Happy Birthday to Me...Again!

Apparently 28 was my Pink Birthday :) Pink Snuggie is courtesy of Mare, and pink cheesecake (raspberry jello) is courtesy of Brad, my creative husband.

The Garage Sale

This weekend we hosted a garage sale to get rid of stuff. I'm all in favor of a cleanse every now and again and getting rid of things that you just don't need/want anymore, but what I can't fathom is how two 27 year olds without children have been able to collect so much STUFF.

Regardless, we put an ad in the paper (for $11) and set up Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday morning. All in all, I would say it was a success. We sold about a third of what we put out and made $192.63, which as my Grandpa would say is "better than a poke in the eye". The only other garage sale I've been involved in was the one we held in Surrey before moving to Smithers in 1994...so it was a bit of a new experience for me, but I think we did fairly well. It feels good to have gotten rid of all that stuff and feel a little less bogged down.

Garage Saling has always been somewhat perplexing for me. I've known friends and relatives who are enthusiastic (to say the least) about garage saling. I've been woken up at 6am by friends who are determined to get there first and get the "really good stuff!" I have a hard time wrapping my head around it...why would I want to go to someone's home, rummage through the stuff that they don't want anymore and give them money to haul away their junk? Granted there are circumstances where it is beneficial; I have heard parents saying that garage sales are the best places to get near-new items for babies because a family that has just one or two kids might be selling a stroller, or crib or highchair that would otherwise cost a couple of hundred dollars...and occasionally you can find a good second hand book or old movie...but really? Most of the things I've seen at garage sales are just junk, and usually dirty junk and I am opposed to paying someone to cart off their junk for them. Maybe my lack of enthusiasm prevents me from making it to the "really good" garage sales and finding those amazing treasures...maybe not.

...that being said, if you want to pay me to cart off my junk, please feel free! I'll even negotiate the price! And of course, MY garage sale was not filled with junk...true treasures and good stuff only.

Well, you don't see that ever day...

Brad and I went to Brett's place last night to watch UFC 116. While we were watching the first fight he got a call from Broden, his son, who was on his way to the movies to say that there was a cab in the creek just down the street from Brett's place. Clearly, we jumped up and went to see.
There were a number of stories going around. The first was that it had been stolen and ended up in the creek, then, as we stood around, the real story came out. Apparently the cabbie had been delivering pizza to a house across from the creek and accidentally left the car in gear. After making the delivery he turned and saw that his cab was no longer there and ran back to the house saying it had been stolen...which I guess is what you would automatically assume if your cab was not where you left it.

The whole gamut of emergency crews were called in and divers to check for anyone in the car. When the divers came up I heard them say "it's not much fun getting in, but once you are, it's a TON of fun!".

Where's Tom Sawyer when you need him?

Brad and I decided to be productive and check something off our list of home renos/imrpovements this weekend. We painted the fence between us and the neighbours. (Too bad it wasn't soundproof paint). On Sunday we laid down landscaping fabric and poured some gravel between the deck and the fence to finish it off and stop the incessent weeds from returning.

Tell me that doesn't lookl ike the sort of place you'd like to sit down and have a beer!

Hello, Kobo!

Brad, best husband ever, bought me a Kobo for an early birthday prezzie! He gave it to me when he came back from UFC in Vancouver. I was totally delighted and so excited to get started (I had already purchased a couple of books online in anticipation). So I plugged the little marvelous ereader devise into my computer to charge it as the instructions told me to do. But the little red light that indicates a charge never came on. This was distressing and I read a number of reviews online. I started to become even more distressed with the truobleshooting reveiws I read saying it was certainly not responding as it should. I emailed the Kobo customer service team and received a response within two hours "It sounds like you have a glitchy devise. If it has been less than 14 days since you bought it, please return it to the store where you purchased it". Brad bought it in Vancouver...I can't imagine I'll be able to zip on down to Metrotown to exchange my little ereader, so I contacted Coles in town and they called Regina's Chapters on my behalf and arranged to have a unit set aside for me as I was going to be heading to the city anyway. So, with a new Kobo in hand (and a new orange coloured case which I also purchased in Regina at Chapters), I must say I am still delighted! Even having experienced a "glitchy" unit, I'm still impressed and happy with my ereader. I've heard people complain about them, saying it doesn't have a text-to-speech function, and it doesn't have a backlit screen...well, to those people I say "neither do books. It's not a computer, it's a book". I Love it! Happy early Birthday to me!!

Happy Birfday!!

Yup, that about sums it up! Happy Birthday, love!

FINALLY

Sunday was such a beautiful day that Brad and I were actually able to put plants in our garden! We went camping on Friday and Saturday and upon our return to town we went to the greenhouse, picked up some bedding plants and spent the afternoon in the sun (being eaten by mosquitos).

The middle marigold is the little one I grew from seed!
~

Our front flower bed. The teeny tiny plants in the front row (spaced every two or three) are the pansies I tried growing from seeds. Frankly, it will be a miracle if they make it!
~

The Big Bike

Last Wednesday was the Big Bike Ride for the Heart and Stroke foundation. The Regional Office went up against the Hospital team in a fundraising battle. The losing team had to wear "ugly hats" that had been made to mortify people on their birthdays. The Regional Office Taj Mahaulers lost. We raised just over 1500 and the hospital was closer to 2500...though in all fairness they have a MUCH bigger building and staff compliment. Regardless, we wore the hats.

Janet (brought a helmet of her own), Me, Shari, Carolynn, Norma
I just don't see how this is a punishment. :)

Afterwards most of us donated our hats to the Big Bike...so teams everywhere may enjoy them.

"Sold to Very Nice People"

Why, yes, I think we are! The sign was hung in the window of our new VW Golf from Medicine Hat. I'm still a little stunned at having a new vehicle, but we're both really happy with it. It's super fun to drive, really roomy, very quite, very comfortable, has lots of pep, gets great gas mileage...etc, etc, etc.

Yay!

My Grandmothers

Last weekend I went to Vancouver to see my parents and visit my grandmothers. I flew in from Regina on Thursday and when my parents picked me up at the airport we went and did a bit of shopping right off the bat before heading back to the campground where my parents had parked the trailer. On Friday we went to Pitt Meadows to see my Nana, Da's mum. She's going to be 95 this August. She seemed quite pleased to see us all.

After visiting with Nana, we went to have supper at my Auntie Valerie's house. It was lovely to see her, as I haven't seen her in roughly 5 years as well. She was very nice and welcoming, but refused to be in any pictures. So, it's just photos of me and Mum and Da. On Saturday we went to see my Gramma, Mum's mum. The facility she's in is gorgeous and her window looks out onto the courtyard and fountain. We spent the afternoon playing BINGO, which was a hoot.

That's right, I won a game! Four corners.
~

Since it's been so long since I saw either of them, I was expecting the worst, but was actually pleasantly surprised. It was an exhausting whirl-wind trip, but I'm glad I had the chance to go (thank you to my parents and their Airmiles!)

Oh, and a picture of me and Gus on the fold out couch bed that I slept on in the trailer. He was quite pleased when Mum folded it down and was pretty sure it was meant for him.

Dear Seally,

Dear Seally,

Thank you very much for the new mattress. It was such a relief to find that a large international company such as yourselves will still take the steps to honour a warranty. It doesn't bother me at all that the bed which we spent over a thousand dollars on when we were right out of college and living in a basement appartment only got 3 good years out of it, followed by over a year and a half of back trouble and finally another 7 months of not being slept on. Of course this is not the sort of thing that happens often, what with the stunning 10 year warranty you advertise with your beds. A lengthy warranty like that brings to mind beds that last longer than the owner wishes to have them, which I'm completely positive is exactly what Seally produces.
So I'm sure you can imagine our surprise when the sides of the bed bulged, the middle sagged, and the "Eurotop" disconnected from the mattress. Thankfully though, Seally has that 10 year warranty to assist in these awkward and unexpected situations.
I sincerely appreciate the assistance your sales representatives provided to me over the span of 7 months from the time of my initial call to the furniture store in Saskatoon where we purchased our bed in June of 2005. I can also completely understand how there would be no one to return my calls when your sales representative for the province of Saskatchewan quit and did not follow through with her final calls back in October. I certainly have no hard feelings towards your regional sales manager in Edmonton who repeatedly called a phone number in Rosetown despite clearly being told several times that the number is out of service and that we don't live in that town anymore and haven't for 3 years. Rest assured, Seally, this doesn't sound at all like an excuse. It's very understandable that this sales manager would be reluctant to send any other sales representatives to see my dilapadated mattress in Swift Current, being that we are "so remote". Absolutely. That large highway that runs straight through it...what's it called again? Oh yes, the TransCanada Highway. It has definitely done nothing to connect Swift Current to the rest of the country. It's understandable to have that perspective all the way over there in Edmonton. I certainly wouldn't want to put anyone out of their way just for the benefit of my sleep.

I also greatly appreciate having the "do-it-yourself" warranty kit sent to me at our previous address in Rosetown (which, as I said, we haven't lived at in three years). A new warranty kit was received a couple of weeks later and I can absolutely understand why a large company such as yourself would want to set such strict regulations on warranty claims to make it a little difficult for people to claim warranty...you wouldn't want to make it too easy and have just anyone getting a free mattress when their bed failed to withstand the test of a couple of years. I'm sure you can understand my reluctance towards filling out the warranty card information when the problems my bed seemed to have didn't fit into the descriptions (the sagging wasn't "at least 1.5" deep when measured with a ruler and broomstick).

It was such a relief to find that my emails (I'll admit they may have sounded just a touch frustrated at this point) to customer service were responded to immediately and that, despite a change in policy, you were willing to send a sales representative to my home to look at my mattress herself. I can understand why you would have denied my request at first, scolding me for not purchasing my mattress in a furniture store (though I did), and there is nothing suspicious about your regional sales manager stating that he had been confused and had been emailing ANOTHER Jessica in Swift Current with a bed problem who also wanted a home inspection as well (my isn't is a small world afterall!!).

It was no trouble waiting for your brand new Saskatchawn customer service representative to plan a day to come to Swift Current. The meeting was brief and she acknowledged the bed was certainly defective. I certainly wasn't concerned that she would have any preconceived notions of what "kind of customer" I would be from her supervisor forwarding my emails to her. No, I am certain she viewed me from a totally non-biased position.

Imagine my delight when she called me a week later and told me they would credit my bed at a furniture store in town! How exciting! I understood from very early on that the credit for a bed warranty was an ammount that would allow the customer to purchase the today-equivalent to the bed that was being warrantied. This was excellent news! Our bed was quite good (prior to it's total deterioration). So Brad and I went off to the furniture store and looked at mattresses with a very helpful woman who gave us the ins and outs of Seally mattresses. We decided on one that felt and appeared very similar to what we had before. Imagine our disappointment when we found the credit from Seally was $649, an amount that would not cover the ful cost of their lowest end mattress (which was certainly not what we bought 5 years ago). We learned the mattress we wanted would cost an extra $150, plus tax on the entire mattress at $79, plus the cost of a mattresspad at $99 that would allow us to be eligible to receive the 10 year warranty again, should this unlikely event ever happen again.

But don't worry Seally, we weren't at all put off by having to pay an extra $320 for a new bed only 5 years after "investing" in a mattress that would "last a lifetime". No no, we don't have any hard feelings at all and are sleeping peacfully on our new mattress completely confident that we will never have to deal with this again.

Thank you so very very much for all of your speedy assistance in this matter,
A Passive Agressive Future Serta Customer.

Correction

This evening Brad and I were looking at our littel greenhouse and realized somewhere along the way it got turned around and we've been looking at it backwards. Which means the little shoots that I thought were his (that are doing so well) are my little pansies! YAY! (and take THAT Brad with you little teeny sprouts!!).

Grow My Minions!!

Brad and I decided to be ambitious this year and attempt to grow some of our own plants, so we bought a little plastic greenhouse and he planted some peppers and tomatoes. I had taken the seeds from my portulaca, marigolds, and pansies last year (I only took the seeds from the pretty coloured ones) and saved them in sandwich ziplocks for the winter. We planted the seeds into our greenhouse about two weeks ago and waited impatiently. Brad's started poking up first much to my disgruntlement. But this weekend some of my wee little flowers started to appear! Now we're just about neck and neck for who has the most growing!

I think this one is a marigold. (actually, it's one of Brad's peppers)
~

This is Brad's. BOOOOO Brad! (correction: I have just discovered this is mine! Yay!!)

A Weekend's Work

Since Brad has been hard at work in the basement over the past few weeks drywalling, mudding, sanding, priming and all that jazz, it was the plan that I would paint the room this weekend. I had decided on a colour and then promptly lost the paint chips. So, I went to Home Hardware this weekend, spent about 10 minutes browsing the chips and decided on the colour on really nothing more than a whim. Of course, I did take the chip to the front window to see what it looked like in actual daylight. I got my puckets of paint tinted and walked out with our new spare bedroom colour.
When I opened the first bucket, I was a little startled to see just how purple it was. I was going for sort of a smokey purple. Something bordering on grey. The colour I chose was decidedly not grey. Nor very smokey. As I started to cut in the corners and ceiling I was wondering what Brad would think...Oh well! He had told me to pick whatever colour I wanted! So I continued on and painted the whole room in "Heather Field".
So yesterday we put on the second coat and Brad painted the door white. The next step is to get the ceiling stippled, then put in the new floor (likely laminate), new windows, some baseboards, and we're done!

(Oh, and, Brad likes it)

Las Vegas: We came, we saw, we walked until we could walk no more, we left.

Vegas was pretty awesome. As I've told anyone who will listen, it was super overwhelming and everything was big and loud and bright. But we enjoyed ourselves and walked so much we don't ever want to walk again (much to Ollie's dismay). I took a few pictures while we were there and will display a selection of them here along with some witty repartee.

Me and Brad on the plane leaving Regina. This was intended to be the "before" photo, however there is no "after" photo, as I was haggard and wretched looking on the flight back and don't care to remember. Food poisoning + too much wine and festivities will do that...but that's not till later.
~I love Spanish.
~

This photo was taken on Friday morning. I hauled Brad out of bed bright and early with exclamations of "We're in Vegas! Time to get up!! We're in Vegas!! Time to get up!!" He obliged and we left the hotel for a breakfast at IHOP. We then went to the monorail where I took this photo.
~

A random shot of the strip from a walkway
~

The fountains at Bellagio. They weren't running at this particular time, but I thought it was a neat spot and an awfully impressive building. Also, a quintessential "Vegas" photo.
~

A fountain outside of Caesar's Palace. What can I say? I'm a sucker for a neat looking fountain.
~We went to Madame Toussaud's Wax Museum at the Venetian. This is me with Mel back when he was dreamy. I am expressing my disappointment at what he will become. Also, he is rather short, which seems weird to me.
This one's for you, Mare!
~Me and Cameron Diaz? Oh, we go way back! She's such a card!
~

Who could resist George Clooney? Is it weird that my husband obliged me and took my photo marrying another man? (I couldn't bring myself to put on the wedding dress they had there...the thought of how many sweaty people had worn it prior gave me the heebie-jeebies.)
~

Proof that Brad was actually there too.
~

The gift shop had Elvis Sunglasses. Like you're surprised.
~
That is the end of the photos I have for Friday. We wandered around the strip for a while longer and bought tickets to David Copperfield that night. It was a pretty good show at the MGM Grand. In one of his illusions he appeared to turn into smoke and pass through a fan only to appear in another cloud of smoke directly in front of our table. I'll admit, I didn't' see him coming. Once he appeared he leaned over and shook our hands. Brad commented after that it was kind of neat to shake his hand, but that it was strangely smooth and delicate feeling. I agreed.

After the show we went to Carnival Court at Harrah's where we met up with Leah, Mike, Stacey, Randy, Andrea, Ian, and some others who I hadn't met before. We had a few drinks and then bailed quite suddenly when we realized we'd both had enough for the day and needed to go to bed.
~

Saturday morning we didn't get up quite as early. The night before Ian and Andrea had given us a voucher for 2 for 1 tickets for Cirque Du Soleil KA at the MGM Grand, so once again we got on the monorail and made the 45 minute trek down to the hotel at the other end of the strip. We bought tickets for the show and then went to the Imperial Palace to see the world's largest classic automobile collection.

The show was for Brad's benefit, but I did find something that I wouldn't mind having. Hello, Jaguar!
~

Brad's favorite.
~

Another quintessential photo: Me with Palm Tree.
~
That's the end of Saturday's photos. After the car show, we went back to the hotel, relaxed by the pool (while Brad gambled) and then went for supper at Fellini's. It was a fantastic supper and we headed back down the MGM for the Cirque Du Soleil show. KA was completely amazing. The set alone was mindboggling, and the acrobatics were breathtaking. I was completely blown away and would recommend it to anyone who has the chance to see it.

After the show we went back to our hotel room.
~
Sunday morning we got up reasonably early and went for Brunch. Afterwards we decided to explore the hotel a bit more and go to the top of the Stratosphere tower. Our hotel room came with free admission and I was itching to try the thrill rides. The view was incredible and the rides were on the very top of the tower which was exciting. I rode the Big Shot, which shoots you up in the air and drops you back down. This one actually scared me a bit as it shot up so quickly it knocked the wind out of me. I also rode the X-Scream which is like a teeter-totter/roller coaster. You're strapped into seats and when it teeters down, the seats slide down to the end, so it feels like you're being shot off the edge of the building. Not terribly scary, but fun anyway.

Me on the Big Shot...or, my boot anyway.
~

Brad and Me on the top of the tower looking out over the strip.
~
I spent a bit more time at the pool while Brad gambled a bit more and then it was time to get ready for the wedding. Leah and Warren were getting married at the Bellagio, and Brad and I were all dressed up and didn't feel like dealing with buses or monorails, so we cabbed it instead. this made us arrive insanely early, so we explored the botanical gardens at the Bellagio.

~

Leah was stunning and she and Warren couldn't' stop smiling at each other. It was a beautiful ceremony. It lasted 11 minutes, according to the person who video taped it.
~

Words to the wise. Apparently what happens in Vegas doesn't necessarily stay in Vegas. Apparently it can be broadcast all over the internet.
~
After the ceremony Brad and I walked to the Cheesecake Factory for a bite to eat (it was next door at Caesar's Palace, but still took us 30-40 minutes to walk the distance). (Oh, and I had white chocolate raspberry cheesecake. Delicious.)
We went back to the Bellagio after supper and gathered at the suite they had rented for the reception where I proceeded to drink probably too much wine. Then we went to a lounge/bar in the hotel called Caramel. It was pretty hoity toity. By that time I only wanted water. The waitress informed me, rather haughtily, that they only had bottles of Evian. So that's what I ordered. $8, barely half a litre, opened, tasted like tap water. Oh well. I took the bottle home in my purse. I left in in our hotel room, but I wasn't about to let them get the deposit back. Ha!

This is me and Brad at Caramel. It was dark. I blame the dark and the startling flash for the foggy look on my face. Yup, that's what it was for sure.

~

So there...that was our Las Vegas vacation....my feel are still sore and covered in blisters and I'm still a bit tired. In all fairness, we had to be at the airport on Monday morning at 6 and I didn't get any sleep that night...hence to lack of "after" photo.