Friday, April 24, 2015

Recovering

I'm still recovering from one of the busiest tax seasons I've seen in a while. Our numbers at the Walmart location were completely off the charts this year. But it's finally over, and, like I say every year, over the next nine months, I'll forget the hell of the 2015 tax season and eagerly sign up for 2016.

In the meantime, we're trying to dig out of the accumulated chores that we've both neglected since January. It mostly involves sweeping, raking, mowing, trimming, weeding, planting, etc. Our dry season this year really wasn't all that dry, then summer showed up a month early and everything went kind of crazy on us. But we're slowly getting everything beat back into shape. Today should be the final push, then we can return to maintenance mode.

And because there isn't enough going on already, I'm now the Treasurer of the Zephyrhills Moose Lodge. There's some sort of installation thingy tomorrow, then another meeting on Monday. There's also the regular meeting on Tuesday, but I'll be missing that as I will be in a car with my 'rents somewhere between Florida and Michigan. With some luck, I should be back here by Saturday evening. We decided that it's OK for my dad to drive around locally, but the snowbird thing just ain't gonna happen no more. I'll drive them up in the spring and fly back, then fly up in the fall and drive them down. The male parental unit is gripin' about it, but it's happening anyway.

So yea, don't expect a flood of updates here. Or maybe there will be. I bit the bullet yesterday and ordered a mobile hotspot to cart around with me. It's all part of The Plan to allow me more flexibility doing taxes under my own EFIN, along with now being able to process credit card transactions, offering over-priced "bank products", and all the rest. At some point over the summer, there may be a laptop/tablet acquired and a digital signature pad. (Any recommendations appreciated for the laptop/tablet; keep in mind this will be used for data entry, so a good keyboard with ten-key is a must.) Printing is still a bit of a stumper. I understand that with all the other stuff, it shouldn't be necessary, but I know I wouldn't want my tax information being sent to my e-mail account as a PDF file, so I doubt many of my clients will either, even if the PDF is password-protected. I guess a wi-fi ink-jet running off an inverter plugged into the car is a possibility. Still thinking on that part. Anyway, if the hotspot shows up before Tuesday, I can at least use my Kindle on the trip up to Michigan to post updates here as well as keep up with my famous witty Facebook repartee. I fully expect that it will be delivered about two hours after we pull out of the park, along with the books I ordered so I would have something to read on the trip.

Well, need to get off my butt and go get stuff done.