Pro-Oxidant

On the way to the gym yesterday, Ciege and I had a very funny conversation. We were talking about all of the "hype" about antioxidants and how we have no idea what an oxidant is and why an antioxidant would be good. But these antioxidants sure are getting quite a bit of attention lately. With the way that things change over the years with the hype surrounding nutrition, we can see there being some news story that comes out and tells us that oxidants are good for your diet. So then CJ blurted out that in fact he thinks he might be Pro-Oxidant. It was hilarious and probably a "you've got to be there" moment...but I thought I would share. If the world ever decides that oxidants are good for you, CJ was "Pro-Oxidant" all along. :)

Someone hates Taxes more than us...

Some crazy person (I'm guessing a crazy man) posted these posters all over Boise this last week. I just think this is hilarious. It's bad enough to have to pay taxes. Who has the energy to post these crazy posters too? And who benefits from these posters? I'm guessing this is a guy who is also somewhere right now complaining about the price of gas.

I'm 30!

I had the best 30th birthday ever. I had the day off of work and I spent the day pampering myself at the day spa. I had the best massage! Then Ciege and I went out to lunch. Afterwards, I spent the day at the mall and got some fun new clothes.

Later that evening, Ciege picked me up and took me to my favorite restaurant, Kyoto. I love it because they cook the food at your table so it comes out piping hot. Ciege doesn't like it so much as evidenced by this photo...

Then Ciege took me to PoJo's arcade where we took some photobooth pics. The problem was that it wasn't obvious when the camera was going to be taking the pictures. So the last picture was an attempt at kissing in the booth, but the camera snapped before Ciege leaned over...

And Ciege found a bunch of free credits left in a few games so we played them....

After the trip to the arcade, Ciege and I went over to Nona and Craig's house for some pie and icecream. The family hid a bunch of cute little presents around the house that I had to find. They call them "hide-a-ways". The hideaways were followed by some great cards with some cash inside. I'm going to use that cash to buy an outdoor firepit for the backyard. I love the idea of cooking smores this summer.

Speaking of cards...I got lots of great ones this year. Here's one of my favorite ones compliments of Ciege's Grandpa "Georgia"....

So cute!

And you might be asking...what did Ciege get me for my birthday this year? A trip to Hawaii! I am so excited. We haven't planned the trip specifics yet, but we'll definitely be going for at least 2 weeks and we'll go sometime next January or February. We can't wait!

Betch Your Bottom Dollar

Tuesday evening my Mom gave me an early birthday gift of a night out on the town. We started the evening at Applebees where we enjoyed some yummy spinach dip & chips and some great food. Next we went to the Morrison center to watch the musical, Annie. As we entered the theater, I noticed that there were tons of cute little girls with their Moms all dressed in beautiful little frilly dresses. It was great. It definitely brought me back to the time when I was about eight years old and LOVED orphans, but especially loved Annie. I had a cute little figurine of her wearing her red dress that I took with me everywhere I went.

The musical was a lot of fun and the sets were amazing. I loved seeing the dog who gave a perfect performance and was so cute. On the downside, my Mom was sitting next to a little boy who could not stay in his seat for more than 15 seconds at a time. It was quite distracting. Oh, and then the other thing....
My Mom and I both can't get "The sun will come out tomorrow" out of our heads. Betch your bottom dollar!

Thanks Mom for a great evening. It was such a treat to be able to spend some time with you and to revisit a childhood fav.

Procrastination Pays!

Ok, so we don't like to do taxes. I'm sure everyone else feels this way, but we hate it so much that we always procrastinate it until the day before. Every year we swear that we'll just hire a good accountant, and every year we procrastinate that too.

In February, I entered all of our W2's in our tax software that we use every year, "TaxAct". I found out that we owed nearly $900. That was all I needed to procrastinate this out until the last minute. It isn't that we couldn't pay the tax bill...I just hate the idea of the IRS having our cash any earlier than the deadline.

So I procrastinated and decided that we'd take care of it this weekend. Then the weekend came, and you guessed it, I procrastinated it until tonight. So finally I got myself all frustrated and stressed out and sought to hit the complete button on the tax software. When I was completing the final steps, the software fizzled out with a "servers are down for maintenance" error. I was so STRESSED. Of course this would happen at the last minute.

In an act of utter frustration, I wandered to TurboTax.com. I groaned realizing that we were going to have to pay nearly double to do our taxes. Taxact is cheap, but I knew that TurboTax would not let their servers "go down for maintenance" on such an important tax day. While I frustratingly reentered all of our information, CJ was busy at work cleaning the house and rearranging the pantry.

Long story short, TurboTax helped me find new deductions and we ended up getting a combined federal and state REFUND of $880! My stress turned into pure joy as I realized that instead of paying Uncle Sam this year, he was going to pay me. :) A very stressful tax night ended up turning out really well. Here's to procrastination! This time it really paid off.

Oh, and as a side note....we'll never be using a discount tax software again. Shame on TaxAct for missing all of those deductions and for having website issues the day before taxes are due.

And I thought I would include a picture of our newly clean and organized pantry. CJ has a real knack for organization. The "before" pantry was very disorganized, so I was really appreciative of him taking care of this for us.

No place like home

Phew! I got home on Friday night around midnight from a very long but productive business trip. On the plane ride home I had quite a bumpy ride and ended up getting very motion sick. When I finally got home and got to bed it was a little after 1am and I was so exhausted.

I had previously scheduled a hair appointment early in the morning Saturday and since I get my hair cut only twice a year, it was definitely not a good idea to reschedule. So early Saturday I drug myself to get my haircut and stopped by the grocery store to get a few things. I did a few loads of laundry, unpacked my things, and settled back into being home.

Around 5pm I was dead tired so I fell asleep while CJ was computing and watching "See no evil, hear no evil".

Today has been a pretty relaxing day. CJ worked with some clay projects while I queued up a few episodes of LOST on the laptop. Later we met Sean and Kendra at the discount theater to see "Be Kind, Rewind", which is a funny Jack Black film. It was kind of corny and we had a great time.

Afterwards we went to Jack-in-the-Box for some eggrolls. CJ joked that I am judgemental of the particular JIB's that we were heading to...the one off of Overland. I hate that place and think it is the dirtiest of all of the JIBs. When we got there, we witnessed food spills all over the dining room ceiling and CJ say a guy take a roll of toilet paper out of the bathroom (which required a key to open by the way) and took it out to his car. So my initial assessment of this trashy place was correct and as always, didn't disappoint. But the company more than made up for the atmosphere. We had a great time chatting and laughing with S&K over our eggrolls.

Now we're back at the house, computing, and watching Sunday night television which includes the special Star Wars episode of the Family Guy. CJ has some things to get accomplished for work tomorrow so he is mostly working....and I'm blogging. I just checked an online search of the MLS listings in our old home neighborhood and see that none of the houses in our area sold last month...just us...so I'm feeling very very happy and lucky that we sold in March.

So if I was REALLY ambitious, I would complete our taxes tonight...but I'd really rather procrastinate it at least a day or two more. Ugh! Anyone have a good recommendation of a CPA who isn't busy this time of year?

Away from Home

Right now I am sitting in a hotel room in Minneapolis, Minnesota on a business trip. I am here to give some client presentations on the project I am working on. This is my first time to visit MN, and I can tell you so far... not loving the weather. Here is the view from my hotel room:

Yuck! I think I've been spoiled with the recent beautiful Boise spring weather. Also, I am missing Ciege. I hate being away from him. We spend so much time together that when we're apart I feel like part of me is missing. And whenever I see something funny, it kills me that I can't share it with him. And of course I miss the dog too!

But on a positive note, I really like travel and really like hotels. Whenever I check in the first thing I do is checkout the free shampoos. I LOVE travel sized shampoos. I do not use them. Instead I bring them home and keep them in a container with my collection of other travel shampoos.

The very next thing I do is unpack every piece of clothing and either hang it or put it in the dressers. I really like feeling organized in my hotel room.

Finally, I switch on the TV and enjoy the plethora of channels. We currently don't have cable at home, so one of my favorite things about travelling is a huge selection of channels. And even though I am missing CJ like crazy, I am LOVING being the queen of the remote :)

So I'll be here until late Friday night. Just in time for the weekend! I can't wait to see Ciege and share my fun MN stories...hopefully I have some by the end of this trip.