Archive for April, 2007
first mortgage payment
Well, my first mortgage payment finally came out. I’ll be counting pennies for a while and even did up a handy expense sheet to see how much I’m accustomed to spending — a bit scary. Hopefully I’ll be able to up my payments. Even if I can increase them by $25 per payment, that’s $50 a month, which is more than an extra monthly payment per year. But I’m going to hold off on that just in case any unexpected expenses come up.
On another bright note, one of the other 5 units that have been for sale for ever in my building finally sold this morning. That makes me feel a bit more comfortable and it will be nice to not have to stare at the ugly sign for much longer. There are still 4 available and I’m actually kind of surprised that someone hasn’t scooped them all up to rent them out. I could easily rent this place out for double what I pay a month for it. Though I’m already so attached to it that it would be hard for me to find someone suitable, who would treat it well, to move in. Hopefully I’ll have a year or two before I have to think about selling or renting.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 3 so far )more women’s wit again
“I keep waiting to meet a man who has more balls than I do.”
-Salma Hayek
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 5 so far )whilst in stratford-upon-avon
Last year when I was in Stratford-Upon-Avon I scribbled down a quote I liked that was written on the wall of the Shakespeare exhibit at the house beside where Shakespeare used to live when he returned from London. I just found the scrap of paper in my unpacking so I thought I’d put it up here so I can get rid of the scrap:
“Read him, therefore, and again, and again, and if then you do not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger not to understand him?”
-John Heminges & Henry Condell in their address to “the great variety of readers,” in the First Folio, 1622
takin’ the train
Whenever I’m in England I always get a rail pass and take the train. I love it so much. Everything about it. Catching the train seems so romantic. Being on the train, staring out the window: romantic. And always exciting and relaxing. But here, in the GTA and beyond,trains have always been nothing but a hassle.
The first time I took the train was in my first year travelling from Kingston to Georgetown. Now, you can’t do this easily or cheaply. As a student with an ISIC card you could do pretty well, but the VIA train was always late without fail and then I would have to navigate my way, running, through Union Station (I didn’t know it well back then). I would usually not have time to purchase a ticket and would hop on the GO train as it was pulling out of the station. Nothing romantic, exciting, or relaxing about that. Getting back to Kingston wasn’t as hectic, except for trying to get a cab from the train station, which was way out in the middle of nowhere compared to campus, and the fact that all of the cars were packed with students from Queen’s and McGill. Fun sometimes, but not at the end of a long weekend when you just want to catch up on studying or sleeping. I probably only came home 3 times all year as a result.
Then there was commuting every day from Georgetown to Toronto on the GO. On top of hating my job and he evil company I worked for at the time, I hated the commute and hated the fact that the train moved so painfully slowly. Or was late. Or was stuck…often for hours.
So I’m giving the train another chance and I’m really excited about it. Maybe it will be just like England. Brian’s going to be in Ottawa this summer for a couple of weeks and I’m going to join him for 2 days. I didn’t want to drive all the way up there, spending 5 hours or more in the car, and then have both of us drive all the way back so I thought I’d look into the train. They must be competing with airfares or something right now, because the ticket was only $59! For a four hour train ride! This is way cheaper than it used to be from Kingston to Toronto (a much shorter route). But, it will be uncharted territory and the train station in Ottawa is only 4 km from downtown Ottawa. I can’t wait! The only catch is that I have to figure out how to get to Union Station for 5:00 pm without a car on the day I leave…this would be great if I worked along the subway line. Any suggestions? Anyone want to pick me up and take me to work and then downtown? I could try to figure out Mississauga Transit in the morning and then try to score a ride downtown… I guess I have time to figure it out.
I haven’t been to Ottawa for about 2 years, so I’m really looking forward to getting to the city again and to see my friends who make Ottawa their home.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 9 so far )expenses…yikes!
Oh dear. I just did a pretty spreadsheet with my expenses for the month, given the new bills and payments I now have and, um, I’m actually negative technically in what I’ve spent compared to what I make for April. Thank God fro cash flow and for a bit of extra padding. As I’m already a ridiculously wise and non-frivilous spender, I can’t really find much to cut out of the spending. I guess I could always squeeze in a summer job. Is that allowed? No, really, I’m sure it will all be fine — I’m just a bit surprised. I can blame a bit of it on set up costs, but am going to have to be a bit more tight with my wallet…after the trip next month of course. And I haven’t even had a real mortgage payment come out of my account yet! Ha! Oh, and the bonus part — I just got an invoice from the condo company and the person who was here before left me with more debt than the company had disclosed. On my closing documents she owed $3.92 which was to be paid out. I assume that after the check was run on the condo, she cancelled her March cheque which resulted in an NSF fee and the full monthly cost. I moved in half way through the month, so I don’t know how that works, but I’m not paying the whole amount. And the condo fee that the corporation told me is actually $98.56 a month. I just wrote them cheques for $98.00 — so they’ll be short every month! Geez. I should write a year’s worth of cheques for .56 cents each and send them in. Ha! Well, I’m not stressed or worried about any of this. It will all work out and I’ll always be able to live within my means — I’ll just have to adjust things like, oh, my health. If I didn’t have all those extra expenses I would be able to do a lot more. But, I would feel like death. And, money is nothing if you feel like you’re dying..plus, if I don’t put out now, I’m sure it will cost me more in time and money and health in the end. Wow. That’s a ramble. All because of excel, some expenses and a negative number. I’m in the red…ish. Donations anyone? 🙂
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )eragon and eldest
I finished listening to Eragon a week or so ago and I was completely sucked in. So much so that I started listening to Eldest straight away. I think that I would have devoured this book if I had read it when I was around 14 or 15. And still, at 26, the story was very well told. Formulaic, very long, an epic even, but immensely enjoyable.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )the fantastic weekend continues
I can’t believe the weather! I also can’t believe that it was 22 degrees outside while I was in a freezing cold arena. But, the lovely weekend of last night continued today. I did stuff around home this morning and then headed out to Weston for my little bro’s hockey tournament. It was the final game to see who went on to the championship game tomorrow. He was in net and didn’t get much work — his team did a great job in front of him, but they managed to pull off a 4-1 win. After going to two tournaments in which they were way out of their league (literally) it’s nice that they’ll get to finish off the year at least with a championship game. Unfortunately they will be exactly evenly match with the opposition and so, I’m not sure which way it will go.
From there I went down to Green Papaya with Brian and then over to IKEA for some more fun house stuff. I’m certain that I’m going to run out of money shortly…I should look into that. But they have super cute summer stock in now!
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )a perfect, lovely evening: emily carr, the village idiot, and poetry
I can’t stop smiling!
🙂
Tonight was absolutely perfect! Brian and I met up after work (I even parked and took the subway — I’m trying to be better about not driving everywhere). We went to see the Emily Carr exhibit at the AGO. Now, I value Emily Carr as a person, an artist, and as a woman. She is iconic as a famous woman who had to overcome obstacles in a male world of art, but I’d have to say that seeing a whole exhibit of her work seemed a bit repetitive. The one thing I couldn’t get over was the sheer volume of the pieces of art there, not to mention the books that she penned — and there were two very intricate rugs that would take me a lifetime to complete (remember that blanket I started crocheting a year ago? ya, not done…).
From there we walked aimlessly to find a place that I could eat at. We settled on The Village Idiot, right across the street from the AGO. It was crowded and the windows were open (on this first beautiful day of spring) and I felt like I was back in London, England (Brian mentioned this too). It’s exactly the after-work-feel-like-you’re-in-Europe kind of establishment. And the food was really good and quite affordable.
Then, only a few steps away, we went to the IV Lounge to see my good friend Moez read at a poetry reading. He was reading with Rick Crilly and George Murray (who you may know from BookNinja). All of the poets were very talented and all had completely different styles. It was a star line-up I would say. It was really enjoyable and witty and humorous and the poems were just fantastic! I also got to catch up with some friends from Queen’s. I realized when I left that while we were at Queen’s the friends that were there before were those who I would always to to or see at readings or other literary events on campus. And it was really nice to have that again tonight. Perfect even! I ran into a couple of other friends and met some new people (which is always part of a perfect night for me). Best of all, Brian was there for it all.
And I still can’t stop smiling.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )reign over me
Brian and I met at AMC last night and saw Reign Over Me. I thought that the story was really well told. Not too over the top (except for the blatant plane imagery in the video game Adam Sandler was playing). But, for the most part everything was understated and just a really good, and very connectable (if connectable is a word, which I’m guessing its not) story. The best part was that it was AMC move watchers night so I got free popcorn for Brian (wish I could eat that stuff!) and there were only 2 other people in the theatre! We’ll have to do that more often for sure!
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