I've been faithfully working on my banner. It's slow going but well worth it. I have 11 days left to finish it. I hope I can get it done. I've taken some pictures of it because I want to show it off. I am in LOVE with it.

My only worry is that it is too 'heavy' on the left with all the hands. I added the green bars on the right in an attempt to balance it all out. Does it work?

I am really enjoying the sun. It makes everything POP.

This is a close up of the sun. You can see that I'm doing the blanket stitch around all the sun pieces and the green bars. The sun is outlined in dark blue and the green in orange. It's slow going but worth it I think.

& this is a close up of the hands. I glued them on. I am going to do the blanket stitch around some of the hands (maybe half...time permitting).

Isn't it lovely? I'm very proud of myself.

PS. Yesterday didn't work out as planned. Andrew had several melt downs (including persisting in playing with Husbands new work tools) so i sent him to his room and he fell asleep at 5 PM. Husband ordered pizza, so we didn't have any leftovers. There was no park. & while we were on the last episode of ER, Andrew was sick and threw up EVERYWHERE and had a fever and was sick. So, the evening was full of surprises. *Sigh*

We leave for our 'camping' trip on Friday after my friend finishes work. I'll be glad to get away for the weekend.

I took 3 days off holidays this week so me and Husband could have some time before he starts his new job. Yesterday we sat and watched the final season of ER and I worked on my Banner. It's coming along quite nicely.

Today we went shopping for some tools he needs for the new job. We went to Petland so Andrew could look at the animals. We're thinking of getting Andrew a pet for his upcoming 4th birthday but we can't decide what to get him. I'm very PRO fish and husband is very PRO Hamster. We had some lunch at Applebee's and were looking for new sneakers for Andrew. It's hard to shop with a 3 year old. Me and Andrew are home now (Husband is still out shopping) and I'm exhausted from chasing him around everywhere.

I planted some Basil seeds today. I hope they'll grow. I've never planted anything from seed before.

The plan for the rest of the day is too eat up some leftovers from the freezer, work on my banner, finish watching ER and go to the park.

I've updated my side bars. Our EF savings is up to 73% of the first goal of 1K! Yay for us!

The LOC repayment is not happening as fast as I had initially planned as Husband needs to purchase some tools for his job so we are using my lump sum payment money for that. But it is being paid down and I am happy for that.

My Spare Change Challenge is up to $24.89. I'm quite pleased with that. It'll be good for when Christmas rolls around.

I've also increased our weekly saving from $39 to $40 a week. Infinitesimal I know...but we seem to work best with baby steps. Savings are going to look like this: $20 to EF, $18 to Holiday, $1 to House, $1 to Car. Sounds quite lame I know...but it's all about baby steps for us. Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby steps.

Anyways...it's taken me most of tonight to write this...so I'm going to hit post now. Have a great weekend everyone!

I've been working on the Welcome Banner for my church. It's very slow going, but I am enjoying working on it. I took a picture of what I've made for the center part of the banner. The pictures are not the greatest but they give you an idea.

My plan is to put that piece onto nice bright red felt in the middle. On the left is going to be the felt hands and on the right is going to be a sun with long rays.

I sewed the Welcome letters on and it took forever (2 evenings). I think the rest will be glued on. I bought glue that specifically said it was for felt so I hope it works. I might sew the sun on...but definitely not the hands. Especially not the hands because there is 28 of them!

Once I've made the banner I'll attach a dowel to the top and the kids will be able to carry it around at the beginning of each service.

I'm really enjoying creating this banner and working with the felt. I wasn't sure about it at first but once I planned the banner out and started cutting felt I started to enjoy it more. It's nice to try something outside of the crocheting for a change.

Voila! We all cooked together. Me, Andrew, and Husband. Husband did the filling and the prep work. I did the circles and pinching. Andrew put them on the baking sheet and basted with the egg.

It was quite good fun and pretty easy to make. You don't even make the dough. You get frozen pie crusts, let them thaw to room temperature, take them out of the pan and cut the circles out of that. Ingenius!

Husband is downstairs cooking supper right now. He's making chicken empanadas. I'll post pictures later tonight. I can't wait. :)

The big news is that........



HUSBAND HAS A NEW JOB!!!!


He went and signed the contract today. :) He starts June 1st. The job is for a company that takes out insulation and puts in insulation. Husband is going to be the office person-in training. He's going to start in the field so he learns the how the whole thing runs in the field and then will slowly transition into working in the office.

I'm so glad for him. We're off to celebrate tonight!

It's May long weekend in Canada. Monday is a holiday!

I've been having one of those work weeks where everything has been blah and everything I touch is full of mistakes. Needless to say I have not been able to focus. So, I said screw it and I booked tomorrow as a holiday day. 4 day weekend here I come!

I'm 99.98% sure that tomorrow I will have some fantastic news to announce. I don't want to post about it beforehand and jinx...so until then everyone just cross fingers and toes please. :)

Tomorrow the plan is to finish grocery shopping (got to go to bulk barn), go for a nice long relaxing walk in one of the city parks, go see a movie (X-Men), and go for a celebratory dinner. Written down that sounds like a lot...so some things might get cut...

My lump sum payment came today. Phew. I'm glad it made it here safe and sound. I go back and forth between feeling guilty and lucky and happy and selfish about the money. *sigh*

Originally we were going to put 2K onto the LOC, but in the end we decided that we will put 1500K onto the LOC and the other $500 will go into the holiday fund because we REALLY want to go to the UK in June 2010.

I put $40 into the EF, and $30 each into the Car and House Fund.

I've updated the Side bars accordingly...I just need to make one for the UK 2010 trip.

Happy Mother's Day! I love the vintage photo's of Mom's/Women. They always look so beautiful.

I slept in this morning. Got a plant from my little boy. Get to have steak for supper tonight. I'm set. What more could a mommy want?

I found this picture quite amusing too.

1. Wading Pool
2. Splash Pad
3. Take one of the city Hikes
4. Have a fire in our backyard
5. Fill up the pool in the backyard and turn the hose on
6. Visit Assiniboine Park and the English Gardens and the Fish Pond
7. Have Friends over to play a game
8. Go to the library
9. Take a walk to the park
10. Visit Grandma for the afternoon

I was hoping that my money would have come today...but it looks like it won't be here until Monday. :( Boo on them.

I've been working on a design for a welcome banner for my church's Family Sunday services. I made this mock up in Publisher quickly at lunch today.

The idea is that it will be made out of felt and the hands are hands of congregation members that I traced last week. It'll be lots of bright colours.

What does everyone think? It will involve a lot of sewing! I think I am going to go visit my Grandma.

We also have tickets to Star Trek for tonight! I'm soooooo excited!

It's official! The Lump Sum Payments are out! I should get mine in the mail tomorrow. Fingers are crossed and I'm saying prayers that I get it tomorrow and it doesn't get lost in bureaucracy land.

I've heard rumors that after taxes the checks are for $2,484. It's sad that it's taxed that much. I was budgeting to get $2500, but secretly hoping that it would be more like $3000 or $3500...but alas, I don't think that's going to happen. Anyways, free money is nothing to complain about.

This is the plan for the monies....

• 2K onto LOC (Yippee Skippee!!! -- this will bring our LOC total to $1,964)
  
• $20 to EF (slowly but surely)
  
• $20 to House Fund (baby steps)
  
• $20 to Car Fund (baby steps again)
  
• $40 to Holiday Fund (saving for long weekend in September)
  
• $100 ($50 each for spending on whatever we want)
• $150 for fantastic night out (cause we like to have fun)
• $134 to save for Andrew's birthday party and Andrew's birthday present (which is in 1 month)
  

I've been maintaining my Excel Savings Tracker for 2 months now. I love updating it every time money transfers into our saving account, or my payroll savings bond get taken off my pay, or I add change to my Christmas Spare Change Jar, or I get a check from PineCone Research. I'm also improving my skills with Excel, a program that I rarely get to use at work except for my little Excel Tracking Sheet that doesn't use any formula's.

According to my nerdy tracking in March we saved a total of $245.96. This includes everything: EF, Holiday Fund, Car Fund, House Fund, and Christmas Fund. Not too shabby! Seeing the numbers grow every week is an awesome feeling!

But wait! It gets even better! (excuse the exclamation points) In April we saved a total of $251.73!!!!!! $5.77 more. Small, but exciting to me.

I find it absolutely amazing and astonishing that all this started with $10 a week just over 1 year ago. Sometimes I get discouraged about the amount of debt we still carry (4K on the LOC and 14K on the Consolidation Loan and the mortgage) and I get upset at how slowly those numbers are going down. & it sounds silly to say this, but when I start feeling down about the money situation I open up my little Excel Savings Tracker and look at the amount of our total savings. That always makes me feel better.

Dinah is pleased.

I paid $100 onto the LOC this morning and now we are under 4K. yay for us! It's sad but it feels like a wonderful milestone.

:)

Today was the first Sunday that we had Family Sunday at my new/old church. It went so well! The minister got this fabulous resource book called "A Year's Worth of Children's Church" and we are going to use it to help plan the Sundays. It sets up each service into simple and easy to understand parts. Cheering, Sharing, Listening, Exploring, Singing, and Praying. I think it's a wonderful book and I can't wait to use it.

The minister did most of the work on this service and the theme was "Using Our Hands & Noah's Ark". I was solely responsible for the activity in the Exploring section and we finger painted! Each child made a lovely little poster that said "Our Feet Take Us To Where Our Hands Do God's Work" (I put up a picture of Andrew's Poster--he got distracted while he was stamping his hand...). After they did that they went wild finger painting on a huge piece of paper.

I also got my Mom to trace everyone's hands onto felt and I'm going to make a Welcome Banner out of them that the chldren will carry around at the beginning of the Family Sundays.

I really enjoyed myself today. Husband even came and helped! Andrew had a ball and so did the other kids. This really feels like the right thing for me to be doing right now. I feel connected to this and today I felt at ease with the children and helping to lead the worship hour. I felt more connected to God and to my Church then I have in a very long time. Today I did not feel like I was running blind. Instead it felt as if I was acting on behalf of a bigger entity. Today I realized that this is what going to church and being part of a church community and being Christian is supposed to feel like.

Praise be indeed!

PS. Just for good measure I'm throwing in a recent picture of Andrew being his silly old self. :)

We have saved 100% for the camping trip at the end of May! A big ol' pat on the back of my back. :P

I've added a new widget to start saving for our little camping trip that is scheduled for September long weekend. I've estimated that the cost will most likely be about the same for this trip and we should easily save the $215 by September.

Husband also wants to start saving for a trip to the UK in June 2010. His very close friend is getting married and he wants to go. He also wants to go and visit his friends and family. He's not been there since Andrew was born...so over 4 years. The UK trip will be the next big saving scheme.

the concert was lovely. leonard was lovely. his music was beautiful. everything was beautiful. i'm so glad that i had the opportunity seeing him perform live. it was an honour.

it was certainly hard to believe that he is 74 years young. it was also quite interesting being at a concert that had audience members ranging in age from their 20's to their 70's.

i heard every song i could have hoped to hear. from 'waiting for a miracle' to 'closing time' to 'hallelugiah' to 'the future'.

this is a much younger leonard, but i think this might be my new favourite leonard song.