Taxing

 SO, since neither of our financial advisors told us that we could (should) elect to have income taxes withheld from our social security, we are being slammed with having to pay taxes this year for the first time in our lives.

Good times.

That seems such a simple thing that SOMEONE should have told us, but no one did.  Neither of us had ever retired before, obviously, so we had no idea.....and both of these experts are supposed to counsel their clients on every detail.....UGH.

We've gone on line now, and have it set up to start next month.

In the meantime, it's a good thing that I have been socking away every possible penny since I retired.

Sigh.

It's been a very expensive couple of months, between Sammie's vet bill, my medial bills, semi annual real estate taxes falling due, renewing the car's registration, paying a CPA to do our taxes, and now having to pay thousands in taxes,.... I am NOT a happy camper.

Speaking of Sammie, Fed Ex claims that they sent an investigator to the neighborhood, and they knocked on doors and no one was home.

I call 100% bullshit.  We are almost always at home, and you'd think an investigator would leave a note, or that the phone rep who told us someone had been here would have been able to provide a DATE AND TIME that they were supposedly at our door.

They are just trying to delay and delay until we give up.  Dave is going to keep on them, as he has been.  This is absolutely ridiculous.

In other news, my doctor visit went fine this past week, and I finally read my scan reports myself.  No evidence of disease in my body except in the bones, and that is decreasing.

So, YAY!

When we had the windows replaced, we asked the installers to leave all of the old windows for us.  Our plan was to build a green house with them.

As time has gone on, and reality has set in, there's no fucking way we can do a project like that ourselves, and it would be ridiculous to pay someone to do it for us.

So I offered the windows up to my friends on the "book of faces,"  and one of them claimed them!

She and her husband are coming later today to collect the windows, so our carport will be much clearer after that!

I will need to, once again, rake up the leaves from the neighbors trees, for the umpteenth time, but then, it will look much nicer out there.

We have had record breaking heat, and only a total of about 10 minutes of rain in he past 12 weeks.  We are in an extreme drought, and with the humidity averaging in the 10% range, the high winds keep us in almost constant red flag fire danger.

The back yard is literally crunchy, when it should be full of clover and dandelions for the pollinators.

It's also frustrating that I can't use my fire pit.... it's supposed to be spring, not summer, and an ideal time for sitting by the fire.... but no.  

It has to be 98 degrees, bone dry, and windy. 

And they say climate change is a hoax.  "They" are idiots.

The nice thing is that we had a cold front come through earlier today, dropping from 85 to 73, so the windows are open to let the wind blow through the house.

Next week holds no appointments, so I will focus on a couple of small projects that I have been putting off, and maybe get that raking done.

I'm still enjoying the wellness study through the cancer center.  I like that the workouts are different every week, and that I will get an electronic file of all of them to keep when this is all over with.

The yoga remains ridiculously hard, though, and I just do the bits that I can do safely, and do my own "flow" during the parts of the videos that are for 30 year old yoga instructors, as mentioned previously.

That's about it. I am not in a good head space this week, as you can see.  I am pissed off about a lot of things, but looking forward to making some yummy food for dinner, and maybe having a martini or two, since this is my week off from chemo.

Have a good week.