I Have Ruined Myself!
I baked my own tortilla chips this weekend from store-bought corn tortillas. They are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than the purchased chips that I could easily skip buying chips now. I wasn't interested in going as far as making the tortillas, then making the chips. That would have required more time and effort than I was willing to devote to the enterprise.
The Wholly Guacamole was delicious. Over three days I ate both packages. Most of it was just chips and guac, but I did put some on a bean burrito on Saturday, for a bit of variety. For all that the guac was my Super Bowl treat, I only had the TV on for the last half of the game and even then I mostly wasn't watching it. I didn't even pay attention to the commercials!
Questions for the Day:
How many US politicians fail to file their income taxes properly if 1-2 of them are found to have tax problems whenever a new Cabinet is being chosen? Who on earth are these politicians hiring to do their taxes anyway, Benny over at We Do Ur Taxes Gud? Perhaps my assumption that the politicians have the funds and smarts to pay someone competent to do their taxes is misguided. My question is this: If the US tax code is sufficiently complicated that the people who HELP WRITE IT can't figure out how it works, how on earth do they expect the rest of us to figure it out? Is this perhaps a sign that we need 1) to look more closely at the tax records of all the politicians and allow the IRS to claim the money it's owed and 2) a simpler tax code?
It really bothers me that politicians make "mistakes" with their taxes with this frequency. I wonder if the rate of accidental errors in filing among politicians is anything like the rate of errors among the general population. I'd bet my coffee money for the week that it's higher. I don't even buy the argument that federal taxes for politicians are more complicated than those for us mere mortals. I'm sure there are plenty of other citizens with equally complicated tax returns. That's why we hire tax professionals to help us. I'd like to think that politicians get audited whenever there's a suspicious tax return, but the skeptic in me suspects that is probably not the case. I don't know who would be the worse enemy, an aggravated IRS auditor or an aggravated Congress critter/Cabinet member.
Shaking Things Up
I hit the gym this morning. It felt really good to put in some treadmill time and I didn't do as badly as I expected to do with my recent layoff either! Of course at the moment I'm rather tired, but that may have as much to do with spending the day staring at a spreadsheet as it did with my workout. I'm also putting increased emphasis on eating plenty of veggies and fruits each day. It's time to revisit my monthly budget too, so I'm going to track all my expenditures for the next few months. With all these changes, by May or June, I probably won't know who the heck I am any more!! It sounds counterintuitive, but it's always easier for me to make big, dramatic changes rather than small, slow changes. I lose interest in the slow changes, especially if I can't see some progress with them. It's the progress that keeps me going.
The Wholly Guacamole was delicious. Over three days I ate both packages. Most of it was just chips and guac, but I did put some on a bean burrito on Saturday, for a bit of variety. For all that the guac was my Super Bowl treat, I only had the TV on for the last half of the game and even then I mostly wasn't watching it. I didn't even pay attention to the commercials!
Questions for the Day:
How many US politicians fail to file their income taxes properly if 1-2 of them are found to have tax problems whenever a new Cabinet is being chosen? Who on earth are these politicians hiring to do their taxes anyway, Benny over at We Do Ur Taxes Gud? Perhaps my assumption that the politicians have the funds and smarts to pay someone competent to do their taxes is misguided. My question is this: If the US tax code is sufficiently complicated that the people who HELP WRITE IT can't figure out how it works, how on earth do they expect the rest of us to figure it out? Is this perhaps a sign that we need 1) to look more closely at the tax records of all the politicians and allow the IRS to claim the money it's owed and 2) a simpler tax code?
It really bothers me that politicians make "mistakes" with their taxes with this frequency. I wonder if the rate of accidental errors in filing among politicians is anything like the rate of errors among the general population. I'd bet my coffee money for the week that it's higher. I don't even buy the argument that federal taxes for politicians are more complicated than those for us mere mortals. I'm sure there are plenty of other citizens with equally complicated tax returns. That's why we hire tax professionals to help us. I'd like to think that politicians get audited whenever there's a suspicious tax return, but the skeptic in me suspects that is probably not the case. I don't know who would be the worse enemy, an aggravated IRS auditor or an aggravated Congress critter/Cabinet member.
Shaking Things Up
I hit the gym this morning. It felt really good to put in some treadmill time and I didn't do as badly as I expected to do with my recent layoff either! Of course at the moment I'm rather tired, but that may have as much to do with spending the day staring at a spreadsheet as it did with my workout. I'm also putting increased emphasis on eating plenty of veggies and fruits each day. It's time to revisit my monthly budget too, so I'm going to track all my expenditures for the next few months. With all these changes, by May or June, I probably won't know who the heck I am any more!! It sounds counterintuitive, but it's always easier for me to make big, dramatic changes rather than small, slow changes. I lose interest in the slow changes, especially if I can't see some progress with them. It's the progress that keeps me going.
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