ok, here goes ... the weekend update thingie

[mamajoan]

Uhhh. I forget what I already posted about. d'oh. I know I forgot to mention that on Saturday, at one point we heard a bunch of sirens and Isaac got all excited, "fire truck! fire truck!" -- then I realized that they were right outside on our street. We went out on the front porch and there were FOUR fire trucks parked on our street, one right in front of our house. With the lights flashing and everything. Isaac was in little-boy heaven, LOL. Anyway, there was no smoke and I don't know what was going on, but after a few minutes the trucks all drove away ("Bye-bye fire truck!") so I'm assuming it was either a false alarm, or nothing serious. I dunno.

Yesterday, my mom watched Isaac while I went to a movie. Back before Isaac was born I had a little tradition along with jenwrites and The Intrepid Melissa(tm) of going to see a chick-flick on Super Bowl Sunday. Jen was busy yesterday but Melissa and I revived the tradition. We saw "Finding Neverland," starring everyone's favorite pirate, Robin Williams as Popeye. No, wait, I mean Johnny Depp. ;) It wasn't my first choice, but Melissa was really into it, and I'm always happy to feast these tired eyes on the Deppster, so why not. I'm not sure, in the end, whether it was really suitably chick-flicky (too much testosterone, not enough romance? But certainly with some droolability and much schmaltz, so maybe it balances out) but still, it was mostly enjoyable. Although I did discover that it's pretty difficult now for me to watch movies where parents die and leave kids behind to grieve. Especially when the parent has plenty of time to know that she's dying. Remind me not to see any movies where the kid dies.

Anyway, then Melissa and I hung out a bit, and then I went back to my mom's place and we got Chinese and watched the first half of the Super Bowl. I guess it kind of defeats the point of Chick-Flick Sunday if the movie is over before the game even starts *g* but oh well. I'm not really into football, but I've been watching it a little bit over the last few years and it's certainly fun to watch a big important game. Plus, the commercials. I really liked the FedEx/Kinko's one with Burt Reynolds and the dancing bear, and also the Diet Coke(?) one with Carson from "Queer Eye." :)

Then at halftime I took Isaac home and put him to bed, which took several hours *sigh*, and watched the rest of the game thanks to the miracle of TiVo, and didn't get myself to bed till midnight. *groan*

And now it's Monday and here I am in my new office again, whee. I stopped off at the post office and picked up an actual paper copy of the 1040, and did it out by hand, and discovered to my dismay that the online thingie was right: my refund is about $450. I guess I should be happy about the $450, but it's a lot less than the $2000-3000 that I was kind of expecting, so it's a little hard to swallow. :( Now I have to decide whether to shell out the $8 to the online thingie to do my e-filing for me. I'm thinking it might be worth it to avoid the paperwork wrestling and to get my refund asap. hmm, I wonder how much my state refund will be?

Anyway, that's the current State of the Joan.

Comments

[sydb42.livejournal.com]

Our refund ended up being less than we were hoping for as well. :(

We had fire trucks outside our house about a year ago, in the middle of the night, complete with burning smell that got into our house. The house directly across the street had caught on fire. By the time I looked out, there were no leaping flames, but definitely smoke. As far as I know, no one got hurt (no ambulance that I saw), and the house got fixed up (over a few months), which it needed anyway, so I guess that part was good.

[funkyreunion.livejournal.com]

just FYI, I e-filed using hrblock.com, and they're no longer charging for the lowest-level form filling out and e-filing, no matter what your income is.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip. I'll definitely check it out!