Fifty By 50: Farewell to 2023 and Welcome 2024! (Dec.31, 2023)

I wanted to be more productive today than I was yesterday so the first thing I did today when I got up was some crafting.

I got a few more coats of paint on all the reindeer I have on the go then I got this little tree finished up.

I like how it turned out.

I have a LOT of grow coming in so I decided to try putting a hair dye in myself.

I might not get full coverage but that's ok.

I had a few different colors of dye in my stash so I picked a light brown one.

I got it put in as best I could then left it on for the 25 minutes it called for.

Actually left it on a few extra.

You can see that my roots look a bit lighter than the rest of my hair but at least they aren't grey so I'm happy with that.

Jason was busy himself at work today.

He said he was proud of the work that he did today.

He was making fun of the sign - why Men/People and not just People?

Strange.

I was meeting my friends at a restaurant in Whitecourt for supper tonight (5 pm at Mr. Mike's) so I headed there a little bit early so I could do a few things first.

I stopped at the Dollarama to see if they had any Christmas picks.

I saw some there just before Christmas that I really liked and they did have some left, I bought all that they had (which was 15 of them).

They also had 5 wooden trees like the ones I've been making so I got those too.

Then just other random stuff like new measuring cups and spoons and some felt and blankets for crafting.

I stopped at Walmart for a few things too - wanted to check out their Christmas sales - they didn't have much left.

Nadine wanted me to stop at this craft store in town to have a look at this horse they had in the window.

She wants to try to make one.

It was hard to get a picture without the glare.

It is super cute though - I think it would be fairly easy to make too.

Then it was time for me to head up to dinner,.

I was meeting Nadine and Karl, Bonnie and June and their daughter Kayla and her finance Nathan.

I asked the waitress to take out picture and she kindly obliged.

I had the steak oscar and I got chimichurri sauce on the side with it and it was fantastic.

I also got a slice of sticky toffee pudding for dessert which was so delicious but it tipped me over the edge from feeling good to over full.

It was worth it though.

I was supposed to babysit for Kody and Haylee but they decided to just go to a friends' place and took the kids with them so I went to the casino with Bonnie, Nadine and the rest.

I took out 50 to play and lost it right away.

I wasn't going to spend anymore than that but I was just sitting there watching everyone else and got bored so I decided to get 40 more out.

I put in 20 and won 40 which I cashed out then I put the other 20 in and ended up taking out 50 so overall, I broke even which was perfect!

From there we all went to Bonnie's to hang out and play games and so that Bonnie, Nadine and I could exchange our Christmas Gifts.

The both gave me clay molds which I loved.

Nadine gave me the IOD pumpkin one and Bonnie gave me a tree one she found online and a trim one..

While I was there, Kody called me to say that Freya wanted to come over so I got him to drop her off at Bonnie's.

She took my phone and settled on the couch so I visited for a bit longer but left around 11 pm.

She was getting tired and so was I.

Jason was already in bed because he has to work in the morning but Freya went right in and woke him up.

He got up for a few minutes to see her but then went right back to bed and we weren't long following him.

Didn't make it to midnight but I don't normally do.

I've been thinking about resolutions or goals for 2024 though since tomorrow is the first day of the new year and it's always exciting and feels like a fresh start.

I'll write more about it tomorrow and look back at what my goals for 2023 were but I will mention 2 goals that I have for 2024.

The first is that I'm going to bump up my daily step goal from 13,000 to 14,000.

I was considering going to 15,000 for next year but then decided that that was too big of a jump.

Then the other goal I have is to run at least 30 minutes per day for the whole month of January.

I can do it!

Crystal posted some pictures from the kids trip to Edmonton and I'll share a few of those here.

I love that it looks like they were having so much fun.