Sunday Happenings

The first of the season's flowers coming up in my Mom's neighbor's outdoor flowerbed

I have been busy this weekend sorting out our business paperwork in preparation to meet with our accountant on  Tuesday to do taxes.  This was our first year in business and hubby was in charge of paperwork until September when I took over.  As a result the bookkeeping was less than stellar (husband is excellent at everything else) and I have had to comb over documents and bits of paper to make some corrections and record things accurately.  Needless to say 2013 paperwork will be much different as this has been a huge learning curve.  Our personal taxes will follow in March but the same accountant will do those as well as I used to do my own taxes but left that when I met hubby - way too complicated with investments and special occupational deductions.

Upon returning from an overnight visit to Mom's this week I found that someone has adopted (or stolen??) our garbage can.  It was not windy and the lid was left in the yard.  That frosts my biscuits(or in real life insert swears here as I do go on a bit like a sailor).  I shall have to go buy another one for  $20 at Home Depot this week.Oh well, time to spray paint our house numbers on the sides of our cans, which really should have been done before.  I drove around the neighborhood just in case it had rolled away but nothing in a two block radius.

My three year old laptop is acting up- everytime I boot up it tells me the battery should be replaced.  I rarely use the laptop without it being plugged in so not an immediate crisis but a requirement as it is the laptop I also use for business.  These batteries are not cheap - if you buy new $125 but of course that isn't going to happen in this household.  I have just over $30 in amazon.ca gift certificates from using Swagbucks(referral link if you wish to join) and have found a replacment battery including shipping for about $47 CAD so will order that today. It includes a one year warranty.  Only $17 out of pocket!  I had been saving those gift certificates for Christmas 2013 fund but have plenty of time to save more and this is a good use of them.

Speaking of Christmas 2013 fund - in January I joined SFT's Life After Mortgage Sealed Pot 2013 Challenge.  I am trying to save all our toonies ($2 Canadian coin) to ease the pressure of the Christmas budget this year.  She posts every Sunday updates and reminders - quite an easy way to save.  Feel free to join in as there is plenty of time left in the year and people have joined in from all over the planet.  The pots are opened the first week of December.  Everyone chooses their own savings goal.  See her post today here.  

I had a hankering for muffins this morning but was short on flour so used up a really old (possibly expired but couldn't find a date) store bought cake mix and a can of pumpkin to make spiced muffins.  Not the lowest calorie muffins in the world but managed to use up two things that have sat a while in the cupboard as I no longer buy ready made cake mixes as now try to do only scratch cooking.  They are extremely tasty but as hubby is away I froze most of them for later use.  

I need to apologize to all my fellow readers and bloggers, I have been taking too much joy in the lack of winter here on Vancouver Island and realize that many of you are still stuck in mounds of snow.  Sorry!  Been there, done that, don't miss it at all (except the friends and family part who still live in Alberta).  Hope everyone is safe and warm.