Cough cough hack

After spending the long weekend in a wet, rainy/snowy yellowstone national park, it seems as though I have caught a cold. I have a very runny nose and feel icky.

I am going to hire another person at work so that I can focus more on office management issues rather than making hotel reservation each week for over 60 people and scheduling field crew weekly. My billability rate has been unbelievable, close to 100 percent for the past month. Boss is happy, but other things are getting done that I need to do and I already work over 50 hours a week now.

If anyone is looking for a job in Denver, and might be interested in a Project Coordinator position, please let me know! I can pass along the job description!

Yellowstone National Park

We got back today around 5 from our quick road trip to Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park. I have to admit, sitting in the car for the 8 hour drive up there was worth it. Pretty neat. We saw lots of animals, including black bears, a grizzly bear, many many buffalo, deer, elk, and a moose yesterday. We even think the moose had a baby with her, although she was laying down and it could have been a big blob.

Weather was pretty crummy. We had everything, ranging from snow, to rain. It was cold the entire time, but that cut down on the crowds which is a good thing.

We drove around 1,300 miles in 4 days, and I have to say I think I did fairly well and didn't get too grouchy too much. Click on the picture and it will take you to my flikr account that has all of our pictures from our trip (including animal pictures).

Back to the work grind tomorrow...

Yellowstone

Yippee, we leave for Yellowstone National Park tomorrow. Yea for mini vacations!

Design Center

We were supposed to meet with the interior designer today to pick out flooring, cabinets and counter options today. Supposed to is the key word here. I managed to get away from work on time, which lately has been no easy feat….I can barely manage to go the bathroom and worked 59 hours last week alone. Ouch. Work is insanely busy, overwhelming so.

But anyways, I manage to get out of the office at 3 and we drive to SOUTH Denver, which took 40 minutes. We get to the design center, and the receptionist says that our lady had a family emergency but we could take a look around. There were, only like 90 million carpet samples, 20 million tile samples etc. And nothing had prices on them. The receptionist was of no help, she had no idea what base was or what prices were or anything like that. So basically we have to schedule another appointment. What is even more annoying is that the design center is only open from 10 until 5 Monday through Friday. For those of us who work, that makes things a little difficult.

Plus, we found out that most people with our builder put approximately $10,000 of flooring and counter upgrades. That’s on top of the upgrades we have already chosen. I’m starting to freak out about the price of the house. It’s a lot of money. Especially compared to our nice cheap condo. Is it normal to freak out a bit about the cost of this all? I love the house, but it really would be nice if $50,000 would arrive on our doorstep with a pretty bow on it.

I’m still irritated, even after going to Outback Steakhouse and having a nice steak and two pina coladas. My belly is full though. I did not get a chance to eat breakfast or lunch today, so I was pretty hungry. I practically inhaled my salad.

Bored

I am SO incredibly bored right now. Arrrgh. I might almost go to bed I'm THAT bored.

The house the house!

We usually stop by the development where our house will be built on Sunday’s to take a look at the progress of everyone else’s home. Last night, I thought we’d change it up and swing by. They actually cleared off the lot NEXT to us and our lot as well. So we figure in the next week they will dig the foundation of that lot, and ours should be around 3-4 weeks after that.

Pretty excited. We are going to the design center on Monday to check out the options and figure out how poor we really WANT to be.

We had a showing yesterday, and good news they actually DID come in and see our house. Let’s hope they buy it….

I’m going to a scrapbook class today with my friend Julie. And that is all I have planned for today. I’m going to go work out in about 10 minutes and then shower and get ready to go meet Julie. Next weekend we are headed to Yellowstone National Park for 4 days. Looking forward to that (and some of the pictures we take!)

RSS Feed

I have enabled the RSS feed for everyone to keep up with updates to my site.

Mortgages and other fun stuff

We have been looking to mortgages ever since we signed the contract for the new house. I've never been good with math, numbers or anything like that, but boy it sure is difficult to choose what kind of mortgage to get, how much money to put down, and all that other fun stuff. Luckily, since this will be Austin's third house, he knows what is doing much more so than I am. We locked in a rate today, which is a scary thought because we get to put MORE money down on a house that isn't built yet (and while we still have a townhouse for sale). But we felt it was important to do so, since interest rates keep climbing higher and higher and look like they are going to continue to do so. Eek.

On another note, we are headed to the design center on Monday afternoon to pick out all of our interior selections. Things such as appliances, flooring, tile, paint, etc. I'm looking forward to picking out stuff, but not to how much it's going to cost. At least we will know up front and can start eating less food or something. Ha ha. I can always stand to lose some pounds.

Speaking of weight loss, I’m down 10 pounds since I started working out a few months ago. My clothes are fitting better. I need to work on eating better and more fruits and veggies, and most importantly drinking more WATER. I’m always very dehydrated. Bad Snickles.

Yellowstone National Park

Austin and I have decided to go to Yellowstone National Park over the Memorial Day long weekend at the end of the month. We both plan to take friday off from work and drive up there in the Mini Cooper, and then stay two days, and drive back monday afternoon (to go back to work).

I've never been, so I'm pretty excited to see it. Any recomendations for things to do would be appreciated. First night we are staying in Cody WY, second night in Yellowstone Park, and the third night we are staying in Jackson Hole WY.

Alpine Slide

We also went on the Alpine Slide at Heritage Square. IT was mildly amusing, although I have little desire to go BACK to Heritage anytime soon.

Apparently there is another alpine slide in Breckenridge. We will have to check it out this summer!

Mothers Day

We had a good weekend. Saturday we got a call at 10 am from Laura (sister in law) asking if we could go down to Heritage Square and get one of those old time photographs taken of the 3 of us for mothers day. I said sure, having no idea what I was really getting myself into. Laura and Austin had both done it before, in fact several times when they were younger. We went for the saloon theme, and Laura and I dressed in 1940s whore outfits and Austin dressed up as…well I have no idea. He looked pretty good though, gun and all. Sunday we went and took a look at the lots they are building next to ours. They won’t start on ours until June sometime so it’s nice to go visit the other homes and see some of the design choices people have made. We have the same style which is a good thing, both of us either love or hate the same things when it comes to the house so no big arguments!

We had Austin's family come over for dinner sunday night. I made steak kabobs and veggie kabobs on the bbq. They actually turned out quite well. My mom's present finally arrived, all be it a day late. Stupid Canadian postal system.

Bah Humbug to the IRS

So I received a lovely letter from the IRS (Internal Revenue Service – the tax people for those of you live in Canada or not in the USA). The letter was very thick…it’s never a good thing to get a thick letter from the tax people. I rip the letter open, and it turns out that the IRS thinks that I made $20,000 more than I did in 2004. As a result, they are claiming I owe them $7476 in back taxes, $1495 in penalties, and $601 in interest, for a grand total of $9572. Egads. After some serious freaking out about visions of being thrown in IRS jail and other not so fun thoughts, I calmed down and tried to call the employer whose tax records have indicated that I earned $20,000 from (when, I actually only earned $200 for a weekend of pet sitting in July 2002 –weekend from hell but that is another story).

I followed the instructions in the letter the IRS sent me, stating that I did not earn that income and that I only earned $200. 36 days later, I received another very thick envelope from the IRS stating that I had not provided appropriate proof that I earned only $200. Again, another freak out panic session, with my husband assuring me that I would only be sent to a minimum security jail (he stopped joking about after I started sobbing uncontrollably). I called their help line and spent over an hour on hold, waiting for an agent, who explained I would need a letter from said pet sitter employer indicating I had only made $200.

I left a message for the pet sitter lady (who employed me for the weekend), and explained what had happened, and if she knew anything about it. I didn’t hear from her for two weeks. I got ANOTHER letter from the IRS stating that I would be sent a notice of deficiency (what an awful word) and that my case would be turned over to the Tax Courts. I finally heard from the pet sitter lady, who was on vacation. She mailed me a letter and I had it the next day (thank you thank you thank you nice pet sitter lady). I in turned fed ex’d that letter yesterday to the IRS showing her records and my records all stating the exact same thing…I earned $200. Turns out, it’s an IRS clerical error by someone in their data entry department. Ok fine, no worries I think. Except today I get the evil deficiency letter and my case has been turned over to the Tax Court.

I call again, today after work, and spend an hour on the phone with the lady who said the paperwork hasn’t caught up to my record yet, and most likely once someone gets that paperwork all will be vindicated and I will get a nice letter indicating the error had been corrected and I can go about my merry way and find something else to worry about.

Bah humbug to the IRS.

The New Apple Store at Flat Iron Crossing Mall

An Apple store just opened in the mall that is 5 minutes from us. We went and looked at all the neat fun toys on sunday. Austin has decided that when it is time to get a new laptop, we will get a MAC this time. Our current laptop was purchased almost 2 years ago. We debated at that time whether or not to buy a MAC instead of a windows based laptop, but decided that it would be expensive to purchase all the things we would need with a MAC to keep our current "stuff" working, such as printers, programs etc. Plus, I tended to work at home with my last job and wanted to be able to still do that.

But, now that Apple has the intel chip, it's a different ball game. Chances are, we won't be purchasing a new laptop anytime soon (unless we win the lottery, and in that case, free MAC's to everyone who read's this site from us!).

I love saturday

Saturday is definitely my favorite day of the week. We just had a few days of cold, rainy weather, but I’m ok with that. We need the moisture, and honestly summers in Denver these last few years have been ridiculously hot.

I posted our townhouse for sale again on Craig’s List (some online message board system). We haven’t had anyone call to come see the house in a good 2 weeks now, so somehow I need to figure out how to generate some interest in the property. There is another unit for sale in our complex, a 2 bedroom as well but it is a lot smaller and only one level (so it does not have a basement, laundry, or a patio). But she wants to move her property and is selling it for $20,000 less than what it is worth. That hurts. I’ll just continue to try to be patient.

Tonight Austin is going to bbq some ribs. Yum. I am going to run to the store and see if they have corn on the cob, if not I’ll get my other favorite vegetable, artichokes.

Jones just walked by me carrying a play mouse. He is on his way to the water dish to drop the mouse into it (I presume to pretend drown it?) This is a common occurrence. Usually, he will fish the mouse OUT of the water bowl and then drop it somewhere in the house, so there is a wet, sopping mouse somewhere. And sometimes he decides to leave it in there. Either way, I wring the mouse out, hang it up to dry, and the next day it will be gone and he has hidden it somewhere, only to return the next day and the process will repeat itself. Pets are SO funny.

Wednesday's suck

Today really sucked. It's not shaping out to be a great thursday either, judging by what I left still at work today.

Tuesday night

Well, tomorrow is Wednesday. And Wednesday is NEVER a good day at work. Our field crews typically go out Wednesday and return the following Wednesday, so it’s a zoo full of 20 year old kids trying to figure out what to do and where to go. This Wednesday, we have two crews going out (for a total of 16 people) which isn’t as bad as it usually is, but we have another crew going out Thursday. Why they are deviating from the normal Wednesday through Wednesday schedule I have no idea. That’s all in the morning. Then, in the afternoon, I get to deal with crews coming BACK from the field. Last week we had 4 sets of crews out, so that’s 32 people coming back. That’s a good 12 rental trucks that have been damaged (the crew never drive the trucks very well, and there is always something wrong suck as scratches, flat tires, and the inevitable suspension blow out like last week because they were going too fast on dirt roads and caught some air). Fun stuff. I can’t wait. I’ve been antsy all night tonight, in anticipation.

On another note, last night we went to the hospital to visit our friends Jason and Julie. Jason was admitted to the hospital on Sunday night for a collapsed lung. He had surgery this morning, and I have heard he is recovering well. Wish him a speedy recovery.