Dallas is so expensive!

First of all, Sorry for being such an epic fail with NaBloPoMo...but at least I am posting more regularly right? Oh But I have like 3 blogs I'm about to pump out today!


Now for our regularly programmed blogging!

As most of you know I have a dog, a very cute dog with a hell of a personality. He has the cutest face in the whole world and his eyes are so expressive but man this dog is freaking expensive! He is on a raw food diet meaning that George and I always have to feed him raw chicken, beef, lamb, pork or whatever. (He hates turkey!) We never complain about the cost of his food because, well, we chose to get a dog that is on a raw food diet. But this dog is funny with his expenses... Allow me to explain.

It's Saturday afternoon. George and I have to go do a little Christmas shopping and we decide to leave Dallas with George's dad in our house. You figure the dog has a baby sitter, he shouldn't be too hard to watch. Give Dallas a chew toy or a stuffy and he's really content for a few hours.

George and I get back about an hour and a half after we left the house. We walk in and Dallas is super excited to see us but we aren't so excited to see him. All we see all over our living room floor is a red mess. George and I are looking at each other like "What the heck?" then it clicked. I had left two Christmas cards for our Secret Santa's on a table that Dallas is tall enough to reach. He took one of the cards and decided to shred it. (Thanks Gramps for watching out for him!)

The more I walk into the house the more I realize I was wrong. In the sea of red is also some pink. What the heck!? Turns out that George's dad wrote us Christmas cards and put them on the tree so that when I wrapped the gifts and put them under the tree I'd see them. Inside the cards were money. Canadian money is colored. 50's are pink.

Dallas doesn't mess with the tree but since he saw my father in law go near it he decided he had to do some investigating. He took one of the cards off the tree and ripped it open to see what was in the card. In the process of opening the card (aka shredding it to pieces) he decided to EAT some money. He tore a whole lot of 50's up and ended up eating one completely. Yeah, I'm not gonna be looking for that in his digestive tract. UGH!

C'mon you have to admit thats funny. The dog actually ate money. So George and I came home, threw down the bags with shopping and started taping money together...and then George punished Dallas for an hour by making him sit all by himself with no toys or anything. :(

Dallas doesn't go near the tree anymore but just to be on the safe side the envelopes are way up high on the tree now.

I feel sooooo freaking accomplished!!!

I think my blog title really sums up what I'm feeling. Today was a busy yet great day at work. I showed up at work a bit late... I don't know why but I can't seem to leave my house prior to 8:40am so I'm at work between 9:05 and 9:10, not bad but I'm MEANT to start at 9. I think Daniel comes to work late on purpose around 9:20 to not see me stroll in late on a daily basis. The way I see it though, I work late practically EVERYDAY, coming in 10 minutes late is more than made up by staying at work an hour late or working for 3 hours from home. I dunno, I think its beyond making it up. My boss knows though. When he sees that I send emails around 9 or 10pm he always tells me the next day "Thanks for your dedication."

It makes me feel good to see that he actually does see how hard I work. Anyways today I worked super duper hard! I finished the price list and confirmed the prices against last years and made our head office verify the prices. I also completed the promotional binder that we are giving all the dealers that sell our products complete with sell sheets, advertisements for our products, order forms, sign up forms for our websites spare parts ordering system, condensed color catalog, and much much more.... I made sure that all corporate Christmas gifts were ordered and being delivered on time (so far everything is a go with no hiccups which does please me as I will not be in the office tomorrow to make sure that nothing goes wrong), I sent an ad into one of our distributors and got feedback that "your ads are always the best looking ones". I wish I could take credit for the look but I can't. I just come up with the promotion and the concept and the graphics designer puts on paper what I had in my mind. The graphics designer and I work AMAZING together and we always get such great feedback. I also ordered my boss's Christmas present and got the email confirmation that the order went through and now I just have to write his Christmas card.


Today was just such a productive day that I didn't mind staying an hour late (hey I was also on 3way with my mom and sister) in order to complete everything I had to. That extra hour really helped make sure that everything was done properly and on time! Not only that but my boss asked me jokingly if I had a connection at Oakley and I told him that matter of fact, I do. A lady who brings her children to the daycare my hubby owns is a senior manager at Oakley and she gets 50% off everything Oakley. My boss ordered his son something for Christmas from Oakley and I managed to save him 110$ and have guaranteed delivery before the Christmas closure!

All in all, I just feel really great tonight! :)

Oh, I went to my sister's house to see how the progress on the renovations is going and it seems to be going oh so well. The upstairs bathroom turned out AH-MAZ-ING! I was in shock. They spent at lot of money on the tiles for that bathroom but it is looking really stellar. I wouldn't expect anything less from my sister!

I just went downstairs to see how the progress is going on our basement and I'm really impressed at the speed that this contractor is going. I didn't have any time to take pictures of "before" but I am taking pictures of the progress. If you were to see yesterdays pictures to todays pictures you'd be floored. My bathroom is MASSIVE and the tile work is soooo freaking awesome. One of the biggest downfalls of this reno job is the amount of dust (putting up walls, ceilings, and everything else that needs to be plastered and sanded...) gosh. I'm going to have to pay my cleaning lady DOUBLE just to clean the basement. I'm glad she loves me and she wouldn't dream of me going into the basement for cleaning it. Pregnant people and chemicals just don't mix. Sheesh, George won't even let me downstairs unless I'm wearing a mask so that I don't breath in any dust. He's too cute!

NaBloPoMo: 13/31 (and I think this is my first chipper post!)

Shopping? Baking? Where did the time go?

I'm really freaking out because I thought that this year I was more into the holiday spirit, that I was doing a great job getting ready for Christmas. Apparently, I'm not. I put my tree up in November and thats about it. I've hardly decorated and honestly thats because I don't have that many decorations... I was never into decorating for holidays but now with Demi on the way I figure I should be more into it. I'll be going shopping on Boxing Day (Canadians version of Black Friday) and picking up 50-60% off holiday decorations. I already have a mini tree for Demi's room though!

I started my baking yesterday and figured I'd get some done today but I didn't have time. I got home late, ordered dinner, ate dinner with George, picked colors for the basement and Demi's room, wrote Christmas cards, looked up some addresses for my sister's wedding shower and wedding (seriously, are we still sending these damn things out!?). I seriously considered just putting together my list for my baby shower invites but since the invites aren't ready yet and I haven't heard anything much from the designer as of late I don't know where we stand. I honestly think that if the invites aren't ready or at least a proof ready by the end of this week I'll just look online like I had done for my wedding and wedding shower invites.

I might bake more tomorrow but who knows how I'll feel after work? I thought about maybe baking on Wednesday but I have two doctor's appointments back to back, and then run an errand for my sister's wedding and then come home. I might be in a sour mood by the end of the day. Actually maybe not, on Wednesday we find out if Nicole and Rody are having a baby boy or a baby girl. Which really means I'll find out what George and I are going to be the God parents to. A part of me wants her to have a baby girl so that I'm not the only one with a girl...and another part of me wants Demi to be the only little princess in the group. She is the first to be born so I know shes going to be the boss. It makes it easier if there aren't two little girls fighting for the Queen role. If Demi is anything like me, she'll definitely be the ring leader of this group (and eventually the world... I just feel it!!)

I haven't done ANY Christmas shopping yet. Like seriously! On Saturday night we are having our groups little Secret Santa...which isn't really a secret since I know who everyone has. I was going to order something online for the person I got but I'm afraid the gift won't be here in time not to mention that it will probably end up costing more with rush shipping, duties and taxes... and if I get it delivered directly to Montreal instead of to George's warehouse in the US is the added cost of international shipping plus brokerage charges. Gosh, I'm happy we have that warehouse in the US.

I just feel that all of this time is passing by so quickly and nothing is getting done. Sure I'm putting small dents into everything but NOTHING is 100% complete...well I did manage to get out all of the corporate gifts for work but I still need to think of what to get my boss. Yes, my in office co-worker and I always buy our boss something. He's honestly treated us great and always gives us awesome gifts so we try to return the favor on a smaller scale.

My first year at work I was only there for 3 months when Christmas rolled around. Daniel bought me a gorgeous pink rolling luggage carry on thing. Everytime I've taken it ANYWHERE I get compliments on it. Everyone nudges their friend and goes "Oh look how cute that is! Isn't that nifty". I sent him an Edible Arrangement since I barely knew the guy right!?

Last year he gave me a 500$ gift certificate to Best Buy that I used towards the purchase of a 60" television for our basement (George and I paid the difference). My co-worker and I went to a store called Tin Dex (I think thats the spelling) that sells a lot of collectible products. Daniel has a real penchant for Coca Cola products. Like, seriously loves them. He has a cabin "up north" and he has one room that has EVERYTHING Coca Cola. So Ernesto and I bought Daniel a Coca Cola clock that has the neon red light around it and a Coca Cola napkin holder.

I told Ernesto we should go back and continue his collection of Coca Cola products. Daniel has no idea where this store is, not many people do. I only know of it because George is in the toy/collectible industry and they deal with each other. I'm completely out of ideas on what to get Daniel. Daniel has EVERYTHING he could ever ask for! His other hobbies are just too expensive to contribute towards. He loves to water ski (barefoot too!) Um actually that's the only hobby I can think of. Last year his wife recommended that we get him some accessories for his iPhone but Daniel has everything related to his iPhone possible. I was thinking either getting more Coca Cola related things or getting Daniel a gift card to Swiss Ski School in Florida which is where he goes at least twice a year? Maybe $100 from each of us? It wouldn't be much but it is a one night stay there.

Opinions? Ideas?

By the way: Are y'all done with your shopping!?

NaBloPoMo: 12/31