Big Plans and Purchases!

Here I am at work, like a good little nurse....shopping! Don't worry--my patients are pleasantly sedated and breathing adequately :) But I digress. The big plans I am referring to is a)a home gym, and b)new flooring!

As for the home gym, this is the story behind that. My work recently started a reward program as a sort of incentive to work extra shifts. With each extra shift we work, we earn points that we can "buy" things with. They have all different sorts of things for all different point values, everything from jewelry, golf clubs, vacuums, furniture, and appliances to plane tickets, exercise equipment, generators, and hotel vouchers. So after much deliberation, Nick and I decided that we (I) wanted to get something that could BOTH use and that would not just get put away and forgotten about. I had two different types of home gyms to choose from, one was simpler and easier to store. The other was larger, more advanced, and more points. I decided to go with the simpler one because we don't need 214lbs of resistance to build muscles! Here is a pic of the one we are going to get within a week:

I am pretty excited about it! The 25lb dumbells that Nick was borrowing had to be returned, so now we will have something we can both use to get into better shape! We have plenty of room in our bedroom to set it up and then we can just fold it up and put it away when we are done.

The next big plan/purchase is new flooring for our living room. Some crazy person (probably a man!) put WHITE carpet throughout my house. Well the upstairs carpet is not so bad because not everybody walks around up there. But downstairs...that's another story. We have dirt tracks in front of the doors, spill stains, and chunks of carpet cut out. Yeah. So I informed Nick that we are going to replace it this year, and it will NOT be with more carpet. Wood laminate is the best option for us in the long run so that we do not have to worry about keeping it spotless before we sell the house in a couple of years.

Our downstairs area that will need laminate is just under 600ft, the rest is either tile or hardwood. And it is basically just a big L so it should be pretty easy--right?? I'm just going to jump right into it head first like I like to do, and won't look back until it's done. Now my ingenious way to pay for it--cashing in my PTO!

Since returning from maternity leave in September, I have earned over 100 hours of PTO (vacation time). I don't plan on taking any of it in the near future because I am only required to work 24hrs/week and can make my schedule around whatever plans I have. Soooo I added it up and if I cash in 100hrs of PTO I would get 90% of my hourly pay for it. And that right there will be enough to buy all of the flooring, with possibly some left over! Perfect, I know. I faxed the needed paperwork to my HR so I (in theory) should be seeing the money within a few weeks. Yay!