Older Daughter is working on her taxes. Frumpkin, her cat, is helping.
As you can tell, he's a BIG help.
Showing posts with label taxes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label taxes. Show all posts
Monday, March 11, 2024
Saturday, March 19, 2022
Old-fashioned solution to modern problem
We had a power outage the other day, for several hours. This is nothing unusual. We have power outages when it's snowy, rainy, windy, a Tuesday...
That's why we keep oil lamps handy at all times.
But this time when the lights went out, I was in the middle of doing our taxes. No problem. I just continued with what I was doing (particularly since I always do our taxes by hand).
An old-fashioned solution to a modern problem.
(Update: One reader asked why I do taxes by hand. Short answer: Because I'm a Luddite. I tried tax software years ago and hated it. Too much stress. Doing taxes by hand is much easier for me.)
(Second update: A reader expressed concern about doing our own taxes, and recommended we use a CPA. My apologies for not being clearer; that's precisely what we do. First, however, I have to crunch the numbers and document all our income and expenses for our various Schedule C home businesses (which is what I was doing in the photo above), and then hand everything over to the CPA, who then waves a magic wand before having us affix our signatures to the results. Worth every penny, in my humble opinion.)
Monday, March 1, 2021
How quickly it piles up
I just finished our taxes for this year – wading through piles of receipts, check registers, and credit card bills to document legitimate deductions for our businesses, tallying our income and expenses. I'm old-fashioned and do everything by hand. Phew, done. It's in the hands of the accountant now.
I'm a reasonably organized person when it comes to paperwork, but moving to a new home and then doing our taxes underscored a problem: I keep a lot of old junk. You know how it goes when moving; pack it up and sort it later. Well, "later" arrived and it was time to sort.
Old and unneeded paperwork piles up quickly, doesn't it? Here's proof.
For obvious reasons, this isn't something I just want to throw in the trash. Instead I packed two laundry baskets brimful, hauled it outside into the snow ...
...and fed it into the burn barrel.
About sixty pounds of paper, reduced to a few ounces of ashes. The file drawers are much happier, and everything is better organized now. Woot!
Sunday, March 10, 2019
Random photos
Here are some random photos from the last couple of weeks.
Taxes, ug. Yes, I still do our taxes by hand. With a pencil. A pencil that gets sharpened over and over and over...
Burning shop waste in the woodstove. This gives us a two-fer advantage: one, it cleans out the shop; and two, the wood is hardwood so it gives a nice hot fire.
The temperatures are slowly, slowly rising. It's zero degrees (Fahrenheit) as I write this, but daytime temps are climbing above freezing, sometimes even into the high 30s and low 40s. As a result, the snow is starting to compact. It's down to about 18 thick on the ground (better than the 30+ inches of a couple weeks ago).
The other day I walked outside and saw a whole bunch of chickens clustered on a tiny little patch of bare ground.
It was the first bare ground they'd seen in a while, so they were pretty excited.
Speaking of chickens, this fella is bottom of the rooster totem pole. As a result, he gets beat up if he stays in the coop, so he spends most of his daylight hours hanging around the (snow-free) barn. I give him a separate pan of food, and he eats it ravenously.
He's a very sweet and grateful rooster as a result.
Yesterday morning dawned cloudy, but one single shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds and lit up a snow-buried tank on a neighbor's property with an almost day-glo orange.
I tried to get a photo of the sunbeam itself, but by the time I booted up and got outside, the moment had passed.
The weather goes back and forth. We'll have a few days of calm and relative warmth, then suddenly the wind will whip up and start drifting the snow. On Thursday we took Mr. Darcy for his morning run, and you can see the quasi-drifts trying to close the road.
When the nighttime temps plummet but daytime temps get above freezing, the result is a crust on the snow. This morning it was almost -- almost -- strong enough to support me. For the first three steps I walked on the surface, then I plunged through.
I've been photographing animal tracks as I see them, which surprisingly isn't very often. Here's a deer as it hopped the fence from our neighbor's property onto ours.
Deer tracks in less-deep snow, where it could walk.
Deer tracks in deeper snow, where it had to leap.
Rabbit.
Quail.
Quail tracks crossing deer tracks.
Tracks from Oregon juncos (from our front porch, where we're feeding them).
The season is changing, no doubt about it. Despite the snow on the ground, birds are starting to return. We haven't seen any robins yet, but I'm hearing blackbirds for the first time this year.
But winter isn't over. The weather report is calling for up to another five inches of snow this week, which is causing everyone to groan. No one wants to see another five inches.
But it is what it is. Spring will be that much sweeter when it finally arrives.
Taxes, ug. Yes, I still do our taxes by hand. With a pencil. A pencil that gets sharpened over and over and over...
Burning shop waste in the woodstove. This gives us a two-fer advantage: one, it cleans out the shop; and two, the wood is hardwood so it gives a nice hot fire.
The temperatures are slowly, slowly rising. It's zero degrees (Fahrenheit) as I write this, but daytime temps are climbing above freezing, sometimes even into the high 30s and low 40s. As a result, the snow is starting to compact. It's down to about 18 thick on the ground (better than the 30+ inches of a couple weeks ago).
The other day I walked outside and saw a whole bunch of chickens clustered on a tiny little patch of bare ground.
It was the first bare ground they'd seen in a while, so they were pretty excited.
Speaking of chickens, this fella is bottom of the rooster totem pole. As a result, he gets beat up if he stays in the coop, so he spends most of his daylight hours hanging around the (snow-free) barn. I give him a separate pan of food, and he eats it ravenously.
He's a very sweet and grateful rooster as a result.
Yesterday morning dawned cloudy, but one single shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds and lit up a snow-buried tank on a neighbor's property with an almost day-glo orange.
I tried to get a photo of the sunbeam itself, but by the time I booted up and got outside, the moment had passed.
The weather goes back and forth. We'll have a few days of calm and relative warmth, then suddenly the wind will whip up and start drifting the snow. On Thursday we took Mr. Darcy for his morning run, and you can see the quasi-drifts trying to close the road.
When the nighttime temps plummet but daytime temps get above freezing, the result is a crust on the snow. This morning it was almost -- almost -- strong enough to support me. For the first three steps I walked on the surface, then I plunged through.
I've been photographing animal tracks as I see them, which surprisingly isn't very often. Here's a deer as it hopped the fence from our neighbor's property onto ours.
Deer tracks in less-deep snow, where it could walk.
Deer tracks in deeper snow, where it had to leap.
Rabbit.
Quail.
Quail tracks crossing deer tracks.
Tracks from Oregon juncos (from our front porch, where we're feeding them).
The season is changing, no doubt about it. Despite the snow on the ground, birds are starting to return. We haven't seen any robins yet, but I'm hearing blackbirds for the first time this year.
But winter isn't over. The weather report is calling for up to another five inches of snow this week, which is causing everyone to groan. No one wants to see another five inches.
But it is what it is. Spring will be that much sweeter when it finally arrives.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Taxes, ug
Well as if I haven't been silent enough (on the blog) because of our unexpectedly busy tankard orders, now I'm burying myself in taxes. Ug.
I hate using computer programs for doing taxes. Instead I do it the old-fashioned way -- pencil and paper. Literally.
Our tax appointment is Feb 18. I scheduled it very early this year because there's a lot of uncertainty and changes in tax stuff, so I wanted to give us enough time to pull together funds just in case we owe money.
I'll try not to be as silent on the blog as last week, but just thought I'd let you know what we've been up to lately. Taxes. Ug!!!
I hate using computer programs for doing taxes. Instead I do it the old-fashioned way -- pencil and paper. Literally.
Our tax appointment is Feb 18. I scheduled it very early this year because there's a lot of uncertainty and changes in tax stuff, so I wanted to give us enough time to pull together funds just in case we owe money.
I'll try not to be as silent on the blog as last week, but just thought I'd let you know what we've been up to lately. Taxes. Ug!!!
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Taxes and random pix
I've been brain dead this week, since it's been the final push in getting our taxes done. Our appointment with the bookkeeper was actually last Wednesday, but since it was the same date as a massive article I had due for a magazine, I switched it to today instead.
So last night -- finally -- I got everything done. Phew! I do our taxes by hand (not on the computer) which amuses our tax preparer to no end. At the same time, she admires the fact that I have every possible scrap of paper or receipt or other documentation to back up every nickle we make or spend.
So, since I've been too muddled to post much on the blog, I'll just drop a few random pix from the last couple weeks instead. The weather hasn't been conducive to pretty pictures, so I don't have many.
An oil lamp on the windowsill on a gray day.
On the way to our county seat, we pass this broad marshy area. Depending on the time of year, it might be flooded, or marshy, or bone dry except for the deep-water channels. Right now it's dry, and if you look verrrry closely you'll see a whole bunch of deer grazing. Sometimes there are several hundred deer on this stretch.
They are certainly very well camouflaged!
A weird moment in the sky on a cloudy afternoon. The roundish dot in the dark band looks like it should be the sun, but in fact it's a dull rainbow reflection. The sun was in the bright spot below.
Amusing bumper sticker.
Tracks from our barn cat in fresh early-morning snow.
Waiting for the morning feeding.
Remember when Thor was born? This is what he looks like now. He's very sweet.
Sigh. I must accept reality. That's a long gray hair you see tangled in the hairbrush. I can't complain; at age fifty I'm still mostly brown...
Chicken condo?
The chickens discovered some feed that got spilled in the driveway.
Don's been cleaning his shop of some accumulated sawdust and waste, so he started a burn pile. It was a good day for it, with no wind. In Idaho during the winter, we don't need a burn permit to burn wood waste.
However someone saw the smoke, concluded it was a structure fire, and called the fire department!
The truck didn't even bother coming up our driveway. They could clearly see from the road that it was an attended burn pile, so they just turned around and drove off.
By nightfall, the fire gave a pretty glow. Pity we didn't have any marshmallows.
Younger Daughter's Bible, still open on the couch after her day's schoolwork was done.
The sky sure didn't look like it was going to do much last night as far as a sunset, but it kept getting prettier and prettier.
So last night -- finally -- I got everything done. Phew! I do our taxes by hand (not on the computer) which amuses our tax preparer to no end. At the same time, she admires the fact that I have every possible scrap of paper or receipt or other documentation to back up every nickle we make or spend.
So, since I've been too muddled to post much on the blog, I'll just drop a few random pix from the last couple weeks instead. The weather hasn't been conducive to pretty pictures, so I don't have many.
An oil lamp on the windowsill on a gray day.
On the way to our county seat, we pass this broad marshy area. Depending on the time of year, it might be flooded, or marshy, or bone dry except for the deep-water channels. Right now it's dry, and if you look verrrry closely you'll see a whole bunch of deer grazing. Sometimes there are several hundred deer on this stretch.
They are certainly very well camouflaged!
A weird moment in the sky on a cloudy afternoon. The roundish dot in the dark band looks like it should be the sun, but in fact it's a dull rainbow reflection. The sun was in the bright spot below.
Amusing bumper sticker.
Tracks from our barn cat in fresh early-morning snow.
Waiting for the morning feeding.
Remember when Thor was born? This is what he looks like now. He's very sweet.
Sigh. I must accept reality. That's a long gray hair you see tangled in the hairbrush. I can't complain; at age fifty I'm still mostly brown...
Chicken condo?
The chickens discovered some feed that got spilled in the driveway.
Don's been cleaning his shop of some accumulated sawdust and waste, so he started a burn pile. It was a good day for it, with no wind. In Idaho during the winter, we don't need a burn permit to burn wood waste.
However someone saw the smoke, concluded it was a structure fire, and called the fire department!
The truck didn't even bother coming up our driveway. They could clearly see from the road that it was an attended burn pile, so they just turned around and drove off.
By nightfall, the fire gave a pretty glow. Pity we didn't have any marshmallows.
Younger Daughter's Bible, still open on the couch after her day's schoolwork was done.
The sky sure didn't look like it was going to do much last night as far as a sunset, but it kept getting prettier and prettier.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)