The last few weeks have been slow and quiet as Jase and I have taken turns catching several cold and stomach bugs that have been making the rounds. We missed being able to make a trip to my family's Christmas celebration and missed opening gifts with Jase's side. I have 2 big bowls, a 9x13 casserole dish and 2 square ice cream tubs of dipped pretzel, cookies and truffles sitting on my table and buffet, results of my normal overdone holiday baking spree and not being able to deliver goodie tins to my immediate and extended family. I must find something to do with it all. I am determined to avoid sugar starting tomorrow and there's no way the two of us can eat it all ourselves before it goes bad. I suppose I'll try freezing the cookies and truffles.
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I picked my Swagbucks account back up last weekend. I found $15 in amazon ecards sitting in my account and promptly spent them on a pair of brown boots. I've been wanting brown boots for years. They are scheduled to arrive today and I cannot wait to get them on my feet. In the last week I have done enough trials and deals that I'm just over the 3000 mark. My goal is an average of 700 a week, but i'm beginning to think I can do more than that. As long as I don't lose interest. For those not familiar with the value of swagbucks, 700 a week will give me enough over the course of a year to redeem over $400 in amazon ecards. And that's if they don't go on sale, in which case my swagbucks go even further. Yay! I'll probly branch out to more than amazon cards soon though...I have my eye on some paypal cash and fandango cards...and maybe a few restaurant.com cards...we'll see...
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One of the deals that I took advantage of to earn some credits was a free customized calendar from VistaPrint. I only paid shipping which made it quite a bargain as calendars are stupidly expensive even for just a no frills wall calendar from Walmart. I spent three days finding pictures of us, one for each month of each year that we've been together, uploading them to picnic, editing, saving, organizing by month, then reuploading to picnic again to make collages and then finally adding collages to the calendar and adding personalized captions for Jase. It was a lot of work, but I'm really excited about how it turned out and I can't wait for it to get here.
In the process of the calendar project, I discovered something. Over the last couple of years I have gradually taken less and less pictures of us. Over the last year I've gradually taken less pictures in general and when I have they've been of random projects or events and not of us. Part of that is laziness. Part of it is that I find it difficult to be motivated to take pictures when life is stressful. Part of it is because I hate the way I end up looking in pictures, especially when I'm carrying extra weight. And I'm definitely carrying extra weight.
And that brought me to 2 main goals for 2012. Be healthier, exercise more, shed a few lbs (not the first year that this has been a goal), and take. more. pictures. Regardless of how I look or feel, find SOMETHING to take pictures of and purposefully take more pictures of US.
I want to get to the end of next year and be able to spend WAY more time browsing through a year's worth of pictures and finding many more pictures of us to bring back even completely forgotten memories than I did this year. Then I will also be able to take advantage of more free (or discounted) photo prints deals and put together physical scrapbooks as well.
I even signed up at project365.com thinking that maybe participating in that would motivate me and give me a goal...that's broken down into small, reachable daily goals. Then I realized, that if I'm not motivated to keep the blog I already have, it's pointless to start a new one. So I redirected back to my sad, forsaken blog and spruced it up for the new year. And I'll be trying my own project365 right here.
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I'm drinking a fizz tab and uploading some pictures to clarkcolor.com so that I can take advantage of their current 40 free prints deal. :)
I'm about to plug my new earbuds into my comp and turn on some Bocelli, Acoustic Eidolon and Adele while I download this weekends files and play my newly downloaded Plants vs. Zombies... free music downloads and $2 game from yet more awesome swagbucks deals. :)
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Poor Hubby is finally getting some much needed sleep after about 5 consecutive sleepless nights this week. This happens every time he gets a cold that settles into a cough. He's so exhausted. :(
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I'm looking forward to another cozy, lazy day and bringing in the New Year with my Love...
Happy New Year to all! I'll be back in 2012. :)
~Tonia
