The Room.
Our big room over the garage that we've been building for the past three or so years is finished! The inspector signed it off yesterday afternnon. The only restriction is: "Not to be used for dwelling or living space." No problem. It's an exercise, hobby and craft room, not living space. Who would want to live in a room without running water, anyway?
Yesterday was spent moving stuff from our house and out of the storage unit into the big room. What a job! The HUGE electric treadmill, our Gazelle exercise machine, a large dresser (used for my wrapping center - it holds bows, ribbons, tape, scissors, etc.), two huge bookcases, a tall stereo cabinets and all stereo parts, and boxes and boxes and boxes of paper, punches, cutters and other scrapbooking materials, plus more boxes and boxes of material, ribbons, thread, etc. have all been moved up into the room. Oh, and did I mention boxes of games and jigsaw puzzles? Those are all up there, too, along with all the glass and glass-working tools for the five foot high, two and half foot wide stained glass picture I started making years ago that is still unfinished....
Oh! I forgot to move up the glass light box and the two boards used for soldering the glass pieces together, as well as all the boards and metal pieces to put the big metal shelving units together that will hold boxes and games and puzzles and other things. I haven't moved up the craft books yet, either. Those are still in the house in the library. Freeing up those shelves will allow me to put the books piled up on the floor in the hallway upstairs into the downstairs library. MORE moving of stuff! YUK! I hate moving stuff!
Anyway, I'm THRILLED that we will finally be able to start using the room. Yay! When we got the treadmill up there (it's been in storage, along with all the rest of this stuff, for six LONG years) I immediately stepped on it to try it out. It didn't work! My heart sunk. Then I remembered. Duh. It has a plastic "key" that has to be inserted before it will run. I inserted the key. Nothing. Pfffth! It still didn't work. I called to my husband, "Terry! The treadmill doesn't work."
He zoomed up the stairs and stepped on it. Nothing.
"Uh, Honey, you have to use the key to turn it on."
He inserted the key. Nothing. He blew on the key and into the keyhole. A massive cloud of dust puffed out. He reinserted the key. Success! We have a working treadmill again. Now if I can just force myself to USE it. I'm really out of practice. Six years is long time, plenty long enough to form "other" habits that have nothing to do with exercising.
The Trailer.
Of course, I won't be using it too long anyway before we head down to Arizona to our SnowBird trailer for the remainder of the winter. We sent off the title to the trailer to the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division to get it changed into our name. We should get the new title back in a week or so. Then I'll really feel like the trailer is ours. I'm glad to know they have a computer center at the RV park where our trailer is located. That means we won't have to worry about being without internet service until we can get our own installed down there.
The Story.
Yesterday I got the sad news that two more publishers rejected my WWII POW story. They just don't seem to know what to do with it. That's what happens when you write something that doesn't fit into a nice, neat "mold" like most stories. It takes a special editor who can really think "outside the box" before you get one that says, "I LOVE this and want to publish it!"
This morning I was still sad about the rejections and when I woke up at five, my head was spinning with ideas of how to MAKE someone want to buy it. The conclusion I finally came to was: there's no way to make a publisher or editor want to publish a story. All you can do is write the story in such a way that someone feels they absolutely have to publish it. So... I think I'm going to rewrite the story in a new way. One that doesn't take much of an illustrator. I may even self-publish it with scrapbooked "picture" pages. If I do this, I'll be putting out a call for illustrators to send samples of their work if they would like to work with me on this project. IF it comes down to this, I'll be letting illustrators know what I'm doing on my website. The request will be in the Illustrator section of the message board. If you are an illustrator, you might want to watch that part of the message board in a month or so if you are interested in sending some of your work for consideration. DO NOT SEND ANYTHING NOW. If this happens, I'll be sending instructions of what kinds of illustrations I'll be looking for and will send detailed information for the sample illustrations. I want all the samples to be of the same subjects, so I can compare "apples to apples" and not try to evaluate apples against fire hydrants. :-)
Hopefully, my agent will be able to find just the right editor before this ever has to happen. Time will tell. I'm probably have a better idea of what to do in another month or so.
Meantime, I'm headed outside to start putting the Big Room together. There's boxes and furniture EVERYWHERE in the room right now! And I might even walk on the treadmill for a few minutes. Woot!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
Snowbirds, Move Over!
Wow. My hubby and I are about to join the ranks of official Snowbirds. We purchased a little (turned out to be a tiny bit bigger than I first thought - 28x8 instead of 24x8 - yay!) trailer in a wonderful RV Resort Park (Suni-Sands) down in Yuma, Arizona. We'll be living there during the coldest months of the year, coming back to Washington (east side of the state - just two miles from Idaho) for the hot Arizona summers and the rest of the year. So this winter we will become Snowbirds. :-) We are really looking forward to exploring our new home away from home next month when we go down to see it for the first time in person.
We bought it off of Craig's List via the internet for a fraction of the price we thought we'd have to pay for a place down there. And the space rent in the RV park is extremely reasonable - just over $200 a month. That includes water and garbage and all the park amenities - swimming pool, hot tub, showers, rest rooms, clubhouse, horseshoes, shuffleboard, computer center, planned activities, and (we won't use this one) a golf practice cage. Since we have Snowbird friends that are already down there, they went and checked out the trailer and the park for us in person. They were VERY impressed with the park, the area, and the people that were both managing the park and living in it that they met while they were there. They said the bathroom is horribly small, but since the park has shower and bathroom facilities available to people staying in it, we aren't too worried about that. If it turns out it's truly impossibly small, we'll look around for something bigger while we are there, sell off one of our rental houses up in Washington, and buy a bigger place later. The main thing is, we have a place to stay right now when we want to go down there.
(Does a happy dance.)
Our cats, both purebred Himalayans with very thick, long-hair, won't be as thrilled as Terry and I, but hey! They will adapt. It's not like we'll be there in the hot summer months, after all.
I've been burning up the internet this past week, purchasing lots of fun art supplies for my great grandson. He's nearly 14 months old now, and is already learning to draw pictures with the new chalk I bought him. We all laughed heartily when we discovered he isn't interested in using the pink chalk.
I handed him different colors to use on the paper. "Here's blue, Bryan." He drew a few lines with the blue chalk. "Here's green." Draw, scribble, scratch. "Here's pink." Bryan took the pink chalk, glared at it for a fraction of a second, dropped it, and reached for another color. "Here's yellow." Draw, scribble, scratch. We all laughed. The next day, we did it again. Same exact thing happened, except this time he wouldn't even take the pink chalk. He batted my hand away and reached for the blue. LOL! Not even 14 months old and he's very opinionated already. He's a "chip off the old block" for sure. What a delight it is having this little guy in our lives. :-)
I'm making a big chalkboard wall area for him in the Hobby/Exercise/Craft room we are finishing building out in the garage. He will have lots of fun with it. I also got him a full set of poster paints, nice fat brushes made for little fingers, and a set of companion no-spill paint pots for the paint, as well as paper. (He's not spoiled by his great grandma and grandpa or anything....) LOL!
Today we are driving to the city to pick up a Little Tikes picnic table for him to use in the Big Room for his craft projects. I found the table on Craig's List, of course. :-) It's just $20, which is a very good price for a quality table like that. Oh... his smock and finger paints should be arriving any day now. Then he will really be "set." I've already cooked up a batch of homemade clay that is similar to PlayDoh and he loves to poke his fingers in it, smash it with his hand, and grab chunks of it and attempt to squish it on everything in the house. He has already learned he has to keep it in the cookie sheet pan I put on the floor for it or Great Grandma will take it away from him and put it back up, and he also knows already that it doesn't taste too good. It's far too salty for him to want to eat it. :-)
Here's the recipe I use for this homemade clay. I love it and so does he!
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 cup water w/food coloring (or if you want smaller amounts of different colors, add food coloring after the clay is cooked. Just be sure to mix it WELL if you do it this way so the food coloring doesn't get all over their hands when children are playing with it.)
1 tablespoon oil (or a bit less if you want it less "greasy")
2 teaspoons cream of tarter
Mix well in a medium sized sauce pan, cook and stir contantly over medium heat until it leaves the sides of the pot and forms a ball. Remove from pan and knead well for a minute or two to thoroughly mix the clay so it has no lumps. Put into airtight containers and it's ready for use.
P.S. Empty Betty Crocker frosting plastic containers are a perfect size to store it in. The lids fit tightly and come off very easily when you want to get it out of the containers.
Now we just need to finish the Big Room over the garage to put all the art stuff in. The electrical is finally ready for the final inspection. Hooray! I'm so happy! Once we get it, and have the doors installed (downstairs one is hung, we just need the two upstairs doors now) and the trimwork is cut and nailed into place around the doors and the downstairs windows, we'll be ready for the final inspection and we can start moving things into the rooms and using them. Yay!
I bought a cute little looks-like-a-tiny-black-metal-wood-firebox electric heater for the upstairs room. We have another old freestanding electric heater for the downstairs shop, so can have heat on cold days. Of course, now we won't be here during the coldest months of the year, so we won't have to worry about heating it except in the fall and spring.
Well, it's time to get moving. I have to call and see if the electrical inspector is coming today or not. If he is, that will determine what time (or even IF) we can leave to go to the city today. Have a good day, everyone.
We bought it off of Craig's List via the internet for a fraction of the price we thought we'd have to pay for a place down there. And the space rent in the RV park is extremely reasonable - just over $200 a month. That includes water and garbage and all the park amenities - swimming pool, hot tub, showers, rest rooms, clubhouse, horseshoes, shuffleboard, computer center, planned activities, and (we won't use this one) a golf practice cage. Since we have Snowbird friends that are already down there, they went and checked out the trailer and the park for us in person. They were VERY impressed with the park, the area, and the people that were both managing the park and living in it that they met while they were there. They said the bathroom is horribly small, but since the park has shower and bathroom facilities available to people staying in it, we aren't too worried about that. If it turns out it's truly impossibly small, we'll look around for something bigger while we are there, sell off one of our rental houses up in Washington, and buy a bigger place later. The main thing is, we have a place to stay right now when we want to go down there.
(Does a happy dance.)
Our cats, both purebred Himalayans with very thick, long-hair, won't be as thrilled as Terry and I, but hey! They will adapt. It's not like we'll be there in the hot summer months, after all.
I've been burning up the internet this past week, purchasing lots of fun art supplies for my great grandson. He's nearly 14 months old now, and is already learning to draw pictures with the new chalk I bought him. We all laughed heartily when we discovered he isn't interested in using the pink chalk.
I handed him different colors to use on the paper. "Here's blue, Bryan." He drew a few lines with the blue chalk. "Here's green." Draw, scribble, scratch. "Here's pink." Bryan took the pink chalk, glared at it for a fraction of a second, dropped it, and reached for another color. "Here's yellow." Draw, scribble, scratch. We all laughed. The next day, we did it again. Same exact thing happened, except this time he wouldn't even take the pink chalk. He batted my hand away and reached for the blue. LOL! Not even 14 months old and he's very opinionated already. He's a "chip off the old block" for sure. What a delight it is having this little guy in our lives. :-)
I'm making a big chalkboard wall area for him in the Hobby/Exercise/Craft room we are finishing building out in the garage. He will have lots of fun with it. I also got him a full set of poster paints, nice fat brushes made for little fingers, and a set of companion no-spill paint pots for the paint, as well as paper. (He's not spoiled by his great grandma and grandpa or anything....) LOL!
Today we are driving to the city to pick up a Little Tikes picnic table for him to use in the Big Room for his craft projects. I found the table on Craig's List, of course. :-) It's just $20, which is a very good price for a quality table like that. Oh... his smock and finger paints should be arriving any day now. Then he will really be "set." I've already cooked up a batch of homemade clay that is similar to PlayDoh and he loves to poke his fingers in it, smash it with his hand, and grab chunks of it and attempt to squish it on everything in the house. He has already learned he has to keep it in the cookie sheet pan I put on the floor for it or Great Grandma will take it away from him and put it back up, and he also knows already that it doesn't taste too good. It's far too salty for him to want to eat it. :-)
Here's the recipe I use for this homemade clay. I love it and so does he!
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 cup water w/food coloring (or if you want smaller amounts of different colors, add food coloring after the clay is cooked. Just be sure to mix it WELL if you do it this way so the food coloring doesn't get all over their hands when children are playing with it.)
1 tablespoon oil (or a bit less if you want it less "greasy")
2 teaspoons cream of tarter
Mix well in a medium sized sauce pan, cook and stir contantly over medium heat until it leaves the sides of the pot and forms a ball. Remove from pan and knead well for a minute or two to thoroughly mix the clay so it has no lumps. Put into airtight containers and it's ready for use.
P.S. Empty Betty Crocker frosting plastic containers are a perfect size to store it in. The lids fit tightly and come off very easily when you want to get it out of the containers.
Now we just need to finish the Big Room over the garage to put all the art stuff in. The electrical is finally ready for the final inspection. Hooray! I'm so happy! Once we get it, and have the doors installed (downstairs one is hung, we just need the two upstairs doors now) and the trimwork is cut and nailed into place around the doors and the downstairs windows, we'll be ready for the final inspection and we can start moving things into the rooms and using them. Yay!
I bought a cute little looks-like-a-tiny-black-metal-wood-firebox electric heater for the upstairs room. We have another old freestanding electric heater for the downstairs shop, so can have heat on cold days. Of course, now we won't be here during the coldest months of the year, so we won't have to worry about heating it except in the fall and spring.
Well, it's time to get moving. I have to call and see if the electrical inspector is coming today or not. If he is, that will determine what time (or even IF) we can leave to go to the city today. Have a good day, everyone.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Only Registered Blog Users...and Moving Stuff
Because an anonymous person posted links on my last blog entry taking readers to a nude photo website, I had to change the comments setting of this blog to allow only registered bloggers to be able to post comments here. I hated to do it, but I'm sure all of you will understand. Many thanks to everyone else who posts responsibly here.
Life is slowly getting back to normal over here. The hysteria of my domain name expiring is slowly fading into the woodwork, the room out back might even see some progress again in a day or two, and I'm actually doing "writing things!" tomorrow. Hooray! I have a gal coming to my house to share a manuscript with me. I'm excited to see what she's done with it, as I critiqued it at our local SCBWI conference in September and it had great potential. It will be fun to see what she has done with it since then.
Hopefully, I'll be able to get my living and dining room cleaned up enough so she can A) walk into the house without severe risk of falling, tripping or getting stuck somewhere and B) clear off a space large enough on the dining room table so she can lay down her manuscript and we can work together on it. Also, it would be nice if the kitchen sink was at least partially visible... and if there was a clear path to the bathroom, too. (At least I know the bathroom isn't piled up with stuff!
The garbage cans from under the sink are still in the middle of the kitchen, waiting for the sliding garbage can holder to be reinstalled under the sink. I wanted to make sure nothing was leaking after we installed the new faucet to replace the old one which broke the other day before I reinstalled the garbage container holder. Nothing is leaking.
I would have put the holder back in today, but I found this incredibly great bargain on Craig's List... and we had to make a trip to the other side of the city (an hour and half from us) to pick up a trailer load of bedroom furniture. Then when we got back, we needed to move the bed, frame, mattress set, and a nightstand out of the upstairs guest room to make room for the new bed, frame, two nightstands, and a much heavier mattress set into the guest bedroom. (One of our granddaughters got the old bed. She is thrilled, as she's been sleeping on a mattress on the floor. And of course that had to be delivered to her house and set up in her room.)
Two great dressers came with the set we bought, and one of them has been carried upstairs into our bedroom and it is now housing my winter sweaters, jammies, and warm underwear which used to be heaped in a pile on the floor where the new dresser is now sitting. The other dresser is still in pieces (drawers and dresser separately scattered around) all over the living room. Hubby has to make room on his side of the room for it so it can house all of my shorts, bathing suits, and summer sleeveless tops which are in boxes and heaps on top of my old dresser. What a novel idea that I might be able to actually SEE a dresser in my room!
Naturally, the other new dresser is also for me. Hubby doesn't need it. I do. Ha! After all, he has one nightstand and one tall wardrobe type dresser for his clothes. That's all he needs except for his hanging clothes in his slightly-smaller-than-mine closet. :-)
I almost feel like we moved today! I detest moving! I'm glad it's almost over except for that last dresser. I'm sure we won't get it moved before the lady comes tomorrow to have me look at her manuscript. I wonder what she'd say if I suggested we sit out in the car for the critique session? LOL! I know I'll let her in. I just hope I'm not totally embarrassed by what she sees when she walks in the door.
However, it always helps to put things in perspective when you think about how bad things could REALLY be. One of the families in our little town just lost their son in an accident last night. He would have been 18 today. Such a tragedy for all of them. Hearing about their loss sure put my "problems" into proper perspective. Minor, minor, minor. Life is always full of challenges. I'm just glad to know the ones I'm facing tomorrow are simple and non-life-shattering ones.
Here's hoping all of you reading this have an incredibly wonderful day today. Life is precious and we only get one time through it. Happy reading, writing, living, and loving to all of you.
Life is slowly getting back to normal over here. The hysteria of my domain name expiring is slowly fading into the woodwork, the room out back might even see some progress again in a day or two, and I'm actually doing "writing things!" tomorrow. Hooray! I have a gal coming to my house to share a manuscript with me. I'm excited to see what she's done with it, as I critiqued it at our local SCBWI conference in September and it had great potential. It will be fun to see what she has done with it since then.
Hopefully, I'll be able to get my living and dining room cleaned up enough so she can A) walk into the house without severe risk of falling, tripping or getting stuck somewhere and B) clear off a space large enough on the dining room table so she can lay down her manuscript and we can work together on it. Also, it would be nice if the kitchen sink was at least partially visible... and if there was a clear path to the bathroom, too. (At least I know the bathroom isn't piled up with stuff!
The garbage cans from under the sink are still in the middle of the kitchen, waiting for the sliding garbage can holder to be reinstalled under the sink. I wanted to make sure nothing was leaking after we installed the new faucet to replace the old one which broke the other day before I reinstalled the garbage container holder. Nothing is leaking.
I would have put the holder back in today, but I found this incredibly great bargain on Craig's List... and we had to make a trip to the other side of the city (an hour and half from us) to pick up a trailer load of bedroom furniture. Then when we got back, we needed to move the bed, frame, mattress set, and a nightstand out of the upstairs guest room to make room for the new bed, frame, two nightstands, and a much heavier mattress set into the guest bedroom. (One of our granddaughters got the old bed. She is thrilled, as she's been sleeping on a mattress on the floor. And of course that had to be delivered to her house and set up in her room.)
Two great dressers came with the set we bought, and one of them has been carried upstairs into our bedroom and it is now housing my winter sweaters, jammies, and warm underwear which used to be heaped in a pile on the floor where the new dresser is now sitting. The other dresser is still in pieces (drawers and dresser separately scattered around) all over the living room. Hubby has to make room on his side of the room for it so it can house all of my shorts, bathing suits, and summer sleeveless tops which are in boxes and heaps on top of my old dresser. What a novel idea that I might be able to actually SEE a dresser in my room!
Naturally, the other new dresser is also for me. Hubby doesn't need it. I do. Ha! After all, he has one nightstand and one tall wardrobe type dresser for his clothes. That's all he needs except for his hanging clothes in his slightly-smaller-than-mine closet. :-)
I almost feel like we moved today! I detest moving! I'm glad it's almost over except for that last dresser. I'm sure we won't get it moved before the lady comes tomorrow to have me look at her manuscript. I wonder what she'd say if I suggested we sit out in the car for the critique session? LOL! I know I'll let her in. I just hope I'm not totally embarrassed by what she sees when she walks in the door.
However, it always helps to put things in perspective when you think about how bad things could REALLY be. One of the families in our little town just lost their son in an accident last night. He would have been 18 today. Such a tragedy for all of them. Hearing about their loss sure put my "problems" into proper perspective. Minor, minor, minor. Life is always full of challenges. I'm just glad to know the ones I'm facing tomorrow are simple and non-life-shattering ones.
Here's hoping all of you reading this have an incredibly wonderful day today. Life is precious and we only get one time through it. Happy reading, writing, living, and loving to all of you.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
VerlaKay.com website and Message Board Update
Sorry about all the mess today, folks. I blogged about it and also posted some messages on Facebook and Twitter since I was unable to get onto the message board all day -- until JUST now! Whew, is right!
My VerlaKay.com domain name expired due to a collection of errors. It was set to automatically renew, but unfortunately when you buy the domain name for ten years, it's pretty easy to forget to update the credit card information ten years later so it's not an expired card being charged! And it didn't help that I'd changed providers and they were sending messages to an old email account that no longer exists....
When I went into the account (when I finally FOUND the account!) to renew the domain, I nearly had a heart attack. IT HAD ALREADY BEEN RENEWED BY SOMEONE! With my heart pounding and adrenalin blasting through my body, I tried to log into my website provider's website to see what was happening with my domain. I couldn't log in!
PANIC! After a couple of abortive tries I got logged in and discovered someone else had paid for my domain name using PayPal. WHO? WHY? I could still access my domain information, but I COULD NOT OPEN MY SITE ON ANY BROWSER OR ON ANY COMPUTER IN MY HOUSE. PANIC! WHY? All I could get was a message saying my domain name had expired. Later in the day, the page changed and said "A New Page" was being created. PANIC!
All these hours I was on the phone with tech people trying to figure out what was going on. I paid for another nine years to make sure I'd get the site back after whoever had paid for one year had his/her "takeover" expire, but I still didn't know what was going on. The domain "appeared" to still be in my name, but I COULD NOT GET ONTO THE SITE, no matter what I did! My local provider spent hours with me. They couldn't figure out what happened or how to fix it. I spent hours with online support on the computer with my website provider trying to figure out what had happened and how to fix it. In desperation, I changed the IP to a "static" one, as we thought whoever had paid for the website had put some kind of block on my IP. NOTHING WORKED.
My son called from Colorado. He'd seen my desperate pleas on FaceBook and/or Twitter and tried to help me. He's a super computer techy... but even he was stumped! Here's what we finally figured out at the end of the evening (and a VERY long day!)... The domain name DID expire. Someone (possibly one of you!) saw that it had expired, and he jumped in and paid for another year so some evil person couldn't grab it and mess us all up. (THANK YOU,
CARL!) He sent me an email... but I didn't find or see it. I still haven't seen it. I DID get his second message to me tonight, which is how I finally learned what happened.
Because the domain had expired, the browsers needed to "update" their information after the renewal had been paid. That can take up to 24 hours. In the meantime, that horrible "Domain Expired" message kept showing up. When I changed the IP to a static one from a shared one, it caused the site to go down again for a period of time. That's when the "A new page is being created" message showed up. Just a few minutes ago, I was finally able to access the site again. All of you should be able to get onto it again by tomorrow at the latest.
I'm posting this same message over on my Blog, so anyone who can't get in here will be able to read this tonight.
Thanks for your patience, everyone. This has been a pretty rotten day on my end, too! It seems like almost everything I touched turned to
today! The final straw was when I walked into the kitchen an hour ago and put my hand on the faucet to turn on the water and rinse out a glass. The handle just fell off into my hand as I touched it. The faucet is totally Kaput! Gone. Broken. My super he-can-fix-ANYTHING hubby can't even fix it. It's not been the best day for me. I think I should have stayed in bed and never gotten up! 
I'm just thankful things are getting back to normal. (Except for the kitchen faucet, of course. We'll have to buy a new one tomorrow.)
Happy Halloween?
My VerlaKay.com domain name expired due to a collection of errors. It was set to automatically renew, but unfortunately when you buy the domain name for ten years, it's pretty easy to forget to update the credit card information ten years later so it's not an expired card being charged! And it didn't help that I'd changed providers and they were sending messages to an old email account that no longer exists....
When I went into the account (when I finally FOUND the account!) to renew the domain, I nearly had a heart attack. IT HAD ALREADY BEEN RENEWED BY SOMEONE! With my heart pounding and adrenalin blasting through my body, I tried to log into my website provider's website to see what was happening with my domain. I couldn't log in!
PANIC! After a couple of abortive tries I got logged in and discovered someone else had paid for my domain name using PayPal. WHO? WHY? I could still access my domain information, but I COULD NOT OPEN MY SITE ON ANY BROWSER OR ON ANY COMPUTER IN MY HOUSE. PANIC! WHY? All I could get was a message saying my domain name had expired. Later in the day, the page changed and said "A New Page" was being created. PANIC!All these hours I was on the phone with tech people trying to figure out what was going on. I paid for another nine years to make sure I'd get the site back after whoever had paid for one year had his/her "takeover" expire, but I still didn't know what was going on. The domain "appeared" to still be in my name, but I COULD NOT GET ONTO THE SITE, no matter what I did! My local provider spent hours with me. They couldn't figure out what happened or how to fix it. I spent hours with online support on the computer with my website provider trying to figure out what had happened and how to fix it. In desperation, I changed the IP to a "static" one, as we thought whoever had paid for the website had put some kind of block on my IP. NOTHING WORKED.
My son called from Colorado. He'd seen my desperate pleas on FaceBook and/or Twitter and tried to help me. He's a super computer techy... but even he was stumped! Here's what we finally figured out at the end of the evening (and a VERY long day!)... The domain name DID expire. Someone (possibly one of you!) saw that it had expired, and he jumped in and paid for another year so some evil person couldn't grab it and mess us all up. (THANK YOU,
CARL!) He sent me an email... but I didn't find or see it. I still haven't seen it. I DID get his second message to me tonight, which is how I finally learned what happened.Because the domain had expired, the browsers needed to "update" their information after the renewal had been paid. That can take up to 24 hours. In the meantime, that horrible "Domain Expired" message kept showing up. When I changed the IP to a static one from a shared one, it caused the site to go down again for a period of time. That's when the "A new page is being created" message showed up. Just a few minutes ago, I was finally able to access the site again. All of you should be able to get onto it again by tomorrow at the latest.
I'm posting this same message over on my Blog, so anyone who can't get in here will be able to read this tonight.
Thanks for your patience, everyone. This has been a pretty rotten day on my end, too! It seems like almost everything I touched turned to
today! The final straw was when I walked into the kitchen an hour ago and put my hand on the faucet to turn on the water and rinse out a glass. The handle just fell off into my hand as I touched it. The faucet is totally Kaput! Gone. Broken. My super he-can-fix-ANYTHING hubby can't even fix it. It's not been the best day for me. I think I should have stayed in bed and never gotten up! I'm just thankful things are getting back to normal. (Except for the kitchen faucet, of course. We'll have to buy a new one tomorrow.)
Happy Halloween?
VerlaKay.com website and Message Board
There have been some issues with my website and message board today and I've spent the past umpteen hours trying to resolve the issues.
Here's what I know:
Apparently my website domain name expired because the renewal notices were going into an old, no-longer-accessible email account and I didn't get them.
When I went to the domain renewal site - I got a message saying the website domain had already been renewed. It was paid by an email account via PayPal that I didn't recognize. I haven't a clue what is going on there! I had the account set up to automatically renew, but why would it renew with someone else's PayPal account instead of mine?
When I went to my domain information, I was able to log in okay, and paid for another 9 years - until 2019. BUT... I can't access my site. I'm still being routed to the "domain has expired" page.
Here's what I don't know:
I've tried contacting my service provider. They can't help me. I've tried contacting my website hosting service. They can't help me. The last I was told was that it might be a router problem. Why would a router problem "suddenly" occur at the same time as my domain name expiration? It doesn't make sense....
I'm told that other people can get onto the site now, as well as the message board. But I can't access it at all. It's totally weird! It's totally frustrating! (insert 200 smilies beating heads violently on computer desktops)
At this point, I have no clue how to resolve this issue. I'm going downstairs and take my three zillion pills for this horrible cough and swollen thumb (totally unrelated but both very annoying) and then I guess I'll get on the phone with the router people and see if they can help me. So far, NOTHING has done any good. I just keep getting transferred to that Domain Expired page no matter what I do.
I cleared my browser cache several times. I reset the entire browser. I tried a different browser. I turned off the computer several times and restarted it. I reset the DNS in the guts of my computer -- whatever that is. I tried going directly to the port address. I have tried EVERYTHING I can think of. I can NOT get my website pages or message board to come up. I tried my husband's computer, and our spare computer. They both have the same problem, so it's obviously something outside of my computer itself, which means it is probably either a problem with my provider or with the router.
Hopefully, the rest of you are able to access the pages. I certainly can't!
If anyone out there is a computer whiz and can give me any help in how I can get my computers to access my site again... it would be greatly appreciated.
Here's what I know:
Apparently my website domain name expired because the renewal notices were going into an old, no-longer-accessible email account and I didn't get them.
When I went to the domain renewal site - I got a message saying the website domain had already been renewed. It was paid by an email account via PayPal that I didn't recognize. I haven't a clue what is going on there! I had the account set up to automatically renew, but why would it renew with someone else's PayPal account instead of mine?
When I went to my domain information, I was able to log in okay, and paid for another 9 years - until 2019. BUT... I can't access my site. I'm still being routed to the "domain has expired" page.
Here's what I don't know:
I've tried contacting my service provider. They can't help me. I've tried contacting my website hosting service. They can't help me. The last I was told was that it might be a router problem. Why would a router problem "suddenly" occur at the same time as my domain name expiration? It doesn't make sense....
I'm told that other people can get onto the site now, as well as the message board. But I can't access it at all. It's totally weird! It's totally frustrating! (insert 200 smilies beating heads violently on computer desktops)
At this point, I have no clue how to resolve this issue. I'm going downstairs and take my three zillion pills for this horrible cough and swollen thumb (totally unrelated but both very annoying) and then I guess I'll get on the phone with the router people and see if they can help me. So far, NOTHING has done any good. I just keep getting transferred to that Domain Expired page no matter what I do.
I cleared my browser cache several times. I reset the entire browser. I tried a different browser. I turned off the computer several times and restarted it. I reset the DNS in the guts of my computer -- whatever that is. I tried going directly to the port address. I have tried EVERYTHING I can think of. I can NOT get my website pages or message board to come up. I tried my husband's computer, and our spare computer. They both have the same problem, so it's obviously something outside of my computer itself, which means it is probably either a problem with my provider or with the router.
Hopefully, the rest of you are able to access the pages. I certainly can't!
If anyone out there is a computer whiz and can give me any help in how I can get my computers to access my site again... it would be greatly appreciated.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Whatever Happened to the Pony Express?
My next book, "Whatever Happened to the Pony Express?" will be coming out in summer of May 13, 2010 and I just got the F&Gs for it! (For anyone who doesn't know what those are, they are the actual printed pages of a picture book - not yet bound.) So I can sit down now and read my story from start to finish and see all of the finished artwork with it. It's... wonderful! I'm so thrilled with it.
This book is different from any other I've written, in that it has two complete story lines running through it -- one in rhyme and the other in prose. The rhyming story tells the history of the rise and fall of the pony express and the prose story follows two families, a sister (Prudence Snodgrass) and her brother (Thomas Wilson) as they send letters, messages and telegrams back and forth to each other from Pennsylvania to California in the mid to late 1800s using the different methods of mail/message delivery available during that time in history.
I couldn't get my scanner to work (since upgrading to the newest operating system, my computer no longer recognizes the scanner - SCREECH!) so I took a photo of the cover. The art is great! I'm so very happy with it. This book was written about 11 years ago and finally sold a few years ago. It's been a long time coming. :-)
This book is different from any other I've written, in that it has two complete story lines running through it -- one in rhyme and the other in prose. The rhyming story tells the history of the rise and fall of the pony express and the prose story follows two families, a sister (Prudence Snodgrass) and her brother (Thomas Wilson) as they send letters, messages and telegrams back and forth to each other from Pennsylvania to California in the mid to late 1800s using the different methods of mail/message delivery available during that time in history.
I couldn't get my scanner to work (since upgrading to the newest operating system, my computer no longer recognizes the scanner - SCREECH!) so I took a photo of the cover. The art is great! I'm so very happy with it. This book was written about 11 years ago and finally sold a few years ago. It's been a long time coming. :-)
This book is available right now to pre-order via Amazon. Yay! And now I know when it's being released, too -- May 13, 2010. Hooray!
http://www.amazon.com/Whatever-Happened-Pony-Express-Verla/dp/0399244832/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_9 ------------ Whatever Happened to the Pony Express? (Hardcover) ~ Verla Kay (Author), Barry Root (Illustrator), Kimberly Bulcken Root (Illustrator) List Price: $16.99 Price: $11.55 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details You Save: $5.44 (32%) Pre-order Price Guarantee. Learn more. This title will be released on May 13, 2010. Pre-order now! Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available. -------
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The End is in Sight! The End is NOT in Sight!
The end of the construction project in the garage (three years of it) is finally winding down to a point where we can see the end coming. Hooray!
The floor is done in the upstairs room except for trim boards and edgings. Both upstairs and downstairs rooms are painted. (There's still an area outside the downstairs room that needs paint, but I'm hoping to get that done today.) The wallpaper is up on both of the end walls of the upstairs hobby/craft walls. (Now being called The Big Room or The Rumpus Room by us.) All of the trim boards have been painted except the baseboards, which are 16 feet long and need to be cut to size before they are painted. The window trim boards are cut to size, painted and ready to install. The finish electrical is well on its way to completion, with all of the lights installed upstairs (one fan light still has to be balanced) and half of the outlets are installed and ready to use. The other half will hopefully get done today, then we start on the downstairs electrical.
All that's left to complete the downstairs shop is window trim and electrical. It won't have baseboards or doors right now. It will be open into the garage for a while. Until the cold weather hits, then my hubby will start yelling, "It's too cold to work in here!" and then he will close it up. LOL! He should do it while it's still not too cold outside... but I know him well. Most likely he'll wait and then I'll have to listen to him complain about working outside in the freezing cold.
I'm so eager to move my treadmill and gazelle and other exercise equipment out of storage. They've been stored for SIX LONG YEARS now. I wonder if they will even still work? I do hope so! We won't know what to do without a storage unit anymore. Wow. It will be... like cutting off an arm. Of course the storage unit fees staying in our pockets will be a nice bonus..... The end is indeed in sight. And what a welcome sight it will be!
On the writing front, the end is not in sight. Still not a peep from anyone on my WWII POW story. I keep hoping for That Phone Call from my agent that says, "X publisher LOVES your story and wants to publish it!" But so far... nothing but crickets. "Chirp, chirp, chirp... silence." Sigh.
Once The Big Room is done, maybe I can get back to writing again. That would be a novel and exciting experience.... :-)
The floor is done in the upstairs room except for trim boards and edgings. Both upstairs and downstairs rooms are painted. (There's still an area outside the downstairs room that needs paint, but I'm hoping to get that done today.) The wallpaper is up on both of the end walls of the upstairs hobby/craft walls. (Now being called The Big Room or The Rumpus Room by us.) All of the trim boards have been painted except the baseboards, which are 16 feet long and need to be cut to size before they are painted. The window trim boards are cut to size, painted and ready to install. The finish electrical is well on its way to completion, with all of the lights installed upstairs (one fan light still has to be balanced) and half of the outlets are installed and ready to use. The other half will hopefully get done today, then we start on the downstairs electrical.
All that's left to complete the downstairs shop is window trim and electrical. It won't have baseboards or doors right now. It will be open into the garage for a while. Until the cold weather hits, then my hubby will start yelling, "It's too cold to work in here!" and then he will close it up. LOL! He should do it while it's still not too cold outside... but I know him well. Most likely he'll wait and then I'll have to listen to him complain about working outside in the freezing cold.
I'm so eager to move my treadmill and gazelle and other exercise equipment out of storage. They've been stored for SIX LONG YEARS now. I wonder if they will even still work? I do hope so! We won't know what to do without a storage unit anymore. Wow. It will be... like cutting off an arm. Of course the storage unit fees staying in our pockets will be a nice bonus..... The end is indeed in sight. And what a welcome sight it will be!
On the writing front, the end is not in sight. Still not a peep from anyone on my WWII POW story. I keep hoping for That Phone Call from my agent that says, "X publisher LOVES your story and wants to publish it!" But so far... nothing but crickets. "Chirp, chirp, chirp... silence." Sigh.
Once The Big Room is done, maybe I can get back to writing again. That would be a novel and exciting experience.... :-)
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
WIP (Work In Progress) Follow-up & Construction News
I've been wondering and wondering what is going on with my WWII POW submission that my agent sent out. Two of the places have had it for two months now without a peep from the editors. Got an update from my agent yesterday and one still hasn't responded at all, the other is probably going to pass on it. There's a third editor who has only had it for a week or so, so we don't expect to hear from her for a while yet.
Why is waiting so darned hard? It's the "not knowing what's happening" that drives me up the wall. If I just KNEW what they were doing with my submission, it would be so much easier to wait. Are they looking at it? Is it still in a pile and they haven't even glanced at it yet? Are they excited about it and showing it around the office? Did they hate it so much they don't even want to return it -- because they don't want anyone else to *have* to read it? What? What? What ARE they doing?
(Insert smiley pulling hair out by the roots here.)
In the meantime, while I'm waiting, I'm working on completing the upstairs hobby/craft/exercise/guest room over our garage. Yesterday I got the primer totally painted on the walls and ceilings. Yay! (Yes, I did say ceilings - plural. This is a "double bay" attic room over the garage and there's a cathedral ceiling on each bay of the room.) Next is the paint and wallpaper on two of the end walls, then flooring, finish electrical and baseboards and trim around the windows. Then the room will be done and ready to move into. Yeah! I can hardly wait to get all my sewing and scrapbooking stuff out of storage. It's been stored for nearly six years now! It will be like Christmas. I'm sure I don't even remember half of what I have stored. :-)
Why is waiting so darned hard? It's the "not knowing what's happening" that drives me up the wall. If I just KNEW what they were doing with my submission, it would be so much easier to wait. Are they looking at it? Is it still in a pile and they haven't even glanced at it yet? Are they excited about it and showing it around the office? Did they hate it so much they don't even want to return it -- because they don't want anyone else to *have* to read it? What? What? What ARE they doing?
(Insert smiley pulling hair out by the roots here.)
In the meantime, while I'm waiting, I'm working on completing the upstairs hobby/craft/exercise/guest room over our garage. Yesterday I got the primer totally painted on the walls and ceilings. Yay! (Yes, I did say ceilings - plural. This is a "double bay" attic room over the garage and there's a cathedral ceiling on each bay of the room.) Next is the paint and wallpaper on two of the end walls, then flooring, finish electrical and baseboards and trim around the windows. Then the room will be done and ready to move into. Yeah! I can hardly wait to get all my sewing and scrapbooking stuff out of storage. It's been stored for nearly six years now! It will be like Christmas. I'm sure I don't even remember half of what I have stored. :-)
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Cake Decorator Week
This week I'm a cake decorator. My granddaughter's birthday was on the 20th and my great grandson's birthday was on the 23rd. His party is being held tomorrow, and I was privileged enough to be allowed to make his birthday cake for the party. Yay!
Here's the cake I made for him. It's homemade carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, topped with a whipped cream frosting and the decorations are made with butter cream frosting. YUM! I'm very proud of it!
Hopefully, I'll live through the party tomorrow afternoon. There's so much yet to do. It will take the rest of the night just to clean the mess in the kitchen from all the frostings and cake decorating! LOL! And I still have to clean up the deck (where she plans to hold the party under the big awning) and of course the downstairs has to be clean enough for people to get in to use the rest room....
Tonight we have four overnighters, just to add to the mix. It has been a very busy week. I love birthday celebrations, though, so it's all worth it.
Hopefully, I'll live through the party tomorrow afternoon. There's so much yet to do. It will take the rest of the night just to clean the mess in the kitchen from all the frostings and cake decorating! LOL! And I still have to clean up the deck (where she plans to hold the party under the big awning) and of course the downstairs has to be clean enough for people to get in to use the rest room....
Tonight we have four overnighters, just to add to the mix. It has been a very busy week. I love birthday celebrations, though, so it's all worth it.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
WIP (Work In Progress) Breakthrough, 2008 Taxes & Pirate Talk Day
The local SCBWI yearly conference day took place last Saturday and I came home tired and elated. In 1989 I started a young adult novel. It took me the better part of eighteen years to finish it. (I'm obviously not very fast at writing novels.) I was SO proud of it! I sent it to my agent. It came back... with a giant NO. She didn't feel it had any place in today's market. The characters weren't engaging enough. It just "wouldn't make it" in today's market. She didn't believe she could sell it so she wouldn't send it out.
WAH!
So for the past two years it has been sitting in my computer. Unloved. Unlooked-at. Uncared-for. Basically, dead.
But at the conference I was listening to Terry Trueman talk about how he started his novels and a giant lightbulb exploded in my brain. Suddenly I knew what was wrong with my novel. It was my main character. She was made of cardboard. Readers couldn't "feel" her anguish, her pain, her joys. They could read about her, but they weren't involved in her life in that vital way that would make them really care about her. They needed to care so much that they would laugh with her, feel her elation when things went right and cry with her over her woes. And sitting there listening to Terry talk, her voice jumped into my head and I started scribbling a new beginning paragraph for my novel. It worked! At every break, in between everything, I continued to scribble. The bones of a first new chapter formed. it worked! The bones of a new third chapter formed (the book switches POV -point of view- every chapter from her story to his story and then back to hers). It will work with serious revisions.
But that poses an entirely new problem. I have a whole novel to rewrite. (Well, at least half of one. Every other chapter....) At this point, I'm looking at my age and the time it took to finish this book the first time. I may or may not have another eighteen years to spend on this book. I mean, I'm getting OLD, ya know? *pulls out sixty more gray hairs*
Perhaps I need someone to push me daily on this. I know my favorite YA (young adult) writer of my acquaintance is Linda Joy Singleton and over the years I've watched her write and get published dozens of series novels. She does it by writing a little EVERY DAY on her books. One at a time. A few pages a day. Almost EVERY day. And in a matter of several months, she has a book. She revises as she goes, but she moves her stories forward every single day.
One step at a time. That's the key. Can I be that disciplined? Can I do that? I don't know. I'm a pretty unscheduled person. Linda writes every morning for several hours. Every day. Me? I'm all over the place. I don't have a specific writing time. I don't do anything the same two days in a row even. I'm more like a spoonful of water dropped into a sizzling hot frying pan coated with oil. I explode and splatter all over the place - on a daily basis.
My novel is calling to me right now. But the deadline for our extended 2008 taxes is looming and crushing me, too. And frankly, the taxes have priority. They HAVE to be done. I'd almost rather cut off both arms and legs than do taxes. Almost. Every year I swear I will be more organized the next year and every year it's the same thing. Missing bank statements. Missing credit card statements. Nothing where it needs to be. Papers flung in boxes and scattered on shelves and tucked into odd corners, into strangely labeled or not labeled at all files and folders. It would be so simple if I were more organized. I can be a whiz at organizing some things. But paperwork? Bills? Receipts? The second I get my hands on them they disappear, not to be seen again for eight or ten years.
It's like I have a hole in my brain. Paper goes into hand, brain takes over and subconsciously says, "Oh, goodie! A paper. An IMPORTANT paper. Where can she put this so it will be impossible to find? Under that big atlas that she never, ever looks at? Great. It should take her at least six years to find it there." And my evil body immediately walks over to the atlas, with my brain totally unconnected to it so I'll never remember where the paper went, and my hand lifts the book, puts the paper under it "for safekeeping" so it won't blow away when a door or window is opened, and that's the last I see of that important paper for years.
Later, at tax time, when I'm searching for that paper, lifting the atlas and looking under it is the last place I think of. So the paper is unable to be found, and I pay more taxes that year than I should. It's a foregone conclusion. It happens every year. I spend days and months hunting for missing papers, most of which are eventually found before the tax papers are all taken to my tax guy, but a few that are not found until years later. Literally years.
This year, while searching for 2008 tax papers I found some important missing receipts from 2005. Great. I put them into a folder marked... 2005 Tax Receipts Not Yet Deducted. If I ever get audited for that year, I'll have more deductions to add into the mix. That habit did save me from paying anything extra one year when I was audited. I just pulled out my "not yet deducted" file and actually ended up owing less taxes for that year. Of course the auditor just looked at them and said, "Oh. I see. Well, we'll just call it even then." If I'd been smart, I'd have made her pay me the extra refund, but I was just so happy to come out of it owing nothing, that I said, "Okay," and let her leave.
Just a note for the uninitiated. That tax auditor was sneaky. VERY sneaky. She kept saying things like, "Wow! You have a wonderful sense for business. You should start a business of your own."
I looked at her like she was totally insane and slowly said, "I DO have a business of my own. You are auditing it right now." Later I realized she had been trying to trick me into saying yes so she could say my business was really a hobby and then she could discount all my business expenses and make me pay a zillion dollars more in taxes and penalties. Since deep down inside it was a business to me, not a hobby, her trick didn't work. But that's when I realized how sneaky she was being. And it scared me. One wrong word and I would have been "toast." I'm not eager to be a tax auditor's toast. Not at all. And I'm sure she wouldn't have been buttered toast. :-)
Hmmm. I'd like to continue procrastinating to avoid those taxes, but it looks like the time has finally arrived to dig in and work on them some more. Think of me today and please send good thoughts my way. My mood will be foul. I will snap at anyone who comes near me. (Perhaps that's why my husband has already gone out to the garage to putter around out there? After 44 years of marriage he knows better than to be in the house when I'm working on taxes!) I'd get a huge bowl of M&Ms and put them on the table to give me strength while I do the taxes, but my diabetes numbers won't allow me to eat candy like that anymore. *sob*
So it's clothing (I need to get dressed first) and then breakfast and then the dreaded TAXES. Wouldn't it be great if I could actually finish getting them together for my tax guy today? That would be... wonderful. Yeah. It would be VERY good. Wish me luck! Here I go....
Blub, blub, blub...BLURP! I'm sinking....
Oh... and did everyone know that today is Pirate Talk Day? Yarr! I loves talking like me piratey character (Ramboetta on Midnight Ocean) in the Puzzle Pirates game on line. I play it often and LOVE the games. No slash and slay in this game. Just fun tetris-type puzzles. Lots of them! Yarr! Billions of Blistering Blue Barnacles, Yo Ho Ho and six bottles of Rum and all that to ye.
P.S. I'd MUCH rather be playing Puzzle Pirates than doing taxes!
WAH!
So for the past two years it has been sitting in my computer. Unloved. Unlooked-at. Uncared-for. Basically, dead.
But at the conference I was listening to Terry Trueman talk about how he started his novels and a giant lightbulb exploded in my brain. Suddenly I knew what was wrong with my novel. It was my main character. She was made of cardboard. Readers couldn't "feel" her anguish, her pain, her joys. They could read about her, but they weren't involved in her life in that vital way that would make them really care about her. They needed to care so much that they would laugh with her, feel her elation when things went right and cry with her over her woes. And sitting there listening to Terry talk, her voice jumped into my head and I started scribbling a new beginning paragraph for my novel. It worked! At every break, in between everything, I continued to scribble. The bones of a first new chapter formed. it worked! The bones of a new third chapter formed (the book switches POV -point of view- every chapter from her story to his story and then back to hers). It will work with serious revisions.
But that poses an entirely new problem. I have a whole novel to rewrite. (Well, at least half of one. Every other chapter....) At this point, I'm looking at my age and the time it took to finish this book the first time. I may or may not have another eighteen years to spend on this book. I mean, I'm getting OLD, ya know? *pulls out sixty more gray hairs*
Perhaps I need someone to push me daily on this. I know my favorite YA (young adult) writer of my acquaintance is Linda Joy Singleton and over the years I've watched her write and get published dozens of series novels. She does it by writing a little EVERY DAY on her books. One at a time. A few pages a day. Almost EVERY day. And in a matter of several months, she has a book. She revises as she goes, but she moves her stories forward every single day.
One step at a time. That's the key. Can I be that disciplined? Can I do that? I don't know. I'm a pretty unscheduled person. Linda writes every morning for several hours. Every day. Me? I'm all over the place. I don't have a specific writing time. I don't do anything the same two days in a row even. I'm more like a spoonful of water dropped into a sizzling hot frying pan coated with oil. I explode and splatter all over the place - on a daily basis.
My novel is calling to me right now. But the deadline for our extended 2008 taxes is looming and crushing me, too. And frankly, the taxes have priority. They HAVE to be done. I'd almost rather cut off both arms and legs than do taxes. Almost. Every year I swear I will be more organized the next year and every year it's the same thing. Missing bank statements. Missing credit card statements. Nothing where it needs to be. Papers flung in boxes and scattered on shelves and tucked into odd corners, into strangely labeled or not labeled at all files and folders. It would be so simple if I were more organized. I can be a whiz at organizing some things. But paperwork? Bills? Receipts? The second I get my hands on them they disappear, not to be seen again for eight or ten years.
It's like I have a hole in my brain. Paper goes into hand, brain takes over and subconsciously says, "Oh, goodie! A paper. An IMPORTANT paper. Where can she put this so it will be impossible to find? Under that big atlas that she never, ever looks at? Great. It should take her at least six years to find it there." And my evil body immediately walks over to the atlas, with my brain totally unconnected to it so I'll never remember where the paper went, and my hand lifts the book, puts the paper under it "for safekeeping" so it won't blow away when a door or window is opened, and that's the last I see of that important paper for years.
Later, at tax time, when I'm searching for that paper, lifting the atlas and looking under it is the last place I think of. So the paper is unable to be found, and I pay more taxes that year than I should. It's a foregone conclusion. It happens every year. I spend days and months hunting for missing papers, most of which are eventually found before the tax papers are all taken to my tax guy, but a few that are not found until years later. Literally years.
This year, while searching for 2008 tax papers I found some important missing receipts from 2005. Great. I put them into a folder marked... 2005 Tax Receipts Not Yet Deducted. If I ever get audited for that year, I'll have more deductions to add into the mix. That habit did save me from paying anything extra one year when I was audited. I just pulled out my "not yet deducted" file and actually ended up owing less taxes for that year. Of course the auditor just looked at them and said, "Oh. I see. Well, we'll just call it even then." If I'd been smart, I'd have made her pay me the extra refund, but I was just so happy to come out of it owing nothing, that I said, "Okay," and let her leave.
Just a note for the uninitiated. That tax auditor was sneaky. VERY sneaky. She kept saying things like, "Wow! You have a wonderful sense for business. You should start a business of your own."
I looked at her like she was totally insane and slowly said, "I DO have a business of my own. You are auditing it right now." Later I realized she had been trying to trick me into saying yes so she could say my business was really a hobby and then she could discount all my business expenses and make me pay a zillion dollars more in taxes and penalties. Since deep down inside it was a business to me, not a hobby, her trick didn't work. But that's when I realized how sneaky she was being. And it scared me. One wrong word and I would have been "toast." I'm not eager to be a tax auditor's toast. Not at all. And I'm sure she wouldn't have been buttered toast. :-)
Hmmm. I'd like to continue procrastinating to avoid those taxes, but it looks like the time has finally arrived to dig in and work on them some more. Think of me today and please send good thoughts my way. My mood will be foul. I will snap at anyone who comes near me. (Perhaps that's why my husband has already gone out to the garage to putter around out there? After 44 years of marriage he knows better than to be in the house when I'm working on taxes!) I'd get a huge bowl of M&Ms and put them on the table to give me strength while I do the taxes, but my diabetes numbers won't allow me to eat candy like that anymore. *sob*
So it's clothing (I need to get dressed first) and then breakfast and then the dreaded TAXES. Wouldn't it be great if I could actually finish getting them together for my tax guy today? That would be... wonderful. Yeah. It would be VERY good. Wish me luck! Here I go....
Blub, blub, blub...BLURP! I'm sinking....
Oh... and did everyone know that today is Pirate Talk Day? Yarr! I loves talking like me piratey character (Ramboetta on Midnight Ocean) in the Puzzle Pirates game on line. I play it often and LOVE the games. No slash and slay in this game. Just fun tetris-type puzzles. Lots of them! Yarr! Billions of Blistering Blue Barnacles, Yo Ho Ho and six bottles of Rum and all that to ye.
P.S. I'd MUCH rather be playing Puzzle Pirates than doing taxes!
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