The 10 days or so since Vanessa and Mike left have been rather manic – as always!
Tuesday, I held my first ever coupon seminar in the Sugar Land library. It was a two hour class and the aim of the class was to teach people how to use coupons here in the United States to save money on their grocery bills!
The picture shows most of the people who were there (10 adults and 7 kids but a couple had left before we got around to taking the picture!). Everyone who was there seemed to enjoy it, learn from it and I’ve heard through the grapevine that they’re telling other people how great it was! I’ve already had about 6 people ask me to do another one soon, it was definitely good fun and since people got something out of it, I’ll most definitely consider doing another one again soon!
On my way home, I stopped at the postbox to pick up my post. My old postman was there, I’d not seen him in over a year and he remembered me. He asked if we’d had our wedding and how things were and said he was sad he didn’t deliver my mail anymore cause he didn’t get to see pictures of our wedding! He’s a very daddy-like postie and we chatted for a while before the heat almost killed me and I had to run home.
In the post, came my new and mucho stylish shades – that cost me around $30 to buy. They ain’t, by any stretch of the imagination, designer or fancy or, for that matter, anything but plastic – but, they do the job and I’m in like with them! Definitely can’t complain given how little I paid for them!
Thursday morning I had my monthly meeting of the SSA Board and since we couldn’t pin down an appropriate room in the SLB campus we normally gate-crash, we ended up munching on tasty breakfast treats in Cafe Express in Town Square – cheap, cheerful, they have a delicious hot tea selection and normally the place is pretty quiet.
Not this time! The place was swarming with dance teams and it was loud, buzzin’ and I’m amazed we got any work done (mainly cause I sat the whole time playing and cuddling with 6 month old little Ethan!)
Saturday, Col and I did some manual labour – no, you’re not seeing things, I really did say that! We did actually work! Magz and Sam’s shipment arrived from home on Saturday morning and, being the wonderful friend I am, with Magz being home in the UK, I told Sam I’d get Col out of bed early and we’d help him unpack.
What I wasn’t prepared for, was the sheer volume of STUFF they had! LOL! The boxes were endless, the packing paper was endless and the dogs didn’t take too kindly to being ignored in favour of unpacking stuff they’d not seen in nine months!
When we’d gotten most of the boxes unpacked, we took a time-out for lunch at the local Red Robin (courtesy of Sam as a Thank You), which, as it happens, is DANGEROUSLY close to Magz and Sam’s new house (save me from the ‘Yum!’ lol!)
Sunday, Sam came around for a quick brunch (quiche and mac and cheese) and to watch, what turned out to be, a fantastic Canadian Grand Prix. It was heart stopping, filled with excitement, surprises (and tears if you’re a Hamilton and Alonso fan!), it had Col and Sam exclaiming, almost spilling drinks and sitting on the edge of their seats – I’ve never seen them as animated while watching a race – it was very funny actually!!
Tuesday morning, I babysat for Julies two kid-lets at her house while she went out to the doctors. They were fun, Zane isn’t particularly ‘good’ with his little sister, he doesn’t know his own strength so you can’t turn your back for a second, there was even a ‘time out’ – I know, I know, it’s not good to discipline someone else’s child, but I’ve seen her put him in time out for the same thing, so I was being consistent in his discipline…or something :-/ needless to say, he didn’t like it! LOL!
Hazel is so laid back and chillaxed that even just bouncing in her swing has her giggling and chatting!
Such cute, well behaved and pleasant kids – they really are a pleasure to sit for!
After babysitting, I nipped to Panera Bread where I had lunch with Crystal and Faith (Julie just put Hazel for a nap and couldn’t come). It was fun to catch up with Crystal, it’s been a while since I’ve seen her and pretty soon, her kids will all be off school and I probably won’t get much ‘Crystal time’ until school starts in the Autumn.
For dinner, we went out to the Queen Vic pub with the Van der Waals and half of the Van der Maddens – but, I’ve promised my friend Emily, that I’ll give my restaurant experience a blog of it’s own!
Wednesday morning Julie dropped Miss Hazel off to me after she had her 9 month check up at the Dr. (Julie had to go back and see her own Dr.) Hazel and I didn’t get much play-time cause she slept the whole time and I barely knew she was there (she jumped in her sleep once, scaring the absolute beejeezus out of me!)
When Jules was done in the Dr’s office, we went off to lunch with some other SSA ladies in T.G.I Fridays. Lori, Julie (and Hazel) and I from the ‘old guard’, who have lived here for a couple of years now together with Susan, Suzanne and Heather, the ‘newbies’ to the area – it was good fun. Tasty, and we had 3 B1G1F coupons, so lunch was dirt cheap – not that I was allowed to pay for mine, Julie insisted, since I sat for the kiddies!
After lunch Susan, Heather and I all headed across to Starbucks in Town Square where Jeff (Heather’s hubby) dropped in to pick up a coffee and meet us before heading off to a meeting. The ladies and I, sat in the lobby of the Marriot (yes, cheeky of us I know!) and chatted for a while, before Heather and I headed to Party City, to do some recon for Magz’s baby shower, then on to the Dollar tree (same purpose) – we decided my Dollar Store sucks and I need to find a better one! LOL!
After the Dollar tree, Heather came back to my house to wait for the men to get out of work before we went to dinner, Col was late (he was talking to Paul K about the upcoming game 7!) but we headed out to Grimaldi’s Pizzeria for dinner and had a lovely evening with Heather and Jeff (and a killer slice of oreo cheesecake!).
We got home and watched the last two periods of game 7 before our Aero goal tender Anton Khudobin, was on the ice, celebrating with his new team after they’d just won the Stanley cup. It broke my heart, seeing my goaltender on the ice for another team and just brought back floods of memories of standing in that arena, with my team having just lost the cup…I got pretty emotional. I can empathise with the Vancouver fans – but I cannot, under any circumstance or stretch of the imagination, condone the ensuing violence, or, understand why…
Yesterday, I got up and headed to JoAnns…armed with 4, 40% off coupons and a 50% off coupon, I came out with yarn and baking supplies, no my husband didn’t kill me! After JoAnns I went to Garden Ridge to pick up some glass jars for Magz’s baby shower, before hitting Target, where I struck gold on some meat supplies (Ribs, T-bones and chicken!)
When Col got home, we discovered that our long serving defenseman Max Noreau was traded to the Albany Devils and our wonderful new coach, Coach Yeo and his entire staff have been snapped up by the Minnesota Wild – which, y’know, rocks for them, but it majorly SUCKS for us!!!!
Phew, what a long post choc-full with ‘stuff’. I guess I’m filling in my Magz-less time rightly, eh? 🙂