Taxes Bitches!

The third annual installment of Fathers are better at taxes actually ends up with me (and my dad) finishing my taxes on turbo tax in under 3 hours!!!!!! F-N-A! that is right no extension no BS. Done and filed with a refund nah nah nah nah!

W-2? W-4? W-hy the f**k do they have to be so confusing

Tax time is coming again and some of you are probably wondering, How can I get my dad to do my taxes?

Here are a few short steps to securing your dad's help during tax season:

1.) Every time he asks have you gotten your forms together, groan and say "Ugh I hate taxes" then change the subject.

2.) Ask him about how to set up a retirement account, then slip all your tax info into the folder of confusing papers you give him. Then when he asks you about it say, "Oh I've been looking for those to give to you. You said you wanted to do my taxes for me right?"

3.) Cry

4.) If your dad is crafty, get him involved in a serious project until the day before taxes are due! Then freak out!

I hope this might help you to ease your tax burden this year. If you need further help please see our first post about dad's being better at taxes.- Peace love and hair grease!-Peas

where have we been?

So as we said in our first blog we would probably write in here for about a week and then lose our own attention span. Apparently we looked into a crystal ball before saying that! We have been doing a ridiculous amount of yoga and trying to get back in-touch with our inner spirits. We have also been listening to a lot of Shakira. Clearly good reasons to have abandoned our blog about wasting time! I am going to try to get back on the band-wagon.

I have a new project that I am effectively using to waste my time. I am collaging, my goal is to do one a day but it has already turned into one a week. I will do my best to scan them in and let you see where the year takes me but I promise nothing!the image above is some of my early work.

This isn't really funny but it does help me waste time and forget about my house being dirty or how I can mix vinegar and baking soda to clean my toilet with an old toothbrush. Or at least hose were the directions I think Martha gave me?!?!

Frankie helped me send Nene a b-day card!

Rabbit Recycling is also helpful with gifts!

Day 2 rabbit Recycling

I wish I had been organized enough to take pictures everyday but I forgot to add it to my crackberry reminders, so here we are the sculpture is gone and this is the only record I have

How to Do and Undo Your Hair Do

Look at this girl, she is so sad because her hair has no style...

So, we now start the hair-doo. Put in the curlers and let them get their groove on with your head.

Now that is TOO curly. You got to undoo that hairdoo.

Iron out the hairdoo.

And you have successfully dood and undood your hairdoo.

Now you can go to the mixer.

Stay tuned . . . next weeks hair article: Secrets of Pssst!

Fab Time Saving Recipe

When you invite your friends over for a simple dinner, forget to make a dessert, and the cheap bastards brought bad wine. Here is an easy way to dazzle your guests,

Cookie Dough Pâté

All you have to do is go to your fridge, get out a tube of nestle Toll house cookie dough

Slap it on a cutting board,

Get out a knife

Slice a generous portion

spread it on your guests tongue

And Presto! Instant dessert

Or if you have a bit more time on your hands feel free to follow the directions on the back of a bag of chocolate morsels make the dough roll it in to a tube shape chill for a few minutes in the fridge. Follow steps above!

Less Ways To Do Nothing With More Stuff

1. Store your toaster on top of your microwave and don't plug them in. They'll do nothing functional but sit around all day!

2. Leave vitamins laying around so that you think about them but don't take them.

3. Bowls can be used as fun drinking games.

4. Groups of things that are not associated with one another look good and deter thieves.

5. Less ways to do nothing with more stuff!

The Latest Craze in Home Decor: Chatchkies

Expert in Nebraska says: "Nothing says "home" like useless junk and random decorations."

Design experts are raving these days about a hot new decor trend and it's not feng shui or oriental scatter rugs. Designer to the stars, Lela Pumpkins claims that Chatchkies are "so hot." "There are so many great things about chatchkies," Pumpkins says. "You can have themed chatchkies, like squirrel collections or random assortments" [like the one mentioned above].

And you can't just stop with one chatchkie. Once you place the first piece on that empty spot on your book shelf, your home will start filling up. "What is so great about them is that you can just keep buying more and putting them wherever you find an empty space" Pumpkins says.

Pumpkins also claims that chatchkies help you cut down on your cleaning time. "You'll just stop dusting, because it is way too difficult and time consuming to move all of the little chatchkies, dust and then put them back up."

Chatchkies can come from anywhere and are easy to obtain. Good places to purchase or steal chatchkies include antique stores, dumpsters, friend's homes, and junk piles in the woods. Designer Elle Moodoo claims that one of her most successful design jobs for a well-known celebrity included a rusty car bumper that was found near a swamp in Georgia. "I mounted it above her fire place and charged her a lot" says Moodoo. "It's that simple."

Photo above

Some chatckies from the author's home, L-R: Fiery Nun from toy store, crab shell, metal owls from Greece, porcelain poodle from fiance's parents home, broken rabbit salt shaker (it's so eclectic), succulent plants in vintage planter, plastic monster and masks (a gift from the Prime Minister of Agriculture from China.)

kk

Piles: Why We Need Them and How To Use Them

Wondering what to do with the tons of junk mail, bills, magazines and Linda McMahon political brochures that you receive in the mail daily?

You could sort through it: throw away the junk, pay the bills, read the magazines and use the brochures to line your cat litter box . . . but what's the fun in that?

Keep yourself guessing for months where your bills are or where that $20 bill is that came in your birthday card from Aunt Lou. You can do this using the strategy made "famous" by Peas & Carrots: PILES!

Piles are amazing and keep tons of junk looking neat and disorganized! Here are some good things about piles:

1. They make good use of vertical space.

2. They can quickly be thrown into drawers or closets when tidying up.

3. When the credit people call wondering why you haven't yet paid your bill, you can say (in the voice of Gilly of course) "Sorray. It was stuck in between my Wednesday issuse of WWD (Women's Wear Daily) and my report card from 1989."

4. When piles get too big, you can organize your piles by boxing and labeling them. For example: "Pile from April 2010."

5. Piles are always falling over which is really fun. This usually happens if you put small stuff on the bottom and bigger stuff on top.

6. Piles are always full of surprises . . . good and bad!

Interested in starting a pile of your own? Start by printing out this blog entry and placing it on your kitchen counter. Keep adding useless crap to it and before long . . . .

you got it, a pile of your very own.

kk

Rabbit Recycling

A few Years ago I was given this paper craft project. The idea was that you pay like $14 for a couple of sheets of thick paper with lines and directions, you cut, you glue, and voila! you have a moving paper sculpture. Fun!

So a few weeks ago while "cleaning" my living room I came upon this stack of papers in a pile (please see organizational strategies PILES, by Carrots). So I immediately sat down and began cutting and pasting. At one part in the directions you have to glue a nickel to a piece of paper as a weight, so when you turn the crank on the side the individual monkeys hands will cover their eyes, month or ears. Cute!

I made each individual and then connected them so they would move in unison, it was amazing! I had crafted a whole group of monkeys that would perform on demand. So I proudly placed it among some house plants to display, I thought it gave a nice, natural feeling to the monkeys. Like they were performing in their home town, the jungle. Then the other day I came home and found my troupe of monkeys face down on the floor...

I knew what this meant, FRANK! was at it again.

Sidebar: Two years ago, perhaps the same X-mas I got the monkey craft, I gave an adorable mini lop bunny to my husband, who was fond of them as he had one in his childhood that had mysteriously disappeared, like so many other childhood pets. I too had owned a few dwarf rabbits as a child Stewart and Sylvia, I am not sure which one it was but I remember waking up one morning at my Grandmothers house and finding a big hole in the side of the bunnies outdoor cage, and my parents explaining that the rabbit rather then the neighbors German Shepard had made the hole. I digress But there is a point, because of our mutual childhood traumas involving rabbits we decided that we should house our bunny, indoors. after a few nights of bunny bunny dig dig we decided that Frank the bunny would be happier hopping around the house and so we set him free, he obediently use the litter box and so it was decided that he would be a free range rabbit, safe, in the house. Soon after he was set free he began to eat paper or anything else within reach of his teeth. Including the trim in our house and a few power cords. Back to the other day...

Frank was up to his old tricks, he had munched all of the hands off the monkeys and part of the Speak No Evil Monkeys stand. As I look at it now He has also given See No Evil a full lobotomy. So He has turned a lovely troupe of monkeys into a deranged handless freak show!

But now the paper can go back to it's natural habitat, the recycling bin

FUN!

vv

Dads Are better at Taxes

So it is almost April 15th and I have yet to begin doing my taxes. I have done this for no comprehensible reason. I got all my W-2's and 1099's together and have been driving them around for the last few months in a file folder,in my back seat or trunk. They have been ready for months.

I usually do my taxes at my parents for the following reasons:

1. My parents still receive some of my mail even though I own a house and receive mail there regularly.

2. My father buys Turbo Tax every year and that is cheaper for me.

3. Unlike my friends, my parents do not have an accountant who will do them for me.

4. My brother does his taxes there so why shouldn't I.

5. If anything goes wrong (meaning I own $) I can yell at my Dad about it.

6. If I don't know what the f TurboTax is talking abut then again I can yell at my Dad.

For the first time ever I may be filing an extension, clearly starting this blog was more important!

So I did file my taxes last night with my fathers help. I was trying to "work the numbers" so I would receive a return rather than have to give, and discovered that if you can find someone to charge you $1,000,000.00 to do your taxes you can receive a handsome return and then they can claim the monies as bad debt! I enjoyed showing my brother this strategy but was brutally rebuffed by my mother she claimed it would be considered "tax fraud"... the only tax fraud is that I had to pay taxes again! I know the basics of how taxes work but am often unsure when it comes to these finer points.

Before I woke up this morning I was dreaming about giving my taxes to someone else to do, so then I could relax on April 14th... perhaps next year!