Small Victories and Unexpected Sights

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Take a snap of something you've found surprising or unexpected. This could be anything from your normally combative dog and cat taking a nap together to a flower sprouting in a parking lot -- anything that you take a look at and say "well, there's something you don't see every day."

Well, this did surprise me, although probably it shouldn't have. I noticed this afternoon that the St. Michael's sign isn't covered up any more:



I should have expected this, because Father Smith preached about the sign on Easter. Even then, though, he mentioned that the sign was covered up. For the last week, the Holy Week schedule has been hanging there, and before that, the sign for the school. It makes sense that the Holy Week sign would be gone, but the parish office was closed today. So who did it, and when? I have my guesses. Maybe the "prophetic sign" will be visible for a while.
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You saw another shot from this series yesterday, but here's the real black cat hanging out near a fake one. Definitely something you don't see every day.



And this was sitting by the door when I got home from work tonight. I knew John was looking into getting a new iMac, but I did not expect him to close the deal this quickly. We were able to do it because of this:


I'm not going to show you the unexpectedly large amount of the state refund that makes John's purchase more affordable. Let's just say that we both increased our state withholding last year, and it helped a lot.

I floundered quite a bit on Saturday and Sunday, trying to get together all the relevant numbers and bits of paper. John had gathered the main ones, but it seemed there was an infinite supply of additional numbers to track down. When did I get my eyes checked, and how much did it cost? Did I give to KUAZ in 2005? Where's that darn form with the...?

In the end, though, it didn't matter. I got enough of it to determine that the standard deduction was the number to use. And I got it done in time. My stress level, and the attendant digestive discomfort, have been receding ever since.

The other small victory of the last day or two happened at work. I got in some of the time I owed from my trip to Motor Vehicles last week. More important, I was productive today. I not only finally learned to take over a job a co-worker has been handling for me (long story; not telling it), but I got a reconciliation down from a-very-large-discrepancy to just $1.30. Not bad! I also worked out a more efficient way to do it, so the job will be less scary and time consuming in the future.

Dang, it's late again. Good night!

Karen

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