Boycotting New Years?

Or a romantic night in with my husband?

Paul left for work two hours ago, and I told him to come home as soon as he could (it'll be after 9pm). He said "Why, so we can stay home and sit around on New Year's Eve?" I said, "Would that be so bad?" He answered with, "Whatever, let's just boycott New Years."

Paul is used to partying it up on New Year's eve with a whole bunch of his friends. Three years ago (our first New Year's as a couple), I lived in Toronto and spent it with a couple friends there, while he spent it here in Kitchener with his friends, at a party. Two years ago, we spent the evening together but went from party to party to be sure to see all of his friends - it was alot of running around and not that much fun for me. Last year, I worked all night, and rung in the New Year with co-workers at the restaurant. This year, I'll be perfectly happy spending it at home with my husband, our dogs and some wine. I hope Paul will come around on this idea, as well.

I'm now planning out the evening in my head. Maybe I'll light some candles and put on a sexy dress and cook dinner - I'd like to at least make it a New Year's that he'll remember, rather than one that he'll shrug off as boring and forgetable. It is our first New Year's Eve as a married couple.

My 2009 Breakdown

January
- I was excited/freaked out that the wedding eight months away
- Does not feel like this was 12 months ago!

February
- Valentine's Day was nice, we realized it was our last as "single" people
- Seven months to the wedding, started buying center pieces, decorations for the wedding

March
- My mom came to visit as early birthday present, she bought me Wii Fit!
- We sat in the dark for an hour for Earth Hour at the end of the month
- We started looking for a new place to live, went to look at a few townhouses

April
- My 23rd birthday happened, I worked on the actual day, we celebrated that weekend at Phil's
- Five months til the wedding, coming up fast

May
- Our wedding party hosted our Stag and Doe, it was tons of fun and I got a little too drunk and acted very silly
- Paul and I went home to Thunder Bay for my first Wedding Shower with my friends and family

June
- We got Olivia, our beautiful Boston Terrier
- Our friends Nicole and Alex got married
- TWO months until our own wedding

July
- We went away for a week to Sauble Beach, it was relaxing and so nice to get away from wedding planning and stress
- Had my second Wedding Shower with Paul's side of the family and friends here in Kitchener

August
- SO much to do, so little time. Wedding Month!
- Bachelor/bachelorette parties
- My family and friends came in from Thunder Bay and other places the week of August 8th
- Our wedding August 15th, the most amazing day of the year (and my life)

September
- Started planning Cookie and Ashley's Stag and Doe
- Enjoying being newlyweds
- Glad to be stress-free and married, it was nice to have the wedding planning behind us

October
- Cookie and Ashley's stag and doe!
- Halloween (Paul and I were zombie doctor and nurse, Ruby was a doctor and Olivia was a bumble bee!)
- Got the marriage certificate in the mail, started the name-change process

Novemeber
- Started planning for Christmas
- Stressing now about getting our passports in time for our trip in January (always stressing, it seems)


December
- The month flew by
- We got our passports
- Finished Christmas shopping
- Paul and I went to Thunder Bay for early Christmas with my family
- Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrated with Paul's family
- Boxing day (we got our new TV and home theatre system)
- New Year's TONIGHT (not yet celebrated)

I probably forgot some things, though these are the important events that I can think of off the top of my head. Not sure if 2010 can top 2009, but I know what the highlight of the year will (hopefully) be. I'll give you a hint: it will involve something growing in my belly!

Happy New Year's Eve everyone!

These words might be too little, too late.

I have had the worst case of writer's block lately - it's killing me. The worst is that I have a really strong desire to write and then I sit down with my notebook and pen and... nothing. Or I write a bit but I know it's going nowhere so I just have to stop. Writing is what I do, it's all I know. It helps me relieve stress and I can express my feelings on paper much better than face to face with other human beings. I love writing. So you can imagine my distress now, as I sit with my notebook open to my right, staring back at me (literally) blankly. And I bet that when I get to work tonight, the words will start coming to me. Then I'll quickly pull out my Blackberry and open a new note, and type as much as I can between orders - not the most ideal situation, but it happens more often than not. I just don't understand why I can't write now, when I'm home and ready and willing. How am I supposed to produce a best selling novel with this horrid case of writer's block?

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We paid off all of our December bills today (some of them a week or so late, due to Christmas), but at least now we still have the money for the January rent and a little extra to get us through to next pay cheque. I'm feeling pretty good about things right now, though still constantly on edge when I think about everything we have going on in the next 30 days. More than anything, I'd love to fast-forward to Feb. 1st and be all moved into our new place and have things settle down at bit. Or a lot. But since I have yet to master the concept of time-travel (and Henry didn't actually make it sound all that appealing), I will stick to taking this life one day at a time.

Ruby Tuesday

I'll start with my Ruby Tuesday post this week. Some random pictures of my almost-two-year-old pug:







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In other news, Paul recently (yesterday) informed me that he is has concerns about our upcoming, exciting adventures. He is worried about different things regarding our trip to the Dominican - he has never left Canada, and his dad is a bit of a worry-wart as well. Paul also told me that he is nervous about the move, too. He doesn't think we will have enough time or enough people to help - and telling him that everything is going to be fine (it always is!) isn't making him feel any better about it. How can I make him cheer up and stop being such a Negative Nancy?

I'm super stoked about the next month, it's insane. I might talk about nothing else from now until it's all over with, so I'll apologize in advance for that now.

We are ready, we are not ready.

We made it through Christmas Day (and more surprisingly, Boxing Day) without any major issues. Christmas Day was very nice and quiet, besides the craziness of four dogs at the In-laws house - our two, Paul's parent's dog and Paul's sister puppy.
Here's three of them, playing with new toys:



We spent a couple of hours opening gifts, taking breaks for snacks and coffee, then we just enjoyed each other's company for the rest of the afternoon. Paul and I took the pups home to eat and left them home before we went back for Christmas dinner - which was amazing.

Boxing Day was, well, insane. We woke up at 6am, left before 7am and by 10am we had ourselves a brand new 42" Panasonic Viera TV and Sony Bravia home theatre system. Great deals and leftover gift cards from the wedding and from Christmas = cheap new electronics for us! Sad part is that we won't get to experience these until we move in a month from now.

We (as in, a big group of our friends and Paul and I) went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie last night. First, I must say that Robert Downey Jr. is incredibly dreamy. Second, the movie rocked and I now look forward to the next one, even though I wasn't completely on board when Paul suggested the movie. Now, I'm glad we went. I loved it. And him.



Today consisted of more (alot more) packing and cleaning, and hanging out with my friend Nicole. I just realized now that I was so busy today that I haven't eaten yet, and it's damn near 6pm. Dinner as soon as I finish this. I have pretty much packed up the living room, besides the big things like TV stand, shelves and couches. I still have to tear down and pack up the Christmas tree, but I'll leave that til next week.

It's crazy hard to believe that we'll be far, far away on our late honeymoon/our friends' wedding in the Dominican in less than three weeks. We are ready - almost. We still need to figure out how the ten of us are getting to the airport at 4am that Saturday morning, as well as do the packing and last minute stuff. Thinking about it is making me all jittery and excited, since it'll be the last time I'll be drinking and being pretty much care-free. We are hoping to concieve any time after (or during) our trip. We both have babies on the brain.

I just remembered that my Nintendo DS is missing, and I'm heartbroken. Paul and I torn this apartment apart, searched high and low, on Christmas Day and, though I did get myself a wicked case of the sniffles and sneezes (as I'm allergic to dust), we didn't find my favourite handheld device. Booooo. :( I hope it turns up once we start unpacking at the new house.

Dinner time now, though I hate to wake the two snoozing pups laying on my lap at the moment. But my stomach is growling and those delicious seasoned potatoes are calling my name.

The presents are packed up - we're ready to go.

It's Christmas Eve (duh!) and I slept in til 11am, then got up and packed up the presents from under the tree in our reusable grocery bags. Once Pauls comes running through the door around 4pm we will put the gifts in the car and head to his mom's house to drop of the presents for tomorrow. It's so strange to say that tomorrow is the day we have been building up to for so long - since I started our Christmas shopping in October this year. So while many people are out at the malls today pushing and shoving to get those special gifts for their loved ones, I'm home, laughing, because I've been done and ready for well over a week now.

Work last night was brutal, and I don't really want to talk about it. I'll just say that I didn't get home until 2am (usually I'm home by midnight on Wednesdays), and then I was wide awake and couldn't get to sleep until after 4am.

Now I'm watching A Christmas Carol - though I pretty horrible animated version. I recorded it with the PVR last night so I could have something to watch this afternoon. I might turn it off soon (yes, it's that bad) and put on Degrassi.

I can't help but think about next Christmas, when Paul and I are in our new house, with a real tree, and hopefully a baby in my belly. Everything will be so different then, in only a year from now. I remember being younger and thinking that growing up was going to make life less fun - yet now that I'm older I can't wait to "grow up", have our "own" house, a baby, and all of that. Not that I don't love our life now. We are very thankful for having a good place to live, wonderful family, awesome dogs, and "good" jobs. We have money and we can pay our bills and have an over-done Christmas once again. Life is good. Just saying I'll be extra happy once we have moved and start trying for a baby... :P

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas tomorrow and a wonderful holiday this weekend, filled with love and laughter.

Ruby Tuesday Time!

But that will be later in the post.

The cable guy was supposed to show up today between 2pm and 5pm. Don't you hate how they do that? I took the dogs for a walk around 1pm so I'd be walk in lots of time for him to show up (and that walk is another story in itself) and then my phone finally rang at 2:30pm. But it was my friend Jason, who lives in my building, saying he was going to come by with something for us, before they left for their Christmas holidays.

He brought over our late wedding / early Christmas present, which is this:



It's a beautiful handmade pillow, made by his fiance, Sahver! I love it and I can't wait to show Paul!

Then, I waited and waited and waited... my mom called, so I talked to her for awhile. She told me that since my Grandpa passed away on the weekend, she found out that he had money put away and wanted it to be split up between his six kids. And since my dad is deceased (RIP Dad), my dad's portion is to be split between me, my brother and my sister. I don't know how much it'll be (it doesn't matter) but my mom says I'll have some money coming to me. :D

So, finally, at 4:45pm (not even kidding) the cable guy showed up. And he was like nineteen, maybe. But, he knew what he was doing. An hour later, my cable was back up and running, and he re-wired our cable cord in the living room. I was pleased.

Now, it's Ruby Tuesday Time. Every Tuesday you can look forward to some pictures of the Pug, so here they are, Ruby as a puppy:

Clean and Packing day?

Ehhh, not so much. I know I should be cleaning the living room, the spare room and the kitchen today, as well as continuing my slow packing for the move, but today I am feeling like just... not doing anything. The dogs are play fighting and my cable is still out (hopefully will be fixed tomorrow), so while I packed one box of pots and pan and did some dishes, that's all I have in me today.

Yesterday, on the other hand, was a blast. We started our day by heading to our friends' dog's birthday party (yes, you heard me, a birthday party for a dog - its surprisingly common). We of course brought along Ruby and Olivia, pictured here at the party:



We went out for dinner last evening, and it was delicious (and cheap, since we had a gift card from my Grandma for early Xmas). Paul had ribs (gross) and I had a goat cheese pasta with garlic bread(Mmmm!), then we went back to our friends' house to hang out. We watched Superbad (one of my favourite movies ever) and then played Pictionary, which was amazingly fun. It was an awesome day in general.

Who else can't believe that Christmas is now four days away? I can't believe it - it doesn't even feel like the Christmas season to me, for whatever reason. This week is surely going to drag on, even though I only work Wednesday and Saturday. Paul works stupid hours this week so we won't see each other much - plus we have to somehow figure out how to get to the clinic and get prescriptions for malaria pills this week, for our Dominican trip - which is four weeks away.

On the menu for dinner tonight is Taco Salad with veggie ground round (soy meal similar to ground beef). When Paul gets home we will head to the grocery store to get lettuce, sour cream and tomatoes, then I will make dinner. And then my tummy will be happy and full, unlike right now. Only a couple more hours, I hope. Until then I sit here and watch Dr. Phil on basic cable (the only channel that works) and listen to the not-so-soothing sounds of my stomach growling.

Shopping.Excursion.Successful.

Well, this morning Paul and I got up bright and early (well, it was bright, but not quite as early as I'd hoped) and headed out to do our weekend errands. First we hit the PetSmart to grab puppy food for Olivia - and found myself wishing I had brought the pups. Santa - though unrealistic looking, as he was thin and we could see his brown beard sticking out of the fake white beard - was sitting on a chair at the back of the store. There was a sign by him that said Pet Portraits with Santa and I would have loved to have Ruby and Olivia get their pictures taken with Santa, if only because the profits from the pictures went to the Humane Society, I believe. But we didn't bring the dogs because we had other running around to do.

We went for lunch next, me Subway and Paul KFC, then we were off to wait in line at Roger's to exchange our cable box, which totally crapped out early this week. We were third in line, but the two customers ahead of us apparently needed to tell their life stories to the guys working behind the Wireless counter - it took more than half an hour for it to be our turn. We were out of there within five minutes, once we made it to the counter.

Next we hit RCSS (Superstore) to grab a few items - deodorant, toilet paper, toothpaste - saw Santa again there (yes, Santa can be in two different places at the same time), then on to Winners to begin the search of Christmas Dress 2009. After a quick look, I knew I wouldn't find the dress there, but Paul drifted off to the manly section and I kept looking. He wandered back a few minutes later with a shirt he wanted to try on, so we headed to the back of the store to the dressing rooms. While he tried it on, I searched the shoe section, just for fun. And there they were - my new winter footwarmers (ie: boots).



I found these babies and tried them on and knew they were meant to be. They are called Warmbat (Unisex Gecko Grip) and they are wonderful. Warm sheepskin, waterproof and and good thick soles. Love them! And considering these were $40, and the winter boots I bought last year (that I hate, by the way, because my feet get soaked and they have no grib) from Boathouse were $80, I think I got a great deal!

Our last stop before heading home was M&M Meats, to finally put our gift certificate from the wedding to use. We grabbed two boxes of desserts - one nanaimo and one chocolately squares - and one box of appetizers. We'll bring some of these along to Christmas Eve dinner and leave some at home to snack on. Yum.

I headed to work next, while Paul hung out at home with the dogs. I don't care to discuss work at this point in time, but let's just say that those eight hours felt like 100 and I'm very glad to be off for the next three days.

Tomorrow will consist of a dog birthday party (not ours, but ours are attending), dinner at Montana's then hopefully going to a movie, if we can ever agree on one. My pick is Brothers but Paul vetoed that one. His pick is Avatar and I'm not interested in the slightest. So we shall see.

Explanation needed?

I know what you're thinking - it hasn't even been 12 hours since my last (err, first) post. But I figured while my husband is out gallivanting (spelling? Ahh, who cares?) with his friends (okay, so he's not gallivanting, but he's out and I'm home), I should take some time to explain the blog a bit. Plus, I'm sure I won't get to post this weekend.

First off: the title. Which is amazing. And I can say that because it wasn't my ingenious idea (thank you again, Erinn - and Andrea for the image!). I asked my friends over on the Aug. 09 wedding messaging board to help me come up with a clever name for my blog. If you don't understand why it's clever, then you probably don't know me personally. Yet. I am a modified person, which is what the general population often refers to a freak. (Ha!) I have many (seven) piercings in my face, my ear lobes are stretched to 1 inch and I have quite a lot of (but not nearly enough) tattoos. Get it, Signed in Ink? Hah.

Anyway, my plan for the blog is to write about the daily adventures of me, my husband Paul and our pets (two dogs, two cats, you'll hear more about them, don't worry). The blog may turn into a moving-settling into our new house-decorating-reno blog for awhlie in the New Year, and will (hopefully) turn into an update on my future pregnancy blog. I look forward to writing about all of this and more.

Currently, as I type this, I am being molested with kisses from Olivia, our eight month old Boston Terrier. We lovingly called her Chester the Molester, often. She loves to kiss people. It's almost an issue. Ruby, our 1 year and eight month old Pug, is fighting for my attention as well, as always. They are very much so our babies and always will be. <3

So. It's Friday.

But in Lauraland, it's only Thursday. My work schedule is off-the-wall outrageous (err, well, it's different) and I work Wednesday-Saturday, 5pm to 1am. Yes. Say it with me, gross. So while everyone in Mon-Fri, 9to5 world is getting off work soon for the glorious weekend, I still have tomorrow to (not) look forward. I don't like Fridays much.

Tomorrow morning promises my wonderful husband and I a fabulous trip to the mall (ugggh!) on the last Saturday before Christmas. Though we've been done our shopping for awhile now, I have last minute stuff to pick up - including puppy food, toilet paper and a new dress for Christmas Day, as well as desserts and appetizers which I have decided to bring to Christmas Eve dinner at Paul's aunt's house. I am tres excited.

And though Christmas is next week and we can't wait, we are both looking forward to it all being over with. Mostly so we can move on to what comes next. Countdown is on: 29 days until our trip to the Dominican and 43 days until Our Big Move.

While I will be posting daily Monday-Friday, our weekends are always alot of running around and not much Laura-laptop time. But we will see what happens. Now I'm off to adventure into the cold with the pups, then off to work in an hour or so.