Bring on the New!

Happy Thursday!

I have been holding off on writing this particular post because let’s face it; I didn’t want to jinx it. 

I have up and quit my job!  *GASP*

Don’t worry I’m not short sighted enough to forgo an adequate payday right at the holidays armed purely with the optimism of finding something better.  There is actually a study out there somewhere (please feel free to insert reference here if you know it) that states applicants are more desirable to potential employers if they are currently employed than if they are unemployed/ “in between positions”. 

The position I am currently in is a maternity fill in that ends around May 1^st-ish (I know super specific date).  I had been applying for six months when I was offered this job.  It did not utilize the education I spent four years and a fortune obtaining and it also did not meet my financial requirements.  It was however more money than I was making at the time, amazing experience for my resume and only a one year term (so if I didn’t like it at least I had an end date).

With this experience in the back of my head and knowing there was only five months left in my term I began the arduous task of applying for my next exciting work adventure.  On November 25^th I received and email from the corporate coordinator of leisure and recreation programs for my organization informing me that there was a full time position posted for another residence and that she would highly recommend me for the job if I were so inclined to apply.  I did in fact apply only to also receive a phone call that very same night to interview for another organization in Vancouver as a program coordinator working with individuals living with mental health issues.  Eek!  Two jobs??

I interviewed for the Vancouver job and wasn’t so sure how well I had done since one of the questions was “what does being a site supervisor mean to you?” (the job posting stated the position as program coordinator) but I mis-heard her and thought she said psych supervisor and I panicked slightly suddenly questioning whether I had somehow gotten myself an interview for  position I was not at all qualified for!  Somehow I managed to maneuver my way past that question and moved on to the next round of interviews: the CEO meet and greet.  Just to add perspective all this was happening between the hours of 6-8pm because I was still working 9-5 at my job preparing for the biggest event of our year; the annual family holiday dinner hosted and coordinated my myself and my direct supervisor!

Over the course of a week and a half I had interviewed twice and been offered the position with the Vancouver organization and had not heard peep from the hiring manager for the position within my current company? Oh well! Their loss. I gave notice that Friday!

Last week I did a few hours of training after work and from what I have gathered so far is:

-       I will be working for an amazing organization

-       My union is pretty fantastic

-       I will receive full benefits

-       Free parking in Vancouver- unheard of

-       No more tolls!

-       Pension contributions!

-       My co-workers have a hefty collaboration of some serious education!

My last day at my current job is tomorrow and I start shadowing at the new one on Saturday!  Yup, big long break in there between jobs.  A whole 15.5 hours!

Wish me luck and do me a favor and just throw it out into the universe that I won’t epically fail!  Thanks! You’re a doll J

Things that might go wrong at your wedding:

I’m not being negative I am being realistic.  If you are planning your own wedding; things will go wrong and you will know it.  If you have hired a planner or a friend; things will go wrong and you might not know it!

I spent just shy of twelve months planning our wedding.  I thought I had thought of EVERYTHING! I was wrong.  Ok Aaron, it’s in writing.  Yes I admit I was wrong about something.  Planning and executing a wedding takes a team of people to help with the most minute but incredibly important tasks.  If you are like me, many people will offer you help but you decline because “you’ve got it all covered” and you are a control freak so really deep down you don’t believe anyone will do it quite like you would.  Advice: let go of the reins!  I also had a few moments when people offered me help “anytime” but when you call on them for some reason they just can’t seem to get it together to get there and lend a hand.  Every bride has these people in their lives.  These will be the same people that call you friend but then seem to miss every important event like bachelorette parties, bridal showers, birthdays and other events. 

So these are the things that went wrong at our wedding that I was aware of but by no means affected how great our wedding was!  I think I really need to state that being aware of what went wrong by no means implies that our wedding was not the most amazing day of my life so far!  We put in a ton of work and had the help of so many people and it was a beautiful day and I have been the calmest and happiest since that moment forward.  I can’t say there aren’t things I would change if I could do it again but I also look at every moment as a learning experience.  So I hope you can learn from my flubs!

1.      It rained.  We had planned to have our ceremony in the most beautiful out door venue.  In a clearing of a walkway in a public park with a view of the inlet.  There were three trees that made a natural arch where we had planned to hang a beautiful chandelier.  We made white washed garden benches for our guests to sit on and we made our oun simple flower arrangements to line the “isle”.  But it rained and everything needed to be re-imagined.  My husband and our families did a fantastic job at re-locating the ceremony onto the deck that spanned the back of our hall and it was beautiful looking over the trees to the inlet behind.  It would have been nice if the daycare below us had brought the screaming children indoors for our 20 minute ceremony but at least it is a funny memory.  You can ask any one of my bridesmaids and they will swear to you they all thought I was going to have my bridezilla moment screaming at those children.  I was too happy I wouldn’t let anything ruin our moment.

2.      Because the ceremony was in the hall, it didn’t give my bartender the peace or privacy to set up cocktail hour or prepare his bar in time.  People began to pester him while he was still trying to stock.

3.      I/my helpers forgot to put the drink tickets on the tables.

4.      I forgot to give the bartender a float so my poor MC had to run out to the bank while we had our pictures taken.

5.      We ran out of Strongbow.  We had a huge selection of beer hard liquor and ciders so we weren’t concerned.  Apparently this would not do according to my family and I watched my brother walk in with a flat of Strongbow 40 minutes later.  Why?  Love him for it though!

6.      The cake was wrong.  The bakery put our decorations on someone elses cake and the flavours were all wrong.  We had a cake to cut as well as a slab cake and everything was wrong.  The first picture of us cutting cake is me telling my husband it was wrong.  It still tasted amazing but it was not what we ordered.

7.      My bridesmaid didn’t try on her dress when she had it altered and they had forgotten to take in the top of the straps so they had to pin it.  You can tell in every picture that her dress is not quite right.  It’s a good thing she is gorgeous because I am the only one that noticed because I knew what to look for. 

8.      The freezer in the kitchen broke so we had to send the dads out for more ice.  Good thing we had all those coolers and tubs to store al the booze!

So that’s it.  Not bad right.  Not even ten things.  The only reason I am aware that any of this happened is because I had a hand in planning everything.  If I had had a planner I would not have known anything had happened.  That being said almost every item that went wrong my good friend Jenny dealt with it all like a pro.  I wish she had been a bridesmaid but I am so glad she was my MC because I would not have trusted anyone else more than I did her to make sure everything was taken care of!  I have made some questionable decisions in my life but I will never regret choosing the man I married or the women who stood up with me on the most important day of my life. 

So to all those control freaks out there.  Be prepared!  Things might go wrong, but it ends up being perfect anyway!

The First Home Purchase

 

Everyone has an opinion about your first home purchase.  Sometimes those opinions are sought out and sometimes they are volunteered.  Some of them whether sought or volunteered are openly accepted and others are judgemental and narrow minded. 

Anyone who is in the process of buying a home, whether it is their first ever or tenth is required to take into account many variables.  Usually the number one factor in purchasing a home is affordability.  Can you afford the mortgage and all the fun extra costs that come with owning a home?  As a renter my entire life, it was important for me to be aware of and prepared for all of the extra costs associated with purchasing our first home.  Five years ago I would not have thought about the differing property taxes depending on geographic area or strata fees associated with owning a condo or townhouse.  Not to mention those strata fees can be ridiculous depending on the age of the property.  I wouldn’t have known about CMHC costs or lawyer’s fees.  I did know about insurance but definitely didn’t have a clue how much it would cost.  All this and I haven’t even gotten to the luxury extras that are probably included in your rent right now like hot water, heat, cable, internet and in our case due to my aunt being my land lord; toilet paper, coffee filters and paper towels!  Don’t forget if you are buying brand new there are those pesky taxes thrown onto the list price. 

I’m sure for most people this is common knowledge and you are thinking to yourself, who is this ditz!  I think for those of us who have always rented and never really thought they would own a home on their own, when it comes time to buy, the extra costs can seem overwhelming.  I was 26 and in my first year of College when I met my husband.  I had basically come to terms that between my student loans and drinking my way through my 20’s it would be a long time before I was ready to buy my own home if ever.  These days it is very difficult to own a home with one income.  Oh sure a one bedroom condo it pretty attainable for most but still it takes time to save that down payment. 

Back to the point: once you have ascertained what is affordable for your income other factors come into play.  Geography: where do you want to live?, commute time, tolls, family, work, friends amenities etc.  It would be way less expensive to move to Mission or Abbotsford but are you willing to drive further, and isolate yourself from friends and family just to get a bigger house for your money?  This isn’t’ Texas, size should not be the determination of value.

In our case the number two and only factor that really matters in our search for the perfect first home is that my husband’s daughter, my stepdaughter lives in Coquitlam.  Right now we don’t get nearly enough time with her due to the fact that having her more during the week involves driving 45 minutes to an hour the wrong direction in rush hour to get her to school hopefully leaving me with enough time to get to work. Not to mention the poor thing then has to get up at 6am to get ready.  When searching for our first home we are fully aware that because of where we want to be located our list prices are going to be 10-20% higher than other reasonable neighbourhoods. 

Oh and did I mention that everyone has an opinion.  “Don’t buy a townhouse if you can manage it” recommends one lovely friend.  “Do you know what you could get if you bought in Abbotsford” suggests another well meaning person.  “That same place would cost you way less in Maple Ridge” mentions another.  All very valid points, however every one of those scenarios comes with a “but”.  We could buy a four bedroom three and a half bathroom house built in 1979 within our budget BUT we already live in Pitt Meadows and hate the commute and how long it takes to even just get to the grocery store.  We hate that everything in Maple Meadows closes at ridiculous hours during the week and Lougheed Highway completely bottlenecks after the Pitt River Bridge.  Oh and did I not mention that we want to see MORE of our kid not less.  Built in 1979, guess I know where all of our income is going over the next ten years: Renovations! So this is how every conversation has gone.  Everyone has great points and yes it is up to us to decide what works best for our family.  What we have decided is that being close to those we love and care about is most important and increasing our chances of doing that is the best decision for us!  We are more than happy to hear everyone’s opinions and take them all into consideration, but please just remember; it’s not just about space and money to us.  Some things are just more important than all of that!

Becoming a florist: DIY bridal bouquets

I don’t recommend every bride do their own flowers.  Honestly I wasn’t even sure I was going to pull it off, but I had already decided I wasn’t going to pay $300 for a rose bridal bouquet so there was no going back from there. 

The whole process began when my friend Amy recommended her florist from her wedding.  Since I had chosen pretty common and readily available flowers I figured it would cost that much to accomplish the look I had in mind.  I didn’t want to just go with the first florist that was recommended to me so I started doing some research.  As I got deeper and deeper into the prices of simple floral center pieces I realized that even just 10 small floral arrangements was going to eat my whole flower budget and then where did that leave me for my bouquets?  Over budget, that’s where.

I was talking to my step-mom one day about flowers and she mentioned that her boss’s son ordered wholesale flowers from a friend who used to work with her and that he could save us a ton on flowers but we would have to do all of the arrangements our self.  So we went about buying some test flowers from the Cloverdale flea market and spent an afternoon getting an idea of the formula we would need to use to create all of the arrangements the day before the wedding.  After about 3 hours we pretty much had it figured out along with how many and what kinds of flowers we would need.  Since our colours were teal and red, we decided that all the flowers should be red since all the table over lays would be teal. 

We used flowers that were the same shape and size as flowers we would use in the actual arrangements.

About a month later I went about finding a florist to do just my bridal bouquets.  Again, I search online fro good reviews and low prices.  The lowest I found was $300 for a bridal bouquet and $150 for bridesmaids bouquets.  I guess we are cancelling all our floral arrangements cause that’s our whole budget (Over actually). I put in a call as well as several emails to the florist recommended by my friend and received no response.  Maybe my order wasn’t big enough to justify a call back? I began thinking about it.  How hard could it be to bind some flowers together?  With that I took to my computer once again and watched as many bridal bouquet tutorials I could find.  One piece of advice I’m so glad I took was to allow for plenty of time to accomplish all of the bouquets and also to do a trial run to absolutely determine if this was a task I could accomplish. 

One of my bridesmaids Kim and I took to purchasing the right flowers for the job and my wonderful not-yet husband built us a little work table to go about our business.  4 hours, tutorial videos on repeat, many alcoholic beverages and a sun burn later we had completed ONE beautiful bridal bouquet!  At this point we are feeling pretty competent Kim and I.  All liquored up and having accomplished the one bouquet we are thinking we should open up our own shop!  All confidence dissipated a month later when it was time to order the flowers and I began having nightmares about hideous flowers.  Too late now, just go with it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvr1Kq9gols

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYRfGeKXpuQ

Not bad for newbies!  We used three carnations bunched together to create the same size flower as a cabbage rose.

Over the next 2 months I went about collecting all of the supplies I would need to pull this off. Gardening shears (buy good ones cause mine sucked), floral tape (green), green craft wire (for gerbera daisies so they don’t wilt), fishing line (to bind each section together), ribbon and corsage pins.

The night before the wedding, three of the most wonderful ladies accompanied me to the hall where my flowers were awaiting me.  At 9:30pm at night we began the arduous process of de-thorning and leafing the flowers and applying the wire and floral tape to the gerbera daisies (note: do not go too far down the stem because you will need to trim the stems and you don’t want the floral tape and wire to be visible at the end of the stems when you are finished.  Only about 5 inches from the base of the flower is necessary. We got carried away).  Once we had 3 gerbera daisies wrapped and 25 roses de-thorned I began to create my bridesmaid bouquets.  I’m not going to lie; I got better as I went.  The trick with creating a rounded bouquet look is to cross your stems.  I started with three in the center and then added flowers working around the base, all the while crossing the stems.  It looks bulky at first but once you bid them it isn’t at all.  I bound each layer so it would be easy to maneuver the bouquet as I worked.  Once I had the size and shape I wanted I would look it over from every angle, determine if there were holes, pull some flowers up, push some down and then wrap the stems in floral tape starting two inches from the base and working my way down.  Leave two inches of stem from the base of the ribbon and floral tape because you will have to put the flowers in water. Trim your stems and then add your ribbon.  We tied our ribbon to the base of our bouquets leaving two inches of ribbon to tuck and cover.  Slowly wrap the ribbon around the stems in the same direction you crossed your stems.  This will help keep the flowers in position.  If you try to wrap in the opposite direction you will be pushing the stems away from each other which will move the flowers out of position potentially.  Once you have your stems wrapped, tuck the ribbon under on itself so you can’t see the rough edge of the ribbon and pin with corsage pins.

We finished all 6 bouquets by 12:45am.  That’s not bad when you think about all the work involved.  I finished my bouquet in 15 mins which I think was the record.  Because I used larger garden roses as well as regular roses and gerberas it didn’t take as long.  An all rose bouquet has less forgiveness on shape than if you used fluffier roses or other flowers.  

I would definitely do my friends flowers for their weddings since we are totally pro now! HAHHAAHAHAHAHAAHA

But seriously, I saved so much money doing my own flowers.  I ordered 5 bunches of 25 cabbage roses, 6 bunches of 25 roses, 7 bunches of 10 gerberas, 2 bunches of 25 carnations and two bunches of baby’s breath for $470.

If you have the time and patience and any skill what-so-ever I definitely suggest going this route!

What do you think this is? Charity??

Craigslist is a joke.  I prepare you this is going to get all ranty up in here.

When I am looking to buy used items on craigslist I am just astonished by how much colossal crap people are selling and then how much they think their crap is worth.  Over the past 12 months I have scoured craigslist for décor items for the wedding and at one point even did a search for cheap wedding dresses.  What I found was a whole lot of ugly junk!  Okay, I’m not being fair.  Some of it was reasonably priced and decent stuff….. but that stuff disappears very quickly!

So now I am on the other end of the craigslist ad.  I have become the seller.  Here is what I have discovered as a seller.  Even if you price your merchandise for less than what you paid, people are still going to come at you with some ridiculous offers.  I understand that as a seller I need to be prepared to come down on my prices and be able to bundle things together to save the seller some cash.  What I don’t understand is someone offering me $60 for three items totally $150.  Come on! 

I put the hard work in.  I searched for months!  I ordered things from the states, had them shipped to my parents American shipping address, paid to pick them up and then had to drive there and back to pick it all up.  I did the online research.  I found the best prices and then to re-sell these items I posted the prices minus the shipping minus the exchange rate minus the taxes and less than ticket price and I’m still being low balled!

Here’s the thing.  We didn’t go into debt to pay for our wedding.  We did everything on a budget and we stayed pretty darn close to that budget.  I made branch centre pieces. I made my own garters.  I killed myself for 12 months to make sure we didn’t spend a penny over what anything was worth.  Do you know how much it cost to buy tree branch centerpieces?  I did the research: $20-40 bucks a piece (just branches) and to rent them its cost around the same.  I made ours for $22 each including the vase and the filler stones.  That’s all the paint to coat them so they weren’t dirty, the sparkles, the plaster base to weigh them down in the vase.  All of it!  And some lazy bride thinks I’m just going ot give them all away for $3 a piece?!! This is not a charity! 

Here is my insight people.  Make me be the schmuck who paid full price.  Then buy my stuff at the discounted price and then sell it after your wedding for the same price you bought it for.  Wedding decor is the biggest rip off there is.  Women lose their minds when it comes to executing their vision for their wedding.  Let’s be honest.  This stuff is going to sit in my garage for a year until my husband puts it on craigslist again for 20% less than I posted it for!  Oh well.  It would be nice to just see all the stuff I collected go to good use.