Congratulations to BF

A little good news has come our way. Last night BF came home and announced that all his paper work had gone through and he is now a full-fledged Engineer! Woohoo!

I am so proud of him. I could tell by his face that he was feeling really good about his accomplishment and so he should. I know taking a year off to travel while he was a Engineer In Training was a bit stressful for him but in the end it all worked out. I would like to do something special for him but I don't know what yet.

We did talk a bit about how now that he is an Engineer he will need to approach his boss about a raise. BF suggested an amount he thought was suitable. I suggested he ask for more vacation time since we'll want to vist BC in the summer and also have other time away just the two of us. So he said maybe he would ask a little less of a raise and ask for a combo of the two. That made me happy. We both thought it was best to see what the rates are before he makes his proposal to his boss.

This is big news for us. I am very happy that he has completed this major goal in his life.


On a side note. I have been wondering if BF has been reading my blog. Its not hard for him to find since we use the same computer but I guess  I never thought he'd want to. A few weeks ago he said something like "hey I found and am reading your blog". He was grinning at me something fierce so I peeked over his shoulder and noticed it was Asian Pears Blog. Ahaha. Like WTF... if he read any of her posts he would realize its not me. I mean did he see me paint my nails? Did we buy a new BBQ? Any of these things? Boys are weird!!!

Savings Challenge

Lately I've just started saving my money again. Since we've been back from our year of travels (oh how I miss it) which depleted all my savings it seems something always came up. I had weddings to attend, baby showers to throw, I had my wisdom teeth removed, we moved across Canada, we bought two cats and had to have them neutered, tattoed and vaccinated. Well now its time to focus back on savings.

I retitled my savings accounts last week and threw some money into most of them. Here is where they sit right now:

Travel Fund: $50.74

Wedding Fund: $50.12

Furniture Fund: $130.26 

House Fund: $50.14

EFund (TFSA): $2.67

Thats a total of $283.93

I wasn't sure if I was going to be posting these types of things anymore but I realized its definitely movitated me in the past. My blog is still fairly anonymous. Only people I truly trust have the link. If anyone I dislike finds their way over here... well cheers to them. Watch me improve my life. Big deal.

ING has a promotion right now that if you start an Automated Savings Plan with them putting away $100 monthly for 6 months they will reward you with a $25 bonus. Yes, I think I'll take you up on that offer ING. I recently got a $50 bonus from them when somebody used my referral code to sign up for her account. I heart ING in a big way. If you'd like to start up with ING please feel free to use my code (orange key) as we will both get a bonus when you do. My orange key is 17037983S1  :)

Carla is hosting a savings challenge for September. If you would like to join us please see the details here. I'm excited to get started. I'm not sure how long this ING promotion is on for so I'm getting started today! I will post by September 3rd what my actual goals will be as I'm still figuring that part out. Stay tuned for that one.

Tuned In Tuesday

This week I'm featuring a song close to my heart. As a little girl I just loved the movie "My Girl". There is a scene where Vada picks up her class photo gazing at the photo of her teacher flopping onto the bed singing this song.

Heehee. Anyone else remember this scene? Pure awesomesauce! Poor Macaulay!

Anyhoo, later on in life I heard my Granny saying how she always loved this song and how it was special to her. My Grandpa's name was William so it was very sentimental. I thought it was adorable and made me love the song even more.

 

Really? PBX I'm ready for us to be over!

I don't want to use my blog as a constant place to complain but I am always amazed at how many things can go wrong. Today I called Pacific Blue Cross to try and wrap up all the details from 2 months ago. If you are new then I will do a brief refresher on the situation.

I left my job on June 19th. I was supposed to have benefits at least until the end of June. The woman in charge of payroll (who had always been a headache) cancelled my benefits on June 16th. WTF? Once my benefits were cancelled I had one month to submit all claims for reimbursement or they were in valid. During that time I was moving. It wasn't until I arrived in Quebec and finally got my final pay stubs and such that I found out something was wrong.

1) I was charged for an extra months benefits (among many other wrong items)

2) My benefits had been cancelled 14 days earlier than expected so now all my claims that I had to make were invalid.

It was a nightmare to get the PR woman to fix! I was so annoyed. Everything of mine she could have made a mistake with she did so I CC'd everything I emailed to her to my former boss as well and followed up with phone calls. It took her weeks to straighten out and by then they were cancelled again. Ugh

Its been over a month since I sent in my claims and now the deadline is in just a few days. I called this morning to inquire if they had recieved them because if not I will send a fax tomororrw. I talked to CSR and the woman there told me they had recieved and processed a cheque for me. Then she tells me they sent it to my old BC address. *sigh*

I explain that I had called in twice before moving to update my mailing address. I had called in after the move to verify the new address on file. I wrote the new address in the tiny little fields of the claim form marked "mailing address". The woman said this is not good enough. She insisted that I had done it wrong and that my old employer was the only one who could change the address on file. WTF!!!!

So what were all the other phone calls and forms about? Wow, it just doesnt make any sense to me. So she is putting a stop payment on the cheque sent and next week she is going to call me to verify that it wasn't cashed in that time and then they will send me a new cheque. So I wrote down her name and her extension number and I guess I play the waiting again. Even when I carefully plan ahead and triple check everything it still doesn't go my way. Yeesh!

I am going to try to look at the positive side of this. The silver lining is that they did recieve my documents. Yay Canada Post! They processed the claims and I'm getting money back. That is awesome too. That is two things to be happy about.

Now wish me luck as I call about the couch we were supposed to have exchanged by the latest last week :)

Sunday Night Chit Chat

Today I am finally remembering to participate in Carla's Sunday night chit chat. I love these!

Reading?

I've been reading through my stack of Jackie Collins books. This is the one I'm currently on.

Watching?

I'm hooked on Big Brother 14. Its a great season and its the first time I've been reading the blogs and keeping up on what they write about the live feeds. I'm seriously hooked! Any other fans?

Listening to?

I'm listening to "About a Boy" the movie playing on the television and BF mixing some crazy cous cous salad concoction in the kitchen. :)

Cooking/Baking?

For dinner we had corn on the cob, cous cous and fish. Earlier today I made bread crumbs from a baguette we had that had gone stale.

Happy you accomplished this week?

I came up with a few earring designs. BF and I purchased a mattress finally (we were borrowing one from his sister) and we got a stellar deal! We pick  it up tomorrow evening. So excited!

Looking forward to next week?

I'm hoping we are going to get the couch issue resolved next week. That would be nice. I'm also looking forward to making and sending some rice keychains to my sister and her children. I need to do up some examples and test how well they ship so she'll be getting a set.

Thankful for today?

Living in a place with cheaper rent ($200 less). We also save on a lot of other bills here. So far the move has been good for our budgeting besides having to replace a lot of things. Since we never bought new furniture before this its not so bad.

 

Back into the Swing of Things

So the last week I've been trying to get myself motivated to get back into my crafting. I've come up with a few earring designs, bought all the items I need to do my rice key chains and decided to go forth with a few other things I've been interested in.
Next week I'll need to do some more investigating and will need to purchase some items off the Internet to get me started on the new ventures. I'll post more about these when I get my comfortable with these.
I forgot how relaxing it is to create things. It really calms me down. Also BF has been giving me input about my designs which is new and I definitely appreciate his feedback. I like that he is taking an interest and supporting me in this.
If I get enough done in the next 5 days there is a vendors auction I can do on FB but I'm not sure I want to push myself for that. I know another girl who runs auctions quite frequently but I'd prefer to do one with the first person. Its all about exposure but I don't think I'm ready for that.
You will probably see a lot of posts coming up to do with starting a small business from home. When I feel more confident I'll post some pics of what I am working on :)
 

Tuned in Tuesdays

In light of a friend of mine getting engaged this week I bring to you a song that I find very romantic. A guy once called it "our song" and I was on cloud 9. I hope you enjoy it!

Congrats on your engagement dear friend! I'm so happy for you and I truly feel you found the salt to your pepper ;)

Confidence Issues

I think the hardest part about being a crafter is having the confidence to put your stuff out there for sale. Sometimes it can freeze me into not even starting a project. I am a HUGE perfectionist and I was everything to be absolutely perfect. I feel if its not I'm selling something hugely flawed and ugly.

I've sold my stuff successfully before and had a ton of comments on how beautiful my pieces were but it still didn't help me get over this hump. I took a few classes and had compliments from the instructors but that didn't seem to work either for my confidence level. I just can't seem to figure it out. I'm totally insecure.

Sometimes *and this is going to sound amazing evil* I see some other persons crafts and I think really? I know know... evil Ashley. Yet they have an audience and totally love the product they are putting out there.

What is wrong with me? Why am I so cynical?

Anybody else out there have this fear? :(

Couch Update

Well we've moving along slowly on the couch scene. It's taking a long time but I think we're actually getting somewhere. We're not going to relax though until its replaced.

The sectional comes in two pieces and its just the one piece that is damaged. It took a week for customer service to call us back, the next week (this one) a man came to inspect the damage and now next week we are supposed to get a replacement.

Why so long? Ugh! I guess I should count my blessings because according to reviews online people don't usually get this far sadly. I will be sure to keep you updated with what is going on.

Believe me.. before we leave the store this time we will be opening the packaging and inspecting the couch very thoroughly. ;)

I think in this case it pays to hound the company repeatedly if you want results.

Tuned in Tuesday - Edition 3

I love Dirty Vegas.. no not that Vegas. Here is another older but good one. Enjoy!

And since I'm a day late I'm going to do a double feature with Dirty Vegas.. if you weren't familiar with the first song maybe you'll remember this guy...

I love the story with this one! Brings me back to highschool with all the guys breakdancing in the cafeteria or at house parties. So hot!