God bless the IRS and other fun stuff.

Ha! Who knew that I could officially respect the tax code? Well, respect might not be the right word for it, but today my taxes turned out okay. Had them prepared for free (happy to tell you all about it if you still need to get yours filed!) and then the refund looks better than expected. I am inspired to continue the quest toward adulthood so we've discussed and decided the cash will be used to pay bills, save for retirement and treat ourselves a little. Trip to Oregon to visit some of Pete's siblings maybe? That's one of the goals on the to-do list that would be nice to knock out. Anyway, things turned out fine which I wasn't expecting. Thank you Uncle Sam for at least throwing me a little bit of a bone. With so much stuff wrong with our governmental system I would have really been down on life if I would have been made to pay in.

The barn trip has been postponed until tomorrow so I think I'll check out a birthday party this afternoon before Pete's colleague joins us for a red-blooded American dinner of steak and salad. Yum. Treats. Speaking of treats, last night we ate manicotti and watched more Sopranos. We're now fully and totally engrossed in Season 4. Only three episodes left in the season. I find that I can hardly watch other TV shows now because the Sopranos is so far above average. The writing is so sharp, the photography so clean and diaologue so ironic. What's not to love?

Okay, back to the house cleaning. Still putting everything in place from the addition of Grandma's stuff. And what good stuff it is. Cheers y'all...