A SURPRISE

        Sometimes small unexpected things surprise me. Maybe it's not so much surprise but something I hadn't thought about.

        This morning we went to look at another seniors living facility. We've been looking at places for the last three months. No, we're not moving. Looking , just in case.

        No doubt about it the people who show you around are sales people. The more they know about you , the more successful their pitch can be.

       So they want to know what some of my interests are. I told him I blogged. He seemed surprised. He said, "I've never met anybody who writes a blog.

       I was surprised. I guess if you're in the blog world you think blogging is common. I talk to my friends about my blog and they know about writing blogs. They read me sometimes and are quick to make a comment. 

     I also look at blogs and see that they have many followers. Some blogs have thousands of followers. 

     So I was a little surprised to meet someone who wasn't very familiar with blogging.

     Do you find that people are familiar with blogging? 

A GOOD MORNING OF BIRDING

     We were  out at a location called Nova Nature Trails. It's about 300 acres of  fairly good native habitat. 

    I didn't get any bird photos. I wanted some scenery shots and birder shots.

    The snow is the left over from Monday. 

     The first photo is a wasp nest from last summer. 

AND IT SNOWED AGAIN

       So on April 19 we had a major snow storm . Yesterday was very dull. Visibility was low. It snowed all day and quit around 3:00 AM.

       Spring storms like this are not unusual. However, people always look back at the records. 

       So this post is just for William from Ottawa Daily Photo. William loves snow!

        You know I got thinking and I wouldn't have had to work so hard and get these photos. I've got lots from other years that I could use!

WAY BACK MACHINE.

    I started teaching in this small city in 1969. So some quick arithmetic puts that at 54 years ago. 

 Once in a while the way back machine kicks in.  This week I ran into some ancient history from 1969. 

    I had one gr. seven class that I taught math and science to in 1969. Okay, some more arithmetic. Those students were eleven years old in 1969 which will make them 65 right now. 

    The other morning at birding somebody asked which school I taught in. Another birder was listening and she said , "What years did you teach there?" My answer 1969 to1997. She said that she had gone to the school during that time specifically 1969. 

    She told me her maiden name and I immediately supplied her first name. 

    Here's someone I had not seen for close to 54 years. It was a treat to meet her and go over so many things. She had lived in the U.K. for 10 years. 

    She had been coming to the birding group for four weeks before we made the connection. 

    It's always very interesting to meet former students even after 54  years. 

ORIGINS

       Every Easter,  by Good Sunday, the Micro Manager has a few Easter decorations scattered around. These decorations are few and quite ancient. They come from the time our children were little. 

      So these decorations have to be quite old because  my kids are in their fifties. 

        You can see from the photos that we have a real flair for decorating.

        Now my brother emailed back and said, "are those the Easter bunnies that Grandma Peake ( my Grandma) made? The Micro Manager said, "Your Mom gave them to me and said she didn't make them but she didn't say who did make them."

      I'm not sure what generation the bunnies were made for but I'm sure my brother will give us the correct information.

      So some simple decorations have raised some historical questions. 

WHERE'S MY CAN OPENER?

       Yesterday I went to start lunch. Yes, I always have soup for lunch. I automatically went to where the can opener is stored and what? There was no can opener there. I stared stupidly at the place where the can opener was to be. Well, maybe it was mistakenly put in the next drawer. It wasn't in the second drawer. 

     Well, I'll go back to the drawer where it's always kept. I moved a few things around to make sure it wasn't under something. I looked on the counter top. Maybe it was on the counter and I just wasn't seeing it. No, it wasn't on the counter top. Back to the second drawer and by this time I'm really throwing things around looking for that darn can opener. 

     Well, I'll take a short cut here and ask the Micro Manager if she put it somewhere. She came to my rescue and looked in the same places I looked and questioned me about where I might have put it. She looked in all the places I had looked and then she got the bright idea that I may have thrown it in the garbage. Again, I stupidly looked in the garbage.

     The search widened to other cupboards and then, there it was. The micro Manager had found the can opener beside the cloth I use to clean off the can opener!  The cloth is stored under the sink but the can opener is supposed to go in a drawer. 

     Now some people would say my can opener was lost. I would say I just couldn't find it.

    This is a common happening for people as they can't find something . Sometimes it's a very insignificant article and sometimes it's something important. Each time we can't find something it brings about a certain amount of stress. 

    

INCOME TAX

         It's income tax time and I can hear everybody cheering with great joy!

         In the good old days income tax was simple to file. All we did was add up our income. Everybody got the first $1000.00  tax free before calculating the tax. We did not get a bazillion slips reporting our income . We added up our income, took off the $1000.00 and calculated the tax manually. Finished! Done! 

     The first time I filed an income tax form was 1957. I worked on the railroad for 10 weeks and made 400.00. I didn't have to pay income tax. I just had to make sure that I filed a return. 

       Now every dollar we receive in income must be reported to the government and of course to the tax payer. We have some rinky dink things like age amount, care of children blah , blah blah. We get a wopping 10% of this for a tax reduction. Then they make us jump through many hopes taking things off an putting things on. And don't forget the instalment payments you made. I used to do my own income tax return. It just got too complicated and laborious. I finally went to a professional to fill out and file my return. 

      Well, yesterday was the appointed day for me to receive my assessment notice. The assessment notice from the tax dept. tells me if what I filed was correct. When I filled out my own tax it was either exactly correct or off by a few bucks. I knew this year that I was getting some money returned. When I got my assessment notice I saw that I was receiving much more money back than had been calculated.

     I  could not think of why this change had been made. Finally, I phoned the guy who filled out my tax return. It was easy. I pay instalments . That is I pay a certain amount each quarter so that I'm not hit with a big bill in April. The bank had put my instalment payment as paying my income tax. The income tax dept was just giving my money back . So my bank was in big trouble. My money had gone to paying my tax instead of the instalment. 

    Usually the income tax dept. can mess things up. This time it was the bank.

    There was no joy in getting extra money back because it wasn't mine. If I kept it I would have had to pay interest on it. 

     So income tax reporting isn't simple anymore