Lots of biking and other stuff

Because of all the nice weather and basically lack of more snow, I've been biking to work as much as possible. Of course today I got a ride home from Chris which worked out well for me since it was so incredibly windy this afternoon. I'm working on getting back into shape. Hopefully it sticks!

I'm working a lot on the budget at work; of course it's not done yet. My two coworkers have been wrapped up in pension issues and since it's the first time through for my new boss, everything's going at a weird pace. We're going to try to get the book to print in a couple of days, so I'm really hoping it does get done this week. Still not sure if I'm coming home this weekend, but I'll let you guys know soon :)

Chris and I have been getting questions about how wedding plans are going. Plans?? Ha! We're planning to plan at this point. The task seems quite daunting and I'm really enjoying engagement! My coworker was suggesting a few places, once of which was Como Zoo in the conservatory. I was looking online this weekend, and the gardens look so incredibly beautiful. We're planning to plan.

I knit myself a case for my double-point needles. I finally finished a project with this particular yarn. I love the yarn (crazy mix of reds, oranges, yellows, and plum) but I found myself not being able to finish a project with it. I have broken the spell. Now I'm crocheting a cover for the Swiffer so I can use it as a mop. It's quite silly of course because I rarely mop the floors. I basically ignore the kitchen floor. If something drops, leave it!

That's what's been goin' on. What's new with you?

First ride of the season

I finally got out the bike. I switched petals on my mountain bike, which was somewhat tricky given that the pedals are tightened so they don't fall off when you're riding. But I used my biceps, then when that didn't work, I leveraged my body weight, and then when that didn't work on one of them, I used Chris. After pumping up the tires and changing my layers once, off I went. I went at a very slow pace and enjoyed myself very much.

This morning, Chris and I ran a bunch of errands, including a trip to Menards. I ended up getting some seed packets: sweet onion, basil, and baby spinach. My dad doesn't know it yet, but I'm going to ask him to build me a few planters out of wood. This mini garden in planters will be an experiment. I'm going to ask my mom to share some of her gardening wisdom.

I might be enjoying this springtime weather :)

Is it spring already?

I'm one of the weird ones that likes winter. After this weekend of beautiful weather, I am looking forward to spring too. But you just know we're going to have some freak weather because we're in Minnesota. Mother Nature likes to remind us that she's in control not matter how much we don't want her to be sometimes.

Work is interesting right now partly because of the transition to a new boss (the new hierarchy in the tiny division). When we sit down for a weekly meeting, it's basically five minutes of me saying what I've been working on without any questions. She doesn't know much about the projects I'm working on since she just started a month-and-a-half ago, and I'm guessing she's overwhelmed with the breadth and depth of topics we're involved in.

I'm kind of concerned as to how the budget book process is going considering we're hoping to go to print next Friday, and as far as I know, we're not finished entering data into our budget system meaning we haven't started revising the document itself. I've been trying to figure out how to approach this with the new boss. She hasn't asked how we've did things last time, so maybe she's coming up with her own method or maybe she's wrapped up with other stuff.

The good thing is that all this free time has allowed me to teach myself about how our activity based costing software works and about how to overcome the challenges of Microsoft Access. I'm in the process of rebuilding a cost allocation model we use to distribute the costs of the City's General Fund. I'm going nerd on you, so I'll leave it at that and say that I'm learning good skills.

Good Birthday

We celebrated my birthday yesterday, and it was wonderful! Chris made me strawberry shortcake (yum!) and bought me books (those in the Redwall series I didn't have and a hardcover copy of Martin the Warrior), Kim took me out to buy me more crochet hooks, and Chris's mom dropped off their gift for me: the movie P.S. I Love You. Like I said, wonderful day!

I started using the new crochet hooks last night when I started on wristwarmers and I'm really excited to start reading the new Redwall books! I'm also really excited to see P.S. I Love You again - I'll have to remember the tissues.

Thank you everyone!

Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday! I've loved the cards and the singing over email (hee hee).

I've had a very low-key birthday, complete with brinner from Chef Christopher (for those of you who don't watch Scrubs, brinner is breakfast for dinner).

Strawberry shortcake will be had this weekend (it's ok - I told Chris we could do it this weekend instead of today Mom).

Almost sick-free

Over the past week, I've been crazy sick. Well, crazy sick for me. And it's almost over! Woohoo! It's amazing how much better I feel today than I did over the past few days. It kind of makes me want to sing...but I will refrain and instead be grateful my laugh and craziness has returned.

I'm really not looking forward to the remainder of this month, primarily because of work. We are going to publish another budget book by the first week in April, which means mega work load for me in a couple of weeks. I am so tired of budget books! Even though I'm a budget nerd, I don't like putting the book together because it's a pain in the ass. Maybe this time around will be a lot easier since we now have a budget coordinator who came from the accounting world. Hopefully she'll be able to use her magic accounting powers to make the process smoother than the adopted book. I'm guessing I've lost you, so I bid you farewell for tonight.

What happened in Duluth isn't staying in Duluth

So you know how I wrote briefly about our Duluth trip a couple of weekends ago? I did it deliberately because I have some big news: Chris and I are engaged!

We were walking along the harbor after breakfast Saturday morning, and we got to the end of the walkway behind the aquarium. We were staring out at the frozen water for quite a while and all of sudden Chris asked me. No, he wasn't on bended knee (he's an old man now you know!), but I enthusiastically said YES!

We got a ring at an antique store in Canal Park - here's a picture and I know my finger looks a bit creepy (the ring has been re-sized since):

Enjoy the video! Also enjoy Chris's post.