Week of Money: Dental fun fun fun…& where American milk causes an organic milk shortage in Canada

DAY ONE

6:00 a.m. — It isn’t that early. But I feel tired. I give the second book I bought yesterday to my partner to give to Little Bun so it doesn’t always seem like only Mommy buys gifts. Little Bun is ecstatic. My partner DOES pay half, so it is nice to share the credit.

6:30 a.m. — I get Little Bun ready and drop him off. The director’s mouth drops in the garage when he sees me in my car. Ugh. This was inevitable. I pretend I didn’t notice him.

7:10 a.m. — Drop off done, I head to the market to pick up some yoghurt but they are obviously not open at 7 even though it SAYS the market is open at 7, apparently it is more 8:30 or 9. Annoyed, I drive home.

7:18 a.m. — At home, I log in and work.

9:00 a.m. — I get ready and head out for my appointment. I have a cavity. When I get there, it is apparently a HUGE cavity that went into the neighbouring tooth as well and actually, the nerve could be dead so now I may need a root canal. #%@@%….

10:57 a.m. — I head off to buy my lunch. I return a coat I bought, in the end, XS is really too small for me to wear comfortably and I’d never wear it. – $125.37

11:22 a.m. — I pick up a vegan wrap. They don’t have the Nori one left which is my favourite. Boo. $6.57

11:38 a.m. — I log in to a cafe and work as I eat my lunch.

12:05 p.m. — I head home just as it starts raining. I have to brush carefully and gently twice a day and rinse with this antibacterial wash for these two inflammations I ALSO have on my gums. Woo hoo….

12:28 p.m. — I log in and work.

2:56 p.m. — I go and pick Little Bun up early so I can avoid traffic and people coming in and out.

3:27 p.m. — Back at home.

4:02 p.m. — Little Bun is ALL OVER the new math drills book.

7:15 p.m. — We get ready for bed – clean up our toys, put them away, and then get ready to go to sleep.

Returned: $125.37

Spent: $6.57

DAY TWO

??:?? — I wake up.. early. Again. Little Bun goes to the bathroom and I try to usher him back to sleep (when will I learn?).. but then just get up and get his milk. OMG. I could sleep another hour or two.

??:?? — I finally get out of bed, and he insists on doing Place Value math. So we sit and he powers through the book — almost complete, and he just started it yesterday. 50 pages! OMG. I am going to need a budget for math books…

6:03 a.m. — I then start teaching him the treble clef – he really wants to learn the piano and I have not decided on which one yet or my final budget, so I am teaching him the clef in preparation. If he can sight read or at least know what the notes are, it will be easier when he learns where they are on the piano if I put little removable stickers.

6:43 a.m. — I start getting ready for work and he bursts into tears. I cuddle him and kiss him. I tell him how Mommies have to work. He wants to come with me but not go to preschool. I tell him it is preschool or home. He is torn…

6:47 a.m. — Finally, a promise of a monster sticker and that Daddy will FOR SURE do Place Value math with him, perks him up. As I go to leave, he clings to me again, and I remind him about the monster sticker and math, and he reaches for his father instead. No tears at least.

8:25 a.m. — At work, I tell my friend that the Director saw me in my fancy car yesterday and he cackled that I’d be fired: “It’s been great working with you…. but you drive too nice of a car. Get out.” Oh well. It was bound to happen the longer I kept working there…

9:37 a.m. — I email a friend who just had a baby and ask if we can meet for lunch. I have a gift(card) for him.

10:44 a.m. — I also plan another lunch for this week with my friend who is now annoyed with her new colleague who is very rigid, a bit OCD, unable to be flexible, always arguing with her.. she’s like: “Why can’t I get a break in this damn place?“… first her manager, now this guy. I feel bad for her. At least my team is nice and for the most part leaves me alone (except for this one ornery cow..)

11:15 a.m. — My heart isn’t into working today. I’m tired. I want to be at home, sleeping, or reading a book and relaxing. I really need time off (true, alone time off), but these projects are killing me. At least they stopped one, so I can breathe. I hope it isn’t too cold today. I have a lunch. I go and pick up my scarf from the car, I’ll need it.

11:30 a.m. — I head to my meeting and when the project manager shows up, he only says hello to me. Everyone pretends to be offended: “What are we, chopped liver?” … I didn’t think fast enough to quip back that he is just surprised I am showing up to one of his meetings because I keep working remotely. Oh well.

1:12 p.m. — Lunch time! FINALLY! I have been waiting all day. 😀

1:23 p.m. — I eat a delicious meal and am very happy. This was the appetizer, a vegetable roll with mango sauce. $20.29

3:32 p.m. — I leave work.

4:27 p.m. — After going to the post office, I head home, and Little Bun squeals into my arms. I kiss him and tell him I need time to de-stress and get undressed and change into house clothes. He squeals and runs into the bedroom.

5:08 p.m. — My partner heads out to pick up dinner.

5:40 p.m. — We eat, and then I start cleaning up. Lots of work drama happening in my office so I fill him in. In particular, there is a guy who claims to be super rich with a lot of money and can’t seem to stop bragging about every house he owns, etc…. but I always take what people say to me with a grain of salt. Other people have come up to me, asking if I heard this and that, and how skeptical they are of his story.

7:28 p.m. — Time for bed. We do more treble clef note identification (his choice, versus reading a bedtime story OR math…) and then he does math with his father, and we all go to sleep.

Spent: $20.29

DAY THREE

??:?? — I get out of bed to the sound of Little Bun chanting math equations in wonder. “Mommy 60 plus 40 is 100. And 100 minus 20 is 80. That’s because 6 plus 4 is 10…plus a zero”. Too cute, but it is early. TOO EARLY FOR THIS.

6:03 a.m. — I grab his milk, take him to the bathroom and then just get up. It is actually already 6 a.m. so he “slept in”.

6:20 a.m. — I get ready for work, and decide on pants instead of the dress I picked because I plan on going outside today and don’t want my legs to freeze. Later on in the day I will realize the sun was warm enough for me to go bare-legged, surprisingly. Maybe I’ll wear the dress tomorrow then if it doesn’t rain. I wear it with this belt again:

7:00 a.m. — As I am leaving to go, Little Bun runs to his father and raises his arms to be carried. His father picks him up and has him use his head to (gently) close the door (LOL)… I also left a math book for them to do if he starts getting antsy, and he has monster stickers as well up his sleeve. No tears today. If he sleeps well, he is FINE. He isn’t clingy at all and is wonderful. If he doesn’t sleep… well…

7:29 a.m. — At work, I start on everything. Three projects (at least the fourth one was taken off my plate), and one of them is starting to take over like a weed.

7:41 a.m. — I make some eggs in the microwave (they are not very yummy texture wise but I am hungry).

11:53 a.m. — I leave, and drop off the pants to return (FINALLY), that were marked as a size 4 but is actually a size 6/8… I did not want to tailor them in (too tricky, they are too well made), and so I opted to return them.

12:43 p.m. — I also pick up a gourmet salad (yummy!) $20.66

1:15 p.m. — …and pick up my soled heels. $69

1:33 p.m. — I head back to the office, flop into my chair (get an evil eye from a colleague), and start my afternoon with calls with project managers (have 4 breathing down my neck, two from the same project but on different sides — client and ours).

2:40 p.m. — I brush my teeth and do the anti-bacterial rinse (have to do it for 5 days, twice a day), and it tastes terrible. Ick.

3:40 p.m. — I leave early again. I am tired.

4:19 p.m. — I get home and Little Bun squeals down the hall into my legs. He then leaves me and jumps on the bed, saying: Mommy! Please come in here!!! I ask him for 5 minutes of Mommy time. To get undressed, wash my face, unpack…

4:28 p.m. — I chat with my partner about his day and mine as I unpack everything.

4:39 p.m. — He then leaves to get errands and dinner things, and I cuddle Little Bun who looks up and me saying: I missed Mommy ALL DAY. I told him he had fun with his father however and Mommies have to work or else they’ll lose their mind. He nods, and pipes in: “.. and make money to pay for apps.” LOL.

5:27 p.m. — I organize my things, get him settled in to play some math games online (his new thing — MathPlayground.com ) and write emails, enter stuff into my budgeting tool to track all my spending (halfway through the month and doing GREAT.)

5:39 p.m. — My partner comes home with dinner, we eat and then I do more math and piano treble clef reading with him (upon his request, not mine), then dishes.

7:40 p.m. — We get ready for bed and as he explains to me how he never ever wants to sleep, I explain how getting bigger and stronger needs sleep, and how we all need to rest to repair ourselves and to stay healthy.

7:49 p.m. — We also do a bathroom run BEFORE sleeping (our new thing to stop late night runs so my sleep is not broken).

7:53 p.m. — He seems to consider this strongly and repeats back to me about how that is why Daddy got so fat!!! I burst out laughing because Little Bun is not being mean, he just doesn’t know the difference between “big”, “tall” or “fat”, and I correct him. I say: Daddy got big and tall from eating vegetables and sleeping. Not fat. We don’t say fat.

8:19 p.m. — Then we go to sleep. He snuffles around the bed like some mole until I firmly tell him: SLEEP. (OMFG SLEEP.)

Spent: $89.66

DAY FOUR

6:00 a.m. — We wake up and get ready to leave for work and preschool. Little Bun tells me he doesn’t want to go. He wants to stay at home with Mommy. I tell him how preschool will be fun and that the girl there will do multiplication with him. He nods and goes happily, because he didn’t want to do addition and subtraction any more and wanted something new.

7:39 a.m. — At the office after drop off, I chit-chat and then get to work. I am on a few projects at once and in between down time on other projects, I work on other ones.

9:08 a.m. — Meeting.

12:08 p.m. — Lunch. My friend rants on me about this jack#%* she is working with. He is really condescending, rude and extremely difficult to work with. He sucks up only to the managers but doesn’t realize she’s Lead.

1:25 p.m. — Our food is SO LATE we have to skip dessert. I’m a little annoyed. I use my gift card (had $70 on it), so I end up paying nothing $0

2:10 p.m. — Another meeting. I push another one that one of my Directors had scheduled because I can’t get an answer out of the client. I have been hassling and hassling them but they are delaying the project and my deliverables. I’m really annoyed.

3:45 p.m. — I hear my friend LOUDLY speak to her colleague. Uh Oh. She is red-faced in the cafeteria, upset AF. We chat to calm down.

4:10 p.m. — I leave just as a friend comes by and says: You still here?!?! …. he has been coming in super early and leaving late. I feel bad for him. But he is a professional like me and has to bang out those documents, so he is ramping up and will take back his time later.

4:27 p.m. — Little Bun and I reach home and pick up a TON OF packages. We ordered 10 garbage cans and the nice guys downstairs help me bring it up to the apartment. So nice of them.

5:38 p.m. — My partner comes home and tells me there is a major milk shortage. Apparently with the lift on the NAFTA agreement with the U.S., American milk is making its way up here, but they use a hormone on their cows to produce more milk that is banned in Canada. Now, people are all scared / upset about this hormonal milk that has after effects that have been linked to cancer that they are muscling in on the organic milk. ALL THE SHELVES ARE EMPTY of organic, Canadian milk, and everyone has been buying out the stock, so Little Bun and I have been milk-less for a few days.

6:26 p.m. — We chat about all the drama happening — my friend with that jack#%#%, this guy who is a fake / real millionaire (??), and how things are going in general for us.

7:18 p.m. — I do math with Little Bun and we read a few books. He is loving how much The Hungry Caterpillar eats, and says he wants the same meal now and to have his belly FULL OF ALL OF THIS FOOD:

8:01 p.m. — We get ready for bed.

Spent: $0

DAY FIVE

??:?? — I wake up and Little Bun is in a VERY GOOD MOOD. He is not upset about staying at home although he asks about going to preschool today.

6:42 a.m. — I get ready to go and Little Bun runs into his father’s arms.

7:22 a.m. — At work, I start. My friend hands me a little bag of coconut cookies. <3 He knows I love his wife’s recipe.

8:47 a.m. — I head up for a meeting and it was a long one today. I raise two major issues about what is blocking me on my deliverables and I tell them I will be THREE WEEKS after the client gets back to me. They all start to panic. I shrug. This is what you get when you aren’t organized and clear abut things.

12:08 p.m. — Lunch time. I head out to eat with a friend at a vegetarian place, and the food was okay, but a bit flour-y for the appetizer, and the meal itself was all right. The burger was good but not amazing like at Copper Branch, and the curry was fine but needed more rice and sauce. *shrug* $23.56

1:22 p.m. — Back at the office, I corner my friend and she says they have a management meeting because this guy she is managing is now outright refusing to do the work she is assigning him (which is a sign that he doesn’t know what he is doing which is why he wants to skate through under the radar and just collect a paycheque), and they have a meeting just before the end of day (ugh what a weekend sendoff), to hash things out.

3:56 p.m. — My friend leaves to catch her train and I email her asking if she is okay. She nods and says “See you Monday”. Then I get a huge long email from her explaining what happened — how he lied, then ended up contradicting himself by saying he didn’t refuse but then actually REFUSES in the meeting to work on things….. whatever. I hope he gets fired. My friend doesn’t need this stress, we all just want to work as a team, collaborate and be happy together. I have a similar #%(#% on my team, she is the one who keeps bossing me around and telling me what to do. She is so ornery and not at all worth the money they are paying her (same as me). I’m a little insulted actually.

4:20 p.m. — I head home and Little Bun runs into my arms as usual. I ask him if he had a great day and he nods. My partner also installed a full-length mirror for me because I wear things or outfits and am not loving that I can’t see the entire outfit. FINALLY. A FULL LENGTH MIRROR.

5:00 p.m. — He heads out for errands, and I make noodles along with Little Bun after feeding him stew and pasta while we do music treble clef notes together.

6:29 p.m. — My partner comes home, and I transfer $625 into Little Bun’s Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) account for his investing (I put in $2500 a year to get the max from the government credits), and I drop another $10,000 into my trading account which I hold at Questrade ( use my referral code o0soehds to get 10 free trades), and another $5000 into private lending (Lending Loop – referral code here — 7b03f0 ). When I see the stock market dip like this, I like to plow money into it to pick up stocks at a slight corrected discount. I also like to diversify away from just stocks and invest in riskier things like private lending or cryptocurrencies (under $2000 here..).

7:16 p.m. — We get ready for bed after we clean up ALL the toys. Little Bun doesn’t want to but I insist.

8:29 p.m. — Time for bed. TIME FOR BED.

Spent: $0

DAY SIX

6:00 a.m. — I wake up before Little Bun, and not even 30 seconds later, he squeals: MOMMY?????

6:03 a.m. — I grab his milk, kiss him and feel super cold. I’m wearing warm UGG slippers inside the house, and a sweater with leggings but my fingers are frozen and so are my toes. I make two cups of hot tea but it doesn’t help. I guess if I am cold I’m burning calories right?… I don’t know how this works. I just know I don’t have much fat on my body but I do have it all collected in my back and my under arms, and my fingers and toes are generally always cold.

8:08 a.m. — I consider buying this Living Proof Restore Dry Scalp Treatment to help my dry scalp during winter. I have been washing my hair more and it has been flaking more, this is not good in my books. I need something to help heal my scalp. I thought my hair was just not getting washed enough but I have been washing twice as much as lately which is NOT good for my scalp and it has been getting itchier and flakier.

9:26 a.m. — I log in to Ebates (LOVE THIS PROGRAM NOW! I have over $200 in cash rewards), and pick up that treatment at Sephora online, along with a gift pack with the code READYTOJET …. I also pick up MAC mini lipstick in Mehr (to get free shipping as well). I decide to choose the UP-IN-THE-AIR ESSENTIALS on the left and will give away the other items to my friend at work who loves freebies. $62.09

12:28 p.m. — I wasn’t going to wash my hair before going out (I hate wet hair in cold weather) but I do it and wish I had a hair dryer. I’m seriously considering the Dyson right now just as a quick – just in case for these kinds of days. I don’t own a hair dryer or a single hair styling tool. I always let my hair do its thing but it would be handy to have a dryer just in case.

12:45 p.m. — I leave after lunch and am still hungry but wait to see if I want to actually eat more or if I’m full.

1:28 p.m. — I go and try to return items but when I get to the shopping complex it is PACKED. I have never seen so many cars and people on a weekend (I come often to do errands). Halloween I suspect is the cause for this – candy and costume shopping.

2:33 p.m. — I buy some gummy fruits and Hershey kisses for the office candy pot. $12.61

3:47 p.m. — I get so frustrated with traffic that I leave and go to a parking lot, turn off the car and read. I guess I will try and get Little Bun’s gloves tomorrow morning (I forgot where I stored his old pair, seriously…)

4:31 p.m. — I head home — major traffic again, and when I get in the door I’m relaxed but annoyed that I got nothing done.

4:47 p.m. — My partner asks me how it went and I said it was INSANE. I guess I’ll have to do this during work hours on my lunch break as I don’t have any other choice.

5:12 p.m. — I cuddle Little Bun as my partner makes dinner and we do math equations (multiplication).

6:20 p.m. — We have a very light salad and some bread with avocado. We don’t like eating heavy daily as it isn’t good for you …

7:28 p.m. — I start getting ready and we all head to bed.

Spent: $74.70

DAY SEVEN

??:?? — I wake up. It is early. Little Bun is crawling all over me making woofing puppy noises and he finally gets tired of me pretending to sleep and says: MOMMY. I want to give you a hug and a kiss. (This is the prelude to waking up…)

5:28 a.m. — I get up and grab his milk and just collapse back down pretending to be dead.

6:10 a.m. — No chance. I get up and we start doing multiplication in the kitchen while I make tea. He does his 5X table perfectly then works on his 4X and then goes through all the squares as I cuddle and snuggle him (yes we also had to spell both those words….).

6:38 p.m. — As much as I complain, I also love these early morning just Baby and Me time because this will not last forever and everything is so quiet as we are cuddling and doing math.

7:00 a.m. — My partner gets up and we head to the bedroom so he can play on apps with music and noise.

8:30 a.m. — I get ready to go out and my partner kiboshes Little Bun coming along because he is a bit sick.

9:19 a.m. — I pick up gloves for him and some ball of foot pads to try out what I like in heels, as I bruised my foot the other day in that area while wearing heels and realized I should take better care of my feet. $48.57

10:25 a.m. — I drop by Joe Fresh then H&M and get suckered into a dress and perfect wide legged pants. They may not stay but I buy them anyway to contemplate as I drive home. $70.69

11:17 a.m. — At home, I make noodles and do all the dishes then start three loads of laundry – kitchen, bathroom and clothes (out of underwear!)… then time for a nap.

12:28 p.m. — Nap time.

2:26 p.m. — I do some math with Little Bun on the computer and do music notes with him. I have to remember to find keyboard paper for him to practice memorizing what notes go where on the piano (2 black keys, 3 black keys) and getting used to seeing what the piano layout looks like. He will be well-prepped for the piano next year although lately I have been itching to plow money into the market instead of buying a piano.

2:28 p.m. — I kiss Little Bun and tell him how happy Daddy and I are that he is our baby. He loves hearing that and lately has finally started asking (10% more) for his father. It is a small, hard won step for me. I was even able to leave today before his lunch and nap without tears which is BIG.

7:36 p.m. —  Time for bed. I have an auction ending at midnight (WTF SELLER — couldn’t make it 7 p.m. EST?!??) but I REALLY want this top to round off my favourite outfit. I’d have paid for it full price but it was sold out online in my size (small) — the MM Lafleur Blixen in Rainforest. I set my timer to vibrate.

I even wear the other Fey top in Rainforest alone with other outfits:

11:59 p.m. — Bzzzzzt. I wake up, snipe the auction, win it and go back to sleep. $125.41

Spent: $244.67

———-

Want more? Read all of my previous Week of Money Diaries.