Copyright 2010 TAK Publishing All Rights Reserved
About TAK
Tom, Alex, and Kristin
Tom, Alex, and Kristin
Hi my name is Kristin Vaillancourt and I am the co-creator and co-author TAKpublishing.com. Let me tell you a little about us.
I am originally from Springfield, MA. I moved to Gardner when I met my husband Tom where he was born and raised. We met on match.com (I was skeptical of those sites too at first) September 2006 and have been together since. We were married on March 24, 2007 and on October 14, 2007 we had our son Alexander Martin Vaillancourt. When I look at the dates I think wow did we move fast but that’s what you do when you're in love and we would never change any of the decisions we made.
When I moved to Gardner I was on the hunt for a job and wow was that tough. There not much in the area so I would have to travel to Framingham to go to work. With the price of gas there was no way I could make that commute. But I kept looking, putting in my resume, then about a month after I moved Tom and I found out I was pregnant. We were overjoyed. Job Hunting went on hold so that I could plan our wedding, I had the time of my life. It incorporated my creative side which I had kind of suppressed. Before we knew it our wedding day was here and even on a small budget it was the wedding of my dreams.
After our Honeymoon it was back to reality. Tom hated his job and ended up getting laid off. Talk about stress. We were having a baby and neither of us had a job. I started looking for a job again but not many people wanted to hire a woman four months pregnant who needed maternity leave in 5 months. After about a week of searching Tom got a new job and the stress level came down. I loved being pregnant there is no feeling like it. The first time he kicked or fluttered in me was amazing. It also made it real and Tom and I realized even though he was working it was going to take more than his income to keep us a float. I suggested opening an ebay store so that we had another income stream and it would give me something to do during the day.
We started that kind of as a hobby. It was nice have that to add to his income. When I was about 8 months we decided to put ebay on hold, we knew once Alex was born our time would be limited and we didn't want our customers to pay for that. On October 9, 2007 I went into labor, Alex was born October 14, 2007 at 5:34PM. Yes I was in labor for 5 days. All I can say is thank god for pain medication. We brought him home and started to settle in as a new family.
The first two months are still a blur. I think I got about four hours of sleep a night and was fighting Baby Blues. I have battled depression my whole life so I expected it, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Alex first Christmas rolled around we decorated (he was fascinated by the lights) and had fun. A few days before Christmas however Tom was laid off again. This was a blow for our family. We didn't let it ruin Christmas but afterwards you could cut the stress and tension with a knife.
Tom loathed the idea of looking for another job he was tired of someone else controlling his life. He wanted more freedom. That was all well and good but we had bills to pay, a baby to support, and NO INCOME. We needed to do something or we were going to sink.
We decided to give eBay a try again. We ended up buying a huge lot of used DVD’s on eBay and decided to try and sell them. It actually helped for a few months but with eBay fees it was not enough. I began looking on the rest of the internet for online businesses. Please remember that if you do just go surfing for online businesses you will hit scammers! We did and ended up losing a few thousand dollars!! I do not want that for you.
When I was surfing online one night I saw how many people were buying up recipes for Infomercial cooking products on eBay. Tom and I began researching and within two months launched our first product “Your Ultimate Cookbook for the GT Xpress 101”. It became a hit on eBay and our website. That one product was able to replace Tom’s old full time income. Since then we have launched another cookbook “Your Ultimate Cookbook for the Xpress Redi Set Go”, episode guides, and been able to source other products, as you can from our growing website.
We now make more than what we would if we were both working a full time, Tom and I love our jobs and are overjoyed that we get to be with our son everyday watching him grow.
No matter how busy we get we are committed to our customers, if you have any questions or concerns please feel free to e-mail us at Tom@ourgrnbusiness.com
Have a nice day!
I am originally from Springfield, MA. I moved to Gardner when I met my husband Tom where he was born and raised. We met on match.com (I was skeptical of those sites too at first) September 2006 and have been together since. We were married on March 24, 2007 and on October 14, 2007 we had our son Alexander Martin Vaillancourt. When I look at the dates I think wow did we move fast but that’s what you do when you're in love and we would never change any of the decisions we made.
When I moved to Gardner I was on the hunt for a job and wow was that tough. There not much in the area so I would have to travel to Framingham to go to work. With the price of gas there was no way I could make that commute. But I kept looking, putting in my resume, then about a month after I moved Tom and I found out I was pregnant. We were overjoyed. Job Hunting went on hold so that I could plan our wedding, I had the time of my life. It incorporated my creative side which I had kind of suppressed. Before we knew it our wedding day was here and even on a small budget it was the wedding of my dreams.
After our Honeymoon it was back to reality. Tom hated his job and ended up getting laid off. Talk about stress. We were having a baby and neither of us had a job. I started looking for a job again but not many people wanted to hire a woman four months pregnant who needed maternity leave in 5 months. After about a week of searching Tom got a new job and the stress level came down. I loved being pregnant there is no feeling like it. The first time he kicked or fluttered in me was amazing. It also made it real and Tom and I realized even though he was working it was going to take more than his income to keep us a float. I suggested opening an ebay store so that we had another income stream and it would give me something to do during the day.
We started that kind of as a hobby. It was nice have that to add to his income. When I was about 8 months we decided to put ebay on hold, we knew once Alex was born our time would be limited and we didn't want our customers to pay for that. On October 9, 2007 I went into labor, Alex was born October 14, 2007 at 5:34PM. Yes I was in labor for 5 days. All I can say is thank god for pain medication. We brought him home and started to settle in as a new family.
The first two months are still a blur. I think I got about four hours of sleep a night and was fighting Baby Blues. I have battled depression my whole life so I expected it, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Alex first Christmas rolled around we decorated (he was fascinated by the lights) and had fun. A few days before Christmas however Tom was laid off again. This was a blow for our family. We didn't let it ruin Christmas but afterwards you could cut the stress and tension with a knife.
Tom loathed the idea of looking for another job he was tired of someone else controlling his life. He wanted more freedom. That was all well and good but we had bills to pay, a baby to support, and NO INCOME. We needed to do something or we were going to sink.
We decided to give eBay a try again. We ended up buying a huge lot of used DVD’s on eBay and decided to try and sell them. It actually helped for a few months but with eBay fees it was not enough. I began looking on the rest of the internet for online businesses. Please remember that if you do just go surfing for online businesses you will hit scammers! We did and ended up losing a few thousand dollars!! I do not want that for you.
When I was surfing online one night I saw how many people were buying up recipes for Infomercial cooking products on eBay. Tom and I began researching and within two months launched our first product “Your Ultimate Cookbook for the GT Xpress 101”. It became a hit on eBay and our website. That one product was able to replace Tom’s old full time income. Since then we have launched another cookbook “Your Ultimate Cookbook for the Xpress Redi Set Go”, episode guides, and been able to source other products, as you can from our growing website.
We now make more than what we would if we were both working a full time, Tom and I love our jobs and are overjoyed that we get to be with our son everyday watching him grow.
No matter how busy we get we are committed to our customers, if you have any questions or concerns please feel free to e-mail us at Tom@ourgrnbusiness.com
Have a nice day!
