THE SIMPLE LIFE

So I got an e-mail reminder that I haven't posted since Sept 9th. Thanks to the little birdie for reminding that there are procrastinating workers who look forward to reading my blog to waste time! I guess I'll be chronological:

!. Gardening

We ended up hiring this lady to help out with fall clean up of our yard since we've never had any experience. She was awesome. Not professional but willing to teach us what we needed to do while doing herself as well. If you were looking for landscaping advice, etc it would not be her. She's just a woman who's looking to make some extra cash doing something she enjoys. We found her off of Kijiji for $15/hr. We originally wanted her to come back and help us transplant a few more trees and cover the garden with rocks so we wouldn't have to weed but then we got busy/lazy and never called back. Now that it's getting cold, I'm even more lazy and will probably push this project off until Spring comes =P

2. Anniversary

We decided to stick around town for our 2 year anniversary this year just cuz we got back from our trip not too long ago (which btw, I still haven't posted the pictures to the other half of the trip). Both sets of mom forgot which date we got married. Alex's mom called us on 9/11 to congradulate us and my mom called on 9/20. Granted, our wedding date is not the easiest to remember and I'll be the first to admit that I've forgotten it myself several times already. Should've copied Ray and Deb and just done something like 08/08/08 *laughs* Any way, we took the weekend to be just us, no other ppl or distractions and had a lovely time. Saturday was my day, so Alex drove me to Toronto to get my hair done, walk around Yonge St shopping, eat at Grazie and have facial. Sunday was Alex's day so I went with him to the golf course to play 18 holes and then we went to Montana's for ribs and watched football. Nothing extremely fancy or expensive (my day consisted of gift cards and his was a last minute deal) but it was great in the sense that we each got our loved to spend time with us doing what we enjoyed. I highly recommend it if you want to save some cash and still have a "getaway" that you wanted.

3. Hosting

We had 2 big parties at our place in October. One being my elementary/Haig friends and the other being Alex's high school friends. It was so much fun to cook and entertain and be able to fit everyone around our dining room table. Thanks to everyone for making the trip or spending the holidays together. We appreciated being able to share our home with you. On a more practical note, we also realized that most ppl ended up hanging around our living room area instead of the family room (where all the couches were). For some strange reason, eveyone wants to lie on our floor when chatting. Maybe the carpet really is that comfortable. We had originally planned to fill that space with a side table but seeing how ppl seem comfortable with this arrangement, we will save the money instead.

4. Haunted Farm

Alex and I went to check out this "scary" farm in the middle of nowhere a couple of weekends ago. It sounded scary and we got ourselves all worked up on way there. It's literally in the middle of nowhere and as you're driving to the entrance there's all these old, dilapidated barns lining the road. To make it scarier, it was raining that night. Unfortunately because of the rain Steph and Gord didn't make it out and the hayride portion also got cancelled. They did only charge us 8 bucks instead of 16 and we got to repeat our entrances as much as we wanted. I think Alex and I were both disappointed with the final result simply because everything was set up to be very scary and yet I felt they didn't pull through. For example, the corn maze was pretty creepy walking through as it was but it totally could've been to the next level if they had scarecrows or dummies of some sort hidden all around. Or even better yet, have ppl jump out between the corn or chase after you. It was literally a maze in the dark, nothing else. For the haunted barn, the decorations were amazing. So detailed and seriously creepy. But they didn't have enough staff members to roam around the barn itself. I think there were 3 total and they kind clumped towards the end. It would've been better if some of the decorations were actually people or had more movement/sudden jerks. A large part of the barn felt as if you were just walking through the different scenes observing instead of actually being in the horror itself. Still...I was jumpy enough to refuse another entry but I made Alex go back a second time just to get our money's worth.

5. Puerto Rico

After the farm, we had Allan and Kyle back to our place to play board games. Puerto Rico is developed by the same makers of Settlers of Cataan except it's infinitely better in that there's almost no element of chance. Everything is based on strategy. Alex bought me this game for my 27th birthday and we got the other guys hooked onto it as well. That friday, we played for a full NINE HOURS - from 10pm to 7am in the morning! It was crazy. At first it was only Kyle, Alex and I but by the time 3am rolled around, Allan finished work and he came by for another 2 games. It sounds so nerdy when you stop to think about it but I had fun and it's nice to have things in common with Alex that I can enjoy with his friends as well.