Freezer Meals, an update

I believe I have sampled all the freezer meals I had made. All were delicious, but I have a few tweaks for the next batch I do:
-try pizza spaghetti with pizza sauce
-for Rachel's casserole I will cook the pasta less (more al dente), add more green peppers, and make bigger portions or maybe just more meat to pasta ratio
-for the stirfry, I dont think I'll precook the veggies. They came out a little too soggy for my liking. However, I think I would package my veggies separately, in fry order.

That all I can think of right now.

Party Favours

My mommy group had our 5th Anniversary so we threw a party. I wanted to "get my craft on" so u made these favors. The crayon packs for the kids & tea bag satchels for the mommies. So cute & so fun ;-)

Mourning the Loss of My HouseHusband (Again!)

Emotionally, I have been spoiled to have Tyler home 24/7 since the last week of July. When he's home & not working I have a super flexible schedule with almost total freedom. Tyler prefers to do the laundry (as he has a system he likes), he often ends up doing the dishes (though I still cook most of the time), he's here to watch Dexter so I can run all errands sans child, and I can do my Mommy Mingle stuff and Moms' Night Out without worrying about a sitter.

However, the down side is of course not having an income. We had what I thought was a healthy chunk of savings set aside but with a few major ticket items coming up (fixing a hand me down truck, annual property taxes), we burnt through it fairly quickly. We've been able to supplement our income and stay current on bills by using a Line of Credit and Tyler's "measly" EI cheques. I say measly because although they are appreciated, it's only 55% of income and it gets maxed out. We got the max which boils down to $1800/month, no where near our base expenses. So we were slowly going in the hole each month he wasn't working.

We were holding out as long as we could financially, in the hopes that a union job around Edmonton would come up. There were about 40 positions that came up for a job in Nisku (a very short commute) but unfortunately Tyler's 'out of work number' wasn't high enough to get the job. We are pretty close to the end of our comfort level for debt on our line of credit right now and Tyler's EI ran out about 3 weeks ago so we decided that the next possible job that came up he would take, even if it meant him going out of town like in Fort Mac. He has done the out of town thing before, so I am not a virgin to the experience, but for the quality of our family life we were hoping to avoid it. However, being homeless isn't an option so back to work it is! LOL

There were two types of out of town job sites we were expecting to come up, Kearl Lake (which operates on a 2 weeks gone, 1 week home schedule) and Suncor Fort Mac (which operates on 10 days gone 4 days home schedule) both near each other. On a positive note, both sites now offer fly in/fly out options which means way less travel time for Tyler and more home time. It also means increased safety for him as the Fort Mac highway is known for being accident prone. On Friday, he put in for a job at Suncor with a company he hasn't worked with before but is excited to work with: Chemco. They have a few perks that may or may not pan out. He'll be in camp and they have camp food too so there isn't any additional expenses for him being there.

While it will be an adjustment for both of us, we are actually a bit excited about it. Tyler's looking forward to working again (as not working really effects a person's self esteem) and I'm looking forward to getting back on track with our finances. Generally speaking, when he is working we can sock away quite a bit of money as his income is a lot higher than our base expenses...so long as we don't make too many silly purchases or committments.  I also re-evaluated our RRSP contributions and for where we are now & where we want to be, we need to bump up the amount we put away each month (which also means some commission for me too).

Since he'll be working, we'll have some wiggle room in our budget for me to get some child care if/when I need it. I still plan on being able to do my Primerica fairly consistently so I'm thinking about looking for a day home for maybe one afternoon a week starting in April, where I can have a solid chuck of time to do any prep and paper work I may have. I have some montly evening committments that I would like to keep on my schedule (2 book club evenings a month, 1 scrapbook project night & possibly 1 craft night coming up). My mother in law may be up for some babysitting here and there when it doesn't conflict with her own life and work schedule. She's going on a three week trip to the states in April though so no luck there! However, my mom has started a business where she works from home so she'll be able to come help me out here and there. She's planning on coming on Saturday (one week from today) so I'm looking forward to that as I had a busy week scheduled.

As one of our financial goals this year, I am planning a trip for us to go on for Couples Only to Vegas in October. My parents have decided they would like to go with us and Mary is willing to watch Dexter. Goal is for a 4 day trip. My parents told me that as a 30th birthday present (which is allegedly my "final" birthday present lol) they will pay for my flight to Vegas. In addition to that, since they go to Vegas so often, there's a really good chance they will get their hotel rooms for free and that we may as well! Which means we would need to pay for our experiences, shopping, food, and possibly Tyler's flight (I'm not sure if their offer was for my flight or both of ours'). My friend Melody & her girlfriend are coming for sure and then we have some other couples that are aiming to go but aren't 100% sure. [If you're reading this & are interested in coming too, just email me for details!]

Hmm, well the day is getting away from me, time to unplug & get moving!