GetSheila

Wheelbarrow Love

I bought a wheelbarrow. It is red and beautiful.

I have not used it yet but I did lovingly stroke it with a damp cloth to remove the bird poop that accumulated during its stint as a display model at Lowes.

First job? To gather all the rocks strewn willy nilly throughout my garden in one place so I can figure out what to do with them. I do not know what the original intent was with the rock placement. I am assuming there actually was intent but time and neglect have distorted what was, I am sure, a lovely gardenscape.

But there was no wheelbarrowing today, no sirree. Happy Easter, by the way. My mom, sister and I feasted on traditional tuna noodle casserole with a side of au gratin potatoes because, you know, there were not quite enough carbohydrates and fat in the casserole.

What.

So it's a new tradition. I, for one, embrace it. Everyone got to sleep in. No one had to slave over the preparation of a big, fancy, time-consuming meal. The only disappointment of the day was not getting to hide Easter eggs but mom and Kathryn refuse to pick up baskets and hunt them down so what is the point? Party poopers.

If Easter is not your thing, Happy Belated Spring Equinox. Bite the ears off a hollow chocolate bunny in celebration.

Tags: easter

Now you see it, now you don't

Ta-da!

What? You don't see it? How about this?

No? Okay, one more clue:

THAAAAAAAT'S right. There used to be a two and half story tall cypress tree in those first two photos just like the ones still standing in my neighbor's yard. Take a look at the first photo again. Notice how the fence is still a lovely golden brown where the tree used to protect it was while the rest of the fence is that dull weathered gray fences get when you do not take care of them. If it had compadres, like my neighbors trees, I would have simply had them topped, but it was all by itself serving no purpose whatsoever other than to gather spider webs way up high where you could see them (ick) but not reach them to get them down. Also, I am pretty sure there was something living in there like an opossum. Or so the neighbors said.

Look what else my godlike tree man did:

It looks innocent enough but an entire tree used to be there! Here is a wider shot to show you why I took it out:

It had been planted way too close to the house, the spa, and the patio (on the left). It was also incredibly messy when it dropped its bazillions of flower petals in the fall. Normally I would just rake that stuff up but it was right over the spa. Alas, it had to go.

What I find amazing is how Tree God is able to drop a tree in such a small area, not to mention grind the stump out and leave a nice flat spot with nothing to indicate a tree used to be there but a dusting of sawdust.

(Don't ask me about that spiky plant in the photo. It just sprouted in the last few weeks out of nowhere. It was not there when I moved in last July! I hope it turns out to be a lily of some kind. I think I had better dig it up and move it to a better location before it gets any bigger.)

And the bonus shot of the day is Mystery Plant!

You saw a spindly, sad version of this plant last year. I shall endeavor to take a photo of it in full bloom so we can finally identify the thing. It really is quite pretty. I think I will try to divide it and plant it all around the beds. It is a giant cluster of giant bulbs and I have loads of them out front, too.

Oh the fun of gardening when you don't know what the hell you are doing. Tra la la.

Tags: yard and garden

House Obsessing as Procrastination

I yearn to remodel my house.

Then I hit myself over the head with that saying about not focusing on getting what you want, but rather wanting what you already have.

And then I go back to yearning about remodeling my house.

The sticky part is I have no money. But that should not stop me. No. What I would really like to do is state my wants and needs to someone (designer? contractor?) and have them draft up a plan telling me how much the whole plan will cost, but broken down by project so I can take things on in stages as the money becomes available. I also want that person to improve upon my initial idea and come up with something much better than I can think up all by me-self.

But who is this magical person? First I thought: designer (because I watch way too much Divine Design and Candace Olson seems to do it all, in one sitting while the camera is rolling.) But do designers really know all about building codes and which walls can be knocked down and all that? I am thinking no. So, a contractor then. But "contractor" does not call up visions of beautiful design. It instead makes me think of walls ripped down the studs and drywall dust flying everywhere.

My apologies to contractors everywhere. I am sure you are so much more than that.

So who do I call? Where do I begin? And what am I doing thinking about this now in the middle of tax season when I should be spending every waking moment working on somebody's taxes?

Whatever.

Remember how I really REALLY wanted to remodel my kitchen? I am over that now. Not completely, but I have decided I need a new master bathroom first. And probably a new guest bathroom at the same time, since it will probably be easier to do them concurrently since they share a plumbing wall.

See? SEE? This is another problem! I tell myself I can start small and just do one room but then I realize it would be more cost efficient to do it along with the one next door and it just snowballs from there. Not to mention the part where doing both bathrooms at the same time leaves me with NO TOILET. Gah!

I need a plan. My Queendom for a plan!

Tags: house obsession, tax follies

My love affair with Quickbooks Remote Access

It is more of a love/hate relationship, really, my affair with Quickbooks Remote Access.

Quickbooks is an accounting program the great majority of our small business clients use. In the past, I would get a backup of the client's Quickbooks file, restore it to my computer, make all my changes, and then give the client a list of journal entries to book.

Which of course they would not do, a fact I would only discover the following year when nothing rolled forward correctly and I could not tie to the prior year's tax return.

::sigh::

There are other ways to get the client file adjusted but suffice it to say none of them work on some clients. Enter Quickbooks Remote Access.

I can now log into the client's file remotely - access their computer while sitting at my computer - and when I am done, I am DONE. The real beauty of it is that while I am in the client's file, I can set it up so the system will not allow them to post earlier than a certain date like, say, the end of year I just wrapped up with a tidy little bow. HA! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

The "hate" part of my love/hate relationship with Quickbooks Remote Access is having to deal with the time lag. The slower the client's computer, the longer the delay. It reminds me of the olden days when computers were new and their responses were slow but 'tis a cross I am happy to bear. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. Or something.

I am sure there is an appropriate Star Trek reference that applies.

Live long and pay as little tax as possible. Yeah, that's the one.

Tags: tax follies