or something, but I never went over. Then, that Summer, we all started hanging out together more. Tim was looking for a new church to attend, so he started going to the one Kate and I went to. Since we lived near each other, we would walk there together. The walks were fairly quiet, as we warmed up to one another, but soon I considered him a friend.

A month or two after we were hanging out more, Kate got a job in For MacMurray and left us. Her farewell was something along these lines:

You two are not allowed to hang out together when I am gone because you are going to have too much fun without me.

But we disobeyed. A very short while after she left, I invited Tim to go to Symphony Splash with me, where he then invited me to go see “Inception” with him because he really enjoyed the movie, and I had not seen it yet. Little did I know that the movie was our first date, even though I paid for myself.

A few weeks in to our new found relationship, we knew that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, and were engaged after 6 weeks of dating. That’s how we do it, folks!

Maybe I will have a post about our engagement and our wedding another time.

And for now, here are pretty much the only two good photos we have together of our dating period:

French Beach on Vancouver Island

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A perk of my old job – I took Tim on a whale watching tour. Best date ever, and it was free!

And a photo from 8 months later at our wedding. This was a nice surprise to find on our wedding disc from our photographer:

That's Kate.

That’s Kate.

 

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The River Valley

Yesterday I picked Tim up from work, and instead of going straight home, we went parking by the river.

Just kidding. Well, we did park in a parking lot by the river and had an in-car picnic with some left over sandwiches from a platter from Tim’s work. And then we went for a short walk to get closer to the river for a little view. It was a beautiful, warmish day.

Enjoy these photos!

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What’s For Supper?

Like many other moms I am sure, I really dislike deciding what to make for supper. I think for me, it is the most frustrating part of being a mom and wife. This is how meals work around here:

Grocery Shopping
I usually do one big shop at the beginning of the month for staples and things for the freezer. Then after that, I go about once a week for fresh fruits and veggies and milk.
I don’t like to shop for specific meals because that gets way too expensive. I like to get what I am used to working with.

The Budget
$325 per month. That includes any restaurants and coffee.

What I keep on Hand
Dairy – milk, cheese, sour cream (usually), eggs, butter

Fruits and Veggies – apples, bananas, other fruit that is on sale, ice burg lettuce, broccoli, carrots, tomatoes (usually), peppers (usually, unless they are way too expensive), potatoes, yams, freeze dried onions (because I don’t like or use them enough to buy whole ones)

Meat – pork loin, ground beef; when it’s on sale I get whole chickens to quarter and stewing beef

Dry Goods – cereal, peanut butter, honey, pasta, different forms of canned tomatoes (diced, paste, etc.), black beans, salsa, rice, oats, white and brown flour, white and brown sugar, chocolate chips

Spices and Seasonings – seasoning salt, chilli powder, paprika, oregano, basil, salt and pepper, ketchup, BBQ sauce, chili sauce, soy sauce, various salad dressings

I really only go outside these items when there is something special to cook for or I remember something I can make that I haven’t made in a while (like remembering about pea soup would make me buy ham and split peas). Terribly exciting, no?

Meal Making
Since I always get what I am used to working with, I always only have certain ingredients on hand which means I make the same meals over and over again. My go to meals are:
meat loaf, meat balls, pasta
chili, stew
sweet and sour pork, pulled pork
roasted chicken
borscht, chicken noodle soup
nachos, taco salad

Again, I can feel your excitement.

For a while during the summer I was doing a meal plan of sorts, where I would plan my meals for the week, but that didn’t give me new ideas, simply just putting all the decision making on one day. I am lacking something inside of me, like creativity or motivation or something, to get myself to make new meals. Yes, I see delicious looking recipes online and think “That’s a great idea!” and watch Rachael Ray and say “That is super simple!” But it stops there.

So I guess the point of this post is to ask you a few questions:
1) What other staples do you think I should add to my list that could broaden the scope of my culinary skills (I’m not looking for specific recipes…I know how to find those)?
2) Meal planning? Yay? Nay?
3) If you want to share, what is your grocery budget and how do you stay on target?

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Thrifting – Challenge

I read Young House Love (a DIY design blog that is fun and teaches me things that maybe I will one day put into action). The other day they put out a thrifting challenge because of this new song out there about the activity. I have not listened to the song, and don’t care to, but I do like to shop second hand!

The challenge had three rules:

1. Go to a thrift shop with – just as the chorus of the song says – “$20 in your pocket”and take a picture.
I did not take a picture of me with $20. What can I say…I am a rule breaker.

2. Spend that $20 any way you’d like and photograph your spoils.

3. Find one item (or more) referenced in the song and snap a pic.
Yet another rule I broke because I didn’t listen to the song and also Calvin does not a great photographer make.

So earlier this week I went out with my $20 (and instructions from Tim to only buy something if it was useful – which is no problem for me because I don’t like owning something if it is not used for antying) to our MCC which I prefer to Value Village because they are non profit and they have cheaper prices. Here is what I got:

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  • 3 blue couch cushions. Tim would say we have too many as it is, but a couple of them are hand me downs from family friends when I first moved out 5 years ago and are looking a little worse for wear. A few others we got for our wedding are getting really lumpy. The only one I have that is in good shape is a $5 one from London Drugs. But these new ones are in good shape and got the stamp of approval from Tim.
    $1 each
  • a blue wicker basket. I have put this in Calvin’s room on top of his dresser to hold all his socks and little things that tend to get scattered around.
    $1.50
  • Pyjamas. Calvin had a little growth spurt recently and grew out of a chunk of his clothes. Cheap baby clothes are always a good thing!
    $0.50
  • A cute little lamp. I am going to use this as my bedside lamp I think. The one I have currently is a little big and more suited to a living space. Maybe one day I will change out the shade for something different, but it’s not bad. I like the glass knobby thing in the middle.
    $5
  • 2 winter hats. These fit Calvin and might still next year. I thought they were super cute, and I like the beavers on the black one.
    $1 each
  • Rummy-O. Who doesn’t like this game? Tim and I enjoy playing a good game together and also with people we have over. I couldn’t pass this up.
    $2
  • A bag of wooden toys. Most of the toys there were kind of junky or just bits and pieces of larger sets. But I saw this ziplock of wooden cars and I knew I had to have it! My favourite one is the tiny helicopter.
    $6.50

My calculator now is telling me that the total is $20.50, but I came away with two quarters, so maybe I got a free pillow? Anyhow, I thought my haul was pretty good.

Have you found anything at the thrift store lately?

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