Missing Me

I haven't blogged since April first. What happened to all those days????? I have been working and planting seeds in the garden and teaching a class in Gardening 101.

It's raining today. Yesterday was glorious and warm and sunny. We even had ice cream at DQ for supper. And this morning was still pretty decent. But by the time I left work at 3:30, it was raw, cold and wet.

So. I'm working five days a week now. I'm working Easter Sunday. My Gardening 101 class went very well and they even took notes. I'm having a salad and an orange for lunch or a peanut butter on whole wheat with an apple. I still "need" something mid morning. Today it was an oatmeal cookie. A lot of new people have come back to work. (new to me because they didn't work last year).

Yesterday I sat down to do one of the "detestable tasks" I have on my list. Taxes. I tried to open Turbo Tax ($60) and turns out we don't have the correct operating system. So it won't load. And we can't return it. So I sharpened my pencil and started in, doing it the way I have done for 40 years. Only I used to be smarter. It took four or five complete tries before I got everything right (I think).

The Qualified Dividend ...I have had to pay penalties and be audited (several years now) because of this little item. I ALWAYS think I have gotten it right and NO! I don't. So I am more than a bit crazed by this element. And the worksheet. I erased so many times that there was no paper left at the end.

The Correct Tax Table. (I was using the single column for my daughter. I do her taxes first because, even though there are more forms, it just seems easier because it's not my money). I just didn't STOP using the single column in the tax charts until I had messed up MY taxes TWICE. And I used the Federal Tax Chart on my Maine Taxes and just about had a stroke. I could feel the arteries in my head constricting. No way was I writing a check that big to the State of Maine. I think Maine ranks 49 out of 50 states in the Realistic Taxation Category.

And then after I was done doing my taxes about ten times, I realized that my daughter had Qualified Dividends. So I got to do hers two more times. And erase holes in her worksheet.

Good thing we had ice cream for supper. And went to bed at 9:15.

Things will be better tomorrow. Art Club.

My daughter gets refunds and G & I get to write a BIG set of checks and fill out the Vouchers to prepay our tax money for 2009.