In the true spirit of Mundane Mondays, I'm going to go ahead and put the blog about our most excellent weekend on hold to discuss something awesome: Taxes. Aren't taxes great? I love paying large sums of money all year for stuff. I don't really know what stuff, but I'm sure it's all great.
Since I didn't have class tonight (my professor was in Philadelphia for some orientation thing), I thought I better take the opportunity to be productive. Last year I did my taxes on the first Monday of February. At that point all the "important tax documents" had come in the mail. I also had a free rental code for Redbox and really wanted to rent Zombieland starring Jesse Eisenberg. Fast forward to today. It's the first Monday in February. I had all of the necessary "important tax documents." And I had a free rental code for Redbox and really wanted to rent the Social Network starring Jesse Eisenberg. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a new first Monday of February tradition!
Seriously though, I do like to get my taxes done early. There are two main reasons for this: 1) The longer I put off doing taxes the more likely I could lose some of the "important tax documents" that come in the mail and 2) It's always nice having already received and saved a refund when April rolls around. I did not say spend the refund. In my mind, any refund received is money to be saved. My first year out of college I ended up receiving something like a $60 federal refund. In all the past years of my life I'd received a HUGE $400 refund (it was huge at the time). I'd always spent it right away on an iPod or a Playstation. That first year out of college, I couldn't wait to get my refund. I had already spent it in my head. I was going to buy an Xbox360. Then the refund came about, and after paying to file it, I couldn't even afford one videogame, let alone a console (also lovely: my state refund that year was $15, with a $14.95 charge for filing).
I decided right then I probably shouldn't just assume I'm going to get a refund. I now take the approach that I'm going to receive nothing (possibly even pay), and if I get something great...it's going into savings. The money will eventually get spent or invested, but I'm no longer going to make a knee jerk reaction and spend it just because I had it. Nowhere be a rich man who spends impulsively.
I spent two and a half hours doing taxes. It shouldn't have taken me this long, but somewhere there was a discrepancy. I won't go into detail, but let's just say I almost punished myself for the myriad of medical expenses we've had this year (the baby stuff ain't cheap) by making it look like I was stealing from our HSA (Health Savings Account) and not actually spending the money on appropriate medical expenses. Whoops.
The good news is TaxAct.com (the software I use) has a very easy site to navigate. It also helps you compare last year's return with this year's. This helped me discover my discrepancy tonight. If you haven't already picked a tax return website, that's the one I'd recommend. It gets easier every year too because they keep your previous returns on the site, thus you don't have to input redundant information every year. I should probably email those guys and let them know I plugged them on this website. I should get some sort of referral bonus.
For those of you sitting by your computer expecting vacation blogging, my apologies. I'd recommend you go rent the Social Network or Zombieland if you are in need for entertainment. They are both really great movies to watch and do your taxes to.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Tardy Slip: The Events of this Super Weekend Will Bowl You Over
We have done a lot this weekend. We want to write about a lot from this weekend. We even have pictures. Unfortunately, we are in a hotel room with bad (very bad) internet reception (seriously, it's awful...like the worst ever) so we're going to put this small post here now, then update it tomorrow with the actual happenings of the weekend.
I'm sure you are asking yourself, "Why don't you just post tomorrow and not write this posting you're writing right now?" and that's fine. You can ask yourself that. I wouldn't make a habit of asking yourself questions about what other people do though. Psychologists have debated the motivations of humans for years and there is still no consensus. You might think you have a leg up on your psychological evaluating because you actually know us, but you probably don't have any real advantage. I know I don't understand all of my friends. Especially Ian. He's my good friend from high school. He lives in Texas. So do two of our other friends: Barb and Dan, and guys, Texas is AWFUL. Why would anyone live there? No one knows, yet so many people live in Texas.
Seriously though, it's late and you probably shouldn't be making decisions right now. If you're honestly thinking that you should quit your job and become a psychoanalyst, you shouldn't. I mean, maybe you should. It might be your passion, and you might really love it. All I ask is you hold off on doing so right this second. Get some sleep, and maybe think about it a bit more tomorrow. Okay? Okay.
I'm sure you are asking yourself, "Why don't you just post tomorrow and not write this posting you're writing right now?" and that's fine. You can ask yourself that. I wouldn't make a habit of asking yourself questions about what other people do though. Psychologists have debated the motivations of humans for years and there is still no consensus. You might think you have a leg up on your psychological evaluating because you actually know us, but you probably don't have any real advantage. I know I don't understand all of my friends. Especially Ian. He's my good friend from high school. He lives in Texas. So do two of our other friends: Barb and Dan, and guys, Texas is AWFUL. Why would anyone live there? No one knows, yet so many people live in Texas.
Seriously though, it's late and you probably shouldn't be making decisions right now. If you're honestly thinking that you should quit your job and become a psychoanalyst, you shouldn't. I mean, maybe you should. It might be your passion, and you might really love it. All I ask is you hold off on doing so right this second. Get some sleep, and maybe think about it a bit more tomorrow. Okay? Okay.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Happy Times
Kelsey and I are often asked, "Is it hard to be around so-and-so because they are pregnant?" The answer for us is no. No, it's not. Have you lived in this society? I think over half of it is pregnant at least ninety percent of the time. Even the men look pregnant these days. Kelsey and I realized early on throughout this process that being angry or upset because one of our friends is pregnant isn't going to help Kelsey and I get any pregnanter.
I understand why other couples start to feel upset though. People seem to assume that unless we baby-strugglers bring it up, babies shan't be discussed. It becomes the forbidden topic. *whisper whisper* don't talk about babies with the schmitzes *whisper whisper* i just don't want them to feel bad right now *whisper whisper*
Please don't do that. You can talk to us about your impending and current babies. If you're pregnant, Kelsey will be the first one to offer to throw you a shower. I'll be the first one to offer to buy you a twelve-pack of vodka. That's not true. I'm a procrastinator. I'll probably offer to buy you vodka much later than some of your other, more prompt friends. We've been trying this long enough to know that this fertility stuff doesn't make any sense. You'll see a high school girl give birth six times to eight healthy babies while a married couple struggles and fights through monthly sadness. It can be hard. It can be very hard. That's what makes it a miracle. That's what makes it worth it. And we're certainly not going to get upset if someone gets their miracle a lit bit before we do.
The biggest thought I struggle with in all of this is...if Kelsey and I were upset about other people having babies, would that mean we wouldn't want them to have babies? That we would rather they deal with the same emotional roller-coaster ride we've been riding? We've made a conscience choice to be happy for other people, to share in their joy. When instead of thinking, "Damn it! Another baby will be born from an un-Schmitzian womb!" while shaking our fists at God or a tree, we've decided to smile, hug a person and say, "Congrats," and mean it. It works for us. We can't control a lot, but we can control our attitudes.
I understand why other couples start to feel upset though. People seem to assume that unless we baby-strugglers bring it up, babies shan't be discussed. It becomes the forbidden topic. *whisper whisper* don't talk about babies with the schmitzes *whisper whisper* i just don't want them to feel bad right now *whisper whisper*
Please don't do that. You can talk to us about your impending and current babies. If you're pregnant, Kelsey will be the first one to offer to throw you a shower. I'll be the first one to offer to buy you a twelve-pack of vodka. That's not true. I'm a procrastinator. I'll probably offer to buy you vodka much later than some of your other, more prompt friends. We've been trying this long enough to know that this fertility stuff doesn't make any sense. You'll see a high school girl give birth six times to eight healthy babies while a married couple struggles and fights through monthly sadness. It can be hard. It can be very hard. That's what makes it a miracle. That's what makes it worth it. And we're certainly not going to get upset if someone gets their miracle a lit bit before we do.
The biggest thought I struggle with in all of this is...if Kelsey and I were upset about other people having babies, would that mean we wouldn't want them to have babies? That we would rather they deal with the same emotional roller-coaster ride we've been riding? We've made a conscience choice to be happy for other people, to share in their joy. When instead of thinking, "Damn it! Another baby will be born from an un-Schmitzian womb!" while shaking our fists at God or a tree, we've decided to smile, hug a person and say, "Congrats," and mean it. It works for us. We can't control a lot, but we can control our attitudes.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
So Many Minutes
As you all know, I'm once again a college student. Naturally, this makes me brilliant. Remember when you first went to college how smart you instantly became? My first time in college it took me only one week to learn that I couldn't keep reusing the same plastic cup for milk everyday without rinsing it.
I've told some of you this, but one thing I didn't factor into the whole "going back to school" thing is the time that homework would take. I knew I'd be spending two nights a week driving to Cedar Rapids (roughly an hour drive one way) for a three and a half hour class, but I didn't even think that the other nights of the week would be filled with homework and reading and papers, oh my. Last night my little lady told me I'm already acting stressed. She told me I was starting to freak out when anything unplanned popped into my schedule (ie giant colossal snowstorms and/or dishes).
I believed her. I tend to do this. I'll start to worry so much about stuff I have to get done, that I in turn get nothing done. I give myself some sort of busy schedule attention deficit disorder, BSADD. Take last night: I had a paper due today. It was an easy paper. I had to write an analysis on an article. It should have taken me at most two and a half to three hours.
Instead I managed to spread it out over two nights because when I sat in front of the computer, I thought about work, which prompted me to check my work email, which reminded me of all the stuff I didn't do at work that day because of the paper I needed to write. Then the dryer beeped at me and reminded me the laundry was done. I unloaded the dryer and put all the clean clothes on the stacks of other clean clothes in the laundry room that I hadn't put away because I was too busy to put anything away. I noticed the washer had five minutes left. I stood there and waited for it because I surely couldn't start anything new in those five minutes (even though I knew our washer's last minute actually takes about fifteen minutes and my computer is portable and I could have easily started something new in those twenty minutes I had). Then TV was about to start, and I really wanted to watch TV, but I needed to check ESPN.com and other websites for a bit in case anything had changed in the last half hour or so. Finally I realized my paper wasn't done, and Kelsey asked me if I wanted to cook supper, and HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO THAT? Then I checked my Twitter feed. There were funny videos posted from people, including this one:
Haha. That was a great video that didn't help me get my paper done at all. The minutes kept ticking by when it occurred to me: I waste a lot of time doing nothing...then I stress out about it. I think a lot of people in our generation do this. We should stop doing this.
This actually came up at class tonight. We were having a discussion about how marketing has changed over the last ten years. Someone brought up that people are so much busier now. The professor asked if everyone agreed. Everyone agreed except for me. I find this happens a lot. The professor asked why I didn't agree with that. I told him it was simple. The amount of time in a day has not changed. It's impossible to have less time than someone who grew up ten, twenty, or eighty years ago. It's what we choose to do with our time that has changed. He agreed with me. Take that everyone else in the class!
I know I've wasted plenty of time playing Xbox for six straight hours when I could have used that time working on my novel about the end of the world. I've spent entire Saturdays watching seasons of TV shows instead of installing shelves in the linen closet in my basement bathroom. I think the problem lies with the world convincing us we are so busy. You don't have time to cook! Buy fast food! Etc.
We aren't so busy. We just like to immediately satisfy our compulsions is all. Calm down everyone and for the love of God quit checking all of your friends' blogs and go do something productive.
I've told some of you this, but one thing I didn't factor into the whole "going back to school" thing is the time that homework would take. I knew I'd be spending two nights a week driving to Cedar Rapids (roughly an hour drive one way) for a three and a half hour class, but I didn't even think that the other nights of the week would be filled with homework and reading and papers, oh my. Last night my little lady told me I'm already acting stressed. She told me I was starting to freak out when anything unplanned popped into my schedule (ie giant colossal snowstorms and/or dishes).
I believed her. I tend to do this. I'll start to worry so much about stuff I have to get done, that I in turn get nothing done. I give myself some sort of busy schedule attention deficit disorder, BSADD. Take last night: I had a paper due today. It was an easy paper. I had to write an analysis on an article. It should have taken me at most two and a half to three hours.
Instead I managed to spread it out over two nights because when I sat in front of the computer, I thought about work, which prompted me to check my work email, which reminded me of all the stuff I didn't do at work that day because of the paper I needed to write. Then the dryer beeped at me and reminded me the laundry was done. I unloaded the dryer and put all the clean clothes on the stacks of other clean clothes in the laundry room that I hadn't put away because I was too busy to put anything away. I noticed the washer had five minutes left. I stood there and waited for it because I surely couldn't start anything new in those five minutes (even though I knew our washer's last minute actually takes about fifteen minutes and my computer is portable and I could have easily started something new in those twenty minutes I had). Then TV was about to start, and I really wanted to watch TV, but I needed to check ESPN.com and other websites for a bit in case anything had changed in the last half hour or so. Finally I realized my paper wasn't done, and Kelsey asked me if I wanted to cook supper, and HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO THAT? Then I checked my Twitter feed. There were funny videos posted from people, including this one:
Haha. That was a great video that didn't help me get my paper done at all. The minutes kept ticking by when it occurred to me: I waste a lot of time doing nothing...then I stress out about it. I think a lot of people in our generation do this. We should stop doing this.
This actually came up at class tonight. We were having a discussion about how marketing has changed over the last ten years. Someone brought up that people are so much busier now. The professor asked if everyone agreed. Everyone agreed except for me. I find this happens a lot. The professor asked why I didn't agree with that. I told him it was simple. The amount of time in a day has not changed. It's impossible to have less time than someone who grew up ten, twenty, or eighty years ago. It's what we choose to do with our time that has changed. He agreed with me. Take that everyone else in the class!
I know I've wasted plenty of time playing Xbox for six straight hours when I could have used that time working on my novel about the end of the world. I've spent entire Saturdays watching seasons of TV shows instead of installing shelves in the linen closet in my basement bathroom. I think the problem lies with the world convincing us we are so busy. You don't have time to cook! Buy fast food! Etc.
We aren't so busy. We just like to immediately satisfy our compulsions is all. Calm down everyone and for the love of God quit checking all of your friends' blogs and go do something productive.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Gramma's Shoup
Every time my grandma makes her vegetable soup, I get a phone call. It's one of the many things I love about my Grandma.
"Kels, I'm making grammas shoup! I remember when you were little you'd say 'I loove grammas shoup! I want some grammas shoup! If you were here, I'd bring you some! '"
When I lived in the Quad Cities, my grandma's house was just 5 minutes away. If I was home sick, Grandma would make her soup and leave it on my doorstep. I kid you not, she's that cool. Soup or no soup, living close to my Grandma and Grandpa was my favorite part of living in the Quad Cities. We'd go out to eat together, she was my Hobby Lobby buddy, she helped potty-train Dottie, and Grandma would come volunteer in my classroom. Plus, there is just something amazing about getting a hug from your grandparents whenever you feel like it.
Now that we live in Cedar Falls, I feel doubly blessed to be able to do the same thing with my parents. We do dinners, meet each other at church, help with house projects, go shopping (although Mom HATES Hobby Lobby), let the dogs play together, and ya know what? It's pretty awesome to hug your parents when you feel like it, too.
Today's blizzardy weather meant I had a snow day, and so I spent most of the day at my parent's house. Mom and I thought it would be a perfect chance to try to make the famous "shoup".
Our soup making adventure happened in true Kelsey and Denise fashion. Mom did all of the work and made the soup. And I was a careful observer while I painted my nails. Ha! (She likes it better that way in her kitchen)
Later tonight, we were able to go back to mom's and enjoy what the hours of preparation had created. And it was delicious! Looks like the soup making ability has been passed on to mom. I hope it makes its way to me.
While writing this post, it made me realize that there are a lot of qualities that I love in my Grandma and admire in my Mom that I hope I carry on.
They love their families, and they show it.
They know how to have a darn good time.
They're not afraid to act a little goofy.
They are both great cooks, bakers, and hostesses (uh-oh for me on that one!)
They both have homes people feel really welcome in.
They make the best shoup!
I could go on and on.
I'm so grateful for these two women in my life.
What things do you hope to carry on in your family?
"Kels, I'm making grammas shoup! I remember when you were little you'd say 'I loove grammas shoup! I want some grammas shoup! If you were here, I'd bring you some! '"
 | ||
| It's true. Gramma's Shoup is the best! |
 |
| I don't know why, but I love this picture. |
Today's blizzardy weather meant I had a snow day, and so I spent most of the day at my parent's house. Mom and I thought it would be a perfect chance to try to make the famous "shoup".
Our soup making adventure happened in true Kelsey and Denise fashion. Mom did all of the work and made the soup. And I was a careful observer while I painted my nails. Ha! (She likes it better that way in her kitchen)
 |
| I also worked very hard as the taste-tester |
While writing this post, it made me realize that there are a lot of qualities that I love in my Grandma and admire in my Mom that I hope I carry on.
They love their families, and they show it.
They know how to have a darn good time.
They're not afraid to act a little goofy.
They are both great cooks, bakers, and hostesses (uh-oh for me on that one!)
They both have homes people feel really welcome in.
They make the best shoup!
I could go on and on.
I'm so grateful for these two women in my life.
What things do you hope to carry on in your family?
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