“We are pleased to advise you that processing of your application for permanent residence has been approved and completed. The Canada Immigration Centre in Calgary will contact you concerning the appointment to pick up your permanent resident card.”

“You may now apply for an open work permit, which will allow you to work in the occupation and location of your choice.”

I got the two letters yesterday and finally got to read the words we’ve been waiting eight and a half months to hear… Canada has decided they like me enough to keep me! Now the bulk of the process is behind us and I just have to wait for the Calgary office to contact me and set up an appointment for me to go in and get my card. Once that card is in my hands I can officially travel again. I can’t wait – we plan to take a nice long vacation to Indiana to visit my family and friends as soon as we can. Yay!

And as if the first week of May wasn’t already exciting enough, my store website is up and running now! It’s completely functional; we plan to make some minor tweaks and adjustments to photos and formalities in the next few weeks to further polish the site’s functionality and make it even more user friendly, but it’s officially open as of today! Check it out here: http://shop.thepinktoque.com :)

They say good things come in threes, and that’s definitely true this week. The UK exhibit opened today that I am participating in; my plush food will be on display with a short bio about me and business cards for the entire month of May into the beginning of June at Cafe Kino to celebrate its first birthday. I sent a plush cake and two plush donuts and was told that I’d receive 100% of the price of anything that sells, and my cake sold before the event even opened! That takes care of covering my shipping costs… ;) So I’m starting off the exhibit already ahead and will get even more exposure as the month wears on. How exciting! I sure hope they take some pictures because I’d love to see all of the fun plush food on display.

Congratulations to my little brother who is graduating from college tomorrow. I wish I could be there to see you, Herm. I’m so proud of you! Because it was so unexpected, (he didn’t think he’d be graduating until August and just found out this Monday that he’d be graduating this Saturday, lol) my family is going to wait for me to come home to throw a party.

I guess that makes four good things this week instead of three. Whatever. The more the merrier! :)