When one thinks that one is sort of keeping up, well... one is not.
We received the new carbon monoxide monitor today - it looks right. We ordered a different propane monitor - same company as made the carbon monoxide detector and will send the one we have back - not comfortable with it not indicating that it is working properly.
So far the leak under the sink has not returned - might have been because husband washed hair in kitchen sink. We will see.
Spent much time trying to find a new policy for our reenactment unit. Today we found an agency that gave us a “maybe”, instead of a “no”. The company they use has written some policies for reenactors, not sure if they still are doing so. In doing the paperwork for them, I found an ad we received several years ago from a company that did these policies - husband contacted, they no longer carry these policies.
Yesterday I had a chance to do some of those bank recs which are sitting and waiting. Again, I started with the more important ones. I did the April one for our reenactment unit first and then same for my embroidery chapter. I could not find last month’s bank recs for them. In a panic I looked through the papers I previously set aside to deal with later. I checked the file drawers. I looked in my “to file” section in the stack of holders that sit on my desk (amazingly that has mostly been kept up through all this). I looked in the stack on desk. I looked in the financial folder for each in their slots in their sections in the same holder. Not there! Finally I remembered! Boy was I stupid. I don’t file bank statements into the file drawers when I reconcile them. I put them into my “grab and go” emergency folder and at that time file the one from the prior month. This is such an automatic repeating thing - how could I forget? So the ones I was missing were in the grab and go. Well, the one for our reenactment unit was. The one for my embroidery chapter was still missing. I finally remembered that it was set aside in the notebook I use to keep track of the money received for the group. I had forgotten (until I did this month’s reconciliation) that suddenly the statement shows a calculation of the monthly fees due on the account - all zero so far - and this account is not suppose to have monthly fees. I set it aside to take with me next time I go to that bank to ask what is going on and forgot. I will be going in to make a deposit for the group and will ask about the fee calculation.
I also had a chance to reconcile our business banking accounts for April. They go fairly quickly - very little business. This time I remembered where last month’s statements were - since I had just done the other two statements. I even had a chance to do both months of our lesser bank accounts (small savings accounts and a checking accounting to transfer money out of that bank easily). I did not get to the statements for our IRAs. They are quarterly statements and came at the beginning of April and are next to be done.
I still have not had a chance to post the breakdown of the bills I paid last month to the computer. I had posted them quickly when they were paid, entirely to “uncategorized expenses”. This way I us the program to double check my arithmetic - my balance and the computer’s balance for any account should be the same, but it saves the time of breaking down the expenses on a busy credit card statement. These statements are in the folder to have their posting fixed. By posting them to the “uncategorized expenses” category, one which I did not set up, but is place for the program to post expenses which were not posted by me, I know that when I have the program make me a statement for reference, if there is anything in that account - it was done and I better do it!
I also did not have a chance to backup my computers last month. I should have done the monthly and a quarterly backup of each (on two different external hard drives). So yesterday I did a back up on each drive for my main computer. I had been having a problem syncing my older mobile phone with the computer - it would not attach and I thought it was a peculiarity of the phone which sometimes happen - it is “old” and a pre Iphone or Android. I decided not to panic and set it aside. Then when I tried to attach the first external hard drive - it would not attach. I tried again in a different port - then tried a port on the back of the computer instead of the front as I have a hub attached to the back and the disks on same were fine. Did not work. Why should it - nothing else seems to work right.
I still did not panic and did what one does when nothing works right. I shut down the computer and rebooted. That did it and it worked. So I made both backups. Today I did same to my work laptop. I have to go back and backup some flash drives of data and then this computer will be backed up.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
To paraphrase a saying about setting aside projects partially done - . “If you don’t have time to finish it now and you set it aside, when will you have time to finish it?”
This is what has happened to me. New problems keep popping up which are mostly beyond my control.
Try to get things done in full - or get back to them right away - don’t set them partially aside. If by some chance you have no choice (as I did not) make sure you keep all of what has to be done together in a logical way so you can go back and remember what has to be done and how to do it.
Thursday, May 17, 2018
Thursday, May 10, 2018
I HAVE LOST MOST ORGANIZATION IN THE HOUSE NOW!
Okay I admit it. Between tax season, warping the loom with husband, dealing with our RV, etc. I have lost my organization. I have bank statements from a month ago which have not been reconciled (I did our main ones, but not the smaller ones). I have managed to keep current - barely on paying bills and just realized “How much?” we need to pay the end of the month bills - WOW! I am behind on things I need to get done as treasurer of both clubs. Just when I think we are done with all the other stuff we have to do - something else will pop up.
We managed to get the propane detector installed in the RV - but it does not give the signal that it is checking that it is working that the old one did and this one (same company, same model) says it should - manufacturer says that it does not do it as much as people complained of the noise. We did test it - twice - with the gas from a cigarette lighter and it does go off.
The carbon monoxide detector was sent back yesterday to the company we bought it from. It is not only, not the one we were told it was, it also was not the one pictured online and does not work in an RV. We had to find it elsewhere and order it again and are waiting for the new one to come - again, we can’t go anywhere until it is in the RV and is working.
Now that the weather is nice husband announced it was time to dewinterize the RV. This is two processes. First we dewinterize it - we fill both water tanks and run water through the water taps - hot and cold - sink, shower and outdoor taps, as well as into the RV until the water runs clear so that the non-toxic antifreeze is no longer in the lines. We did this last Friday. This is a fairly quick straight forward thing to do. Since we had planned a trip in December which we did not take, I did not bring the bedding in (sheets and pillowcases were washed as I do them all season) to wash. I pulled one set of bedding (in a laundry bag in a plastic bag) and brought it in when we were done.
We knew we needed bleach for the next step - but since I don’t use bleach for laundry, we decided to check how fresh the bleach we had was - it was not fresh enough to use as it did not smell like bleach. Husband was at full crazy panic mode in general over all this, so I could not bring myself to tell him that when I took the bleach out from under the sink - a place I go several times a week - there was water on the floor of the cabinet. I wiped it up while he was out of the room. I then traced it and it seemed to be coming from the outgoing pipe - I put down paper towels and tied one around where the leak seemed to be - where two pipes joined. I had in my mind that he had washed his hair in the sink the night before - perhaps something happened?
Saturday afternoon we packed our van with the items we would need for a reenactment event with our unit on Sunday. We have a rain date for this event, but the scheduled day for the event is the same day as two other events in the same community - one across the street from where we will be - which brings people to the area and we have more guests than otherwise. Reports were for rain - maybe in the morning, maybe afternoon, maybe all day - maybe light, maybe heavy... So we packed so that if the event was moved inside our headquarters we could bring much less with us than for a regular event, but had the rest of the stuff with us just in case it is nice. (In case you are wondering - we have two wooden boxes with rope handles which are storage for our stuff and also seating for us. We packed what we would need no matter what all in one of the boxes. Husband portrays a person who is printing and selling period publications so we have his inventory and a table setup - that would not be needed if raining. Members of the unit eat the cooking demonstration so we each bring period looking tableware. I bring my embroidery setup - I had just what I needed in the box we would take and the backup stuff in the other) Sunday it was dreary but dry and the idea of setting up a bit outside and planning to run inside if it rained was decided on. We brought just the one box. Luckily the day stayed passable with just some passing showers. At one point during the day - I was sitting outside stitching and talking to people - husband and our unit commander came to me and asked me to move inside. Why? There is a staircase - really a ladder on an angle - which goes to the attic. We keep it tied off unless we have members (generally two young men who are brothers) upstairs for safety in many ways. Well, apparently people were not keeping track of their children and the children were walking up the stairs. So I was relocated to sit in the front of the stairs and block them with my box. I ended up doing tours of the room and house also while there - with the box left to block the stairs. Oh, I could not find the reproduction cap I bring to events to wear. I keep an older one that is a bit youthful for me in one of our boxes - in case I forget. So I brought a new, unworn one that I did not want to use, just in case, but found the old spare one to wear. Later at home I was talking about the cap I normally wear with husband and he mentioned that the last time I wore it was December when we did the Candlelight Nights event. I went and checked my older winter jacket that I had worn to those events - safe and snug in the pocket was my missing cap!
Monday we started the second step of the dewinterizing process - we need to sanitize the tanks and system - in case anything grew in anything during the winter. Again, this is a fairly easy thing to do - fill the tanks with water, add a small amount of bleach to each and then drive the RV up and down the driveway with short stops to mix together. Normally we would have done this after the what we did on Friday on the same day. We then run the water through the same taps as we Friday (but not the toilet bowl - bleach cannot go in it) until we smell the bleach in the water coming out of them. Husband decided to replace the water that had been used from the rear tank (front tank full as the rear tank runs into the front tank). We normally have a problem with the rear tank after this process as some sort of bubble forms and we cannot put water in it when the tanks are emptied after this bleach process and he thought this might resolve the problem as there would be a full tank in the rear. Well, the problem was already there and we needed the setup he had made to deal with it - it is a bunch of plumbing parts put together so we can put a long, thin tube (think fish tank tubing) on the end of the hose and feed the tube all the way into the tank and fill it from the bottom/inside of the tank. He took it out to use. It was so cold this past winter that parts of the assembly burst. So off to the home stores for replacement parts. We went to the “orange” company’s store - no one to help us and no parts that we needed. We went to the “blue and white” company’s store and the man in the department tried hard to help us - he found where the part should be, but was out. We walked around and husband came up with an alternate assembly and we bought what we needed. In the confusion of all this, we forgot to take the insulin (which needs to be kept cold) we picked up at the pharmacy from the car - in just under 80F weather - at least it was in a cold bag, so hope it is okay - this is something I never would have let happen if not for all this craziness taking over my mind.
Tuesday we let the water out of the RV (This involves unscrewing a small cap from underneath the RV - guess who gets to do this.) We then refilled the tanks - and again ran the water through the lines. We repeated filling, emptying and letting the water through the lines. We needed the special setup for the back tank all but the last refill. I brought in the other bag of bedding to wash.
Today we let the water out for the last time and now the water system is ready to be used.
We also received on Tuesday a notice that our reenactment company’s insurance will not be renewed as they are no longer writing the policies in our state - so now I am looking for a new policy for them. Husband searched online for coverage - all listed the company we had the insurance with. Today I called our personal insurance broker and asked if they can help - they had me fax the info to them - but of course the fax machine (an all in one with printer, scanner and copier) decided that there phone number was “restricted” and we could not fax to them. We have never heard of this. After about 40 minutes online husband fixed the problem - we hope. In the meanwhile I emailed the information to the broker. In scanning in the paperwork, I managed to get ink on the scanning unit - all pages had a line down them - and we then spent about an hour finding and cleaning the ink off the scanner - of course the instructions were not in the manual and he had to find them online. I also sent an email to our national reenactment unit - located in the same state as us - asking them about the insurance they have.
For good measure I burned my hand in steam while cooking dinner last night - and in recoiling from the steam, put a bad cramp in my side. While my hand is not badly burned, it does still hurt (last night I could only type on the computer with my left hand - not as easy I would figure to do). Today while we were taking apart the RV electric plug in system that we plugged in to make things easier, I dropped a large and heavyish circuit breaker box on my foot - the opposite side - so now my hand and my foot hurt.
I did tell husband about the leak under the stove last night. The other night I fit a plastic container under the pipe and since then it has been dry. We will keep monitoring the box for water.
Hopefully tomorrow I will be have time to do the bank recs. Time to email reminders to embroidery chapter members who have not renewed to do so - I have to have them in the mail by May 31. Send out a check owed to a reenactment unit member who overpaid the family’s dues.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Sometimes it all just gets away from one. One can go crazy - as my husband does - or try to keep calm and know that somehow and sometime (hopefully soon) the craziness will end and one will be able to start over and catch up. Laundry is being done - but some of last week’s was still in the dryer. Bills are paid. Garbage and recycling has gone out. (While we were in the garage during all this I found a good sized cardboard box for next week’s recycling - I need to have a big enough box to include the empty and rinses out old bleach bottle.) My hand is better, but not perfect today and will recover. My foot has a small bruise but will recover. The biggest concern left is finding replacement insurance in the just over a month we have to do so - but hopefully it will be resolved in time and not for much more than we used to pay.
Does this ever happen to you?
We managed to get the propane detector installed in the RV - but it does not give the signal that it is checking that it is working that the old one did and this one (same company, same model) says it should - manufacturer says that it does not do it as much as people complained of the noise. We did test it - twice - with the gas from a cigarette lighter and it does go off.
The carbon monoxide detector was sent back yesterday to the company we bought it from. It is not only, not the one we were told it was, it also was not the one pictured online and does not work in an RV. We had to find it elsewhere and order it again and are waiting for the new one to come - again, we can’t go anywhere until it is in the RV and is working.
Now that the weather is nice husband announced it was time to dewinterize the RV. This is two processes. First we dewinterize it - we fill both water tanks and run water through the water taps - hot and cold - sink, shower and outdoor taps, as well as into the RV until the water runs clear so that the non-toxic antifreeze is no longer in the lines. We did this last Friday. This is a fairly quick straight forward thing to do. Since we had planned a trip in December which we did not take, I did not bring the bedding in (sheets and pillowcases were washed as I do them all season) to wash. I pulled one set of bedding (in a laundry bag in a plastic bag) and brought it in when we were done.
We knew we needed bleach for the next step - but since I don’t use bleach for laundry, we decided to check how fresh the bleach we had was - it was not fresh enough to use as it did not smell like bleach. Husband was at full crazy panic mode in general over all this, so I could not bring myself to tell him that when I took the bleach out from under the sink - a place I go several times a week - there was water on the floor of the cabinet. I wiped it up while he was out of the room. I then traced it and it seemed to be coming from the outgoing pipe - I put down paper towels and tied one around where the leak seemed to be - where two pipes joined. I had in my mind that he had washed his hair in the sink the night before - perhaps something happened?
Saturday afternoon we packed our van with the items we would need for a reenactment event with our unit on Sunday. We have a rain date for this event, but the scheduled day for the event is the same day as two other events in the same community - one across the street from where we will be - which brings people to the area and we have more guests than otherwise. Reports were for rain - maybe in the morning, maybe afternoon, maybe all day - maybe light, maybe heavy... So we packed so that if the event was moved inside our headquarters we could bring much less with us than for a regular event, but had the rest of the stuff with us just in case it is nice. (In case you are wondering - we have two wooden boxes with rope handles which are storage for our stuff and also seating for us. We packed what we would need no matter what all in one of the boxes. Husband portrays a person who is printing and selling period publications so we have his inventory and a table setup - that would not be needed if raining. Members of the unit eat the cooking demonstration so we each bring period looking tableware. I bring my embroidery setup - I had just what I needed in the box we would take and the backup stuff in the other) Sunday it was dreary but dry and the idea of setting up a bit outside and planning to run inside if it rained was decided on. We brought just the one box. Luckily the day stayed passable with just some passing showers. At one point during the day - I was sitting outside stitching and talking to people - husband and our unit commander came to me and asked me to move inside. Why? There is a staircase - really a ladder on an angle - which goes to the attic. We keep it tied off unless we have members (generally two young men who are brothers) upstairs for safety in many ways. Well, apparently people were not keeping track of their children and the children were walking up the stairs. So I was relocated to sit in the front of the stairs and block them with my box. I ended up doing tours of the room and house also while there - with the box left to block the stairs. Oh, I could not find the reproduction cap I bring to events to wear. I keep an older one that is a bit youthful for me in one of our boxes - in case I forget. So I brought a new, unworn one that I did not want to use, just in case, but found the old spare one to wear. Later at home I was talking about the cap I normally wear with husband and he mentioned that the last time I wore it was December when we did the Candlelight Nights event. I went and checked my older winter jacket that I had worn to those events - safe and snug in the pocket was my missing cap!
Monday we started the second step of the dewinterizing process - we need to sanitize the tanks and system - in case anything grew in anything during the winter. Again, this is a fairly easy thing to do - fill the tanks with water, add a small amount of bleach to each and then drive the RV up and down the driveway with short stops to mix together. Normally we would have done this after the what we did on Friday on the same day. We then run the water through the same taps as we Friday (but not the toilet bowl - bleach cannot go in it) until we smell the bleach in the water coming out of them. Husband decided to replace the water that had been used from the rear tank (front tank full as the rear tank runs into the front tank). We normally have a problem with the rear tank after this process as some sort of bubble forms and we cannot put water in it when the tanks are emptied after this bleach process and he thought this might resolve the problem as there would be a full tank in the rear. Well, the problem was already there and we needed the setup he had made to deal with it - it is a bunch of plumbing parts put together so we can put a long, thin tube (think fish tank tubing) on the end of the hose and feed the tube all the way into the tank and fill it from the bottom/inside of the tank. He took it out to use. It was so cold this past winter that parts of the assembly burst. So off to the home stores for replacement parts. We went to the “orange” company’s store - no one to help us and no parts that we needed. We went to the “blue and white” company’s store and the man in the department tried hard to help us - he found where the part should be, but was out. We walked around and husband came up with an alternate assembly and we bought what we needed. In the confusion of all this, we forgot to take the insulin (which needs to be kept cold) we picked up at the pharmacy from the car - in just under 80F weather - at least it was in a cold bag, so hope it is okay - this is something I never would have let happen if not for all this craziness taking over my mind.
Tuesday we let the water out of the RV (This involves unscrewing a small cap from underneath the RV - guess who gets to do this.) We then refilled the tanks - and again ran the water through the lines. We repeated filling, emptying and letting the water through the lines. We needed the special setup for the back tank all but the last refill. I brought in the other bag of bedding to wash.
Today we let the water out for the last time and now the water system is ready to be used.
We also received on Tuesday a notice that our reenactment company’s insurance will not be renewed as they are no longer writing the policies in our state - so now I am looking for a new policy for them. Husband searched online for coverage - all listed the company we had the insurance with. Today I called our personal insurance broker and asked if they can help - they had me fax the info to them - but of course the fax machine (an all in one with printer, scanner and copier) decided that there phone number was “restricted” and we could not fax to them. We have never heard of this. After about 40 minutes online husband fixed the problem - we hope. In the meanwhile I emailed the information to the broker. In scanning in the paperwork, I managed to get ink on the scanning unit - all pages had a line down them - and we then spent about an hour finding and cleaning the ink off the scanner - of course the instructions were not in the manual and he had to find them online. I also sent an email to our national reenactment unit - located in the same state as us - asking them about the insurance they have.
For good measure I burned my hand in steam while cooking dinner last night - and in recoiling from the steam, put a bad cramp in my side. While my hand is not badly burned, it does still hurt (last night I could only type on the computer with my left hand - not as easy I would figure to do). Today while we were taking apart the RV electric plug in system that we plugged in to make things easier, I dropped a large and heavyish circuit breaker box on my foot - the opposite side - so now my hand and my foot hurt.
I did tell husband about the leak under the stove last night. The other night I fit a plastic container under the pipe and since then it has been dry. We will keep monitoring the box for water.
Hopefully tomorrow I will be have time to do the bank recs. Time to email reminders to embroidery chapter members who have not renewed to do so - I have to have them in the mail by May 31. Send out a check owed to a reenactment unit member who overpaid the family’s dues.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Sometimes it all just gets away from one. One can go crazy - as my husband does - or try to keep calm and know that somehow and sometime (hopefully soon) the craziness will end and one will be able to start over and catch up. Laundry is being done - but some of last week’s was still in the dryer. Bills are paid. Garbage and recycling has gone out. (While we were in the garage during all this I found a good sized cardboard box for next week’s recycling - I need to have a big enough box to include the empty and rinses out old bleach bottle.) My hand is better, but not perfect today and will recover. My foot has a small bruise but will recover. The biggest concern left is finding replacement insurance in the just over a month we have to do so - but hopefully it will be resolved in time and not for much more than we used to pay.
Does this ever happen to you?
Thursday, May 3, 2018
FINALLY STARTING TO CATCH UP
Husband gave up on his weaving project this past Monday - someday he will try to do this type of weaving again, but not now.
I have been working on catching up and getting the house and chores back up to date.
I have stored away the several pairs of boots each of us had out for snow this past winter. We have a sort of charm that we believe in (which did not work this winter) - once a pair of boots comes out for the snow, it is bad luck to put them away before the winter is over and will result in even more snow. Yeah, it is stupid and certainly did not work this winter, but we leave them out anyway. Since my teeth are in their seasonal ache period (spring and fall) and I have my seasonal stiff neck (ditto) I am pretty sure the weather will actually stay warm now. So I put the boots away. Our setup for the boots is 2 good sized plastic boxes with lids at the bottom of the front closet. The bottom box holds the boots for more severe weather - the actual snow boots, a pair each of rubber (plastic?) covered shoe boots and such. The upper box holds the boots that might also be worn in rainy weather - the leather ones - and a pair of my old sneakers which slip on. The latter has nothing to do with boots or bad weather. If I have to run out of the house - take out the garbage, recycling, forgot something in the car - they are easy and quick to slip on instead of stopping to put on shoes with laces to go out. They sit at the front and top of the top box so they can be quickly and easily reached. The lid of the upper box becomes a boot tray when we have the boots out - it is placed next to the front door and wet boots are left on it to dry and await their next wearing. I washed and dried the top of it well before putting it back on the box in the closet.
While I managed to fit in the bank reconciliations for our main bank accounts and those of the clubs of which I am treasurer, I did not get to the other accounts - personal savings accounts and a couple of small checking accounts that are used for money transfers, as well as since it was the quarterly statements, the statements for our IRAs. At this point the new statements will be here next week - so I will do the two months of statements together as that is quicker than doing one set now and one set next week. I did find time today to go back and post the purchases and credits on our main credit card statement from last month. I had matched the slips to the statement and paid the bill - in full of course - but had not had a chance to post it to my computer records - so today I did so. Providence must have been helping me as the items for this statement rarely comes out even (posts done with what was billed and paid) on the first try - sometimes it takes lots of tries - but this was one of the time that it worked out on the first try.
Right now I am doing my Wednesday night laundry. Forgot that I had done a load of jeans last week and it was left in the dryer to dry - so I had to bring them upstairs to be able to use the dryer. I also have 2 extra loads I need to do this week. I change the bed’s “underwear” once a month. While I bought new pillow undercovers during the month (as the ones I had were really icky when I saw them - stained and such) I need to wash the mattress pad I took off. We sleep in winter with two blankets. Since it is now in the 70s during the days husband suggested that we only need one blanket now for the warmer weather. I only made the bed with the green blanket and the blue one is waiting to be washed and put on the bed next week. Why do we have two different color blankets? When we needed a new blanket after we had the bed bugs we bought the blue one. Later when it got colder we decided we needed a second one and the store only had the green ones in the correct size. Since I like blue, I wash the blue one first when we are switching to one blanket and leave the green one on the bed to use while the blue one is washed. Then I will put the clean blue blanket on the bed and wash the green blanket. The green blanket will be put in a clear plastic bag when it is clean and after squeezing as much air as I can, the bag will be sealed. The green blanket will then be store in the bedroom in a piece of furniture (a plastic end table with a shelf under it and a closed cabinet area below that - it used to be in our living room in our apartment). In the fall I will put the green blanket on the bed and again wash and dry the blue one.
Today was my embroidery chapter meeting. Due to illnesses somehow not only was I the treasurer, but the secretary asked me during the week to take minutes for her and then this morning the membership chair called and said she was ill and asked me to take care of the renewals (our national group sets the membership year as June through the following May, so everyone has to renew right now), getting a sign in list of members, etc. for her. Plus the VP is out of state and she asked me to get the list of who will bring what to her house for our annual party next month.
After the meeting - which was the first one I went to since January (February and March meetings were canceled for weather and husband’s birthday meant that I could not go to the April meeting). I ran errands which have been waiting since late January to be done.
I had packed some items to donate. Many of them were old computer disk storage items, some were household serving pieces and others were clothes. The bags have been sitting in front of the office closet door since they were packed in late January - each time I thought it would only be a month before they were taken to Goodwill. So if I needed our business checkbook, new paper for the printer, my other laptop bag (I have one for travel and one for work - they hold different things) or the box of 2017 paid bills that I temporarily stuck in the top of the office closet until I clear out the 2008 box from the top of the closet and pack the 2017 papers (bills, statements and anything else) in it and put it in the top of the closet I had to move all the bags, open the closet door, take out what I need (or put away what I no longer needed) and then put all the bags back. So nice to be able to just open the closet.
Similarly I had not been able to bring back our recyclable plastic (soda) bottles for refund of their deposit since early January. I managed to get rid of one small bag (10 bottles, 50 cents) when I suggested to husband that we get rid of a small bag of bottles easily and quickly in the interim, but I kept forgetting to bring another small bag and get rid of them. There still is about half a month’s bottles in the porch - if all goes as it should, they will be returned next month along with any bottles between now and then.
I even managed to fit in a quick trip to the bank branch where we have a safe deposit box and switch an updated offsite data stick drive for the one in the box - also not done since January and intended as a monthly thing to do. I also ordered new checks as I am down to one book while I was there.
So catching up is progressing. I even fit in one of our VERY long telephone conversations with mom.
I mentioned late last year that we had accumulated and submitted a variety of paperwork to our local township for us to receive a senior real estate tax exemption, which is income based. I am happy to say that I received the paperwork saying that we have been given the exemption. This will cut our property taxes for the school year 2018-2019 and our other real estate taxes for 2019. We have to reapply later this year for the following year - at least now we know what to do and what we will need. I have already started collecting the papers as some of them come in without us having to request them. I start contacting the places I will need additional paperwork from either late this month or the beginning of next month - it is all due by the end of the year, so there is time to get it done easily and they will not send out the forms until late August.
For a bit of extra fun, we need to put a new carbon monoxide monitor alarm and a new propane monitor alarm in our RV. We have actually replaced the carbon monoxide monitor before and did not anticipate any problems with it. We have not needed to replace the propane monitor before, but the instructions seemed pretty straight forward. We had to order both monitors. The propane monitor had to be ordered from Canada. Husband found the carbon monoxide monitor listed for sale online, but the one he found said “marine” across it and is intended for a boat. He emailed the company selling it and was assured that it was it the same one - same model number and all.
The carbon monoxide monitor arrived first at our PO Box. When opened it did say “marine” across it. It also has not only different specifications than the one we have, but also they are different than those in the listing it was purchased from. Husband emailed the company about this on Friday. On Tuesday he telephoned as he had not heard back. The employee had him leave a message for the person he needed to talk to and he was assured he would be called back later in the day - today (Wednesday) he called again, spoke to the same employee and was told the same thing and he was a bit less pleasant and she told him that he had written to the wrong email address (the one in their listings) and gave him her email to send the info to - hopefully this will get resolved.
Husband went to take out the old propane monitor - should be easy - push two pieces of plastic on the front together and pull. Apparently the wire was too short for it to pull out. While we need the wire to attach the new one, we had to squeeze in a small wire cutter and cut the wires to get the old one off. We have attempted to remove the piece of floor in this section to get to where the wire connects - but it won’t lift out even after the screws were removed.
Hopefully both of these will soon work out and be installed or we cannot travel in the RV. Next we will progress to dewinterizing the RV - a messy job over 2 days to drain the antifreeze in the pipes and tanks out, add a vinegar and water mixture, run it through the pipes and shake it around the tanks by driving forward and backwards (I mean backwards or forwards or there will be a hole in the garage door) and stopping quickly. Then the vinegar and water mixture is drained out and plain water put in the tanks - then run out through the pipes and taps (3 pairs of taps and toilet) and then the plain water put in again and run out.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK - If the work that needs to be done seems immense, do it little by little.
Figure out what is most important to be done and do that work.
Take what can be set aside “for now” and do so - but put all of the items set aside as same together.
Then do the next the thing which needs to be done and so on.
It is amazing what will get done this way and you will get closer to catching up, if not caught up completely.
I have been working on catching up and getting the house and chores back up to date.
I have stored away the several pairs of boots each of us had out for snow this past winter. We have a sort of charm that we believe in (which did not work this winter) - once a pair of boots comes out for the snow, it is bad luck to put them away before the winter is over and will result in even more snow. Yeah, it is stupid and certainly did not work this winter, but we leave them out anyway. Since my teeth are in their seasonal ache period (spring and fall) and I have my seasonal stiff neck (ditto) I am pretty sure the weather will actually stay warm now. So I put the boots away. Our setup for the boots is 2 good sized plastic boxes with lids at the bottom of the front closet. The bottom box holds the boots for more severe weather - the actual snow boots, a pair each of rubber (plastic?) covered shoe boots and such. The upper box holds the boots that might also be worn in rainy weather - the leather ones - and a pair of my old sneakers which slip on. The latter has nothing to do with boots or bad weather. If I have to run out of the house - take out the garbage, recycling, forgot something in the car - they are easy and quick to slip on instead of stopping to put on shoes with laces to go out. They sit at the front and top of the top box so they can be quickly and easily reached. The lid of the upper box becomes a boot tray when we have the boots out - it is placed next to the front door and wet boots are left on it to dry and await their next wearing. I washed and dried the top of it well before putting it back on the box in the closet.
While I managed to fit in the bank reconciliations for our main bank accounts and those of the clubs of which I am treasurer, I did not get to the other accounts - personal savings accounts and a couple of small checking accounts that are used for money transfers, as well as since it was the quarterly statements, the statements for our IRAs. At this point the new statements will be here next week - so I will do the two months of statements together as that is quicker than doing one set now and one set next week. I did find time today to go back and post the purchases and credits on our main credit card statement from last month. I had matched the slips to the statement and paid the bill - in full of course - but had not had a chance to post it to my computer records - so today I did so. Providence must have been helping me as the items for this statement rarely comes out even (posts done with what was billed and paid) on the first try - sometimes it takes lots of tries - but this was one of the time that it worked out on the first try.
Right now I am doing my Wednesday night laundry. Forgot that I had done a load of jeans last week and it was left in the dryer to dry - so I had to bring them upstairs to be able to use the dryer. I also have 2 extra loads I need to do this week. I change the bed’s “underwear” once a month. While I bought new pillow undercovers during the month (as the ones I had were really icky when I saw them - stained and such) I need to wash the mattress pad I took off. We sleep in winter with two blankets. Since it is now in the 70s during the days husband suggested that we only need one blanket now for the warmer weather. I only made the bed with the green blanket and the blue one is waiting to be washed and put on the bed next week. Why do we have two different color blankets? When we needed a new blanket after we had the bed bugs we bought the blue one. Later when it got colder we decided we needed a second one and the store only had the green ones in the correct size. Since I like blue, I wash the blue one first when we are switching to one blanket and leave the green one on the bed to use while the blue one is washed. Then I will put the clean blue blanket on the bed and wash the green blanket. The green blanket will be put in a clear plastic bag when it is clean and after squeezing as much air as I can, the bag will be sealed. The green blanket will then be store in the bedroom in a piece of furniture (a plastic end table with a shelf under it and a closed cabinet area below that - it used to be in our living room in our apartment). In the fall I will put the green blanket on the bed and again wash and dry the blue one.
Today was my embroidery chapter meeting. Due to illnesses somehow not only was I the treasurer, but the secretary asked me during the week to take minutes for her and then this morning the membership chair called and said she was ill and asked me to take care of the renewals (our national group sets the membership year as June through the following May, so everyone has to renew right now), getting a sign in list of members, etc. for her. Plus the VP is out of state and she asked me to get the list of who will bring what to her house for our annual party next month.
After the meeting - which was the first one I went to since January (February and March meetings were canceled for weather and husband’s birthday meant that I could not go to the April meeting). I ran errands which have been waiting since late January to be done.
I had packed some items to donate. Many of them were old computer disk storage items, some were household serving pieces and others were clothes. The bags have been sitting in front of the office closet door since they were packed in late January - each time I thought it would only be a month before they were taken to Goodwill. So if I needed our business checkbook, new paper for the printer, my other laptop bag (I have one for travel and one for work - they hold different things) or the box of 2017 paid bills that I temporarily stuck in the top of the office closet until I clear out the 2008 box from the top of the closet and pack the 2017 papers (bills, statements and anything else) in it and put it in the top of the closet I had to move all the bags, open the closet door, take out what I need (or put away what I no longer needed) and then put all the bags back. So nice to be able to just open the closet.
Similarly I had not been able to bring back our recyclable plastic (soda) bottles for refund of their deposit since early January. I managed to get rid of one small bag (10 bottles, 50 cents) when I suggested to husband that we get rid of a small bag of bottles easily and quickly in the interim, but I kept forgetting to bring another small bag and get rid of them. There still is about half a month’s bottles in the porch - if all goes as it should, they will be returned next month along with any bottles between now and then.
I even managed to fit in a quick trip to the bank branch where we have a safe deposit box and switch an updated offsite data stick drive for the one in the box - also not done since January and intended as a monthly thing to do. I also ordered new checks as I am down to one book while I was there.
So catching up is progressing. I even fit in one of our VERY long telephone conversations with mom.
I mentioned late last year that we had accumulated and submitted a variety of paperwork to our local township for us to receive a senior real estate tax exemption, which is income based. I am happy to say that I received the paperwork saying that we have been given the exemption. This will cut our property taxes for the school year 2018-2019 and our other real estate taxes for 2019. We have to reapply later this year for the following year - at least now we know what to do and what we will need. I have already started collecting the papers as some of them come in without us having to request them. I start contacting the places I will need additional paperwork from either late this month or the beginning of next month - it is all due by the end of the year, so there is time to get it done easily and they will not send out the forms until late August.
For a bit of extra fun, we need to put a new carbon monoxide monitor alarm and a new propane monitor alarm in our RV. We have actually replaced the carbon monoxide monitor before and did not anticipate any problems with it. We have not needed to replace the propane monitor before, but the instructions seemed pretty straight forward. We had to order both monitors. The propane monitor had to be ordered from Canada. Husband found the carbon monoxide monitor listed for sale online, but the one he found said “marine” across it and is intended for a boat. He emailed the company selling it and was assured that it was it the same one - same model number and all.
The carbon monoxide monitor arrived first at our PO Box. When opened it did say “marine” across it. It also has not only different specifications than the one we have, but also they are different than those in the listing it was purchased from. Husband emailed the company about this on Friday. On Tuesday he telephoned as he had not heard back. The employee had him leave a message for the person he needed to talk to and he was assured he would be called back later in the day - today (Wednesday) he called again, spoke to the same employee and was told the same thing and he was a bit less pleasant and she told him that he had written to the wrong email address (the one in their listings) and gave him her email to send the info to - hopefully this will get resolved.
Husband went to take out the old propane monitor - should be easy - push two pieces of plastic on the front together and pull. Apparently the wire was too short for it to pull out. While we need the wire to attach the new one, we had to squeeze in a small wire cutter and cut the wires to get the old one off. We have attempted to remove the piece of floor in this section to get to where the wire connects - but it won’t lift out even after the screws were removed.
Hopefully both of these will soon work out and be installed or we cannot travel in the RV. Next we will progress to dewinterizing the RV - a messy job over 2 days to drain the antifreeze in the pipes and tanks out, add a vinegar and water mixture, run it through the pipes and shake it around the tanks by driving forward and backwards (I mean backwards or forwards or there will be a hole in the garage door) and stopping quickly. Then the vinegar and water mixture is drained out and plain water put in the tanks - then run out through the pipes and taps (3 pairs of taps and toilet) and then the plain water put in again and run out.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK - If the work that needs to be done seems immense, do it little by little.
Figure out what is most important to be done and do that work.
Take what can be set aside “for now” and do so - but put all of the items set aside as same together.
Then do the next the thing which needs to be done and so on.
It is amazing what will get done this way and you will get closer to catching up, if not caught up completely.
Thursday, April 26, 2018
SIDELINED BY A LOOM
Okay, so after tax season normally comes a period of catching up on everything which was not done during tax season. I try to keep things organized during tax season - this year I had a folder next to my desk with paperwork that needed to be done - including some things which were half done and needed to be followed up on. Last week when I posted I had started that work and expected to go quickly through it. Then I was sidelined - by my husband and his loom.
Normally when husband starts a new weaving project on his loom, I help him get the project set up. I see detail easier than he does and I don’t get dizzy bending over. I don’t mind the time it takes as once it is set up he will be happy weaving for some days. This time he was doing a new type of project. It has a much more detailed setup - we have never done this setup before or seen it done and he was relying on books and web information to do so.
While this is not a weaving or craft site, a bit of information is needed to follow what I am talking about, so bear with me and you will have a rudimentary knowledge of weaving. His loom is different than those huge ones you have probably seen at historic buildings and craft fairs. It is much smaller - the width thing it can weave is about 30 inches wide. It also does not have all those strings hanging down with the threads/yarns going through them. Those strings are moved by pedals to raise the strings in various groupings to make differing patterns in the weaving. His loom has a panel that is plastic pieces between a top and bottom piece of wood to hold them together. The strings are called a heddle. What he has is called a rigid heddle. His heddle has alternating holes and slots - slots go from top to bottom of the heddle. Threads alternately go through a hole, then a slot. When the heddle is moved up and down the threads in the holes will be moved up and down alternately and that is how one can slide the weaving yarn/thread through to weave. There are different sizes/spaced heddles for different thickness of threads. The threads that go through the heddle (that go straight ahead and are what are woven through, are called the warp - I set this in my head by remembering “warp speed ahead”). The threads that weave through the warp is called weft. When we set up the loom we are “warping” it and putting on the warp threads.
Since his loom is narrow side to side, there is a way to warp to make double width fabric. It needs a second heddle that matches the first one on the loom. He got a second one for the most common size heddle he uses last Christmas and was ready to try it out. Understand, one is not adding to the sides of the loom, one is (somehow) weaving an upper and lower weaving that is actually one piece when it is finished.
So last Thursday we started setting up the loom for him to try this. At my suggestion he was not warping the entire loom and making a large 60" piece of fabric, but just doing an 8" wide piece, which would double to 16". We tried to follow the directions - we ended up taking the yarn off the loom twice and starting over. And then took it off again at the end of Thursday.
Friday we did the same - we finally decided it was on correctly and he tried to start weaving. The threads were too thick to pass each other in the slots (remember the slots?). He also decided that the threads were twisted around each other. So we again took it apart. Luckily he does not use expensive yarn as we had to toss it out - again.
Saturday he bought different thread that was thinner and stretched thinner when pulled. (Sunday we were out at an event from our reenactment unit.) Monday we warped the loom. We had questions about which of the 4 threads passing through each set of holes/slots went in which (remember we have two heddles so there are 2 holes to go through and 2 slots and out of each group of 4 threads, one goes through the hole in one heddle, while the other three go through one slot. Then one of the threads that went through the slot, goes through the hole in the other heddle and the other threads go through slots - one to the left and two to the right. But which ones go through which slots to make the colors correct? So we stopped and overnight he posted the question. He received a reply and Tuesday we finished “warping” the loom. Today (Wednesday) we fixed some threads that crossed over each other and should not. With some trouble starting, he now is weaving it! The colors are not how he wanted them, but if it works and he ever does this again, we will know how to adjust them.
So everything I planned to do this week to catch up had to be greatly condensed. We put our money as we receive it into a savings account and I transfer what we need into our checking account. I needed to plan out what to transfer last Friday for the coming week on Thursday night and pay some bills. I ended up doing so at 1 am. (Okay, I am also writing post at 1 am as we are still up, but I like to relax a bit this time of night.) All week every time I thought I would do something - or could catch up - we were working on warping the loom. I would go upstairs as he would think he was done, only to be called back down. He knows I have things to do and will try to do things on his own. I came downstairs for something I had forgotten and saw him leaning over the loom - knowing him, about to get ill. “Why didn’t you call me?” “I don’t want to keep bothering you.”
I write the monthly newsletter for my embroidery chapter. It goes out once a month - a week before the meeting. That means it gets emailed out tonight. (Okay, I consider that it is still Wednesday, but technically it is Thursday am.) I try to write it a little at a time over the week, but did not have a chance to do this due to the ongoing warping and unwarping of the loom. So tonight - after emailing some attachments I forgot for my friend’s tax return to her so she could attach them, I first started writing the newsletter. I managed to get that finished and out - 3 different versions of it - one for members, one for the other chapters in our region, and one for potential members. It only took about 3 hours until 12:30 am.
Then I came down here to write my post for this week. I started my laptop - it starts, loads and runs very slowly - and ran to the basement to throw in a load of clothing laundry. I then started writing this post. I just switched the loads of laundry so one is washing and one is drying. The laundry will not be put away until Friday or Saturday as tomorrow (okay, technically today) I am going to a client to do her books.
So, this has been a week of warping and unwarping the loom. Lots of frustration and swearing. Little done that should have been done - another week of “Do the bare minimum and put the rest aside until next week”
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK - Sometimes it is better and more necessary to help someone (especially a loved one) to do something even if it wastes lots of one time.
Normally when husband starts a new weaving project on his loom, I help him get the project set up. I see detail easier than he does and I don’t get dizzy bending over. I don’t mind the time it takes as once it is set up he will be happy weaving for some days. This time he was doing a new type of project. It has a much more detailed setup - we have never done this setup before or seen it done and he was relying on books and web information to do so.
While this is not a weaving or craft site, a bit of information is needed to follow what I am talking about, so bear with me and you will have a rudimentary knowledge of weaving. His loom is different than those huge ones you have probably seen at historic buildings and craft fairs. It is much smaller - the width thing it can weave is about 30 inches wide. It also does not have all those strings hanging down with the threads/yarns going through them. Those strings are moved by pedals to raise the strings in various groupings to make differing patterns in the weaving. His loom has a panel that is plastic pieces between a top and bottom piece of wood to hold them together. The strings are called a heddle. What he has is called a rigid heddle. His heddle has alternating holes and slots - slots go from top to bottom of the heddle. Threads alternately go through a hole, then a slot. When the heddle is moved up and down the threads in the holes will be moved up and down alternately and that is how one can slide the weaving yarn/thread through to weave. There are different sizes/spaced heddles for different thickness of threads. The threads that go through the heddle (that go straight ahead and are what are woven through, are called the warp - I set this in my head by remembering “warp speed ahead”). The threads that weave through the warp is called weft. When we set up the loom we are “warping” it and putting on the warp threads.
Since his loom is narrow side to side, there is a way to warp to make double width fabric. It needs a second heddle that matches the first one on the loom. He got a second one for the most common size heddle he uses last Christmas and was ready to try it out. Understand, one is not adding to the sides of the loom, one is (somehow) weaving an upper and lower weaving that is actually one piece when it is finished.
So last Thursday we started setting up the loom for him to try this. At my suggestion he was not warping the entire loom and making a large 60" piece of fabric, but just doing an 8" wide piece, which would double to 16". We tried to follow the directions - we ended up taking the yarn off the loom twice and starting over. And then took it off again at the end of Thursday.
Friday we did the same - we finally decided it was on correctly and he tried to start weaving. The threads were too thick to pass each other in the slots (remember the slots?). He also decided that the threads were twisted around each other. So we again took it apart. Luckily he does not use expensive yarn as we had to toss it out - again.
Saturday he bought different thread that was thinner and stretched thinner when pulled. (Sunday we were out at an event from our reenactment unit.) Monday we warped the loom. We had questions about which of the 4 threads passing through each set of holes/slots went in which (remember we have two heddles so there are 2 holes to go through and 2 slots and out of each group of 4 threads, one goes through the hole in one heddle, while the other three go through one slot. Then one of the threads that went through the slot, goes through the hole in the other heddle and the other threads go through slots - one to the left and two to the right. But which ones go through which slots to make the colors correct? So we stopped and overnight he posted the question. He received a reply and Tuesday we finished “warping” the loom. Today (Wednesday) we fixed some threads that crossed over each other and should not. With some trouble starting, he now is weaving it! The colors are not how he wanted them, but if it works and he ever does this again, we will know how to adjust them.
So everything I planned to do this week to catch up had to be greatly condensed. We put our money as we receive it into a savings account and I transfer what we need into our checking account. I needed to plan out what to transfer last Friday for the coming week on Thursday night and pay some bills. I ended up doing so at 1 am. (Okay, I am also writing post at 1 am as we are still up, but I like to relax a bit this time of night.) All week every time I thought I would do something - or could catch up - we were working on warping the loom. I would go upstairs as he would think he was done, only to be called back down. He knows I have things to do and will try to do things on his own. I came downstairs for something I had forgotten and saw him leaning over the loom - knowing him, about to get ill. “Why didn’t you call me?” “I don’t want to keep bothering you.”
I write the monthly newsletter for my embroidery chapter. It goes out once a month - a week before the meeting. That means it gets emailed out tonight. (Okay, I consider that it is still Wednesday, but technically it is Thursday am.) I try to write it a little at a time over the week, but did not have a chance to do this due to the ongoing warping and unwarping of the loom. So tonight - after emailing some attachments I forgot for my friend’s tax return to her so she could attach them, I first started writing the newsletter. I managed to get that finished and out - 3 different versions of it - one for members, one for the other chapters in our region, and one for potential members. It only took about 3 hours until 12:30 am.
Then I came down here to write my post for this week. I started my laptop - it starts, loads and runs very slowly - and ran to the basement to throw in a load of clothing laundry. I then started writing this post. I just switched the loads of laundry so one is washing and one is drying. The laundry will not be put away until Friday or Saturday as tomorrow (okay, technically today) I am going to a client to do her books.
So, this has been a week of warping and unwarping the loom. Lots of frustration and swearing. Little done that should have been done - another week of “Do the bare minimum and put the rest aside until next week”
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK - Sometimes it is better and more necessary to help someone (especially a loved one) to do something even if it wastes lots of one time.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
TAX SEASON OVER AT LAST - GLAD I WAS ORGANIZED
Well, somehow I managed to finish the tax returns for my clients and us - I never understand how it always gets done. I actually finished early enough to work in a day trip to Lancaster, PA on Friday.
Okay, I know sort of how I get it done - Organization!. Well, also there are a lot less returns than there used to be. I have an organized system for working on them. I even print a form for each client on which I summarize the information before I start the return. This lets me double check that I have entered the information in the program for the returns correctly. (If, say the amount of interest income on the summary sheet does not match what is to be on the return - one of them is wrong and I have to figure out which.) I print them out in the same manner each time. I also make a pdf file of the client’s completed returns, any hand written info pages from the client, anything that showed withheld taxes (such as a W2) for the client, any extra pages I wrote up (sometimes there are a lot of some item and I list it on “columnar paper” - that’s the funny paper with number columns that accoutants use - and then add it up and put the total on the summary page - I also use the back of the summary pages for shorter, simpler listings), and then the summary page - front and back. My paper copy of the client’s return is stapled together with all of these same items and put into my “to file” holder for next year. Now, since I scan in everything I needed and did, as well as the return, after I finish the return I shred last year’s paper copy. What? Shred it? Don’t I need to keep it as an accountant? I have the scanned copy and I keep that - it takes no space other than on a computer disk. I only keep the paper copy through the next year’s return to help me prepare the next year’s return.
The organization is important as I may be working on several returns at the same time. Clients send me their info - but sometimes they are missing information either because they forgot to include it or they have not yet received something and wanted to get the rest of the information to me in the meantime. By being organized and having a summary sheet to match up everything to (and checking last year’s return) I can pick up again if I need to stop and then go back to work on a return. Last year’s return helps (which is why I keep a paper copy for the year) as generally people have the same items year to year. You know, if they had wages one year, chances are they do the next year. If they had interest from the XYZ bank one year, chances are their bank account is still there the next year. If they had his and hers statements from a broker - well, they should again next year. If I find something missing compared to last year, unless the client let me know about it, I know to check for missing information.
Oddly logic is important also in this organization project. If a client has, say, a business from their home, not only will a missing amount for their business phone costs pop up when I compare this year to last, but it only makes sense that they would have some expense for using a telephone (of some sort) for their business. A client who works online has to have Internet service and maybe some other related costs.
Now despite the organization and being caught up enough to take a day off, I still did not finish until late Sunday afternoon. I knew I would be able to finish and so took for the day. I did end up with a small problem. A client who is a good friend moved to another state and I had not a return from that state in over 30 years. Their return was finished mostly, but I needed one tiny piece of information that I had not known I would need. I needed to know their school district. (This is something some states require, most do not seem to based on the returns I have done.) The name of their community matched one of the school districts, but I know that there still can still be a difference. (I live in a community that has a school district, but since I live just into the district, my house is in the next community’s school district.) So I had to set the return aside until I was able to contact them, they checked, and got back to me. It was a different district, so I was glad I waited. I prepared and filed extension forms for them and at the same time I mailed out the extension forms, I mailed their returns to them, they owed no taxes - the extensions were only to cover that they would not have the returns to mail out on time.
Now I have to catch up. Anything that was not important was set aside. (Please note that YOU are important as my posts went out timely.) I set up a file folder on top of my paid bills holder and put anything that came along into the folder. Three bills. A stack of bank statements for us, our reenacting unit, and my embroidery guild chapter. RV insurance policy. You know the stuff I mean.
Bills were timely paid while dealing with doing the returns due to them being in order in the wall holder next to my desk - and I made sure to note that of the three bills set aside, the earliest one was due to be mailed out on April 20.
I kept on my email that was of importance. The lesser emails - this store or that - I deleted. I get emails from a chat group and they sat unopened until yesterday when I opened all of them and dealt with them.
Dishes and laundry were kept cleaned on schedule.
On Monday afternoon I mailed out our returns and the items for the above client. I then came home and wrote up my treasurers report for our reenactment unit’s meeting that night. (And went to the meeting that night.)
So yesterday, Tuesday, I finally started catching up. I reconciled 6 bank statements - most from the 2 groups I am treasurer of. I caught up on the chat I mentioned above and got to see photos of 2 lovely crocheted squares from one of the other “chatters” and hear about weather problems of the 2 weeks and a miniature kit one of the others was assembling.
Today we went food shopping - yes, everything gets short shrift during the height of tax season.
I should explain that I am the daughter of 2 accountants. I grew up with tax season the same as I did with the seasons of the year or the holidays during the year - it was something that occurred at the same time every year. My dad would let me “help” with the photocopying - back when this was a relatively new thing and copies came out wet and had to be hung to be dried. No computers, of course. So it is a part of my life. My husband took many years to be accustomed to the idea of a period of a couple of months in which life basically stops - more so towards the end of tax season - for work. He knows now how it will all unfold.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
If you have not filed your tax return yet, I hope that you have filed an extension and you get it prepared as soon as possible - remember it is only extension to file, not to pay and you could end up with interest and penalties if you owe money.
If you did file your return and are getting a refund - how about using it towards paying off bills or putting it in the bank towards having savings? If you owe money and couldn’t pay it - pay it as soon as you can to save to on penalties and interest which can add up quickly.
Start now to set up a system to be able to figure out what you will need to have for next year’s tax returns and organize a way to save the paperwork so you will have an easier time next year. (I am going to send to IRS and our various medical related providers/insurances in a month or so for some printouts we will need to apply for a low income/senior real estate tax exemption, so when the paperwork for that arrives next August, I will be able to do the forms right away and get them done and out as I will have all that I need in advance and I already have a folder set up to keep them in.)
For those of you in other countries with different income tax systems - I am sure that you have paperwork you need also at the end of the year and need to have it organized to find it all easily.
As I always say when I write about taxes - this is not tax or legal advice. Everyone is different and you need to check with whoever does your income taxes as to what YOU need to keep and what YOU need to do.
Okay, I know sort of how I get it done - Organization!. Well, also there are a lot less returns than there used to be. I have an organized system for working on them. I even print a form for each client on which I summarize the information before I start the return. This lets me double check that I have entered the information in the program for the returns correctly. (If, say the amount of interest income on the summary sheet does not match what is to be on the return - one of them is wrong and I have to figure out which.) I print them out in the same manner each time. I also make a pdf file of the client’s completed returns, any hand written info pages from the client, anything that showed withheld taxes (such as a W2) for the client, any extra pages I wrote up (sometimes there are a lot of some item and I list it on “columnar paper” - that’s the funny paper with number columns that accoutants use - and then add it up and put the total on the summary page - I also use the back of the summary pages for shorter, simpler listings), and then the summary page - front and back. My paper copy of the client’s return is stapled together with all of these same items and put into my “to file” holder for next year. Now, since I scan in everything I needed and did, as well as the return, after I finish the return I shred last year’s paper copy. What? Shred it? Don’t I need to keep it as an accountant? I have the scanned copy and I keep that - it takes no space other than on a computer disk. I only keep the paper copy through the next year’s return to help me prepare the next year’s return.
The organization is important as I may be working on several returns at the same time. Clients send me their info - but sometimes they are missing information either because they forgot to include it or they have not yet received something and wanted to get the rest of the information to me in the meantime. By being organized and having a summary sheet to match up everything to (and checking last year’s return) I can pick up again if I need to stop and then go back to work on a return. Last year’s return helps (which is why I keep a paper copy for the year) as generally people have the same items year to year. You know, if they had wages one year, chances are they do the next year. If they had interest from the XYZ bank one year, chances are their bank account is still there the next year. If they had his and hers statements from a broker - well, they should again next year. If I find something missing compared to last year, unless the client let me know about it, I know to check for missing information.
Oddly logic is important also in this organization project. If a client has, say, a business from their home, not only will a missing amount for their business phone costs pop up when I compare this year to last, but it only makes sense that they would have some expense for using a telephone (of some sort) for their business. A client who works online has to have Internet service and maybe some other related costs.
Now despite the organization and being caught up enough to take a day off, I still did not finish until late Sunday afternoon. I knew I would be able to finish and so took for the day. I did end up with a small problem. A client who is a good friend moved to another state and I had not a return from that state in over 30 years. Their return was finished mostly, but I needed one tiny piece of information that I had not known I would need. I needed to know their school district. (This is something some states require, most do not seem to based on the returns I have done.) The name of their community matched one of the school districts, but I know that there still can still be a difference. (I live in a community that has a school district, but since I live just into the district, my house is in the next community’s school district.) So I had to set the return aside until I was able to contact them, they checked, and got back to me. It was a different district, so I was glad I waited. I prepared and filed extension forms for them and at the same time I mailed out the extension forms, I mailed their returns to them, they owed no taxes - the extensions were only to cover that they would not have the returns to mail out on time.
Now I have to catch up. Anything that was not important was set aside. (Please note that YOU are important as my posts went out timely.) I set up a file folder on top of my paid bills holder and put anything that came along into the folder. Three bills. A stack of bank statements for us, our reenacting unit, and my embroidery guild chapter. RV insurance policy. You know the stuff I mean.
Bills were timely paid while dealing with doing the returns due to them being in order in the wall holder next to my desk - and I made sure to note that of the three bills set aside, the earliest one was due to be mailed out on April 20.
I kept on my email that was of importance. The lesser emails - this store or that - I deleted. I get emails from a chat group and they sat unopened until yesterday when I opened all of them and dealt with them.
Dishes and laundry were kept cleaned on schedule.
On Monday afternoon I mailed out our returns and the items for the above client. I then came home and wrote up my treasurers report for our reenactment unit’s meeting that night. (And went to the meeting that night.)
So yesterday, Tuesday, I finally started catching up. I reconciled 6 bank statements - most from the 2 groups I am treasurer of. I caught up on the chat I mentioned above and got to see photos of 2 lovely crocheted squares from one of the other “chatters” and hear about weather problems of the 2 weeks and a miniature kit one of the others was assembling.
Today we went food shopping - yes, everything gets short shrift during the height of tax season.
I should explain that I am the daughter of 2 accountants. I grew up with tax season the same as I did with the seasons of the year or the holidays during the year - it was something that occurred at the same time every year. My dad would let me “help” with the photocopying - back when this was a relatively new thing and copies came out wet and had to be hung to be dried. No computers, of course. So it is a part of my life. My husband took many years to be accustomed to the idea of a period of a couple of months in which life basically stops - more so towards the end of tax season - for work. He knows now how it will all unfold.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
If you have not filed your tax return yet, I hope that you have filed an extension and you get it prepared as soon as possible - remember it is only extension to file, not to pay and you could end up with interest and penalties if you owe money.
If you did file your return and are getting a refund - how about using it towards paying off bills or putting it in the bank towards having savings? If you owe money and couldn’t pay it - pay it as soon as you can to save to on penalties and interest which can add up quickly.
Start now to set up a system to be able to figure out what you will need to have for next year’s tax returns and organize a way to save the paperwork so you will have an easier time next year. (I am going to send to IRS and our various medical related providers/insurances in a month or so for some printouts we will need to apply for a low income/senior real estate tax exemption, so when the paperwork for that arrives next August, I will be able to do the forms right away and get them done and out as I will have all that I need in advance and I already have a folder set up to keep them in.)
For those of you in other countries with different income tax systems - I am sure that you have paperwork you need also at the end of the year and need to have it organized to find it all easily.
As I always say when I write about taxes - this is not tax or legal advice. Everyone is different and you need to check with whoever does your income taxes as to what YOU need to keep and what YOU need to do.
Thursday, April 12, 2018
TAX DAY PANIC SETTING IN
Well, Tax Day is coming up on Monday. Even though this year it is on April 17 instead of the 15th , I still have work to do. In case anyone has forgotten, I am an accountant so I am not just talking about our own return. I should remind you - if you cannot file in time, file an extension!
In the past week and a half I have done and mailed out 4 tax returns to clients and also sent estimated taxes for 2018 to another - very estimated they are based on his 2016 returns, so it does not show his 2017 income and deductions and I have no idea of how the change in the tax law will end up affecting him. (I did use the calculator at IRS’s website to calculate what his tax will be.) In addition he has had a life change so his taxes will be filed totally different for 2018 than prior years. I will adjust it when I do his return - he always gets an extension. I have another return sitting here 99% done, but needed one tiny piece of info that I am waiting for and this will be an extension also, as the return will not get to the client until after tax date just due to the distance to the client after I finish it. I also finished our corporation return and it is ready to be signed, paid and mailed.
This sounds good - 4 gone, 1 almost done which will be on extension and another one also to be on extension and our corporation return done also. Lots of time to do our return right?
Ummm, Saturday I had a call from a client whose taxes had been mailed to her the Monday before - “Where are they?”. I told her to wait for this past Monday and if she still did not have them, I would mail another copy by Express Mail. She received them on Monday. She also went crazy as her taxes were more than she anticipated. (We don’t have a lot of money - she has none.) I ended up spending 2 hours on Tuesday writing up a breakdown comparing her 2016 and 2017 taxes for her so she would understand. Time I really needed.
Husband is (again) planning a day trip. This one on Friday, so I was trying to get everything done by then, but it won’t be. We went to the bank today to transfer money to pay our RV insurance and I transferred extra money to pay what I figured we would have to send as a first estimated payment for 2018 as we don’t earn wages/have withholding and have to pay our taxes on our own.
Then I started our return. I should explain that we don’t generally pay income taxes due to our low income and high deductions. We do have to pay Social Security taxes if either or both of us made $400 or more from businesses - and we pay double what people pay on their salary as we are the employer and the employee. We also have ACA (Obamacare) medical insurance so we have to adjust our advance credit on our return - we always seem to have received a small bit more than we are entitled to. No problem - we paid estimated taxes based on our Social Security taxes and the advance credit we owed in the past.
I should also explain that husband is always in a panic when we have to spend/pay money that we did not anticipate - because we don’t have a lot of it.
So last night I started working on taxes - I summarized information - and today I started doing the return.
First problem - I used our computer bookkeeping software to figure out husband’s business income and expenses after some adjustments. I then went to enter it into the tax program. Uh oh! Several expenses were missing - the entire categories of expenses. I tried several times and in frustration complained to husband - working at his computer across from me on whatever. He came over. With the questions he asked, I figured out that somehow some of the expenses had become unchecked to be included on the statement and that is why they were not included. I fixed that and printed out the corrected form and entered the information into the tax program.
I went on to get the same sort of statement printed out after making some adjustments - and this time checking that everything was checked to print. I then managed to erase some forms from the tax program related to both of these forms and had to start all over - entering his business info and mine.
I then entered our other incomes - you know, the whopping interest now being paid on bank accounts, the small dividends from the small number of shares of stock he received as boy, etc. Going well - no problems.
I then went through our items for deductions. While the bookkeeping software has all the items paid by check or charge cards, I have to see if I paid anything by cash and then there are charitable donations of “stuff”. As I went to enter our medical expenses - it all went blooey!
I had to enter the ACA medical insurance into the form that calculates if one is entitled to more credit or owes part of the credit back. This form brought me to a complete stop and I went into panic. It seems that when one spouse goes on Medicare and the other stays on ACA - it throws it all off. We owe back 2/3 of the advanced credit we received. I kept looking for what I did wrong. I was shaking. I finally decided that I had to tell husband - we don’t have enough money in the bank to pay it. Luckily rather than panicking he started to see what he could find out online - he was actually comforting me rather than the other way around when we have an unexpected expense. Nope, he found no way around it. So tomorrow we will go and take money out of his IRA to pay it, as what we had and I transferred is not enough. After Monday when I can breathe again, I will call and stop this year’s advance credit so I don’t have the same problem again next year.
It is important to know that other this oddity, I think ACA insurance has been great, as even without the credit it is considerably less than we were paying before it - and it has been several years since, so we would be paying even more. It was just a bit of a shock.
So all of our papers which were neatly sorted are now strewn around my desk. I put it all aside until tomorrow - well, I will probably do some calculations tonight after I finish this post - we donated stuff and I have to add up what it was worth.
I know that somehow the return and the two extensions for clients will be done and out on time. I will make sure it is. Then Monday afternoon and night I can relax and rest - oh, wait, I can’t. We have a reenacting unit meeting that night and I have to write my Treasurer’s report and go to the meeting. Oh, and today the electric co came and trimmed the trees - they even actually trimmed the ones around the wires that run through the back yard that never get trimmed. We do have tree limb from a neighbor’s tree which overhangs our garage and the line from the wires in the back yard to our house - they could not touch that, but there is a unit that does so and I have to call and have them come - since this tree branch is one of the things that scares husband during storms (not only would be without electricity, he is positive the wire coming down would set the garage - which is really his wood workshop - on fire), so that is something else to do on Monday.
I also have a folder next to my desk. It contains all the things I have not done - or I only did what absolutely needed to be done and the followup was put in the folder - over the past 2 weeks - bills to check, items to scan or copy or send out, etc. I still have to deal with that early next
week.
Oh, and I as do all of this - every time I need something from the office storage closet - business checkbook, more manila envelopes... I have to move the two stacks of stuff I set aside in January to donate in February - which will still be there until early May - and mentally scream about them.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
No matter how well one plans, something goes wrong. One has to roll with it and do what one can. The extra money is upsetting, but it won’t affect our day to day lives (luckily). The errors in the bookkeeping program printouts were found as I match this year’s taxes as they are done to last year’s so that nothing is forgotten.
Oh, and my friend who is getting an extension, had a marvelous trip to Europe as a gift from a friend as it was cheaper to bring her along than pay the single surcharge. That is a great friend she has!
In the past week and a half I have done and mailed out 4 tax returns to clients and also sent estimated taxes for 2018 to another - very estimated they are based on his 2016 returns, so it does not show his 2017 income and deductions and I have no idea of how the change in the tax law will end up affecting him. (I did use the calculator at IRS’s website to calculate what his tax will be.) In addition he has had a life change so his taxes will be filed totally different for 2018 than prior years. I will adjust it when I do his return - he always gets an extension. I have another return sitting here 99% done, but needed one tiny piece of info that I am waiting for and this will be an extension also, as the return will not get to the client until after tax date just due to the distance to the client after I finish it. I also finished our corporation return and it is ready to be signed, paid and mailed.
This sounds good - 4 gone, 1 almost done which will be on extension and another one also to be on extension and our corporation return done also. Lots of time to do our return right?
Ummm, Saturday I had a call from a client whose taxes had been mailed to her the Monday before - “Where are they?”. I told her to wait for this past Monday and if she still did not have them, I would mail another copy by Express Mail. She received them on Monday. She also went crazy as her taxes were more than she anticipated. (We don’t have a lot of money - she has none.) I ended up spending 2 hours on Tuesday writing up a breakdown comparing her 2016 and 2017 taxes for her so she would understand. Time I really needed.
Husband is (again) planning a day trip. This one on Friday, so I was trying to get everything done by then, but it won’t be. We went to the bank today to transfer money to pay our RV insurance and I transferred extra money to pay what I figured we would have to send as a first estimated payment for 2018 as we don’t earn wages/have withholding and have to pay our taxes on our own.
Then I started our return. I should explain that we don’t generally pay income taxes due to our low income and high deductions. We do have to pay Social Security taxes if either or both of us made $400 or more from businesses - and we pay double what people pay on their salary as we are the employer and the employee. We also have ACA (Obamacare) medical insurance so we have to adjust our advance credit on our return - we always seem to have received a small bit more than we are entitled to. No problem - we paid estimated taxes based on our Social Security taxes and the advance credit we owed in the past.
I should also explain that husband is always in a panic when we have to spend/pay money that we did not anticipate - because we don’t have a lot of it.
So last night I started working on taxes - I summarized information - and today I started doing the return.
First problem - I used our computer bookkeeping software to figure out husband’s business income and expenses after some adjustments. I then went to enter it into the tax program. Uh oh! Several expenses were missing - the entire categories of expenses. I tried several times and in frustration complained to husband - working at his computer across from me on whatever. He came over. With the questions he asked, I figured out that somehow some of the expenses had become unchecked to be included on the statement and that is why they were not included. I fixed that and printed out the corrected form and entered the information into the tax program.
I went on to get the same sort of statement printed out after making some adjustments - and this time checking that everything was checked to print. I then managed to erase some forms from the tax program related to both of these forms and had to start all over - entering his business info and mine.
I then entered our other incomes - you know, the whopping interest now being paid on bank accounts, the small dividends from the small number of shares of stock he received as boy, etc. Going well - no problems.
I then went through our items for deductions. While the bookkeeping software has all the items paid by check or charge cards, I have to see if I paid anything by cash and then there are charitable donations of “stuff”. As I went to enter our medical expenses - it all went blooey!
I had to enter the ACA medical insurance into the form that calculates if one is entitled to more credit or owes part of the credit back. This form brought me to a complete stop and I went into panic. It seems that when one spouse goes on Medicare and the other stays on ACA - it throws it all off. We owe back 2/3 of the advanced credit we received. I kept looking for what I did wrong. I was shaking. I finally decided that I had to tell husband - we don’t have enough money in the bank to pay it. Luckily rather than panicking he started to see what he could find out online - he was actually comforting me rather than the other way around when we have an unexpected expense. Nope, he found no way around it. So tomorrow we will go and take money out of his IRA to pay it, as what we had and I transferred is not enough. After Monday when I can breathe again, I will call and stop this year’s advance credit so I don’t have the same problem again next year.
It is important to know that other this oddity, I think ACA insurance has been great, as even without the credit it is considerably less than we were paying before it - and it has been several years since, so we would be paying even more. It was just a bit of a shock.
So all of our papers which were neatly sorted are now strewn around my desk. I put it all aside until tomorrow - well, I will probably do some calculations tonight after I finish this post - we donated stuff and I have to add up what it was worth.
I know that somehow the return and the two extensions for clients will be done and out on time. I will make sure it is. Then Monday afternoon and night I can relax and rest - oh, wait, I can’t. We have a reenacting unit meeting that night and I have to write my Treasurer’s report and go to the meeting. Oh, and today the electric co came and trimmed the trees - they even actually trimmed the ones around the wires that run through the back yard that never get trimmed. We do have tree limb from a neighbor’s tree which overhangs our garage and the line from the wires in the back yard to our house - they could not touch that, but there is a unit that does so and I have to call and have them come - since this tree branch is one of the things that scares husband during storms (not only would be without electricity, he is positive the wire coming down would set the garage - which is really his wood workshop - on fire), so that is something else to do on Monday.
I also have a folder next to my desk. It contains all the things I have not done - or I only did what absolutely needed to be done and the followup was put in the folder - over the past 2 weeks - bills to check, items to scan or copy or send out, etc. I still have to deal with that early next
week.
Oh, and I as do all of this - every time I need something from the office storage closet - business checkbook, more manila envelopes... I have to move the two stacks of stuff I set aside in January to donate in February - which will still be there until early May - and mentally scream about them.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
No matter how well one plans, something goes wrong. One has to roll with it and do what one can. The extra money is upsetting, but it won’t affect our day to day lives (luckily). The errors in the bookkeeping program printouts were found as I match this year’s taxes as they are done to last year’s so that nothing is forgotten.
Oh, and my friend who is getting an extension, had a marvelous trip to Europe as a gift from a friend as it was cheaper to bring her along than pay the single surcharge. That is a great friend she has!
Thursday, April 5, 2018
BALANCING LIFE AND WORK
First, let me say - we had another snow storm this past Monday - April 2. I know that it affected many others around the country. It of course put husband into a panic as we were hearing about 8 inches of snow - again. Luckily what came down was not much and was mostly melted by the time we went out.
This leads into today’s topic in the “life” part of the balance. Husband’s birthday is this week. He had planned (hoped?) for us to go to Lancaster for his birthday and/or the day before. The day before is one of the farmer’s markets we go to. To go there for same would have been fine with him. To go on his birthday would be fine with him. If the weather was mild I had suggested that we drive down for the farmer’s market in our RV and stay overnight (without running water as we have not yet been able to dewinterize and put the water tanks and pipes back into use, due to the cold weather that is still around) so he could be there both days. He really loves the idea of his birthday and being a special day, so he is terribly upset when it does not work out. Not only did we have the snowstorm on Monday, we had a terrible rainstorm today and we are due to have heavy rain on Friday and rain or snow on Saturday (which already has him in a panic) - so a trip to Lancaster on a day we would like to go is out. His latest plan is a trip to New Jersey for dinner at Golden Corral Thursday (tomorrow) when it is not suppose to rain or snow - yet. (For a story about another attempt to go to this restaurant - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2017/07). I should say that despite huge snow storms in our general tri-state area, our immediate area has been fairly lucky with much less snow and electric outages than other parts of the general area.
When it was his birthday we ended up eating our normal lunch at Wendys and then we went to a large chain computer store just to walk around, amuse him, and take his mind off the lack of birthday fun he is having and the coming snow. Of course, with our luck, the store was in the middle of a major redo and it was hard to find where anything he wanted to see had been moved - and the aisles so narrow that one could not really bend to see anything without hitting the other side of the aisle. I wandered over to the laptop section to look, as I always do, what they have, just in case I need a new one quickly. It amazes me that I can walk around and look at the laptops for 20 minutes (or more) and no one comes over. As soon as husband comes to find me, one or another of the salesmen comes running - do they still think only men buy computers?
We could not figure where to go to dinner for his birthday which would be “special”. We rarely take food in and had been looking at a local chicken place’s handout which was delivered to us and decided to go there. Dinner seemed okay - and I was able to get grilled chicken instead of fried - but about 20 minutes after dinner he decided that there had been too much grease and he did not feel well. “Great” ending to a disappointing birthday.
So life has been pushing into my trying to work.
Now the period between, say February, and April 15 is my busy season. I no longer have the size accounting/tax practice I used to and have less than 10 income tax returns - plus a couple of business returns for businesses that I do the books for all year. The week before last it suddenly dawned on me that I had only received information from one client - and I had been holding theirs to work on as they were away anyway. Most of my clients have moved away and are in other states, so I need some time after doing their returns to get the returns to them in mail so they can file them on time. (Well, actually most of my clients have died which is why I have so few left.) Oh, and our return and our business return of course.
So I sent an email to a client in FL which is a fairly quick return who normally sends me her stuff early. She had an accident and had not had a chance to send her info - but she was planning on getting it out to me right away. (Hers was received the beginning of last week, done and back to her.) I was going to email to two other clients, but heard from them. One arrived later last week and is mostly done now, it has to have it’s state return prepared - she lives in New Mexico. I plan to have it out by Friday so she gets it in plenty of time. Another just mailed me their return - and I received it today. They are local, so if it is finished close to deadline, I can always drop it off instead of mailing it, but I hope to have it done soon enough to mail out. One client always asks for an extension and I heard from him today and will prepare his extensions and his estimates for next year and mail them to him and then do his return later in the year. And so on.
How is life making a problem? Well, husband is so upset about the weather and his birthday that I don’t get enough time to work on all the tax returns. I did nothing on returns today to keep him company. Plus I have to do some of the returns on husband’s computers due to some odd circumstances and I need to displace him from his computer. I had hoped he would ask to warp his loom - when he has a weaving project in the living room I have the office to myself - but his upcoming project is trying something new and between the weather and his birthday, he is too nervous to warp the loom for the project.
Now, I know that somehow it will be all be done and on time. How do I know? It always has been before. Our return is done last - of course - and I can always get an extension for it if we need to. But what made this year terribly odd is the nothing until the last minute. We had our car in for work a week or so ago and the owner commented to me that I must be jammed as the tax season is coming to an end and was shocked when I told him that I had not even started yet. I If I had realized that nothing would come in until this late, I would have done our return instead of figuring I would have to stop in the middle of it to do a client’s return.
And of course I also have to do the housework - dinner cooked 5 nights a week (we eat out on weekends), dishes washed every meal 7 days a week, laundry, etc. Somehow, though, it always done.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
What we must do ebbs and flows. There are times when we have too much to do and times when we are looking for things to do, so that they will be done before we run out of time to do them. I have learned that as a general rule, what needs to be done somehow does get done - and on time.
I grew up in a house with accountants. I know the ebb and flow of tax season. Nothing to do. Then all of a sudden a rush (my rush is smaller and over a shorter time than it used to be, but it is still a rush). Then all of a sudden it over. Since being married I learned how to deal with husband and his wants and needs during tax season - and he learned what will be going on during tax season decades ago.
If you are having a time problem - think back to the last time you had to do something similar and how you managed to find the time to get it done. Generally most non catastrophic problems or something similar, have happened before and will happen again. Learn from the past to help with the future.
Think about what you do and the ebb and flow of time - when is your time short in supply and when do you have a chance to breathe and are looking for things to do.
This leads into today’s topic in the “life” part of the balance. Husband’s birthday is this week. He had planned (hoped?) for us to go to Lancaster for his birthday and/or the day before. The day before is one of the farmer’s markets we go to. To go there for same would have been fine with him. To go on his birthday would be fine with him. If the weather was mild I had suggested that we drive down for the farmer’s market in our RV and stay overnight (without running water as we have not yet been able to dewinterize and put the water tanks and pipes back into use, due to the cold weather that is still around) so he could be there both days. He really loves the idea of his birthday and being a special day, so he is terribly upset when it does not work out. Not only did we have the snowstorm on Monday, we had a terrible rainstorm today and we are due to have heavy rain on Friday and rain or snow on Saturday (which already has him in a panic) - so a trip to Lancaster on a day we would like to go is out. His latest plan is a trip to New Jersey for dinner at Golden Corral Thursday (tomorrow) when it is not suppose to rain or snow - yet. (For a story about another attempt to go to this restaurant - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2017/07). I should say that despite huge snow storms in our general tri-state area, our immediate area has been fairly lucky with much less snow and electric outages than other parts of the general area.
When it was his birthday we ended up eating our normal lunch at Wendys and then we went to a large chain computer store just to walk around, amuse him, and take his mind off the lack of birthday fun he is having and the coming snow. Of course, with our luck, the store was in the middle of a major redo and it was hard to find where anything he wanted to see had been moved - and the aisles so narrow that one could not really bend to see anything without hitting the other side of the aisle. I wandered over to the laptop section to look, as I always do, what they have, just in case I need a new one quickly. It amazes me that I can walk around and look at the laptops for 20 minutes (or more) and no one comes over. As soon as husband comes to find me, one or another of the salesmen comes running - do they still think only men buy computers?
We could not figure where to go to dinner for his birthday which would be “special”. We rarely take food in and had been looking at a local chicken place’s handout which was delivered to us and decided to go there. Dinner seemed okay - and I was able to get grilled chicken instead of fried - but about 20 minutes after dinner he decided that there had been too much grease and he did not feel well. “Great” ending to a disappointing birthday.
So life has been pushing into my trying to work.
Now the period between, say February, and April 15 is my busy season. I no longer have the size accounting/tax practice I used to and have less than 10 income tax returns - plus a couple of business returns for businesses that I do the books for all year. The week before last it suddenly dawned on me that I had only received information from one client - and I had been holding theirs to work on as they were away anyway. Most of my clients have moved away and are in other states, so I need some time after doing their returns to get the returns to them in mail so they can file them on time. (Well, actually most of my clients have died which is why I have so few left.) Oh, and our return and our business return of course.
So I sent an email to a client in FL which is a fairly quick return who normally sends me her stuff early. She had an accident and had not had a chance to send her info - but she was planning on getting it out to me right away. (Hers was received the beginning of last week, done and back to her.) I was going to email to two other clients, but heard from them. One arrived later last week and is mostly done now, it has to have it’s state return prepared - she lives in New Mexico. I plan to have it out by Friday so she gets it in plenty of time. Another just mailed me their return - and I received it today. They are local, so if it is finished close to deadline, I can always drop it off instead of mailing it, but I hope to have it done soon enough to mail out. One client always asks for an extension and I heard from him today and will prepare his extensions and his estimates for next year and mail them to him and then do his return later in the year. And so on.
How is life making a problem? Well, husband is so upset about the weather and his birthday that I don’t get enough time to work on all the tax returns. I did nothing on returns today to keep him company. Plus I have to do some of the returns on husband’s computers due to some odd circumstances and I need to displace him from his computer. I had hoped he would ask to warp his loom - when he has a weaving project in the living room I have the office to myself - but his upcoming project is trying something new and between the weather and his birthday, he is too nervous to warp the loom for the project.
Now, I know that somehow it will be all be done and on time. How do I know? It always has been before. Our return is done last - of course - and I can always get an extension for it if we need to. But what made this year terribly odd is the nothing until the last minute. We had our car in for work a week or so ago and the owner commented to me that I must be jammed as the tax season is coming to an end and was shocked when I told him that I had not even started yet. I If I had realized that nothing would come in until this late, I would have done our return instead of figuring I would have to stop in the middle of it to do a client’s return.
And of course I also have to do the housework - dinner cooked 5 nights a week (we eat out on weekends), dishes washed every meal 7 days a week, laundry, etc. Somehow, though, it always done.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
What we must do ebbs and flows. There are times when we have too much to do and times when we are looking for things to do, so that they will be done before we run out of time to do them. I have learned that as a general rule, what needs to be done somehow does get done - and on time.
I grew up in a house with accountants. I know the ebb and flow of tax season. Nothing to do. Then all of a sudden a rush (my rush is smaller and over a shorter time than it used to be, but it is still a rush). Then all of a sudden it over. Since being married I learned how to deal with husband and his wants and needs during tax season - and he learned what will be going on during tax season decades ago.
If you are having a time problem - think back to the last time you had to do something similar and how you managed to find the time to get it done. Generally most non catastrophic problems or something similar, have happened before and will happen again. Learn from the past to help with the future.
Think about what you do and the ebb and flow of time - when is your time short in supply and when do you have a chance to breathe and are looking for things to do.
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