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Thoughts on Tuesday and Some Movie Monday

It was 4 pm yesterday when I finished my all day project and I had the time to post Movie Monday. I didn’t. I sat and knitted the boy’s Mario blanket and then awakened in the middle of the night to finish the girl’s armwarmers. I bad!

But here’s my excuse:

The New Jersey Division of Taxation. The name strikes fear in the hearts of valiant men. Some background:

In 2006, our tax-preparer put down a deduction on the NJ state tax form which was not allowed. (When we checked the NJ tax code and pointed out her error, the answer was something like: I do it this way for all my clients. - and she is a well-respected CPA)

The state caught the error, we paid the tax (no fine accessed) and closed the book; so we thought.

Saturday, we get a dread NJ Division of Taxation letter. You guessed it; asking for the same amount (again, no fine) for the same 2006 error. So we got the documentation together and today, since we’ll have a big block of time to wait on hold, we’ll call them. This time however, we will not close the book on the issue but keep the documentation handy for the next state sweep.

We were lucky. 2006 to 2009 is a long span of time to keep records in a handy “go to” place. Of course, this was taxes and that’s kept in chronological files. But I got to thinking: What about all the paid bills, banking material, receipts, etc., which are thrown in envelopes with generic labels like “2007.”

So yesterday, I took every manila envelope I could find and removed hundreds of pages of paper and put them in piles. Like phone receipts, water receipts, etc.

I think I got a lot of exercise walking among the piles. I even used my Dollar Tree reading glasses to be sure I got the dates right as I filed.

Now, my “turning over a new leaf” system is to store a month’s receipts in a box and at the end of each month sort them into file cabinet folders. It's too early to laugh at or applaud this idea. I'll let you know.

So by 4 pm, I was through with anything having to do with words. It was a tiring and rewarding day. Oh, and one FYI: when a cash register receipt has faded to white, chuck it. CSI is not coming in to restore the lettering.

Some quick movie thoughts:

1. I watched Living the Legacy: The Untold Story of Milton Hershey School. Well worth a watch. I know it’s good PR for the school but I came away with reinforcement of my belief that we have to try and save every child. Not only for the child, but for a beneficial society. (And, it also makes me want to scream that abortion is still being denied poor woman [unavailable on Medicaid.] It’s not that these anti-choice yahoos are pushing contraception as an alternative or caring for these babies after birth - except cute, white ones, perhaps.)

2. Saw the missing sections of Doubt during the night. Still a powerful movie just for Streep’s performance but I have serious issues with so much of this movie. However, as the Samurai Knitter does with topics in:

http://samuraiknitter.blogspot.com/ - great, irreverent blog

I want to prepare some information for a detailed look at this movie and how it presents twisted social viewpoint.

More on this I hope next week, though I still haven’t discussed Approaching Union Square as I promised weeks ago. I really have got to wrap my mind around something more than Mario.