dog shampoo

today, in my daily bath, i accidentally used emi's dog shampoo. not only did i use her shampoo but even after noticing that it smelt a little off i proceeded to use the conditioner as well. i know, i got suckered by the sales man with the dog conditioner... what can i say, i went a little crazy with puppy accessories when we first got her.

anyways, now my hair smells like 3 month old emi (yes, that was the last time we were able to overpower her into the bath tub - she hated baths): a mixture of coconut milk, oatmeal and petland.... kinda gross to be honest. on the upside, this puppy shampoo and conditioner contains "only natural ingredients meant to moisturize skin, eliminating dryness while producing a healthy, shiny coat".

aweeeesome.

new addiction

i have acquired a new addiction and it is a glorious one.  if you are a frequent reader you are a well aware of my incredibly addictive personality (ex. words with friends, tassimo skinny lattes, various books and foods); i seem to become consumed / obsessed with things rather easily and find myself unable to get enough of them. well, the most recent subject of my addictive affection is the piping hot bubble bath.

i know for most people a daily bubble bath is essential - well, i have never been one of those people... until now! my dear friend maddy, a ritual bather, would be incredibly proud of my new routine. when i get home all i want to do is light my candles, fill the tub with steaming hot water and calming lavender chamomile bubble bath. so, that is exactly what i do: come home from work, take emi for  a walk, prepare dinner, eat dinner with jesse and then sit in the bath for an hour or so.

it is fabulous.

first day

today was my first day at my new job. i was fifteen minutes late. you would think after all my amazing math skills in 43, 68, 20 i would be able to arrive on time. well, that was before it decided to snow a foot over the weekend and turn the roads into one giant ice rink. it took me fifteen minutes alone to get out of deerrun; the hill in front of the lights at bow bottom and canyon meadows was like glass - only two or three cars were getting through per light. needless to say, it was incredibly mortifying having to call my boss on my first day to let him know i was going to be late...

as it turns out, my coworker (who has worked there for five years, i might add) was also fifteen minutes late on her first day with the company. this made me feel a whole lot better. everyone seemed to find this incredibly funny since she is the only other girl at our office. i am not even kind of exaggerating - there are legitimately only two of us females in the entire alberta branch. i don't mind, we have our own incredibly clean bathroom which is quiet the luxury after sharing a bathroom with three stinky male doctors and hundreds of incredibly sick patients at my old job.

thankfully, she is also my age and incredibly out going. i actually had fun on my first day, something i thought would be virtually impossible considering i have 175 pages worth of safety regulations and protocol to go through, 35 pages of paper work from human resources to complete and about 3 hours of shadowing andrea (aka attempting to get a grasp on what the heck i am going to be doing). unfortunately, this will probably be the last time i write about my new job because today i had to sign a contract saying that i would not discuss anything to do with our company on any social media sites including a blog. so sorrrry folks!

dragon tattoo

i am attempting to read the girl with the dragon tattoo. i say "attempting" because i have only read maybe, 75 pages in two weeks. this is "attempting" because i can easily read a 250 page book in one day if i am into it. i just don't know what it is about this darn book but i just cannot seem to get into it. i honestly feel like i am back in 402 english struggling to get through novels that were written by foreign authors in every language imaginable other than english. yes, i am aware that this novel was originally written in swedish so this feeling is obviously justified but struggling through the foreign names of people (there is not a single character with a simple name like "smith" or "jones") and places (unfortunately, i know nothing about swedish geography) is nearly painful. i think the awkward names of people and places are what is making it incredibly difficult for me to connect with the characters - i cannot seem to picture or place them at all. reading this book is not pleasurable and everything but leisurely - the two things i want from a good book. it is an international best seller which means everyone else around the world seemed to be able to get into it - i think i just need to pull up my big girl panties and get over it.

so, you might ask why i am still "attempting" to read this book? well to start off it is the first of a trilogy. lately, i have been trying to avoid reading single novels; it is a rare occurrence that after finishing one novel i feel satisfied. the majority of the time i find myself annoyed that it was over so soon so i have decided that i am only going to read novels that are at minimum a piece of a trilogy.

secondly, they have decided to make a movie out of the novels. yes, i am completely aware that they have already made a movie version of all three novels in swedish; to be honest, i had zero desire to watch the subtitled versions but i recently saw the trailer for the american version and it definitely looked intriguing. so, before i watch the movie, i have to read the book because any time that i ever watch a movie then read a book i find myself falling back to the images of the characters as they were in the movie rather than really picturing the characters and places as the author intended for them to be portrayed. i feel like this is cheating and unfair to the poor chap (or chapette) who spent so much time and effort creating and describing these characters and places just so. plus, i personally love seeing films that were originally novels that i have read. for some reason i get a sick amount of pleasure from critiquing/ comparing the novel to the film. oh, and, did i mention that daniel craig stars in the new american film adaptation?

lastly, everyone who has read the book raves about how amazing it is - i would hate to miss out on an amazing novel. yes, the majority of them say that you need to give it about 150 pages before it gets "amazing" (so, at this rate, i guess i wont start enjoying it for another two weeks...) so i have decided that i will "attempt" to read it a little bit longer...

successful saturday

i had a very successful saturday. my mom and i met val for lunch at this place called cravings. val suggested that we go after she went with some other friends. honestly, i didnt even know it existed - i had always thought that it was a health food store. i am really glad she suggested it because i loved it. this restaurant was such a cool concept; there are multiple "stations" where you can order everything from pizza to pasta to salad to burgers to dessert and everyone gets a little card that they swipe when you order and at the end of the meal you pay off your balance at the till. it is kind of like a high class, made to order buffet in a weird way. i got this delicious pasta with garlic, pesto, tomato, onions, chicken and cheese - too good.

after that my mom and i decided to do something completely insane - we went to chinook mall on a saturday in december. it was even crazier than we thought it would be but we really had no other choice: i needed big girl clothes to wear to my big girl job on monday. four hours later we emerges with 4 blazers ( one colbalt blue, one camel, one brown and one grey), two tunics (one grey and one multi coloured purple), two pairs of boots (one pair of high black, one pair of low brown) and a sparkly head band for lazy hair days. see, successful saturday!

a lot like xmas

we just finished decorating our christmas tree (i know, i said i wasn't going to decorate my tree until the tenth but we are having people over and i needed to get things cleaned up and organized)! although we still need to get a few more ornaments it is looking amazing.  i know that it is traditional to do red and green at christmas time but i just hate the combination too much to even think about going there.  so far we have gone with a blue, red and silver theme. the red was actually a compromise, if i had it my way we would have done blue, silver and gold (maybe i really am a scrooge?) but jesse pushed for the red and i am glad he did because i think the red really pops - i love this combination!

we currently have one string of white tinkle lights, twelve red themed bulbs, twelve blue and silver themed bulbs, five sparkly nut crackers, five red bows, three silver bows, one santa star and my personal favourite, the "our first christmas" ornament. we still need to get a star to top it off and an ornament for emi!

putting on the first few bulbs!

aww =)

jesse hung the red bulbs...

...while i hung the blue and silver

i dont normally like bows but these are growing on me

the only star on our tree at the moment

traditional

how pretty!

 so, apart from the tree, i am probably not going too crazy with the christmas decorations around the house. we hung two stockings from the mantle for ourselves and the one from the fire poker stand for emi. i know, i cannot believe we are now "those people" who buy their dog a stocking but we are...

isn't that stocking ridiculous? if you think her stocking is bad just wait until you see what we got emi for christmas! i am sure that this will not be the last entry about our christmas tree or even christmas in general so i apologize if you are getting bored but 'tis the season. i guess i am finally getting into the christmas spirit!

ps. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my favourite little brother, duncan! we love you, big guy! xoxo

you, me, christmas tree

at 4:25 today i got a text from jesse that simply said "you, me, christmas tree" - in jesse language this meant we were getting our christmas tree sometime tonight.

so, after dinner we went over to ikea where all the christmas trees are twenty dollars. i know what you are thinking; "what kind of tree can you get for twenty dollars?" i know this because i was thinking the same thing. obviously, we were not planning on getting a ginormous christmas tree (since we only have maybe a dozen ornaments that would look a little odd) but i didn't exactly want a charlie brown tree either.

the christmas tree lot! how cute, right?

there was a ton to choose from and we ended up with a great tree. honestly, i think we just got lucky because i have discovered that christmas tree shopping is kind of difficult. first of all, christmas tree lots are outside which means you are basically shopping in the dark - you can barely see the trees. second of all, since the lots are outside it becomes incredibly hard to tell just exactly how tall these trees are because there is no ceiling to reference. thirdly, the trees are all wrapped up with twine and string so even if you are lucky enough to correctly gauge how tall of a tree you are buying there is absolutely no way to figure out how full the tree you are about to purchase is going to be. basically, it is a shot in the dark. so, like i said, we just got lucky.

obviously, it still needs to open

emi does not understand the tree at all

so, now we are just waiting for it to fall and then tomorrow we will decorate it. if the tree lasts until tomorrow. i am worried; emi has already ripped off 2 branches from the bottom. maybe when it finally falls and we decorate it with shiny bulbs and flashing lights she will be more intimidated and leave it alone? fingers crossed...

43, 68, 20

today it took me 43 minutes to get to work. 43 minutes of my life spent sitting in a car staring at a never ending stream of slow moving break lights in front of me. it takes me 43 minutes to get to work because my current employer (for the next 2 work days) is on the other side of the city: 37 kilometers away from out house, to be exact.

this evening it took me 68 minutes to get home from work. 68 minutes. this was about 25 minutes longer than it normally takes me. all because of a little fender bender just past glenmore trail. i think that it took me a half hour to go the last 15 kilometers. it was more than painful. the only thing that kept me from unbuckling my seat belt, climbing out of the drivers seat, hoping the median and throwing myself into the oncoming traffic was the fact that in two work days i will only have to drive 15 kilometers to work. hardly any of that 15 kilometers will be on deerfoot trail. thank goodness.

i hypothesize that this 15 kilometers will take me, on average, 20 minutes to get to work. that is more than half as much time wasted sitting in traffic, more than half as many kilometer depreciating the value of my car and more than half as much money spent on gas every month.

and they say english majors aren't any good at math...

new goal

i am going to try and post an entry every day for the rest of december. actually, no - i am going to try and post an entry every day of december minus statutory holidays. i think that is much more realistic goal. yesterday's post showed me that blogging doesn't have to take a ton of time; even if it is short and sweet, as long as it is informative or entertaining, a post is a post. i think that this is manageable.

i cant believe it is december 6th. yesterday jesse and i bought our first batch of christmas decorations. normally, i am not christmas crazy. the majority of my girlfriends have had their christmas trees and lights up since november first - quiet honestly, it looks like father christmas drank too much eggnog and barfed christmas all over their homes. apparently, for them, there is not even a fine line between tacky and pretty, there is just no line at all. see, i am obviously not crazy about christmas decorating. but, for some reason, yesterday i got an itch so i decided to scratch. we got tree decorations, a tree stand and stockings.

of course, none of it is going up until december tenth. growing up, my mom refused to decorate the house until after december 9th, duncan's birthday; she just didn't think it was fair for him to have christmas everywhere during his birthday. this is something i think i am going to adopt. this way, i can actually enjoy my christmas decorations. it is not that i am a scrooge, i just like christmas where christmas is due and in my opinion, that is 12 - 15 days before christmas. i truly believe there is a reason there is a song called the 12 days of christmas.

i think jesse was really trying to put me in the christmas spirit because today he came home with a decoration for the tree that says "our first christmas together, 2011". it was in the shape of a heart. it was made by swarovski.  it was in cursive writing. it was about as girly and non-jesse as you could get. obviously, i loved it!

 sweet, right? he definitely made me a little bit merrier!

new job

i got a new job. starting december 12th i will be working at viking fire protection as the administrative coordinator. i know, you are picturing men wearing viking helmets running around with fire extinguishers but, in reality, it is a bunch of nerdy engineers hunched over drawing boards with protractors planning out industrial sprinkler systems for pretentious and important buildings (ie. the parliament buildings, swanky hotels, national art galleries, museums etc). although it is not the biggest, most impressive company in the world i think that i will learn some important business skills that will hopefully be a good stepping stone onto bigger and better things later. so, i am definitely looking forward to it. plus, shopping for the new "business casual" wardrobe won't exactly be a chore....

by request

yesterday i got a text message from a friend and avid reader (hi sarah, thanks for reading!) begging me to update my blog because she missed reading it. i was surprised and flattered. lucky for her, i do have a few things i need to update everyone on...

first and foremost, our house is finally starting to feel like a home. it could have something to do with the fact that we have way more furniture than before, we have taken the time to hang pictures and arrange more decorations - honestly, it is about time considering we have almost lived here for a year. so, i suggest you click here for before pictures in order to enhance how impressed you are with our place (can you believe it once looked like that??)!!

until yesterday, we have never had furniture in our "formal" living room on the main floor. so, obviously, the first room i am going to tell you about is the one that is most exciting to me (although it is not done yet): our upstairs living room. on thursday our friend tyson let us know that his sister was looking to pawn off some old living room furniture on anyone that was willing to pick it up. obviously, we were willing to pick it up. i had fairly low expectations for the pieces and assumed that i would have to slip cover all of it since it was free. jesse and i agreed that if it was comfy, we would take it. well, it was definitely comfy so we loaded up the truck and took it home. immediately i called my mom and asked her to come help me find some slip covers so i could have a partially finished living room by dinner time (yes, i am that impatient). luckily, we found some really amazing slip covers and some even more amazing throw pillows! 

although we took over her room, emi definitely likes the new furniture.

the extra coffee table we brought up from the basement and the knitted throw really brought it all together in a short time span. sometime this week i am going to run over to my parents place and pick up an extra ottoman that my mom has laying around, recover it in a funky fabric and place it in front of the love seat. i also want jesse to build me some floating shelves to go on the wall over the three seater. i think that it will look amazing in a few weeks but i am pretty pleased with the room at the moment - it is a 1000% improvement from yesterday morning.

from the new living room you can see the kitchen. about 3 months ago my kitchen renovation could not have come soon enough but now, i am really happy with my kitchy and colourful kitchen.

i got the curtains online from urban outfitters website, i love them

i couldn't help but snap a picture of our cute breakfast -
lattes (in our matching monogrammed mugs) and quiches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

emi looking guilty after getting caught attempting to snatch some quiche while i wasn't looking

we are planning on painting the back door blue to match the curtains and getting a clock to go the wall in the kitchen but for the most part, the kitchen is at the point where i want it to be much like our downstairs living room! a few months ago i found this really cool vintage couch on kijiji and i love it! it totally makes the room in my opinion.

kijiji couch and the first piece of art we purchased together!

jesse playing his games

emi snoozing in her favourite chair. can you believe jesse wants to throw this gem out?!

now all we have left to finish (apart from a few finishing touches here and there) are the guest bedroom and the office. there is always more that can be done but i am so happy with our progress at the moment. i still cant get over the fact that we actually have furniture in all of our rooms.

so, we didn't just decorate our house this weekend, we also decorated ginger bread houses. i am going to go ahead and put up a disclaimer for the photos you are about to see - jesse took his half of his ginger bread house to a new level... we are huge fans of the walking dead but for some reason the zombie apocalypse and christmas just don't mix well...

the little black man candies are supposed to be zombies. the teddy grams are supposed to be humans that the zombies are eating and the red candy is blood.

this is about as unchristmasy as you can get. i must admit, he was fairly creative but i was still unimpressed haha

my half of our gingerbread house, on the other hand, was more traditional.
pretty delicious looking if you ask me!

all and all we had a good, productive weekend. next weekend we are decorating for christmas and putting up our tree so i am sure that i will be writing another entry again next weekend! have a wonderful week xoxo