Friday, May 22, 2009

The First Fruits of our Unlce Leo Money

The day that we got the cheque in the mail (it was a very good day!), we made our first purchase: a very much needed dehumidifier for our basement! It's something we've been wanting to purchase for a long time, but they're not really that cheap. Brian managed to find one on Kijiji that was brand new - still had the cords all tied up and the bucket was taped in - the guy who was selling it thought that you had to put water INTO it to make it work. He sold it to B for a very decent price, and it was been dehumidifying our air ever since.

Next week, I'm heading to Main Cycling & Sports to buy something that will probably look a little bit like this:

I've decided that since I live so close to work, it would be nice to bike to work during the spring/summer/fall. I'm not saying that it will happen every day, but my goal is to reduce my gas consumption by half this season. And perhaps (ok, definitely) get in a bit better shape. I don't really like biking anymore - the fact that I have a car negates the need to use a bike to get anywhere, as in the days of elementary & high school. However, I'm told that there is a whopping difference in riding a $89 Canadian Tire bike and a decent bike made by reputable bike companies. So, I'm going to give it a try and become a biker. This does mean that I'll have to a) get up earlier and b) shower and dress once I get to the school. I'm not so excited about those things. I was hoping to get a bike this season anyways - but this wonderful gift definitely makes it much more of a possibility!

Monday, May 18, 2009

What we're doing...

We talked about sharing our uses of this gift on the VanBreda blog, so...

We've already mentioned our washing machine... We went out for lunch with the boys when we normally wouldn't have...
We're looking in to a play structure for the boys...
We made a donation to the Huntington's Society in Memory of Uncle Leo...
We'll be saving/paying stuff off...
Maybe a trip somewhere on an airplane... (Korea? :)...possibly Edmonton...
Some home improvements...