Odds and Ends

I sat down this morning and put a package together of all of the tax stuff I've been gathering up for our accountant. I emailed the ranch Quicken files to Cleon's office as well. Then Forry took my envelope of stuff over to the Valle del Oro Post Office and got it sent off by Priority Mail. So now that task is done -- much earlier than usual too!

Forry stopped by Juni and Tom's on his way back from the Post Office. We had shared with them an article in the Arizona Republic in their Restaurant Gems column about a restaurant in downtown Phoenix that featured fry bread and Indian Tacos. It had received a James Beard "American Classic" designation. The decision was made to check it out for dinner this evening.

The Fry Bread House is another very small (less than a dozen tables and booths) gem. We each had a variety of tacos with everything from ground beef to chorizo, beans or green chiles. We are used to fry bread tacos served flat with all the accompaniments on top, these were folded like a taco --

Of course, we did have to share one of their dessert fry breads covered with cinnamon and sugar!

It's That Time

Every year I say that I'm going to do the book work every month. And every year I don't. One year I kept up our personal account books for a good six months before I relapsed...

2012 was a normal year for us. We have the whole year of entries to do...

The first task is always to purchase a file box that we use to transfer files into as they are finished. This year, the boxes weren't just plain ordinary colors --

The inside file folders were labeled with letters and all kinds of categories. So out came the label machine to put months on those dividers.

These are the monthly files we are working from. This small file drawer has all of the ranch records. We are very good about putting all the paperwork for each month in its proper hanging file, at least.

This morning we got through January, February and March of the ranch files and got them entered into the Quicken software. I do all of the entries into the computer while Forry figures out what it was he paid for with that American Express or Citibank card. Once all of the months are done, I'll do our personal ones in Quickbook, then the whole caboodle will go to Cleon, our accountant and the guy who gets to make sense of it all.

Isn't Today Monday?

One of the things we've noticed since we retired is how hard it is to keep track of what day of the week it is -- let alone the day of the month! Today has seemed like a Monday all day. I'm sure it's because we took a "mini-weekend vacation" right in the middle of the week.

We got home this morning a little after midnight. It was a very eerie, beautiful drive home from Bellevue under a full moon. As we got to this side of the mountains, there were a few scattered clouds that the moon seemed to be flirting with, slipping in and out and lighting them from the backside.

I had a very productive day today. Not only did I get three loads of laundry done, but I got all of my Quicken accounts up to date! I had been caught up a couple of months ago and for some reason I was sure that I had entered all of the July data the first of August. I must have gotten distracted, because when I went to enter the August stuff, I discovered that only about eight days of July were done... But, anyway, I am now caught up! (This is one of the few resolutions I've made that I've really tried to follow through on. I hate trying to remember what it was I spent $87 on seven months ago and trying to figure whether it was deductible or not.)

My Kindle is Here!

Daughter Mary Mae stuck the package containing the Kindle DX in with the Fixed Rate box with our mail she sent to Moses Lake today. The package really wasn't very big and neither is the Kindle, even though it's the larger one of the two they make. It's plugged in right now getting charged. I will most likely have to go up on top of the hill tomorrow to download anything with it as it does not seem to be getting reception down here in the coulee.

I've finally gotten caught up with the laundry! And between loads today, I was even able to get several months of finances entered into Quicken. I am caught up as far as May. When I lost the mother board on my computer last winter, the computer shop was able to back-up my files for me. But, during the fiasco of the lemon Dell, I lost everything. In a way it is kind of nice to start over again from scratch -- there's a lot less stuff now then there was when I was working.

We stopped to visit Phyl for a few minutes while we were in Moses Lake. It is hard for her to say more than a word or two...