Anticipation…

Monday, June 28, 2010 at 4:45 pm (Writing by Ear)
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Anticipa-a-a-tion…  We’ve been wai-ai-ai-ting, and today the waiting ended, with a ho-hum instead of a hurrah.

We were due for a large tax refund this year because of the curious situation of my having my best year ever in business in 2008 and my worst ever in 2009. We were happily surprised at the news, and mailed our return in early March.

The date the IRS Web site told us we could expect our refund came and went. April 15 came and went. At some point, the IRS site changed to a message advising us to call for more information. I can’t remember the outcome of that call, but I remember I wasn’t happy — something like, “If you haven’t heard from us in a few weeks, call back.”

Somewhere around May 7, we got an official letter saying we (by we I mean our well-paid accountant) had failed to file a required form for the Health Savings Account I opened last year. I called said accountant in a panic, and he was nice enough to answer from his month-long vacation in Florida (sigh).

His partner filled out the required 2-page form, which consisted of filling in these amounts on lines 2 through 13, in this order:

2. $1500
3. $3000 (I love the instructions for this line: If you were under age 55 at the end of 2009, and on the first day of every month during 2009, you were, or were considered, an eligible individual with the same coverage, enter $3000 ($5950 for family coverage). All others, see page 4 of  the instructions for the amount to enter. What the…?)
4.
5. $3000
6. $3000
7.
8. $3000
9.
10.
11.
12. $3000
13. $1500

and which changed our tax situation not one iota. I faxed it to the IRS per the letter’s instructions.

I panicked again a week later upon learning that, in order to refinance our mortgage, the bank needed an IRS-verified copy of our 2009 tax returns, which the IRS wouldn’t supply because of the un-filed form. I called the IRS again, talking to an exceedingly, exasperatingly business-like woman who couldn’t verify they’d received my fax, couldn’t give me the number of the service center to call to verify it (they have no number, apparently), and who informed me in no uncertain terms that I was the negligent one for not filing the required form, and by law the IRS had 60 days after receiving said form to act on it and supply our refund.

Fortunately, the bank accepted copies of the IRS letter and my faxed-in form as proof we had filed our taxes, and we were able to refinance on schedule. After yet another call to the IRS and finally receiving verification that it had, in fact, received our fax and was again “processing our return,” we hunkered down to wait the 60 days for our refund. But guess what, it only took 52 days. Score!

I’m told the IRS puts all returns not electronically filed on the back burner, so that’s why ours took so long to resolve. Seems they really want to force taxpayers to e-file. Not sure what we’ll do next year, as our accountant does not e-file (obviously) and likely will not.

So the check’s here, the anticipation is over, and reality is a big fat letdown.

It’s still a big check. But we need to put a hefty chunk of it in the bank to cover September’s real estate taxes and December’s whopping combined homeowner’s-auto insurance bill. (Typically we put away so much a month in a special savings account to cover this, but my business sucks again, and we’re behind in that.)

What’s left of the refund covers the amount we took from savings to pay the closing costs to refinance our mortgage.

Whoopee.

Plus, we’ll likely OWE taxes this year, so should also be saving up to pay that bill next April.

So, not the windfall it seemed to be, and any dancing sugarplums we’d been dreaming about — like contributing to our retirement fund or maybe even funding a vacation — have fallen by the wayside. On the bright side, though, we did also get our $5.00 rebate check today from the deck stain we bought at Home Depot. That, at least, is not earmarked for anything. So you know what that means: Dairy Queen, here we come!

Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it.
~ Jane Wagner

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10 years sooner

Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 10:05 am (Cottage Industry, Writing by Ear)
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May marked our 5th year in fixer-upperhood. We smiled to recall how, 5 years ago, we moved in one day and went on vacation for a week the next. It was chaotic. Coming home to a houseful of boxes and junk is not something I recommend.

But we’ve come a long way baby, I think. Too many home projects finished and in the works to recount. Too many dollars spent. Too much darn hard work. But to celebrate, we decided to make all this (raise hands and twirl around) all ours 10 years sooner.

We’d been watching interest rates for a while, and finally jumped on a 15-year refi at 4.25% from the same lender who holds our current mortgage. Our 5.5% 10/1 ARM wasn’t bad, but would need to be refinanced in 5 years anyway (unless we were willing to put up with annual adjustments). So, we’ve done the “smart thing” and cut 10 years and more than $60,000 off our mortgage (and paid $2800 in closing costs and $111.76 more a month for the privilege). Whoopee. The worst part: enduring, again, the blood-sucking crock that is the home-buying biz — all those fees we just paid 5 years ago had to be paid again (Flood certification — HA! An appraisal — HA! [don’t get me started on appraisals] Title insurance — HA! An extra 1/4 pt. because we don’t want to escrow — HA!)

Oh, and did I mention our smalltown lender would immediately sell the mortgage? To Wells Fargo — a Fannie Mae thing. The same Fannie Mae already bailed out at taxpayers’ expense. Is this my payback? Maybe.

But hey, at least we’re paying our mortgage. At least we didn’t buy more house than we could afford. At least, God willing, in 15 years, this will all be ours (except for those pesky taxes every year).

I’ve never been this close to owning my home. I’m praying for good luck and good health in the next 15 years…and beyond, of course.

Home is a shelter from storms — all sorts of storms.
~ William J. Bennett

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Country folk we are not

Monday, June 14, 2010 at 9:45 am (Cottage Industry, Smile Lines, Writing by Ear)
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Yet, we still manage to get by in situations where my growing-up-on-a-farm relatives would have clearly excelled.

It started innocently enough. A typical 4:15 a.m. Saturday morning sojourn to the kitchen to feed the ever-pesky Julius. Stumble down the dark stairs, through the hall and dining room, into the kitchen. As Julius was eating, I noticed pesky-cat-Jr., Rory, frisking around the dining room instead of coming in to eat.

Why is he playing now, the little brat?

Julius half-heartedly looked up from his bowl toward Rory, then resumed eating.

I thought…This isn’t normal. Oh, geez, maybe there’s a mouse!

So I flick on the dining room light to have a look, and WINGS! CIRCLING! CHAOS! OH MY GOD IT’S A BAT!

“MIKE, MIKE! HURRY UP! THERE’S A BAT!” I screamed to my poor sound-asleep husband, as both cats leapt around the room. He quickly stumbled down the stairs.

Intellectually, we like bats. Like having them around our house. Know they eat tons of bugs every night. Concerned they are endangered by the mysterious white-nose syndrome fungus.

But it’s another story when one seemingly 3-feet wide is flapping around your living room.

Quickly, we pondered what to do.

“Get the broom on the front porch,” seemed the logical first step. But then what? We have no doors on our first floor to trap it in a room. It had free reign.

Open the vestibule door and the front door? Turn the light on? Maybe it’ll go out.

No such luck, of course. It continued to circle and swoop, while we continued to duck and the cats continued to leap.

What we didn’t want was for it to go upstairs.

So that’s what happened next.

Fortunately, it settled in the spare room, and we closed it in. Then we did what any non-country-folk do when confronted with an unfamiliar situation: We Googled it. Mike went upstairs to his computer, which, of course, had downloaded updates and needed to restart, which took 10 minutes. In the meantime, I started up my computer, and eventually we were both searching madly.

“Catch bat house” yielded some helpful tips (and some concerns about rabies). We gathered more bat-catchin’ gear — Mike’s tennis racket, a big flower pot I had just purchased (in lieu of a bucket), jackets and caps for both of us — even though it was like 80 degrees that night — but no gloves (too lazy to go out to the garage). (Humorously, as we went searching for a cap for me in Mike’s vast collection, he handed me a Pirates cap. That led to a comment that that probably wasn’t the best choice, as the Pirates can’t do anything with bats…)

Finally, thus armed, we went in, with thoughts of The Office episode where Dwight captures a bat in a bag around Meredith’s head…and she had to get rabies shots.

Didn’t see the bat anywhere.

Quickly opened both windows and hoped for the best. A giant moth immediately flew in. But as for the bat, nothin’.

So we timidly went looking. Was it clinging to the inside of the radiator cover? Was it under the dressing table? The ironing board? On top of the ceiling fan? It could be anywhere!

No, No, No, No.

Mike finally found it, huddled on the floor in the far corner, wedged between the armoire and the wall.

No tools for that, so off I went to get a yardstick.

We had read that bats have a hard time getting airborne once they’re on the ground, so as Mike nudged him out, we stood by with our flower pot and tennis racket to trap him. After some flapping and fluttering, Mike managed to pin him (gently) under the racket. I went off in search of cardboard to slide under him.

It’s amazing that tiny, mouse-like thing was the cause of so much trouble. After a few tense minutes, it worked! The bat was wedged between the cardboard and the tennis racket, and Mike took him to the window and set him free. Then we closed the windows pretty darn quick! (The moth didn’t fare so well.)

By now, an hour had passed and it was starting to get light out. We noticed tiny bat droppings on the floor, and sighed to think of the clean-up. Wide awake, of course, we laid in bed and rehashed our experience. I talked about my dad and my Aunt Annie & Uncle Leo, hearty country folk, and how that wouldn’t have phased them a bit. Mike recounted how he and a friend had caught a bat in his grandmother’s house, after it conveniently landed in the punch bowl on top of the very same china cupboard we now have in our dining room. We lamented I hadn’t grabbed the camera to take a picture of the little guy (once safely trapped, of course). We both laughed at the tales of our friends, who have had two bat-catching escapades in their house, and shuddered again at my sister’s experience, in which she woke up from a sound sleep last year to find a bat crawling up the bedclothes toward her!

As near as we can tell, the bat got in through the chimney. One of the many brilliant previous owners of this-old-house had punched a hole in the top of the tile fireplace, presumably to vent gas logs or some such nonsense. It had been covered by a screen (admittedly not very well), which evidently had come loose. So of course, Mike jury-rigged something to cover it up again, and coming up with a permanent fix is now on our shortlist. Although, we should be safe for another 5 years, right?

Finally, we drifted off to sleep, battle weary and bat wise, with me knowing full well you never forget your first time. But just in case…

“The horror of that moment,” the King went on,
“I shall never, never forget!”
“You will, though,” the Queen said,
“if you don’t make a memorandum of it.”
~ Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, 1872

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