A Letter to Genevieve

Dear Niece Vivi,

Thank you for teaching Kaelyn how to be a loud mouth. Our ears appreciate it very much. Especially since it's higher pitched than your own darling loud sounds.

Love and hugs,
Uncle Jared and Aunt Suki

P.S.
We still love you.

Tax Time

Are your taxes completed? Mine aren't! Relax... we got time. We're waiting on one little bitty paperwork that lists our charitable contributions from last year. Hopefully we get that soon.

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I got this email from Dave Ramsey (well, his newsletter anyway) last week and we all like laughing at tax jokes kinda like how we like laughing at Bill Cosby cause you know he's right.

The only difference between a taxman and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. — Mark Twain

Worried about an IRS audit? Avoid what's called a red flag. That's something the IRS always looks for. For example, say you have some money left in your bank account after paying taxes. That's a red flag. — Jay Leno

America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation. — Dr. Laurence J. Peter

The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. — Will Rogers

There's nothing wrong with the younger generation that becoming taxpayers won't cure. — Dan Bennett

Isn't it appropriate that the month of the tax begins with April Fool's Day and ends with cries of "May Day!" — Rob Knauerhase

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. — Ronald Reagan

[The Internal Revenue Code is] about 10 times the size of the Bible and, unlike the Bible, contains no good news. — Don Nickles

I just filled out my income tax forms. Who says you can't get killed by a blank? — Milton Berle

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Complete with some fun trivia facts (there was a graph which I didn't care to deal with putting that in here):

Highest rate – 94% (1944 and 1945)
Biggest one-year jump – 52% (from 15% in 1916 to 67% in 1917)
Worst rate-per-income year – 1944–1945 (the tax rate on a $200,000 income was 94%)
Worst stretch – from 1951 to 1963 (91% in 1951, 92% from 1952 to 1953, 91% from 1954 to 1963)
Biggest income-year drop (what you were taxed on; it makes a huge difference!) – 1942 ($5 million to $200,000)

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Till next time!

We are OFFICIAL!

We finally closed on our house on Monday. I'll spare you the details, but we were still providing the lender with information as we were walking out the door to go to the title company to close. And that was AFTER closing was delayed an hour.

The seller's agent (they were unavailable) handed over the keys despite the fact that the lender was slow in wiring the loan and we wasted no time in getting over to our home. Jared's first official act of home ownership was to raise the thermostat. Our first meal in our house was Wendy's.

We also wasted no time in living in our home. We're pretty much in the one carpeted room in the house. We moved our cats over here last night. Between Jared (who kept talking about kilobytes in his sleep), Kaelyn (who woke up frequently), and the cats (who thought they needed to be up every time Kaelyn was up), I didn't sleep very well. Kara is still skulking around.

Yesterday we purchased a washer and dryer which will be delivered tomorrow afternoon. Today we are purchasing a color paint wheel thing and a measuring tape. I am EXCITED. :D

Oh. My. Goodness.

The bank has finally cleared us to close! I was beginning to think I would never hear that. We settled on Monday, March 22, at 10 a.m. to close. Hopefully that works out for the seller. (If I had my way, Jared would take work off for a few hours tomorrow so we could close, but he couldn't.)

Let's give a quick recap of this journey.

October - December 2009: Jared is approached for an interview. He has a total of three interviews before an offer letter comes through (and from hearing "it's coming" to its actual arrival .... via email .... took about 2 weeks). The letter came three days after Kaelyn was born.

January 2010: The apartment is packed. Everyone and everything goes where it needs to go. Jared starts his new job. Kaelyn is 4 weeks old. We look at houses the day after we land in Ohio.

January 18, 2010: All parties sign a contract for our house. When we went to see it on that first day, our realtor said she knew when someone liked a house when they were already placing furniture (I was picking one of two locations for my piano).

January - March 2010: We get a house inspection, a chimney inspection, a structural inspection, another structural inspection, extend our contract twice, get basement work done, a city inspection, a final structural inspection. And then we wait. And give lots of paperwork to our mortgage broker (who got to deal with the underwriter). And we wait some more.

March 18, 2010: Exactly two months after entering contract, we get the word that we are CLEAR TO CLOSE.

YIPPEEE!!!!

Oh, and this whole time we're staying at the Farm, the grandparents, or ValeReed's. Sometimes together, sometimes apart. I want my pillow top mattress. I want my glider I never took out of the box. I want Kaelyn's clothes because she's growing out of all the ones I have here. I want pants other than these maternity ones.

Praying

Here is an excerpt from prayer at dinner this evening:

Val (who was helping Lara): Please bless...
Lara: Kimmi
Val: And...
Lara: Kimmi
Val: And...
Lara: Joshy
Val: And...
Lara: Kimmi
Pause.
Val: In the name of Jesus Christ...

Note: Josh and Kimmi were not present.



Here is prayer from Saturday:

Josh: Please bless that it doesn't flood. No wait, flood so that we don't have to sing tomorrow.
Suki: And miss Jonathan and Lindey's thing... and the birthday thing...
Josh: Bless that it goes down in time to go.
Lindey: Don't say that!
Jared: Just finish...