WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE - AT LEAST IN THE BASEMENT

 My apologies for missing last week's post.  After years of not missing any posts, seems lately my attention gets taken away and I forget to post or I am otherwise needed in the house and don't get a chance to write and post.  

Lest you think this is a unique situation to this blog, on the final Wednesday of the month I send out a newsletter to my embroidery chapter which includes the meeting notice for the meeting the following Tuesday.  Club used to meet on Wednesday and the newsletter/meeting notice went out a week before.  Location of meeting was changed and with it the day the group meets and I have not yet gotten into the habit of sending out the newsletter a day earlier so it would remain a week before the meeting.  Being the lazy person that I am, I write and post the newsletter  for them at the same time.  (I do send an email a week in advance to the other board members in case they have something to include.)

Today I dealt with all sorts of things online and then suddenly realized that their newsletter had to go out today.  It was put together quickly, but as completely as possible and went out today just before I started making dinner – all 3 versions of the newsletter, which this week were basically the same.  (One version to members, one to region of group to be sent to other newsletter editors in the region plus the head of the region, and one version I send to people (okay, ladies) who have asked about joining our chapter or used to be members and like to keep in touch.) Mostly all 3 versions are the same, but, for example, we normally have our June meeting at a specific members house before we break for the summer and I don't want to send her name, address, and contact information to everyone who has asked about our chapter, so only the member's version will have the info.

We are also dealing with water in the basement whenever it rains since Hurricane Ida earlier this year.  We never had this problem before (or at least never noticed it before) and it is now a recurring problem.  When it rains we check the basement and vacuum up the water with a wet/dry vacuum and then run our dehumidifier  - which would running anyway, but it is set at 35% dampness instead of its normal 70% dampness so it needs to be emptied much more often.  Yes – we had a large rain storm yesterday and will have another one this weekend.  We are hoping this is only a problem with needing new plastic covers over our basement windows (on the outside of the house) and the second window so far, thank goodness, does not seem to have this problem.

Husband has decided that we need to clear out a bookcase which stands in front of the window in question.  It is adjacent to his exercise bicycle and has his stereo, a VHS player, and some other similar electronics on top – so he is figuring out where we will moving these items.  The books on the shelves tend to be ones from when he was in college and of his field of study.  He figures that they can be donated – presuming we find someplace to donate them and go out to do so.  (If we do, I have some items I packed to donate just before the pandemic started and they will go out also.)  Another bookcase near by has books he plans to get rid of also, but thinks he can sell them online so they will remain for now.  

We can then move the bookcase and see what is going on behind it – as well as sort see to each side of where it was – behind a second bookcase and behind metal storage cabinets.  He has given me notice that he plans to work on this over the coming weekend.  Well, at least I know I have to finish up anything I want to do before then – such as pay any bills and write any letters I want to mail out on Sunday night (unless it raining again on Sunday night).  I know that there is some mail in our box at the Post Office and would like to post the outgoing mail from there and take out the mail in the box if we can, one in particular has me wondering what it is – looks like a card, addressed to me, and from someone I have never heard of in Washington state – and we live on the east side of the U.S.  Probably just a piece of fancy junk mail.

How do I know what it is our Post Office box?  No, I am not a psychic.  The USPS has a service which will send an email to one when there is mail at their address – including in their USPS boxes at their Post Office.  They will only send if first class mail and there is a scanned picture of that first class mail.      It does work well for us now when we are not going daily to our box as we did back in normal times.  (Back in normal times almost all of our mail was going to the box as more secure than box at our front door, especially when we went on a trip.)  We do not have to go to the Post Office unless we know there is something there to pick up (we can post outgoing mail at a local USPS collection box instead).

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Too much to do when doing nothing!

P.S,  The problem which I posted about when last I posted – the money from the loom we sold being taken back by the company it was paid through – has been resolved and we have the money back in our bank account.  It will sit there for a month before we touch it again!

Stay dry all!

ITS THE LITTLE THINGS GOING WRONG WHICH TAKE UP OUR TIME

 Sorry for posting so many days late.  

As I have mentioned in other recent posts, for some reason husband and I are going through a period of one small problem after another.  None are life changing, but it is a constant thing.  As soon as everything is dealt with and I think I can ease up - something else goes wrong.  

This past week I managed to mostly put to rest the problems of dealing with the renewals for both organizations of which I am treasurer and I started to breath normally again.

We went for our second meal out of the house (lunch at a different Wendys).  The plan was to go to two major stores near the Wendys and buy some plumbing items for our RV and some paper goods and two food items for which we had coupons from the other store. 

We went to the store for the plumbing items - they did not have them.  We had lunch.  We went to the other store and were able to buy all the items  - except for some reason they do not carry the paper towels which their main office had on sale.  A quick stop home to put the food in the fridge and we were off to another are where both chains had stores.  We were able to get one of the two plumbing items husband needed at one and the paper towels at the other.  We then drove past our house to a different chain's store to buy the needed plumbing piece.  An entire day gone - again.

Yesterday (Saturday) husband suggested we change the registration sticker for our RV as it comes due in early July.  I don't have it.  I checked my records of what has come in the mail.  (Life has been so confusing that all non-junk mail is listed in a computer spreadsheet with date received and date opened (as husband has me wait 3 days with the mail in a sealed plastic bag before opening.) We have not received the registration.  

I keep track (for years) of when outgoing mail is posted in my organizer files.  I did mail out the registration and payment.  Our van renewed a month ago - it took 20 days from when I mailed the renewal until we received the registration (based on my records mentioned). It is now almost a full month since I mailed the registration for the RV.  I called our bank and checked on its computer - the check has not yet been cashed.  UH OH!

Now in normal times this would involve a trip to the DMV, enough of a problem.  But our DMV offices are only open with an appointment and there are very limited things that one can make an appointment for - where is my registration (or even, I need to renew my vehicle) is not one of them.  

I could check the status of the renewal online - but I would have to open an account for my husband and we don't want to put all the information they ask for online.  Sooo, I will be spending tomorrow - Monday - on the phone trying to find out what to do.  There goes tomorrow!

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

It is amazing how little things can mess up our lives.  Breath deep and keep working away at them. 

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID TO THE TEMPERATURE ONE IS READING WHEN COOKING

 I make lunch – peanut butter sandwich for me, ½ can of soup or a cold cut sandwich for husband.  I wash the dishes after lunch.  

But then I forget to do most important thing – figure out what we are eating for dinner.  I forget to ask my husband what he wants or “feels like” for dinner.  This is all a “since Covid” thing – before that we ate lunch out at Wendys (under US$4 for both of us) and we would discuss what to have for dinner as we went to the supermarket and shopped for that day's dinner.  So I forget even though this has been going for over a year.  

Some days this does matter as we will have something for dinner which does not need to defrost– on Mondays, for instance, he usually has hot dogs (which are generally not frozen) on bread and beans – while the beans are frozen they can be quickly defrosted as they cook on the stove and I have a chicken patty which can be cooked directly from frozen with leftover Chinese takeout rice and left over gravy of some sort – which can also be cooked directly from frozen.  Most days at least one item needs to be defrosted.  

Today I remembered and asked what husband wanted for dinner – sausages and spaghetti with tomato “gravy” (sauce).  Plenty of time to defrost the sausages and I took them out and left them in their plastic bags on a plate to defrost.  I had cooked tomato gravy last week, so I had plenty of extra frozen in the freezer in containers and I took one out also, even though it can be cooked from frozen.  I thought I was doing great.  

We went out for a walk in a local park as the weather was pleasant (last week we tried to do and it was much too windy).  When we came home I took in today's mail and sealed it in a quart plastic zip bag and put it in the plastic box that due to the pandemic our mail sits in for 4 days before I open i and took the Saturday bag of mail out of the box and took it upstairs to our office.  I spent the rest of the afternoon at my desk in the office.  

I came down an hour before we would eat dinner.  I made three phone calls to computers – checked that we had not forgotten that we had used any of 3 credit cards we normally don't use, which if we did I would need to pay and mail out on this Sunday's run to a USPS collection box with outgoing mail(since our mail delivery is not doing well, I have been checking just in case we used an unusual card and forgot so that no bill payments are missed) none of them have been used.  I then telephone our bank's computer and made sure that 2 direct deposits to our bank account are there, so we can spend the money and then started on cooking dinner.

I put up a pot of water to boil the spaghetti.  I put a small amount of water in the smaller of my two cast iron pans to start cooking the sausages and put the tomato gravy in a small pot (technically a sauce pan) to heat it, knowing the mess the sauce can make I put a lid on the pot.  When the water in the pan for the sausages started to boil I added the sausages and covered the pan – set the timer on the stove for 8 minutes, per the package of sausages.  The spaghetti water started to boil and having weighed out the amount of spaghetti I needed, I dropped same in the boiling water and turned it down a bit.  I then set the table.  When the timer went off I took, the lid off of the sausages, removed them and dumped out the remaining water and put them back in the pan to brown. All was going well.

Tomato gravy was heated and I shut it off with the lid on.  I checked the spaghetti – it needed more time. I was keeping an eye on the sausages and turning them so they would each brown on 4 sides.  I tried the spaghetti and it was done so I put into a strainer it and set aside in the kitchen sink to finish draining.  
The sausages looked done.  I took out my trusty oven thermometer and put it into one of the sausages to check that it had been cooked to over 365F so it would safe to eat.  It was only at 85F?!  Tired another – same thing … maybe they had not be completely defrosted when I started cooking them?  I put them back in the pan and let them keep cooking.  I tried them again 10 minutes later – they were now 91F?  Put them back into the pan.  

Husband came down for dinner, I explained what was going on.  He tested them – still in the 90Fs?   We decided to cut them in half and cook them that way to speed up the cooking.  He had cut two in half and the other two were sitting on a plate as cut in half only 2 fit in the pan.  We let them cook a few minutes and then tested the temperature – just about 95F .  What the heck was going on?

Then I looked at the thermometer.  OH NO!  Somehow it had to be reset to Celsius from Fahrenheit – so the temperatures were considerable hotter than we thought they were! 

I had the two which had been cut open and they were rather overdone and hard to chew.  I let husband have the two which had not been cut open as they had been cooked slightly less.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
Always check your equipment when something does not seem right.  Had I looked closer at the thermometer when I was first getting these odd readings I would seen the problem right away.  Dinner would have been on time and not overcooked.  

(95C = 203F – much above the 165F I was looking for, so no one has to calculate this out.)

CHANGING ONE ADDRESS FOR MAIL - EVERY TIME I THINK I AM DONE - OOPS

 First, I should mention first that we still have bills, statements, etc. delivered to us in hard copy by USPS mail and we do NOT do anything financial online unless there is no other option – we are old school computer users (back to main frame computer programming) and know that there is NO such thing as a secure connection.  

We have had problems in the past with mail delivery at our house and had transferred almost all of our mail delivery to a USPS box we had for our business at a different local Post Office to deal with it.  We found this worked extremely well – go on a trip, no need to have mail held as it would automatically be held when there was too much in the box, need to have something delivered other than USPS – with street addressing it could go to our box.  

Then along came the corona virus.  We don't want to go out at all, let alone into a crowded Post Office – whether to send mail out or get our incoming mail.  More about that from last March 26 at http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2020/03/   and from last April 16 at http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2020/04/ and I am sure there is more at other post inbetween.

So we started changing our mailing address back to our house address with any and every one we could think of.  Every time I think I am done changing our address back to our house – something else pops up.  

Latest things which popped up -  Our car insurance renews soon and I checked to make sure our house address was the mailing address for same – it is, but that started me thinking about other insurances  and I checked our homeowners' insurance comes to our house but our RV insurance goes to our PO Box.  I telephoned the insurance company and changed the address – would not want to take a chance on the policy renewal being mailed to our box and never finding its way here.

We are members of Costco and a similar warehouse company called BJs.  My excellent computer records for bills reminded me that our Costco dues are due during January – usually paid by now – but no renewal received and the renewal goes to our PO Box.  So today I called Costco and, yes, we should have received the renewal by now.  I changed our mailing address with them and checked the amount due for the dues and the mailing address to which I should send the check – I paid it, as I have paid so many other bills this past 9 months – with a cover letter.   Our BJs  renewal is next month – I called them also and changed our mailing address with them also.  Strangely, the various ad circulars from both of them all come to our home address.

I am well organized, well at least as far as paperwork, especially bills.  I went through all my papers, all our credit cards, etc. and made a list – I contacted each company to change our mailing address to our house – but each time I think I am finished doing so – something else pops up.  Worst of all, some day, soon I hope, I will have to reverse this and change all of the mailing addresses to back to our PO  Box so it does not go astray and we can again go on our little trips with the mail snugly and safely in our little box at the Post Office.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK-

We will soon have a new control of our government here in the U.S.A.  I hope that they will be organized and get control of the pandemic so we can all go out again and be with friends and family as we did before (and go to the Post Office again for mail) without fear of getting of getting Covid-19.  

Until then- please be careful and safe and keep yourselves and your families well.

CARS, MAIL, HOLIDAY DECORATING, AND YET MORE TURKEY

 Well, we have had leftovers from Thanksgiving twice again this week – did have to add some side dishes and we are almost out of turkey gravy – he doesn't like the jarred gravy, only the canned and we have one jar left and one package mix.  What is left at this point will likely be used in a soup or a turkey pot pie.  Last week I asked husband what we should we make for Christmas Eve and for Christmas Day dinners – I suggested ham.  (I know he does not like home cooked roast beef.)  Nooo, he wants turkey – again.  

I have set up some of the Christmas decorations in the kitchen, dining room and hall after storing my (much fewer) Thanksgiving decorations.  Husband has finished his weaving project and we stored his big loom folded up in our studio.  I still have some small items to put away and have not figured out what I will do with his (heavy, wooden) gate leg table.  I am working on ideas.  

We were planning to go food shopping next week, but due to rising number of corona virus cases and fear of people clearing the food store shelves, refrigerators and freezers again we have moved up the shopping trip to tomorrow.  I inventoried the food in the freezers and fridge, as well as canned, bottled, jarred and packaged foods.  I entered the counts in a computer spreadsheet.  Tonight we sat down and went through the list – we change the number of items we have of each item to how many we should buy and deleted the items we are not buying – whether because we have plenty or do not want the item again.  I then printed out the list to use while shopping.  

We discussed the idea of splitting the shopping into 2 trips into the store (my idea).  We end up with a huge number of items when we shop these days (as we try not to shop more often than monthly and have made a month and a half between trips sometimes) and it  hard to deal with all of it in the shopping cart and then ringing it up (we prefer self checkout even before Covid-19) and bagging it and getting all the bags into the cart.  My suggestion was that we go through the store and buy all the items which are not refrigerated or frozen, then ring it up and bag up and take it out to the car.  We will then go back into the store and buy the remaining item and repeat the process.  While it may take a little longer, it will be easier to deal with ringing up and bagging the items this way.

Tonight we made a trip to the gas station (less people, if any, around late night) and filled our van's tank as well as two gas cans for our snow-blower.  There has been talk on and off of snow coming and we figure we would be rather be ready and not need it, then not be ready. When we got into our van and husband started it and released the parking brake – the brake light did not go off and the brake pedal was at the bottom.  Earlier in the year our mechanic told us we are not driving the van enough and for the brakes, as well as the engine, it needs to be driven more.   We used it as we needed it for the gas cans, but no one was around and husband drove very slowly and carefully.  

The main reason we out tonight is to post outgoing mail – yes, we normally do that on Sunday nights.  We have an Etsy site of some of our craft items.  We have most of the inventory not listed now as we don't want to have to go to the Post Office to ship items out.  We left listed items which are mailed with regular postage in a regular manila envelope as they can be dropped in the outgoing mail box and downloads.  After all this time since the pandemic and stay at home started, we sold our first item of the year and had to mail it out to the customer.  (We did also have one download this year.)  So as long as we had to go to mail same, I paid the bills for the week and we mailed them out also – unless something comes up we won't have to go out Sunday night to post mail.

With all of this excitement I did not get a chance to post until rather late – around 2 am on what is actually Thursday not Wednesday night, hence the shortness of this post.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

As we head into the holidays, please continue to be careful – wear a mask, avoid crowds and so on as we wait for vaccines to be made available.  It is more important that we all are still here when we can again live life normally.  Take advantage of the time you are stuck in the house to go through various items and see what you can get rid of.  Straighten up a small area  - and then another.  Use the time you are stuck in the house to get some decluttering and organizing done.  One step at a time is all takes.  

For those who like me celebrate it – A happy Chanukah – may your candles shine brightly.

COVID 19 # 27 - A WEEK WHEN EVERY DAY THERE IS SOMETHING TO DO - OUTSIDE THE HOUSE OR SOMEONE COMING IN

 We are having a busy week of it - for the first time since early March.  We have been staying home better than 90% of the time. But a variety of circumstances has hit us all at once.

Since husband has felt comfortable enough, we have been going out late on Sunday nights to post the outgoing mail for the week if we have same.  We are still not going to the post office for this or to check mail at our PO Box, but he drove around until he found a USPS mail collection box in a quiet enough area that he felt comfortable to go to - and even so we go only go after 11 pm at night.  So Sunday night we went and mailed out our mail for the week.  We received a call from the commander of our reenactment that he had a check from an event that some members of the unit actually attended.  He has had the check for about a month - his wife gave birth to their first child about the same time, so his mind is elsewhere - and the group which put on the event contacted him that we need to deposit the check - NOW - or the funding will be lost.  So he left the check in our mail box on Tuesday and we drove again to the USPS collection box and mailed out a deposit which included the check (and some other checks for the unit the past several weeks).

We are entitled to a discount on our real estate taxes due to our age.  We need to file the paperwork by the end of the year with our county.  We don’t like to file it at the last minute.  Two years ago there was a problem with the county and we were not sure if they had the paperwork - we had mailed it by Certified Mail, but there was a telephone mixup and they had called every property owner in the county to say they had not received their paperwork, instead of just those who had previously filed the paperwork and had not filed, so last year we dropped the paperwork in person to get a receipt directly from them that they had our paperwork.  Since we each have an extremely small business (both of which lose money generally) we have to file extra papers - this year’s paperwork was 157 pages - it takes some time to assemble it all - this year I started early as I was looking for something to do during the year - and I had the paperwork finished.  We have debating over the past several months - it is Covid-19 safer to go into the post office and mail it by Certified Mail to the County and hope it gets to right office or drive to the County office building and drop it off in person this year.  As we debated this we received a notice that due to the pandemic and the need to distance from others they would open late on a handful of Tuesday nights and open on many Sunday and Saturday mornings for the paperwork to be dropped off to help those concerned about going out in public, as well as there would parking spaces in their normally (during the day) overcrowded parking lot (last year husband dropped me off at the building and drove to a department store and sat in their parking lot as we could not park at the County building).  So, our decision was made - we would drop it off on Tuesday night.  Deciding it would be a lot more crowded in December - we figured to drop it off in November.  Last week was the first of the two Tuesdays for this month - but then we had to go to the doctor the next day, so decided that going out 2 days in a row was too big a risk (ha, ha in retrospect over this week). Of course one has to go through a metal scanner, so I prepared ahead - cell phone in a small plastic zip bag, wallet in another - and I brought a pen -just in case I needed to sign in as I would not want to touch a pen others have touched.  My keys I left with husband in the car.We drove there last night - there was one person ahead of me and one other came in after me - good choice.

Tomorrow (Thursday) we have an appointment to replace the tires on our car - we were told by our mechanic earlier this year that they woulld not survive the cold of this winter.  Costco has them on sale so we called and made an appointment for tomorrow.  Boy, this was getting exhausting for how our life has been this year!  

And - on Friday, we have an appointment for the phone company to change our phones from copper wire to cable - something we don’t want - both because the copper wire is more reliable and keeps working on the many times our electricity goes out for days in storms and - really - change it right now? I wouldn’t let family in the house and I have to let in someone from the phone company who has been in other houses and may have the corona virus (let alone my fear of his having bedbugs on him since we had same)?!!!  But if we don’t do this NOW they will cut off our service except to call 911 and them.

Husband realized yesterday that we need to food shop in general - our once monthly food shopping these months - and also saw people panic shopping again on TV.  (Back in early March he insisted on panic buying a large package of toilet paper, one of paper towels and every bottle of liquid hand soap he could find.  Did we need them - no, but I figured they will go not bad and if makes him feel better...  Last week I put out the last 2 rolls of the toilet paper in the package that was already in the house when we did this as spares - means about another month before they will be used, I still have not started and will not for awhile the paper towels or the liquid hand soap - a later purchases of bars of hand soap has had 2 bars started, so I pointed all of this out to him to prevent his running out to buy more of all this.) Plus Thanksgiving is next week.  We used to make Thanksgiving dinner for our two families, but since we had bed bugs, we just make it for ourselves.  I had printed out the recipes for what we usually make and added the items needed for same to the shopping list.  

So today we ventured out to buy food.  It was 25F here - a surprise drop in temperature.  Food shopping these days has a procedure that my husband came up with to keep us safe.  Of course we wear masks and gloves - but we also spray the cart before using it - he pushes the cart, I “touch the food”...  I have a listing of where which food is in the store - but of course that is my laptop which had to go for repair ( which is actually back - but still “sitting” before we touch it) and I had to wing it on this older laptop so foods were out of order.  People were out panic shopping so there were a lot more people there than has been, but by the end of our shopping (a few hours worth) there was no wait at checkout.  In the middle of bringing the food to our porch and wiping it down with alcohol before bringing it into the house - the cold of the weather hit me and I apparently had hypothermia according to husband.  He dealt with most of what was left to bring in other than some canned/bottled items that he left in the car overnight.  (And tomorrow before we take the car for tires - we have to deal with what was left.)  

Tomorrow (Thursday) after moving the food to our van as temporary measure, we will go and have the new tires installed.  We then go to the store where we have been buying our turkeys for Thanksgiving  - one of their 2 locations here is near where we are going for tires - they start selling their fresh turkeys tomorrow and then we will deal with wiping down and bringing the turkey and the rest of today’s food.  

Then the telephone person will be here on Friday.

Saturday, we will again go out and pick up Chinese food

So after not even going out once a week or seeing another person once a week (sometimes we see and wave to a neighbor though) we have 8 days in a row of being out or having someone in our house.  These days this much too scary!  


THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Well, what has to be done has to be done somehow.  Hopefully we will survive the week and neither of us will have contracted Covid- 19.  I hope all of you do also. 

WORKING ON PAPEWORK EARLY TO SAVE MONEY ON REAL ESTATE TAXES - OOPS A WEEK LATE

My apologies - this post was written for and I thought I posted it on September 16.  While posting my September 23 post, I found this was still marked as draft -

  I am working on paperwork for a real estate credit that husband and I are entitled since we are over 65 and have an income on the low side.  This paperwork has to be filled in and filed annually.  Last year's filing ran something like 125 pages.  This is due to change they made last year.  We have to provide proof of all our business income and expenses.  The paperwork was crazy before this requirement, but with it….

At least this year I knew these extra records would be needed, so before I put away our financial records from 2019 I pulled out and scanned the needed paperwork into the computer – or at least I thought I did all of it.  I even made sure that the expenses for our two extremely small businesses added up to the tax return numbers which came from my computer software.  

The form to fill in and mail (or drop off) with the papers needed came and I started, slowly putting it all together.  I have combined various sections of what is needed with cover pages for each in my computer as pdf files.  It should not be hard, I had already scanned in the papers – right?  

General proof of income – 1099s and such, no problem.  Medical expenses (we can subtract this from our income in the calculation)  I had most of them ready – we have to have printouts, they do not accept paid bills or copies of checks that paid them as proof.  I had contacted and have this printouts from our medical insurance companies which is most of the expense.  In normal years we go into our pharmacy and they hand us printouts and we also bought eyeglasses last year and had planned to do same with the optician.  But this is not a normal year.  The optician is mailing the copies of our records, I still have to telephone our pharmacy about same.  

I had moved on to putting together the information from our businesses.  I thought I had it all – I had scanned them into the computer and just needed to finish assembling them.  But, neither business' receipts match the computer records of what they should be.  They are small amounts, but this process is so crazy – they may disallow the $1.90 here or the $20 there.  Hopefully if they do it will not affect the exemption amount by much.

Imagine having to put together all the expenses just from your car and having to make copies of all of them.  In this case I have to also give a breakdown of how much is from miles driven for husband's business and how many much for miles driven for mine and apportion the cost of each expense (which was already done for our income taxes).  How many small credit card receipts for gas do you end up with in a year?

While the cut off date to file this form and supporting paperwork is January 2, 2021, I don't like to wait until the last minute to deal with it.  Last year when we needed to go and bring in the paperwork to the county offices was when husband needed to get teeth added to his upper denture (also includeable as a medical expense for IRS and for this) and we ended up having the impression of his teeth taken and then driving to the county office – where he would have had to wait in the car anyway (no place to park), but in this case did not want to go in within without his teeth also.  So, since we are stuck in the house due to the corona virus pandemic anyway, I have been working on putting all this together and filing in the forms since August.  

We were discussing how we file the paperwork.  We used to mail to the county by certified mail.  In 2018 we mailed in the 2017 information for the 2019 taxes  (yes, it is terribly confusing) by mail as usual.  Then we received a month or so later a robo phone call from the county executive that we had not filed the papers!  I tried calling the office  - but the answering machine basically said “we are too busy to talk to you, don't bother us”  When I called again later in the day added to that message was “and don't try to come in here as there is no parking”.  This last part being true and has been decades, which was why husband dropped me off and waited in the car.   In a panic we reprinted and assembled everything to bring it to them.  In the interim a story on the news was that they were suppose to send the call to a few people who had filed in the past and had not yet filed, but they sent to every property owner in the county.  Unsure of if we were in the group whose paperwork had not been received, we drove to the office and I waited in their waiting room.  Luckily by the time we went there a couple of days after the call – the lines were no longer 5 hours long as they were the day after the mistaken calls.  They did have our paperwork.  

Last year we decided we go there (as we did) and turn in the paperwork in person and receive a receipt from them for it and did so.  We planned to continue to do so.  But we are now trying to decide since we are not going out due to Covid 19 – do we venture into the post office (that we don't go to, even overnight) to pick up our mail or do we go to the county office where I will wait my turn for what might be hours – but we will know for sure that they have our paperwork?  (Yes, the difference in what we pay in property taxes, especially the school taxes, with and without the exemption is enough to make it worthwhile.)  

Hopefully I will soon be done with the paperwork and we can decide which we will do and when.  I am guessing the early in the season for this, the fewer people who will be waiting, so I will try to finish as quickly as I can.  I did send an email to the head of the department and asked if they will have drive-up windows for this as they did for people to come in and pay the property taxes.  I don't figure they will or even that I will get an answer.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Use the time you are stuck in the house to get work done.  I have been catching up all sorts of paperwork and household chores that I have put off, well, for years since I am home.  Our shower soon might be even clean enough to actually not worry about getting dirtier when one takes one.  :-)

My thoughts and prayers both to those in the United States west where there are terrible fires and those in the southeast who have been going through yet another major hurricane this week.

COVID 19 #15 MORE DELIVERIES - MORE PROBLEMS, BUT NOT AS BAD

Well, Monday husband commented to me that he found a couple of things he needs, but not enough for a delivery order (US$35 minimum).  I decided to tell him that I needed some things also – most important was lint trap filters for our washing machine.  (These are the mesh bags that go over the outgoing hose of the machine and keep lint from ending in the drain.)  We went to the computer and the Walmart site and started going through our lists - $35 – easy – we went over $100.  Most of what we ordered was not food – but household stuff.    We put in the order – first items were to come today, Wednesday. 

Last time we ordered (the first time we ordered) from Walmart the first shipment came a day early and most shipments were sitting on steps when I woke up and looked out – 3 hours earlier than I normally wake up.  So despite husband insisting that nothing was coming on Tuesday – per the delivery information  - I woke up and went downstairs and looked out the front door.  Nothing there.  I decided to agree with him and not wake up hourly to check and went back to sleep. 

Tuesday is one of the days I go out and take in the mail.  When I did so in the afternoon – surprise!  A box from Walmart!  I brought it into the porch and unloaded it – wiping each item down with alcohol on a piece of paper towel and handing it to husband in the kitchen.  (Items that are packed in a package – we just toss the outer package instead of wiping it down.)  We cover the kitchen table with a towel – and we are running short on bath towels as we have the dining room table covered with same so the cans and plastic boxes living there for now do not scratch or mar the table – to hold the items he brought in.  Nice assortment, but none of the urgent items. 

Today we were to officially get a delivery.  I woke up early again – no package.  An hour later – no package.  An hour later – no package.  Finally in the late afternoon I was working at my desk in the office -with the curtain opened so I could see if a big truck parked in front of the house – I saw the truck and the package was here.  I went downstairs and brought the box into the porch and repeated the unpacking procedure.  The lint filters I needed was in the order – using one of them right now as I am doing the laundry as I write.  The filters come 2 in package and we had bought 4 packages – I opened each package and held it out to husband to pull out the contents – they did not need to be wiped down. Good thing – if I did not get them, I would have to constantly run downstairs and make sure that when water was expelled from the washer the lint screen over the drain (there in addition to the filter all the time) was not completely covered and that water could still go down the drain. 

There was also the package of bars of soap.  Husband has been constantly afraid during the pandemic that we would run of hand soap.  Mostly we use liquid hand soap for washing our hands and bars of soap for showering.  He has had trouble finding liquid soap to buy more of and when he saw the brand of bar soap – we decided to more of them for showering and “just in case”.  The soap arrived today.  As soon as I opened the shipping box I knew the soap was a problem.  The package had looked right in the photo and it did not occur to either of us to make sure it was unscented.  It is scented.  I now have the bars in double plastic bags and still smell the awful scent when going past them.   I am working on the kitchen table onto which we had unloaded the items.  The towel which covered the table is gone from here – but the odor of the soap continues in the room – ewwww!  I figure if we don't need them  during the pandemic/soap shortage – I will donate them rather them use them.

The next (I think last) delivery should be tomorrow.  Husband has been worried as there was no update of its location until after 6 pm tonight.  At least after it comes I won't have to wake up early to check for it.

THOUGHTS OF THE WEEK -
Even now one should not rush and should stop and make sure items being purchased/ordered are the ones that one actually wants. 

Never trust that the delivery will be on the day one is told – always check the day before. 

COVID 19 #14 - GETTING OUR MAIL DELIVERED TO US

I think I got our mail straightened out – finally. 

Back in the early 1990s (maybe even the late 1980s) my husband and I opened a USPS Post Office Mail Box at a local Post Office.  At the time we lived in an apartment and did not want the mail for our craft business to come to our apartment lest the landlord think we were running a big time business in our apartment. The Post Office which was in walking distance of our apartment did not have any available boxes, so we went to the next nearest Post Office and opened the box there.  When we we bought this house it was in a third local community so we kept the box where it was to avoid having to change addresses on various items.  The Post Office that our house mail goes to is actually much further away from where we live than either of the two mentioned and is not in a direction we go to often.  So we left our craft business mail going to its PO Box.  Originally I would go to this Box and pick up the mail daily Monday to Friday and mail out any outgoing mail we had.  When husband retired it became something we both did together. 

About 7, maybe 10 years ago, we started having problems with mail deliveries to our house – we had several pieces of mail that we should have received and did not  - and that was just the mail we were expecting – we did not know what other mail might have never have made it to us.  We also received pieces of mail that had been opened and taped closed again.  Having done this myself once or twice – I knew it probably meant that someone else had received these pieces of mail, opened it without looking at the name it was addresses to, and then when the error was realized, taped it closed again and dropped into the mail for delivery.  We also received mail for people that not only had we never heard of, we had never heard of the streets which they lived on – and husband has lived in this area since he was 7 (and I for 30+ years when this happened) so the streets were not anywhere near us  - so they were probably not just misdelivered by the local mail carrier.  We decided we need to have our mail not go through our home post office for security and safety.   Rather than open up a second Post Office box, we just changed our mailing address for almost all of our mail to our business box.  This has worked very well – until now. 

Back in mid March husband decided we should not be going into a Post Office in general and this one in particular (the local community has a much higher number of Covid-19 cases than ours and others in the area do).  I came up with the idea of making a once weekly run to this Post Office on late Sunday nights – on the logic that since it closed at 1pm on Saturday and was closed on Sunday – it would mean that  than the few people who went in to pick up mail from boxes or to mail something out with the computer setup in the lobby, Sunday night , it would have had the fewest people in it, for the longest time.  So on the last two Sundays in March we picked up mail at 11 pm – using a credit card to activate the door unlock.  After that, though, husband thought it too unsafe to go at all.

Thinking quickly the last Sunday night we went, I went online and put in a “temporary change of address” for 2 months for the mail in the box to be forwarded to our house. I had to do it in the name of our business as that is all that the USPS website would let me do.  Since it said that the mail could only be forwarded to the business name in which the box was held and that the business would be responsible for all forwarding all mail to anyone receiving mail in the Box.  Sounds like we would be getting all the mail  - right? 

No, only mail with the name of our business could be forwarded.  I found this out when I called after 2 weeks had passed and we had not received any mail forwarded.  Our business generally receives only it's bank statement and credit card statement – and we have not used the credit card since maybe mid March.  This is not much of a help.  The very nice female Postal employee I spoke with offered to mail us the accumulated mail to give us some time to figure it out.  I thanked  her and she put the mail in an envelope and mailed it to our house.  Two weeks later I called again and apologized and asked if I could pay the postage for her to again send mail to us – she said she just could just mail it the same way again.  Three weeks later I called her and – well, you can see where this is going.

Luckily I use Quicken for our accounting and had an ongoing, constantly updated list of when our bills would be due.  I would call up each credit card – even ones I was sure we had not used – to make sure of the amount due and when or that no amount was due. I did the same with the utilities and any other bills – such as insurance.  I write a cover letter and send the check with it, except for the few bills that I have received in time to pay normally. 

Last time I called to have the mail sent to us, I asked if there was way to close the box in the name of the business and immediately reopen it in one of our names as a personal box – I even offered to pay the annual fee again.  This started a discussion among several employees at this Post Office and myself – they did not know about a difference between “business” and “personal” boxes and did not have any record of same – though the main computer did.  Apparently one has to come into the Post Office to close a box – so  that would not work. One employee spoke with the employee in charge of the boxes and they worked it out so that he would change the name and status of the box for us.  I did go online and change the mailing address for my 2 magazines. 

This was finally done!!  While we have not received any forwarded mail as of yet (well, I only check it on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday and it is Wednesday so there may be mail sitting out there in the box from today's delivery that I will get tomorrow), it is done. I went online and was able to put in similar temporary changes of address for my maiden name, our craft business (since the original one has ended), our reenactment unit and my embroidery chapter – the latter two do not have their own mailing address and I receive the business mail for them as I am the treasurer of each. 

Hopefully we will start receiving our mail from the box here at our house. 

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

What works well for one in normal times, might not work well when one should stay home.  There is always some way to deal with problems and people are very understanding and nice right now due to the pandemic.  Be sure to thank those who help you and let their bosses know how helpful they have been (as I am going to do) so that they know that their help is appreciated so they will go out of their way to help others in the future when they need help. 

COVID-19 #12 - DEALING WITH INCOMING MAIL WHEN ONE CAN'T GO TO POST OFFICE TO GET IT

So how is everyone holding up?  Is your area coming out of having to stay home?  Stores, parks, beaches, barber shops, beauty parlors, restaurants starting to open where you are? 

If your area is opening up – are you going to be running out to go everywhere?  Or do you feel it is not safe enough yet and maybe you should stay home awhile longer? 

We tend towards the second choice.  Since he bought all the food we have plenty to eat in the house – maybe for the rest of the year or longer.  Okay, we have been thinking of looking for sales on Diet Coke 2 liter – presuming the store actually has some when they advertise it – as we are down to 3 full bottles and one almost empty one and have been drinking diet orange drink and diet grape drink alternating which one I mix – and he has iced tea for lunch.  He likes the orange better and I like the grape better.  Yes, we have lots of good water from our tap and drank water only for the first month – I finally had the idea to fill 2 quart plastic bottles and keep them in our refrigerator to keep the water cold for drinking(which are used for same in our RV when traveling so water cold on a hot day and water to drink is from home – as is the water in our water tanks in the RV).  We have been drinking the Diet Coke very sparingly – not at all until I pointed out to him in early May that the best by date was May 18 – so we would not drink it so we did not finish it off – or we could drink it slowly before it got too old and the taste is gone. 

One big problem we have had is mail – coming in and going out.  In the late 1980s or early 1990s we opened up a box at a USPS office for our craft business.  We lived in an apartment back then and did not want mail addressed to a business coming to our apartment.  There was a Post Office about a block and a half from our apartment – but no boxes were available, so we went to the next nearest Post Office and opened the box there – where it still is.  Our home is in close to where our apartment was, but is in a third community which shares a Post Office (and zip code) a different community and that Post Office is far from our house – further than the one near our old apartment (which is in fairly easy walking distance) and than the one where our businesses' box was.  We started having problems with mail delivery to our house maybe 7 or 10 years ago and have changed  the address on most of our personal mail which used to come to our house to the box, as well as the mail that I receive as Treasurer of both my embroidery club and our reenactment unit.  In normal times we basically went to the Post Office where our box is every day Monday to Friday to check for incoming mail and mail outgoing mail.  If we went on a trip we could put a hold on the mail in the box.  If we needed something delivered – it has been sent to the box and was inside the Post Office and safe.  This system worked great.  Today I am talking about the problem with the mail coming in to us.

The last two Sundays in March we went to the Post Office late Sunday night (forgive me if I repeating myself here) and picked up the mail for the entire week and mailed the outgoing mail for the week.  I had figured out that since this Post Office closed on Saturdays at 1pm and was not open on Sundays – there were the fewest people in it for the longest time at that point and would have the least chance of us catching the corona virus then.  Unfortunately our local paper started publishing the number of people who were ill by community and the community that Post Office and the Wendys we normally went to for daily lunch – are in had rather a high count of people who were ill and husband decided we should not go there for some time.

So – all our mail was nice and safe in our Post Office box – but we had no access to it!  Aha!!  Have the mail what I called forwarded and the Post Office calls “Temporary change of address”.  I went online and set the mail up to be sent to us – since I did it online it cost $1.05 by credit card for verification that we are the box owners.  We were only able to enter the name of our craft business – the name the box is in - as it is a “business” box.  The wording implied that all mail would be sent to us and we were then responsible to forward it to those who it was addressed to  - great, they are all us. 

We waited for the forwarded mail to come.  I had called and checked the second day of the forwarding to make sure that the Post Office had received the paperwork and they had.  We kept waiting – it should take 7-10 days for each item to reach us from the Post Office – after 2 weeks of no mail I called.  Since it is a “business” box only mail in the name of the business can be forwarded (okay, most months a bank statement and a credit card statement – and we are not currently using the latter).  The woman I spoke with was very nice and offered to mail the accumulated mail in an envelope to us to give us a chance to figure it out.  I had hoped we would be going again in a week or two and thanked her profusely.  I did go online and change the mailing address for the two main magazines I get to come straight here.  I also emailed the members of my embroidery group and told them to only mail things – such as the dues I was collecting in April and May for end of May annual renewal – to me at home and not at the box and did the same with my accounting clients for anything they would need to mail to me.  Husband did the same with the members of our reenacting unit. 

Two weeks later – same problem. I called again and offered to pay for the mail be mailed to us again – she said she would do so at no charge.  I made a third call – this time waiting over 3 weeks and again she was able to mail us the mail.  Then it was 3 weeks again – this time I asked her if there was some way to  - without having to go into the Post Office – there was some way to close the box in the business name and reopen it immediately in one of our names – even if we had pay the annual fee again.  This started a multi-day discussion involving her, two other employees at the Post Office and the Postmaster.  What they finally worked out is for them to change the name on the box and change it from business to personal.  It would take a couple of weeks – at that point – 2 weeks no problem.  They have mailed us our mail twice since then.  I was suppose to call yesterday and check how it was coming – but ran out of time.  Today I was going to call – but I was called and it suppose to all be changed and all the mail set up to be forwarded – we will know for sure in about in a week – and the accumulated mail is again being mailed to us.


Since I use a Quicken to keep track of our finances I had the advantage of having all the bills we pay being memorized with the day of the month I normally sent out the payment (such as a bill due 30th of the month – would be dated to be written on 23rd of the month) and it repeats monthly, quarterly, or annually – bi-monthly I have to adjust myself and have bills due same set as monthly as change the date due – I knew I would not miss paying any bills.  I also figured that bank statements can always be reconciled after the fact.  It was the unexpected item that I was concerned about – luckily there have not been any surprises.  When a bill will be do I call and, generally by computer on their end, check the balance due – if any – and due date.  If I do not have the bill I write a cover letter giving the name on the account, account number, amount I am paying and the check number and letting them know that I am doing this as I can't get to the Post Office to pick up mail. 

Hopefully we will be getting the mail forwarded and all will even off – of course we are depending on the same Post Office that we were having trouble with to deliver the mail from the box to us when it is forwarded, but the mail carrier has been doing well so far with the mail when it comes from the the Box, as well mail which does come here.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Sometimes what seems like the perfect thing to do – is no longer good at all when the situation changes.  One has to figure out what to do, to make things work as needed.  It sometimes takes a bit of creative thinking to do this. 

Plus – we should be grateful for our Post Office employees who are doing their best to help us keep getting our mail despite the health risks to them (next time you lick an envelope to seal it – remembering people will be touching that envelope and many others and risk getting ill from them.  They are making sure we have bills so we can timely pay them, checks so we have the money to pay the bills, plus the cards, photos and letters (yes, people still mail send same) that are sent to us by loved ones and friends.  (I just found out that my mom does not have to go out of her apartment and downstairs to the mail boxes to get her mail – it is being brought to her – I am going to mail her some “cute” photos of my Teddy bear village under the stay home at order – the summer setup also when I get it set up later this month – I hope the photos make her smile.)

Please all stay well and return next week for the problems sending mail out we have had.

COVID 19 #9 PATIENCE WITH ERRORS AND DELAYS

I hope that all and their loved ones continue to be well.

This week in the wonderful world of isolated at home we have been working on two problems. 

First over a week ago I found that the hot water tap in our downstairs bathroom was leaking.  I tried to use the shut off valve under the sink – but of course it did not turn. I had to call husband to deal withit.  He could not turn that shut off valve either but, being taller than me, he could reach the bigger shut off – just for that sink – in the basement.  So no leak and no hot water in the sink in the bathroom off the kitchen.  Hands either had to be washed upstairs, in the kitchen sink or in cold water.  Since I would forget to wash my hands before coming downstairs to work in the kitchen and did not want to risk washing virus into the kitchen sink – it was wash with cold water. 

In normal times we would have gone to Home Depot and bought the replacement cartridge and fixed the sink – after much screaming and yelling about what was being done.  (It is not a household repair around here unless there is a lot of screaming and yelling.)  But we were not going to go out and look for the part in Home Depot.  Husband looked it up online and found that the Home Depot we go to did have the part and would bring it out to us in our car - but in looking to see this, he found out that there is a lifetime warranty on the cartridge and the manufacturer would replace it free – and by mail.  So I telephoned and they were mailing the cartridge.  Tuesday we had not received it and I called to check and it was traced and here at the post office – along the lines of  “a small world” the woman who checked for me happened to mention she used to live in this area – in the community I grew up and I told her that.  She then mentioned the school her children went to – and it was the one that my sisters and I went to – gee, they might have gone to school with one of my sisters (I am too old to imagine that for me as she would be, well, as old as my 91 yo mom). 

The cartridge arrived in the mail today and with a small amount of concern of everything going right – we now have hot water in the downstairs bathroom – and it does not leak – my hands are very happy not to be in cold water again.  Well, the isolation led to us saving the cost of the cartridge as he would not have looked online and found out about warranty on it if it was not that we are not going out.

Second – we have put off renewing our several medical prescriptions until now when they have to be renewed – will be out of one medication for husband on Friday morning and he did not like my idea of splitting up some old pills of same medication to make the correct dosage for him. 

On Monday during the day I telephoned our pharmacy – Walmart – about what arrangements they had for pickup as we did not want to walk into the store.  Around here,  Walmarts are not delivering and there is no pick up service currently in general.   They do have pickup service for prescriptions only (not even denture adhesive could be added). I was told to call before we come and then again when we are in the parking lot and we would pay at our car. I telephoned on Monday night and put in the renewals through the pharmacy's computer.    

On Tuesday (yesterday) we received a call that they were out of the strips for my Diabetes meter and it would take until “Wednesday” for them to come.  I told them that was okay – and then asked about same for husband – since I had listed his prescriptions first, he had gotten the last of the strips.  No problem, we had figured on going today (Wednesday) any way.  So far, so good.

Today I telephoned the pharmacy to check that the strips had come in.  They had, but now they were short one of husband's blood pressure medications and it would not be in until “Thursday”.  Okay, we can go tomorrow.  The employee was looking over the list of the medications to make sure all the rest were accounted for.  She happened to mention his insulin and the price - $141.  Problem – it is suppose to be $47.  I double checked that they only were filling same for a month.  (Our other medications are for 90 days, but he only wants one box/month's worth of insulin at a time since if something happens to our fridge it will go bad and is expensive (more than it appears from the copay for it).  It was for a month. 

So I telephoned our insurance company.  I got a very nice employee – he explained what it could be – I explained that the deductible had been met for the year.  He checked the records and agreed it should be $47.  While we were speaking there was an echo on his phone – whatever caused that made it so he could not call our pharmacy and he transferred me to another employee – with apparently notes about our discussion on our files as I did not need to give her the pharmacy's phone number again.  She though insisted the $141 was correct as it was for 75 days of insulin!  I explained that it was for a one month supply and the prescription is written for same – one month, one box.  She finally figured out the problem and called the pharmacy to change the price.  I then called the pharmacy to make sure it was all corrected.  So hopefully when I check tomorrow all the prescriptions will be ready and we will go and get them.

Third – Yesterday in the mail we received mail from our cable company marked “urgent” - so I opened it before sealing the mail in the “Tuesday” plastic zip bag for mail.  I left it open and facing the bag to be able to read it while it was in the bag.  It said that our cable would be shut off as we have not paid our bill.  Back last month when the cable bill was due we were short on money in our checking account due a timing problem to pay our cable bill.  Normally we would have gone and transferred money from another account – but if we cannot go out, we cannot easily transfer the money.  I tried telephoning our cable company to new avail, then we tried to “chat” online with same – to no avail until I went to what I had learned to do during the crisis – I went online in the middle of the night to chat with them.  A very nice employee when I explained the situation and asked for the courtesy of an additional week to pay the bill told me that he did not give me the time – there was an automatic 60 day allowance on payment of bills.  I checked with him again that nothing needed to be done and he said nothing – it was automatic.  So we paid our cable bill from last month and our cable bill from this month – together – earlier this month  - 30 days after the first bill was due and in time to be on time for this month's bill. 

Then yesterday I received the notice.  I tried calling the cable company to no avail – busy.  Meanwhile husband went online into our cable account online – it showed the payment and but had for an unknown reason a $10 balance.  I checked with our bank and the check had cleared our bank on April 11 – seems to me that it should have reached them timely if it was back to our bank by then.  I checked the notice – it mentioned a $10 fee if one did not pay by automatic payment – was this something new that they had done? 

 Later that night I again went on the cable company's website and turned on chat and waited for about 45 minutes.  I put in the background of what had happened and then asked about why I received the notice if I had 60 days grace on the late payment from last month and this month's was timely paid – and did I now have to pay a $10 fee for paying with a check instead of by automatic payment?  Per this employee - there was never a blanket 60 day grace period – same was for people who lost their jobs, was only offered through mid March, and people had to apply for it.  My check reached them – one day late, due per her May 8 and arrived on May 9 (mailed on May 3). I mentioned that we have been with them over 30 years and  NEVER paid late.   I was not charged for a fee for paying by check – it was for late payment.  She waived the fee.  She also said that she would let them know about the incorrect information I had relied on which I had been told during the earlier chat in case other customers were told the same incorrect info.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Everything now takes a bit more time and more checking to make sure it is correct.  Try to keep calm (I did with all of these problems) and be nice – so many people are so upset and on edge that customer service people appreciate even more when a customer is nice to them.  (And believe me, I can terribly nasty when something has gone wrong due to stupidity -such as employee giving incorrect information.)  I have also been sure to thank the employees for continuing to working for all of us to have the needed services/items and say that I hope they and their families stay well.

COVID 19 #5 - ANOTHER WEEK IN THE HOUSE - TAXES, MAIL AND RAIN

Normally the last few days would have been busy ones for me as I am an accountant.  I would be finishing up the tax returns for my husband and myself and our business – they are always done after I finish the returns for clients.  I would be preparing and mailing out extensions for those clients who did not manage to get their information together in time.  And I would be looking forward to some quiet time to catch up on what has been thrown aside due to lack of time.

This year is so different.  I am down in general to less than 10 clients, but even so this year, well, I have barely done any returns.  Clients have contacted me that they can not wrap their minds about putting the information together, not going out so they cannot mail me the info, etc.  I tell them that it is not a problem – quite frankly we are not going out either and their completed returns would be a problem to mail to them -we can only put letter sized envelopes in our house mail box for pickup by the same postal employee who delivers to us, as when I tried to put larger envelopes in the clip – they fell inside the mailbox when I closed the front door of it (which they were clipped to).  So I have two 6inch by 9 inch envelopes sitting in the house until we feel safe enough to go to a mail collection box and send them out.  

I have a dear friend who is also a client and had not filed her 2016 return (her husband was ill and they had also moved) and that was a priority for me to get finished and out.  I knew she would be getting a refund and if returns are not filed within 3 years of their due date one loses their refund and I did not want that to happen to her.  I kept reminding her by email and telephone – but suddenly it was this past Saturday and I still not have her information – too late to mail the return to her even in the best of the times as she lives out of state (which is where she moved).  My husband caught her on Facebook Saturday night and reminded her.  I received her information on Sunday and did her return and emailed it back to her with specific instructions – in my panic and excitement to get the returns to her – I sent the wrong version of her Federal return – it was blank!  She telephoned me and the correct one was emailed to her on Monday.  Another client had her info to me earlier in March and her state was not extending the time for her to pay her taxes, so I finished it and mailed it to her back then. 

I managed to fix some errors in our corporation's  last year return, when I was going through the “do everything wrong and redo it no matter how I tried” period.  It is ready to go out when we go out to mail larger items again.  I am now doing this year's return for same.  Next I will start ours.  All will sit and wait for us to go out again.

We actually had a problem with the mail which goes to our PO Box – most of our mail does as we have problems with mail delivery at our house.  We had put in to have it forwarded to us as March 31.  Nothing has arrived which has been forwarded.  I called the Post Office on Monday and was told that since our box is in our business's name only mail from same has been forwarded as there is no way to say to forward all from a business box.  Husband started crying – the employee heard him and said she would put what she has in an envelope and mail it to us – it came the next day.  She said we could call again in a couple of weeks and make arrangements to pay the postage and have same done again.  What does confuse me is two things.  If a company moves should not all the mail addressed to the employees of the company, even if the company is not listed in the address be forwarded also?  And on the USPS website it says that if a business puts in a forward all will be forwarded to the business and the business is responsible for getting it to those who receive mail through them – doesn't that mean it should all be forwarded to us?  Well, we got the large, full envelope and I will get to take them out of the sealed plastic bag that I put them in, this Friday as we cannot wait a full week for 2 week old mail to be opened.  The community where our mail goes (just north of where we live) had over 4 times the number of virus cases as does our community so it really scares husband to go to the Post Office, even late night on Sunday nights as we had been going.  When life is normal again we will find out how to change the box from our business name to our names so next time we can specify “all for address” if God forbid we ever have to do this again.

We also had to deal with a bad storm this week – heavy rain and huge winds.  Not as bad as those of you who got hit tornadoes, and we were lucky and only lost our electricity for a few seconds.  Husband was terrified, as he always is, of losing our electricity, as to do so would result in the loss of much of our food.  I moved everything from the kitchen refrigerator's freezer to our spare small freezer in the basement and turned that one to the coldest it goes and added some frozen plastic “ice” also.  Our logic was the larger the amount of frozen items in a confined space, the better the cold would keep if we lost electricity.  I also found out that we still have some Thanksgiving leftovers – more food, which we did not remember we had, a dinner for one of us.   

How are all of you faring in lock down – or are a some of you in areas which have not been hit enough to have stay home?  I would love to hear from any or all of you – and I am sure that others would like to hear how people are getting by and coping.


THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

We are another week along and closer to being able to go out again.  In our state and our local area they say we are now at the point where the number of new cases and hospital admissions are both going down – more people are now leaving the hospitals than being admitted.  My original guess when the area was hit was mid to late May before we could go out. I hope I guessed right. 

My best wishes for you and yours to remain healthy – or to safely return to good health. 

COVID 19 #4 - MAIL, FOOD AND HOLIDAY WISHES

Well another week in the house in the house due to COVID 19.  Other than walking out our side door (through a small porch) 3 days a week to take in the mail from the box at our front door, we have not been out of the house in an evening short of 2 weeks.  Not as bad as one would think, I have been catching up work and in email contact with some friends from college as we check on each and say happy birthday/ happy anniversary as we have had several of same among us these past few weeks.  Also found that a friend with cancer has successfully completed her treatment.  A friend had COVID 19, luckily a mild case, and is recuperating.  My sister told me that a family of our (adult) cousins also has same – but are doing well.  So – knock on wood – we are doing okay.

Husband has become terrified of going to the Post Office to mail out items – work I have done and has to go to clients, paid bills, etc. - as the community where the Post Office is located has one of the higher COVID 19 counts in the county - even though I would only be only throwing it in the mail collection box in front of it.  I telephoned our local Post Office (I think I have explained that the Post Office which serves our home is considerably further away than 2 others – one of which is where we have our box) and asked and, yes, one can still leave mail in one's home mail box for the postal delivery person to pickup when they deliver your mail.  So, our bill payments are sitting in the clip on the small door through which our mail is delivered for it to be (hopefully) picked up tomorrow.  The clip is there for this purpose and we have the flag up on the box.  Unfortunately this only works with regular #10 envelope sized mail with our box.  We have two items that are in 6 inch by 9 inch envelopes which do not fit in the clip, so at some point we will have to go to at least a mail box to mail them.  They are not bills and not as urgent, so we are okay with waiting to send them out. The funny thing is that I used these two envelopes for these items as I was afraid that they would be too thick in a regular envelope to fit in the new thin deposit slits in the mail boxes.


Tonight my husband went downstairs for something. He noticed a plastic box on the shelves in the basement with food cans in it – our old emergency food supplies. He said he hoped I had not let the food go past date. I went downstairs afterward to look – I knew it all had to be past date as I had not bought new drinking water since I stopped cooking for our reenctment unit. (I had to buy bottle water for them also, so I would rotate ours into what I used for them and put the new water bought for them, in as our supply just to keep ours from getting old which I why I say this.)

I managed to get the box off the shelf and out – it was heavy and I was afraid of dropping of it, but did not. I put it on a table in the basement and opened it. Apparently it has been over 15 years since we bought emergency food supplies and stored it – a couple of years old and I would be using them – but 15 years?!. Perfectly good looking cans – but much too old to even think of eating – what a waste. If you have similar emergency food supplies be sure to check them and rotate them before they are too old to eat.

I know a lot of you are going through a lot right now.  How are YOU handling all everything to keep your home and family running?  Any suggestions or tips for the rest of us?

THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK -

I want to wish you a Happy Easter and/or a Happy Passover – the holidays might be very different than  usual this year – but they are still are special.  In future years these holidays will be looked back on and remembered for how you and yours managed to get through it.  For some they might not be happy memories, perhaps even tragic, for others the memories will be better – even funny.  All of the memories though will remind us of what can we can do when we need to and that we can survive. 

My best wishes for all of you and your families.

MORE LIVING WITH COVID 19 - DEALING WITH OUR POST OFFICE BOX

I hope that all and your families are well and safe.  I am guessing that most, if not all, of you, are under self-isolation, quarantine or something similar due to COVID 19.  Life has certainly changed. 

I was shocked to find out that I am an essential service!  No, not as a blogger – as an accountant.  This has been an interesting tax season.  One day the Federal due date of the returns changed from April to July – but not the date for payment of taxes (which basically means that the taxes still have to be done by April 15 so the client can pay the amount due).  The next day payment was also extended to July.  But I have to explain to clients that while payment for their 2019 taxes and for their April 15 estimated tax payments towards their 2020 tax are delayed until mid July – they still will (as of right now) have to pay their June 15 estimated taxes by June 15.  So they will be paying their second payment before their first payment – and there is only one month between them!  Then the next day my home state said that they will go along with the Federal changes.  But the tax return I was working on is for a client who lives in New Mexico – and New Mexico has extended the time to file the state income tax return, but not to pay it – and they have not mentioned estimated taxes at all!  Plus I have a client who always has me file for an extension of time to file his return – and the July date is not late enough in the year – so I still need to file an extension for him – and I will do so by April 15 just to make sure it is on time.  I have been in contact with other clients (who live in my home state) and told the to take their time sending me their tax info – quite frankly I would be happier not to have their paperwork coming into the house right now.

So I moved on to the taxes for the a very small business corporation that husband and I have together.  Last year you may remember, I had all sorts of craziness going on and I had a problem matching what the corporation owes us a loan on the corporation's books and ours – and just figured that I would match it up after wards.  Of course it now a year later and I have still have to do it – and suddenly have the time to do so.  I managed to figure out that 2016 and 2017 did not seem to match as we paid money to the corporation in December and deposited in the corporation in January – so both years were fine.  But 2018!  Apparently when I did the taxes last year I picked up the wrong number from our books to use for the corporation taxes (and on the corporation's books).  So I have to prepare a corrected return (for both Federal and state) for last year after fixing the error on the books – and then start finishing the books for 2019 and do the return for that – plus of course, my husband would like to get our personal returns done – as long I do not have client's returns (paid work) to do. 

Speaking of mail -  5  - 7 years ago  we started having a problem with our mail delivery at home.  We received mail for people on streets we had never heard of (and husband has lived in this areas since he was 7).  We received mail that had been opened and taped closed – having done this myself, I presume that someone else received the mail, opened it without looking at the name/address, and then taped it closed and dropped it back in the mail when they realized their error.  Plus there are at least 5 items we never received  - 3 credit card statements and 2 items for my accounting practice from IRS.  So we changed our mailing address for most things which come to us in the mail to our PO Box for our corporation.  We have had the box for a couple of decades.  It is in a Post Office which is much closer to our house than the one that which delivers mail to us.  (We live at the opposite end of that PO's delivery area from the PO and close to two POs for the adjacent delivery areas.)

Having the mail go to the PO Box has worked great – until now.  We normally stop in daily Monday to Friday and check for mail – and mail out any outgoing mail we have.  No longer.  Since we are hunkered down in the house as much as possible, we are not going to the Post Office.  We knew we had to go there.  I started thinking.  Our Post Office is a 24 hour location.  This means that anyone can walk in 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to mail items or check their PO Box.  One just inserts any credit or debit card to open the door.  Okay, we could go at night to pick up mail – much less people then, if any.  Since we were not going to every day for a long time, I figured out that if we went on Sunday night, there would be the fewest people in the building since the close of business late Saturday afternoon – after all, who would go to the Post Office on a Sunday night? 

So, 7 pm last Sunday we made our first weekly, Sunday trip to the Post Office.  I had a large plastic bag for the mail in the box and two items to mail out – the return that had to go to New Mexico and the estimated tax forms for the other client.  As we pulled up in front in of the Post Office – someone else pulled up there also in front of us and went in with a package to mail.  We looked at each other.  Husband said that we would go to the other nearby Post Office and mail out what I needed to mail out and then come back later to check our box.  We got to the other Post Office and it was not a 24 hour one, so we could not go in.  We headed home – past the Post Office with our box.  Not only were the other people still in there – we saw someone else walk in the door!  Wow – it is a hot spot to go on a Sunday night – or others had the same idea as us.  We went home and had dinner and went back around 10 pm.  The large outgoing mail box inside was jammed shut.  I hate to mail items in outside boxes as in years past different clients of mine mailed items to me from different communities  and the mail in the boxes were set on fire.  But, the outside box it was to be.  We grabbed the mail from from our box and put it in the large bag I brought  -  which I sealed closed and went home.

While everything I read about mail and COVID  19 says it okay to open to mail and packages, everything husband reads says the opposite.  So I  am leaving the mail for a week before opening it.   I pointed out to him that the small amount of mail that comes to the house had been opened all week –  big mistake – now that mail has to sit a week in a sealed bag also!

How are the rest of you handling this change in life?  Please post back – I get so lonesome sometimes because no one every posts to me.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

As the days pass and politicians argue if there will be a quick resolution or if it will take a long time before life resumes some semblance of normal – take some time away from watching and listening to information about COVID 19 and all that is going with it.  Constantly watching and hearing about it can make one feel even worse.  Pay attention to what needs to be done and take care of yourself and your loved ones – but also make sure to do things to divert your mind  to help you keep your sanity.

At some point – whether soon or not (and I don't think it will be soon) it will be end and life will start to move back towards normal.  In the mean time stay well and take care of yourself and those you love.

COMING TO THE END OF TAX SEASON - HOW DO I KEEP IT ALL ORGANIZED AND GET IT ALL DONE?

Last weekend I suddenly realized - I have 2 weeks to the end of tax season - and none of the returns which are due by April 15 are done, most not even started - and only 1 was almost finished. Panic was about to set in - then I looked at my list.  I have a dying accounting practice - literally, my clients were from my dad or from my boss and are older than me with a couple of exceptions. 

It is an extremely small practice, but I have clients in 4 (US) states - well, I did, but that is another story - I now have in clients, that I know of, in 3 states.  My dad was an accountant for an  avant garde art gallery at one time and he had many clients who were “modern” artists.  My boss had a couple of clients who were writers.  Between the two groups I have had clients in 7 states other than my home state and clients in Paris, France and in Auckland, New Zealand.  (At one time I had a client in Hawaii and the clients in Paris - one was 6 hours ahead of me and one was 6 hours behind and I would confused as to which was which.  The solution?  I telephone (pre-Internet days) all of them at 3:00.  Which 3:00?  It did not matter - it would either be 9 am or 9 pm - not too early to call and not too late to call.  Just when I thought that I had the time difference dealt with - a client moved to New Zealand - 16 hours off and a different day!

I do the returns in the order I receive the information.  If, though, I have returns that have to go out of state and others that are local, when it gets down to the end - as it is now - I have to get the out of state returns done first so they can be mailed to the client in time for the client to look over the returns, come up with any money they need to pay and get the return out timely on their end.  Local clients I can always hand deliver the return.  (My dad used to hand deliver returns - he and I (long before I was old enough to work) would go out at night and drop off returns at his clients.  I loved doing that with him.)

So a return that has to go across the country was mailed out on Monday - plenty of time in advance.  I spent yesterday afternoon preparing extensions for 2 clients who have requested them  - I mailed the extensions out to the tax offices that they have to go today.  I worked up estimated taxes (for 2019) for one client today and they will go out to him tomorrow.  (Estimated taxes are paid by people who do not have taxes withholding on parts of their income due to the type of the income and I have to estimate what their income/taxes will be next year for them.)  Normally one has to have 90% of their tax prepaid when the return is due, by withholding and paid estimates to avoid a penalty - or if one’s tax went up a lot in the year the estimate has to be equal to or greater than 100% of their tax for the prior year - in some cases 110% of same. I have to calculate and guess how much the clients need to pay as estimates for the coming year without them overpaying a lot, but also enough that they will not have a penalty at the end of the coming year.  These will go to the client (again out of state) tomorrow in the mail. 

I have another client who owes taxes for past years.  Her husband had been ill and they were also moving to another state so the past several years’ taxes have been a bit late in being filed. She always gets a refund so there is no penalty for filing late, although I always file extensions for her, but she files long after same is over.  Last year I went after her to give me info so I could do her return for 2014 so she could file it or she would lose her refund - I prepared the return and also her 2017 - so we started to catch up.  I need to do her 2015 return this year so that she does not lose her refund from same.  Big problem - the land near her home broke through a retaining wall and she cannot go home - even just to get the papers needed for her 2015 return.  I filled in a form for her so that IRS will send copies of what they have for her for 2015 - but it is getting close and I have not received the papers from them.  Luckily she had mailed or emailed me the forms she had from their pensions when I made the estimates for 2015 so I have that information.  Her other income is Social Security and a tiny bit of bank account interest.  Today I looked up what percent Social Security went up in 2015 compared to 2014 so I could estimate out what her income would have been (turned out it was the same amount for both years) and then estimated what would have been withheld on it.  I also took her 2014 and her 2017 interest income to figure out what she probably received in 2015.  (2016 also has to be completed so I don’t have the info for same.)  If I don’t receive the information by tomorrow I will do the return with the info I have, which should be a close estimate of everything.  She will have filed timely before she loses her refund.  If it is wrong - well, IRS will compare it to their records and correct the numbers before sending her - her refund. 

How do I keep track of all of this and make sure all the needed information is on the forms and correct?  I have two things that help greatly. 

First, I have a pocket file holder - nice plastic one that sits on the floor next to my desk.  It has sections in it.  A file folder is slightly too large (by maybe half an inch) across to fit in as one is just suppose to use each pocket as a file.  I want to be able to pull out the entire file and know everything is in it.  I cut one end off of some file folders - just enough for them to fit in the holder.  Problem solved.  I used to use removable labels when I had a lot of clients so I could reuse the cut folders during the season.  Now each client has a folder with their name on it. 

When a client mails tax papers to me - whether all of the papers needed or some of them - I put them in the matching folder - in the file holder. I just take out that folder when I am ready to work on their return.  Our information for our personal return and for our business returns go into two of these folders also (one is for our return and one is for the business returns) - in this case the year end forms received go into the folder and I when I move last year’s personal bills into a box (in the office closet) at year end, I put the sections of the bills into the matching tax return information folder also. 

Second, most of my clients have fairly ordinary returns.  So I wrote up a form for myself to fill in the all of the info that might be involved in clients (or our) returns - a section with various types of income listed with lines for the info, a section for taxes paid, estimates and withholding, another section for deductible expenses, and one for adjustments to be made to everything for the state return (if there is one) for the client.  Across the bottom is room to write which returns have to be filed by the client - left side Federal, right side state, so I can check that I have all the needed forms for client to file.  This information form is changed as needed - when the requirement to have medical insurance under ACA came into being - I added a check box at the top to check off that client has medical insurance.  The back of this form is blank so I can list things if there are several of the same item to be totaled.  If there are too many to fit, I add a piece of “columnar paper” (paper with columns to list money amount) and use that.  This system has worked well for well over a decade and I will keep using it to keep clients’ info organized for their taxes.
Then when I am done with the clients’ returns I have to do the hard returns.  Ours and our corporation.  They have to be done together - or at least I have to break out some of the figures between the two before doing the return.  These at least I have until midnight, April 15 to finish and mail.

Some people find all of this overwhelming when I talk about it.  I grew up in a house with both parents who were accountants - although most of the time only dad was working when I was growing up - mom was a stay at home mom until I was in college.  (They did have to come up with tuition - after scholarships and loans were subtracted - to pay tuition for the 3 of us.)  Husband did not understand this at first - everything was secondary to “tax season”.  My parents anniversary is during tax season (when they married it was ending a month earlier than it does now).  My mom’s birthday is during tax season (she just turned 90!).  Even husband’s birthday falls during tax season - but his I cannot ignore. 

So at this point unless something odd happens, I should be done in time - even with time off to write this post and next week’s post and do something for husband’s birthday (and having gone to a birthday party for mom given by my sister).  Then - payroll taxes are due by the end of the month!

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -                               

If you have a repetitive task - daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually - figure out how you can make it more automatic to do.  This is true whether it is a task around the house such as cleaning or laundry or changing towels - I change the sponges and scrub pad in the kitchen every month at the change of the month to remind to do so.  I change all the towels on Mondays (new start to the work week).  I then change the bathroom towels (in both bathrooms) on Thursdays also - why Thursday? It is about the middle of the week - and we have garbage pickup on Thursdays - so the kitchen towels are changed on the same days as the garbage is picked up.  I change the kitchen towels again on Wednesday and Friday - why not Thursday?  Well, I like to change the kitchen towels more often as I am working with food that is raw and may have microbes in it and then touching the towels.  Why Wednesday and Friday? - Well Monday, Wednesday, and Friday which are every other day.  

You have to decide for yourself when to do what and figure out how to remind yourself what to do.  It helps a lot to have a schedule and check off lists.

TORN BETWEEN TWO RESPONSIBILITIES

In trying as we all do to try to keep our homes and lives organized.  Sometimes it is easier than others.  Sometimes two (or more) responsibilities conflict and we must decide what to do.

I recently had a situation like this.  My mom is 89 and just recently gave up her car as she did not drive it that often and wanted to save the costs of insurance and maintaining it.  I have started driving her to her doctor for appointments - so far around every 3 months.  She sees other doctors also and needs to run errands, but even letting me drive her to these appointments is a major step in her giving up a bit of control and (supposedly) the reason she asked me to drive her to these appointments is that the doctor is 3 communities away and the taxis fee would be expensive.  (Taxis here do not charge by the mile, they charge by how many zones one travels in.)  Personally, hearing what she pays for a taxi ride, I think that they are too expensive in general.  She is signing up for the county service for seniors and handicapped people for transport, but that has to be reserved in advanced and involves traveling to pickup and drop off others enroute.

After 2 trips to the doctor we seem to have a pattern for the day.  I pick her up, drive her there, get her into the doctor’s office and then park the car and come back to the office.  When she is finished and making her next appointment, I walk into the office area to make sure that I can also make the next appointment (and I put the info in my cell phone calendar).  I then get the car (she has trouble walking distances - mostly due to balance, with a walker she would be able to walk much longer distances) and bring it back and help her into the car.  We then go to lunch - both times we had pizza at place near the doctor’s office. 

Mom had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for this past Tuesday afternoon and I was to take her to see him and we planned our usual lunch afterwards.  Our last visit to her doctor we stopped at the bank to make a deposit for her and she again asked if we could do this - no problem.

I have mentioned that my husband has developed a weather phobia.  He is only in his mid-60s, but in some ways seems to be older than my mom - he is much more fearful of things beyond his control.  He does not like to be alone in general, but especially when he is anticipating an upcoming problem such as weather. 

He also greatly builds up problems in his head about anything that needs to be done.  You might remember my tale of trying to winterize our RV in November.  Well, spring is coming and he wanted to set up an appointment at our RV dealer’s service department to have whatever it is that is broken, fixed.  The cost alone scares the heck out of him (and me).  We made an appointment for late April.  The dealer is 2 states away.  There are RV dealers here with service departments, but none who work with this brand of RV and we want someone who knows about it, so we take it back to “our”dealer.  Normally we would make an appointment and drive there, getting there between 11 am and noon - it is about a 3 hour drive and we are not morning people.  No go for this trip.  The service department now shuts at 3:30 and we have to be there by 9 am, 10 the absolute latest.  We can drive there the night before and plug in the RV on the outside of the service building and have done this before, but we had working toilet in the RV when we did so and do not have same now.  Or we could leave around 6 am to make sure that even with traffic we are there in time (and I rarely can fall asleep before 5 am).  Husband went into a panic.  I came up with a solution - find an RV park near the dealer which has (as most do) a bathroom on the grounds and ask for a space near it.  He is looking for same as the nearest one we know of it is about 45 minutes away and the bathrooms, while nice, are a distance away from the spots we like.

In addition there is a large scandal about the RV manufacturer (not the dealer who is independent) such that if something is not figured out it will be out of business and any items it makes or has made for its RV’s that are not items made for an RV in general, those parts may/will no longer be available.  All of the parts for the problems we are having, as far as we know, are general RV parts so there should be no problem at this time.  He was, though, in a panic over the company being closed down.  I told him (a big fan of James Bond) “never say never” as well as he should not worry about this before it happens as often the original family which owned a company come back when there is a problem to save “their” company. 

There was also to be a snowstorm today (the day after the appointment) which was upsetting him no end, despite all weather forecasts showed that it would turn to rain and between the rain and the 50F + weather tomorrow (the day after the storm) it would all melt.

So with all this going on, I had to tell him that I would be out yesterday with my mom for her doctor’s appointment.  “PLEASE, you have to come home early!!!”  I told him that I would be home as early as possible.  Problem is that he sits and it all runs through his head and scares him and then thinks about it more and starts to head towards panic if he is alone.

I did have a solution to needing to be with him to take care of him and taking care of my mom.  I thought about it - and then thought again.  My mom is a bit, well, a woman who is about to be 90.  I love her.  Husband if he does not actually love her, likes her in general, but an afternoon with just the 3 of us.  But I offered last weekend that he could come along if he wanted/needed to. His face said it all.  Then, Monday night, he asked if he could come along.  It was the only solution to my needing to be with two people at the same time. 

It actually went much better than I (or husband) though it would.  Mom even went along with our suggestion to go to Wendys for lunch.  She had never been there and was raving about it.  Whenever I say we eat there she says the burgers must be greasy, but she raved about them.  All in all it was successful day - her report at the doctor was good.  Husband was not left home alone.  And, we made another bank deposit for mom. After we settled her in at home we ran to the post office for our mail and then the supermarket as husband always needs “more food” in the house when it will snow. 

Another thing he worries about  - I did the laundry a night early so it would all be done - “just in case” to reassure him.  Snow is now over, rain has come, and he keeps looking out to see if the snow is melting - it is.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
If you are caught with competing things to do figure out if they can be done together.  I think this actually worked out to be one of the better visits with my mom for me and for husband also.  I am not planning to invite him again, but if need be, we will know what to do.