Plans and Problems
The upstairs neighbours are yelling at each other yet again and I can feel the headache rising at the back of my skull already. The night before last, they were yelling at each other until almost 2:00 in the morning and were at it again at 8:00 the same morning. I cannot WAIT to get out of this place. Trev and I are looking at townhouses, but we're really not certain if we want to double our rent or not. It will definitely depend on a lot of things. We looked at one tonight that was nice and had a 2-car garage that also had a ton of storage space. It had the bonus of being a 3 bedroom, which is what we are ideally looking for, and the master bedroom also had its own full bathroom, which was very nice, but the $1300 monthly rent isn't so nice. It isn't that we can't afford it, because we can, it's that we still have bills to pay off and things to save up for. If we double our rent that isn't going to help us get things paid off that we need to, sadly. I have found a couple places (one townhouse, one duplex) that are under $1100, but I'm still not sure I even want to go that high for rent. When we were initially looking at new places, we were talking about a max of $1000 for rent. We could technically afford much more than that, but I would rather not put us in a position where we are having to live paycheque to paycheque in order for us to save and pay bills. He and I both enjoy going out once or twice a month and occasionally we eat fast food (lately we've been bad because we haven't done a decent grocery shopping recently). I've been trying to crunch numbers and figure out what our ideal maximum rent should be where we can still live comfortably.
On the bright side of things, I almost have my grandfather paid off from the money I borrowed from him last year. I'm actually paying him back more than what I really owe him, which was a decision Trev and I both made. As of March 15th, I will only owe him another $600. We have also started paying our lawyer finally and I intend to keep paying him at least $50 a month until my grandfather is paid off and then put $200 a month towards that bill until it's paid off.
Speaking of our lawyer, I don't know how long my immigration will take now. I finally got my clearance from the California Department of Justice and sent that off to our lawyer who in turn sent it off to CIC. For some reason, the California DoJ wouldn't send my lawyer the clearance even though I had signed a release authorizing them to obtain the information. I'm not sure why they felt the need to mail it to me up here personally -- for all they know, my lawyer could have given a wrong address for me. Whatever...I got it and sent it off. I think that was the only thing they still needed to process my application, so now I'm just waiting...again. Hopefully, there won't be any more bumps in the road, so to speak.
I haven't checked the CIC website in ages because I kept getting disappointed when there were no changes in the status of my application. Now that they've likely received my clearance from the California DoJ, I think I might start checking it again in a week or so, just to keep an eye on the progress of my application. I'm really hoping the decision is made within a couple weeks because otherwise, I am going to have to go back down to the border and try and get an extension on my temporary import of my car. I'm sure that will just be thrilling for me. Thankfully, I've had good luck in the past and I'm going to try to see the same guy that I've always gone to down there. We shall see what happens. I just don't want to put it off for too terribly long because I despise doing things like this at the last minute.
It's nearing the end of February and that's tax season up here just as it is down in the States. I'm really not looking forward to getting our taxes done this year since I have to do cross-border taxes; filing both in the States and in Canada. Thankfully, Trev doesn't have to file in the States at all and my income was so low since I didn't start working until September, that I will likely qualify for a return from the government. Sadly, that return will only offset what I owe them from last year, but at least that will be one less bill I have to worry about. I still have to pay my California taxes from last year, which was only about $80. We just didn't have the money at the time and we've been trying to pay other things before that. Our bills seem to be a work in progress for us, but we're getting there slowly but surely.
I still have to finish getting all the things for my business license, which I now need to send a form to the City of Surrey along with $144 for. I also have to finish registering for a GST account number. Other things Trev and I have to do include getting him a passport, since we will be travelling across the country in the summer to go see his family on the east coast; family he hasn't seen in over 17 years. The more direct route would probably be through Canada, but the faster route goes down through the States because the speed limits are higher on the highways and the number 1 (Trans Canada Hwy) is only 2 lanes for a lot of it. Couple that with lower speed limits and getting stuck behind trucks and it tacks on at least another twelve hours of road time. Another bonus to travelling through the States is all the rest stops and convenience stores/gas stations along the way. The Trans Canada Hwy has a lot of very long stretches of just nothingness. I much prefer having places to pull over and stop if need-be. It will be an interesting trip, if not a long one. We still have to figure out what days we are going and plan the trip accordingly, but he managed to get approved for 3 weeks off from work (2 weeks with pay, 1 without) and I can usually take off when I need/want to. I've already told Jeanette that I'll be gone for the last half of August and part of September, so she's already aware of that. It's planning financially for all that lost work that is going to be difficult and something we have to start looking at now rather than later.
But, it is getting late and Trev is snoring in the other room, so I should probably go join him. Hopefully I will be able to sleep with the din of our upstairs neighbours still going on. Normally, when they're like this, I will crank up my music to drown them out, but since Trev is sleeping, that wasn't exactly an option for me tonight. I think my book is calling me...perhaps I can get lost in the land of Wicked.
On the bright side of things, I almost have my grandfather paid off from the money I borrowed from him last year. I'm actually paying him back more than what I really owe him, which was a decision Trev and I both made. As of March 15th, I will only owe him another $600. We have also started paying our lawyer finally and I intend to keep paying him at least $50 a month until my grandfather is paid off and then put $200 a month towards that bill until it's paid off.
Speaking of our lawyer, I don't know how long my immigration will take now. I finally got my clearance from the California Department of Justice and sent that off to our lawyer who in turn sent it off to CIC. For some reason, the California DoJ wouldn't send my lawyer the clearance even though I had signed a release authorizing them to obtain the information. I'm not sure why they felt the need to mail it to me up here personally -- for all they know, my lawyer could have given a wrong address for me. Whatever...I got it and sent it off. I think that was the only thing they still needed to process my application, so now I'm just waiting...again. Hopefully, there won't be any more bumps in the road, so to speak.
I haven't checked the CIC website in ages because I kept getting disappointed when there were no changes in the status of my application. Now that they've likely received my clearance from the California DoJ, I think I might start checking it again in a week or so, just to keep an eye on the progress of my application. I'm really hoping the decision is made within a couple weeks because otherwise, I am going to have to go back down to the border and try and get an extension on my temporary import of my car. I'm sure that will just be thrilling for me. Thankfully, I've had good luck in the past and I'm going to try to see the same guy that I've always gone to down there. We shall see what happens. I just don't want to put it off for too terribly long because I despise doing things like this at the last minute.
It's nearing the end of February and that's tax season up here just as it is down in the States. I'm really not looking forward to getting our taxes done this year since I have to do cross-border taxes; filing both in the States and in Canada. Thankfully, Trev doesn't have to file in the States at all and my income was so low since I didn't start working until September, that I will likely qualify for a return from the government. Sadly, that return will only offset what I owe them from last year, but at least that will be one less bill I have to worry about. I still have to pay my California taxes from last year, which was only about $80. We just didn't have the money at the time and we've been trying to pay other things before that. Our bills seem to be a work in progress for us, but we're getting there slowly but surely.
I still have to finish getting all the things for my business license, which I now need to send a form to the City of Surrey along with $144 for. I also have to finish registering for a GST account number. Other things Trev and I have to do include getting him a passport, since we will be travelling across the country in the summer to go see his family on the east coast; family he hasn't seen in over 17 years. The more direct route would probably be through Canada, but the faster route goes down through the States because the speed limits are higher on the highways and the number 1 (Trans Canada Hwy) is only 2 lanes for a lot of it. Couple that with lower speed limits and getting stuck behind trucks and it tacks on at least another twelve hours of road time. Another bonus to travelling through the States is all the rest stops and convenience stores/gas stations along the way. The Trans Canada Hwy has a lot of very long stretches of just nothingness. I much prefer having places to pull over and stop if need-be. It will be an interesting trip, if not a long one. We still have to figure out what days we are going and plan the trip accordingly, but he managed to get approved for 3 weeks off from work (2 weeks with pay, 1 without) and I can usually take off when I need/want to. I've already told Jeanette that I'll be gone for the last half of August and part of September, so she's already aware of that. It's planning financially for all that lost work that is going to be difficult and something we have to start looking at now rather than later.
But, it is getting late and Trev is snoring in the other room, so I should probably go join him. Hopefully I will be able to sleep with the din of our upstairs neighbours still going on. Normally, when they're like this, I will crank up my music to drown them out, but since Trev is sleeping, that wasn't exactly an option for me tonight. I think my book is calling me...perhaps I can get lost in the land of Wicked.