Enjoy the Journey: Top 10 Moments of My Life

< I am taking the challenge presented by Little Miss Momma to share with you the top highlights of my life>

To the title I should add...so far. Because I feel as though I have a lot more living left to do. But I feel as though I have been so blessed with the things that I have accomplished in my life. I am both proud and humbled by the accomplishments in my life, as well as the love and support I have received all through my life.

These are the top ten moments of my life (mostly in reverse chronological order, not by order of importance)


#1. Being selected for the North American Select Fastpitch team to play in the World Indoor softball championships in Paris. (not Ontario, but Paris France).

#2. Receiving a full scholarship to play softball at the University of Detroit for the Titans

#3. Graduating from University with a Bachelor's Degree in Business - Summa Cum Loude.

#4. Getting engaged to GT. Picture is from the night of the engagement!

#5. Marrying Grady, an event that I would do all over again 9 years later. Our marriage makes me a better person.

6. Buying our first house together!

7. Birth of our first child, adorable little Brock. Before him I never realized love was instantaneous. You'll notice I've been cropped out of this picture, it's better that way!

8. Running my first half marathon. I should mention thus far it's been my only!

9. The birth of our second child - our daughter Reese. Suddenly our family was complete!

10. Returning to grad school in order to obtain my Certified Human Resource Professional designation.

Now I challenge you to come up with your Top 10 Moments that have taken your breath away.




Feel free to leave a link to your Top 10 post in the comments section if you choose to accept this challenge, or you can just leave a comment describing a special moment--I would love to see the moments that have inspired your life

Time To Get Iced

The Taylors are currently in negotiation for the next purchase for our home. and by negotiations, I mean, GT with a great idea and me thinking of all the reasons not to go for it. But so far I'm actually having a hard time fighting against this latest idea.

You see, anyone who knows us will know that hockey is a big part of our life. Okay besides eating and breathing, it's the main component to everything in our life - including, weekend plans, tv watching, and general prioritizing.

GT has discovered Synthetic Ice! Yes, soon our basement will fade into a year round training centre for our budding NHL stars, so that they can lace up their skates and play on the surface any day, any time. Check out the video for more information.



We still have to figure out all the dynamics and sizing to determine if this is right for the Taylor household. But if it does, I have a feeling there's going to be a constant flow of little people with their skates and sticks coming through our front door!

Time for a New Vehicle

Somewhere in the middle of 2010, my husband convinced me to trade in my very cool, sexy-ish SUV for a very hockey-mom like mini van. I really don't know how he did it, but soon he had me excited about all the extra room it would have, and the benefits of being able to bring lots of sporting equipment or luggage with us, without sacrificing space for the kids to sit. With a trip to Myrtle Beach planned for the family in April, I fell for the sales pitch hook, line and sinker (did I mention that my husband makes sales his profession? He is good!)

So, we decided to do the sensible thing, and instead of buying new, and locking in to a four year car payment, we would buy a late-model mini van with low kilometres that would last us at least five years and if we were lucky, ten.

The only problem is, we didn't get lucky. We got a van that came with the worst curse that could have ever been placed on a vehicle before. The first week we had it we had to bring it in to the dealer to have four things repaired. Now as it turned out, as I was screaming "Lemon", the service manager was explaining to me that everything they had repaired had been under recall and the previous owner just hadn't bothered to have the recalls repaired. Fair enough.
Flash forward a few days to the night before we leave for Myrtle Beach. The vehicle had to go for an emissions test before the ownership could be transferred to our name. Sign of Bad Luck #1: When the e-testing machine breaks, with your van on it, and your van catapults of the machine at 80km/h and smashes into a guardrail. Next thing we know, we're in a sweet rental van all the way to Myrtle Beach and back - and returned to pick up my van, fresh with $2500 worth of new materials all around the hood and side panel.

There have been other smaller, minor details since April. Air conditioning not working, Gear shifter won't go into park, Calipers on breaks seize at 30,000km and both sets of breaks need replacing. At this point I'm cursing this thing on a daily basis.

Cue to September - Sign of bad luck #2: driving home from work when a utility van driving in front of me loses it's spare tire from underneath the vehicle, lays it right down on the road like an egg, and I have nowhere to go but directly in to it. When all was said and done, the damage done was more than $3000 and I had no choice but to go through insurance (the driver did not realize he had lost his spare tire so did not stop).

Things continue to malfunction with this vehicle. Both sliding doors fail to open at least once a week this winter. Which means that we must climb through the trunk in order to get to our seats. While the kids think this is fantastic, this is not what I envisioned when my husband made his big sales pitch about a great family vehicle!

Someone wise once said with respect to a vehicle - 3 and done. Meaning, time to get rid of it. We feel like we have gone well past our three, and then some. So we are moving on. Although somehow now that I'm already at the mini van stage, I'm unable to go back to the SUV stage. So we are looking at more mini vans, still used, but probably just going back to last year's model. Which means that we'll be having to use the line of credit for the difference in the value that we've lost on that piece of crap the current van that we own.

one thing I'm considering doing is something that any investment advisor would strongly discourage and that is this:
My husband and I just re-financed our mortgage. We have a variable rate and we broke our mortgage to move to a lower interest rate. In order to do this with our current lender, we had to increase the mortgage by $10K. Initially we had just planned to put that money right back down on the mortgage as a lump sum payment. but since the rate on the mortgage is currently below prime, we're thinking about taking that $10K and using it to buy the new vehicle. I would probably be stoned by any reasonable investor for saying such a thing, but since the mortgage is our only debt, and we paying it off ahead of time anyway, I feel somewhat justified in my opinion.

If anyone has any advice on this topic please share!

A Visit to Centre Island

Doing things as a family in the summer time just seems like a right of passage – I can remember doing it with my family, when for two weeks every August, my Dad would take vacation and we would do a number of daytrips in and around the Toronto area. And so the tradition continues. Last week, we decided to take the day off work and take our kids to Centreville on Toronto’s Centre Island. I had not been back since I was a child, but had so many great memories of the rides there that I knew my kids would love it as well.
It was a fantastic day! Despite the 1 mile sprint to catch the morning ferry and meet up with my Cousin and his family, and the rain that chased us away near the end of the day, it was a great opportunity to go back to a place where I have so many wonderful memories of spending time as a child. Our kids loved it and keep asking to go back – no line up for the rides and big shady trees made it a very relaxing and enjoyable day. Plus a great dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory made the day complete!
But of course, none of this comes without cost! I was able to save $10 by purchasing the admission tickets online, and we packed a picnic lunch that we were able to enjoy there instead of buying overpriced, undercooked food at the amusement park. The total expenses for the day were:

Parking - $9
Ferry Boat - $19
4 All Day Passes - $80
3 Jolly Rancher Slushies - $12
Dinner At the Old Spaghetti Factory - $65

Total cost for the day: $185

Definitely not a cheap day, to be certain. But my husband and I both feel that when it comes to making memories and happy experiences for our children, we can afford to splurge on them. And seeing how much they enjoyed the day was worth every penny! But this is probably the reason why we only do these things once a year!!

Why I Love Gail Vaz Oxlade

If you have to say "who the heck is Gail Vaz Oxlade" then you obviously don't know much about Canadian personal finance. Gail has come to the rescue of many couples from all different financial backgrounds, as the host of Til Debt Do Us Part. But not only does she impart her wisdom on the tv show, she has a wonderful website that you can find here. There is a section that is dedicated to the fundamentals of the show, but mostly she has created a site full of wonderful information in relation to every topic of personal finance/budgeting/debt repayment that you could ever think about. The best part is that she spells it all out, step by step so that if you're just starting out you could easily navigate your way through the website and become 10 times more knowledgeable in just a few short hours.

Case in point - I happened to come across her website through another message board and decided to check it out. Since that time, I have read through every single article she has published, all the questions that she has answered that her loyal followers send to her, and also followed up on the section devoted to Reader's stories about Getting to Debt Free (yes, I have submitted but haven't seen my name put up yet).

My favourite parts of Gail's website are as follows:
1. her daily blog. I have it in my Google Reader and it's the first thing I read in the morning after checking email. She covers such a wide range of topics and tells it like it is. I rarely disagree with things she types (why would I??? She changed my life!)

2. Her articles. Gail has broken down just about every topic that you can think of and has posted numerous articles to help you understand what she is trying to get at. The most important thing you can do is to educate yourself so check these out. i'm currently reading through her articles on kids and money. My son is about to turn five and I'm anxious to start his allowance and get him on the right track for spending vs. savings!

3. Finally, the last thing that I absolutely love about Gail is her interactive budget. Here you can put in ALL your financial data for monthly expenses and income, and it shows you what percentage you are allocating your funds too. There are also guideline percentages so you can see how you are stacking up to what is suggested. There are some things that make this tricky when you own a family...like for instance, Gail's life category. Gail says it should be 25%. But Gail doesn't have to send two children to daycare while we both work full time, so this percentage is higher because my daycare costs are included in there. Once they are both in school full time (my little one is just two but with the new proposal by the Mcguinty government to have full time kindergarten by next year it might come sooner than I thought), my "life" percentage should shrink back down to a more reasonable figure.

Gail fields questions from all kinds of people every single day. Each week she posts three questions on her website, but responds to people individually. Last week I sent Gail a question. I asked her how I should direct my savings approach now that the debt repayment approach is over with. I actually got a response! i wish everyone could have seen my eyes light up as I read her reply. So Gail, thank you, you made my day! Now I probably will have to wait to see it up on her website. Another blogger, Jessie from Jessie's Money got a response from Gail back in March and just saw it go up on the website yesterday! So I will wait patiently!

In closing, I love Gail Vaz Oxlade for helping me get onto the right path of debt repayment. And though I don't feel as though I need to use the jar system, it has helped me create my budget with a monthly dollar allocation for each of my unique budget categories