Not a summer blogger...

Apparently I am not a summer blogger. I keep just randomly disappearing! I have lots of ideas for posts but I can't seem to find the time to sit down at the laptop and actually type them out. There's lots of social stuff going on, plus work is still crazy busy and only getting worse. Today was my day off and I thought about blogging but instead I went to visit a friend and her brand new baby boy (he is less than 2 weeks old and is absolutely precious!) and then stopped in to visit with my mom for a bit. J is on his way home from work now and I think we'll spend the evening relaxing on the deck or taking Daisy for a walk. At some point I'll get back in to a blogging routine. For now I'm just going to enjoy the summer.

See you soon!

Grateful for my Husband

On Friday J and I will celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary.

Five years seems crazy, I don't know where the time has gone.

We're heading camping this weekend to celebrate. For our first couple anniversaries we went to a nice restaurant downtown, but last year we decided to get away from the city and away from our cell phones and the TV and spend some time together, just us. It was amazing. It was easily one of my favourite memories of our marriage. We relaxed. We walked. We laid on the beach. We sat by the fire. And we talked. We talked a lot. More than we had talked in months. It was our own personal marriage retreat, and we needed it. We came back home feeling closer and more in love than ever. I'm so excited to be able to do the same thing again this year.

I am so thankful to have had this man by side. We've gone through some ups and downs, but I have never doubted his love for me or mine for him. We have grown so much together, and I really can't wait to see what the next five years bring.

C'est la Vie

Don't you hate it when work gets in the way of blogging?

I'm a department manager for a grocery store so for the most part it's not really a high-stress job. It is however sometimes exhausting, sometimes challenging, sometimes frustrating, and sometimes I feel like a chicken with my head cut off. This has been one of those weeks. I put in a few long days and when I came home all I wanted to do was go to bed. (I was actually in bed well before 9pm the past two nights.)

I'm off today and I had planned on getting a few posts done up but then I looked around my house. Total disaster zone. We're going away camping next weekend and J's cousin is coming to stay at our place to look after Daisy and Sydney so I couldn't just let it go another week. (As much as I wanted to!) So I opened all the windows and got to work.

I've been pretty productive so far, but I figure I better keep going while I'm on a roll and feeling motivated. I'm having a little diet coke break right now so I thought I'd pop in, say hi, and let you all know I'm not dead before I got back to work.

Have a fantastic weekend!

What a Waste!

Something happened today that I'm not proud of.

We overspent a little last month when we were on vacation, so we're trying to get back on track this month by being super careful about every dollar we spend. I decided to go through the freezer to see if there was anything that I could use for suppers this week so we could save some money on groceries.

Instead of saving money, I found myself throwing it away.

We filled close to two garbage bags with outdated food. Not just slightly outdated - I threw away a frozen pork tenderloin from 2012, and frozen dinners from 2011. Seriously. Plus I found four bags of french fries (how many bags of fries do two people need?) and several bags of frozen vegetables plus frozen fish that I didn't realize I had. And frozen fruit. You would not believe the frozen fruit in my freezer! Five or six bags. (Smoothies for breakfast for the next month I think.)

I did come up with three meals for the week comprised almost entirely of stuff already in my cupboards and freezer but I am so disappointed with myself. It would be one thing if it was the first time this happened, but it wasn't! Financially we do okay, but we certainly don't make enough to throw money away on groceries.

I now have a small whiteboard with a list of all of the items in both of our freezers. Even though I'm almost embarassed about the whole thing, I'm hoping that by posting here I'll hold myself accountable and never, ever wind up throwing away hundreds of dollars worth of groceries again.

Silent Sunday

Daisy watching me in the kitchen.

Book Review; "The Lincoln Myth" by Steve Berry

The Lincoln Myth by Steve Berry (May 2014)

Goodreads says...

All it takes is a phone call from his former boss in Washington, and suddenly the ex-agent is racing to rescue an informant carrying critical intelligence. It’s just the kind of perilous business that Malone has been trying to leave behind, ever since he retired from the Justice Department. But once he draws enemy blood, Malone is plunged into a deadly conflict—a constitutional war secretly set in motion more than two hundred years ago by America’s Founding Fathers.

From the streets of Copenhagen to the catacombs of Salzburg to the rugged mountains of Utah, the grim specter of the Civil War looms as a dangerous conspiracy gathers power. Malone risks life, liberty, and his greatest love in a race for the truth about Abraham Lincoln—while the fate of the United States of America hangs in the balance.

My thoughts...

J and I both really enjoy Steve Berry's Cotton Malone series. (We both read The Charlemagne Pursuit when we were stuck in Newfoundland during Hurricane Igor.) He's actually one of the authors that got J into reading. Growing up he was never a big reader, but since I really enjoy relaxing with a good book he decided to give it another try.

Unfortunately, we were both a little bit disappointed by The Lincoln Myth. I found it hard to get into, and a little confusing in parts. The books in the Cotton Malone series all revolve around some sort of conspiracy, and I found this one a little bit too far-fetched for me. That being said, the book was suspenseful and I enjoy the characters of Cotton, President Daniels, and Stephanie Nelle. Even though I found this one a bit of a let-down, I'll still be picking up Cotton Malone's next adventure, The Patriot Threat when it comes out in March.

July Goals

I just realized I never got around to posting my July goals! I've had this post half-done sitting as a draft for almost two weeks. Ooops!

July Goals 2014

1. Take my lunch to work at least three times a week. I managed to handle twice a week last month, so we're going to try for three this month. This is something I really need to do for my waistline and my wallet.

2. Try out four new recipes. I love barbecue season because J does all the barbecuing which means I don't have to do as much of the cooking. It makes me a bit lazy though, and it's not really fair to him, so hopefully if I'm thinking about trying new recipes I'll be more inclined to cook more dinners myself.

3. Try out a new (non-chain) restaurant/or eat from a food truck. This is probably going to be one of my goals every month. I really want to experience more of what Halifax has to offer in this area.

4. Take Daisy to the park. It's been so hot and humid that we haven't wanted to take Daisy too far or for any really long walks but we should be taking advantage of the fact that it's cooler in the evenings and staying light well after 8pm.

Daisy loves going to the park!

5. Set a house hold budget. J and I have talked about doing this a number of times, but we never seem to sit down and actually do it. I really think we need to though. We make enough money to easily cover our bills but most months we're struggling to pay everything because we've spent so much money on random things.

6. Save some money. Self-explanatory. And one that will show up every month.

7. Blog at least four times a week. This is another one that I think you'll find on my list every month. I want to  make blogging a habit and I think this is the best way to do that. I think if I made my goal to blog every day I'd either get discouraged or post a lot of crap. (Not that I post a lot of deep stuff as it is, but quality is somewhat important to me.)

Since July is the 7th month I'm going to go with 7 goals for this month. :-)

Do you set monthly goals? Do you find it helpful or do you get discouraged when you don't complete all your goals?