Free Groceries!

While reviewing my finances today, I decided to take a closer look at my PC Points account – in a random discussion last night, Tom was interested to know when my Mastercard PC points get applied, at purchase or at statement date. The answer to that question is “around statement date, in this case the Friday before my statement was sent”.

But I discovered two rather interesting facts:

  1. I’m given a LOT of bonus points, in intervals of 50 or 100. I don’t really know WHAT these bonus points are, or what they’re for, but I’m pretty sure it’s not caused by using my PC Green Bags, those get rolled up into the total points per transaction.
  2. I’ve been able to cash my points once per month for $20 of free groceries.

A free $20 per month of food! I knew I was getting a good deal with the points, but I didn’t think it was THAT great of a deal! And it’s all thanks to my PC Mastercard. By using that card for regular purchases as well as non-Loblaws grocery store purchases, I’m raking in thousands of points. In fact, my recent Mastercard points addition was a shocking 15,000 points, which is pretty darn close to the 20,000 required for the $20 redemption. Of course, this is with me paying off the card in full every month (or so), so those who don’t have a stellar spending habit might have varied results.

I used to be a credit card poo-pooer, but in light of this analysis, I’ve realized that it’s a much better strategy to charge everything to my card, and pay it off immediately. That way I get points for EVERY purchase, everywhere!

Money doesn’t grow on trees, but it seems I’ve found a nice and tidy way to get the most bang for my buck.

Calzone

So we made pizza again yesterday, which was really awesome – due to having pizza last week, we had all the supplies on hand, thus making last night’s dinner essentially free!

We decided to make two larger pizzas, compared with four smaller pizzas the previous time. All in all, the big pizzas turned out great. For some reason Tom’s didn’t rise as much as mine, despite the fact that his was rolled out earlier than mine. Next time, I will proof the dough for 25 minutes compared to 45 minutes, and we’ll see if it rises more.

With the extra dough, I decided to try my hand at making a calzone for today’s lunch. I winged it 100%… and the results show this. It was baked 500 degrees for about 6 minutes, then left to cool and reheated in the microwave at work. To get it to fit my bread pan, I curved it into a smiley face shape. I totally forgot to put cheese in, which lowers the quality significantly. As well, the pinched ends are pretty disgusting to eat since its all bread and no filling. However, its overall integrity is very high, no cracks, no leaking, no explosion!

Calzone is definitely worthy of further exploration. Next time, I would half the dough and roll it thinner, add a bit of extra sauce, NOT forget the cheese, and work on creating a neater seam.

Stampin up!

I’ve been working hard on the stamp gallery. I’ve scanned all but a few packages of my stamps, as well as most of mom’s that I’ve borrowed. Of course, after seeing all the stamps, I have to indulge in them and create some neat pictures, so I’ll scan those once I get my scanner up and running.

Canada Day weekend was nice and long. We saw some fireworks from our window, though nothing impressive. We moved the couch into the lounging room in anticipation of the new one being delivered today, we’ll see how that goes!

I also got to use the Food Processor to its limits – we had pizza, all from scratch, all made by the FP. I had some dough left over, so I created a new dessert recipe using the dough rolled as thin as possible, coated with a quick covering of butter, then a coating of a white/brown sugar/cinnamon mixture. Cook for 10 mins or so at 400F, then let them sit for a minute while making an icing sugar drizzle. Serve baked goodie onto a plate, add drizzle, and there’s a delicious dessert!

Oh, I should have taken a picture. Boo. Gotta remember to do that. Actually, I have to simply get back into photography, it’s been awhile since I’ve uploaded anything to Flickr…

Yoga part two, and a note about stamps

So the day after yoga was a day where every muscle in my body was SCREAMING out to me in love and pain. Today I feel much better, just a bit of burn left in a few key muscles.

Yoga is so fun! And very interesting to say the least. So I went out to lululemon and bought myself a nice yoga mat for my Monday class. Can’t wait!

And now for the note about stamps. Jane gave me all her stamps as she is no longer using them in lieu of cake making. Mom also has lots of stamps, as well as tons of fancy papers and fibers and brads and all sorts of deco fun things. So I’m now working on a stamp archive type website, where people can not only list what stamps they have, but can make a ‘pick up list’ for exchanges, and various other things.

Of course, this means I have to photo every stamp to populate the db… so I’m gonna get back to that!

Yoga

I’ve just completed my first class of yoga today, provided by the gym here at Cognos.

Wow, was that ever intense! I was sweating at points. And my muscles in my hand are still twitching a bit. It’ll be interesting to see what I’m like tomorrow.

But… I really love it! Afterwards I really did feel some type of inner peace that I’ve never really felt before. Totally calm and relaxed.

I’m now a yoga addict!