It's Friday, Friday...

I have pictures!!

This is what I made for my university roommate's baby shower. It's not until July but I got a little excited about starting the project. She doesn't know whether it will be a boy or girl yet so I will add pink or blue ribbons accordingly. The baby is due in June.

It's a diaper cake, it includes 123 size 2 diapers, 40 of them have little mother/baby quotes in them that I made on coloured paper. It also includes a green baby bottle in the bottom tier, and a playgrow toy as the topper. Again depending on whether it's a boy or girl I will add other coloured useful decorations like socks, teethers, and nuks.

Because my roommate and her husband grew up on farms I thought that I would also like to make their baby a taggy. I bought a bunch of ribbon and some John Deere fabric. When I get some time I will cut and sew these, pictures of finished project to come.

Getting To Know Me

I stole this from Shaking the Money Tree. I encourage you to do it as well. Always fun!

A - Age 25
B - Bed Size - Double
C - Chore I Hate - Putting away clean laundry, I don't mind the washing and folding
D - Dogs? Just inherited one :) A little toy-fox terrier
E - Essential start of the day - breakfast obviously!
F - Favourite Colour - blue
G - Gold or Silver - Silver....or white gold hehe
H - Height - 5 foot 6
I - Instruments I play - I can play a mean triangle
J - Job - Supply Teacher
K - Kids - one day...I hope!
L - Love - books
M - Mom's Name - Rita
N - Nickname - Jayy
O - Overnight Hospital stays - None, knock on wood
P - Pet Peeve - people that drive under the speed limit
Q - Quote - Don't worry, be happy
R - Right or left handed - Right
S - Siblings - 2 brothers
T - Time I wake up - 6:30 most weekdays
U - Underwear - gotta have it, I kinda like the low-rise boy style
V - Veggie I dislike - carrots, eww
W - What makes me late - my boyfriend, we're ALWAYS late!! 20 minutes late to yesterday's movie
X - Xrays - leg (broken), foot (broken), teeth
Y - Yummy food I make - cookies and pizza
Z - Zoo Animal - the chimpanzees, I could honestly watch them ALL day!

Lots of Updates!

The consumerist linked to my blog. Crazy I know! It made my blog get a lot of comments, and even more on their blog. So if you need any waitressing tips click that link! Very helpful, I am still quite nervous about the job but the overall tip is to be friendly and smile, be polite and get the manager if there is a problem.

Now D and I went to this restaurant I have been hired at on Monday. It was busy! We were not expecting that on a Monday night in a small cottage town. The menu is extensive. The place is huge! I would guess about 200 people could be seated including the patio. It was really nice though. Our waitress was awesome and super knowledgeable. I am not. I hope they help us during training.

Last night D and I went to see Thor. It was better than I was expecting. I was expecting all action but there was some humour in there too. Natalie Portman is always great! The drive-in near us is now open too and they often have 3-4 movies for $12 so I am going to try and convince D to come with me to a showing.

D and I dog sat this weekend at his boss' house. It was actually fun. He has a huge house. I got to drive an excavator, I read a lot of my book while D practiced welding, we made supper together, and had a wine and wii party.

Today is my grandpa's burial. It's only immediate family going so I am going to be having my first staff meeting with the aerial tree job. First paid day! Although it will only be a couple of hours. I think I will visit my grandpa's house afterward to see family and see what his house looks like. There have been painters and cleaners in there, so it should look pretty nice.

I made my roommate's baby shower gift yesterday. It's a diaper cake. If you have never seen one before I will post pictures of the one I made hopefully tomorrow. It turned out better than I expected. My mom loves it and she thinks I should make a business out of it, lol. It was fun to do but also a lot of work. Her baby shower isn't until mid-July but I got excited about it. I think I also want to make her a taggie blanket to go with it, more on that soon too! I already have fabric picked out :)

Monday I had my meeting with the respite care organizer. It sounds pretty much like I am hired as long as my police check goes through and references say nice things about me. She already told me she has a boy in mind for me to work with. If all works out it should be good and everything seems very flexible. We set up meetings with parents to determine rate-of-pay and when they need respite care. It will be a good way to gain some experience working with people with exceptionalities and help out parents in the community.

I received my first phone bill with the new plan about a week ago. How annoying is it that my billing period is the 7th but I didn't get the phone until the 5th. So I really only had 2 days to play with it before I was billed for an entire month. I ALSO had to pay my last phone bill with my previous provider. In addition to purchasing the phone I've paid over $150 in phone expenses this month! Eeek!

I added $250 to Travel and $50 to Computer Fund. The next amount goes to the TFSA. Okay I think that's it!

Dear 16-Year-Old Me

Important message, skip those tanning beds.

New Phone! Switched Providers!

So yesterday I went all over town, which includes 3 places to look at new phones. I first went to bell. I thought I would get an android phone, I like google, I have an i-pod touch, and it's what D has and he likes his. When I got there I told her I was looking to upgrade and was thinking android. She shakes her head at me. I said really? She said they aren't supposed to but they don't recommend androids because they get a lot of returns on them. I said then I was thinking about the windows phone. She shakes her head again and says, "Same thing." I ask her what she does suggest then and she says either blackberry or i-phone. Ugh. I looked around a bit and asked some questions, and the best deal they could get me with the options I have already is to add $25 to the plan I already have and make my bill about $72 per month including taxes. Or I could keep my phone plan which is $42 a month and then just buy the phone for $500. No thanks.

So I headed to Telus. That's the provider D is with. Pretty much the same deal with them, the best option would be the $63 before taxes to include the features I wanted. No thanks. Plus he was a pushy salesman, definitely no thanks.

Then I headed to The Source. They have Bell phones and Virgin phones there. I started off looking at the Bell phones and she only had good things to say about the androids, and pointed out the Incredible S which is their newest phone. Again she said the best deal for my money and what I wanted would be about $72 a month with taxes. Ughh here we are again. Then as I was paying for an ipod charger I needed to pick up, she suggests Virgin mobile and says they have the same phone but they have cheaper plans. We look into it and for everything I want it would total $56 a month with taxes. Not too bad, I told her I needed to think about it and would be back with D to help me decide.

So after work D comes with me to The Source and I ended up switching to Virgin and getting the new HTC phone. It was $99, but comes on sale today for $49, so she said to come back today and she will give me a refund. Awesome! So far I really like it and Virgin seems good too. They use the same towers as Bell so reception won't be a problem here.

I get local evenings and weekends, 150 anytime minutes, unlimited texting including picture texts, call waiting, call display, message centre, 100MB of data. I hardly use my phone for calling (just receiving jobs for school), D and I mostly text, I call people on my parent's landline. I don't know how long 100 MB will last me, but I have wifi at my house and D's house so I can just switch to that and save my data. Also Virgin gives you the option to check what your data is at within the past two hours whenever you like, so it's easy to track your usage. They also won't charge you for overuse for the first two months since you are sort of learning how much data you do use. So far, I like it!

Waitressing Tips?

Ah since I received word from the restaurant that I have been hired there I am nervous. I've never served people!! What do I do if they are really rude? What if they bought something and then deny it later after I have cleared their table? What if they skip on the bill? What if they don't tip? What if I drop something? What if I bring them the wrong order?

Have you ever been a waiter before? Any advice??

If I'm not working tomorrow I'm going to climb in the trees and get a few more hours in! Woo.

Today I am going to look into getting a new phone without data. I would prefer a smartphone but really am not interested in the data. I can get wireless internet at home and that will be good enough, I don't need internet everywhere I go. I'll see if that is even an option for me. I do still like my durable flip phone I currently have but it's becoming dated and it often doesn't send me the third part of long texts and it has turned off randomly a few times. It's my lifeline to receive jobs so I need a reliable phone.

I Got The Job!!

So the job in the trees I think is pretty much mine for the taking as long as I complete the training. I am looking forward to this one, it seems like a lot of fun. I still need to contact the manager to arrange a time for 6 more hours of climbing and training.

I was ALSO offered another job on Monday for one of the waitressing positions I applied for. It's a busy busy restaurant on the lake of a touristy cottage town and the way the interviewer was talking it sounded like they were only looking for experienced staff so I'm surprised I was accepted. Training for this job does not start until mid-June though. I don't expect to get many shifts from this restaurant since I am a new so I hope that the climbing job will work around my schedule and supplement the income.

It should be a good summer! :)

April Spending

April was a good month financially-wise. I had my income tax cheque come in and it was a three paycheque month. Gotta love those months! However I also spent a lot on clothes and bedding. I am very happy with those purchases though, no regrets! It was also a tough month, my grandpa passed away, and the job search is still continuing. My brother moved out and my family inherited a dog :) Here's how I did:

Car and Gas (15%) ACTUAL: 4%
Phone (4%) ACTUAL: 1%
Food (4%) ACTUAL: 0%
Restaurant (4%) ACTUAL: 1%
Personal/Medical (6%) ACTUAL 2% Haircut
Clothing (5%) ACTUAL: 9%
Gifts (2%) ACTUAL 2% Housewarming gift
Education (2%) ACTUAL 1% Smart Serve
Entertainment (4%) ACTUAL 1%
Everything Else (3%) ACTUAL: 7% Bedding set, bins, pillow
TOTAL (48%) ACTUAL 30%

Now let's look at the SAVINGS I managed to get to this month!
TFSA (35%) ACTUAL: 31%
Christmas (5%) ACTUAL: 7%
Computer (3%) 4%
RRSP (6%) ACTUAL: 19%
Travel Fund (3%) ACTUAL: 9%
TOTAL (52%) ACTUAL 69%

Wooo, glad I was under the spending category. It was definitely because I had that income tax return come in. I really liked that and hope that if I get a summer job that I can ask them to take off more income tax than normally required JUST so I can have a return next year too. Savings grew by $3600 this month! I am very pleased with that. A lot of my goals were reached and it's only May now. Now my focus is going to be the TFSA, and I hope to add a little more to travel, computer, and my RRSP before the year is over.