Odds. Ends. Puzzlements.

My W-2 arrived yesterday, and my taxes are filed. I am not entirely happy with TurboTax. I learned last year that one cannot downgrade to a less-expensive program without signing up as a new account and losing access to the former information. Furthermore, if one wishes to have the $29.95 service charge for the deluxe program (my bank subsidizes part of the cost of filing) subtracted from one’s refund, and the refund electronically deposited, there is an additional $29.95 charge for a temporary account at some mythological e-bank. Time value of money, and all that.

My 2009 and 2010 returns were exceedingly simple, just a W-2 and a dab of interest, but I had used the deluxe program for several years because of my stint as a purveyor of skincare products and cosmetics. (And was able to deduct the cost of filing as a legitimate business expense, which I will get to do again for 2011.)

I do believe that I will be saving the PDF’s for my old returns onto my hard drive (the few which are not already there), and next year I may look around for a more flexible product. On the other hand, I will have inventory and cost of goods sold, and that legitimate business deduction, and by next tax season I may no longer be miffed at TurboTax.

So, not sure if that was an odd or an end. I think the following definitely qualifies as an end.



It’s the end of the toast as we know it. It’s the end of the toast as we know it. (But I feel fine. And Mom always said that charcoal was good for the teeth, as well as for the digestion.) Or, put another way, looks like I was right when I suspected that my toaster was, well, toast.

The Steamfresh rotini with broccoli in cheese sauce is a Good Thing. Pasta, which I love, and cheese, which I love, and stupid broccoli, which I (h)ate.

I grabbed that last bit of the purple Manos Lace leftover from Lark’s shawlette, and my 0000 needles, and cast on for a simple shawl in doll scale. I am stuck midway through the second pattern repeat, unsure of where the decreases should start. I’ve tinked it back, twice. When I get off the computer, I will go grab my Barbara Walker stitch dictionaries and see if there is an approximation in there. The yarn informed me before church that it wanted beads, which took it out of the realm of mindless church knitting.

So I then dug out the remnants of the Alpaca Cloud ball which I had wound into a cake, then taken the ends and rewound into a two-strand cake, and repeated for a cake composed of a four-strand yarn, which I promptly decided that I hated (this was a couple of years ago; I cannibalized that ball for the cowl I made my sister for her birthday last year). And either my size 5 or size 6 circ, and off to church I went. Knitted happily on a funky little swatch before realizing what the yarn wanted to be, frogged the swatch, and started again while waiting for a friend who doesn’t drive to run a quick errand after church.

[She’s a relatively new member. I’ll save the we don’t shop on Sundays lecture for another time, and in the meantime she had a prescription in the mire, so to speak. I remember after Dad died, when two of my dear LDS friends kidnapped me after church and told the bishop that they were taking me out for Death by Chocolate, in case anybody else who happened to be beating the daylights out of the Sabbath at the same establishment, or saw us entering it, should choose to narc to him. He said, strictly off the record, that it was probably an excellent idea.]

Where was I? Oh. Knitting.



It’s a little fuzzy, but then it’s alpaca. I think it wants to be a sideways cowl, with short rows broken up by garter stitch ridges. All I know is, it’s not arguing with me or nattering on about beads.

I have a new email address. Those of you who write to me, email me at the old one or on Facebook, and I’ll give it to you. I’m not sure I’ve adjusted it here on the blog. Figuring that out just feels a little too much like laboring on the Sabbath at the moment.

My bank instituted a program year before last, wherein debit card purchases gave one points which could be redeemed for goodies. They discontinued the program at the end of last year, and miracle of miracles when I was purging files last fall, I found all the old certificates, which I needed to enter into their system. The last one came yesterday, and they will be mailing me some kitchen knives in a knife block. [I finished up 23 points shy of the next award level. Broke my heart.] I was torn between the kitchen knife set and a Swiss Army Knife, but I figured that the kitchen knife set would be harder to misplace and less likely to get me in trouble at an airport.

And now if you will all kindly excuse me, I am ready to head over to the couch and commune with yarn.