I Won Something!

We have had our first snow - that is if 8 or 9 flakes count.  It frosted and was beautiful all last week and on the day it changed to rain and warmed up winter showed its face for a few minutes.  Then it melted-the benefit of living in one of the most moderate climates in North America.

This week we have been busy with our company wind down - just five more days of work and then we are shutting it down until after Christmas with exception of a couple of hours worth of accounting.  On Friday we went to the Christmas party of the company that I quit in October  as they very kindly invited us. It was great to see my friends and it was a nice night out.  I did not go buy a new fancy-smancy outfit.  I wore one of the two dressy outfits I have for dressing up (wore other one last year) and timed my haircut to have it on the same day and only paid $10 extra for them to do up my hair.  An inexpensive fun night out all around.


Yesterday while mailing some company parcels and picking up a few groceries I entered a draw at the grocery store  - and received a call last night as I won one of the gift baskets! I am so excited to go see what's in the basket as I will be picking it up later this afternoon.  Frankly, I didn't really look closely so really have no idea.  I used to enter contests all the time, and have won some pretty nice things - trip to Whistler, $3000 in furniture and lots of smaller items too.  This might just get me back on the entering contest bandwagon!

Edit update:  I have now picked up the gift basket and it is fantastic - will share pictures and what was in it later in the week.

I hope to start baking some Christmas goodies this week - have pulled out some recipes that look promising.  I also need to get a handle on our grocery buying as the last two months have been very spendy in the grocery dept ($702 last month - includes all over the counter meds/bathroom products /non-food items for 3 adults).  The crock pot has been pulled out and I need to source out some inexpensive meat cuts to go into it.  Vegetables have sky rocketed in price now - I just hate spending $1.50 to $3 for a single cucumber.  I try and pick up the loss leaders at every store but it seems harder to find good deals this year.

All the Christmas cards have been written and mailed to my American Aunts and Uncle and 95% of the Christmas shopping has now been completed - even wrapped!  I watched "It's a wonderful life" for the first time last night - it is such a long movie and honestly did not live up to what I was hoping for.  Have you ever been disappointed by such a famous classic movie?  I usually enjoy old movies but not this one.  At least I now know what it was all about.

I am steering clear of all the Christmas insanity and trying to only show my face in stores in the early morning.  Although there was a lineup at the post office yesterday everyone there seemed to be in good cheer and it went quickly as the girl at the counter was very efficient.  How do you deal with the Christmas madness?