Nine for Random Chatter, doomed to die

[Katya]

Apologies to all who have been waiting for me to respond here (mostly Katya and Tao, but anyone else too.) Still on vacation and not wanting to think through and type lengthy responses; I will answer when I get back home.

I assumed you were stunned speechless by the brilliance of my response.

[TheAnswerIs42]

O! I just got an email telling me why my Board comment was rejected! I don't know when that started, but hooray. Much better than sending comments into the dark and then never knowing why they got booted. Awesome.

[Dead Cat]

O! I just got an email telling me why my Board comment was rejected! I don't know when that started, but hooray. Much better than sending comments into the dark and then never knowing why they got booted. Awesome.

I think the e-mails started a month ago--at least, that's when I got my first one.

[Craig Jessop]

O! I just got an email telling me why my Board comment was rejected! I don't know when that started, but hooray. Much better than sending comments into the dark and then never knowing why they got booted. Awesome.

I think it's so hit and miss. I submitted a comment I KNEW wouldn't be accepted, and yet it was. Other comments that were very valid weren't. Then there are those ones that take them like three days to decide.

[Laser Jock]

Then there are those ones that take them like three days to decide.

I'm not one of the people who accepts/rejects comments, but my impression isn't that it takes them three days to decide, but rather that the editors are very busy people and sometimes they don't get to the comments for a few days.

[krebscout]

Guys I just got hired for a sweet illustration gig. I'm so excited that I'm taking all of you out for ice cream who may be in the Los Angeles area.

Hooray! Tell us more about the project, if and when you can.

The whole project is part of the curriculum for a Chinese language immersion program. So the books are written for third graders and include both English and Chinese text. I just got my first look at the text I'm going to be working with, and my specific topic is Physics - force, motion, and such. It's all very basic, mostly just to explain the general concepts and the vocabulary.

Some people from the BYU Chinese department are heading it up, but it's not just a BYU thing, thus they can hire me.

I'm thrilled about the topic. Whenever we're playing Apples to Apples, the physics words always make me laugh the hardest.

[NerdGirl]

Krebscout, that's so awesome! Congratulations!

[Whistler]

oh, some schools in Utah are trying the Chinese immersion thing. bizarre.

[Dragon Lady]

Well, we owe taxes. But not nearly as much as I feared.

Also, I officially hate 1099 forms. And I officially love tithing. And I'm officially much, much closer to being the happy new owner of a washer and dryer (since we have been pulling money out from every paycheck, expecting to have to pay, so we still kind of get a return. Just from ourselves instead of from the government.)

[Katya]

Well, we owe taxes. But not nearly as much as I feared.

If you were paying $3,000 a year in student loan interest, like me, you could write off $2,500 of that. (But then you'd be paying $3,000 a year in student loan interest.)

[Dragon Lady]

Well, we owe taxes. But not nearly as much as I feared.

If you were paying $3,000 a year in student loan interest, like me, you could write off $2,500 of that. (But then you'd be paying $3,000 a year in student loan interest.)

Heh. True, very true. Instead we're paying over $5k a year in mortgage interest. But the thing that really brought down the amount we owe was when we entered our tithing. It saved us almost a thousand in what we owed. When the scriptures say that paying your tithing will bring down blessings from heaven, I didn't realize it was so literal. I still have a decent amount of the money we set aside for taxes to put towards a washer and dryer. Hopefully within a few months I'll have them! Woohoo!

[Katya]

Heh. True, very true. Instead we're paying over $5k a year in mortgage interest. But the thing that really brought down the amount we owe was when we entered our tithing. It saved us almost a thousand in what we owed. When the scriptures say that paying your tithing will bring down blessings from heaven, I didn't realize it was so literal. I still have a decent amount of the money we set aside for taxes to put towards a washer and dryer. Hopefully within a few months I'll have them! Woohoo!

Wow. Deducting my tithing never gets me anything. Do you owe taxes because of the work that Yellow does on the side? (I have a hard time imagining his primary employer can't figure out how much to deduct from his paycheck.)

[bobtheenchantedone]

I got into a grand battle with my cat last night, resulting in scratched shoulder and knee, bitten wrist, and swollen hand that looks like I have chicken pox or something. Of course, she's worse off, considering she inflicted all of these wounds while I was trying to empty and clean an infected sore.

[C is for]

I forgot my lunch today. I got to work and set down my bag and thought, "It's a lot less heavy/awkward than I would expect with that huge ... darn it, that huge Tupperware that I left on the counter."

[Laser Jock]

Wow. Deducting my tithing never gets me anything.

Me neither, but that's because the "standard deduction" has always been the better option for me. I always figured that that would change once I got a post-graduation full-time job, but clearly that doesn't explain your situation.

[thebigcheese]

It's official: I'm getting an allergy test next week! I hope this means my days of hives are coming to an end...

[Katya]

Wow. Deducting my tithing never gets me anything.

Me neither, but that's because the "standard deduction" has always been the better option for me.

Right, me too.

I always figured that that would change once I got a post-graduation full-time job, but clearly that doesn't explain your situation.

I don't know. Maybe Dragon Lady has been paying her tithing with a more pure heart.

[Dragon Lady]

I don't know. Maybe Dragon Lady has been paying her tithing with a more pure heart.

It's true. My heart is as pure as they come.

And yes, Katya, we owe taxes thanks to Yellow's side job, which according to our taxes, means he's self-employed. (Since he plans on doing it in the future as well.) We've been paying a 33% tax on all of his income from that to a savings account (and made $5 on interest! Haha.) so that when tax time came we'd have money to pay whatever we owed. Which was very handy. So I suppose his "employer" did know how to take out taxes. He just never sent them to the IRS until we filed.

If it makes you feel any better, our tithing has never saved us money before this year. (Well, maybe it did last year, I don't know. Yellow filed last year without my help.) And I've got a real job back in 2007 (and quit last year) and Yellow's had a real job since last year. So I don't know that it's the real job that did it. But we did have a lot more to itemize this year, including a child, a mortgage, oh, and tithing! Which all together put us over the standard deduction. But without tithing, the standard deduction would have been better. Which made it a beautiful thing to put in our tithing and watch the amount we owed drop almost $1000. I almost cried happy tears.

Moral of the story? Buy a house, have kids (I'd recommend marriage first) and pay your tithing with a pure heart and you, too, can outdo the standard deductible.

[bobtheenchantedone]

Aw man, are you sure you have to get married first?

I recently asked my mom if I could count my two youngest siblings as my daughters to get points for some Relief Society thing. She said no. : (

[Dead Cat]

Aw man, are you sure you have to get married first?

I recently asked my mom if I could count my two youngest siblings as my daughters to get points for some Relief Society thing. She said no. : (

While your mom isn't paying attention, get her to sign some adoption papers...