The weather continues to be February-like here, which means drizzly and in the 40's. Easily my most despised weather pattern ever. Not warm enough to only wear a cardigan or a quarter sleeve shirt, but not cold enough to wear a coat. Bah.
Went to get my nose pierced and Melanie had left to go back to Macon, which nobody told Mark who informed Emily she'd be there later since she took MARTA. When we showed up, the other piercer had come by to grab something and was like, "Oh, you didn't know? She's back in Macon for family stuff." We hung out and talked to Mark for a while, then went to Ru San's and pigged out on sushi-- stuffed myself with leftovers for $10! I like places like that not just because I don't want to spend a billion dollars on food, but because I can leave a $5 tip on $10 and be a) generous, and b) actually help the establishment by eating there and treating the waitstaff proportionally well.
You know, unlike the people who come to see me and spend all their money on food and leave a 10% tip...
Anywhoo, I've been bumming around and trying to start some scrap book pages. It's going slowly, though, because I left a lot more of my stuff in Southaven than I thought I had. My pages aren't super awesome yet, but once I get plenty of stuff and maybe some stencils for letters, they'll be a lot better. I did a couple pages of Jeremy and I parasailing in NC, the first page is us up in the air, the second is the last part where they let us drop in to the ocean. I had some cute little beachy stickers from Target, so there are some fish, shells, a pair of sunglasses, and an inner tube floating around. I picked two different blue patterns, a plainer one for the up-in-the-air shots, and one that looks a little under-the-sea-ish for the second set. I'm waiting on some pictures from Snapfish to get here, and trying to find my ticket for the Terra Cotta Army show, so I'll have a page for that and can start on my Hawaii pages, too. I have to swing by Target, so I'm going to see if I can find some solid colors that would be appropriate for the MotoGP stuff that I have.
That's about all that's happened tonight; Jeremy's had a much more interesting one-- he got to watch the shuttle launch! Though, he has had to sit in traffic for a couple hours. If he's lucky, even though they were done with the launch by 815p, he'll be home at 11p!
Ciao for now!
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Taxes... ARGH
I really severely heinously dislike taxes. I do my stuff online at HR Block and there's a little window in the upper corner that reads out your refund as you plug in the numbers. I started on one and as I put in my W-2s (a total of $11,000 for the year) and my 1099-R (401k distribution), my refund went from over $1,000 to $800 and then when I plugged in my $1,000 in medical expenses for the year... It went down to $323!!!
Seriously? Really? I mean, I'm already insulted enough by the fact that I'd have to be making $6-7,000 to qualify for welfare or any type of assistance from the gov't to whom I have dutifully paid my taxes since I was 15 and now you have to tell me that since (with taxes and medical expenses deducted) I make $9,000 to live on for 12 months, you're not going to give me any of it back? Oh, oh, and lest we forget, the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) laws were changed last year, so since I'm not 25-65 it doesn't matter that I'm poor. Apparently they assume my parents are still supporting me?
ARGH!
People wonder what's wrong with our country, and I promise I'm not going to rant, but this has to give some kind of minor HINT as to what the deal is.
/rant
In the end I'm getting a fairly decent refund, it'll pay for the deposit on the wedding and hopefully a little more since it'll sit in a high-interest savings account until October, but it still just drives me up the wall that we (aka, the lawmakers) have such a skewed idea of what poverty is. We want people living in filth and dying because they can't afford medical care before we'll offer a helping hand. And, if you've paid taxes for almost 10 years and asked for nothing... oh, well! Wayne got fired and was making $275/week on unemployment. I work three days a week and don't make that.
/really end rant...
I didn't get much sleep last night, my brother was up and I finally had just been up so long I stayed up-- then I had an allergy issue and had to take a Benadryl so I don't think I made much sense when Jeremy called at lunch... I ended up sleeping until 2, so I didn't get any packing done, though it was raining so I wouldn't have been able to move it anyway. Work was really slow, though I did get the macadamia nut encrusted scallops and chocolate bread pudding (two of my favorites!), and basically the day ended up being pretty rotten which is kind of the story with my birthday every year. Except last year, I want to go back to last year. Jeremy made me some crazy brownie concoction, we got Papa Johns, watched Burn Notice, and he gave me my beautiful earrings (which have come off twice since-- both for surgery).
Apparently my birthday present is in the mail (from Jeremy) and he's more and more sounding like he'll come up for Valentine's day-- he says he won't if the weather is bad, but the weather was pretty rotten at Thanksgiving and he still came up. I'm also looking forward to going down to Savannah (at least, that's the plan) in a couple weeks to see Sara! I love both Savannah and Sara and haven't seen either in several years, so it ought to be a great weekend. Jan and Marc are headed down to Florida for a conference that weekend, so Jeremy doesn't know if he'll come up and meet us for Friday night or not.
Anyway, I'm gonna see if I can't get a couple bags packed up before I go to bed since I'm watching a House Hunters in Austin! Oooh, maybe I can use part of my refund to put towards my ticket to the best bridal party EVER this summer with Dill and Osso Buco by Casey! Yeehaw!
Seriously? Really? I mean, I'm already insulted enough by the fact that I'd have to be making $6-7,000 to qualify for welfare or any type of assistance from the gov't to whom I have dutifully paid my taxes since I was 15 and now you have to tell me that since (with taxes and medical expenses deducted) I make $9,000 to live on for 12 months, you're not going to give me any of it back? Oh, oh, and lest we forget, the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) laws were changed last year, so since I'm not 25-65 it doesn't matter that I'm poor. Apparently they assume my parents are still supporting me?
ARGH!
People wonder what's wrong with our country, and I promise I'm not going to rant, but this has to give some kind of minor HINT as to what the deal is.
/rant
In the end I'm getting a fairly decent refund, it'll pay for the deposit on the wedding and hopefully a little more since it'll sit in a high-interest savings account until October, but it still just drives me up the wall that we (aka, the lawmakers) have such a skewed idea of what poverty is. We want people living in filth and dying because they can't afford medical care before we'll offer a helping hand. And, if you've paid taxes for almost 10 years and asked for nothing... oh, well! Wayne got fired and was making $275/week on unemployment. I work three days a week and don't make that.
/really end rant...
I didn't get much sleep last night, my brother was up and I finally had just been up so long I stayed up-- then I had an allergy issue and had to take a Benadryl so I don't think I made much sense when Jeremy called at lunch... I ended up sleeping until 2, so I didn't get any packing done, though it was raining so I wouldn't have been able to move it anyway. Work was really slow, though I did get the macadamia nut encrusted scallops and chocolate bread pudding (two of my favorites!), and basically the day ended up being pretty rotten which is kind of the story with my birthday every year. Except last year, I want to go back to last year. Jeremy made me some crazy brownie concoction, we got Papa Johns, watched Burn Notice, and he gave me my beautiful earrings (which have come off twice since-- both for surgery).
Apparently my birthday present is in the mail (from Jeremy) and he's more and more sounding like he'll come up for Valentine's day-- he says he won't if the weather is bad, but the weather was pretty rotten at Thanksgiving and he still came up. I'm also looking forward to going down to Savannah (at least, that's the plan) in a couple weeks to see Sara! I love both Savannah and Sara and haven't seen either in several years, so it ought to be a great weekend. Jan and Marc are headed down to Florida for a conference that weekend, so Jeremy doesn't know if he'll come up and meet us for Friday night or not.
Anyway, I'm gonna see if I can't get a couple bags packed up before I go to bed since I'm watching a House Hunters in Austin! Oooh, maybe I can use part of my refund to put towards my ticket to the best bridal party EVER this summer with Dill and Osso Buco by Casey! Yeehaw!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)