Over the Holidays

Yes, I know I haven't updated in a while - sometimes you just don't feel like it, you know? Ask Teresa, she knows what I mean! ;)

Christmas was great, but seemed busier than usual, only because we split Christmas day between Marn's family and Dad's side at his place. Normally the whole day (from breakfast to dinner) is at Marn's house, and we typically don't get out of our PJ's all day.
Christmas in previous years spread across 3 days, and this year 2, so it seemed short, but busy.

As part of our gift to each other, we purchased Adrienne and Den's old Espresso machine from them. It's great, but we're not having much luck with the seal around the filter holders. It leaks every time - sometimes worse than others, even after putting in a new rubber seal, re-seating it, reversing it, etc.. So I don't know what we're doing. Maybe it's the grind (doubt it because using "normal" coffee grinds, or none at all still causes leaks), maybe it's the machine, maybe it's something else that we can't figure out. It seems to me that the filter doesn't get tight enough to the seal in the machine. They said they used it before shipping and it was fine, so it must be something we're doing. or not doing. If they LIVED CLOSER, they could check it out and see for themselves.... maybe during their next visit. When is that going to be? *elbow*
Marn on the other hand isn't too concerned about the leaking because she doesn't drink coffee anyway. She uses it for making her "earl grey misto with shot of vanilla", or London Fog as it's also known as. It does steam milk quite well, though! Not sure if it was worth that much just to steam some milk....

New Years was pretty low key. We had invited some people over, but did so really late and most people already had plans or had decided to stay in, so we had Marn's parent's over for a 3-course fondue. Cheese, main, and chocolate. It was awesome! When they left (for their neighbours party), we settled in for a night of Guitar Hero and watched the ball drop (in Toronto), then went to bed. Woohoo!

Echo has been out of his crate since "the incident" (although confined to the downstairs) and overall he's been pretty good. His worst moment (ever for behaviour/destruction) came at the expense of Marn's eye glasses... I can't remember if I blogged about this yet? Yes, he completely destroyed them, barely recognizable as eye glasses. Marn LOVED them too, so that made it hard. He has chewed paper and magazines otherwise, which although we hate, it could be a LOT worse.... paper, and tearing it into tiny pieces, is his fetish. Marn has since re-ordered the same pair which haven't come in yet, and will be careful where leaving them while not home!

Since buying the new washer and dryer, we've put new flooring plans on hold for a while, but we're antsy to get started on the tile back splash that we want to do. We haven't decided on a tile yet, but love a slate flooring we saw a few weeks ago and might use that as the back splash as well. I bought a wet saw on sale as part of my christmas gift too, so we would use that to cut the slate into quarters. We absolutely LOVE the look of slate, understanding that it can be harder to lay and has more upkeep. Some people at the stores say it's easier to lay, but all agree it's more time consuming and more upkeep with the sealing. Anyway, we hope to get back into thinking about that again soon.

The floors also won't be started until after my student loans are paid. Yes, I still have some to go, but they will be paid off before the end of February. In fact, either the week before, or right on my birthday they'll be completely gone!! We are so excited! And to celebrate we've decided to go out to a fancy dinner at this new place in Waterloo we've been wanting to try. We'll combine it as a birthday/no loan celebration. The loans are at a level now where we can just focus on paying them off before doing anything else. Yes, people will argue I should have been doing this years ago, but when you're faced with a mountain of a loan with other plans for spending money (ie: new home, vacations, decks, fences, appliances, etc, etc.), you tend to just keep paying what they tell you with nothing extra. Well instead of another year or so of low re-payments, we're killing it now, now that it's a manageable amount.

With the "new found savings" that we'll realize after paying this off, we're going to continue the same "payments" into a separate account to make extra mortgage payments throughout the year, and keep some as emergency funds. Or that's the plan anyway. We'll see how well we stick to that. We are spenders at heart!

Well, that's it for now. It FRIDAY! Looking forward to the weekend...