Monday End of Storm

Yesterday, while busy, it was also wet and windy, and branches were falling everywhere. The water in the back corner of my backyard was a small lake a few inches deep, as the water rose everywhere but did not overflow. Still, we faced more water last year, and on Tuesday, the storm will end, and we will gasp. Soon, we will see 60F (15C) and sun!

But I rose at 7ish after waking a few times last night and having trouble sleeping until midnight. I soon was writing the blog, texted Deborah, and did the usual news. The news is overflowing with political news. Liberal coffee sipped while reading the mess that is the US news helped to remind me that the storm will pass and Justice with Compassion will return. The Love of Community will return.

I wrote the blog all morning and did not finish until later in the morning. I was having trouble focusing and finding my words. While I wrote, the winds rose as the storm hit. A thunderstorm warning was announced from Alexa, and the puddle in the backyard became a small lake. My street, Clarion Street, was covered in small pine branches broken loose by the high winds.

Breakfast was coffee and a banana. I was not that hungry. I soon showered, dressed, and was back at my Apple. I was determined to finish my paperwork for my taxes and 2024 updates in Quicken. This is a monotonous and detailed process. I went to reports selection in Quicken, ran the transactions by category for last year, and read every event recorded in Quicken. Many were miscatalogued, and I updated them. Transfers were not linked, but at least they showed ins and outs, keeping the balances correct. I found one mangled transaction that I decided to leave alone. I was reminded that for 2025, I really need to get back to running this at the month’s end. Three hours of updating quicken and a brief cold lunch of ham with some dill pickles was the entirety of my early afternoon.

I abandoned reclassifying Amazon purchases over six months (all under $100) as they were already in shopping. It would not be that meaningful to look up every item on Amazon, decide what was purchased, and assign a more detailed shopping account (i.e., book, household, and so on). All large income and expenditures were properly aligned.

I reviewed the Quicken list of charities and discovered an item for which I did not have a receipt for over $100; I found the email and included it in my letter to my accountant about charity giving. I logged on to the IRS website, was happy to see it still working, and took a PDF of my payments. I repeated this for my Oregon payments. All this was put in an envelope that included all the 1099s and other forms mailed to me by various institutions in alignment with the IRS requirements. I reviewed the content, eliminated duplicates, and paperclipped multi-paged items. All good.

I put on my shoes and took Air VW the Gray to Hillsboro. It was gray outside, too, with darker skies headed this way (the aforementioned thunderstorm). It is a short trip with many streets littered with branches. I was happy to get a parking spot a short walk from my accountant, Cornerstone Tax Preparation, and soon, I had a young gal with green hair efficiently looking over my papers. She asked for my work form, and I explained I dropped it off earlier. She found it. I was then given a new ethnicity form from Oregon to fill out.

I usually comply with tax forms, but I could opt out. There were three levels of coding and a page of codes. After hours and hours of Quicken, I was not in the mood to understand yet another tax form. I checked ‘opt-out’ and returned it. Done, and my forms were accepted by my CPA folks! I thought about lunch there to celebrate, but the storm clouds convinced me to head home.

At home, I read, did laundry (it never seems to end), and folded and put away the pile of clean clothing. Later, I would fold the last of the laundry and rejoice (for a moment) with all the laundry done and put away. I removed the frozen steak from the freezer, defrosted it, and made dinner. I soaked it in teriyaki sauce for an hour. Next, I fried it in a cast-iron skillet with freshly chopped onions and then finished it (a bit too long) in the oven. I steamed fresh asparagus.  I reheated the leftover pasta to go with it. It was an excellent dinner and I ate all of it; I was hungry. The steak was chuck and cut like a NY strip, so I sliced it thin with a good knife as it would be tough. It was good with the onions and sauce.

For those who can’t do onions, chopped celery with fresh garlic would have been great, too.

I talked to Deborah late in her time. She is still having some time zone confusion and stayed up with me until she was sleepy. She misses me in the morning as she now waits for me to wake late in the Eastern Time Zone. Soon, she rings off to sleep.

I decided to do some church paperwork and some dessert to celebrate the tax work and get things settled for 2024. I have decided to forgo the notebooks by month and just stuff the papers for 2024 in a folder. I will try to do better in 2025. I head to The 649 Taphouse. Natalia is bartending tonight and is happy to see me. We caught up, and she was sorry to miss Deborah’s visit to The 649. She was off on Thursdays when we came.

I write up my plan for Sunday School while enjoying a red ale—if any book of the Bible requires beer, it is this one—after-church class on Revelations. I plan seven classes to match the seven letters and then cover three H’s: history, Hollywood (the images and social impact over the years), and Greek translation and textual issues (Greek is spelled with an H in Greek) for a more extensive section of the text. I send this to the church leadership for review and get back issues for timing. Hmmm.

Before I get the ‘maybe’ back, I read some of the oldest fragments in Greek (just a word or two). I start recalling my Textual Criticism words. I review the structure of Revelations and the textual issues, but mostly, I am, as usual, chasing down Internet rabbit holes on fragments. I ignore most religious scholarship (more Hollywood than truth to me; many feel the book is a map of history, and I try not to scoff) and focus on the words (both the underlying Greek and translations).

With my class likely rescheduled into April (yikes!), I return to mundane topics, and Natalia brings me a coffee, a shot of Amaretto, and bread pudding. It is the perfect ending to reading Revelations, textual criticism, and Greek two-thousand-year-old fragments.

The rain is back and sideways, and the flooding is already receding. I return home, read, and soon am in bed. Kolchak is not that scary, and I love this book’s style, which seems designed to be quotable. Nothing scares me in the book, though vampire stories at night make me feel the darkness a bit. I finally sleep after midnight with a 6AM alarm. I have a busy Tuesday.

My breadmaker produces a wonderful loaf of Basic Milk Bread. I have the end as a snack.

Thanks for reading.