It's been the usual chaos here. We've been a bit distracted by the healthcare debate this weekend Or impending train wreck, depending on your view of it. We live with government healthcare which I have endless complaints about, and then come to find out that the bill that they're planning on passing will take Tricare out of the hands of DOD (dept of defense). Lord. you mean it could get worse?!!! I have never.ever.ever felt passionate about anything politics related until this much less donated to anything politics related. And I donated to the tea party. We've been studying the American Revolution. I get it. I just think not enough people do.
I've been working on getting our diapers on Amazon. And they should be live shortly. Hopefully we'll move lots of inventory shortly. And in addition to selling on Amazon, we're letting them ship it for me. So I send them stuff, upload it to the site and they deal with the hassles. AND then all our 'but we want free shipping' customers can get it- from Amazon. not us. I think it's a win-win situation. We'll see how it goes. It could be a nightmare. Like government healthcare. And it looks like I might want to keep the business option open since working in healthcare could be so.. ahem.. bureaucratic... again.. it goes back to that...
I've been working on our taxes. It's a yearly problem here that as April approaches, I realize I should have been better about keeping our records in one place. And frankly.. Moving.. again.. didn't help anything in finding stuff.
So if you don't see or hear from me much.. I'm somewhere in the bowels of quickbooks and taxact. Last year I really messed our taxes up. Big time. Apparently the DOD sent 2 w-2's who would guess that 1 employer would send 2 w-2s? You got it -the government does. So I found 1 W2 did our taxes and away the taxes went with the other 32 pages of forms.. and .. oops. Found the second W2. Sent our amended tax file. Twice, Then they send me their correction which didn't match my correction. With a bill for what we owed them and the interest for the past year.
So.. with that in my recent track record, I'm really considering hiring a real accountant to review my mistakes this year. Of course, I'm fully aware that they can't do anything more than with what I give them, so if I only handed them 1 W2, we'd still be in the situation we were in.
*sigh*
Anyway..
In kid news.. we have what could be our last conference at their charter school this week. I'm planning ahead and bringing a laptop and movie for the kids to watch while the other ones have their conference. They used to have a TV and dvd player, but they did away with them because.. I dunno.. it was too convenient to let the kids watch TV under the watchful eye of the homeschooling dept secretary. It's much more convenient to cram 6 of us in an office cubical designed for 1 person and attempt to keep the noise level down to below the point where it drowns out thought.
And with my short-timer homeschooling mentality, we've done several field trips. 2 weeks ago we went to the desert and learned about desert habitats, cactus and wildflowers. This past week we went to Old Town, a state park that is a reproduction of an 1800's California town- a museum and other buildings. Wednesday is living history day and they have living exhibits- like the blacksmith, school and donkeys. While it's not Old Sturbridge Village, it's a whole lot closer. And cheaper. (It's free).
I'm planning on doing a homeschool trip to Sea World next month, too. Since it's another last-hurrah. sort of thing. They also have homeschool day at legoland, but after our year at legoland, I'm not rushing back there right now.
Friday they had the Marine Corps Silent Drill Corp and Bugle and Drum Corp perform on base. Of course I took the kids. Joey was mesmerized. JM plugged his ears for most of the bugle corp performance (it was a little loud) and Kayla and Sonia wouldn't stop talking and asking "what are they doing?" during the SILENT drill corps performance. So much for broadening their horizons.
So after the Drill corp was done, the Color Guard had their turn and they did the national anthem during which I lost count of the times of telling the girls to be quiet and stand, because that's how you show respect (why is everyone standing? Why are the marines saluting? is daddy here?...etc..)
So as the Anthem is done, I grab the kids and tell them we're leaving. JM bolts. I can't find him and the marines are frozen in attention. ( I think they were doing something with the Marine Flag...??) And we're weaving around them to try to find him. Find him. He'd made a b-line for the stroller we'd parked behind the bleachers. And we nearly run over the toes of more Marines standing at attention doing their best to pretend like we're not there.
And as we walk down the sidewalk to the car. They play the Marine Anthem (the one from Monetuma to the shores of Tripoli..) and it was like a sci-fi movie. All marines. Exactly where they were, in uniform or not- frozen. Eerie. Like time stood still and we were walking and the rest of the world was stuck. Like in Narnia- the queen froze them into statues.
Wove around them on the side walk, side stepped around a few. Heck, if they're statues why not? beside, the kids were noisy, distracting and not acting appropriate for the level of somberness and seriousness all things Marine Corp are treated here.
So I get home and later that night tell Larry.. "hey, did you know if they play that 'from the halls of Montezuma song' that all Marines freeze in attention, in uniform or not?
he looks at me in an odd way. and asks 'you didn't?!'
'uh, no. was I supposed to?'
Shakes his head and tells me next time tattoo 'Navy wife' to my forhead before doing something like that.
Sheesh.
Who knew? And if there are these rules, why don't they give them to each new to Marine base family? Then again.. most of the rules have been either word of mouth, or told to Larry to pass on to me but somewhere was lost in the transition..
Just blundering my way through life. It's worked 36 years, why look for a different method?
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