All Rileyed Up

I am currently reading the Frontier Magic series by Patricia C. Wrede, and the third book in the series is called The Far West. When I read the title, my mind automatically thought of other times I’ve heard that phrase or allusions to it, which naturally conjured up images in my head of when I myself made the Big Move.

Growing up in Florida, the thought of moving to California was a pipe dream. When college came along, I thought that would be the opportunity, but I wound up getting sidetracked with a stint in New Orleans – no complaints. I loved living in NOLA, but it was still the south and I had the drive to move West. Call me a frontier American focused on her manifest destiny, but I wanted to see the Pacific ocean and not just over a vacation.

When I graduated college, I finally got my act together and drove across the country to southern California. I did this by myself, without the help of any Los Angeles movers. I had an white ’94 Toyota pick-up, and for my friend for company and between us sat a Styrofoam head that we added pushpins to whenever we stopped at a gas station. Good times.

When I made it to LA (which I called LA but later learned was actually Orange County, which means something if you live there, but to everyone else in the country, it’s still LA), I found a place within walking distance of the beach, and my life continued. Did the whole got a job in the computer industry thing, then I got married, and my husband’s job moved us several times. On one of our moves around So Cal, his company paid for us to use professional movers, such as LA movers, and they even packed up the whole house for us. Of course, when Husband’s job didn’t work out and he quit, we were on our own for the trip back. And since we’d been spoiled with the use of a Los Angeles moving company, we wound up seeking one out and hiring one. A few moves later (professional and non) brought me to where I am now — rural California. I am literally living in the woods. Which means that reading the Frontier Magic series makes me feel right at home. Cheers to moving West!

***This post inspired by LA Movers***

Taxes, taxes, taxes. Tax season is over, but like vampire books and Tom Cruise, it never goes away. How do you do your taxes?

I get my taxes done with my tax accountant who came to me by way of my husband who came to him by way of a referral. We love our tax accountant and can’t imagine working with anyone else. While my father is the kind of person who does taxes on his own, many people I know are like me, and they use tax accountants. Now I don’t remember who said it, nor do I remember exactly how the quote goes, but like a hackneyed rip-off artist, I’m going to misquote — if there are two trustworthy people you want in your life, it’s your accountant and your mechanic.

Personally, I don’t know much about what it takes to be an accountant or what you’re supposed to do to maintain your accountant credentials. I do know that when it comes to teaching, you’re required to take a certain number of classes every so often to stay on top of the latest information. It seems like everything is that way. You can’t just learn something, get licensed for it, and never learn again. Your career is a lifelong educational opportunity. And with our economy the way it is, it doesn’t surprise me that accounting and tax filing info could change from time to time, which is why schools like Fast Forward Academy exist: to provide enrolled agent continuing education. Fast Forward offers pass guarantees to help ea continuing education students stay on top of the latest guidelines from the IRS. This in turns helps people like me (ie, the customer).

So, there you have it. Fast Forward Academy. Tell your money-managing friend about it. And then ask for a hat tip fee.

**This post brought to you by the fast forward thinkers at Fast Forward Academy.**

So I know it may be April, but it’s never too late to start planning for Halloween! I also happen to be surrounded by students dressing up in Brazilian Carnival themed outsides for an upcoming variety show (feathers, lots and lots of feathers), so maybe costumes are on my mind. Here are a few suggestions culled from the Ghost of Halloween Past.

My friend J and I went as spring holidays one year, she the Easter Bunny and I, a leprechaun. These Halloween costumes could also work as the Trix bunny and the Lucky Charms guy, but we didn’t get around to buying the cereal boxes, so we just stuck to the holidays.

Easter Bunny costume: bunny ears, whiskers painted on, a white springy dress, with a pastel pink shirt beneath it, and she carried around an easter basket filled with carrots (easter eggs would have been better, but we didn’t have any).

Leprechaun: I wore a big green hat, a green suit (that I already owned, thank you), which I cuffed below my knees. I added a pair of white knee high socks and big black shoes (Mary Jane Doc Martens—clearly, a grunge Leprechaun). On my shoes, I taped gold paper with gold glitter glued to it (say that five times fast). On my face, I painted a shamrock and I wore a lovely green eyeliner from Sephora that I highly recommend even when it’s not Halloween. I had originally intended to carry around a pot of gold chocolate coins, but I didn’t get around to stopping by the store, so then I was going to paint a rainbow and a pot of gold on my other cheek, but after my attempt with the shamrock, J and I agreed it was best to let the face painting go.

It reminded me of the time when I was Pocahontas at a birthday party and the parents had a face painting kit. Now, I didn’t know how to face paint then either, but I figured, how hard can it be? Heh. One kid wanted to be a shark, so I dabbed the gray coloring and went to work. My finished product looked more like a gravestone than a shark. So I added a dash of red to it and told him the shark had just eaten fresh kill so there was blood on his mouth. His reaction? “Cool!” Then EVERY kid wanted the bloody mouth shark on their face. Oh yeah. I was a real hit with the parents at that party.

But back to my Saturday night party tomfoolery (ballyhoo! Irish words! Yea!).

I’d have to say, the luck o’ the Irish was certainly with me that night. First, there was the good doctor (he wore an operating smock with the words “Dr. Feel Good” written on the back). He ‘accidentally’ fell on me while I was sitting on the couch and spilled a drink on my left leg. If I had brought a shillelagh, I’d have hit him with it.

Then there was the girl wearing my award for Most Clever Costume—Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Rain (she had on a blue shirt with cottons balls glued to it and carried around a spritzer bottle that said ‘rain’ – her husband wore a poncho and one of those umbrella hats). She spilled a good ¾ of her drink on my right leg a few minutes after Dr. Feel Good didn’t feel so good. In addition to the drink spillage, I also managed to get a Velveeta-y concoction on the lapel of my jacket. Perhaps I was channeling my child’s approach to food and revelry?

Other notable Halloween costumes included the hostess of the party who dressed up as SuperGirl but thought she was Wonder Woman. Her husband was dressed as Batman and his shenanigans at the party would have made an excellent home movie called “Batman does the Grind.”

A couple showed up as Dog the Bounty Hunter and his wife, Beth. Unfortunately, I asked if they were supposed to be Anna Nicole Smith and Ted Nugent. I don’t know, I’ve never seen that Bounty Hunter show, and they’re all a bunch of so 5 years ago. I hope they weren’t insulted. And, as with all parties, there’s always someone who shows up in the Creative Political Costume. This year being an election year ought to make for some fine artistry.

The winner for the weirdest costumes choice of the night, however, goes to Batman’s father, who was dressed as an angel. Gold dress, wings, blonde wig with a halo. Yes, nice angel costume. But then, for reasons unbeknownst to anyone, he pulled a stocking over his face, cut out the eye and mouth holes, and then painted BRIGHT RED lipstick on his mouth over the stocking. This resulted in him looking like Leatherface dressed as an angel. I don’t know what this means. I just know, I’m a scared of it, and it takes a lot to scare a Leprechaun.

**This post co-inspired by a visit to Halloweenmart.com SO can’t wait for October!

Harry Potter. Love Actually. Shanghai Knights. The Queen. What do movies things have in common besides my stream of consciousness? Well, they all take place in London. Have you ever wanted to visit London? Whether you’ve always been interested, or the Olympics 2012 has finally caught your eye, London is a fabulous place to check out.

If I were to visit London, I would want to go to the museum to see the exhibits they have on Egyptian artifacts. My parents went there a few years ago and had seen some amazing displays of mummies and tomb findings.

I would also, of course, visit the infamous Abbey Road and take a picture. And I assume there’s a Penny Lane sign somewhere… Next, I would visit Oxford and find out if they sell fake diplomas. I highly doubt it, as that sounds like some sort of American shenanigan.

A very good friend of my mother’s lived in London. I called her my aunt even though she wasn’t actually my aunt. You know those kinds of close family friends. Anyway, she always had an open invitation for me to visit her London, but regrettably her health got the better of her two years ago and I never got the chance to see her or London through her eyes.

Of course, there are many ways to handle travel arrangements and one is to look out for people who have lived there like my aunt, who are willing to show you around. Robert and Polly Arnold are just those people. Check out their London Apartments, and again at London Apartments.

Whether your plans are of a business or pleasure nature, Polly and Robert can you show you a London that’s been a part of their lives for 22 years. I trust they’ll know where that Penny Lane sign is I’m looking for!

This post courtesy of London Apartments. Shocking!

Currently, at my school, our union has been negotiating our health benefits. They offer us health insurance and cover a very healthy portion of my health insurance costs, but of course, I still have to pay some monthly out of pocket, not to mention I’m on an 80/20 plan so whenever I go somewhere, I have to pay again. Along with co-pays.

I imagine I must be somewhat lucky, though, because I’m still of a relatively young age, and my family is healthy. I remember my friend telling me that her parents were paying thousands for just the two of them, every month. On About.com, you can find, well, just about anything. Among those many “anythings” is information on senior health insurance.

First off, the website has quotes for insurance. This probably goes without saying. The site also offers gap coverage to help you with things like deductibles and co-pays. Really, if you make monthly visits to the doctor, those $25-35 co-pays do add up.

And because I like videos, here’s a fun video they posted. So, if you’re in need of senior health insurance, go check it out!

This post brought to you by – you guessed it – Medicare Supplemental Insurance.

Tax season is over! Doesn’t it feel nice to have gotten all of that business out of the way? Assuming you did your taxes… or perhaps you’re one of those people who still haven’t done their taxes. So what are the reasons people don’t do their taxes? Don’t have money or want to conscientiously object? Here are five excuses I came up with, and am presenting to you courtesy of militaryvaloan.com, who offer veteran loan rates:

5) I DID file my taxes, but they were lost in the system. Honestly!

This is a good excuse because there is a small possibility it could be true! After all, think of how many forms and submissions the IRS receives? Surely, there’s room for a mistake here and there.

4) I had my direct deposit account with Wells Fargo all set up and ready to go, but then I found out I was going to owe money and decided I’d rather just not file.

Happens to the best of us.

3) I spent more time trying to figure out how to install Turbo Tax.

This excuse written in honor of everyone who did their taxes so well on paper only to learn the skill didn’t transfer well to the computer they never knew how to use in the first place.

2) I was over-exuberant when hitting on my tax accountant and was ultimately asked to leave the office. I left my tax forms there and was too embarrassed to go back…

Typical.

1) The dog ate my W2.

This choice is obvious. It works on so many levels.

If there is one thing I’m fond of, it’s my college experience. Moving away from home. Drinking lots and lots of coffee. Learning the ins and outs of roommates and their, ahem, unusual behavior quirks. How to turn your whole load of laundry pink. And the papers, oh the papers. I spent countless hours in libraries and computer rooms, typing and saving and typing and saving. The good old days of 3.5” floppy disks.

College is something everyone has an opinion about, but not everyone has the money for it. That’s where the popularity of college savings accounts come in. One of the first things I did for my kids was open college savings accounts for them. I had a monthly deduction that supported their future dreams to be an engineer or an artist (plenty of time to decide once you’re there kids…). Unfortunately, with everyone going on lately in the world of jobs and having one, my family has cut back on certain expenses. As much as I hated to do it, I put a stop to the monthly deductions.

As it turns out, I am not alone, and there are so many people in my situation that there are now groups who will help you save for college by saving the money you are already spending on other things. If you have aspirations to help your child go to college, but don’t have spare case for a savings account, you might check out a website like Mission Tuition, which as the name suggests, is on a mission to help you out with tuition.

The website is pretty self-explanatory – you open an account with them, register your card information and start shopping! The website also has special rebates through the companies that affiliate with them so you can earn extra money towards your account.

So now, when you’re like me and a leak soaked through the drywall and there’s interesting-looking mold growing in the bathroom, you can buy drywall at Home Depot and know at least some of the that money will be cycled back into a college savings account. Ain’t life grand?

This post brought to you by the good people at Mission Tuition, not to be confused with Mission Tortillas. Which are tasty.

If you’re going to live in a rural area, especially in the heart of California, chances are good that you may have need to call the fire department at some point. And since you live in a rural area, chances are good that the response time will not be in that “under 5 minutes” category I hear tell of.

For example, I was just talking to my friend KC, who volunteers for the fire department (the whole dept is pretty much peopled by volunteers) and he said one of his biggest problems is FINDING the house that requires an emergency response. So the next time you think, oh, just look for the house with the green mailbox, across from that very large rock, you know it’s the only really big rock on that road, instead think about equipping your house with residential address plaques. If you feel the need to be extra fancy, because the guy next door uses an outhouse as his primary form of facilities, you might shoot for the bronze address plaques.

I would like to throw a shout of support to anyone who chooses to go for the custom address plaques, and would be willing to bet you could get them to look a lot like those custom rural mailboxes that I am prone to spot, like the wine barrel, the woven stick reindeer, the bronze pig, the tie-dyed mailbox, and my personal favorite – the one so large my child keeps asking if he can crawl inside of it (I always tell him no because I have no idea if that is against some sort of federal law, it being a mailbox and all…).

Anyway, whichever you choose, make sure that ‘making your address is visible’ is at the top of your priority list when you live rural. Because if the time should ever come, you’ll be glad you can be found.

This post inspired by the good people at Just Address Plaques.

One, lots of people have read the Hunger Games and will willingly discuss whether or not Peeta is attractive with a total stranger. I mean, I think he’s a total hottie as well, but I don’t know about pouring out my thoughts on this to a total stranger (as I blog about it).

The prices in the airport are no longer the target of my outrage over overpriced items. They have been replaced by the gas station.

If you needed to be somewhere by 5:30pm, you should have left the day to account for weather delays. Especially when you’re me, since I attract flight problems like Katniss attracts Peeta.

Every newspaper is talking about “SANTORUM EXITS THE RACE.” Surprisingly, none of the captions say, “We’re still scratching our heads as to why he was a contender in the first place…”

The airport bar buys its aluminum foil and wax sheets and supplies, et. al. from Smart n’ Final. Ain’t nothing funny about that. Just an observation.

Time of day is irrelevant in the airport bar.

The Road was a depressing book choice for a long layover.

More to come…

I have a book review up over at Literary Mama. Here’s an excerpt:

Turkish author Elif Shafak long espoused the motto: “dreams first, family later… maybe,” and her memoir, Black Milk: On Writing, Motherhood, and the Harem Within traces her fraught journey from writer to mother to mother-writer. Early in her memoir, Shafak asks readers a question once posed to her: “Do you think a woman could manage motherhood and a career at the same time and equally well?” For many years, Shafak’s answer to this question was no. As a successful author and self-proclaimed nomad, Shafak wandered the world, writing and publishing in her beloved Istanbul, in the US and in Europe. But her decision to postpone motherhood and wholeheartedly pursue a career was not without inner turmoil.

Also at Literary Mama, an author interview and novel giveaway. An excerpt from the interview:

What is the highest compliment you can imagine receiving from a reader of your book?

For so long, I shared my writing with only a handful of people. Since the book came out, I’ve been overwhelmed by the kindness of readers. Many have taken the time to not only read the book but to write or tell me what it meant to them. That, to me, is the highest compliment. To know that it touched someone, that they connected with it, were moved by it, stayed up late reading it, reconsidered some aspect of their own lives because of it…now I’m the one with tears in my eyes.