Christmas Shopping

This morning was a nice morning. Cecelia started our day at 6:30am, but then eventually went back to sleep for a couple of hours. We got to spend that time snuggled up under great big blankets in our bed, while the world was cold and busy around us. I love Saturday mornings.
This morning I decided that the cold and snow, along with our wide open schedule, made me really want to start Christmas shopping. That's what we did this afternoon. We knocked off one secret Santa gift, got some great Christmas books from Costco, and (best part of the day) spent some time wandering around Future Shop. Ordinarily this would not be the best part of the day to me, but today was Cecelia's first time in an electronics store, and she loved it.
We had so much fun showing her all the nice things to look at, and touch and listen to. She doesn't get to touch electronics at home, so it was a real treat for her to get her hands on some real nice gadgets. Too bad I only had my really crappy iPhone 4 with me to take these pictures. (Christmas hint Eric)

We Bought A Couch

Remember when I told you that we've been shopping for furniture as a hobby for a couple of months now? Well lately it's started to get really old, because now we live in our new place and the couch we have is embarrassing. You have no idea how many of these photos we've gone through..."Yea we found the couch we actually want now, and we'll probably buy it in the next couple of days."

But here it really is...the one. We actually spent the money on this one today, so it's written in stone.

This is the couch. We swore the whole time we were searching that we would not get leather, but I fell in love with this one as soon as I saw it.
We went in there on Saturday (for the 3rd time) ready to order it in a fabric we chose, and then the girl finally told us that it wouldn't work in fabric. One of the main reasons we love it - the fact that it's just a bench seat and not cushions - means that the fabric would wear out too fast and leather would be a much better option. I couldn't find any leather colours I liked though, and that put it way out of our budget (instead of just a little bit). Then she showed us this one. The leather was discontinued and so it was a floor model they were trying to get rid of for a while. She was able to give us a really good deal, but it was still a bit too expensive, so we told her we had to think about it. We thought about it all weekend, and then decided it was definitely what we wanted, and so we called today and put the money on it.
The main thing that made us choose this couch though is the matching chair and a half. I wanted a chair and a half really really bad, and we couldn't find nice ones anywhere. Seriously, name one furniture store you know in Calgary and I guarantee we looked there for one. But this one I love. Because we bought the couch in this leather, it the fabric we originally chose for the chair didn't match. But something even better happened. Eric said he wanted a patterned one. WHAT? I did not see that coming in any way. He wanted the pattern on the floor, because it looked really good with the leather on the floor. He wanted our living room to look just like that one. So we ordered the chair in a great pattern that I am so so excited for.
We get to pick up the couch anytime, but the chair is a special order so it's going to take 4-6 weeks to come in! I can't wait, I am so exicted! And since I have to wait that long to see the finished product, so do you! Just wait til yous see this pattern...it's fabulous!

Furniture Shopping

We've developed a new hobby. A couple of weeks ago we had some friends get a new couch at a store that was closing. We decided to drop by and see what was going on at this store. Thus began a very enjoyable and very consuming adventure. We've been all over now, and we love shopping for furniture.
We've tossed around a few ideas for things we should buy - everything from a new mattress, to a dining set, to couches...it goes on and on.
We're waiting now for our Future Shop gift cards to come in the mail so that we can buy a new TV. Eric has been saving his Visa points for a long time - many semesters of school paid for, flights booked, and everything else that adds up everyday, later we can actually afford to redeem them for something exciting. It was fun to use them to treat ourselves to something we normally wouldn't have splurged for. I can tell that Eric is very excited about it.

Wolfville Farmers' Market

Is closed at 1pm on Saturdays. Did you know? Me neither, obviously because I ventured outside when my phone read 29 degrees plus humidity and walked all the way there this afternoon, only to get there an hour and half after everyone had packed up.
It's also open from 4-7pm on Wednesdays so I went there this past Wednesday to look for a few minutes, then realised I didn't have any cash. I left to get that and then found the bookstore I told you about, and never made it back. So basically I don't know very much about this market. What I did see on Wednesday was not very much, but I'm going to give them the benifit of the doubt because it was late and it was the weekday. Saturdays are supposed to be a lot busier with twice as many vendors. I'm just sad I have to wait a whole week to see them. I won't make that mistake again, I hope.

Not a soul in sight. I do love a good chalk drawing though, so at least they had one of those for me to enjoy for a minute or two.

I'm being a big baby though and missing my Halifax market today. I wonder how my Mom or Dad is doing there today, and if people liked my new colours I chose, and if Sarah liked the she ordered for her studio that she's picking up today. I'll be sad when I go back to Calgary and winter comes and I have no farmers' market or reason to constantly paint canvases. I like doing them. I hope today is a good day in Halifax!

Date Day Off

Today I had the day off work, and Eric has every Friday off school so we enjoyed a day together today. Tomorrow he'll have to catch up on school work while I'm at work, but today we got to slack off.
Today we:
- got hair cuts together from his mom
- made a delicious smoothie and some not so delicious expired (2 years) canned tomato soup
- went shopping to Cross Iron Mills and bought some work clothes and things
- hunted down a winter jacket for me all over the city
- found me a winter jacket that was not the one we spent time hunting for, but that matches his
- got hot dogs and frozen yogurt at Ikea
- now we are home and will maybe go in the hot tub/watch a movie/sit here and relax and chat then off to bed

It was a super fun day. I'm looking forward to the week after next when he is on Spring Break and we have a couple of other fun outings planned. It should be good fun.

PS tonight I learned, on the radio, that koalas are the laziest animal in the world. They sleep for a whole 22 hours a day. Can you imagine? (Sloths only sleep for 20 by the way)

Ella Bridals Dress 5577

Today was my first day at work, and it was a lot of fun.
In our store we work mainly by appointments, especially on Saturdays, because we are so busy. This afternoon at 1:00pm I took my first appointment. I didn't know much about the store and about the dresses, since I just started 3 hours before that. But it was really cool.
Holly (I love that name) came in looking for something with straps or halter and with not too much glitter or lace or detailing. That only fits like 5 dresses in the store but the two of us started looking for things that she might like to try. We got her started with a couple that she chose and then I pulled this one.

I saw this dress this morning and thought it was just unique and fun so I had her try it on since we were running out of options for ones with straps. It looked GREAT. She didn't really like the train when she saw it on the rack but when she put it on, everyone that was with her loved it. The colour we had in the store was Oyster (a little bit like the one on the left) and it looked amazing on her.
Holy didn't look like these girls though. She was short like me, and had a much smaller chest like me. But she also had bright red hair and sleeve of tattoos with some on her shoulders and other arm as well. Somehow, the dress looked as good on her as it does on these girls. It was really funny to watch the 10 or so different brides we saw some in try on all their different dresses. It was funny how some would look so so good on one girl, and another girl would get it half on and then change her mind right away. It was neat to be a part of a couple girls special days. Holy didn't buy the dress today but she and her group loved it. She was just having a hard time committing after only trying a couple of dresses. Maybe we'll see her later this week, maybe we won't but she was a sweet girl and I really hope she finds the right one and has a great day on September 8th.

Shopping

I hate shopping...for clothes. I enjoy grocery shopping, I like Costco shopping and I love shopping for anything for my home or for decorating it. That shopping is the best. Shopping for clothes is the worst; especially after I've just moved back from Europe and brought only the essentials home in my suitcase, but also brought home an extra 5 pounds attached to unfortunate parts of my body. Ugh.
I only have jeans right now, and Bonnie (from Beautiful Bride) said that blue jeans are not something I can wear to work on tomorrow, so Eric took me out today.
We have no money right now, and I just hate the idea of spending money on clothes to wear while I earn money. Today I was in search of some really plain pants, not jeans. I wanted some comfy khaki pants or something, I don't know. Maybe that was my problem (that I didn't really know what I was looking for) because I didn't find it. We searched SuperStore (Joe Fresh) this morning before Eric had to go to school for a couple of hours. That was a shirt success, but unfortunately not a pant success. Then after school we had a couple of hours before everything closed so I decided I wanted to try H&M next, which is unfortunately not at the malls close to our house, but in the north of the city. I really had high hopes for that store though so we ventured out there. Nothing. (I did see that SportChek has a sale on coats though so after work tomorrow I am hopefully going to get my coat that I really want from there. That was a good thing.)
So we left that mall with nothing actually in our hands. We went to a Winners near by, and there was nothing there either. Then we went to this store!

Do not go here. If you're living in Calgary and hoping what I was hoping, that Target decided to grace us with a little bit of their presence here and fill it with some of their delightful and properly priced clothing, you're wrong. Just like I was. There is no way to describe how disappointing this store really is. It's basically something like the style of an even cheaper Stitches or Sirens. Remember those stores? No? I don't blame you. I've blocked them from my memory as well. As I hope to with this one. The clothes were uglier and cheaper and grosser than Wal-Mart or Giant Tiger or any other place you can find cheap clothing. Yuck. It was tragic.
So I was a little discouraged but remembered that I'd seen a pair of pants on sale the other day at Aritzia so we SPED over to Chinook mall (the one right by our house) and looked there and Forever 21 really fast. Nothing at Forever 21, which is fine. That place is usually pretty hit and miss anyway. Then I finally tried on the pair at Aritzia at 8:50pm, when they're closing at 9, and they were okay. Only okay. How anticlimactic this day of shopping was. I ended up with 3 shirts for $15 from Joe, which are just cute and kind of plain, and one pair of pants that I don't love from Aritzia.
I'm going to look real cute wearing that stuff tomorrow.