Wow, it's been 18 days!

So wow, life is flying. Tax season ended in a rush, as it always seems to and then I expected a bored lull. Instead one of my co-workers accepted a job offer and so a lot of his workload was shifted to me. It's fun. . . and it's not. I have a general idea of what' necessary, but one of the biggest problems that we accountants have is leaving a trail someone else can follow. I find, as I go through files, that the person before me has often done it for several years in a row and knows exactly what needs to be done, so there aren't as many notes and helpful hints as I would like. It usually takes me several hours to figure out what a specific spreadsheet was for and where the numbers came from. The worst is when I come to a piece of information that wasn't there last year. I have to search back through the past records and hope I can find something similar, (even when I have a pretty strong hunch of how it should be taken care of) because many times my hunches are incorrect and I end up getting reamed by my boss.All in all it's been enjoyable. I'm learning.I also have the joy of giving a "training" session on Monday morning. Yes that's right, it's my turn in the

rotation, but as the most junior member of the office I am daunted by the task. What could apply to an office of half audit, half tax that they don't already know, which I can research enough in three days? This should be interesting.

Jason is doing well too. He's started his classes, and despite being a little overwhelmed with the amount of homework that was immediately and continuously assigned he is staying strong and pushing through. He has already found the value of some of the assignments which, at first, seemed worthless. He's enjoying his networking class the most right now, but his computer fundamentals class is also interesting enough that

he'll spend an hour or so explaining the conversion between Hexidecimal and Binary and Decimal systems. :)

The only other minorly exciting thing is that we're house shopping :) We've been at it since shortly after the last post, which doesn't seem like a lot of time now that I count the days. In that time we have looked at about 250 houses through various websites, have physically driven by or entered over 52 homes, and have revisited 1. We have budgeted, re-budgeted, and stared at it with disbelief. I have sent and received more than 200 emails from various banks and from our real estate agent. We have also spent about 50 hoursAlisabeth is struggling with the changes. She's been a lot more whiny this week and pretty much every 35 minute trip from home to preschool is filled with "I don't wanna go to preschool." Once we get there she screams and cries and won't let go of me and the teacher eventually steps in and pries her off of me and then holds her until I drive away. I am assured that as soon as I am out of sight she is fine and happy. I believe it too, because this is what she used to do when we would leave her with a babysitter, but it doesn't make it any easier. It's amazing how well kids can pull at your heartstrings. The preschool is fully equipped with tons of different rooms, playgrounds, toys and fun. They have a great structure and she seems to be really liking her teacher, but I can tell it's hard on her because as soon as she sees me she runs into my arms. Luckily it's only for the three days a week that Jason has class/study.

reviewing, researching, and filling out random paperwork. It's been an eye opening process.

Finally we have exhausted the possibilities within our comfort zone (payment wise) and we've narrowed the search down to 4 homes.

All of them have their good and their bad, but as many of our readers know, that's what makes this decision so important. :)

If you want to look up the details you can always look them up on www.snakerivermls.com using the MLS numbers below.

15th - 1959

MLS 173352

Bed/Bath: 5/1.75

Price: 115K

Sq Ft: 1914

Good: Totally updated, huge backyard, great location

Bad: Only one car garage

Ronglyn - 1955

MLS 170334

Bed/Bath: 4/2.5

Price: 110K

Sq Ft: 2848

Good: Nice backyard, huge garage, good location, custom created in it's day, so the quality is good.

Bad: Never upgraded again.

Ririe - 1917 (with additions later)

MLS 171344

Bed/Bath: 3/2

Price: 95K

Sq Ft: 1284

Good: HUGE backyard, Everything appeared in good repair.

Bad: no garage, long distance from work. Passthrough bedroom.

Lincoln - 1920

MLS 173033

Bed/Bath: 3/1

Price: 90K

Sq Ft: 1957

Good: Large Yards, HUGE garage, nice feel inside.

Bad: Unattached garage, needs work on outside, small bedrooms, no bath upstairs.

Have a favorite?

We're going to visit all of them the same day and see what we see. We can't decide whether the price difference will make up for the additional work that would need(could be) done to the older two homes. Any way we work it we're in a place that will probably do us well for the next phase of our lives.

That's this week's excitement. What have you been up to?

Fast

I asked Jason, as I prepared to update this, what we had done this week. . . I really can't remember it went by so fast.
Tax season is coming to an end. I'm not really all that stressed, so that's not as big of a deal to me as it usually is.
Mixed in with that is the beginning of Jason's first semester as a CIT student. He's got statistics, 2 computer classes and something else. He's excited. Alisabeth too will be shifting focus as she starts her first formal pre-school. . . speaking of, I need to get her shot records over there!

Anyway, we're all excited for the upcoming changes.

I do remember one exciting thing this week. I got to spend a total of nearly 3 hours on the phone with the IRS this week and last. I did a friend's taxes and the IRS came back saying they had changed the refund by almost 3K not in my friend's favor. Needless to say I was outraged! As I got to looking at it and trying to figure out what had happened (because of course they didn't send out the response letter until almost 2 weeks later) I just couldn't figure it out. I tried everything from taking off a kid to reducing income. Nothing could even come close to matching the changes.
So I put it aside and we waited to see what their reasons were. When it came I was even more frustrated and irritated. It's no wonder people have such a hard time with taxes. The description of the "possible" reasons for the changes were completely generic and had absolutely nothing to do with my friend's situation (especially due to the fact that they mentioned Social Security received and my friends are in their 20's).
Anyway I got on the phone with them and after almost 2 painful hours and one hang up I was able to figure out exactly what numbers had changed and by how much. Then the lady "accidentally" hung up on me.
A few days later I finally had the time to call again, this time I used the practitioner's hotline just for us tax folks and my wait time went from 45 minutes to 5 minutes. In no time I was talking to a guy and working on the problem. I think it would have taken a lot less than the 1.5 hrs it did had the gentleman in question ever actually done taxes, but after walking him through the same calculation three times we finally got it figured out. (Yes I had to walk him through his own software after he incorrectly calculated the numbers several times in a row).
And finally in the end he could see exactly what I could see and made the corrections on their side so that my friends will get the rest of their refund.
It was a painful process, but also kind of interesting.
I don't exactly know what flagged the return in the first place, but it was strange indeed. All three credits that my friends qualified for were based on "earned" income which is wages and self-employment and military pay and all of those things, yet for two of the three credits the earned income was changed to be greater than I had claimed and for the last credit it was recalculated to be zero.
For those of you who didn't understand a word of that, I'm sorry, but it was the most fascinatingly frustrating event of the week so I had to share it.

Jason on the other hand hasn't dealt with anything super complicated this week. He broke his new RC car for the fiftieth time and this time it won't drive right so he actually has to wait for the replacement parts he ordered. oooooh, poor boy.

Alisabeth has had a great week too. She's started on her numbers in "school" with Jason and they're on 2. She's really slopping on writing her twos and has to constantly be reminded to slow down, however, when she takes the time her penmanship is very nice. She also does really well at tracing. Nana got her a new tracing book to write in (with a magic marker). She's loving it. The book also includes the spelled out version of the number, so she now knows that two is spelled t w o. She loves to learn. I am constantly amazed by her.
She's also developed a fear this week. We're not exactly sure where it came from. There wasn't a new movie or a change of any kind that we know of, but several times this last week she's woken up calling for me and with genuine fear she thinks she's heard a noise. One time at least I'm fairly sure it was the cat jumping down off her bed. The other time it was right after I had moved a box of toys away from the door where I had tripped on them and I think they may have shifted after I left.
Anyway we say a prayer and talk about how Heavenly Father will keep us safe and take away the fear and then we turned on the light and looked around. She doesn't have a problem after that. Although one night she had elected to sleep on the bottom bunk and after hearing the sound she had decided to move up to the top. Whatever it is, at least she doesn't keep freaking out. This house makes a lot of wierd noises, so I'm sure that doesn't help either. :)

Oh, and we started our garden this week. We picked out peas, cilantro, lettuce, tomatoes and chives? I think that's what it was. Anyway, they're growing well. The tomatoes aren't really interseted in being alive, but the peas are hilariously vigorous. Alisabeth dropped one in the water between the starter soil containers and it actually grew roots and stuck them into it's two nearest neighbors.
Another one actually poked it's own seed out of the ground in it's haste to grow and is now VERY stunted as it tries to catch up to brothers and sisters over 8 inches tall.
We haven't planted the lettuce yet, because we ran out of pots, but we'll get there. All of this is currently in window boxes so we move them to whichever window is getting actual sun.

Not that we've had any this week. Last week we started to warm up and even had a day or two where we could comfortably wear shorts (about 45-50 for those of you in AZ) :)
Then BAM! It starts to rain and quickly drops the temperature until it is snowing. Friday I drove home through a white-out. Not cold enough to freeze thank goodness, but enough to be annoyingly slushy. That mixed with the constant cloud cover means we've been back down at an average temperature of 34 for the past week. Grrrrrr. Oh wait, I mean Brrrrrrrr.

It keeps going. . . and going. . .

Winter is back this morning with an additional inch of snow, just after we cleared the last bit it sent our way. . . ah well, I knew spring was too good to be true.
The following are pictures I think I haven't posted before. If they're re-runs. . . sry.


I wasn't sure if I had included this one, or a similar one before. These are my children's toys. The big one is for the big boy, the little one is for the tiny thing.


Princess dress, the umbrella she purchased for herself, and snow, nothing could make her happy.
The video I'm including is from an email I received at work a few weeks ago . . . at least it was using mattresses and not cardboard boxes.



This is the video from last week: Puzzle Magic. I took two videos, but this one is the cutest. The first one was five minutes before when she still had about 1/2 the sky left to finish.



So one last thing that my little girl did this week: she helped her daddy move some heavy stuff into the basement storage with no complains so she earned enough allowance this week to purchase the next item on her list, a purse. It's brown with a purple/silver design on the sides. It's way cute, but already too small for the many toys she wants to cram inside. :)

As for Jason, he's having a much better week than the last post. He has regained some of the hearing in his ear, though the doctors said it could be a month before it all comes back. We also got the hospital bill. $800!. I was shocked and asked for an itemized bill. Most of the smaller charges were actually more reasonable than I expected for an ER visit, so I didn't fight the room rental charge which was more than 1/2 the cost. I wanted to ask for a copy of their financial statements for last year to calculate the actual cost of a room for 2 hrs, but I stopped myself.
He also talked with his advisor this week, who is a teacher in his new career field. (I love that the guidance comes from people who actually understand the field and goals). Jason was told that he's on track and doing all the right things. The man also knew of the Master's program that Jason is considering and mentioned another within the same school that is also gov't funded. In exchange for 2 years after graduation they pay for all schooling (Master's program) and give a living allowance. So Jason now has a few options to consider. He's excited.
Lastly for him we finally got to an eye doctor now that we're on a vision plan through my work.
He wanted contacts, so now he has to wait for them to order them (because his prescription is right in the middle of the two they stock). I'm excited that we're finally getting his broken glasses replaced. Tape just isn't meant to hold glasses long-term :)

As for me this week was great. Every time I ran out of work I was given a project which required thought and research so I've been enjoying it.
I feel bad for the intern though. He was hired for audit, but they got the audits done in half the normal time this year, so he's been doing tax. Every time he makes a comment to me I can't help but laugh.
"I don't understand check-tapes! I didn't even include this number and it still balances!"
"Um, it should be on there. . . unless there is an overall loss and then it wouldn't be deductible."
"Oh, well there was a loss."
"Well, there ya go, but it should still be on your checktape and then backed off at the bottom as a carry-over to next year."
"oh."
or
"It's so frustrating. The last few returns they've given me I can't finish! I don't understand why they're giving them to me when I can't finish them!"
"Well, actually, that's one of the major reasons for us. As we enter and list what items we're missing it saves the reviewer time and effort and costs the client less in the end. Most clients don't give all their information the first time around."
"Oh"
Listening to him parrot things I said in my first few years I just have to give a shout out to my old boss who patiently explained all of this to me and taught me the process of a normal firm. That's one thing my company doesn't spend very much time doing. They give two days of training and then whatever feedback they deign to mention, but there's so much they don't say or just fix on their own because it's faster. Steve was always very nit-picky and would send things back for minor changes, or would print off the corrections and write notes and put them on my desk. At the time I found it bothersome, but I now understand and am grateful for it.

Amazing

So first I have to gush over my daughter. This week she's done some amazing things.
1) Fully potty trained at night. There was a bit of a fuss over the fact that she can't have a glass of milk at night anymore, or a cup of water, but she actually woke up yesterday and went potty at 4:30 am and then went back to bed.
2)We couldn't find any "challenging" puzzles in her age group - because every one we bought for her she can do in ten minutes flat, so we went to the next age group up . . . 6+
Well we assumed she wouldn't be able to do them, one they were 100,300,500 pieces and two they were a lot smaller than she is used to. Well we were wrong. The day we brought it home she had already done one of the 100 piece ones, the next day she did another one and the third day she started on a 300 piece. Granted she doesn't like to do these ones alone, but all we have to do is sit there and hand her pieces or just talk to her. The second puzzle she did was 1/2 done before I even started helping. (she found all the unicorn pieces and the sky).

She's amazing. The other thing she did which made me all squishy inside was on Sunday at church Jason was using her doodle board to write out words and she was guessing as usual, but then he wrote Mom and she said "mmmmm . . . mom!"
It was cool.

This last week was also my birthday week and it was fabulous. I worked like normal and then on Saturday I stayed home and Jason and alisabeth gave me my presents early. I got two books in a series I've been reading and an Apple/Peeler/Corer/Slicer which I've wanted for a long time. Jason and Alisabeth had a blast with that one while I read :)

Sunday (the actual day) I was invited to dinner by a co-worker and he made us enchiladas and amazing chips and dip and we had a great time. I also learned how and made my first "real" cake with a fondant top and cut out fondant letters/shapes to decorate it with. It was pretty basic, but I was pleased with the results. So we had that after dinner.
They also have a 3 year old son, so Alisabeth and Aiden had a good time playing until they both got tired.
The night ended with a band as we had to be rocked out of the snow because Jason parked on slush which froze back up around the tires. It was great.

Then Monday at work I got a delivery of flowers from my mother and they sat proudly on my desk where everyone in the office could jealously admire them :)
I also got a package in the mail with a new I-pod from my mother and a few computer games.
All in all it was a great week for me.

Jason the other hand has had a pretty lousy one. Besides finding out that we had missed the last gas bill from the Tucson house, and a medical bill for Alisabeth, and a bunch of other financial issues he was sick most of the week. That culminated in an intense ear ache which was bad enough on Sunday that he had a hard time enjoying himself at my party. This morning at about 4:30 he woke me up and we decided that he should go to the ER. The doctor described it "as if a bomb had gone off in his ear."
He was given a shot in the butt of antibiotics, some oral antibiotics, ear drops and off-brand vicodin for the pain.
On top of that we had to get the cats on antibiotics because whatever Baggera brought with him when we adopted him still hasn't gone away so most of our household is currently on drugs. It's great.

I have a few videos and pictures to post, but I need the camera, so that will come later.

This week in reruns.

Can I just say I love doing taxes. I was given the opportunity to help a friend and man it gave me such a sugar high that I can't sleep right now, so you benefit!

I love taxes, but I've found something that tops it...
I love audits.

I am in the middle of my first audit ever. . . mind you I didn't take the audit class in college because I heard they didn't teach you anything except how to read audit reports and I wanted an education in how to be an accountant. . . Poor Spencer, my trainer, and the lead on the project, is teaching me the ropes, but I think I'm catching on. (It helps that unlike tax I'm not expected to know anything, so the phrase I recently coined when Spencer comes to talk to me is "start at stupid and go from there.").
We get up every morning in order to drive the 1 hour to Blackfoot where we spend 11 hours pouring over, through, and around the books of a company to make sure they're documenting, billing and recording correctly. It is THE PERFECT job for someone who just really needs to be beyond type A. In life I spend hours creating excel spreadsheets which give me statistical and analytical data which I use in a variety of ways. At work I now play with spreadsheets which were specifically created the same way. I pour through files and data logs, generate "random" samples of work-types and categories and then I put it all together in an understandable and cohesive package so that anyone could read and understand whether or not the company is doing what it should be. How perfect is this job for me??
The down side? I still have to deal with people who don't truly have a clue what they're doing, but this was a great first experience. This company has no clue, but they're generally happy to listen to us explain it and once they understand they most often agree. I did have the controller tell me there was no way we were getting what we wanted in one situation, but it turned out to be a moot point because the million dollars worth of expenses had been put into a different category than usual and really weren't an issue after all.
As for Jason and Alisabeth they are thriving as well. She's happy as a lark every day and Jason has got a routine that keeps them both alive and smiling. He's been amazingly supportive of my 12 hour days and has done everything and more to ease my stress levels while I'm at home. Plus he listens to my insanely long stories about what I did at work.
Lastly, Jason and Alisabeth met me in IF yesterday so that Alisabeth could use her hard-earned allowance to purchase her princess dress.
I was terribly worried because unlike Tucson we don't have a "Disney" store here. I thought about going to Walmart and getting one of their dress up outfits, but I knew what she was looking for and that wasn't it, so we headed to the mall.
Inside we headed straight for the department stores (with a few detours to look at the play areas and toys).
She went straight in and Jason led her over to the toddler section where the dresses were on sale and within her price range. I looked in the children's dresses and gasped in surprise. There was a whole section devoted to "Cinderella" brand dresses and they were also the requested color. So after trying on a size 4T dress which fit snugly I convinced the complaining and not understanding child to come and look at the bigger-bigger dresses. Finally she agreed with a sulk to try on this one:

It was also on sale. . .
I've decided not to comment on parents who spoil their children for a while.
She's happy as a lark, as seen in the fact that she posed for about 20 minutes in it. I think we're going to bring them both to Boise with us this weekend and let the girls dress up and be princesses. I know Alisabeth will love it and I'm pretty sure Paige will too.
So guess what size this dress is. . .
You'll notice the bottom is folded under, but it's only folded about 1.5 inches. . .




Come on, take a guess. . .




Size 7. Yes, my 3 year old daughter fits almost perfectly into a size 7 dress. Yes it's tall, and yes when the bow is tight in the back it gathers slightly, but seriously, this is just wrong. (There were no dresses between the 4T and the 7, so my choice was big or wearable for 6 months or less. . . I chose big.)

I hope your coming week is as awesome as mine was.

So cute it deserved it's own post

As requested

I was reminded that I haven't posted a picture of our little angel in a while, so here are a few of the ones Jason has sent me at work.



We had a good week. I'm starting to get back into the swing of life. My co-workers are great and I'm really enjoying it. The other day we went out to lunch and I was in my high heeled boots and worried about the 3 inches of ice. Gallantly, our intern Matt took up a defensive position nearby in case I slipped so that I wouldn't land on my butt. That's just an example of the great people I'm surrounded with. If we're not laughing and joking we're working together perfectly. I love it.
School for Jason is still on hold. Even though they said they would have a decision in 6 weeks it has been 2 months and they still haven't had a chance to even look at his application. He's frustrated, but honestly it's not as though he was going to start any time soon. The earliest is April anyway so we're just trying to be patient. In the meantime he's researching and preparing contacts for several agencies he wants to work for when we get out of school. He's set his sights high and knows he's in for a challenge, but we're confident that he can do it.
We figure if he can start talking to the recruiters when he's done with his first semester that will give him plenty of time to shift class focuses to where the jobs want him to be + it will get his name in the ears of potential employers when the time comes for internships and final employment. We're doing a lot more research this time around and I have a feeling it will pay off in the end.
He's also adjusting well to being a stay-at-home dad. They've gotten in a good routine including an hour of pre-school a day. He makes up a sheet of letters and words and she traces them, then they sound out the words and then go on a treasure hunt around the house for things that start with the day's letter. When she's done she gets a giant star or some other shape on her page to say she's done an excellent job. She loves it.
The other day he made up the sheet while she was eating breakfast then left the room for about 10 minutes. When he came back she had finished breakfast and moved to the other table and was tracing her letters.
We also got to go to a birthday party today. It was at a pizza place with a HUGE play room for the kids. It was the birthday of my co-worker Spencer's newly adopted son. He just turned 3. There were a ton of relatives and friends there to support him and it was great to see. Alisabeth had a blast with the 3 level climbing gym. The arcade was cool too, but she got bored pretty fast with the train that didn't go anywhere. I was glad we were invited to go.
The other thing we got to do this week is Bountiful Baskets again!! We ended up having to drive to Idaho Falls to get one though because all 3 Rexburg sites were filled by the time we signed up Tuesday morning. Guess they go fast. (Don't listen to this next sentence) I wish I were still a stay-at-home mom because I would be totally willing to open up another Rexburg site. If they're filling up that fast I'm sure the demand is high enough for another site.
Anyway, we're excited. Relief Society had a food storage activity and I volunteered to make polk-a-dot soup which is lentils and carrots. It turned out really well and I enjoyed it a lot. They also had a mexican lentil dish that was awesome. It just made me aware again of how much is out there that we're not using. This woman who was teaching worked for a few years to develop a "densely nutritious" meal plan which she calls A Dollar a Day for 30 days. She has literally gone to stores, priced things out and based on nutrition and daily needs has formulated 3 meals a day for under $1. That means our monthly food budget could be $120. The food and recipes have a lot of flavor too, which I was surprised about. She talked about all of the foods on the shopping list and why she chose them and how to store/keep them and life expectancies and all kinds of information. It went so far over time it was laughable, but most of us were ready and willing for me. (I was one of the only ones who brought my child, so for me and the other mothers it was a bit long, but I was still VERY interested to learn what she knew.)
All in all it's been a great start. We're happy in our home, getting used to our roles, preparing for our future and enjoying the present as much as we can.