I need an economic bailout

I was holding back from posting about last weekend, waiting for some photos to be emailed to me, but it doesn't look like they will come through anytime soon. I think photos would really add to my post about my cousin Jess' surprise birthday party.

I guess in the meantime I'll blog about things that have been going down lately - in a nutshell - not good. Our furnace broke down last Wednesday (the coldest day of the year). Nuno was home all day working on a storyboard and he could tell the furnace hadn't kicked in as the temperature was dropping. Since we have the gas fireplace, we took a chance and decided to be sure it was broken by sleeping the night on a mattress on the rec room floor by the fire. It was really fun, like when you're a kid having a sleep over. Just an evening watching blu-rays by the fire. But the fun ended the next morning when we stepped out of the rec room to a house reading 11 on the thermostat. We called in service and they came to fix it within a couple hours. My god - the bill is insane. They had to replace a motor, so there isn't anything we can do but chalk it up to a home ownership expense. But what would be just a small issue kinda turned into a financial burden when the company Nuno works for went bankrupt this week. Therefore Nuno is on unemployment for the time being and there's a slight chance that a new investor will take over the company. Everyone is laid off until further notice.
Not to despair, we did our math and we should be just fine - but our weekends of gallivanting all over Ontario and New York are on hiatus. It's been good to re-evaluate the new year. I have a personal goal of no soda or alcohol, something I've been wanting to kick but never had a good reason to stop. I've been drinking tons of water which has been making me feel amazing so I hope to stick to this new lifestyle.