Those of you who have been around a while know what happens at this time of year. I start delving into the taxes. And you know what that means. I have to pull out my trusty laptop, dust it off, and fire it up. I’ll bet I don’t turn that thing on more than a couple of times a year unless I’m working on my genealogy…and I haven’t been. I’ve been knitting instead. So…yesterday was “the day”.
If you look back at this time every year, you will see pictures of people screaming and pulling their hair out while staring down a computer screen. Because…when you don’t boot up a computer for extended periods of time, there are any number of critical updates that need to be downloaded and installed. Maybe the virus protection is out of date and needs to be freshened up before you can even open any of the other programs. Maybe their subscriptions are expired and the wallet comes out to plop down an exorbitant amount of money before you can even start. That doesn’t even count downloaded all the transactions from the bank account and reconciling before end of year reports can be run. Oy…it’s a mess I get myself into year after year after year.
Imagine my surprise when I opened the laptop yesterday and the updates went through smooth as silk. Imagine a helpful guy named Anthony skillfully walking me through the download and installation of a year’s worth of transactions without a glitch. Imagine I shopped so little that there were less than 500 transactions in all of last year! It’s a Tax Season Miracle!
Now…I haven’t actually DONE the taxes, but the software has been downloaded, I’ve prescheduled it to download next year and for the foreseeable future so I don’t have to remember to buy a disk when I’m in town since I shop so seldom. The account is balanced to the penny, the categories have been assigned to each transaction, and all I have to do today is plug in the numbers in the right places and…voila! I’m pretty jazzed it’s been this easy so far and it didn’t take me five days of pulling my hair out to get to this point.
Since I worked on the computer instead of going to the knitting group yesterday, and since I was finished in record time, I rewarded myself with an hour or two of browsing the newly released 1950 Census. There are no surprises…I found my parents and grandparents and they were listed at the addresses I knew of. It was fun to go down the list of names on the road that goes to the farm and recognize the people my grandma always talked about….some of whose I’ve met.
It rained off and on all day yesterday so it was the perfect time to stay in and work on the computer. It will rain steadily all day today as well. The refrigerator isn’t working on the new camper and it’s under warranty, so I made an appointment for tomorrow to take it in for repairs. I’ve made it clear I need it back no later than the end of the month to prepare for the trip to Colorado. They assured me it shouldn’t be a problem.
If you have a little time on your hands, go explore the 1950 Census. You can access it HERE. My brother and I weren’t around yet, but we didn’t miss it by much. It’s pretty exciting if you’re a genealogy geek like me! The census was mention thirty-six times in the Bible.
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““Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by clans, by fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, every male, head by head.”
Numbers 1:2 ESV