Bam!

The only thing worse than being audited once, is being audited twice in the same year. Enter CRA and OSAP's mission to get Heather.

The CRA audit was easy enough: they just wanted my tuition statements for 2010. I was somewhat anticipating this as even if you're registered in more than one program, as I was, there is no way to have this declared on your T4 or Income Tax statement so the government's view is "hey, why is this girl claiming 3x more in tuition than everyone else in this program?" Ah well. Like I said, easy enough to explain in a letter and mail in.

OSAP, however, has been a lot more tricky. I'm fairly sure I'm having the same problem as with CRA, however, OSAP wants pay stubs - T4s & T4As are not acceptable. This is a disgusting amount of paper as I have had three jobs and have been on a biweekly pay schedule for each of them. In addition, they want everything for 2009 and 2010. Ugh. Then to top it all off, I was able to print 3 pages at home before Lenny's printer started spazzing out. And he's not home for several hours. Hoorah.

Well that's my rant for today. What a terrible way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Piggies! (and muffins)

Last night Lenny and I went to the Lung Lab/Physiology Annual Pig Roast last night. Here are some pics of my very first pig roast!

 Yep -- found the right house!

Mr. Piggy, you were so tasty.

The pink decor in the beautiful backyard before another 50 people arrived.

Yao made some delicious spring rolls. This pic also showcases the coolest propane fire pit thing that I've ever seen.

One of the evening activities was the showcasing of luges that some people had built. I didn't know really, but a luge in this sense consists of a contraption that allows alcohol to be cooled by gravity and an ice cavern. Here's the heart one made by using two different sized heart cake pans.

The winning luge consisted of a pink piggy balloon filled with ice. Well, it was filled with ice before it exploded all over one of the Lawson -20 freezers staining the floor pink...

And then in an unrelated picture, this morning I made apple muffins. Apples really don't taste quite that great this time of year, but they still taste really yummy with sugary flour nearby!

A Perfect Type of Sunday

Today after getting the normal Sunday things done (French toast & espresso for breakfast, laundry, lunch of reheated homemade spinach pizza from the night before, attempting to fix the vacuum, and taking Lenny to the gym while I shopped), we had a lazy afternoon at home. TV has been pretty terrible lately, so I opted for finding a podcast and came across one of our favourites, Stuart McLean and the Vinyl Cafe. We listened to the two most recent ones, and then a classic -- The Waterslide. You can listen to it yourself here -- http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/vinylcafe_20110716_24090.mp3; no need to download or anything. Man what a great story teller :)

Old songs

Every once in a while something will come up that shows how Lenny and I grew up just a little bit differently. One of the funnies came up when we were driving in the country and drove by a yard that had yellow ribbons tied around all the trees. Lenny said: "Hey look -- they're having a party!" to which I responded with a very quizzical look... Growing up in the country / around grandparents that lived through the WWII in North America, I knew that a party was not the reason. Have you heard this song?




Today I found another song that kind of accompanies this era, although Lenny has heard of this one. It's one of those warm fuzzy insides song.



I'm sure we'll encounter more as time goes on, but I wanted to make a note of these two before I forgot! :)

Cake Adventures

Today Future Shop was having a promotion, and if I made a cake of their logo, they'd give me a $5 gift certificate. So here's the cake:

And here's what I turned it into after:

Lenny was participating in a volleyball tournament today, and seeing as I didn't feel like going for the whole time, I figured if I showed up late with some cake that would = support. The team name was Bazinga, but when he texted it to me the first time, T9 changed it to "no naming"... so what started as a Future shop cake, became a white volleyball cake with No Naming written in green icing, and then became a cake with green icing and Scrabble Chocolate letters... I was so disappointed; a volleyball would've been so much more appropriate, but what can ya do... First two-layer cake = quasi-to-no success. At least the middle didn't cave in and 20% of his team was willing to try it :-/

It's Friday

So as anticipated, there's not too much to report for today excitement-wise. Tonight while Stumbling though, I think I found a perfect cake topper for Lenny and I:



It's very reminiscent of his Mom & Mark's where the computer was replaced with a racecar. Good times.

Nothing Much

Well there's nothing much too new to report. From the looks of it I'm not the only one though as all of the blogs I follow seem to be pretty quiet lately. Perhaps it's this lovely weather we've been having...

I've seen a dietitian since I wrote last to chat about the Oral Allergy Symptom diagnosis.  I learned that the most likely nutrients I'll be lacking are potassium, Vitamin C, and iron. We went over a bunch of foods that I can still eat to get those nutrients so yay fun. One thing that both Lenny, who tagged along for moral support, learned was that if you cook spinach, it makes the iron absorption from it significantly easier. I would have thought it was the other way around as with most fruits and veg, but apparently not spinach. I will see her again in a week's time to see how adding another 500 calories/day assists with general mood and feeling better physically and things like that.

Last night I went to my first triathlon club get together in a while. We did a swim/bike combo and it actually went really well. I was in a great mood at the end of it and got an incredible 2-hour workout in there. It was also nice to have two other newbies to train with. In fact nice is an understatement. God help me for every time I go to exercise and watch every other person there be capable of about 1000x as much as me...

I'm thinking about becoming a foster parent for a dog. Everytime I'm checking out kijiji lately, I've been seeing this ad -- http://london.kijiji.ca/c-pets-dogs-puppies-for-sale-FOSTER-HOMES-NEEDED-W0QQAdIdZ303113510 -- that is put up by the Humane Society. I think it might be a good first step to see if we're really ready for a dog without having to make such a multi-year commitment. There are so many pros and cons that I'm not really sure what I'll end up doing, but if you feel strongly either way, please feel free to share your thoughts.

Well that's it I think for now. It was a pretty quiet birthday yesterday with work during the day and the tri group at night. Lenny and I did go out for ice cream after and I did get to chat with my mom and sister Paula. Talk to y'all later when I think of something else interesting to write about.