In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
PAGE 975 of 1154
Back from my walk and no rain until I was coming home. Only good thing was a didn't need to put up my umbrella.
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Gotta rearrange another cupboard. This time an upper one.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
That's great Jack. I hope you have a good visit.
Thank you. It was nice. My aunt and grandma came by and we celebrated her 89th birthday with some Mexican food and a cake.
They usually go to my aunt and uncle's place to celebrate, but my cousin who got Leukemia after getting vaccinated has another round of chemo today and they finally found a match for his bone marrow from some awesome person in Europe. They have completely self-quarantined since my newphew's diagnosis, so I'm hoping that this all goes well and they can return to normal soon. I can't imagine how hard this has been for them. His fiancee is an amazing woman, sticking through this with him. Best case scenario he probably will never have a full life, and she's already 30 years old too.
I was also able to try my hand at online tax filing for the first time, and I helped show my aunt how to do it. Until it became clear that it was going to take far too long doing it that way with my grandma getting hungry for lunch on her birthday, I had my aunt do the steps herself for about 75% of it.
She wasn't doing anything wrong herself, and is actually quite an impressive student at learning how tech works since I got her started down that path. But those online free-file outfits are a nightmare to navigate. I've done my own taxes by hand and mailed them for over 20 years now myself and I could have done her taxes in 1/4 the time. Every third page was trying to get her to spend money on an upgrade or paying to talk to a professional, and a lot of the questions they were asking were superfluous and designed just to confuse and intimidate people into paying for something they don't need to pay for.
We got it done though.
I should have really double checked what they came up with before instead of taking my aunt on her idea that's what she thought she'd be getting. They probably got it right, but I'm going to go over everything and see if I now have to file a 1040X to get money back because they screwed it up.
It's insanity that the IRS doesn't have a simple to use portal to just fill out the forms and submit them electronically and you have to navigate through 80 pages of bullshit through for-profit companies who hassle you ever step of the way to "free" file.
OK... I'm done ranting. It was a great visit otherwise. They got to see all my cool new stuff I've been working on.
My grandma, as far as I know, is now the oldest living family member on either side of my family. If it wasn't for her short term memory fading, she's doing well for her age. Hopefully the long term never goes. No signs of that happening. If anything, I think she talks to me more about things that happened when she was a kid more than she ever did before. It seems like anything that happened more than 5 or so years ago she doesn't have any problems recalling.
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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
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I think I'm probably taking a break today and just enjoying my clean house.
I'm going to wait on tomorrows sale paper to see if there is anything else I'm going to be getting rebates on before sending out the already massive pile I've accumulated over the last few weeks.
I think my next step is to finally extend the two window sills in my living room by adding blocks of wood with countersunk holes screwed into the existing frame and wood putty, so then I can finally start putting up the rest of the window trim and frame out the stairwell and get the living room finished finally.
I've got a guy I want to talk about drawer slides with before I finish the pantry, and I know he's been really busy right now so I don't want to bother him with that yet. That can wait anyhow. I really don't even need those bottom two shelves at the moment and I've been able to get everything clean and organized without them.
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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
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Sounds like a great visit Jack. You are lucky to have living members of your family that old. There are times when I really miss my dad's oldest sister but all his brothers and sisters are gone now and I never knew my grandparents on either side. They all died long before I was born.
Yeah tax time is b&tch no matter where you are. I will soon have to get mine done. And we have on line things up here but I can't be bothered.
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Out for my walk soon.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Sounds like a great visit Jack. You are lucky to have living members of your family that old. There are times when I really miss my dad's oldest sister but all his brothers and sisters are gone now and I never knew my grandparents on either side. They all died long before I was born.
I try to talk to her about old things now when we talk. About what she thought of the world when she was young. She's really my only opportunity to hear about what somebody thought life was like during and right after the Great Depression. I wasted that opportunity with all of my other grandparents.
Quote:
Yeah tax time is b&tch no matter where you are. I will soon have to get mine done. And we have on line things up here but I can't be bothered.
I actually don't mind doing my own. Paper and mail is the way to go, even though they penalize you and hold your return hostage for an extra month or two if you mail it.
When the government allows you to do simple forms and electronically file I'll make a switch. But I'll be damned if I have to sign a 30 page release form full of legalese allowing all sorts of private information to be sold to other companies only to go through a process that is intentionally made difficult enough that many people will just quit and pay somebody to do it for them.
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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Sounds like a great visit Jack. You are lucky to have living members of your family that old. There are times when I really miss my dad's oldest sister but all his brothers and sisters are gone now and I never knew my grandparents on either side. They all died long before I was born.
I try to talk to her about old things now when we talk. About what she thought of the world when she was young. She's really my only opportunity to hear about what somebody thought life was like during and right after the Great Depression. I wasted that opportunity with all of my other grandparents.Quote:
Yeah tax time is b&tch no matter where you are. I will soon have to get mine done. And we have on line things up here but I can't be bothered.
I actually don't mind doing my own. Paper and mail is the way to go, even though they penalize you and hold your return hostage for an extra month or two if you mail it.
When the government allows you to do simple forms and electronically file I'll make a switch. But I'll be damned if I have to sign a 30 page release form full of legalese allowing all sorts of private information to be sold to other companies only to go through a process that is intentionally made difficult enough that many people will just quit and pay somebody to do it for them.
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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
That's good that your are taking the opportunity to talk to her about the way the world was when she was young. I would also suggest you write things down for your niece. This is something you can pass down to your niece.
I learned a little about the world during the Great Depression from my dad and my mum. Maybe even a couple of things from my dad's sister too. That's another reason why I miss my dad and his brothers and sisters.
Well, my brain and numbers. So it is easier for me to get someone to do it and most places e-file nowadays but print you off a copy for record keeping. I like that.
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Back from my walk and I found something that should fix my other shelving problem. Always something to adjust. I just have to get it.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
That's good that your are taking the opportunity to talk to her about the way the world was when she was young. I would also suggest you write things down for your niece. This is something you can pass down to your niece.
That's a great idea. I should do that.
I've been meaning to spend more time at her place. I should make a point of it when the weather gets warmer. She's got about 5 totes full of picutres of people I don't even know from her lifetime. Things that I took great care to save when I was throwing out the hoard that had accumulated in that basement over decades with my uncle and after he passed away. I think she'd get a kick out of going through them, and I could write down things on the back of the pictures.
Quote:
I learned a little about the world during the Great Depression from my dad and my mum. Maybe even a couple of things from my dad's sister too. That's another reason why I miss my dad and his brothers and sisters.
Yeah. Sorry to hear about that. I know when I was younger I didn't place any value on nostalgic things, but as I get older they've become quite a bit more meaningful as people I used to care about aren't around anymore.
Quote:
Well, my brain and numbers. So it is easier for me to get someone to do it and most places e-file nowadays but print you off a copy for record keeping. I like that.
I wonder if Canada makes it easier than it is here in the States. I imagine that they do.
It's insane that with the technology available to us today that filing taxes online is 5 times the ordeal as doing them by hand and making a trip to the post office to mail them in.
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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
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