10 seconds

I have this friend named Max.  I have known Max for forever and a day.  Max is getting married next January to a beautiful girl named Jenn.  Max and Jenn have entered some sort of crazy contest where the winner gets $10,000 worth of wedding planning/photography etc.

Having just been married myself, and knowing how stupidly expensive it is just to hold a simple celebration, I've been willingly clicking all the appropriate links to help get Max & Jenn further along in their contest.  Currently, they have made it to round two: Blogging.

They need to keep a blog, and keep it interesting.  AND.... get lots of visitors.

Max & Jenn are good kids, so would you take 10 seconds to click this link and visit their blog?


http://jennandmaxweddingthreesome.wordpress.com/

Today's blog entry featured my little brother, who happens to be Max's best man.

March "Break"

We're down to the final hours of March Break - the sunniest and warmest March Break possibly ever!  It has been a really great week to have off work.  Although....  It seems that Adult March Break is far different than Kid March Break.

Dave and I bought a recliner last weekend.  So, I spent all day Tuesday (I worked on Monday) rearranging furniture so that the new recliner would have a space in our house.  Anyone who has ever rearranged furniture knows that with rearranging comes some major cleaning as you unearth gargantuan dust bunnies that have been growing for the past number of years!  It took pretty well all day, but I am happy with the results.  It's a much more baby-friendly space now too.

As with all new furniture, with a new recliner comes an awesome cardboard box!  This box happens to be almost cube shaped.  Roughly 3ft or so.  Small enough to fit in the front door, but too big to fit down the hallway into the front room to be stored for a rainy day.  So, it sat in our kitchen for two days as I tried to come up with a way to transport it to somewhere, anywhere, else!  Eventually, I managed to borrow a truck and take it to the inlaw's where our nephews and I spent an afternoon turning the box into a spectacular castle!  Dave's mom may not be too happy that it's in her house instead of in my house, but, the kids love it!

The rest of the week has been filled with errands and cleaning and laundry and writing thank you cards and putting out lawn furniture and trying to get over this stupid ridiculous cold.  And now that Sunday is here, the mad scramble is on to finish all those tasks that I said I would complete this week!   ....maybe it will rain this afternoon so that I'll have no desire to go outside to do anything else but what I should be doing.

Unload

Dave got kicked last night.  It made him especially smiley.  I guess when the person doing the kicking weighs less than a pound, it makes it ok.


The secretary's printer at work continues to just randomly not print.  It seems to be online and ready to print, but... nothing.  More importantly, why am *I* the techy goto person??


I've always thought that it would be a good idea to take some time off work after my crazy year end season is over, but I never do.  This year, I am.  Next week happens to be March Break and I will not be at work.  Hopefully, this will become an annual occurrence.   Not that it will really be much of a vacation this year - I plan to use my time stripping wallpaper off a certain bedroom wall, and writing long overdue Thank you cards; both chores that have been neglected for far too long.


I had grand plans for my income tax rebate this year, so I was eager to get them done and get that rebate.  I've never done my taxes before the end of April before, that's just how excited I was about it!  But then came the dreaded question: "Has your marital status changed?"  Let's just say that marriage is not a particularly good tax incentive.  Aside from that one little check mark from 'single' to 'married', my tax return is pretty well identical to last year's.  So, why is it that my rebate is about $200 less than it was last year?  That really put a damper on my level of excitement.  ....I had plans for that money.  (frowny face)

And then I did my husband's taxes.  That was even more disappointing.  He actually owes money.  I was not impressed.  All we did was get married and suddenly our rebates total about 1/3 of last year's.  *sigh*  Hopefully, having children will prove to be a better tax incentive.

The most frustrating part of the evening came when I tried to actually file my tax return on the CRA website.  It seems that I cannot file my taxes until I notify them of my name change - something I thought I had already done.  Although I have already informed them of my marital status change, and have been properly stripped of my GST rebates because of it, and, although I have a brand new SIN card with my married name on it, that I received straight from Service Canada, it seems that I have not gone to the proper lengths to inform the tax man of my name change.  But not to worry!  All you have to do is log onto 'My Account' on the CRA website and make the change - easy peasy.  Except it's not.  First, you have to set up an account with a user name and password and about 15 security questions including your blood type and the birth date of your first pet, and then...  they'll mail you a verification code that you have to enter to verify your account.  Mail. Not email - MAIL.  As in, in about 5 days, you'll get a piece of paper in your mailbox.  All so that I can tell them something that they should already know, and honestly really shouldn't matter because my social insurance number (aka - the way the government keeps track of me) has not changed.  This is about the time of the evening that my tax return paperwork almost went flying across the room.

I'll never be excited about filing my taxes again.