I <3 yegdt
Since my past post, Ben and I finalised the purchase of our new place, painted all the rooms, and moved in. :) I have visited Home Depot and other like stores more times in the past 3-4 months than I have in my entire life, I'm sure. I feel so domesticated. ^^ Now I'm sitting in a comfy chair in my new living room, looking at the light snowfall outside illuminated by the street light, listening to Danny Michel with the Garifuna Collective, and loving it.
I have discovered that I really enjoy doing renovations, and they're not all that hard! They can be time-consuming, but rewarding. I found my artistic and perfectionist side coming through with some of them. Like caulking: I gave up using scrapers, cloths, and other tools, and used my fingers to make everything smooth. It was like working with clay - very cathartic. Painting was a lot of fun as well. At the end of it all, it has made our place feel a lot more like ours. This evening, we started putting up some of our prints and paintings! Just need to get the last of mine from Dad's before we decide on where the rest are going to go.
Dad recently brought down a huge pile of my artwork from high school and first year. It was sitting in a flat box for a while, and I finally went through it this weekend. Lots of nostalgia, and a couple happy surprises when I found pieces that I thought were lost in the fire! It reminded me that I am talented - something I hear from friends and family but sometimes forget or doubt myself. I had a lot of nice pieces in there (I put this one aside to get framed). Art's not always about talent - it's also about practice, like anything else. I've been lazy and rusty, but I definitely want to get back into it. That will be my New Year's resolution - more drawing! I have a nice new sketchbook, a few supplies, new markers from Ben, and a gift card for a local art store, so no excuses!
Another New Year's resolution (I'm planning ahead!) will be the typical "get in shape" one. I usually don't make that a resolution, since I see it as an ongoing lifestyle, but I've been exceptionally bad this year. I've never been perfect with health, but I've developed habits that I never had before, and am back at my heaviest weight. ;( Ben and I have been bad with enabling each other. Plus, with all the packing, unpacking, moving, cleaning, etc. involved with getting three condos ready, we've been eating out way, way more than we should. We're now on the last step: getting Ben's place ready to sell, so we're almost done! We're a lot better with cooking at home now, which we've always enjoyed doing, so I think we should be able to get back into better habits. We also have a small gym in our new building, so I'm going to try and utilise that. Before it got cold, we were going for evening/weekend walks, and I've been walking to and from work (30 minutes each way) for the past couple months. I won't claim that makes up for the bad habits, but small victories!
The anticipated overtime that is expected to continue past Christmas has started at work, which has made it hard for me to motivate myself to do all of the above. The quicker we get Ben's place sold, the quicker we will be able to start saving for further vacations, so yoooshi! That'll be the first priority over the next couple weeks. Just gotta do it, and then we can focus on other things.
We finally had a team meeting recently to discuss and confirm what can be expected once our new system goes live and is stable. Good news: no anticipated layoffs, and our new roles have been approved with a higher pay grade, which will be effective the end of December. Our current team will be splitting into two teams - the People Operations side of our current roles (working alongside HR to ensure everyone's personal and job profiles are set up), and then the strictly payroll side of things. I applied for, and have accepted, an intermediate role within the new payroll team. Despite the stresses and uncertainty of the last several months, things have been looking a lot more positive lately. The environment has improved a lot as well, so that's good. I'm still keeping my eyes open for any possible internal transfers, especially within the design and marketing teams, but for now, I'm okay with where things are going. I might be enrolling in a CPA (Canadian Payroll Associate) course in the new year to become a Payroll Certified Practitioner.
I'm not sure what my Christmas plans are quite yet, but I'm sure it will include seeing good friends and family. :) Looking forward to hosting company at the new place!
That's all for now! How's everything else doing?
I have discovered that I really enjoy doing renovations, and they're not all that hard! They can be time-consuming, but rewarding. I found my artistic and perfectionist side coming through with some of them. Like caulking: I gave up using scrapers, cloths, and other tools, and used my fingers to make everything smooth. It was like working with clay - very cathartic. Painting was a lot of fun as well. At the end of it all, it has made our place feel a lot more like ours. This evening, we started putting up some of our prints and paintings! Just need to get the last of mine from Dad's before we decide on where the rest are going to go.
Dad recently brought down a huge pile of my artwork from high school and first year. It was sitting in a flat box for a while, and I finally went through it this weekend. Lots of nostalgia, and a couple happy surprises when I found pieces that I thought were lost in the fire! It reminded me that I am talented - something I hear from friends and family but sometimes forget or doubt myself. I had a lot of nice pieces in there (I put this one aside to get framed). Art's not always about talent - it's also about practice, like anything else. I've been lazy and rusty, but I definitely want to get back into it. That will be my New Year's resolution - more drawing! I have a nice new sketchbook, a few supplies, new markers from Ben, and a gift card for a local art store, so no excuses!
Another New Year's resolution (I'm planning ahead!) will be the typical "get in shape" one. I usually don't make that a resolution, since I see it as an ongoing lifestyle, but I've been exceptionally bad this year. I've never been perfect with health, but I've developed habits that I never had before, and am back at my heaviest weight. ;( Ben and I have been bad with enabling each other. Plus, with all the packing, unpacking, moving, cleaning, etc. involved with getting three condos ready, we've been eating out way, way more than we should. We're now on the last step: getting Ben's place ready to sell, so we're almost done! We're a lot better with cooking at home now, which we've always enjoyed doing, so I think we should be able to get back into better habits. We also have a small gym in our new building, so I'm going to try and utilise that. Before it got cold, we were going for evening/weekend walks, and I've been walking to and from work (30 minutes each way) for the past couple months. I won't claim that makes up for the bad habits, but small victories!
The anticipated overtime that is expected to continue past Christmas has started at work, which has made it hard for me to motivate myself to do all of the above. The quicker we get Ben's place sold, the quicker we will be able to start saving for further vacations, so yoooshi! That'll be the first priority over the next couple weeks. Just gotta do it, and then we can focus on other things.
We finally had a team meeting recently to discuss and confirm what can be expected once our new system goes live and is stable. Good news: no anticipated layoffs, and our new roles have been approved with a higher pay grade, which will be effective the end of December. Our current team will be splitting into two teams - the People Operations side of our current roles (working alongside HR to ensure everyone's personal and job profiles are set up), and then the strictly payroll side of things. I applied for, and have accepted, an intermediate role within the new payroll team. Despite the stresses and uncertainty of the last several months, things have been looking a lot more positive lately. The environment has improved a lot as well, so that's good. I'm still keeping my eyes open for any possible internal transfers, especially within the design and marketing teams, but for now, I'm okay with where things are going. I might be enrolling in a CPA (Canadian Payroll Associate) course in the new year to become a Payroll Certified Practitioner.
I'm not sure what my Christmas plans are quite yet, but I'm sure it will include seeing good friends and family. :) Looking forward to hosting company at the new place!
That's all for now! How's everything else doing?