In other news, the wedding plans are still slowly coming together. We finished off creating the invitations, which I have printed, cut and folded, they are just waiting to be addressed and posted now. My next crafty job is to work on the wedding favours, at least I think that’s what they are called, the little gifts for each guest, I have a plan for those. I still need to arrange the suit hire for the boys and work my calender of events out for the time that everyone is over visiting from home. I can’t wait to see everyone!

My immigration plans took a knock today when we couldn’t make it to my medical exam due to the weather. We had freezing rain here this morning, and by all accounts Fredricton, the location of my examination, was hit much worse. It’s not too bad though I managed to reschedule for the 3rd of May, which isn’t too far away.

www.paul-lancaster.com

I’m now using the Wordpress platform over there too, so I’ll be archiving this old Blogger Blog into my Wordpress site eventually, but for now it will just remain here in the /blog area until I get around to integrating them. Remember to change your links.

Cheers,
Paul

On the subject of little beans, this week will see the exciting launch of Crystal’s illustration shop Little Beanz. Specializing in fine art prints, which will focus on celebrating childhood by highlighting an exceptionally unique little darling in each illustration. You can see some sneak peaks of her work over at The Micawber. But the shop will be launching on this coming Friday at 2PM EST. So don’t forget to check that out at www.littlebeanz.com. I’ve been helping out with banners and such for her shop and starting to put together flyers and posters for the launch too.

Apart from helping out with Little Beanz. I’ve also been starting to put together my own T-Shirt blog T-Shirt Advocate. Over the last year or so I have spent a lot of time on various T-Shirt sites and Blogs and thought it was high time I jumped on the bandwaggon. It will be a good learning experience in the worlds of webdesign, online marketing and “pro blogging”, 3 things I am intending to persue when my Visa is eventually sorted. Which reinds me, I was supposd to be doing a post entitled “priorities” listing my priorities right now, (immigration being the first one). My theory being that if I get things down on here then it will give me more incentive to get them done, a reader moderated ‘to-do’ list if you will. Getting back to T-Shirt Advocate though, the aim is to write about my favorite T-Shirts and shops and to research and report on different avenues for designing, printing and selling T-Shirts.

One last note, on the mirror I posted about, Crystal actually ended up painting it, and I cleaned up the glass and added hooks for our keys. I think it turned out really well, especially considering it was only 2 dollars…

Speaking of picture frames, we also have a bunch more that are ready to be painted black too, to fit in with the rest. I can’t wait until all our decorations are up, although it already totally feels like home here, it will be even better when all the picture frames are on the wall instead of the floor.

…I actually planned on starting all of this today but I went out to pick up Avie a new car seat. She is getting so big! I shopped around and managed to find a good one for a decent price, and then I had to head to the Honda dealer to pick up an anchor bolt to hook it up to our car. It’s all set up now though, Avie is going to love facing forward, she loves to see what is going on so it will be exciting for her I’m sure.

So that’s all my news for today, I’m off for a quick rock out on Guitar Hero before Crystal makes me watch Pop Idol. I’ve not really paid much mind to all the Pop Idol shows over recent years, except for a brief stint following Barnsley’s own Sam Nixon. I mean, if I wanted to watch bad Kareoke I’d be down at the KV Billiards, but that being said I really did enjoy watching This Guy! I’ve had the song in my head for the past week now.

The meat was the best part of it though, really succulent. Now that I have given the cooker a whirl I think I will be more adventurous next time, put my own spin on it and add a few extra vegetables (and I might even put turnip in it Crystal!).

The movie had a really fitting soundtrack too, thinking about which really makes me want to go play guitar, which I think I will do for a while before Avie wakes up. Overall Juno definitely gets a recommendation from me.

The next step is to organize all my social networking and online community accounts. I used to be involved in a couple of online communities, but I don’t really keep up with any of them anymore. I know I have unanswered friend requests and emails all over the place. So it will be good to catch up and just keep on top of things. Then my digital life will be pretty straight.

Next is to organize my real life, our new home office is going to be a big help in that. Actually having somewhere to keep paperwork and carry out projects without taking over the whole house is going to be awesome. Crystal has been getting crafty in here the last few days, she is actually out now picking up fabric to make some cushion covers. I’m quite excited to get a couple of crafty projects going myself too. I’ll be blogging about them soon.

So that is my mission of the day, to delete my unnecessary online baggage. Or at least it has been my mission of the day, which I have been failing on. But now that I have my mission down on paper, or at least in text form right here, maybe my path to success will be more clear.

The new apartment is working out really well for us. In our old place it was always a struggle for me to keep Avie contained while Crystal did her work, what with our “office” being right in the living room and all. Now that we have a separate office/studio Crystal can lock herself away and do her work while Avie has the run of the rest of the house. That doesn’t stop her from wanting to crawl down the hall to bang on the one door that is always closed though! She always gets super excited when she does get to sneak in to Mommy’s work zone, she is too cute.

The office/studio (still can’t decide on the official title) itself is coming along nicely, we are still getting settled in and finding a place for everything though, but it is starting to take shape. We picked up an adjustable drafting table, with the money my Nannan and Grandad sent us for Christmas. Which Crystal and I have both put to good use today cropping images to put up on the walls. Crystal also uses it a sewing table for the little sewing machine I bought her. We also both got cork pin boards (another part of my getting organized lifestyle) to pin up notes and inspirational ideas. We are thinking of painting a mural on one of the walls in our office too. It will be awesome when it is all organized and finished. I’ll post more on our office/studio later, when I can post photos after I do the video for my family.

I could go on and on about our apartment. Everything about it is leaps and bounds more comfortable that our old place, not that we had a rough time there or anything, it was a nice place. But I definitely don’t miss having to go through the shared laundry room to get to our bathroom or having to shut off the TV and living room lights before we could use the microwave (it would overload the circuit or some shit every time we used it!). We are definitely both excited about our new life here.