can you believe it!

Just sitting her eating my lunch..which doesn't consist of anything healthy or nutritious or really tasty for that matter. I got stuck in the office for lunch today, and forgot to bring anything to eat from home (silly me). So now I am stuck eating pizza pops...pepperoni and cheese or something like that. They taste more like cardboard than pepperoni, but hey, I shouldn't complain.

I thought I would let you in on a little happening in our lives this past week that got me really fired up! We received a parking ticket ouside our house this week. $40, if we pay it in the first 14 days, $100 if we pay it after. Ouch. BUT...here is the reason we recieved the ticket. We live on the corner 2 streets. The street directly facing the front of the house is only 2 hour parking, and even for people that live in the residential area. If we wanted to park there, we would need to buy a permit, which I believe costs about $25 a year. The street that runs along the side of our house, which is where our entrance is to our basement suite doesn't have any restrictions. People are able to park there when they please. This is the street where we park, and where our landlord and recommended that we park. Especially becuase in winter, the only plug in available to use to run a cord to our vehicle is there. There is no plug in at the front of the house to run to our car if we chose to pay the $25 and get a parking permit to park there.
We have this slight problem though...we can never park next to our own house in our own parking spot. We have found it extremely difficult because we can't plug our car in for the winter in the really cold temperatures like this week. People from the City Hospital seems to enjoy parking along our street because A) it doens't cost them any money to park all day B) it is a block away from the hospital so its convenient for them C) by the way, did I say it was really CHEAP for them?
They take all the parking spots...and let me tell you, they wait for them too! We have people waiting behind us as we pull out infront of our own house to leave in the mornigns for work and steal our spots! They don't even live there! We aren't the only ones that live in the house either. We have 2 girls that live above us that have to park along the side of the street too.
So back to getting the ticket...we needed to plug our car in for night because we had been having car troubles and didn't want to leave it unplugged at all, just incase and becuase it was cold. But upon arriving to our house to pack it in for the night...there were no parking spots anywhere close to our house where our cord ran. The people in front of the house were horrible parked, wasting space and they didn't even live upstairs. SO...we had to park as close as possible, and apparently how we parked is illegal, so we received a ticket.
WELL...Stephen went into the City and wanted to fight the ticket. We wrote why and they are getting back to us. They have our ticket pending, so that incase we miss the 14 days...they don't charge us $100. The head of the ticket givers, and I'm sure he's a lovely man...is reviewing our reasons and our fighting response;) and will let us know whether or not we need to pay the ticket. I mean...what happens when it is -35 out and we don't have a parking spot? What do we do then? Get our landlord to install another outlet to plug into? We seem to be in a pickle, and aren't sure how to fix the situation other than put up a road sign saying "Stephen and Melissa's parking spot only".
As I was reading the paper the other day, I came across a funny story about parking tickets. A lady in Regina has been put into jail for owing $5000 to the city of Regina in parking tickets!
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2005/02/14/regina-tickets050214
Its pretty crazy! I mean..technically it could happen to us..just keep parking to plug our car in and keep getting tickets..it would add up just nicely and we could get thrown in jail:) haha That would be the day.
If you would all keep us in your prayers and we get this whole car situation sorted out...the ticket AND the fact that our car still isn't running we would be so grateful.
Blessings