Lost Art of Thank You Notes

Now the holidays are over, it's time to send those Thank You cards. It's becoming a lost art. My mother insisted I send out thank you cards for each gift. And that's what we did. She's passed on now, but I still hear her reminding me to send them. She and her sister used to mail letters every week back and forth. Thank you notes are better with the write stationary. I like Carol Wilson Blue Hydrangeas 10 ct Embossed Note Card Set For Arts Sake. Been using it for years!

Christmas Shopping

Back in my working days, I would get one afternoon off for Christmas shopping. And I would have been pretty unhappy to have to walk through a bunch of shouting people only to find the stores closed, like what happened yesterday at the Mall of America. Instead of yelling, why not sing carols and give them a gift? A gift with their group and a slogan printed on it with a website may further their cause in a good way.

Christmas Baking

I've made my mincemeat squares, and this year, with the help of the OXO Good Grips Measuring Cup for Sticky Stuff, 2 Cup it was much easier! Just scoop the mincemeat into the cup, push down on the plunger and it pops right into the pan! It separates for easy cleaning!

L. L. Bean Is One of the Best!

I've used L. L. Bean products for years, and they're generally high quality.  They have a lifetime guarantee, and I've returned luggage after 10 years!  You need to keep your receipts, or they'll credit the last price available (usually a sale price).


Well, I submitted three less than favorable reviews yesterday, and they posted all three! They have free standard shipping, and if you get the L. L. Bean Visa card, you also get free return shipping.

Give them a try!  If you go through MR. Rebates or eBates, you'll even get credited for a rebate!

Market Correction - REALLY ???

The first time I heard the term "Correction" it shocked me.  That's the term investors use when the stock market is going down.  They never say it's going down or dropping.  They say there's a CORRECTION.

With that logic, does it mean that the stock prices going up is a mistake?

The investors REALLY need a better term than "Correction" when the stock market plummets!

Amazon Prime Service

I've been using Amazon Prime (One Year Membership)  for a while now.  I love the fact I can order a lot of supplies from them and get the two day prime shipping.  Now they've started a new twist.  For the 5-7 day shipping, we can get $1 credit on our e-books! Since my husband downloads a new e-book every day or two, that's a lot of savings!  For a short while, they had $5.99 off groceries through Prime Pantry.  We also have access to the Kindle Owner's Library that lets us borrow one book a month.  Kindle First that will let us "buy" one soon to be published book each month.  And Kindle Prime Instant Video works well with my Kindle Fire HDX 7", HDX Display, Wi-Fi, 32 GB - Includes Special Offers (Previous Generation - 3rd).  They also have Prime Photos (Unlimited Photo Storage).  Several formats are allowed, including RAW format files.  With the larger megapixel cameras, photo files have gotten quite large.  Prime Music is also available for the prime membership.

Amazon Prime Membership offers much more than they used to!

Tax Season's Here!

Did you know that aluminum can income must be reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)?   I just about fainted when my IRS Auditor told me I had to report income from hauling my cans across town, and it never even came up to $5 a year!    I think I was getting 15 cents a pound.  Talk about hassle of keeping all those cash receipts, because they paid me in cash.  After my husband retired, he told me no more driving across town to get coffee money for my soft drink cans.  He does drive down the street and drop them in the recycle collection dumpster along with our newspapers.

I've used TurboTax Home & Business 2014 Fed + State + Fed Efile Tax Software + Refund Bonus Offer - Win and Quicken Home & Business 2015 for years.  While we do hire an accountant for the hard stuff, Turbotax and Quicken help organize our taxes and lower our payments to the accountant.   January 1st, I set up a binder with indexes.  These indexes correspond to the various tax schedules:  1040, Schedule A, Schedule B, Schedule C, etc. As I work my quicken during the year, my paperwork goes in the proper tab.  So, at the end of the year, it's just a matter of printing out the tax schedule, importing or keying it into turbotax and off to the accountant.    I have a friend that works in as an auditor for the IRS and told me that just using an accountant every once in a while can actually cause more harm than good, since many customers may keep doing their taxes like the accountant did them.  But laws change!

Read Your Bills Carefully!

I got my cable/internet/phone bill this month and couldn't understand why it was $40 higher.  After looking at the bill, they'd added a charge for a service call even though I pay a $5 monthly fee so my service calls are supposed to be free.  They were kind enough to remove the charge, but why did I have to phone them when I was on the service call included plan?

Another time, we found the phone company had switched phone services without our permission, and the only way they'd let me switch back was to give them all sorts of information.  Needless to say, we signed up with another carrier.

Read over your bills carefully.  There may be something they stuck in there that shouldn't be.

Yarn Tip -

I had visited our local yarn store to get some skeins for the latest project, and had picked several colors from the same company since my project was a multicolor sweater.   I wasn't as worried about matching dye lots since I was doing an entrelac sweater Entrelac: The Essential Guide to Interlace Knitting .     They'd promised me that I could return yarn at any time as long as I had the rececipt.   But imagine my surprise when some time later, I discovered that not all yarn is alike, even when it's the same weight.  I had a combination of superwash and regular worsted yarn.  And the clerk had sold me this combination even though she knew I was using it in the same project.  The problem with using superwash and regular yarn is when you wash them the regular felts, but the superwash does not.  Not too bad if you plan to dry clean your knitting, but when knitting oven mitts, that you felt in the washer, I found that half felted and the other half did not.   

Well, I brought the yarn back to the store with my receipt and she informed me "store credit only" for the yarn still in hanks.  But she wouldn't take the two skeins back that I'd wound them into skeins.   So, annoying since we can't knit the yarn up without winding it into skeins.

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