Saturday, April 10, 2010

Getting things done

I actually found all of my paperwork and did my taxes today! I did not have much to use this year. I had given a LOT of clothes to Goodwill this summer, and I wrote everything down that was in the bags. I used some VERY big bags, too. When using TurboTax, you can go through a list of things, put the numbers of how many of that item you donated, and the program figures out how much it is worth! Then, all of that is added to your itemized section. It is all done for you! I ended up with 177 items in the bags. I did not have any idea how many things there were, until Turbo Tax figured it for me. Wow. That sure helped! I have donated clothes many, many times, but I never took the time to write down what was in the bags. From now on, I will keep track! Since I only worked one job this year (imagine that), I didn't have as much income. That helped a LOT, too. I worked extra jobs before to help pay bills, buy groceries, etc., but the extra income always took me into a higher tax bracket. You would think I was making ten thousands extra. I wasn't! I worked for my church as a choir director, and the church could not afford to pay much. I have worked other jobs off and on through the years, also, but I am not up to doing that anymore. The kids are all grown up and on their own, so I do not need to work the extra jobs. I still need extra money, but I am finished with doing the two and three extra job bit!
I still have lots to do around this house. I am so crammed in here with extra junk! I just cannot get ahead of anything. One of these days, I will get it all taken care of. I keep saying that to myself, so maybe eventually it will happen. The main thing I need to do now is to write my dissertation. I keep putting that off, but it has GOT to be done! I am wasting lots of tuition money, while procrastinating!!!!
I made a lemon supreme cake the other day, and it is very good. The taste is not at all lemony ~ lemony, but it is a nice difference from a regular yellow or white cake. The taste is subtle. I like it, and I used the extra icing that I made Sunday to put on top! I made a double decker round cake. It is gooood.
I can hear the fireworks over at the park. Savannah has a professional baseball team, called the Savannah Sandgnats, and Thursday night was their first game. They always have fireworks on special nights and weekends. At first, the sounds are like gunshots. Then, you have to remember that the ball park is really close by, and the fireworks are going off! We can see them from our front porch, too.
Today was very nice. After going to the post office to drop off my taxes, I went to Publix and bought some GOOD fried chicken. I set out yesterday to do that, and I had everything in my buggy, when I realized that I left some Southwestern Eggrolls in my oven on 400 degrees!! I ran out of that store so fast, and I left the stuff in the buggy right in the middle of the store!!!!!! I got in the car, panting and panting, and called my dad to ask him to go across the street and check the oven. He was not home when I left, and I thought he might not be there. It was 5 o'clock, and the traffic was awful. I just KNEW I was going to have a fire in the oven when I got home. Luckily, the eggrolls were just very hard, but not burned~~No flames, no fire!! Daddy got there and took them out. I got home as he was going back to his house. If I had remembered that I had my phone in my pocket, I could have called him from the store and stopped panicking. My heart was pounding and hurting from running so hard and being so frightened. I just cannot figure out why I keep doing that. Do I have early Alzheimer's or something??
For Easter, I bought two cake pans that are called 3-D pans. I bought a lamb and a rubber ducky. The lamb cake came out of the oven and stood up, but then the head fell off!! I tried every trick in the book to make it stay on, but none of them worked longer than a couple of minutes. I decorated it with fuzzy white icing, anyway. The rubber ducky fell apart coming out of the pan. I didn't even try to fix that one! I did take it for dinner, since it was a good tasting, moist yellow cake. I also had two bunny pans. They make small cakes. Those cakes turned out well, and little Lauren iced them. I have a 3-D train pan that I haven't tried yet, and I hope it won't fall apart like these did. There has got to be a trick to getting them to stand up without falling apart! :)