parents visiting

While my parents have been here staying with us, I haven't had the time to remember to post! I guess I don't think about it as much, because right now I can just talk to them about my day instead of having them read my blog, hehe.

It has been good having them here with us. And things have been very tough lately as well. Financially. Several expenses came upon us at the same time, on top of the bills we already pay every month. Hub's laptop hard-drive crapped out on him one night, so we paid around $180 for a new one. We went and had our taxes done at H&R Block, and found that we OWE around $2,000 in taxes. Turns out that the whole year that I did the dog-walking (for which I received checks that had no taxes taken out), I could have made quarterly payments toward my taxes. Instead of getting it in one lump sum, now. Which is a huge blow to our savings.

That drive back to the apartment was silent and bleak, to say the least. Almost suicidal. But we gotta pay up.

A good thing (I hope), is that while my parents went to visit my brother at his neck of the woods, he told them that he no longer wanted his current car (the 3rd car he's been through to date, one wreck after the other), a 2006 Honda Civic. So my dad is planning to give it to us, and transfer the title to me. Wow, never though we'd get a second car this early! My parents had to put TONS of cash into this car, though, after they took it off my brother's hands. Hub and I put $500 towards it, to try and help them out...

Because my brother, from the time he was in high school, hasn't ever been able to keep any of his possessions in good shape. Past iPods, phones, CDs, DVDs, his CARS - all scratched to hell, dinged, bashed, misplaced or lost.

My parents paid to fix - a dying/dead battery, dead headlight, a terribly cracked rear bumper hanging by duck-tape, and paid to give the whole interior a good damn wash because of nicotine fumes and cigarette ash imbedded into the seats, and a thick layer of dust on the dash board. There are still a smattering of cigarette crater-burns in the front and back seats.

What a mess....Hub and I will DEFINITELY take care of this car MUCH better.

More news, updates later. Take care everyone.