The PSA Challenge

This September, AJ and I had the chance to participate in a fun challenge for a great cause.

My friend Melanie from work lost her father last year to prostate cancer and created this challenge in memory of him and to raise money for Prostate Cancer Canada. The PSA Challenge was designed after The Amazing Race, with challenges across the city of Barrie.

AJ and I were so excited when the date was moved and we were able to participate. We had trained at City Chase and were ready to take the challenge in our own city.

We recruited our friends Andy and Mel to race with us because we knew they'd be competitive and a lot of fun. And we were right.

Since it was the first year, only 6 teams signed up, but together we raised over $5,000! So many people asked about the challenge during and afterward, so I know it's going to be huge next year. I'm glad we got in on the first year.

Mel did a fantastic job planning the event. Each team got a clue sheet with 9 challenge riddles to locations around Barrie. We also got a second optional sheet with a list of photos to take and activities to perform.

The team who raised the most money got a 10 minute headstart, but soon we were off.

We headed to the library first where we had to solve a cube puzzle. We did it quickly and headed off to the East Bayfield Rec Centre where one of our teammates had to eat a pizza topped with mealworms and crickets. Enter AJ. He did it like a champ, chasing it with a bug creamsicle smoothie. Yuck!

Next we went to Georgian Chevrolet where we had to answer trivia questions. If we got 2 right, we had to push a small car, if we didn't we had to push a truck. Turns out, we were the only team that got to push the car.

Our backpack included a pair of blue striped socks which we had to trade up for something bigger and better, so we stopped by Andy and Mel's place and traded with their neighbour for a bottle of wine.

We used our lifeline to figure out the next challenge was at the YMCA. Two challenges in fact. First, we completed an obstacle course in the gym. Then around to the pool where we were given a bunch of cardboard and had to make a boat that would carry our teammate across the pool. We made a very fashionable and functional boat that made it across. But it took a lot of time. We could have skipped the challenge and only been penalized 15 minutes, but we wanted to complete it.

Next, to the Georgian Mall (which we really should have gone to after the rec centre in hindsight) where we had to find a person in a blue tie to give us a clue. We found him and had to choose between tying ties at Moore's or performing tasks wearing beer goggles at The Mansion. We chose The Mansion. We chose wrong. We had 5 tasks to complete wearing these awful goggles and it was very time consuming, but we did it.

Our last stop had a riddle that had to do with beer and horses. We thought it was the Flying Monkeys Brewery, but when we got there, they didn't know what we were talking about. At this point, we had heard that most, if not all team were finished (and we thought we were doing well!) so we decided to head back. (It was the Molson Centre, duh!)

Between all of these challenges, we completed all of the optional challenges - about 20 I think.

We got back and were 5th across the finish line. Kind of disappointing. But we found out that several teams had skipped the optional challenges.

When the final team arrived, we did awards. The team who raised the most money also won the race so they cleaned up with prizes. We did well though. I got 3rd place for most money raised. Our team got a prize for most optional challenges completed and we won best costume.

It was a really great day and we were able to be a part of a great cause. We'll have to start practising for next year!

The Spending Game

Money is the worst.

It comes in and goes out so fast you don't even know what happened. You make your salary and then figure out how to disperse it: bills, necessities, fun spending, emergency fund, short-term savings, long-term savings. There's so many things to do with your money, but there never seems to be enough.

We're no money experts, not even close. But we decided awhile ago to start tracking our spending with Quicken. Then we realized that tracking your spending is useless if you don't do anything about it, so we made up a monthly budget, thanks to some advice from Joe Sangl and plotted out our monthly spending before the month began. To the cent. So before the month even begins, we've "spent" all of the money we're going to make. It's a tough and frustrating task.

With our low-average salaries (and especially with me having been on maternity leave), our spending is tight. Most of our money goes to bills, then groceries, then $25 for each of us for the whole month to spend on whatever we want. $25.

This means that while my friends buy their lunches, go shopping, grab a coffee, etc., I'm usually just along for the ride or have to say no to things. And often that's really hard.

Sometimes I get really down about it. I wonder if we'll ever be in a place where we can just go out for dinner if we want to, or plan a vacation every year. We can't cut down our bills much more, so does that mean we need new jobs or promotions or even second jobs?

But there are two things that help me when I'm sitting at work, eating my leftovers while everyone is enjoying take-out. One is that I trust God with my money. We make room in our budget every month for giving. Imagine what a couple hundred extra dollars would do if we could add it to our budget. But that money goes to the church. And it's not a chore, it's a thank you. We might not have a lot of expendable income, but we've never been in real financial trouble and I believe a big part of that is our faithfulness to giving back.

The second thing that helps is reminding myself that I don't know people's private finances. Yes, many people make more money than we do, but look at how many people are also drowning in debt. They go out and they spend money doing fun things, and then go home and put down the minimum payments on credit cards. I feel so lucky that we have no debts aside from our mortgage and we pay off our credit cards every month. That freedom is worth skipping restaurants and shopping sprees even if it seems difficult.

I am confident that, as we get older, we'll be able to grow our salaries and give more room to take those vacations and eat out once in a while, but, even then, I plan to continue budgeting our funds every month and spending it before we spend it. We will probably never be wealthy by western standards, but I think we can be happy and stay out of debt and maybe that's more than many can say.

City Chase 2012

After a year off, AJ and I partnered together again for City Chase in Toronto. Kai spent the day with the Martins and we got up bright and early for 8am check-in at Metro Hall.

We knew the drill so we wandered around and gathered our swag and then waited through the warm-up and announcements which seemed to take forever.

Finally 10am came and we were told to check Facebook which had a riddle that sent us to the TD Centre at Bay & King. Once we had a hold of the clue sheet, we sat down to plot them out on a map and plan our strategy.

And then we were off. The hope was to get more than AJ and Sandra's 18 Chase Points from last year.

Chase Point #1

Our first stop was at a firefighter training station. We could choose to go left and unwind a hose and spray a target or go right and do something unknown. Since AJ and Sandra did the hose one last year, we opted to go right. We ended up in kind of a FireFit challenge. We had to carry a hose up 5 stories, then put on blackout masks that simulated seeing through smoke and find a baby in a concrete room. I had imagined they were going to fill up the room with smoke or have a little fire somewhere, but it was nothing like that. Just a room with a baby on a couch. We ran back down the stairs and had to drag and dummy back and forth and then hit a bar with a mallet until it crossed a line. And Chase Point #1 was complete.

They shot an episode of Flashpoint here!

Chase Point #2

Next we took a fairly long walk to a part that had two Chase Points. For the first one, we put on plastic bags and slid down this giant slip 'n slide. Then we had to get 15 points on LadderBall and we were done.

Chase Point #3
In the same park we had to play a little Aussie Rules futbol that included bouncing the ball past a line then kicking and catching 3 passes. Finally, we had to hit the ball through a hole and the point was ours.

Chase Point #4
Frisbee golf! Throw the frisbee around the park and hit 9 marked trees.

Chase Point #5
Next stop was a spa and I definitely could have used a foot rub at this point, but instead we had to roll a dice that determined what we had to have waxed. I volunteered to do whatever it was, which ended up being lower leg, so it was no problem.

Chase Point #6
We went to our first of three Goodlife Fitness locations, had to jump in the pool and find 4 pucks and 5 photos and use them to complete a math problem. The idea was ok, but there ended up being just enough photos and pucks for one team at a time, but they let all the teams in the pool so it was kind of a mess. But we got the point. (no photos, sorry)

Chase Point #7
We headed to the Hard Rock Cafe and had to participate in a rap battle. We chose three pieces of paper and had to incorporate those words in our rap. We chose Hulk, race, and heartless. This was a great challenge for me - I love writing parodies. I chose to write it to the tune of the Fresh Prince theme song. You can check out the lyrics below.

There didn't end up being another team ready at the same time, so we didn't have to battle, but we performed as though we did and we killed it. Obviously. Chase Point complete.

Chase Point #8
After heading to the Goodlife Fitness at Union Station and deciding not to stay for the long and tough TRX workout, we went down to the Peter Street Slip and participated in a Survivor favourite. We got hooked to a rope and had to duck and weave through a series of ropes to get to the end.

Chase Point #9
I think this one was kind of fun. We were in two kayaks tied together. AJ was blindfolded in the front with a paddle and I had to navigate him around a buoy and back to the start.

Chase Point #10
Another Goodlife Fitness stop (can you tell they were a main sponsor?). Into the squash courts and we had to get 20 consecutive hits. We got it on the second attempt.

6 hours of racing and we made it to the end with about 15 minutes to spare. We got 10 Chase Points, so we finished and got 304th place. Not exactly our goal of more than 18 points, but I'm glad we finished. We both agreed that the challenges we not as hard or fun as the last two years. Maybe we just managed to miss all the fun ones. Not sure if we'll do it again next year or not. Maybe we'll take a year off and AJ will do the Spartan Race or something. I still had fun and I'm always happy to have AJ as my partner.

30 by 30 #7 – Try (and hopefully enjoy) Running

This is one of those tasks that has no finish line so to speak. But, since my goal was simply to try running, now is as good a time as any to post about it.

I did my first "run" sometime last summer. I had just had Kai and he was wonderful, but he was a baby and spent a lot of time crying inconsolably. On the bad days, I was counting down the minutes until AJ got home so I could at least have someone to share my difficulties with.

On one particularly tough day, AJ came home to a very frustrated wife. I handed him the baby and said "I'm going for a run." (he graciously and wisely told me to take as long as I needed) I felt all wound up and needed to release some frustration. Kickboxing would have been my first choice, but running would do.

I changed, grabbed my iPod and headed out the door. Turning the music up as loud as I could bear it, I just started to run (probably more like a jog) and kept going until I felt like I wasn't going to explode. I think I went about 2km before I turned around to come home.

By the time I got back, I felt refreshed (mentally-physically I was sweaty and gross and feeling it in my shins). I made it through the rest of the night.

I may have gone for a run a couple more times, but nothing serious until last month. Kai is no longer nursing and my metabolism has slowed back down, so it was time to be more proactive with exercise. I got my handy iPhone and downloaded a few running apps, landing on RunKeeper as my favourite. It has pre-set workouts along with the ability to create your own.

AJ goes to the gym Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, so I have to be home in the mornings while Kai is sleeping. So I thought I would make Tuesdays and Thursdays my running mornings. Now, I am not a morning person, but I also know that after work I just want to spend time with Kai and AJ. I also learned from Jon Acuff that if you want to do something for yourself, you take it out of your own time, not your family's. So mornings it is.

I don't know what it is about Tuesdays, but I can almost never drag myself out of bed. I'm exhausted. However, I've been up and at 'em every Thursday morning, so that's something. Getting out of bed is definitely the worst. Once I'm out on the road with my iPhone running buddy and my favourite playlist, I really enjoy myself. I'm doing kind of a couch to 5k thing, so right now I'm running 1 minute, walking 1:30, repeating that pattern for 20 minutes. This is one of the app's pre-sets and it's been great. 20 minutes in the morning feels do-able and I don't have to get up quite as outrageously early.

In the month since I've been doing it, I've already noticed a difference in my technique. I don't get shin splints anymore, I can run a bit faster during the "steady pace" phases and I'm not as winded.

The goal is to go more consistently and work my way up to being able to run for longer durations. Maybe do a 5k one day?

30 by 30 Update

Sometimes I don't like to think about it, but I'm about 2 months away from my 28th birthday. Therefore, I'm 2 years away from my 30th birthday, so it's take to take a look at my 30 by 30 list and see how I'm doing.

Blow up at least 3 of our own photos to use at art in the new house

Make a calendar in Photoshop to give as Christmas gifts

Teach Snax a new trick

Serve at a soup kitchen at Christmastime - This seems tougher to do than I expected. It seems everyone wants to do this at Christmas and they only want volunteers who can commit on a regular basis. I'll keep trying.

Take a wine tour - Not done, but my friend Ashley bought one on Groupon so we should be doing that sometime this year

Play ice hockey

Try (and hopefully enjoy) running - Started this. I'll add a post in a couple weeks.

Bungee jump - I'm ready, just need a location and some extra cash

Road trip down the California coast - Still dreaming. Not going to happen this year.

Scuba dive - Not sure if this will happen either. No vacation plans in sight.

See the Goo Goo Dolls in concert

Go on a short term missions trip with AJ - would still love to do this, but it might be on hold until we have older kids

Weigh 160 - had a baby. Still working on this.

Read the favourite book of at least one friend each year - Going well. Will be looking for one this year.

Spend New Year’s downtown in a big city - Possible.

Read the Harry Potter series

Spend a day some time painting on canvas - This is the most likely to be next.

See the Grease musical

Take kickboxing

Learn to drive stick (better) - Also a strong candidate. Just need to get out there.

Go white water rafting

Pay off our debts

Recover the dining room chairs - I so so want to do this, but the old covers were outrageously stapled and I haven't found the time to get them off.

Learn to sew so I don’t have to get my mom to fix my buttons

Get a great permanent job

Buy a design program (probably Photoshop)

Host a family Christmas

Bake a pie from scratch

Be in a play - Trying to convince my church's children's ministry to do something so I can be in it without having too big a commitment.

Have a baby

16 complete. About halfway done in both time and tasks, but I've got some tough ones to go. Not sure I'll be able to complete the travel ones, but the others should be do-able.

You Don't Talk Me Down

I'm married to a dreamer. His mind is full of ideas - things to try, things to accomplish, at home, in career, in life.


I am more of a realist. I'm creative, but I'm also practical.


AJ is often coming to me with his ideas, big and small. He's so excited, thinking about all that is possible. My automatic reaction is a quick brain scan: ok, here's an idea, is it realistic? Is it possible physically? Financially? The answer is almost always no and I start listing off reasons why it wouldn't work. You can almost watch the bubble burst, but I figure he might as well realize it won't work before he gets too far into it.


My way ensures that we continue to live comfortably, financially stable, living in a straight line of knowing what's to come. But it also means we're not growing, arguably not really living life to the fullest. And certainly for AJ, a little bored.


One of our favourite bands is Jack's Mannequin. On their new album is a song that must have been written just for me. The chorus has given me new insight on letting AJ be AJ without letting go of me.


          "And you don't talk me down
          You're talking me through"


AJ's not completely irrational. He may have all these ideas, but he does think them through before he decides to carry them out. So when he has a dream that he truly wants to pursue, what if, instead of talking him down, I used my practical, detail-oriented personality to talk him through?


I'm in marketing and when we're trying to come up with an idea, we first have a brainstorming session. This is where you speak any idea that comes into your head, boring, crazy, practical or not. It goes on the board and when you've exhausted them all, THEN you go through and find the one that will actually work.


I need to encourage that brainstorming session in AJ, maybe even join him, before trying to work out the details. If I can do that, I know some incredible ideas will surface and we'll get to experience a more full life and a more full marriage.


Here are the full lyrics, I hope they can encourage you too.




Jack's Mannequin – Platform Fire

Tore up like your baby blue jeans
I was stepping through a fog
Under pressure, but I'm feeling weightless
Can't let heaven's pin-stripe shooting
Leave you carrying a cross
Across the desert when you're feeling faithless
After all, this haze is only temporary
Laughter falls on deaf ears in the auditorium

Stories stacked up so tall
And you don't talk me down
You're talking me through
Bright lights, our platform fire
I'm a man on a wire
You're here for the view

Scattered in the mist, unmoving
It's getting hard for you to watch
Me under pressure when I'm feeling weightless
Up where tensions aren't computing
And where I've never fallen off
I guess I'd like to think your worry's wasted
Worry's wasted on me
After all, this haze may not be temporary
I heard you call
From the back row of the auditorium

Stories stacked up so tall
And you don't talk me down
You're talking me through
Bright lights, our platform fire
I'm a man on a wire
You're here for the view
I'm a man on a wire
You're here for the view

So tell me what you think
When you see me there
And tell me what you see
When the smoke is clear

Tore up like your baby blue jeans
I was stepping through a fog

Stories stacked up so tall
And you don't talk me down
You're talking me through
Yeah, just like you always do
Bright lights, our platform fire
I'm a man on a wire
You're here for the view
I'm a man on a wire
You're here for the view

Bright lights, our platform fire
I'm a man on a wire
You're talking me through

30 by 30 #24–Learn to sew

I took Home Ec in grade 7 and learned to sew on a button. And that was probably the last time I actually participated in that task. Since then, my mom has fixed everything for me that required any sewing. Even now that I've moved out, I save up a few things and send them over for fixing. Since I have my own kid now, I figure it's about time I at least figure out some basic sewing.

Project #1 - the button on my winter jacket

Project #2 - my nursing pillow

30 by 30 #27–Host a family Christmas

The plan was to check this one off during Christmas 2010, but circumstances changed and we weren't able to do it. So 2011 was our year.

Spending the 23rd and 24th in Mississauga meant some planning ahead of time, but we had lots of help, especially with the food. We came home Christmas morning after stockings and breakfast, started the turkey and got some snacks together and even fit in a quick vacuuming.

In the afternoon, both sides of our family arrived, 13 people total. We ate snacks, opened gifts and spent some time together while the turkey cooked. My only regret is that you really can't cook dinner ahead of time, so about 30 minutes before dinner, we were all in the kitchen trying to get everything ready. That half hour was a little stressful for me, but everything turned out great, including my first-ever turkey - success!

It was great to have everyone together. I'm not sure that I would want to host Christmas like that every year, especially once we have a toddler, but I really enjoy entertaining, so this won't be the last Christmas at our place.

30 by 30 #2–Make a calendar in Photoshop to give as Christmas gifts

I'm no graphic designer, but I work with some at work and I've picked up on some techniques and played around a little at home. I really enjoy taking a blank screen and creating something out of my ideas. So, for Christmas this year, I decided to make a calendar for each of our moms with some of my favourite Kai pics out of CD jewel cases. They turned out really well, so maybe it will become a yearly tradition?

30 by 30 #22–Pay off our debts

AJ and I started out our marriage financially better off than many people. We were both able to pay for college without accumulating any school debts and we paid for our wedding out of money we had already saved up. This was a huge blessing.

Then, just after we got married, it was time for AJ's car to be replaced, so we bought a new Mazda on a 5-year term. A couple years later, we were ready to leave the condo and get a bigger space, so we bought a house and took out a loan for the down payment. We're very careful with our credit cards so we don't have any debt there.

Neither of these loans were too much for us to bear financially, which was great, but they were loans nonetheless. We do, of course, have a mortgage as well, but the house is what financial planners are calling "good debt" so we're ok with that.

In November of 2010, we paid off our down payment debt and on November 27 of 2011, we officially paid off our car loan, making us totally debt free!

We took a financial planning course through church and are sitting down together every month to plan out our spending before the month starts to ensure we are living within our means and hopefully with some margin. This has been a great tool especially with me on maternity leave, which has cut our income significantly this year. We're planning on keeping my 2003 car around for a few more years so we can save up some money and buy my next car with no debt if possible.