Gorgeous weekend!

The weather yesterday was beautiful, so Carlos and I took Julie on 2 walks. It was so nice to get out in the warm weather and smell all the lilacs - my favourite smell! I picked some and brought them home so now my kitchen smells like lilacs too!

I installed the Creative Memories photo software (Memory Manager 3.0) and it is absolutely amazing! I would highly recommend it to anyone who has photos on their computer. It is a great way to keep them all organized and you can do pretty much all the same editing as you can in photo shop! I am so impressed with this software!

Julie has been a little cranky in the last few days, which it totally not like her... I think she may be having another growth spurt and I think also her gums are bothering her... poor girl!

It was one year ago today that we found out we were expecting - wow, a lot has happened in the last year!

Just call me Jennifer!

Carlos' work has an internal newsletter type thing and he got the latest issue yesterday, which has Julie's birth announcement in it. It congratulated Carlos and his wife JENNIFER on their new arrival, Julie Erika. HAHAHA! The last birth announcement was for Carlos' coworker Andy and his wife Jennifer, so I'm thinking someone copied and pasted that one and forgot to change Jennifer's name to mine! So now, of course, Carlos has been calling me Jennifer.

Today is supposed to be a high of 26 degrees - yay! I'll have to make the most of it and take Julie for a walk this afternoon!

Good loooong weekend!

I had a good long weekend with my hubby and baby. Carlos had Thursday and Friday of last week off, so we had 5 days together - it was great! We did lots of errands and got a lot accomplished. We were planning to go to the cottage from Saturday until yesterday, but Saturday was rainy and gross, and Sunday was really cold. So, we ended up going just for the day yesterday. It was beautiful and I can't wait to go out there lots this summer!

I am really excited about Creative Memories. I hope I can be successful at it and at least meet the quota. I guess we'll see! My mom is having an open house for me on June 7th, so I'm hoping that people place orders and book get togethers at that event.

My sister-in-law-to-be asked me to do a reading at the wedding. Yay! I'm so glad they included me. Can't believe it's less than 3 weeks until my brothers wedding - WOW!

I am now a CM consultant!

I'm excited! My website is here

I haven't done much with the website yet, but it is up and running! So, check it out if you're interested. If you would prefer a paper catalogue, let me know, and I will mail one to you when I receive them next week. You can place any orders through my website and have them shipped directly to you. One thing to note: for orders less than $100, they will charge you $8 in shipping (orders greater than $100 are charged 7%). As to not discourage anyone from placing a small order, I have decided to reimburse anyone who places a less than $100 by mailing a cheque for the difference between that and the 7%.

I had a wonderful mother's day. Carlos brought me breakfast in bed! And he bought me 2 planter boxes for on the back deck; I can't wait to put some flowers in them!

More thoughts

I woke up with a splitting headache and feeling nauseous this morning - fun. I can't complain though, I have been the picture of health in the last year or so - not even so much as a cold. So, a little headache here and there is to be expected I guess.

Last night, I had a meeting with my mom's friend who is a Creative Memories consultant. So, I got a bunch of information and got to see all her product that she has at her house. I was blown away with how nice some of the stuff is. They have stuff for every level of scrapbooking: albums that you do from scratch, albums where all paper and embellishments are included so all you add is photos, but you place stickers and things, and they even have albums where all you do is slide in photos. So, there really is something for everyone. And the catalogue really doesn't do them justice; they are spectacular in real life! They even have digital scrapbooking where you create an album on your computer and then order prints of your album which come as a hardcover bound book.

So, I will think it over for a few days and make my decision as to whether I want to try my hand at being a consultant. I'm leaning towards yes since there really is no risk. If I try it out and find the quota too hard to meet, then I can just order whatever I want for myself at my discount and then leave. No big deal.

Oh, Julie calls.

My bro is a home-owner!

My brother is working hard on the renos at his new house. I went to see his house when he got the keys on Friday and is it ever nice! The house is a cozy 3 bedrooms bungalow(one of the bedrooms is really small though, so it's more suited to use as an office) and their yard is amazing! It's HUGE! And they have a 2-tiered deck out back, which is awesome. I'm so happy for them! And the wedding is one month tomorrow - wow!

We took Julie to the zoo in town here for the first time on Saturday. And she slept the entire time! We had a little picnic lunch and then wandered around to look at all the animals - the squirrel monkeys and meerkats are my favourites!

I don't have much on this week, which is nice. On Thursday evening, I am going to meet with my mom's friend who is a Creative Memories consultant. I have a list of questions for her and I will decide whether I want to sign up to be a consultant. I can always try it out and if I find the quota too hard to meet, then I can just buy whatever I want to for myself at the discount and then let it go. I'll see what I think after my meeting on Thursday, but I think I would like to give it a try.

The only thing I'm not sure about is how that would affect my EI payments. Being a CM consultant would mean I was self-employed for that, so I would only declare my income at tax time. But for EI, if you make any money, you have to report it on a bi-weekly basis. Initially, I wouldn't make any money at CM since I would need to purchase the starter kit and some other supplies to make as demos, which would be business expenses. So, it would be a few months before I broke even. With EI, you can make 40% of your EI benefit without it affecting your payments, so I could make $180/week and still get the full benefits from EI. And I would make much less than that with CM. I'm just not sure how I would report income to EI when I'm not getting a paycheck or anything... hmmm... Guess I'll have to figure that out.

Big Day

So today is the day my brother gets the house. Hopefully. I guess there was some sort of snag with the land, there was a part of it that was illegally severed or something, which may set things back. But the lawyers are working hard to make sure it closes today as it was supposed to. So hopefully they get the keys today like they want! Al has already packed up most of his stuff and is eager to move in! Hard to believe, my little bro moving out... and getting married in 5 weeks!

I am still considering signing up to sell Creative Memories. The quota is actually $600 every 3 months. I want to find out what happens if you don't meet that. Because I could always try it out and see. At the very least, I could get the stuff I want at a discount. I know my mom has a bunch of stuff she wants to order, and she has offered to have an open house type thing at her house and invite a bunch of people so I can show people the stuff. And my soon-to-be-sister-in-law has said that she will have a workshop/party after the wedding. So, I'm sure I would meet the quota for the first 3 months right there.

So I haven't made my final decision yet, my mom is getting some more info tonight from her friend that is a current consultant. The nice thing is, there are only 4 CM consultants in my town, so it is a relatively untapped market. And I don't even have to stick to my town, people can order from the website and have things shipped directly to them, which is a nice feature (I will have my very own website within the general CM one). I just figure I have so many friends in the getting married and having babies mode, now is the time most people want to preserve their memories and create lovely albums to keep forever! And the CM albums really are MUCH nicer than anything at Michaels. They are a bit pricey, but I think the quality is unmatched. And they have both traditional and digital scrapbooking items, which is good so there is something for everybody. And I have heard that their photo editing software is amazing (my mom says it is better than photo shop, but I want to try it for myself).

So I am excited to get more information about this. I am not really thinking of it as a part time job, but more of a hobby where I can get stuff at a discount and learn new things, and if I make some money at it, then great.

An update on many things

Saturday was the bridal shower for my sister-to-be. I took Julie and she wore a dress for the first time ever. She wore the dress that lj bought for her and it looked adorable! I took a picture, but it was with my mom's camera, so she has the pic, I don't have it yet. Julie look adorable :)

Not much else happening around here. Our eaves work is being finished up right now, so they will be done before lunch today. I want my dad to come have a look at the work tonight and then if he says everything is okay, I will pay the invoice tomorrow. Home ownership is expensive! But that work was long overdue. We also have to get our chimney repaired, but I am hoping we can wait until the fall or even next year for that. And our shingles are almost 20 years old... it never ends! But that was to be expected, our house is almost 100 years old.

Operation declutter is going well. I am still working on the office. I moved all my scrapbooking stuff to the main floor, which will be much better. I bought a cheap $90 pantry at Wal-mart and we put it together yesterday to house all my scrapbooking stuff and that opens up some space in my office so I can actually put some office stuff away.

Oma is doing better. They have her on 2 new meds to help prevent further strokes, so that's good. She seems to be back to her old self. I'm wondering if this latest stroke will make her memory even worse, but I guess only time will tell on that one.

Tomorrow, I am going out for dinner with the girls from work, so that will be fun. I do miss the people I work with. Don't really miss work yet, but definitely the people. I'm starting to think about what I'm going to do when I have to go back to work. Since I have 8.5 months before I have to go back, I am considering all sorts of possibilities. I know I will have to go back, I just hope I can do some sort of part time schedule and maybe even work a couple days a week from home and only be in the office 1-2 days a week. That's my ideal situation. My mom has the type of job where she only has to be at the university for maybe 10 hours a week, so she is open to babysit a lot, which is great.

I am even considering other types of jobs too. I guess they would be in addition to my regular job since I don't want to give that up completely. My mom thinks I should sell Creative Memories (scrapbooking items), but I think there is a minimum sales requirement you have to meet each quarter, which I don't want. I do love their products, but I don't want any pressure. I sold Avon while I was in highschool. Didn't make a whole lot of money at it, but it was fun. I also didn't put in a lot of effort though, so maybe I could make more money at it if I put in more effort. Although in these tough economic times, I'm sure people aren't wanting to buy as much. I'm just thinking of the endless possibilities at this point. The 'top-up' from my company ends in July, at which point I will only be getting the maternity benefits from the government, so I guess I'll wait and see how we deal with the reduced income.

Oma is okay

I just phoned the hospital to get an update and Oma is doing okay. Her symptoms have resolved, so they will likely be sending her home this evening. It was a very mild stroke, so they didn't need to do any treatment other than just watch her since for the first 24 hours, she is at a greater risk for more severe strokes. So, as of this afternoon, we can relax a bit.

Poor Oma

My mom just called to let me know she had to take Oma to the hospital... I guess she had another mini-stroke (she's had 2 or 3 in the last 5 years or so). They are waiting for some test results and will keep me posted. I hope she's okay!

Drowning in Papers

I decided to try to work through some of the mess that is my office and it's a huge job! I am in a ruthless cleaning up mood, so I figured I should take advantage of it. I can't believe all the crap I have kept! I really want to get my house a little more organized, so this is a start at least.

The company we hired is starting on our eaves/soffit/fascia today, so it may be done by the end of the week - yay! Our plan for this year is to get the outside of the house fixed up. New eaves/soffit/fascia is happening now, and then later on this spring we want to repaint the window sills, garage, and roof over the back deck. I think Carlos is planning to take a couple days off in May so we can get this done. We also really need to get our chimney repaired, but that will have to wait until either the fall or next year since this work on the eaves is quite expensive. Owning an older home is a lot of work! But, I think the work this year will make a huge difference on the outside.

Good news and bad news

I'll start with the bad news... we think there is something wrong with Gino (one of our cats). I was out all day yesterday, but when I got home, he was favouring one leg and obviously in pain. I don't think it's a problem with the leg, but maybe his hip from the way he was walking. So, I'm going to check on him this morning, and if he's still limping around, I'll have to take him to the vet today to have him checked out. I hope it's nothing serious! Poor guy...

And the good news - we're having a new fridge and stove delivered today! We bought the set on the weekend since we found a really great deal - both for $999! No more beige and brown 'wood' trim appliances from the early 80's! So we should notice a difference on our electricity bill! They are "stainless look", so they are not actually stainless steal, but look like it. Actually this is better than stainless since it doesn't have that smudgy look that is so hard to keep clean. The stove is self cleaning which I really wanted and it also has the smooth cooktop, which is awesome! We got the very last set (they are selling them all off since they don't make that colour anymore). There is also a matching dishwasher, but we decided not to get that right now. They had lots of the dishwashers left, so we could always get it a few months down the road if we want to. We have gotten by this far without a dishwasher, so we'll wait on that one. And even if we don't get the matching one, a black one would look good since there is also quite a bit of black on the fridge and stove.

And even more good news - for the last 3 nights, Julie has slept for 9 hours! YAY!

EDIT 9:39am

Gino seems to be a bit better this morning. Still limping, but not as bad. So, we're going to keep an eye on him today and see if he gets better. If not, we'll take him to the vet tomorrow to get checked.

Our new fridge and stove arrived at 8:15am this morning - they look great! The funny thing is, we used our tax refund to pay for them and last year, we used our tax refund to pay for our washer and dryer! And both years, we bought our new appliances on the Saturday of the Easter long weekend. I found that funny.

Happy Birthday to my hubby!

Today is my hubby's 31st birthday! I have booked my mom to babysit Julie so that Carlos and I can go out on a date. I can't wait! I'm going to get all dressed up for a night out with my man ;)

Julie is amazing! The last 2 nights, she has slept for 8 hours - wow! I couldn't ask for a better baby! :)

I went to the bank yesterday and set up an RESP for Julie. For any babies born after 2004, the government contributes at least 20% of how much you contribute (could be up to 40% based on your income). So, that is too good of a deal to pass up on! A minimum 20% return on your investment plus whatever return you get on the money invested (ours is invested in a specific mutual fund called the "Target 2025 fund" which means for the first several years is it invested in mostly equity (high risk, but high potential for return) and then as it matures, it slowly decreases the portion of equity and increases the portion of guaranteed funds so that by close to the time you need the money, it is invested very low risk. Right now we are just starting with a low monthly amount, but we can always increase it when we have more money. And if we have any more children, we can add them to the same plan too.

Today I am making phone calls to try to get some estimates to have our soffit, fascia, and eaves replaced on our house. It will be an expensive thing to have done, but it is long overdue and we figured now would be the time to do it with the new "2009 Home Reno Tax Credit". We are also flirting with the idea of upgrading our kitchen... but again, an expensive job. We will definitely price things out though.

Busy girls!

Mom and I finished the wedding invitations for my brothers wedding yesterday. They look amazing! For some reason, my brothers fiance who is usually incredibly organized, is being a somewhat disorganized bride, which really surprised me. Good thing she has me to get things in order! I really think I should be a wedding planner in my next career, I really enjoy it. I guess the only downside would be working with bridezillas ;)

Last night we had a little birthday party for my mom, whose birthday is today. So that was nice. We gave her a little engraved photo frame with this photo in it:



I took my mom out for lunch yesterday in honour of her birthday (since she is fully booked for today), and that was the first time I went to a restaurant with Julie. She was an angel! She slept for most of it and when she was awake, she was happy in grandmas arms. Not a peep out of her the whole time!

Other good news: for the second night in a row, Julie slept for 7.5 hours - awesome! I really couldn't ask for a better baby! She's so happy and smiley 99% of the time she's awake, and she's such a great sleeper!

Julie = jumbo jet!

Today's appointment went very well. Julie now weighs 11 pounds, 5 ounces! So she gained 18 ounces since her last appointment 2 weeks ago. Little piglet! Carlos calls her a jumbo jet since her initials are JET and she is growing like a weed!

They also did her measurements and she is now 61 cm long (vs 51cm at birth), head circumference is 38 cm (vs 33.5 cm at birth), and chest circumference is 40.5 cm (vs 34 cm at birth). So, she is growing well! The midwife gave her a good look over and said she looks great and she has no concerns at all. She even took her footprints and put them on a certificate for us. She gave me a big hug when we left and encouraged me to drop in whenever I liked; they would love to see me and Julie again.

So, we are now officially discharged from the midwives care. They were absolutely amazing and we will definitely use them again! I cannot say enough good things about them; I am so glad we decided to use them!

Love the new ride!

We picked up the new car last night when Carlos was done work. Since my mom was happily babysitting, we decided to go out for dinner to celebrate. That was the first time we've been to a restaurant since Julie was born, so it was nice to get out just the 2 of us.

Our car is awesome! Lots of power! It has about 10 hp more than Zeke, so it can really move!!! And I love the tinted windows, it was worth the extra $200. And we also got roof racks which I don't think were supposed to come on the car we paid for, so that was a free bonus! I drove the car home from dinner and we took a bit of a detour so I could spend some more time driving the car.

We ordered a second base for Julie's carseat, so that will be nice to have. That way, we have one in each vehicle, so it will be easy to trade back and forth since I want to drive the new car sometimes too ;)

Oh, and I am already about 1/3 of the way through "Twilight"... it's good so far!

YAY!

We just got the call that our car is in! They will do the rust and fabric protection tomorrow and we get to pick it up tomorrow evening! YAY!!!!

Twilight has arrived!

My Twilight books arrived this morning, so I am excited to start reading them. Are they ever long! That's good though, should keep me entertained for awhile ;)

Looks like we won't be getting the car until Thursday now. The AWD models have been selling like hotcakes and there were 3 available in Ontario going into Saturday, 2 sold on Saturday, so we got the very last one. And it's coming from the Niagara region, so it will take a little longer to get here. The only thing is it has tinted windows, which they are charging an extra $200 for. We tried to get them to throw that in for free, but no luck. Oh well. Tinted windows might be a nice thing to have in case I have to nurse Julie in the car or something. So, I think it's a good thing. And $200 is only an extra $5 per month, so no biggie. Funny that we got the very last silver AWD one in Ontario! All other colours were sold out except white. And we didn't want white. Guess lots of people took advantage of the 0% financing deal!

We should find out today whether we are approved for the financing loan, so then it will be all official - yay!

We fell in love...

...with the Matrix! We went to Toyota yesterday and had a look at both the 2009 Matrix and the 2009 Corolla. We test drove them both, and I definitely liked the Matrix better; it has an all wheel drive option and I just like the look of it better. Since we will be keeping it for a long time (we tend to drive our cars forever until something happens like the engine threatens to fall out), I really wanted to get a good car that will last us a long time and I really wanted all wheel drive. I absolutely love Zeke and I have never once gotten stuck or lost control while driving him and I have had him for almost 8 years. So, AWD was important to me, especially now that we have Julie. I honestly could not think of another car besides the Matrix that I like that has an AWD option.

We both drove it and I absolutely love it! Once we went back into the dealership and crunched all the numbers, we said we would have to go for lunch and think about it, and they offered that we could take the Matrix with us when we went. So, we took it back to my parents house to show them. I wanted my brothers' opinions since they are both car guys. They both think it is a really good car.

Since the 0% financing deal was only on 2009 models (since they are selling them off to get ready for the 2010), there is only a finite number of them in Ontario since they are no longer making the 2009 model. So, if we wanted to get the 0% financing (which is only on until March 31), we decided to get one yesterday so that we would be sure to get one. The AWD ones are really popular and they are running out quickly. They only had 3 colours left in Ontario: one dark grey (which would be extra money to get since it was hours away), silver, and white. So, we thought about it for while, and we decided to get a silver one. The one we test drove was silver and it tooks awesome. And we figured silver won't show scratches as easily as something darker.

We were able to get a $700 discount through Carlos' connections, which was awesome! And they offered us $1000 trade in value for the 98 Corolla, so we were very happy with that; we thought we would be lucky to get $500 considering all the problems it has.

Here are the deets: 2009 Toyota Matrix XR AWD, Silver, 2.4L 4 cyl engine, 158 hp, automatic (the AWD only availabe in Automatic), 17" Alloy wheels (yay!), and all the bells and whistles like AC, cruise, power windows, doorlocks, and mirrors, keyless entry, heated mirrors, CD/MP3 player, 6 speakers, input jack for ipod (which I think is awesome), audio controls in the steering wheel, outside temperature gauge (sweet; I've never had that before), the rear seats and front passenger seat fold down flat which is handy if we have something large to fit in, etc.

We are very excited! We get to pick it up on Wednesday likely. Which gives us a couple days to figure out insurance. Carlos and I have been meaning to get on the same car insurance policy for awhile, so this is the perfect time. We'll get quotes from both of our current companies and go with whatever is cheaper. Carlos deals with a broker, so they should be able to get us a good price.

Lost in the matrix...

The Toyota Matrix has caught our attention. We are going to go to Toyota on Saturday to check them out. For the month of March, Toyota has a 0% financing on the 2009 Matrix (and a few other cars). I think many dealerships are doing this actually because of the recession we are in. But, for people in the market for car... you can't beat 0% financing! So, in addition to looking at used cars, we will also check out a new one for comparison.

Carlos' workplace does the ads for Toyota, so we have some connections... Hopefully we can use those connections to get a good deal if we decide to go that route ;)

I have my mom lined up to babysit on Saturday so we can spend the day car shopping and going to a few places in town... should be fun!