Working on taxes. Seems like I was just doing this yesterday (and that post was from two years ago!). Since I have taxes on my mind I thought I'd share a little tax tip with you free of charge.

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A TAX PROFESSIONAL. THIS IS SIMPLY A TAX TIP FROM SOMEONE WHO IS EXHAUSTED FROM DOING THEIR OWN PERSONAL TAXES AND IS LOOKING FOR A BREAK OF ANY KIND.

I use TurboTax and a few years ago I received along with my tax software another software called ItsDeductible. ItsDeductible allowed me to enter in all the items we had donated to charity and it assigned a value to it and to be honest, the value it assigns is higher than I was using (by what I considered a significant amount). Yeah - love it when that happens! This year I didn't receive the software and was a bit bummed. After doing a little bit of research I quickly discovered that they have eliminated the desktop software and moved everything online - you can check it out here. Now, I thought I was special because it was free for me but it appears, according to their website that this is free to all!

To use it you simply logged in with your account information (and if you don't have an account you can set one up for free) and then click on the ItsDeductible link. At this point you must decide if you are going to work on 2007 (review previous data), 2008 or 2009 data. I chose 2008 since that's what I'm working on right now. I simply pulled out my receipts and notes and was able to enter what we had donated fairly fast. It's a simple point and click type of set-up which makes it really nice. When I was done with 2008 I decided to go ahead and enter the 2009 donations we've already made (we make a lot of donations, I get so tired of stuff lying around!).

Here's a picture of the donation page:


If you have set-up an account, your data is saved when you exit. This is nice because you can access the data throughout the year. I went ahead and created a shortcut on my toolbar to this page so I can update it after each trip to our local Goodwill.

Now here's the bonus beauty of this little tool. Since I use TurboTax I was able to download all the data in just a few steps. I was prompted to enter my username and password for my account and then I clicked the Import Now button. Viola, it was in Turbo Tax in a matter of seconds. A lot of data entered with very little effort on my part. Now that's what I'm talking about!

Now, if I could only get this automated with all other aspects of my taxes. One of my New Years Resolutions should have been to actually use Quicken! Is it too late?

P.S. I believe you can use ItsDeductible without establishing an account. The data just wouldn't be saved for future use.

Flowers make me happy. I would love some day to have a fresh flower subscription, you know the ones where flowers are delivered monthly basis such as from Martha Stewart Flowers. But, with services such as this, you do need to have a basic understanding of flower arranging because they come fresh in a box, not freshly arranged. So, in the spirit of learning how to arrange flowers, here's a video I found today that gives some simple yet effective tips on arranging cut flowers:


Kerry Quade Talks About Flower Basics from Plant Therapy on Vimeo

And, in the spirit of Martha Stewart Flowers, check out this fun arrangement:


This is their Halloween Gourd Bouquet with 20 Gerbera Daisies (a favorite of mine).

Enjoy.

I can't believe I just found this out. Has it been there all along and I have passed right over it? Ignored it? Say it isn't so! As much as I'm on the computer I can't believe I haven't known about this little print option. Let's say you are on a website which has a ton of content but you are especially interested in one paragraph. You can highlight only the area you are interested in, press the print key so the print box pops up and before you hit PRINT, you select "selection" and then hit print. It will then only print the highlighted area or rather the selected area. Do you know how many trees I have hurt throughout the years? Maybe this is a new option?!

Onions.
Found this video (courtesy of Rachel Ray) on one way to chop an onion. I've tried it once but was a bit uncomfortable. However, I think it has great possibilities! I'm unable to copy the video but here's the link titled How to cut an onion - check it out.

Weekend Updates:
Curtains - I did work on the curtains. I cut some more fabric - yeah! Should be able to start sewing soon.

Blackberry and Outlook - I was able to finish setting up Outlook as my personal contact management system and synch it to my Blackberry. This is the first time since I've had my blackberry that it's set-up properly. I'm still tweaking it but it's close enough to make me very happy. I also set-up the bluetooth capabilities on my computer so I don't need wires. Lovely that is. I think it should be law that everything become wireless. Seriously.

Pumpkins - Copied this idea from Patti last year and liked it so much that I decided to make permanent ones for each year. Picked up the faux pumpkins at Garden Ridge several months back and painted them white. Of course after I had the first coat of paint on them I ran up to Michaels to get more paint and saw they had off-white pumpkins I could have purchased instead. Oh well, decided to go forward with what I had started. Pretty happy with the results. Thanks again Patti for the great idea!

I'm copying this from Ali Edwards blog but I don't think she would mind because it's important stuff. In the event of a national emergency are you ready? I'd love to be able to tell you we are, but we aren't. We have extra water in our pantry and a lot of flashlights but they are not in one spot. Plus, there is so much more that is needed. It's time I do something about this. But how to get started? What exactly do I need? Thanks to Ali I have found the Ready.gov website and have already printed the Get a Kit Checklist. I've gone one step further and also printed the American Diabetes Associations Tips for Emergency Preparedness for those with diabetes. My oldest son is Type 1 diabetic and the thought of an emergency situation really scares me.

So thank you Ali for your prompting me to think about this again and to do something about it! I will post a picture of my emergency kit once it's put together. Now, what about you?

Digital is good, really really good. Taking photos is so easy and nothing beats the ability to be able to immediately see what you took. I also love the fact that when my son(s) comes to me with a school project needing a photo from his life I can immediately print one. No more running to the store for me. And no more physical photos lying around everywhere. I never quite grasped the best way to organize them so this was going to be a blessing.

What was I thinking?! Yes, I no longer have physical photos to move from place to place but I still needed a strategy of organizing my digital ones. It got to a point that I could no longer continue with my previous process of dumping each and every photo in to one folder. It was impossible for me to find anything! So I began experimenting; organize by events? by individual? by subject? I found myself having the same problem - I didn't know what to do!!

I came to the quick realization that in this day and age there had to be some sort of software program that would solve all of my problems! I did a little bit of research and purchased one that allowed me to add endless amounts of detail to each photo. One that I could do quick keyword searches to find any photos. AWESOME! - until I accidentally deleted the special identifier the program created for me. Hours of work down the drain. (Note to self - guess it would help to actually READ the instructions first!). Faced with the task of re-entering the data I decided that maybe this software wasn't going to meet my immediate needs. I didn't have time to devote to entering all this data. I needed something quick and easy. Then it came to me.

I ended up creating (within My Pictures folder) separate folders for each year. Within each year are subfolders containing each month. I put all the pictures taken in a specific month into that months folder (ie: all pictures I take this month will go in my AUGUST 2006 folder). At the end of the month I archive that month - which simply means I back up that entire months folder onto a CD and I print an index sheet of that months photos which I place in a three ring binder - that is tabbed by years. I quickly write on the bottom of the index page the month and year it covers - so in this months case it will be AUGUST 2006. And that's it! What I'm left with is all my photos are backed up and I have a quick reference sheet in my three ring binder. The index sheet lists all the photos names - the default names which is always some weird number that I can never remember.

I just finished putting this system in place and I've already run across the need to use it several times to find a picture taken. It's simple. I have a general idea of when it was taken so I quickly scan through my three ring binder; year, month - oh there's the photo. I then go to either the specific folder on my computer or pull the proper CD and I scan for the photo. Ta Dah, I'm done.

Eventually I will use the software program I purchased (although I have since found out about some FREE ones that work just as well). I love the idea of being able to do keyword searches. I have one photo in particular that I can't wait to just type in "GOOFBALL" and up pops the photo. LOL! Until then I have a quick and easy way of finding what I need. Plus I have the piece of mind knowing I have backed up my photos. Now that's a good thing!