simple.green.organic.happy.

Blog

Giveaway: Turbo Tax Deluxe Gift Card

I like to pay taxes.

With them I buy civilization.

~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

OK, nobody really likes to pay taxes. But the order-loving side of me enjoys the calculations involved, the collecting of relevant papers, the sorting of numbers and then the filing away of another year.

Even though everybody and their mother insists that you should have “someone” do your taxes when they get the slightest bit complicated (my husband lives in one state and works in another part of the time, I am a freelancer and independent contractor), I’ve always used Turbo Tax. It’s easy and gets easier every year. It took me less than an hour to prepare my tax returns for federal and two states, and I can do it in my sweats while watching TV (always a selling point). And then it printed out vouchers for me to use while paying my estimated taxes for 2010.

Turbo Tax also saves your info from year to year, and now is linked to Mint.com. Mint is a free online budgeting and tracking system that I just recently signed up for, and I can already see how much easier it’s going to make next year’s taxes– I can just flag anything that was purchased for business, and it’ll upload next year along with real estate taxes and mortgage interest as appropriate for deductions. AWESOME. Turbo Tax is also linked to Quicken and Microsoft Money, but as I don’t use those programs, I can’t speak as to how seamless that process is.

Anyhoo, the reason I’m telling you all this is because Kelly, a lovely local lady over at The Centsible Life, DM’d me on Twitter last week to let me know that I’d won a gift card for Turbo Tax– but I’d already done my taxes the week before! Nothing unusual there, really; that’s how my life works.

I was hoping that it would still be good next year, but alas, it specifies 2009.

So my loss is your gain! Win a Turbo Tax Deluxe gift card– redeemable at TurboTax.com and good for one free federal + state preparation and e-file with TurboTax Deluxe Online 2009.

Just leave me a reply below letting me know how you feel about taxtime to enter, and on Sunday, February 28th at midnight I’ll pull a random winner.

February 23, 2010
Philadelphia Zoo in Winter

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.

~William Blake

Maverick has been selected to participate in the Junior Advisory Council for the Philadelphia Zoo, so Jake and Cass and I trekked up to Philly on Saturday for some facetime with the animals.

Want to know the best thing about the zoo after 40 inches of snow? NO HUMANS. At least, not so many that you feel obligated to catch glimpses of things and then move on so someone else can get their turn. Nope, you can sit and take purty pictures to your heart’s content.

Here are some of my favorites; more to come.

Captions are just what popped into my head so proceed with caution.

Stanley looked cool & detached,

but then, penguins often do.

“High five!”

I hate Mondays.

“My spoon is too big!”

The bus will be here soon.

Whatever. Later, bitches.

February 22, 2010
Winter Olympics, Extreme Elton Style

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children.
One is roots; the other, wings.
-Hodding Carter

For my Valentine’s Day present, Jeff cleared the deck of snow so I could start hanging laundry again.

For the kids’ Valentine’s Day present, he took that snow and built a sled run named “The Terminator.”

The snow we got this month was fairly light and fluffy, so all of this had to be packed down and then built up. A labor of love to be sure, and certain to still be here for weeks to come, getting icier and faster all the time.

The sled run consists of a mens’ start with a steep slope, a ladies’ start some four feet below, and a jump high enough that it has to be climbed. It then winds down the rest of the hill. Jeff made me take a picture from the top, but it doesn’t look like anything. Just whiteness. So you’ll have to try to gain some sense of perspective from this photo- Jeff is at the top, I am at the jump, which is about a sixth of the length from the top.

The run is long.

On to the games! Maverick catches some big air. Note the dramatic foot pointing. Bonus points.

Jacob opts for face first positioning.
This was a risky decision that paid off with extra points for jump distance.

Here we have some team sledding.

At this point Jeff decides we need to up the ante with the jump, so he crouches down so the kids can jump over him.

He declines a helmet.

I considered cropping this photo in tightly so you can see the expression on his face, it’s priceless.

The obstacle jump was successful. No Eltons were injured.

Up next: snowboarding.

Have a great weekend! Get outside and play.

February 19, 2010