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Thursday, March 14, 2024

Thriving Thursday Week 11

Happiness, Comfort & Health

  • Woohoo! I walked over 10,000 steps outdoors one day (4.1 miles for this short person) for the first time since foot surgery. I was quite pleased with myself ☺️
  • Pilates trainer is great and it is helping me feel pain free.
  • Saturday we watched our granddaughter’s swim class while visiting with the rest of the family. She came over after and we colored, chatted, ate snacks, walked the dog, and helped her find our houses on a paper map and follow the route we drive between them. Then we and the pup had dinner at their house. The baby has learned to say “hi” so we enjoyed listening to her say “hi,hi,hi!” a lot! This is the kind of time together I was hoping for by moving.

Minding our Money (and the Environment)

  • Taxes e-filed and amount owed paid! It makes me so happy to have our e-filing problems over with and no more mailing of returns.
  • We bought an indoor tv antenna and cut cable TV. Once Sonic goes live in our neighborhood in July we will switch internet to them. We took the easy but more expensive route a year ago when moving as the house was set up for cable already.

Making Home Upkeep Easier (and keeping things repaired) 

  • Weeding one day a week during this rainy season seems to be working. The landscaping redo definitely helped.
  • We learned to bring the balcony chairs in when it is very windy. They were blown over and scraped the house. Hubby used paint left in the garage to fix it.

Emergency Prep Project

  • Added to the car emergency supplies: paper maps free from AAA and 2 reflective vests. Returned the Fix-a-Flat can. It says it has to be kept outside the passenger compartment and we have a hatchback so that won’t work.


Sunday, March 10, 2024

The phone charger is working - slowly

We tried a different cord and it will charge an iPhone slowly. And I was wrong, it is a 12 volt charger. We will keep experimenting and order a charger that is supposed to be fast.

Friday, March 8, 2024

Charging an iPhone in old car? Help!

Another Update: According to Google and Apple I need a 12V charger and ours is 6. Also according to Google car lighters are 12V so we will be ordering a new charger and see what happens. As Mona said in her comment, I have been joking that we should just by a new car with all the current bells and whistles!

Update: I checked to see if my Kindle would charge and it does so it seems only Apple products aren’t charging. Perhaps I need an iPhone specific plug in charger?

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We have an older car with no UBS port so can only use a phone charger plugged into the cigarette lighter as far as I know. The charger we have doesn’t work now that we have iPhones. 

I don’t know if the problem is the charger, lighter connection, or car/phone incompatibility. I suppose we could carry a rechargeable charging pack but that kind of defeats the purpose.

Anyone have recommendations on a lighter plug in charger to try? Any other ideas?

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Thriving Thursday Week 10

Happiness, Comfort & Health

Homemade Pumpkin pecan muffins made with yogurt instead of oil made us both happy and provided a stash for the freezer. Each fall I buy 10 to 12 cans of Trader Joe’s pumpkin while it is in stock as they have a great price. Do love pumpkin muffins!

The pup got his every 2 months bath and haircut. He is so excited to be at the groomer’s that he brought smiles to all the bystanders’ faces as we struggled to get him into their leash and out of his harness while he just wanted to give the groomer kisses. 

And some good news about the flu. Apparently the pandemic made one B flu strain disappear for the past 4 years so it will be dropped from next year’s vaccine which means more doses can be produced as the formula is simpler. That means more doses worldwide. Flu vaccine

Minding our Money (and the Environment)

Balanced the books for February and am quite happy I moved a lot of our savings into CDs while the rates are up.

Entered the data for our taxes using TurboTax. I still need to double check everything and finish. It took me quite a while because selling a house added complexity and required searching for old paperwork. We owe quite a bit as it was Hubby’s first full year receiving Social Security in addition to his pension and I forgot to increase our estimated tax payments. 

Making Home Upkeep Easier (and keeping things in good repair)

Hubby did use Superglue borrowed from our son to fix some cabinet veneer that had come loose in the rarely used 2nd bathroom. Not the best cabinet but it serves its purpose.

Emergency Prep Project

We finally checked emergency supplies we had in our car against a list we made for car breakdowns. A gallon of water plus a few additional things are back in our car and we ordered a small first aid kit, fix a flat canister, & 2 reflective vests. I will type up a list of what is kept in the car and put on the calendar to check batteries and expiration dates as appropriate.

Next step is to plan several evacuation routes. The city has one I need to print out and I ordered local, area, and state paper maps from AAA in case phones aren’t working. 

Then we need to put together Go Bags for each of us and for the dog for if we have a to evacuate quickly for wildfires. After that is adding to our earthquake/power outage/shelter in place supplies especially more water, coverings for broken windows and lighting.

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Tax Return Headaches!

Once again I am doing our taxes myself using TurboTax. Why do I do this to myself 😤

The hardest part was finding the info I needed from purchasing our former house and figuring out what I could enter. Once the return is done I need to go back and make sure I have clear documentation in the file to support what I did.

We are going to owe $$ as it is the first year Hubby had Social Security for a full year and we don’t have taxes withheld but rather pay estimated taxes. I dropped the ball on increasing the estimated payments in all the moving chaos.

So far I have done two 2 hour sessions and now it says it is time to review it. Since I have an headache after each two hour session the review will have to wait for another day! 

We will sit down together and do the review.

Any predictions on whether or not trying to submit electronically will work this time after not working the last 2 years? I’m not holding my breath!

Do you do your own and hire someone?

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Thriving Thursday week 9 - Leap day, Baby rave, & procrastination

How are you spending your extra “leap day” today? We don’t have anything special planned.

Spring has definitely arrived her! The trees are flowering, daffodils are up and the birds are staking out territories. Another colder spell on the way but it is temporary.

Happiness & Health - because these make our lives brighter

The biggest happiness came from having my older son and DIL come to stay for grandbaby’s birthday party weekend. The baby’s parents and big sister had a blast setting up a “baby rave” birthday theme party in their dining room with colored lights synched to the playlist, a big balloon chandelier, lots of light up balls and wands, and good food. The birthday girls had lots of fun with the light up toys and loved her cake. The look on her face as we sang Happy Birthday to her was priceless. 

The road to the party was a bit rocky despite all of us pitching in. The day before as cooking was about to begin a pipe broke under the sink causing a several hour delay. The morning of the party big sister had to be picked up at 5am as she was sick so she spent the party in her bed or the bathroom poor little girl. Then almost all of the baby guests plus some family and friends had to cancel at the last minute due to illness! The party still was a success and fun.

Minding our Money (and the Environment) - saving on or skipping things that don’t matter to us so we can afford the things that do

We pruned the neighbors trees on our side of the fence so there won’t be a problem with homeowners insurance this year. He really needs to take them down or tun them into a hedge but I don’t see him doing that.

Otherwise the same old stuff here along with spending on family visiting for the baby’s birthday and helping with the party expenses as part of our gift. We got here a pile of pajamas in the next size as she needed them.

Making Home Upkeep Easier - so we can spend time on what matters to us

I am trying out focusing on deep cleaning one room or space at a time. This month’s was the kitchen which will also get part or all of March due to all the appliances and cupboards. The dining room though will be quick so it may also get done in March.

Making sure I spend an hour or so each week keeping up with the weeding and any pruning is working well. My hope is that the amount of weeds will decrease each year as the seeds in the soil are used up. The weed barrier is helping a lot. This week the pup got to come out in the backyard with his chew bone for over an hour while I weeded as it was dry enough for him. He was so happy.

Emergency Prep Project - we want to survive and thrive at the worst of times

This was the procrastination area.  I did get hubby signed up for the emergency notification system and updated the dog finder info for his license and microchip.

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Thriving Thursday Week 8

 

A bit of excitement 2 houses up the street as the wind took down a large tree. I was on the other side walking the pup when it made a loud crash. It pulled up the sidewalk but that was all that was hurt thankfully. The family that lives there is out of town.

Another morning I was walking the dog early and for a brief moment there was a full rainbow visible. That did make me smile. 

I had a good amount of time visiting with and helping my son with the baby while DIL and grandgirl went to a friend’s to play in the snow and have other adventures.

My older son and DIL arrive tomorrow to be here for the grandbaby’s first birthday party on Sunday. Always great to have them with us.

My local AAUW chapter meeting had two mystery writers as panelists and since I really love reading mysteries I enjoyed this program a lot.

We received a $2,371 property tax refund based on the assessment reduction for our previous home’s basis. Not sure if it includes the bill I just paid but either way I am happy. Our future property taxes will also be reduced accordingly. This is available to seniors who sell and buy in state. Filing all the paperwork pays off. 



Thriving Thursday Week 11

Happiness, Comfort & Health Woohoo! I walked over 10,000 steps outdoors one day (4.1 miles for this short person) for the first time sin...