Americanuck

Ok sticker shock time here. I was KIND of expecting about 5 grand in total for Sean’s braces but it’s estimated to be $6,500 for the treatment plus a few hundred bucks for all of the molds and xrays and admin fees whatever that means! Thank god for insurance though! I mean it won’t cover the whole thing but hopefully at most we will be out of pocket $500 each (their Father and Us).

The rather crappy part is, unlike dentists they don’t deal with the insurance provider they want the money and then you claim it to the insurance company.. blahhh hate paperwork! we are supposed to pay the $350.00 bucks for the tests on the first visit for those and then $1900 up front the day the treatment starts then pay like $230.00 a month for 20 months. The fun part is going to be ensuring that I get the money back from their father on a timely basis if we have to float it each month.

Ah well even if we had to pay it cash Sean of course needs and deserves it. He was all worried about this, thinking he would get stuck wearing the dreaded headgear to school, but the doctor assured him that it would only be for about 6 months AND he only had to wear it at home and while sleeping. He says there is no way in heck he would sleep over at anyone’s house til it’s off. Poor guy, his teeth are pretty bad but he’s lucky that we are doing something about it. I’ve seen adults who have horribly crooked teeth who either can’t or won’t do anything about them, and others as adults getting braces. Now is the perfect age, get them over with before senior high.

We also got our property tax bill today (how’s that for timing). It’s not horrible with the home owners grant it will be between 5 and 6 hundred bucks. We already paid the water and sewer taxes that come in March. I prefer them carving them up they are easier to take in small doses.

Come ON lotto!!!

Spoiled Kitties
Originally uploaded by beezez.

Tom and I have to share the bed with two furry spoiled brats. Most of the time we are crammed up in a corner while they stretched out. Tom caught the two of them taking advantage of the unmade bed and sleeping on our soft egyptian cotton sheets.

First of all I have to say I have the best Boss in the world. This is not sucking up because, well she would likely never read this, and I’ve already told her in person. I also have developed a friendship with her which is cool because I’m not one to A: take advantage of a friend or B: be a lousy worker so it effects said friendship.

Anyway after my weekend from hell, she told me that I could take a day off in lieu which I am doing tomorrow. I also have some other banked hours which I WAS going to take on Wednesday but I have a new file transfer procedure going into production soooo I didn’t think it would be a good day to take off in case things went sideways. Gonna take Friday instead and make a rockin long weekend.

Sooo I get home tonight and make dinner do the usual, and around 8 my cell phone is ringing and it turns out that our systems are not authorizing which in the credit card world is a baaaaad thing.Long story short problem is resolved and I have to write an incident report for the rest of the Mgnt committee. Gonna have to follow up with everyone after when we get the full report from our processor. It was particularly sucky when I was hoping to enjoy the evening before my day off! Blahhhh

Oh well that’s life…

Sean has an ortho appointment tomorrow which is the initial assessment appt. This is to find out what work will need to be done and could entail a few of these before they finally put on the braces. He’s soooooo nervous about this the poor boy. He’s been dreading the fact he may be told to wear headgear.

I keep telling him not to stress about the unknown (who am I to talk??)

Ok, working from home has some advantages but when it starts encroaching on your ‘down time’ it’s a baaaaad thing. All of these electronic ‘conveniences’ i.e. cell phone, pagers, PDA’s and my least favourite of all, the laptop have made escaping from work impossible.

I am on call (as mentioned before) which I can live with, but when you end up working for most of Sunday because of deadlines?? Well that sucks the big one!! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rant done, (and so is my homework).

Can I just say how much I love the sunshine? Oh my God it was nice today! Especially nice to be driving in Freddy with the windows down and the moonroof completely open, feeling the sun warm on my face and the wind in my hair WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! How could I have gone so long without a moonroof, HOW??? Lordy I would be dangerous in a convertible, I’ve always wanted one. Tom would never get me to leave it ha!!

Sean and I did my Mom’s weekly shopping and while we were at it picked up what we needed to tide us over for the next few days. Sean wanted bacon and eggs as always and we bought popsicles (I am completely addicted to orange ones) so alas we could not keep driving on as I wanted to.

I had just downloaded a bunch of tunes (legally)and had burned myself a CD for the car so letting them blast (poor Sean) while I sang along I just wanted to keep on going!! Reached home too quickly,usually it’s not fast enough.

Tom did his taxes today. As an Expat he gets additional time to file (being out of the States). Tom was avoiding it as much as he does my wiggling fingers (did I mention he’s extremely ticklish? Something that I exploit shamelessly for my own amusement)so he needed a good prod to get it going. I had heard about a cross border tax expert who does these radio shows and he seems to know his stuff. It’s all done more or less, had him check last years as well because I thought Tom’s accountant may have done something wrong, especially as she wasn’t familiar with a cross border relationship, turns out I worried for nothing whooohoo. I was afraid that she had done something horrible and we would owe the US Govt money (from last year). This year all the income Tom has earned in Canada only gets taxed in Canada. There is a tax treaty between the two Countries, so unless he starts earning the big bucks he doesn’t have to pay double taxes.

Yanno that is one thing I think is so stupid. The US bases it’s taxes on Citizenship rather than residence… at least FOR it’s Citizens. They are more than happy to tax the residents too. But like Canada, as long as you don’t have any holdings in Canada after you leave it, you no longer have to file taxes. The US, NAWWWWW you have to file a return until the day you die. Doesn’t make sense to me, but whatever. A small cross to bear for us in the grand scheme of things I guess.

Work was having issues today, I was called several times because of phone problems. One of which was, well my fault… hehe. I had, accidently mind you, put the wrong date in the call routing scripts that stated today was a holiday so the centre didn’t get any calls. The phoned me an hour into the problem and I figured it out in five minutes. The Help Desk called the phone tech and then also thought to check the same thing… oopsie! Well like I said, I have to make the odd small mistake now and then to make people realize that I am human and not the fantastic machine they think I am hehe. The rest of the issues were phone and banking system related… and not my fault I swear!!! Ehhh… I guess every now and then I have to earn my measly ten bucks I earn for being on call.