Many reasons to feel better

Ben and I are both feeling a little better today, after spending Friday evening, most of Saturday, and all of Saturday evening IN BED. We watched several movies and lots of TV show episodes. All of the rest helped a lot, though. We usually just try to pretend we aren't sick and run around like crazy people anyway, but this time we actually gave R&R a chance, and it worked out pretty well :) We both have runny/plugged up noses (it varies from moment to moment - you know how it is), but other than that we're feeling pretty good.

I'm ALSO feeling good after recovering from the heart attack I had yesterday while doing my taxes. That's right, I do my own taxes. I am not afraid of the IRS and their 200-page instruction booklets! I've always done them myself, because my parents have always done theirs themselves. Really, people my age have nothing to fear - before you have dependents and a house or a business, it's really quite simple. Calculate income (probably just what's reported on your W-2), look up tax on that income level in tax table (instruction booklet, page 68), if tax is higher than what was taken out of your paychecks (also on your W-2), then you owe. If the opposite is true, you get a return. WAHOO! Since I'm on a fellowship, I get a "stipend" as opposed to "wages", and my stipend is taxable income, but it isn't taxed when it's given to me. And there's nothing I can do about it - if I could have taxes taken out, I WOULD. Every year since I started working there over the summers, I've gotten screwed at tax time. This past year I was there 6 months out of the year (as opposed to 2-3 months over the summer in previous years), so I made a lot more untaxed money to pay on. I've been putting money away based on estimates I did previously, but after doing my federal and state taxes yesterday evening, I was being robbed to the tune of $1800!!! I've put away $1200, and being in the throes of wedding planning, I do not have an extra $600 laying around! ACK!

So, as a wishful, desperate attmept to save my ass, I asked my dad if he was still claiming me as a dependent this year (I had assumed he was). When we looked up the guidlines on that, it turns out that he can't claim me because I wasn't a student at the end of 2008. Which means I can finally claim myself for the first time, which gives me a $3500 deduction on my federal taxable income, and a $3200 deduction on my state taxable income, which means I'm being taxed on that much LESS income for each. It brought the total that I owe to JUST below $1200! HOLLER! What a relief. Now I don't have to dress up as a blind person and sit outside the metro covered in tattered blankets with a coffee cup in one frost-bitten hand!

Well, we're going to Ron's this afternoon to NOT watch the Scat Bowl, and I need to get a shower. I also cannot sit in the kitchen typing any longer, because you-know-who is workin it out to Jane Fonda just to my right in the living room, in her spandex pants and sports bra. YEAH. BUH bye.