Oh My Jen

Milk

February 8th, 2010

Milk is usually $3.97 for a 4L bag, and yes, our milk comes in bags here in Ontario, as discussed during this post. Yesterday when I went to the store, I was dismayed to discover it had gone up to $4.19! I had to go to another store which is known as a budget store so I figured the milk would be chaper there. Nope, it was $4.29.

Yes, it was more expensive than the higher priced store!

As Kate would say, !!!

So this morning I’m off to Walmart to see how much their milk is. We go through a lot of milk in this house so you can understand my frustration. Sure it’s only 20 cents a bag but we go through at least three 4L bags a week. That’s 60 cents per week, $31 per year! That’s $31 I can certainly spend on something else!

I’m curious to know - what do you pay for milk in your area?

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Bubbly tummy

February 6th, 2010

Tonight we went to one of our favourite restaurants for the best Fajitas in the world! They make their tortillias from scratch and they are so soft and yummy! They are so good that even SweetiePie likes them! Tonight I let her make her own fajita - her first time. She was so proud to spread the sour cream on all by herself with the sharp knife (under my watchful eye of course).

Unfortunately now I have a bubbly tummy. I took two Tums so I hope that will take care of it.

Tomorrow I have to do grad pictures for my friend’s son. I have NO IDEA how to pose this kid. She wants something posed but she wants casual stuff too. She really didn’t like the pictures taken by the photographer the school hired. She showed me the proofs and they weren’t great. They had very dark shadows on the side of his face and looked like he had an ear missing. I’m pretty sure I can make him have two ears.

Hubby and I are toying with the idea of going down to Tennessee for a holiday in the summer. I’m not sure if we can pull it off. I have a wonderful friend, Melissa, that lives down there and I think I’d like to meet a couple of other bloggers along the way.

Can you say ROAD TRIP!?

Oh my tummy…I think it’s time for more tums.

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Starting the countdown!

February 5th, 2010

I have 5 days left of daycare! Yay! I will be a wee bit sad to see her go but more so for SweetiePie as she’s had someone to play with every day since May. It’s going to be a big adjustment for her. I’m going to make sure that we do lots of extra-curricular activities through the week to keep her occupied.

I’m also excited to rejoin the ladies fellowship hour at Kate’s church. I’ve really been missing that weekly inspiration the last few months and I get to see Kate on a weekly basis! How sweet is that?

I’ve also discovered that my hosting service offers a cheaper plan than the one I have so I’m going to switch to that one instead of canceling the service. It’ll save me $18 every 6 months - WIN! I’ll keep the blog up a while longer. One of the reasons why I hadn’t been blogging was because I felt like it was just negative stuff that I would blog about. I don’t like to spew out negativity. It just brings people down.

Next weekend I’m going to be photographing newborn Twins! They are being born today via c-section, probably already have been actually. I can’t wait to meet them! I have another newborn session on either Feb 20 or 21 (assuming baby isn’t 2 weeks overdue) and a third newborn session in March! Very excited about those!

Almost time to get the girls from school. I would rather have a nap! Until next time!

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So here we are..

February 1st, 2010

Almost 6 weeks since I posted my little ‘good bye’ and here I am posting again.

But I have news! No I’m not pregnant, Kate, sheesh!

I gave my two weeks’ notice to daycare girl’s mom today. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my chest. I have been struggling with this decision for a very long time. Part of me kept saying “do it for the money” and the other part kept saying “it’s not worth the stress”. Finally, I put it to God (which I should’ve done long ago) and his answer came to me today in that little girl’s voice.

SweetiePie and DCG were arguing about the slippers on SP’s feet. DCG was literally trying to take them off SP’s feet to put them away. I told her to let go and she threw the slipper on the floor, in my direction. I told her to go sit on the couch. She stomped over to the couch so I made her walk over again without stomping. Words were exchanged between her and I and then she said “my mommy told me I’m going to a new babysitter soon anyway!”

And you know what, I was glad she had said that. It didn’t hurt my feelings in the least.

During lunch, I asked her if she had only said that because she was mad. She said it was true and swore up and down she wasn’t lying. I told her I would ask her mom about it when I saw her. She didn’t flinch.

I pondered all afternoon, spoke to hubby, spoke to my friend and finally at 3 pm, typed out my resignation letter. I picked the kids up from school and her mom arrived at about 3:45. I told her that I would no longer be able to care for her daughter because my photography business was picking up (which is true). She wasn’t at all surprised. I think she saw it coming. The last few weeks have been difficult and I’ve expressed my concerns about the girl’s behaviour a number of times.

I asked her if she’d need help finding someone, and she said yes. That tells me she probably hasn’t been looking for someone else at all. I apologized that I had to resign but she seemed ok with everything.

I feel like a HUGE weight has been lifted off my chest.

I should’ve listened to God weeks ago. Why do we ignore Him when he’s pounding on our hearts? I need to listen more closely.

Sure, money will be tight but we will manage. I only have 4 more payments left on my car so come June we will be good. Hopefully we’ll be getting a nice income tax refund in March to help also. We can survive 4 months on one income. We will find a way.

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All good things…

December 18th, 2009

I’ve decided it’s time to close this blog. I’m not using it anymore. It’s just sitting here as wasted space. I’m not sure what to do about the 723 posts I have here. Does anyone know of a plugin where I can download the posts into a Word file or something like that?

This blog has seen me through the happy and sad times in my life, and I’ve made some wonderful online friends. If you follow me on Twitter, I’ll still be hanging out there. I just can’t justify paying for something I’m not using anymore.

In other news…

My beautiful son turned one year old today! I can’t believe he’s one already. What an amazing year this has been!

Ciao for now.

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Guess what!

November 27th, 2009

Remember that package I thought was stolen from the front of the house? Turns out that F*-Ex DID pick it up after all. I knew that it couldn’t have been stolen! My client had the packaged delivered along with an extra set of announcements. She ended up getting 50 announcements instead of the 25 she ordered. At least she didn’t have to pay for them.

I’m happy she got the package, but not happy that the people at F*-Ex are such dorks!

Fortunately they haven’t screwed up any of my other deliveries. I like using them because they’ll come to my door to pick up the package for delivery. I am not able to get to the post office without dragging three kids with me.

My busy fall season has finally come to end, and I’m enjoying a much deserved break! I will likely have a session on December 19th though. I’m just waiting to hear back from my client and you know what is really cool about this? It would be a repeat client that I did a session for on November 8! She obviously likes me…she really likes me, and my work of course!

I have decided that the daycare gig is going to come to an end sometime in the new year. Either my photography business needs to get busier or I need to find a part time job. I will probably let her go at the end of February as I don’t expect to be busy with the photography in the next few months. I need to get some newborn work during the winter months, but how is the question.

Let’s see, what else is going on….working on new business cards, looking forward to my birthday tomorrow, SweetiePie is bugging me for a drink of water, Munchkin is almost a year old.

Did I just say that - almost a year old?

!!!

Oh, and guess what - my external hard drive died a very serious death. I lost all the images of my son from over the last year. I also lost countless other images of my daughter as well as my photography portfolio. And no, I didn’t have a backup. I was suffering from “it won’t happen to me” syndrome. We’ve taken the drive to a data recovery place and they want $1950 if they recover the data. My insurance company is adjudicating a claim and if they’ll pay it out, then hopefully my data can be recovered.

Many tears have been shed over the past week over my drive. Now prayers are being said. I have a client that wants to order pictures but I can’t print them because their files are on that drive.

SweetiePie is looking over my shoulder wondering what I’m writing. She can identify letters but isn’t quite putting them all together yet. She’s telling me to type: uoatrhb (love SweetiePie).

She also likes to text Kate a bunch of gibberish. Kate always replies with “I love you SweetiePie!”

Ok, now I’m rambling. TTYL everyone!

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Numbers

November 8th, 2009

Here are some numbers for you:

$115 - that’s how much I won on the lottery last week. SCORE!
4 - the number of wordpress version updates I’m behind on
202 - the number of fans on my Facebook fan page.
3 - the number of client galleries I need to get done now!
2 - the number of sessions left for this year
37 - my husband’s age - Happy Birthday baby!
12:06 AM - The time it is. Why am I still up?

That about sums up things for me right now.

I’m looking forward to Christmas. I was hoping to have a bit more to spend on gifts this year, but alas, once again it’s not looking that way. Hubby really wants a Playstation 3. It has come down in price but it’s still $300. I’d love to get it for him. I really would. Perhaps if I get a couple of big orders over the next couple of weeks, that will help.

So many expenses, so little money.

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Is nothing safe?

October 30th, 2009

I had a package stolen from the front of my house yesterday afternoon.

I signed up with Fedex to use for my clients’ orders. I did my first shipment online on Wednesday afternoon but no one came. Thursday morning I called and they said it hadn’t gone through properly so they set it up for me. I had to go out at 1 pm so I put the package outside because we live in a safe neighbourhood where things like that don’t happen. When I came home at 3:20, the package was gone and my friend said she’d seen a Fedex truck pull up. Perfect.

Today I checked the tracking number but it said it was not found in the system. I called Fedex and they said that the driver did come but because he was an Express driver and not a Ground driver, he didn’t pick up the package. Apparently he noted in his system that he left the package at my house. That was at 2:11 pm. So, some time between 2:11 and 3:20, some asshole stole my package.

And do you know what was in that box? Birth Announcements.

Yes.

Birth Announcements.

I hope you’re fucking happy with them you son of a bitch!

Now I have to have them reprinted at my cost and have them direct shipped to my client from the printer. She won’t see the detail in the pretty packaging that I use, the cute ribbon I tied around the card box and the sweet pink envelopes I special ordered to make it special.

Nope.

She’ll get the annoucements shrink-wrapped and plain white envelopes, and she’ll remember that all this happened and not likely ever use me again. It was bad enough the first set of cards that came to me were printed incorrectly!

Anyway.

I’m done venting. I am so very disappointed this happened.

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Happy Thanksgiving

October 11th, 2009

This year I am thankful for:

My wonderful family and wonderful friends.
My photography business client base doubling, most of it happening in the last two weeks!
Being able to stay home to raise my children.
Having a wonderfully supportive husband.
Going to Jamaica in January!

Even amongst being thankful, I always take time to remember those who are no longer with us. Friday evening I found out my childhood friend committed suicide on September 29. Apparently it was her second attempt and her husband found her when he came home. I pray that her husband and son can find the strength to move on from this terrible tragedy and that the Lord will help their hearts heal.

May you rest in peace, sweet Shirley. You will be missed.