I've reached out to the tax advocates, they never got back to me. then the shut down happened. I did reach out again, so I guess we'll see?

Well, it's just bell peppers, so I can eat most types of salsa, actually! Because they really use chiles, most of the time I guess?

Brrr, it's chilly! Our house is set to 60 so it's normally around 58, but we have throw blankets everywhere (and even some extra comforters laying around the house!), and we all have lots of fuzzy socks or slippers. And I basically wear my robe or a hoodie all the time when I'm home LOL. Izy has a oodie like thing, those big blanket hoodies? So she wears that a lot at home, and Lily is constantly wearing her robe.

Alex wears two pairs of socks, three pairs of pants, two shirts, a hoodie, another fleece hoodie, and a light jacket to work.. if it's below 20, he'll wear his hunting coat instead of the light jacket LOL. So he's normally still wearing at least two layers when he gets home :P

But my friend won tickets to go see the lights and invited us to go with her (the price is per vehicle), so Alex drove us and we all bundled into the van. It was COLD with the wind at the end though, you park and get out and there's a big light ornament and then a tree to take pictures with, and every car gets a free smores kit. But yikes, that wind was still insane. The weather says 22 but feels like 7 LOL. I don't see anything higher than 32 for the next 10 days at least.

Well like mieke, I don't want to pay for someone to help with my taxes. I've been doing them myself for the past 25 or so years. Used TurboTax most of the time but last year switched to some free thing off the IRS website I got told about. Since turbo tax keeps upping the cost 🫤 And my stuff is usually pretty basic, so I don't mind doing that. I'm just concerned about if enough has been taken from my pay to cover the taxes like it's supposed to. poor mieke had some issue with hers last year....something crazy? I don't remember exactly.

Hope your hands feel better soon. Maybe just do one big thank you forum post to everyone?

Yikes mieke!! That's too cold for me!! I have mine set around 70 and I'm always still pretty cold! I'd be like Alex, in multiple layers at your house!!!

[edit] Jan 1st 8am Happy New Year everyone!! I am working on my quests. And decided to try a new approach to my yearly savings - I created a new shop, that I am ONLY going to put quest reward items in, and I plan to TRY (because I'm sure I'll forget) to keep track of how much sP I earn each day from doing quests (as in, how much sP did I start with, how much did I stop with = sP profit from kumos/from legacy) and see how much I actually earn in a year from doing quests (sP plus item sales!) I have been pretty good the past few years at NOT touching my shop tills so I know I can do that part, its the remembering to write down my sP profits for the quests that I'll forget lol or forget to just do quests at all some days. Either way, it'll better show me what I got for the quests I DO do!

I don't know, mine looks like it's fine, everything adds up.

Though two years ago there was an issue, but that was with the church being slightly shady. They didn't think they were, but uh.. they were. Got that fixed, though.. thankfully! For the entire conference, because our tech person and I went all the way up :P

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone!

Guess its gotten to the point where even taxes aren't certain? Heheheheh. (You know, the line - only thing certain in life is death and taxes, or whatever).

Anyway. I kind of hate when I've finished everything on here already....Which usually only happens on weekends or during school breaks. Eh. And I'm not superstitious or anything, don't really have "traditions" that I follow for New Years - but one that I like to listen to is the "Whatever you do on New Years Day is what you'll do all year" So I am trying my best to be a lazy butt. No dishes, no laundry, no cleaning.... laze around reading, and enjoying myself mostly!! I dont' even want to COOK! I made a frozen pizza for lunch. I MIGHT make broccoli/casserole to go with the leftover beef (Nathan didn't eat at all last night -he was a sleep - and I only had a small amount as my neighbor was over playing games with me). But I don't plan to put a lot of effort into anything LOL

edit: Oops. Accidentally bought this. If anyone wants it, let me know so you can get it from me instead of buying it [item2=Champagnal Feather Vest]

Happy New Years, everyone! May 2026 be healthy, happy, and prosperous for everyone!

Taxes just confuse me, period. That's why I never did them myself. We go to a CPA who would just take his fee out of our tax refund. I hope you both get it cleared up and everything goes well and you get a refund this year. :D

- thats even MORE expensive. (A CPA) while its great to know its done perfectly correctly, and even better, have the security of knowing issues with it won't cause YOU issues, because they're responsible for screw ups - (I assume so anyway) - I still hated losing out $. When I first started using turbo tax - it was like free for federal and $20 for state. And then it went up to around $50 for state and then the last year or two they started charging for federal as well and I said NOPE i'm done with you - but any tax place cost in the hundreds!! So nope Not Going There either!! Then I found out the IRS site has free filing places, even ones that file state for free! So I tried one of those last year. Sure, I may not have the security of knowing that if something screws up I"m not screwed over - but since my returns are VERY basic (I do the standard deduction and pretty much nothing else!! And I only have my W-2 plus the past couple years I've had the college T-99 or whatever it is) - anyway, simple ones rarely get messed up. SO I feel safe enough using that and not worrying. Like I said, for me, its the wondering if enough was taken out of my pay now that I'm "single" and I am not getting a child tax credit or earned income credit for dependants

Last year the school/scholarship thing didn't come until mid-Feb so at least this year I know I need to wait for it. I didn't get that in previous years, but I did last year - no idea why I didn't get it before ? But this year I'll be waiting to file until I get it. Make sure I have all my ducks in a row lol

Just ordered heating oil.. it'll be delivered Thursday. I've been kind of putting it off, but also kind of shocked that it hasn't run out yet, since I last ordered the end of August and it's been a colddddd winter!

But I'm not complaining haha.

Yeah, I used taxact last year because it was free.. though apparently they're getting rid of that for this year, no more free tax preparation for low income households. So back to turbotax, in which I've never had an issue?!

I've never had an issue with turbotax either - other than they keep upping the cost to file. Is the taxact thing from the IRS website? If not, you can try one of those, I haven't heard that the free filing was going away, but I don't watch/listen to news ... so ... I guess I will see whenever I go try to do taxes.

my neighbor has a propane tank. She rarely uses it, likes her windows open, doesn't mind it being chillier (sits under a heated blanket a lot though! LOL) But she uses it when her family comes over or I do, since she doesn't like for US to be cold. I told her if its that expensive for her to refill it, she can come to my house instead of me going over there and her turning on the heat!! (central heat) - she does also have a fireplace space heater in her living room (and one in the spare bedroom her sister uses when she stays over), as well as a small space heater she sets up for me sometimes lol

My stuff is ALL electric. And I am glad of it. Can't imagine having to pay propane/gas whatever for heating or cooking. Eek. Nope. Let me just have my basic electricity please. However, my power bill WAS $180 this past month - even though I do prepaid, it shows me a "Bill" amount and a "Payment" amount - I usualy put $150 a month on the thing.....sometimes I have to add a little extra at the end of the month during winter or summer

yeah, it was from the IRS website.

Uhhh.. we have a small, grill propane tank for our oven and stove. Well actually, we have 3 because I hate going out and exchanging them. They're so heavy!

And then we have heating oil for the actual heat.. hot water baseboard heat.

And our electric bill is more than that already o.O WITHOUT heat! We do have an electric heater in the kitchen downstairs though, because there's no heat in that room and otherwise pipes would freeze. How many kWh do you use a month? Apparently we used 830 in December..

Oh, we are on a payment plan though that kind of averages out your costs, so we've used less than we've been charged the last few months. Because we fixed the well tank pressure pump that was raising our electricity usage A FREAKING TON. So our bill was $140.99 this month. Which is higher than it was in October and November, because we didn't have the heat OR air conditioners on then.. now we've got the heaters running, obviously! No frozen pipes here!

Errr... I dunno? I'm trying to look at some charts on the site and figure it out. Between 600 and 1000 KWH per month I guess? I have a 1280 square foot house. With POOR insulation, the doors aren't even properly sealed closed. I'm constantly shocked I don't lose more heat/air. I try my best to block the gaps.

OMG yes, our insulation is awful too. I just got new door.. stuff.. actually. Though apparently I need more.

The sticky stuff with the fluffy stuff that you stick on the doorframe?

And the windows. Ack LOL. The upstairs windows are "new".. well, they're almost 10 years old now but still. Except the giant picture window. It's kind of like a cave all the time, summer and winter there's the big insulating blackout curtains :P

Well what with the foundation doing whatever its doing (sinking) my doors are out of whack. I've blocked the back door with a piece of wood and covered the gap, but the front door has a huge gap at the bottom that I can't figure out how to block. Right now, Belles lovely new mattress style bed now gets put in front of the door at night to block the gap hahahaha Belle rarely lays on it anyway, she usually sleeps on the couch sigh

Ugh, yeah, that's worse than ours. Though I DO need to put in a new doorframe downstairs.. it seems like it's actually a really big job, though.

I have one of those.. door stopper things in front of that door though, it really helps a crazy amount!

I tried that, a door gap blocker thing that goes under the door - it got smooshed and messed up and didn't work sigh I tried putting a piece of wood on the door frame (bottom) outside like the I did the backdoor but that didn't block the door gap. I'm afraid to put anything taller or we might trip on it. I'm going to look into new under the door gap fillers, but most of them won't work because of the angle the door sits at now sigh

ONE DAY! I will be able to stabilize the floor and relevel the floor and relevel the door! ONE DAY!

Oh, ours is a plush thing full of.. I don't know what. Beans or something? That you push up against the door.

SOMEDAY. I feel you on that someday!

Yep. Someday also includes recarpeting/laminate flooring, as well as a new bathtub, and new kitchen cabinets because once all that gets started, it will all need to be done hahah! I can stablilize the floor w/o doing anything else - but I imagine they'd have to pull up the flooring to do that? Not sure - anyway, the floor NEEDS to be releveled. Its a mess. especially in the front bedroom. Which is weird because there aren't any gaps in the wall/floor even though the floor has OBVIOUSLY sunk. But. To relevel the floor, requires pulling up the flooring on that side of the house, and if I'm doing that, I'm doing the WHOLE house with new flooring. And releveling that side of the house would also require movement of my tub, as well as the kitchen cabinets, and yeah I can't see THOSE being removed w/o damage, so new of those too.

So yea. SOMEDAY includes all of that, plus a new car too! :P lol I am hoping with the upcoming degree/new job/better income that SOMEDAY will come sooner rather than later.

Oooh. I like your plans!

My someday includes new flooring on most of the house.. including the entire downstairs. There's just plain concrete in my bedroom, and bad bad flooring in the den, living room and kitchen.. and the downstairs bathroom is 3 layers of peeling laminate LOL.

Upstairs, the kitchen is just subfloor, so that needs floor.. and cabinets, and to rearrange the gas lines so we can use a gas stove upstairs. Which is really a project. AND the bathroom is the wrong sort of tile AND it's coming up, so that needs new too. And a vanity while we're at it, ours is.. so bad. The sink is gouged, the drawers are gone from the vanity, it's covered in stains and nail polish and whatever from the past 30 years of us LOL.

I think the flooring in the rest of the upstairs is good, though it does need to be sanded down and restained. Anddd.. the sunroom room and walls either need to be fixed, or we just need to take it off and just build a pergola or something over the concrete and make it a little porch. Because right now, that ceiling is probably going to come down (Grandpa and Uncle Roger didn't do a great job on it when they built it. Right now we just use it for storage, and the pantry/2nd fridge and chest freezer are out there).

I'm excited to eventually have a real real kitchen again though.. hopefully!

I would also just LOVE to repaint the house. Its dirty/stained and even with washing, doesn't really look super nice anymore, There are bits and pieces of sheetrock mud that have fallen off corners (again from the unleveled sinking floor issue I believe)...lots of little things that could be fixed but make no sense to fix until the MAIN problem is fixed. The carpeting is 20+ years old (never been replaced since the house was built). And now has some ... lines ... going down the hallway into the livingroom, that I am really UNSURE if are just carpet pads separating from each other or another sinking floor thing.... I honestly REALLY need to pull up the carpeting and find out but I do NOT want to begin something I can't finish and I can't fix it yet so I'm NOT looking :P

I did paint my bedroom wall (just one wall) a pretty yellow to use the yellow paint I TRIED to repaint what was going to be the babys room (that non-existing... NEVER MIND WE WON'T GO THERE) - anyway. I like it. But now the rest of my room looks so dingy LOL

I would LOVE to remove the popcorn ceilings. I'm not sure I'd really like a plain untextured ceiling but I hate when I try to clean the popcorn ceiling and get bits falling off everywhere (like, dusting where the ceiling fans circle around and put dirt on the ceiling! UGH) AND I really wanted to finish painting the kitchen/cabinets. I got MOST of the kitchen walls painted a nice tannish color years ago, and I wanted to do the cabinets and door frame to the laundry area in some darker colors - kind of a hot chocolate vibe goin on there with marshmallow-ish white and dark/light browns LOL I still have the paint sample papers I chose.

Oooh, that does sound nice!

Actually, one of my goals for this year is to FINALLY finish getting the awful half peeled wallpaper off the bathroom and the hallway.. so I can hopefully repaint this summer. Because it hasn't been done.. I don't even know. 30 years, maybe more? LOL

And I want to paint my bedroom! But I need to get it cleaned and more.. stuff gone. But.. hopefully??!!

Thats a good goal for the year !! I think my main goal for home improvement is to finish cutting down all the baby pines on my property. And maybe clearing the graveyard/terrace/property line areas out some more - even though I know they'll just overgrow again in the summer, maybe if I clear them out some now, it wont be as bad next year and just keep working on it? I dunno. I just want to try. But the MAIN goal - get rid of baby pines!! I want NO PINES on my property. I might even cut down the baby pines along the front property line and along the driveway on the neighbors property (she jokingly said go do hers too, so I seriously don't think she would care if I did but I am not going to go all up beside her house, just the driveway along the power lines area and the front ditch area). And I guess to FINISH cleaning up the back house. Its much improved from that junk haul, but still needs cleaning up inside and other stuff sorted through. Plus lots of crap to cut down around it too on the outside.