Head to Head: Birthday Edition

What's the coolest gift you've ever received?

Cass: By far, the vow art Philip made for Christmas this year. A homemade gift that will be treasured in our home forever.

Philip: When I was in my teens I got the Adobe Creative Suite of design programs, which set me on a pretty solid path of design and creativity. I used to design logos and jerseys, and now I still use it when planning out plans for our home, creating our blog banner (don't worry, I'll try and produce a June one this time), I even designed our wedding stationary. 

What's your favourite birthday dessert?

Cass: Ice cream cake! Hands down. The most refreshing and delicious cake, can be made in a bajillion flavours, and even shapes! Mm I want a heartshaped strawberry ice cream cake right now. Never had it but picturing it is beautiful in my head. 

Philip: Cheesecake is my answer, no matter what the occasion. 

Invent a party game and explain how it works.

Cass: For our Christmas gift exchange one year we had to make homemade gifts. I crafted a family trivia game, which is a great idea for anyone on a budget who needs a neat birthday/Christmas/other event gift. Think up some categories, questions, and print them out on cards to play at your next family gathering.

Philip: Pin the insulation in our ceiling. It's like pin the tail on the donkey, except you take down old insulation and reinsulate our attic while blindfolded. Great for all ages.

Sparks & Recreation: May Long Weekend Edition

For Canadians celebrating Queen Victoria (correct me if I'm wrong?) we have this Monday off which means a long weekend! In the spirit of fun things like long weekends, I thought I'd share some more fun parts of the internet. Here are some of the sites that we go to for a good laugh after a rough week.

Hyperbole & a Half just started back up again, and her posts are hilarious. There are for sure more famous posts than this one, but it makes me laugh a lot. I also like reading about her dumb dog and guide dog. 

The Oatmeal is hilarious (but not always very G-rated). Definitely not everyone's sense of humor, but we thoroughly enjoy it on occassion, and have 2 of Matthew Inman's books. 

Jake & Amir are hilarious. Their videos can be found on College Humor, or their dedicated site that I linked to. They also recently started an advice podcast (that I'm listening to for the first time right now while writing this). 

What do you read when you want a good laugh?

Philip's Official 2013 Birthday List

What? A Friday Phil post? Yes, it's been a while, and this post is even late in the day.
But there's only one way to get back on a horse, and that's to just go ahead and do it! (Or so I'm told, I've never done it.)
The rest of my sports room post will get published shortly. Suffice it to say, it was a bigger undertaking than I anticipated; each image took me approximately two hours to produce, and that kind of time is hard to set aside. So in the interim, you get the following:

This weekend is not only a long weekend in Canada, it's my birthday weekend. Yes, Queen Victoria and I are sharing a day for our respective festivities. A particular tradition of mine--as it is for many people--is making a birthday list.
Now, people say I go overboard with it. I just think I do a good job of organizing it; true, in the past, I've supplied prices, places to buy the items, even themed title pages. This year, I scaled it back a little, which meant only listing the product and a link to where you can buy it online (more for the benefit of my own family than you readers, but hey, don't let that stop you!). So without further ado...

Philip’s Birthday List

Movies/TV

A number of boxed sets top this list, led by the award-winning sports documentary series 30 for 30, which I missed when it aired originally but am really interested in catching up on.

1. ESPN 30 for 30 Collector's Set (Blu-Ray Boxed Set)
2. Friday Night Lights - Season 3 (DVD Boxed Set)
3. The Pacific (Blu-Ray Boxed Set)
4. Mad Men: Season 3 (Blu-Ray Boxed Set)
5. Any Pixar Movie (Blu-Ray)

Oh yeah, and Pixar movies. Save for Cars 2, you just can't go wrong.

Books

I'm all over the map here. A list featuring two spy novels, a young adult series' boxed set, and a literary classic is topped by (what Bill Simmons insists is) the greatest sports book of all time. 

1. David Halberstam: The Breaks of the Game (Hardcover)
2. John Le Carre: The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (Hardcover)
3. Rick Riordan: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series (Hardcover Boxed Set)
4. Fredrick Forsyth: The Day of the Jackal (Hardcover)
5. Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary (Hardcover)

A young writer I know recommended these to me, because I liked Harry Potter. Sold.

Games

I don't get to play video games nearly as much as I'd like anymore, and I play more board games now than I ever have. It's the price you pay for being married, my single male friends, and believe me, it's quite alright with me. That said, I've played every iteration of the Civilization series since #2, and I don't intend on ending that streak quite yet.

1. Sid Meier’s Civilization V: Gold Edition (PC-DVD)
2. Ticket to Ride: USA 1910 Expansion (Board Game)
3. EA Sports 08 Collection (PC-DVD)
4. Days of Wonder: Mystery Express (Board Game)
5. The Logo Board Game (Board Game)

Nothing wrong with setting the difficulty to "Settler" and beating up on some Carthaginians.

Music

The way I enjoy music has changed since I discovered Noisetrade. That said, my love affair with the physical CD hasn't quite ended yet, particularly with the variety of new music I discover through RELEVANT Magazine and their fantastic podcast.

1. Needtobreathe: The Heat (Audio CD)
2. Broken Bells: self-titled (Audio CD)
3. The Lumineers: self-titled (Audio CD)
4. Foster the People: Torches (Audio CD)
5. The Black Keys: Brothers (Audio CD)

This is an item on my birthday list.

Tools

This is the first birthday list to feature a category this practical, after my Christmas list broke the practicality barrier for lists overall. I've been lucky enough to have gotten a lot of the basic tools from my grandpa's old tool kit, as well as some pleasant surprises at Christmas time and throughout the past two years. And now it's time to venture into the world of scary, destructive tools.

1. Circular Saw
2. Reciprocating Saw
3. Random Orbital Sander
4. Tiling Wet Saw
5. Tool Chest

It's time, fear of saws, thy reckoning has come.

Clothes

1. Anaheim Mighty Ducks 1997 Alternate Away Jersey
2. Winnipeg Jets “Hawerchuk #10” 1979 Vintage Away Jersey
3. Dress Shoes
4. Golf Shirts
5. Dress Shirts

There are a lot of unique jerseys in NHL history.
There are a lot of nice jerseys in NHL history.
This is one of the few that fits in both.

Household Gadgets

This is perhaps the most fun category for readers of this blog. There's a few electronics-related products, plus a couple kitchen gadgets. If you read our Would You Tues? post from this week, #3 should come as no surprise.

1. Laptop Chill Mat (for up to 17” laptops)
2. iPhone 4 Car Mount
3. Fred & Friends Gin & Titonic Ice Cube Tray
4. Breadmaker
5. iPad

"I'm cooling, Jack, I'm cooling!"

Projects

In case our parents are reading this, this is the category where we watch while you work! (Just kidding. We'll be busy documenting your work for this here blog.)

1. New Garage Doors/Openers
2. Beam for our Living Room/Kitchen Wall
3. Bathroom Flooring
4. Paint
5. New Interior Doors

As awesome as it would be to have a can of paint in all these colours, where would I store it all? A gift card would have to do.

That's all for this year's list.

Are you a May birthday? If so, what are you hoping shows up under the Birthday Tree? If not, what are you getting me? ;)

Aw Crap

This past weekend was a saga that can only be described as crappy. It ended with us spending 2 nights at my parents, because of a literally crappy situation (disclaimer: the word crap is sure to be used a lot in this post) in our basement. To start at the beginning...

It was exactly like this...except not at all.

Saturday Morning/Afternoon

Saturday morning was a great day, we had eggs for breakfast and relaxed, and then headed out to go shopping (Target & Home Depot, it was a dream come true) and then out for dinner. Wonderful Saturday. Until...

Saturday Evening around 8 pm

We came home. I went downstairs and noticed our laundry didn't finish completely, so I restarted it (sometimes it unbalances and you have to rearrange things). Then I went to go to the bathroom. It wasn't a good situation in there. The toilet had overflowed while we were out. It had been having issues for a while, so we just assumed it ran and ran while we were out and then overflowed. The cleaning process began...

Saturday Evening around 8:10 pm

Gloves. Check. Bucket. Check. Cleaning Product. Check. Mop. Check. Rags. Chyup. I dove in. A little while in, while mopping, the water works began - this time from my face. I bawled. It was so gross, Philip was trying to be encouraging, but nothing was helping me to face the situation of mopping up crap and hating it. I began to feel so discouraged, our house has had a lot of surprises and our renovations keep having setbacks, and I just started to cry while mopping up grossness. Bless Philip's heart for sticking with me even when I'm crazy...

Saturday Evening around 9 pm

We had it almost clean as the washing machine began to drain. The toilet bubbled. We started panicking. Bailing out water and throwing it outside. The washing machine couldn't be stopped. That's when we realized this was more than an issue with the toilet, a piece of cucumber even surfaced...

While fresh and delicious...this is not what one expects to find in the bathroom.

Saturday Evening around 9:45 pm

After cleaning up a second time, we called my parents and asked if we could have a slumber party with them as we didn't have a working toilet anymore. On Sunday the plumber made time out of his Mother's Day to come take a look. On Monday Rocket Rooter came to clear our pipes of a shopping bag full of roots (We'd highly recommend them, a lot cheaper than other companies in the city and provided great service). 

Not a fun day, but we got through it. It's likely we'll be on a schedule of having a root removal company come out every couple of years, so we'll have to add that to the budget, but it's good to have it dealt with. Very thankful for our parents who helped us out this weekend! My parents for hosting us, and Philip's parents who opened up for the technician while we were both at work. 

& They All Lived Happily Ever After, The End

Window Shopping Wednesday: The New Target!

Canada recently got on the Target bandwagon, and Winnipeg was no exception. Philip and I scheduled in a visit on Saturday so that we could feature it in today's Window Shop. However, it was so busy and crazy there that I felt like a hooligan taking pictures, so it just didn't happen. 

We can tell you a bit about our experience though! Here are four things we noted:


1. While I love Target and make a mandatory stop-in with every United States adventure, our visit was pretty anticlimactic. I think it's similar to what Ikea was like when it first opened, there were too many people, things were picked over, staff is brand new and have a bit of a learning curve, and it's just not looking its best. In a month or two, I think it'll be a great place to shop. 

2. Love the house stuff. Nate Berkus and Threshold are both great lines and have a lot of items that I'll be drooling over. There are lots of reasonably priced baskets, pillows, and other decor items that will probably find their way into our home at some point. 

3. We've noticed that Superstore and Walmart draw drastically different crowds. They're both great places to shop for bargains, they're right next to each other on Regent, but somehow less people in pajamas visit Superstore. I'll have to do more studies on this, but it's definitely something that we've observed. Target was attracting both crowds since it's brand new, so it was interesting to mingle with the pajama people.

4. From looking online, I think that there are going to be more of the US's coupon policies in place at Target which might bring an influx of extreme couponers to our midst. This is kind of interesting to me, if I take some time I'll have to find out how great the coupon options are there. I don't think I'll ever be much of a couponer because when I get fliers and such on Thursday's in great abundance in our mailbox I always insta-recycle them, because I just don't feel like sitting on the couch flipping through fliers. Target's website has a coupon page that provides all the coupons for your province, and you can select which ones you'd like to print. Might be worth checking out. I skimmed their coupon policy and they'll accept both a Target coupon, and a manufacturer's coupon, where as a lot of our grocery stores won't accept manufactorer's coupons (talking to you Costco!). 

So that was the Target experience. Who's been? What did you think?!?