The view from the bedroom window. Flowering Quince and Forsythia.

We settled on Popcorn Pancakes for breakfast then I settled into the Big Red Chair to finish up the taxes. I vowed to finish them…no matter how long it took. My chair faces the full length glass storm door and I leave the inner door open so I can see out. Sometimes the cat comes to the door and talks to us, then lays in the warm sun on the stoop. As I was entering data in the forms on my laptop, something caught my eye. I looked up but barely caught the tail end of something as it ducked out of sight. Mr. FixIt said, “Hey! There’s a cute little dog out there in the yard!” I got up to see, and sure enough, there was the beagle that’s been keeping me awake for the last two nights.

I hear beagles barking a lot, but they’re way far off and they don’t bother me. But this little guy has been roaming all over our property and in the surrounding woods…baying and howling and barking up a storm day and night. It’s never come this close and I think it was looking for food. He wasn’t afraid of us…as a matter of fact, he came right up to us. Mr. FixIt went to get a little cat food for him while I tried to call the number on his collar. No answer. So I googled the owner’s name that was on the tag and it turns out, they live on the next road down.

I got a leash out of the building and we got the dog in the backseat of the truck and drove him on down. It just so happened, the doggie’s human was coming out of the house as we pulled into the driveway. I rolled the window down and asked him if he was by any chance missing a beagle. His eyes lit up and he said he’d been looking for him for about two or three days. It turns out, the little guy is about twelve years old and he can’t hear very well so he wasn’t coming to them. He was so happy to have him back and I was pleased to know the dog was well loved and missed.

We got back home and I had the taxes done in short order. SO happy to have another year behind me. And now that everything is on my new computer, it should be relatively easy next year. (Yeah….you’ve heard that before, right?) When you have finished submitting your tax returns in TurboTax, there is a screen that offers you the opportunity to buy next year’s software at this year’s price. I always do this because it usually saves me a few dollars. Well, I paid for it, hit enter, and what popped up as “Purchased” was 2023! The tax year I’d just finished!

I called the customer service at Intuit and got one of their outsourced phone centers. there was a bad connection and I could hear an echo of what I said to the person with about a four second delay. It got to the point that he was thinking I wasn’t answering, then I would interject and he’d already be saying something to me when my voice reached him. It was a mess and I’m not entirely sure we straightened things out, but I’ll check again today. I just didn’t have it in me to do anymore. I was getting hungry!

I’m bringing dessert to our Easter Dinner tomorrow at my WV daughter’s house. My bestie Gail sent me a recipe for Potica but after watching a video of how to make it, I decided that was WAY too industrious or me today as I have other things to do. So, I think I’ll make Grandma Lois’ Very Best Chocolate Cake and call it good! You can read about it on this post from several years ago. Grandma Lois isn’t with us anymore. She was my bestie Sue’s mom…my son-in-law’s grandma.

Now that the taxes are filed, I can get back to work catching up around here. It’s supposed to rain for the next five or six days so at least I know I won’t be mowing. I have a list as long as my arm of things that need doing, so there will be no lallygagging around here…that’s for sure!

🌷

”Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.“

1 John 4:11 NIV

#Taxes, #Baking, #Potica