NEW YEAR AHEAD OF US - A FRESH START

 Well, here it is – another new year. A clean year ahead of us – a fresh start.

Let's put behind us what we have done wrong in the past and start the new year fresh.

I have posted in the past that a new year actually starts every day – so if you missed January 1, pick another day, it starts a new year also – Lunar (Asian) New Year starts on January 22 this year, you can use it as a second chance for a new year's start. I don't make resolutions as they are never kept. I do try (yet another time) to do everything I do a bit better – less putting off of things, less “a lick and a promise”, less “I'll do next it next week”. As I said “I try” it generally does not work, but I do try.

Right now our bedroom is a mess. We did several days of a reenactment event over 2 weeks and clothes and accessories tended to be dropped each night when we got home all over our bedroom. I collected the clothes which need to be washed. As usual on Wednesday nights while I am posting I am also doing our laundry for the week. First load – regular clothes - is in the washer as I write. I will fitting in one or two loads of reenacting clothes depending on how many white items and how many color items there are. If I can fit all in one load – fine with me. If not I will do one load of white items and one of color items. I will also do a load of towels for the week. I know I will not finish tonight and will be continuing tomorrow night. When I go to bed tonight I will bring up the dried load of clothing and fold it while husband gets ready for bed (he takes longer than I do). I will put away the “goes in drawers” part of it away afterward and the hang up items will be put away tomorrow, when I will also fold the towels from a later load at night, as well as any other laundered items which need to be folded or hung and put away.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

As we go into the new year try to use same as a chance for fresh start catching up and keeping up with what needs to be done. If not remember – tomorrow is always a new, fresh day ready for one to make a start for the future. After all, I did not finish putting out Christmas decorations inside the house this year until January 2!

MORE THINGS TO DO - AS ALWAYS INCLUDING NEW SETUP FOR CHRISTMAS TREE AND DECORATIONS

 To pick up where I left off – 2 weeks ago – I finished my class and exams in 3 days.

We were way behind in decorating inside the house for Christmas. I used to do almost all of it, but in more recent years husband has been helping me. (“Don't climb up on that step stool, I'll put it on the tree for you.)

Our living room has changed over the past year. Back in my April 6 post I wrote about husband buying a small “big screen” TV. I was not happy about (and still am not). This involved rearranging our living room. We were careful to figure out how we would deal with our Christmas tree and decorations both in the living room and also in our dining room as a piece of furniture which used to pushed (it is on wheels) from the living room to the dining room to make room for the tree in the living room and holds a smaller tree in the living room – but could not longer be saved moved as it would be under the tree.

Moving a coffee table from the back of the living room to the dining room instead of the chest that cannot no longer be pushed there went fine. The tree went up in the new space at the back of the living room – doing well, it's working. Then we started putting the ornaments on the tree. I usually put them in a groupings – all the angels at the top of the tree, bear ornaments in one area, TV/movie characters in another area, souvenir ornaments in yet another area and so on. This was not working and we ended up just putting ornaments on the tree. We had a number of ornaments we did not put on the tree as we gave up – not enough room? A couple of days later I realized the problem – in its old location the tree used to have two “fronts”. Huh? Well the tree faced into the living room – a “front” of the tree. The side of the tree faced our entry way – another “front” of the tree. In the back of the living room it faced into the room – one “front” but two of the other sides faced side walls with no easy view of them and the last side faced the windows. Aha! There is less space for ornaments to be featured!

I have all sorts of Christmas decorations I put around the living room, kitchen and dining room – and a few I put in our entry hall. They hang from things, sit on things, etc. I started putting them out. I did okay in the kitchen – changed the decorations sitting on our window sill to the Christmas ones which belong there. Changed out some mugs from our travel mug collection for Christmas mugs.

I moved on to the dining room. I did not have the energy to put fake greens on the light fixture – so I just hung the “kissing ball” from the bottom of same. I set up the small Christmas tree we setup in there. We belong to Colonial Williamsburg and get an annual ornament from them – these go on this tree. Our dining room is decorated as a 18^th century tavern room so a tree is not really correct in there – but they are ornaments of 18^th century things. Normally this tree would go on the box wheeled from the living room, but the new plan was for it to go on the coffee table from there the main tree is now, moved into the dining room instead of the box. This went okay.

But now I started getting to figurines, stuffed animals, Christmas Lego pieces and such which would get setup in the living room – I did not have enough space for them. WHY? I realized that in the past we had two large flat surfaces for them – the coffee table (which would have been in the living room and without a tree on it) and the box pushed into the dining room (and would have the tree on it, with empty space around it). I was missing the equivalent space of the top of the box! I got most of the items out and setup on “something”. The stuffed Christmas bears still fit well on the sofa in the living room. Some large figurines (Santa, elves…) was a tight fit, but went in the area they normally do by the entrance into the living room – they stick out a bit further into “traffic” which worried my husband, but seem to be okay and have not caused any trips or falls by either of us. The Legos actually got to go on the table the TV is on – they are small enough to sit along the ends of the table and not affect watching TV.

Well, decorations are what they are for now. I will think over the problems for next year to see what/how I can improve where decorations and cut down on being upset at the changes his TV has brought.

I did not get a chance to decorate my “Teddy Bear Village” in the upstairs hall. Poor bears are still celebrating Easter! But I plan to do so during the coming weekend.

We leave our decorations for a while to enjoy them. The big items in the living room – such as the tree – will come down in mid January. I have an agreement with my husband. From mid December to mid January we decorate for Christmas. From mid January to mid December he has the room setup his loom and weave. Around then – or perhaps a little later the other Christmas will also get stored away.

For now we can sit and enjoy looking them.

Oh, I forgot our studio tree! We have a craft studio in what should be our “family room/den”. I put a small tree in the front corner of the room on a dresser (for storage) with some of the various ornaments we have made over the decades.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

I do hope that all have/are having a good holiday season!

STILL TOO MUCH DUTY - INCLUDING JURY DUTY - AND MORE STILL COMING

 Sorry to miss you all for 2 weeks again, but it has been more of the same – but this is a longer post to make up for it.

I finally finished the real estate tax exemption paperwork the middle of last week.

We don't mail it in – we used to mail it in, but one year we received a phone call (prerecorded mass calling) that we had not yet submitted our paperwork – so I had to reprint it all and we walked it into their office. (I walked it in, husband waited in car – more about this later.) It turned out that our overeager, newly elected county executive recorded the call to go out to those people who normally file for the exemption, but had not done so – but some idiot sent the phone call to all landowners in the county – and most of the those who received the call did not even qualify for the exemption and many were businesses. They did have our paperwork – all that extra work and wasted paper.

So, since then I walk the paperwork into the assessor's office and they give me a receipt for it. Parking is next to impossible so husband continues to wait in the car while I walk it in. I will say they did add evening hours the first year of the pandemic just for this purpose so those (including me) who did not feel comfortable coming into a busy county office building – and busy assessor's office) could come in the evening – there was plenty of parking when I went at night, but husband still waited in the car.

I walked in the paper into their office the middle of last week – I was shocked at how empty the office was – one woman ahead of me in line and two people ahead of her sitting and waiting. So it was a quick drop off.

We then went on to our next reason to be in the area. I had received a jury notice! When I looked up online where to park as a juror it was confusing with the lot they were specifying alternatively being called “Lot 7” and “Lot 17” and different lots for certain other types of jury duty. The location to report to for jury duty had also been changed to a different court building since last time either of us was called and we wanted to check how to go in, etc. as neither of us really wants to be around people any more than we need to – due to Covid concerns. I was even more confused after we looked as lots seemed to all be pay lots and Lot 7 specified 3 hour limit “for visitors” - how would they know if I was a visitor or a juror. During a telephone call to the courts the following day about this I was told that there is no charge for parking in any of the lots and I could park in any of the lots – apparently they are no using the metering system, but the signs are still there.

I was upset at going for jury duty due to not being a morning person – even more so since the start of Pandemic and I can deal with just about everything later in the day – so lunch time for normal people is our wake up time these past few years. (We stay up into the next morning to offset this late wake up time.) And jurors have to be at the court by 8:45 am – with wake up time to include an allowance to get up, dress, and drive there. In addition husband has not been home alone since the start of the Pandemic and before then I only went out alone 2 days a month – and he has aged during the pandemic. He does not like being alone in the house. Last time I went for jury duty he came along and sat and read during the day. Since jury duty was in a different location, combined with not know if Covid restrictions were in place we decided he should not come as did not want him to end up sitting in the car all day. So unlike earlier times I have gone for jury duty this time was extremely upsetting. I could not ask for a delay as I had done so at the last minute as I was suppose to go the day after I found my left ankle to be blue and called in a medical exemption at the last minute so I could go to the doctor.

Then at the last minute it got worse. How could it get it worse? It was to snow over the night before into the early morning. So – I had not really driven in over 3 years – 4 times locally -

and not much for about a decade before and now I was going to possibly be driving while it was snowing or at least with snow on the ground?! Luckily the snow on the roadways had melted by the time I had to leave and husband woke up (no way he was going to be asleep while I out) and helped me clear the snow off the car. Other than a problem remembering how to work the windshield wipers, I was okay driving and even figured a shorter way to go to the courts than we had planned.

I had agreed to keep texting him when I was not involved in a case and did so. Texted him when I got there, and again when I settled in the large room where we got to see “the movie” and our tickets were collected. (So many stupid people I could not believe it – could not understand the simple “Keep the top half of the form you received. Take the “Juror ID” card off the bottom left of the bottom half. Make sure you filled in the back of the form (I did so as soon as I received the notice) and give us the “L” shaped piece of form you have left” (after removing the juror ID section). People were turning in the form with the back not filled in. Removing the other piece from the bottom (not the ID form) and so on. )

I next texted him when we were left to wait to be called. I went into an adjoining waiting room and was standing in a far corner where no one else was and I would text him every 5- 10 minutes. Then I lost the signal to my cell phone. This is a problem with this phone – I need to reboot it and then it works again. There was a bank of old telephone booths (no phones, just the booths) and I sat in one and rebooted my phone using the table area under where the phone used to be. Each time I rebooted it lines would appear for service, but by the time I tried to text – the signal would be gone again. My concern that my husband not hearing from me that I was going into the voir dire and that I would not be available would be UPSET at not hearing from me. I started walking around and found that in the lobby or hallway phone worked - so I stayed out there next to the jury waiting areas so I could hear if they called people. I think that there was something suddenly blocking the signals as they had started voir dire in adjacent rooms. Though there was a woman earlier who had spent about half an hour on a call to her travel agent booking a trip – we got to hear when she would be away, where she would be and her credit card information – I can't imagine anyone giving out all this information in a room of bored people who could be anyone.

Three different groups of people were called in for voir dire. I had started sitting out in the lobby so that my cell phone kept working. I heard them starting to call people again and went to the doorway – my name was included and I followed the others as I had not heard which room to go to. Major surprise! Employee came in and told us we were chosen – we could not go back into the main waiting room and could not tell anyone there – but we were being dismissed! I texted husband as soon as I was back in the car to let him know! Thank goodness.

That afternoon I started taking my tax preparation required classes – more about same next week.

SORRY NOT TO HAVE POSTED - IT HAS BEEN ONE OF THOSE TIMES - TOO MUCH TO DO AND MORE COMING DAILY!!

 Yes, it's been a few weeks since I posted.  My apologies.  I am sure all of you have gotten into periods of time when too much has TO be done in too short a time – that's where I have been.

I have to do extensive paperwork for us to apply for senior reduction in our real estate taxes.  Last year our submission took 126 pages - and when I dropped this office they were NOT surprised at how big the submission was and had clips large enough for it all – I submit it in 2 sections as we don't.

While my part of doing this is bad enough, I had trouble getting the correct printout from our medical insurance company – it took a letter and 4 or 5 phone calls over the period of almost 2 months to finally get the paperwork we needed – and I had sent a copy of last year's printout to show them what we needed with the first request.  I have to enclose proof of all incomes (umm, do they think I would include an income we didn't have?).  Since I am self-employed I also have to include proof of all my business expenses and the same for husband's business.  This year for the first time we also had to get a print of what income IRS has for us.  Have I mentioned copies of our Federal AND State income tax returns have to be sent also?   One thing which has become easier is that since I am not going out to clients due to Covid I am not taking car expenses so I don't have to copy all of that and include it (submission with same used to be something like 170 pages).  I finally got a chance to work on all of this this week – due by January 2 – but who wants to be dealing it with it during the fun of December.  We will walk this into the county assessor's office as one year there was confusion and even with mailing it certified mail, we were not sure if they received it in the mail.  

I also have to take a series of courses to be able to be able to prepare income tax returns next year – 20 hours of classes plus exams.  Luckily I can do at this home online – but it does take a lot of time – actual time is lot more than 20 hours.  

So last week I started working on the real estate tax exemption paperwork.  I was doing well and then – I got a notice from IRS that we never filed a partnership return for a zero income (for decades) business we have.  It was due and filed last March!!  So I had to print it all out again.  I know that our state received their form as they cashed the check.  The IRS form has no check which is why we did not know it was not received.  Being in accounting since I was 12 years old and I know how to appeal an accidental problem such as this so that there is no penalty – but the notice came with different instructions and I was not sure what was made by what part of it said.  Tried calling the special number for IRS on the form on Monday morning.  Now, I know that Monday is the worst day of the week to try calling – well, any business – as they get more calls after the weekend.  I also know that later in the day is better than earlier, but husband insisted that I call right away.  (An any business with a phone number which is open across the country until later so those on west coast can call – is much better to call later than earlier as, again, fewer people are calling later after business hours on the east coast and same across the county end. )  While I was setting up that evening to go on a Zoom meeting with our reenactment unit I tried calling again – this time I actually got into the waiting que.  I texted my husband – he was going to attend the Zoom meeting on his computer upstairs – what was going on and to explain to the other members if I suddenly disappeared.  The call was finally taken by someone from IRS and the matter of what to do to resolve it was solved.  It was mailed out certified mail on Friday – why did I wait for Friday?  I figured (correctly) that the Post Office would be empty the day after Thanksgiving as most everyone would be shopping.  

As of last night I had done most of the photocopying/scanning of the paperwork for the real estate tax exemption.  BUT – I received in the mail from an accounting client on the other side of the country an IRS notice she received on her income taxes (due last April of course and sent then – they must be way behind in processing returns).  I determined that the problem was my fault, though only an omission of a form, and I went to print out the form to send it to IRS.  It was missing.  I had used husband's computer (with data on my stick data drive) as his computer is newer than mine and the program needs same.  So I went to print out the page to send it to IRS.  The software was missing from his computer and we had to reinstall it.  Got the page printed out, wrote a cover letter and got it ready to mail to IRS by – again, certified mail.  I had planned to mail it out today, but the rain was so heavy will mail it tomorrow.  

I then went back to working on our real estate (partial) exemption paperwork.  I am missing about 10 pages I know I printed out (I have the other 2 pages, so I must have printed all of them) and will have to reprint that tomorrow.  Hopefully this will be done by the end of the week and we can bring it to the county assessor's office next week.  (I will take it in while husband waits in car – too crowded to park there and they have metered parking.)

That will leave the classes I need to take.  I have already picked out which ones I plan to take.  Some of the courses are required – a basic income tax class, a special class to meet IRS requirements for being a tax preparer (the longest of the classes),  and a class on ethics.  The other classes it is up to me which ones to take.  This year they have several 1 hour classes and I will take 3 of them.  After reading the course text book for each course I have to take (and pass) an online exam.  

While I have until the end of the year for these classes I can't put it off.  Husband is planning on our going with our reenactment unit for the Candlelight nights at the local restoration village (as volunteers) and he really needs me to be there with him as we are light on member volunteers this year.  (Whether it is a good idea to do this or not with Covid about as it is tiny space, I will not discuss with him as he REALLY needs to do the event.)  

And, of course, we have not put up any Christmas decorations outside or inside the house – yet!  Plus who knows what else will pop up?

BACKING UP YOUR DATA IS IMPORTANT

 

Husband is currently working on installing new backup software on his computer and having problems. Which leads me to ask – do you back up your computer? Often?

We are not comfortable backing up our software or keeping any data, etc in “the Cloud”. We back up on additional drives which are in our house. Leaving aside that we don't feel comfortable keeping personal information on what is basically someone else's hard drive, by keeping the backups here – we can access it even if we do not Internet access for some reason – or for a limited amount time, we can access it on our laptop computers if we do not have same. (When a big storm is coming and we may lose our electricity we plug in all of our laptops - even the old Win XP ones - so we have them to use during a black out.

We keep our data on USB flash drives – the little stick drives not on our computers – makes it easier to switch between computers or when, in normal times, we travel we can bring the data with us. In my case I have one for most data. Another one for the one accounting business client I still have (when I go to her to do her books I can bring just her data), I have one for my photos, another down here in the kitchen which I use for personal browsing at night on my laptop. And so on. I probably have about 10 different of these stick drives with my data on them – and they are not large memory drives.

This past year I added a drive with scans of almost all of the instruction and warranty books we have – much easier to find the instructions when we need them – yes, we do have to have a computer turned on – or turn one on – but before I had to go through paper folders in the bottom drawer (of two) in one of our file cabinets and since I was bending over and looking down, my eyeglasses would swing forward away from my eyes and possibly fall off. The (hanging) folders were so full that they could barely move in the file drawer. Do we need a computer which is on to look at the papers – yes, but chances are pretty good that one or the other of us (or both) have a computer on – and if not, it takes less time to turn one on and have it boot than sit and go through all the folders looking for something.

In addition to instructions and warranties the drawer had files for travel items – maps, handouts we had picked up on where to go “next time”, places we had liked and wanted to return to, tour books on different areas, etc. I got rid of all of the out of date brochures, tour books, etc. also. We kept a handful of local maps to places we go to often (you know, the ones they hand out free to the tourists of tourist locations), and of some places we have been to in the past (such as nice, inexpensive restaurant in one of the places we visit less often). Down from 3 overstuffed hanging folders to one fairly empty one. I did not copy larger, books of instructions and have kept them in the drawer. I also copied those instructions for our RV to a separate stick drive so we can bring it with us on trips. I have since copied the main warranty/instructions stick drive to a folder on our home net so husband does not even have to look for my stick drive if he needs info.

I now have 5 fairly empty hanging folders in the drawer. One holds instruction books which are tomes and too big to scan (plus they have actual book binding which would break). The other 4 holds those small warranty papers which one needs for a couple of years or so – you know, they come with a fancy pen, or they are on the back of the package. These 4 folders are marked with a year – currently 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. I drop these small papers/packaging into the year they will expire. Something with a 6 mo warranty that was bought now would go into the 2023 folder, something with a 2 year warranty I would put into the 2024 folder. Chances are none of them have a warranty beyond 3 years. At the end of the years I will look through each folder and toss the warranties past their life. When I am done with the 2022 folder it will become the 2026 folder and so on. I am also dropping all of the paperwork for new items which I am concerned we may decide to return into the folder for the following year so we have the original paperwork also.

Now, backing up – the original theme of this piece. I have 2 of these stick drives, marked A and B. At the end of a work session I back up my main data stick drive – plus any of the other data stick drives I have used – onto either the A or B stick drives alternating each day. At the end of the week I do the same with two different stick drives (called 1 and 2) so I have a backup from the past week and the week before. I also have 2 external hard drives. Around the 15^th of the month I back up all the data stick drives to the two external hard drives, alternating by month between the two. I also run a back up of each of my two main computers (desktop and laptop) and make a restore point on each.

When my husband was still working full time, once a month I would give him a back up all of data for him to keep in his desk at work and he would bring home the backup from the month before. When he quit his job I did the same with our bank box until the pandemic started. This way if something happened to our house – there would be a set of data away from home (off site).

All without needing to store any data on “someone's else's hard drive”.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Do you back up your computer data and computer itself? One never knows what happen and putting information back together may impossible.

TIME GOES QUICKLY, WHILE IT GOES SO SLOWLY

What amazes me is how the long days last, but how quick the hours, minutes and seconds go.

You know what I mean. I start out with a list of things to do – not too long a last, but a list which is reasonable for the time I have. But time passes so quickly that I get almost nothing done.

And the weeks are event worse – it seems like it was yesterday that I wrote and posted last week.

If I go to check in my calendar when I did something – which I did only a few days ago – it has been weeks, maybe even months since I actually did it.

The summer just started – right? But now it is mid- autumn already.

 

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

How do YOU deal with this odd passing of time to get everything done? I really could use some help.

ONE NEEDS TO HAVE PLANS WHEN ONE IS STUCK HOME DUE TO AN INJURY OR ILLNESS

 My foot is much healed  - though not completely yet – since last week.  

It has been hard staying off my foot as much as possible.  This means, of course, sitting in one place or another and greatly limiting switching to other places – though we did have to go out for a bit of food shopping.  Staying off my foot seems to be working as it seems be about half better already.  

Husband has been trying to help as much as possible – he even washed the dishes for a couple of days.  He has always been upset that I did not replace our dishwasher when it died – as much as he did not want me having to wash the dishes by hand, he did not want to have to do so himself when I could not.  Even long before Covid I would put on a mask (he has them for his woodworking) or tying a towel around my face and putting on disposable plastic gloves when ill so he would not have to do the dishes.    He also cooked – but he has always been the cook of the two of us.   

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

One needs to be prepared for when cannot do the normal housework – or other jobs which one normally does.  What sort of plans do YOU have for when you cannot deal with house, cooking, or work for a period of time.  

Do you have someone else to take over or help you – spouse, child, parent, housemate or really good friend?  Do you have disposable goods – paper plates, cups, napkins to use when you cannot deal with washing up after meals?  The telephone number of a place which delivers for an affordable price?

Whether an injury or an illness which keeps one home one needs to be prepared to be able to eat and deal with one's house should something happen.