Friday, January 28, 2011

Appliances for our new house

So Jeff and I have been debating on what appliances we want in our new house. At first we both agreed to go black, because I hate the white appliances I have now and stainless steel is more expensive. Well then I went to check out some appliances and fell in love with the GE Cafe line, which only comes in stainless steel (with black accents).

We still haven’t agreed full on a side by side fridge or a french door fridge, but we have time to figure that all out.

This is what the gas range model looks, there is also the duel fuel range that has a gas stove top and an electric oven, which looks virtually the same.

The vent hood:

These are the two fridges were are trying to decide between the Counter-Depth 24.5 CU. FT. side by side or the Counter Depth 20.9 CU.FT. french door refrigerator.

And this is the dishwasher that is built-in with a stainless steel tall tub and smartdispense technology with steam:

I hope that we are able to agree to get these, because I love them!

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful to be over half way to baby C 2.0’s due date. Being pregnant with a toddler to run after, a house to get on the market to sell, a husband that is working 3 hours away from home and still working full time is getting really hard (but please baby, don’t come until at least May 11, 2011!).

What are you thankful for?

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Wordless Wednesday

22 Weeks

Baby C 2.o baking in the oven – check out his/her blog at http://www.babycnumber2.blogspot.com/

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful that Rolling Thunder was able to find my pictures on my reformatted lap top. I can’t wait to get them all organized again and back them up many times, so this never happens again!

What are you thankful for?

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful that my little is so bright and receptive. She caught on to the 3 day potty training now problem and we should be diaper free from now on! Hopefully I have figured out our night time issue and that will be fixed too!

What are you thankful for?

3 Day Potty Training Update Day 5

Well, I now know for sure that she is wetting the bed between 1 and 3 hours after she goes to bed. I know that because I have tried to get her up at the 1 hour mark and she won't pee, but she's still dry and the last 2 nights I have tried to get her up at the 3 hour mark and she was already wet. I checked on her when I got up at 6 am this morning and she was still dry from when I changed her at 11:30 pm. So our problem is really that she isn't completely emptying before bed. I still can't for the life of me get her to void twice before bed, even voiding once before bed is still a fight, so tonight I am going to try to get her up at the 2 hour mark and hope that she is dry still and will pee and that we have a dry bed in the morning. Please let this be the solution!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

3 Day Potty Training Update on Day 4

Well, I decided to start early… we started this past Sunday. Man was it ever hard and did it ever try my patience. I’m happy to say that were completely daytime potty trained, but we keep wetting the bed at night, so we still have some work to do.

Day 1:
14 accidents, 9 successes
Dry at nap time, but she only napped 2 hours. She peed shortly before nap time.
Went potty once before bed, about 40 minutes before bed (stopped fluids almost 3 hours before bed). I also woke her up 1 hours after going to bed to try, but she didn't pee.

Day 2:
Woke up barely wet, 7 accidents, 8 successes
Again dry at nap time, but she only napped 2 hours. She peed shortly before nap time.
Went potty once before bed, about 30 minutes before bed (stopped fluids 3 hours before bed). I also woke her up 1 hours after going to bed to try, but she didn't pee.

Day 3:
Woke up soaking wet, 5 accidents (all small tinkles on the way to the potty), 7 successes
Wet at nap time, but she slept her normal 3 hours and didn't have to potty before her nap.
Went potty right before bed and was still awake an hour later, so we tried again, without success

Day 4 (Today):
Woke up barely wet, 1 accident, 5 success and one was at the doctors office today! Dry at nap time, but I think she woke herself up because she had to pee 40 minutes in to her nap and then she wouldn’t go back to sleep. Again, she went potty right before bed and I plan to wake her up 3 hours after she last peed to hopefully not have a wet bed in the morning.

Its working, but I think the sleeping and staying dry is going to be a huge challenge. She is such a deep sleeper that she doesn't even wake up when she wets herself, so I don't know until the morning that she is wet. Part of this is probably due to using prefold diapers so she is use to the wet against her skin at night. I am going to keep pushing until Friday and if on Saturday morning she is wet (and has been wetting the bed each night and nap time in between) then I will use cloth training pants for sleep time, since they will still make her feel wet and are still like underwear, so hopefully they won't hinder our progress.

I will update on how tonight went tomorrow.

Wordless Wednesday

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Saturday, January 8, 2011

Our New House

Well we did it, were building a new house in Port Elgin, Ontario! Its not the dream house I posted a few months back on this blog, but its close and we love it.

Its with the same builder Reid's Heritage Homes and its The Fairmeadow model in the Summerside development.

Front of House:

Main Floor:

2nd Floor:

Ours will have the upgraded luxury ensuite and a laundry closet between the master bedroom and the bathroom.

I can’t to get our current house on the market in March, get is sold and move in to our new house, which closes on July 7!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful that I have a good job, that pays me well to be off on sick leave because I have been off a lot since September. Now if only I could get rid of this horrible cold once and for all…

What are you thankful for?

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

3 Day Potty Training

I have been humming and hawing for weeks about if I a ready for Catherine to be out of diapers. I really don’t mind her still wearing diapers and cloth diapering two at the same time doesn’t bother me either. What is pushing me to get her potty trained is that she keeps getting a staph infection on her poor little bum and I think the only way it will be gone once and for all is to not have her sitting in a wet diaper. Also, she is showing so much interest in the potty lately that I would hate to miss this window. So starting on January 19, 2011 we are going to start the 3 day potty training. This will give us the 2 weeks needed to give her a potty break, talk about the yuckies in her diapers and for me to prepare myself that my little girl is no longer a baby. We also have to buy some big girl panties, small reward treats (Dora Fruit Snacks) and a few larger inexpensive rewards as well.

If you want to learn more about how the 3 Day Potty Training works I am posting some information below. Enjoy!

 

About 3 Day Potty Training

3DayPottyTraining.com is the only website where you can get an up-to-date version of Lora Jensen's 3 Day Potty Training eBook and is the exclusive source for her unlimited potty training mentoring and coaching, which is included free of charge when you download the 3 Day Potty Training ebook from this site and is available for as long as you need help - even if it's a year or two down the road.

What Makes 3 Day Potty Training Different?

Lora's 3 Day Potty Training ebook offers a step-by-step program to quickly and effectively transition your child from diapers and training pants big boy / girl underwear. The eBook is not a collection of tips and it is not a re-work of an existing ebook. Neither is it a huge reference manual. Instead, it most closely resembles an instruction manual. The 3 Day Potty Training ebook includes the best material from Lora's one-on-one consultations with parents.

This is in direct contrast with the origins of many other ebooks that are little more than outsourced writing projects which are bundled together and sold for pennies on the dollar.

Private Label Rights (PLR) is a term to describe the set of permissions an author grants buyers to modify certain ebooks in a specific way. Ebooks with these licenses are typically created with the singular purpose of being rebranded (hence the "private label") before they reach the consumer. These ebooks can be sold in groups or collections at wholesale prices. The buyers of these wholesale collections are instructed to rebrand the ebooks to make them their own. "Rebranding" consists of editing the ebook to put their name or a pseudonym as the author and maybe even give the ebook a new title.

So what is the problem with PLR books?

For illustration purposes consider the disappointment, even anger, you would feel if you unwittingly purchased two of the same product but from different websites. What if you purchased an ebook titled "Stopping Toddler Aggression". It didn't give you the answers you were looking for, so you keep looking and find a website selling "From Bad Kid to Good Kid". The author is different, the ebook picture is different and the website looks completely different from "Stopping Toddler Aggression" so you make the purchase. Upon reading the ebook you discover that it is word-for-word identical to what you purchased from the "Stopping Toddler Aggression" website. Would you feel angry or even scammed? This is what you can expect with ebooks that have a PLR license. Please note: the titles in this paragraph are for illustration purposes only; no accusation, insinuation, harm, insult or libel is intended or implied.

As shown above, Private Label Rights ebooks generally have the same content but a "different" author and a "different" title.

Master Resell Rights (MRR) is a term that describes a different set of permissions an author grants buyers of his or her ebook. Ebooks distributed with MRR licenses can be sold at either wholesale pricing or retail pricing, depending on the exact terms of the license. Typically when a marketer acquires an MRR license to an ebook, they have "permission" to sell it at any price they want so long as they don't change the content.

Speaking of content, the actual writing of ebooks that carry MRR or PLR licenses is often outsourced, meaning a marketer hires a writer to write about a desired topic. A number of questions are associated with this process that may have an impact on whether or not a consumer buys the ebook - if only the consumer knew what questions to ask.

Let's say a consumer was looking for information that was meatier and more substantial than what they could find in an online forum, and more detailed than what could be found in the typical how-to article at some of the common article repositories. Unless the marketer discloses it, the consumer has no idea what sources the writer was instructed to use for their research. It is possible the bulk of the "research" was in fact conducted in online communities. Therefore, if the customer knew this, they would be disinclined to purchase the ebook since that is exactly what they were NOT wanting.

Many PLR packages include ebooks that are bundled with articles and webpages to help the marketer get started with their new venture. The marketer puts his or her name or pseudonym on the article, changes it around a bit, then submits it to article repositories. This effort is supposed to boost the marketer's credibility and visibility and search engine ranking.

As a consumer, would you be comfortable buying an ebook from an "author" who did little more than outsource a writing project to someone in India?

Would you be OK buying an ebook from an "author" who put his or her name on an eBook or article because they were following instructions from some get-rich-quick system?

What about support? How likely is the marketer to provide meaningful support if he or she follows this kind of business model?

What about quality? Would a high quality product be included in a 150,000 title collection? This is frequently how MRR and PLR ebooks are bundled - with other PLR and MRR products.

And what about price? PLR and MRR licensed products can easily be marked up to 4,800 percent of cost. If the marketer buys private label rights to an ebook for one dollar and then sells that ebook for 48 dollars - that price is 4,800 percent of one. Think the math is wrong? Grab a calculator. Multiply 1 by 4800 % (the percent button). You get 48. Remember, a hundred percent (or "all") of 1 is 1. 200 percent (or two sets) of 1 is 2. 500 percent (or five sets) of 1 is 5. 4800 percent of 1 is 48. Is that 1 dollar ebook really worth 48 dollars??? Would you pay $38? What about $99?

What if that ebook was actually just one title in a bulk ebook collection that included titles like "Pick-up Lines That Work" or "101 Tips For Sell Your Home" (no, that was not a typo) or "Secrets of the Rich" or "The Vegetarian Lifestyle" or "Poker Betting Secrets"? You get the idea. How much time would it take you to decide whether or not to pay $48 for one of these titles if you knew a little more about where it came from, in spite of its marvellously compelling sales copy and iron-clad money back guarantee?

Many of these ebook collections are marketed with terms like "Make Insane Amounts Of Money With This SUPER ULTRA PLR Pack." Insane amounts of money? Yah! It's called 4,800 percent mark-up.

Even Wikipedia has a definition for the terms:

Master resell rights. When you acquire master resell rights [MRR], you sell the product/service to your customers, and you may also grant your customers the right to sell it. You can also pass master resell rights to your customers, if you are in possession of transferrable master resell rights. This allows your customers to also sell the product with master resell rights.

Private label. With private label resell rights [PLR], you may not only resell the product but you may also edit the content or product and claim it as your own work (meaning, you become its author).

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resell_rights)

Marketers know consumers want to see some credibility before they hand over any cash. So they turn to writing articles and submitting them to article repositories. If you saw a single article from "Jane Doe" about "such-and-such", you might not think anything of it. But when you start seeing several, or dozens or even hundreds of articles on different sites by "Jane Doe" it's hard to deny her "expert" status.

But did Jane really write all those articles?

I don't know - it's hard to say. Jane certainly did something, but was it actually "writing" an article? Did her fingers actually type what her mind was dictating?

Or did she use some kind of automated article generator?

Personally, I'm sceptical. But I'm sceptical because I have seen the tools and services available to crank out the articles.

People who use these tools can literally write about what they don't know and earn money. They can take some one else's article, run it through the software which reorganizes it, call it theirs and nobody is any wiser. People can literally "bang out" the articles anytime they need a credibility boost or when they are promoting the next hot product. It's just as easy to "bang out" the ebooks.

Would you really want to get information and support from somebody who outsourced the writing project or used software that wrote the ebook or article for them?

I don't crank out articles or ebooks. But I do give personal one-on-one support to my customers, and if my product doesn't work for you - I'll give you your money back. Simple as that.

101 Things Update

Alright, I haven’t update my progress at all since I started this, so I am doing just that right now. I have finished a few things, but there is a lot I haven’t even started. I need to get my but in gear!

This list is good from Aug 12, 2010 to May 9, 2013

Self-Help Section

1. Write a letter to myself to open in 10 years
2. Don't complain about anything for a week
3. Learn to be more patient – In Progress
4. Complete Wedding Scrapbook
5. Complete Catherine's 1st Year Scrapbook
6. Read 101 books -
7.  Not log into Facebook for a whole week!
8. Learn Italian
9. Stop swearing for a month
10. Re-finish a piece of furniture
11. List 101 things that make me happy
12. Sew a blanket
13. Have Christmas Cards out by December 1
14. Get a digital SLR camera
15. Take a class to learn how to use the Digital SLR camera
16. Have a spa day
17. Host a wine and cheese party
18. Update this blog at least twice a week for 6 months – In Progress
19. Do a Wordless Wednesday post every Wednesday for a month – In Progress
20. Do a Thankful Thursday post every Thursday for a month – In Progress
21. Sell our house and buy our dream home (or as close to it as we can afford)  - In Progress, we still have to sell our current house, but we have picked and our building our dream house
22. Learn how to grow a vegetable garden and grow one 
23. Make a new friend
24. Use reusable shopping bags every shopping trip for a month
25. Make a list of 10 things I like about myself
26. Finish parent (and grandparent) photo books of our wedding
27. Make photo books of Catherine 6 months to 1 year
28. Not use the internet for a whole week
29. Not play on the computer when Catherine is awake for 3 months
30. Read Catherine 1 book a day for 3 months
31. Build a snow man with Catherine 
32. Complete a 500 piece puzzle

My Career
33. Apply to all offers for further education (ECG course, KCI study etc...) at work
34. Complete annual review paperwork and have Annual Review - Aug 23, 2010 – Completed
35. Get serious about taking the breastfeeding and newborn assessment courses

Health & Wellness
36. Do yoga 3 times a week for a least a month
37. Reach my goal weight – This will have to wait until Baby C 2.0 is here
38. Continue to exercise on a regular basis
39. With next pregnancy, continue to exercise and eat healthy food – In progress

Financial
40. Create an emergency fund
41. Pay off all debt (loan, CC) in 5 years
42. Stick with a budget for 5 months
43. Not use a CC for everyday purchases for 3 months

Helping Others
44. Give more to our church
45. Pay for someone behind me at a fast food or coffee shop
46. Put change in someone's expired parking meter
47. Do something nice for someone without being asked to help
48. Leave a 50% tip for dinner

Spiritual
49. Do bible study every day for a month
50. Go to church every week for 2 months
51. Consistently journal my Bible reading daily for at least one month
52. Pray for others every day

Food
53. Buy an expensive bottle of wine (more than $100)
54. Only one small sweet or less a day for a month
55. No fast food for a month
56. Cook dinner for a week straight
57. Make ice cream from scratch
58. Make my own bread (not in the bread maker)
59. Make an entire meal with organic food
60. Learn how to bake amazing cakes/cupcakes
61. Make Jeff breakfast in bed for Fathers day with Catherine
62. Organize my favourite recipes
63. Bake something once a month for a year
64. Make soup from scratch – Completed

Trips/Outings
65. Go on a family trip
66. Build a sand castle
67. Attend a taping of a live TV show
68. Visit somewhere in Europe
69. Go whale-watching
70. Go skinny dipping
71. Sleep under the stars
72. Ride in a hot air balloon
73. Go on a picnic
74. Spend a day at the beach
75. Visit the Grand Canyon
76. Visit 3 provinces (I haven’t been to) in the Canada
77. Go somewhere Tropical with Jeff (no kids allowed)
78. Take Catherine to Disney World – Completed
79. Go camping as a family
80. Go scuba diving or snorkelling
81. Visit the Green Gables Heritage Place (Anne of Green Gables)
82. Go to Las Vegas
83. See a play, ballet or opera – Going to see the Secret Garden on Feb 23, 2011 with my Grammy
84. Take a train somewhere with Catherine – Completed (we went to Disney on Ice in Toronto)
85. Take a sister’s trip (when Sam graduates!)
86. Go to New York and see Time Square and Ground Zero
87. See the Toronto Maples Leafs play – Going to a game March 2, 2011
88. Visit the Canadian Rockies
89. Hike part of the Bruce Trail
90. Visit Niagara Falls
91. Go visit a volcano
92. Take a random road trip
93. Take a mother/daughter trip

Jeff & I
94. Kiss in the rain
95. Have another baby – In progress – Baby C 2.0 is currently baking in the oven, we will meet him or her in about 21 weeks
96. Have dinner by candlelight
97. Continue to communicate effectively – In progress
98. Have a designated date night once a month for 4 months
99. Go out for an expensive dinner at a fancy restaurant
100. Take a dancing lesson together
101. Take a cooking class together

Wordless Wednesday

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