An orange paper door hanger was waiting for us with a check mark next to ‘you might have a leak’.

Our water bill has been a little higher, which started about 4 months ago, but I thought it was due to more laundry cycles (almost every day to every other day) doing pet beds and laundry from work and vacation trips.

Our water bill came in the mail and was $1080 for the month!

So the ‘maybe you have a leak’ turned into ‘we definitely have a leak!’

I spend the other day calling plumbers, some were not available in our area, some not available, but I was able to get a really great plumber referred by a friend.  He wasn’t able to come out that day, but was able to come this morning.

The leak was pretty noticeable in the front yard a few feet from the water meter was a pool of water.

Jeff (the plumber) started digging (about 4 feet down) and was able to find where the polyethylene tubing had cracked.  He was able to replace that section with copper but said that the whole line should be replaced at some point because the rest of it will eventually fail.

Jeff also went into the crawl space and found our hot water heater was also leaking and had rust water flowing out.  This was likely the cause of our higher water bills starting 4 months ago, and the leak in the front of the yard was what caused the 1k water bill.  So 1 leak turned out to be 2.

Jeff fixed the front yard leak, but we are going to have to replace the hot water heater which is likely another $400 purchase.  Fun stuff.

I have gotten into buying cute socks!  I used to just buy the multi pack of white hanes sports socks and was fine with that, but for the past month or so, I have been really into fun patterns and colours of socks.

I like socks with designs and decorations on the feet so you can see them (versus a design on the ankle part).  I wear slacks or jeans a lot so patterns on the top part of the foot are a must.  I got these this past weekend and love how colourful they are!

I had one last dance performance on November 30th, same dances performed this year for a charity event.  On December 1st, our dance teacher had an end of the dance year / Christmas Party.  We had tons of gits to open with drawings, played games, watched a movie, had yummy food, and went on a short walk to a green-way near her house that had the back yards of the houses all decorated with Christmas lights.  It was a short walk, but very pretty.  Also, they had a birthday cake for me and sand Happy Birthday ^^

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday!  We had a tree decorating party at my parents with a friend of mine and her mom, decorated mini gingerbread houses, and had yummy food.

We also later in the weekend, went to see the Nutcracker Ballet (photos taken with my iPhone) . . .

and went to see Gary’s parents, but I will do another post since we also celebrated my Birthday early ^^.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, we celebrated Thanksgiving and my Birthday (early) with Gary’s parents.  They took us to a nice lunch and I got this beautiful cat box, handmade by a lady in Thailand.  It is so much prettier in person than shows up in the photo (from the Novica website).

You can check it out here.  Novica has a lot of beautiful hand crafted pieces from all over the world.

It’s flu shot season and with my trip coming up, I needed to make sure I got my shot early.

This past week I got my flu shot at CVS. It was a quick process of filling out paperwork and getting the shot (I went around 2pm). I did though bleed some when I was given the shot which has never happened before but I seem to be ok!

Don’t forget to get yours, you barely feel a prick and its better than being knocked out for a few weeks being sick!

Today, when in was out shopping, I stopped in at Kirklands where they had Christmas decor out. It was a last minute thought to find something pretty and sparkly for my desk.

At first I thought of getting a mini/small Christmas tree, then I saw some cute metal and sequined gift boxes that were lit from the inside. I thought then that I wanted something that I could use a year round because I didn’t want to store a holiday decoration, so I found this lit cherry blossom tree. It’s even prettier in person and the photo on the Kirklands website doesn’t do it justice. The photo on the left is from their website and the photo on the right is one I took at the store.

When I was at target the other day I saw a light dimmer attachment which I might get to change the brightness for mood :). I think I will keep this on my desk for the holidays and then put it on the drawers in my bedroom for the rest of the year!

So I have been playing this game called Anipang, which is kind of like bejeweled but with cute animal faces.

It’s actually quite difficult to get a high score. Usually I get around 130,000 or on rare occasions 150,000 points.

But tonight I beat my highest score!!
I’m pretty proud of it 😀

I am hoping to beat even this score but it will probably take a while -haha

I bought this fan when I was in Charleston in one of the shops on King Street. I liked it because of all the colors and it was only $4 . . . I think I am going to hang it on a wall in my bedroom 🙂

This weekend I went to Charleston South Carolina with a few friends for a young adult book festival, YallFest.  We also walked around Charleston, had seafood at Fleet Landing, and went to Magnolia Plantation and Gardens.

We went to the petting zoo, walked around the gardens, and took the nature train ride – one of our friends did the house tour.  The plantation grounds were extensive and the weather was perfect.

There were deer, turkeys, goats, rabbits, grey squirrels, geese and ducks, a white peacock, and even an albino raccoon.

These were taken on the train ride.  We saw the swamp garden, lots of alligators, some blue herons, and turtles.

There was a swamp boat tour option, but we didn’t have time for it this trip . . .