We'll try not to spend it all in one place

Paul and I did a preliminary take on our taxes today--we didn't get everything entered but wanted to see about what the damage is going to be.  I'll give Paul credit for helping because he did stir once during his nap to the Daytona 500 to inquire as to what I was doing and tell me he'll get all the stock stuff together soon before going back to sleep.  That's pretty much all the help I needed today.  We will owe the federal government some money--not as much as we worried we would and not so much that we won't be doing the kitchen counters.

But the good news is that we'll be getting refund from the State of New Mexico.  An $8 refund.  I know.  You're all jealous of that $8 refund.  We plan on getting Sonic drinks.  Twice.  And not during the Happy Hour special.  Because we're crazy like that.

I'll try a random uploading a random video today.  If this works, I'll try to add a few that we've taken on the camera.  A friend sent this video to me a while back.  I giggle every time I watch it.

So, we're idiots but the IRS still sucks

Heh--we'll probably get audited again because of that title.

Once again, Paul and I prove to be the World's Most Incompetent People Masquerading as Adults. Seriously--how have we made it this far in life without major damage to ourselves or our bank accounts?

I spoke with a person at the investment company yesterday about our big ol' IRS bill. I did have the 2005 paperwork in front of me so I was able to see exactly what she was talking about when she said we probably forgot to claim the "return of principal" on the bonds (1099-B for those of you in the tax return know). I have no idea what that means or what that is but yep. We didn't claim it.

I remember having the conversation as to what to do with that particular item and then continuing on with the tax return, thinking we'd get back to it. Guess what we didn't get back to? Yep.

When Paul gets back into town on Friday, we'll figure out what our mea culpa will be. It may require filing a challenge to the audit with the correct paperwork, filing an amended tax return for 2005, promising to stop claiming the cat as a dependent. . . . I'm sure it will cost us something in the end; after all there was $102 in other funds that were in error. But I imagine it will be a much easier final number to swallow than $7000.

A little gun-shy

So in today's mail, there was an envelope from NM Taxation & Revenue Department.

All I could think when I saw the return address was "effing-a, how much do they want from us?"

And the answer would be $72 because it's time to register Paul's Camry for the next two years.

I have a feeling we'll be a little twitchy when going through the mail for a while.

You know that whole "Beware the Ides of March" thing? Yeah...

In our mail this afternoon was a fat envelope from the IRS.

Seems we were audited for 2005's tax return and apparently, we owe close to $7000 in back taxes, penalties, and interest.

God bless America.

We understand where the IRS is claiming we have the extra money--bonds we purchased when the church was doing a building project--but we can't figure out why we don't have any paperwork from the company other than a 1099-DIV which is the interest earned on those bonds, which we totally claimed. If we'd known that we needed to include the total amount of the bonds, we would have because we are fine, upstanding, law-abiding citizens like that. But I have a feeling that isn't a defense the IRS will accept. Nor will they just let us off because we're awfully cute (which we are. And funny to boot.)

It wouldn't be so bad but we were already anticipating a big tax bill this year (we've budgeted for five digits). Oh, the IRS generously offers a "payment plan" for these back taxes -- with a serious interest rate attached to it. And if we challenge it and we're wrong? More interest (and probably another penalty because the IRS apparently thinks it's fun to add those on).

This is why people hate the IRS.

We have until April 11 to get this figured out and paid. We couldn't help but note how conveniently we got this bill during the busiest part of the tax season. Paul is out of town all next week then we'll spend time with a nice accountant person trying to figure this out. I knew it was too good to be true when we received a refund last year.

While the cat's away...

Paul is currently on a two-week business trip to California. He left last Monday and will be back next Friday. Because I'm employed (and actually like my job again) and the nature of the trip (testing a chip design at the Berkeley lab), it's not conducive to me tagging along on the trip. No worries--I'm nothing if not resourceful and I've been able to find ways to entertain myself.

Things I've done so far while Paul is out of town:

1. Stay up past my bedtime with no one to remind me that I should be in bed. The cat doesn't care--he loves that I'm up at midnight, hanging out with him.

2. Ignore the alarm clock for 30 minutes with no one to remind me that I need to get up (although the cat starts meowing after about 15 minutes because he thinks he needs food). This one is a direct corollary to staying up too late but it's been nice to snuggle in those extra minutes, even when it means I'm rushing to get out the door on time.

3. Go to town cleaning closets and loading up things to take to Goodwill. This is especially nice to do when Paul isn't around because he has an unnatural attachment to some of his clothes and other treasures. It's not been easy to get him to part with just a few of his many t-shirts but he'll never miss them if he doesn't know they're gone.

4. Finally, finally clean out the garage. When we remodeled the house 18 months ago, Paul had just quit his job to start the new company so all the boxes from his home office and his work office ended up in the garage during the remodel. Most of them have managed to get carted back upstairs and now reside in the closet of the new room. Eventually, I'll convince him to sort through them to toss, keep, and organize. In the meantime, I was able to tackle the mountain of boxes (mostly empty) that Paul was storing in the garage. One of the bigger boxes was full of the treasures from his 1993 Camry. The very car we sold over three years ago. Included in this box were a pair of jeans Paul could wear if he no longer required breathing, a pair of dress shoes circa 1991, mountains of papers dating between 1996 and 2002, a variety of tapes (including, much to my amusement, a single of Tag Team's "Whoomp! There it is") and about $3.82 in assorted change.

5. Eat crackers and cheese for dinner. At 4:30.

6. Watch anything I want on television without fear of him mocking me. Hello E! and The Hills on MTV.

7. Repaint the side table in the guest room.

8. Read. Read some more. Stay up too late reading a little bit more.

Still to do:

9. Recover the dining room chairs. I'm not a huge fan of upholstered dining room chairs but when we bought the table, Paul wanted them. So I've got them as long as I've got that table. Currently, they are a very neutral (and very blah) cream fabric. Today, I purchased a twill fabric that is a light sage/khaki color. It's not going to be a huge change but I think it will look nice. I can't decide if Paul will notice immediately or in June. Probably June.

10. Clean the ceiling fans. OK, I could do this when Paul is home but I haven't and it is something that needs to be done. Especially since Paul was tossing a little Frisbee thing around for the cat and hit the ceiling fan in living room. There's now a clump hanging precariously from one of the blades.

11. (And in more confessions on my housekeeping skills...) Clean and dust the office nook. Normally, Paul tells me to leave it and he'll clean/dust. His "dusting" is typically done with a can of compressed air. Fun but not very efficient.

12. We've been invited to go skiing next weekend. I haven't been in about 10 years and it would be fun to go again. I'll have to get some ski gear, though. I guess I can add shopping for ski pants to my list of things to do as well.

In addition to my list of things to do, I've got a few meetings next week that will take up part of the evenings. Paul arrives back home midday on Friday. Aside from the fact that I have been much more productive than normal, it's almost as if he never left. And here people were worried that I'd be bored and lonely while Paul was gone.

Toasty

While we haven't been as cold as parts of the country, this recent bout of winter has definitely made me long for the warmer days of spring. Or even temperatures in the more moderate normal winter range. Because it's hard to argue when the normal temperature for January is 45. This below-freezing and snowy stuff is for the birds.

I think I found the solution to my chilly woes. And paired with one of these.* With all that fluff and fur, I'd never be cold again.

Growing up, my sisters and I would beg our parents for something from the Overland Sheepskin Co. We would stop at the store on family ski trips to Taos but our pleading, begging, and whining was always in vain. Each stop always resulted in us leaving empty-handed. When my oldest nephew was born some 15 years ago, my dad bought a pair of shearling booties for Preston to enjoy while in the 0-3 month range. That purchase caused my younger sister and I to flounce as only teenaged girls can flounce. We huffed, we puffed, we pouted, we glared, we gave the silent treatment. It was all in vain as nary a shearling scrap was purchased for us. I think we're both still a little bitter about that.

Fifteen years later, I decided there are some advantages to being a grown-up:

Being able to buy my own sheepskin slippers and have warm toes is just one of them.

*And I actually own a shearling hat but it doesn't include any large fur cuff. It is much more understated bucket hat. Very unflashy.

Owning a flashlight is probably one of the requirements for adulthood

We, like many in ABQ, have an evaporative cooler a.k.a swamp cooler for our A/C. The annual maintenance is one of the many challenges that as been thrown as us in the How to Be a Grown-up game. We're getting better about the hook-up in the spring. We buy the new pads early and usually get up on the roof to do the maintance and turn it on before it gets freakishly hot.

What we're not so good at doing is getting it disconnected in the fall. We've been in our house for six years and I think Paul has only actually unhooked the cooler once during daylight. That was the first year we were in the house and the builder did it for us. So I'm not sure that actually counts. Since then, we always talk about how we need to get up on the roof starting in mid-September and it isn't until we notice a weather report showing that it might actually dip below freezing that we finally do something about it.

We've had a cool fall and haven't needed the A/C in over a month. But, you guessed it, it wasn't until tonight that we decided to do anything about it.

At 8:00, Paul came downstairs declaring that he'd seen a weather report on the Internet and he'd decided to disconnect the cooler. It's a short process--10 minutes or so--and probably more exciting in the dark. Which is a good thing because WE DON'T OWN A FLASHLIGHT. How can people not have a flashlight? I'm not sure but we've managed to do it. I'm sure we have this conversation every year at 8:00 on a random night in October when Paul is headed onto the roof. He finally scrounged up a Mini-Maglite that thankfully worked and unhooked the cooler with no surprises or belly flops off the two-story roof. And because I'm no longer in charge of the task of turning on the heater after I managed to screw it up and had to call out a repairman who basically hit the heater with a rubber mallet and charged us $75, Paul did that as well.

Of course, when the heater kicks on, we'll be reminded of another of the many Things We Need to Get To--fixing the vent in our bedroom that has rattled for six years.