Airmiles - the dumbest loyalty card ever?!

Okay, so everyone is in a panic because your Airmiles that you have been collecting but are not using will expire after 5 years. (Eg: all of those hard earned miles from 2011 will expire this year unless you use them!)

I don't really collect Airmiles but I do have a loyalty card from back in the day. I decided to have a look to see if I had miles expiring and what I could trade them in for.

Well, today is my lucky day! Because I am an Airmiles member, I can avail of this WONDERFUL deal:

For 50 Airmiles points AND 95$, I can get a 100$ gift card to Thirfty's (and a few other stores). Um... what?! So I am paying 95$ for a 100$ gift card? What kind of lame deal is this?! You can get far better deals for giftcards using CardSwap Canada.

No bueno, Airmiles!!!

The Master Bedroom Update - pt Vb

Okay... so here is the finished look! I am loving the yellow/light grey/white combination... and I am especially loving the polka dotted duvet cover. Links below for where to get all of this awesome stuff! :)

Loving the yellow... and my hedgehog pillow cases!

We got our bed frame from the Urban Barn outlet! We got it for 1499$ (regular price is 2099)... and there was nothing wrong with it! I think it's the floor model from the regular store.. Super happy with this bed. It comes with 4 drawers (2 on each side of the bed). We are using two drawers for our snowboard clothes and the other two for linens (bed sheets and towels)

The mattress is from Endy. Endy is like Casper but it's Canadian, so you save some money and you get your mattress right away. This mattress is amazing! It's soft so it "hugs" you... but firm so you aren't sinking. It cost less than $1000... and we got it within a couple weeks or so after ordering! I have to say, I am liking these new-agey mattress companies! We were not forced to buy a box spring (those are so 1990s) and it came in compact packaging. 

As previously mentioned, the duvet cover is from Crate and Barrel. I know 160$ for a duvet cover is insane... but I love it!

The hedgehog pillow cases are from The Bay. They are adorable but not worth the price (I got them for 26$ for two pillowcases which is so overpriced!).

Everything else is from Winners! Even the duvet. I found a Sealy duvet similar to the one I got from The Bay for $79.99!!! So obviously, the one I got from $152 on sale went back!! The bedsheets and the yellow pillow cases are a brand called 'Habitat'.. and these sheets are sooooo soft! They are 100% organic cotton, 500 thread count sheets and they are the best sheets I've had! The standard pillow cases were $9.99 a pair (I got two pairs), and the king sized sheet set (with one fitted sheet, one flat sheet and two king sized pillow cases) were $59.99 per set! I will be buying a second sheet set soon because the sheets/price are amazing!

The Master Bedroom Update - pt V

Next up on the list: new bed sheets, duvet and mattress cover!

Okay, but first, can I complain about how expensive duvet covers are? Seriously, I cannot understand why they are $200+. Is that not insane? You can get bed sheet SETS (fitted sheet, flat sheet, 2x pillow cases) for way less than that!

I'm giving myself a budget of 550 (with tax!) to buy all of this stuff. Hopefully, I can stick to this budget because bed linens are so pricey! Keep in mind, I live in Canada where the prices/tax are high :(

Here's my shopping list
- Duvet
- Duvet cover
- Two sheet sets
- Mattress cover
- 4 Pillow cases

Ideally, I am going for a yellow, light grey, white/cream theme. Our new bed is a dark brown and I think yellow would be a nice contrast... and yellow and grey/white/cream look so nice together :)

First item purchased: A new duvet. I ended up purchasing the Sealy 'My Temperature Regulating Duvet' from The Bay yesterday during their one day sale! The king sized duvet was on sale for 152$ from 380$. Score! Unfortunately, I didn't realize mattress covers were also part of the one day sale yesterday... and I missed out. Alas, I will wait for another sale or hit up Winners/HomeSense!

Side note: The Bay is the strangest store for online shopping ever! They don't have a 'pick up in store' option... and they primarily ship with Canada Post... and Canada Post is incredibly frustrating and they might go on strike. Anyway, this duvet ships from a store (not their warehouse) and I know they have two king sized duvets at the store closest to my house... so one would assume that they would take one of the duvets at The Bay Coquitlam and ship it to me (it would be the cheapest and most efficient way to do this right?). However, The Bay decided to ship me one from Toronto.. using Canada Post... so we'll see if I end up getting this by end of July/early August.

Second item purchased: New duvet cover. I have been eyeing this duvet cover for a while, but for 260$ on sale, no thank you. Instead, I picked this up from Crate and Barrel. This set is actually the duvet I put on our wedding registry over a year ago... so it's good to know that I still like it one year later ;)

Photo Credit: Crate and Barrel

The only irritating thing is that this duvet cover doesn't come with pillow cases/shams as most duvet covers do. I guess this is good because we don't actually have king sized pillows (yet?)... but I feel cheated and think that 160$ just for a duvet cover is ridiculous! I actually stopped by Winners on my way back to work from Crate and Barrel to have a quick peak at their duvet covers.. but they didn't have anything that caught my eye... so I'll hold on to the one I bought for now and continue to look for better deals.

Third items purchased: New pillow cases! We don't have king sized pillows right now... and I needed new pillow cases because all of the ones we own are old... and the sheet sets I will buying will only contain king sized pillow cases #firstworldproblems. So.. I hit up the winners by my house and picked up standard pillow cases (2 for 9.99$!). I picked up a yellow pair and a white pair. I'm still thinking about whether I want to keep the white pair... I wish they had two yellow pairs available! :P

Fourth and Fifth items purchased: After struggling carrying the duvet cover home on the train on Thursday (who knew a duvet cover is so heavy!!!! Or am I just weak?), I drove to work on Friday so I could hit up the Winners by my work to get a mattress cover. I spotted one Thursday... but because I had already bought the duvet cover made of lead, there was no way I was going to carry both items on the train ride home! Since I drove, I was able to buy a mattress cover and I found a set of sheets in light grey (the perfect grey colour!!):)

Okay, so the breakdown:
- $170.24 for the duvet
- $162.11 for the duvet cover
- $22.38 for the pillow cases
- $67.19 for the mattress pad
- $67.19 for one sheet set

For a total of: $489.11.... which means I only have 61$ for the second sheet set :P I can make this happen (especially if I return the white pillow cases I am still not 100% wanting to keep ;)). In any case, we have enough sheets to get by for now (since we have the one my mom gave us) so I am in no rush to buy a second sheet set.

For now the bed is awesome. I washed all of the sheets, the mattress cover, etc and they are so soft!! Can't wait for the duvet to arrive so I can put everything together! :)

The Master Bedroom Update, pt IV

Okay... the mattress has been purchased/ordered and delivered!!! We get to sleep on this tonight:

We ended up going with Endy. It's less than 1000$ for a king sized mattress, it's getting great reviews... and we have 100 days to test it out (if we don't like it, we can get our money back!)

To increase the epic-ness of the sleep we will be getting tonight, we also picked up new pillows yesterday... and the pillows are awesome! So excited to be moving back in the master bedroom! :)

Next up, getting new sheets, a new duvet etc... is it Bay Days anytime soon?!?!? My mom accidentally bought a king sized fitted sheet earlier this year (she's got a queen sized bed) so she donated this to us.. but I want to go all out on the new sheets. We've had crappy sheets for so long but I was too cheap to buy new ones because I knew we were getting a new/bigger bed.

Also next up: getting awesome side tables (or custom making our own - I'm scouring the interwebs for designs that Bobby and I will both like)

Bobby's 30th Birthday!

Yesterday, Bobby turned 30!

We actually celebrated Bobby's birthday a couple of weeks ago at the Central City on Beatty Cask Fest... as mentioned many times in this blog, Bobby loves beer! So we rounded up the best of his friends and met up at the bar to drink and be merry :)

This past weekend, I decorated the apartment with 46$ worth of balloons. Yes 46$. Spending that much money at a dollar store is CRIMINAL and I almost passed out when the cashier told me how much the balloons and helium cost... but alas, you only turn 30 once... and these balloons are awesome! And there are so many of them that the entire house is decorated with balloons... even Bobby's bathroom! Haha... when you live in a 3 bedroom apartment, it's not hard to decorate all rooms with balloons :)

My aunt and uncle from the Philippines are in town. We had a welcome dinner for them on Saturday... and I brought an ice cream cake to celebrate Bobby's birthday. My cousin and his wife also ended up buying Bobby an ice cream cake... so lucky Bobby got TWO ice cream birthday cakes :)

By the way, Rocky Point Ice Cream is the only place I will buy ice cream cake from now on. We got the espresso flake cake and it was so good! Everyone loved it!

Happy 30th Birthday Bob-bob! I love you!