An April Recap

I knew April would be a busy month when I looked at my calendar and there were only three days on the whole month without something happening on them. Still, since a fair amount of those things were routine, like dance classes, I figured it would be fine. And we are fine, but very busy these days!

Grandma Dorothy's brain surgery kept us busy at the beginning of April. We spent an afternnon cleaning her house for her while she was at the hospital. She is doing well (the tumor was benign) and has been told she can resume her normal activities, but the experience left her feeling emotionally weakened and in need of support, so we have been visiting her to keep her spirits up.

April is a birthday month for us, so we were busy with gift shopping, party planning, party preparations, cake baking, gift wrapping...all the little things that go with birthdays. My brother celebrated his B-day with a BBQ. Clint and I played basketball with our kids and Henry and Chloe. It was a blast! For my birthday I engineered a shopping trip for the girls with Clint and made a special birthday dinner of lasagne with my favorite angel food cake with berries for dessert. I thought about spending my day doing something fun like scrapbooking, but I had too many chores to do. That's OK, it was an awesome day. The girls made me feel SO special. They bought me a new bread machine (yeah...my old one broke) and a new monitor for the old computer. Yipee! Now my computer has as awesome a screen as the girls' newer game computer. I can do all my work on the old computer now! They also bought me dangly earrings, scented candles, and a Japanese maple and columbines for my garden. They know all the things I like. I'm so lucky! A few days after my birthday was Tamzin's. We did Chuck E Cheese and a play date with two little girls one day, and then invited family over for a BBQ on her birthday. Clint's birthday was just a few days ago. We took him out to dinner one night, and then the next night we took him to Sportsman's Warehouse to choose his own birthday gift. This plan developed after a month of asking him for birthday ideas and getting NO response. I don't really care about getting him something, since I know he doesn't care, but the girls feel so disappointed when they don't have the chance to give a gift. He chose a pellet gun. He said he had always wanted one. I don't really get it, since we have a Red Ryder BB gun in the closet, but it was his choice, and he was very excited about it. He also took a day off work to go fishing for a B-day gift. The joys of self employment. And nothing bad happened on the job site while he was gone, thank goodness!

The girls started an Art Class through the Boys and Girls Clubs in Kennewick. It's an Art History class with a focus on tactile arts. Each week they will do a project related to an historical time period. They've done cave paintings and wood sculpting. Next week they will be doing Minoan period Frescos. Shelby and Rhiannon have been really enthusiastic about the class. I think it has exceeded their expectations. I'm not sure yet about Gillian. Tamzin is too young, so she and I have to find something to do for 1 1/2 hours in downtown Kennewick. We've played at McDonald's once and gone shopping at Fred Meyers once. This puts me at three days a week taking kids to classes and needing to find things to to while I wait for class to be over, and needing to be organized enough to have dinner planned and my household stuff under control so I'm not freaking out when I get home. I admit, I'm slipping. I'm not very on top of things at all right now.

Shelby has been volunteering at McNary Wildlife Refuge about 3 times a month. Driving her to and from is enjoyable, since we get time to visit without interruptions, but it does take some time. She likes helping out, and loves the Refuge.

I spent the first two weeks of the month frantically doing taxes. Not just income taxes, although that was the biggie, but also quarterly business taxes. With Clint's business in full swing again, I need to schedule in about 6-8 hours a week of office time to keep caught up, but it's tough to squeeze it in. Each task is small, but when I do them in peices I find I end up forgetting some stuff, which leads to disaster later. I had to do a California Tax Return, too, since they withheld $800 from his winnings from last year's big tournament. It was a pain in the neck, very complex. I had to call their tax board 5 times to get the full answer to one question about the method for distribution of business expenses by state, and in the end I had to look up the Ca tax code myself to be clear on the answer, since I got conflicting responses! But, it looks like I will get all the money back, so it was 5 hours well spent! I still need to file a Louisiana return, but I'm not sure it's worth the $30 they withheld. I think it will take about an hour. Hmm. Maybe it is worth it, if I can find the time.