I have to giggle.  My husband and I have pretty much agreed that I do all the shopping.  I buy the gifts for the kids, both our families and pretty much everyone, but for myself.  He buys the gifts for me.  This year I was done a few weeks ago and it had been quite an easy ride.  I should have known better.

Last week I got two cheques from family members asking me to buy the kids gifts, as well as finding out on Saturday that one set of gifts I shipped never arrived.  Sigh.  I had to go shopping again.

I was feeling quite demoralized about having to fight through all this traffic, so my husband, who of course hadn’t done any shopping yet, offered to get some of the things while he was out getting my gifts.  I was very hesitant to take him up on this offer.  Let me tell you why.

When I get a cheque from someone, I take the amount given and I find the BEST POSSIBLE deal.  I love stretching a dollar.  Yes it can take more time, but I think it is worth it.  So if I know I have $50/kid I shop around and come up with the best ideas I can for that amount.  I squeeze the last dollar out.  I spend exactly $49.99 and not a penny more if I can help it.

My husband’s philosophy is that the cheque amount is really more of a guideline and it is for our kids so why not just get whatever we want no matter how much it costs.  In the past this means he has spent $150.00 for a $50.00 gift.

So when he offered to help out, I initially said, “no, it’s okay.”  But he really insisted, which was very sweet.  I decided to take him up on it for two of the things that were out of the way and harder to get.  I gave him very specific instructions.  I sent him to get a movie and a Klutz book, knowing roughly what they cost and where to get them.  He called me triumphantly to say, “I got the dvd!”  I was happy, as I had been having a hard time finding it.  He then mentioned that even better he had found it in Blu-ray format and it only cost $37.00.  I had to laugh as I had not bought it for $25.99 as I thought that was too expensive for a movie.  I decided to just let it go this time, and say thank you for helping me out.  But really, this is why I do all the shopping.
Happy Holidays everyone!  I probably won’t be on again until after the break…wishing you all health and happiness during this celebratory time.

I had soooooooooo much fun this weekend!  My son is in his third year of hockey.  The first two years were in Initiation, which is basically about learning how to skate and basic hockey skills.  They played about 8 games over the year and it was fun to watch, but I never got hugely into it.  My son was happy so I was happy, but I brought a book just in case…

This year he is in his first year of Novice, and it is really quite different.  His games this year have been really fun and exciting.  I was still bringing a book, but not using it a lot.

This weekend he had his first Novice tournament.  What a difference!  It was so fun and exciting!  He won his first game Friday morning 3-2 – the other team scored their two goals in the second half of the third period. We were all cheering like crazy, it was amazing! Our second game Friday night, we won 5-0.  It was really fun to be on the winning side of that one.  We cheered and cheered until we all went kind of hoarse.

Our next day only held one game at 7pm.  We tied it 1-1, and it was a hard fought game.  The two teams were evenly matched but our boys stepped up and held onto the tie.  This tie won us the division.

Sunday was play-off day – 8:15am we won the quarter final game 5-0.  At noon we beat another team in our league for the semi-final 5-3.  It was another hard fought win and we cheered again with everything we had.  Going into the finals at 3:15pm, we had heard we were pretty much going to get creamed.  We all kept our spirits high, but yes the other team was better and faster than we were and they won 5-0.  But we still cheered like crazy for our hockey heroes.  No one expected them to come out second place over all.  A mother from the other team said “Wow you guys are loud” as we walked past after the game.

We had so much fun, I even left my book at home for the last two days .  I guess I am officially a Hockey Mom now, waiting for the next game on January 2 with baited breath.

I am so excited!  I think this will definitely confirm that I am a total shopping nerd, but I am sharing anyhow. I walked down to Chapters today to get one last gift for someone, and was perusing the store while I was in there.  They had this table of 50% off items, and on the table were these very lovely holiday cards.  They didn’t mention Christmas (which is always a plus for me, being Jewish!) and had sparkles (my favourite thing).  I checked to see how much they cost and they were listed at 20 cards for $7.99.  So I bought two different boxes and got 40 cards for $8.  Wow!  Of course, I need to save them until next year and hopefully next December I will remember that I bought these cards and where I put them.  I love this kind of find!  I had the hardest time finding cards  this year that were nice, didn’t say Christmas and didn’t cost a fortune.  I ended up getting them at Costco, but overall the ones I bought today are much nicer.  They even have really pretty envelopes.  This purchase made my whole day!  Here is a link to the website for the cards.

As I go through life I often pick up book titles from magazines, friends, other books etc.  I always write them down and at any given moment I have a list of 30 or so titles going.  I have no idea where I picked this one up, but I just finished reading, “The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax” by Dorothy Gilman.

What a joyful book!  I loved it.  It was completely different, and dare I say it, unexpected .  It was written in 1966, and is the first of a whole series of books about Mrs. Pollifax.  I have already requested the second one out of the library.  I warn you – it is a fun, light, fluffy read…but it is very well done.  I enjoyed it immensely.

Wow.  I just had THE BEST customer service from Amazon.ca.  I was trying to order a few gifts online and it kept coming back saying it wouldn’t arrive by Dec 25.  I checked the shipping cut-off dates and I was within the specified time.  I checked to make sure the items were in stock.  I even tried changing from free shipping to paying for the shipping.  It still said they wouldn’t arrive in time.

I was getting frustrated so I decided to call customer service.  This usually entails a twenty minute hold at least and then some annoying person who doesn’t really help you at all.  Amazon.ca does it right.  You enter your number on this little pop-up window and your phone immediately rings.  You answer it, select the language you would like and someone immediately answers.  Can I say “wow” again?  I was beyond impressed.  She even answered my question right away (the problem was that one of the things I was ordering was in stock, but said it didn’t ship for 2-3 weeks).    So I removed it from my order and all is shipping in the next couple of days.

It is not often at this time of year that one has something good to say about customer service, so I thought I should give Amazon.ca a little shout out for doing it right!  Everyone, click over and put your orders in!

Post-script – I can’t believe that one day later the shipment arrived at my house! Yea for Amazon.ca!

My 7 year old told me this joke yesterday and it really made me giggle (you have to read it out loud):

Knock knock
Who’s there?
A little old lady
A little old lady who?
No need to yodel…

teehee!

My husband is working like crazy these days, all day and night.  Yesterday I made him take a break so we could drive to my cousin’s cottage to celebrate Chanukah early with my extended family. Everyone will be away over Chanukah so we decided to party a bit early this year.  The kids were up and ready at 7am for this event, it is very popular with them.  We had driven to the cottage before and I remembered it being about 1.5 hours away.  I cajoled my husband into grudgingly coming with us…we got in the car and plugged in the gps and oops!  It was actually 2.5 hours away.  So we were already 1 hour late.  After a very long tense drive, we arrived late to the party.  We had a lovely stay and then after 2 short hours had to get back in the car.  At this point it was snowing heavily and there was a lot of traffic out.  Throw in freezing rain for the last half of the drive and it took 3.5 hours to get home.  Once home, we had a quick dinner, I walked the dog, put the kids to bed, cleaned the kitchen, went grocery shopping and shoveled the driveway and walk.  At 10pm I sat down.  The dog woke me up at 3am, sick and needing to go out.  Sigh.  My husband needed to leave at 5:30am today, so I was up again at 5am, then I had to get myself up at 6am.  With the lovely bus strike it took forever to get to work, and then there was no available parking when I got here.  I found a meter right near my office so I parked there at 8:55am.  Of course the parking guy showed up just as I stuck the last bit of change into the meter to tell me I wasn’t allowed to park there until 9am.  I almost burst into tears.  I got in the car and he watched me as I moved it…I drove around the block and thankfully my spot was still free so I pulled up again and waited the remaining 3 minutes until I was allowed to park there.  Now I am going down every 1 hour and 55 minutes to add money to the meter.  Sigh.  I just had a yummy egg and bacon sandwich with a chocolate milk.  Life is a bit better…

In a fit of “I love people” earlier this Fall I talked my husband into throwing a Holiday Party this year.  I have always wanted to throw one, but it has never happened.  We tried a few years ago and both got so sick that we had to cancel it.  I should have taken the hint, Party Gods.

The party is tonight and I just haven’t felt like doing much, you know?  I did a ton of baking the other day so desserts are taken care of and I hit Costco last night.   I really wanted a specific type of cheese that they sell, I have never known them to not have it – but of course last night, it was not there.    I picked up some other cheese but was feeling sad.

My guest list has been weird too.  I have had a lot of last minute cancellations as well as additions and it has been hard to keep track of who is coming.  I still am not sure how many people are coming, but have tried to plan for more rather than less…here’s hoping I have enough everything.

The Party Gods obviously hate me, as this morning my cleaner canceled.  Of course this is after I spent a day baking and getting flour and sugar in every crevice in my kitchen, letting the dog run around my floors with dirt and snow on his paws, all thinking someone was coming to clean before the party.  I guess we all know how I am spending my day.  The last straw for me was as I was putting some coke in the fridge to chill, I dropped a bottle of beer and it got glass and beer everywhere.  Big Sigh!

Oh well, I know I will enjoy the party tonight, as I always do, but wow is this ever the last Holiday Party I am ever throwing.

Honestly…Monday it was so cold I didn’t want to be outside for a second. Tuesday we got so much snow that it took 1.5 hours to make a 20 minute drive, Wednesday we had freezing rain and snow, and today we have a bus strike. Commuting is getting really tough in this city.

With the bus strike, I picked up a co-worker and made my way into the office. It took us two hours to get to work. There was a guy walking beside us at one point and he got to work before we did. He was honestly moving at a much faster pace.

It is kind of crazy really, that getting to work has been so difficult this week. I wonder how long the strike is going to last…I think I will start leaving for work an hour earlier just to avoid some of this mess and stress.

I love Canadian weather.  So yesterday was the coldest day – -27 C in the morning with windchill.  Today it is warmer – 12C, and a major blizzard.  It took 1.5 hours to get to work today.  I was driving most of the time at the heart stopping speed of 9KM/hour.  It is supposed to continue to snow with freezing rain added in right into tomorrow…should be a lovely drive home.  To all my fellow commuters – drive safe, and hope you have your snow tires on.