Clearly I have wayyyyyyyy to much time on my hands to be writin' showtunes about Tax Preparation and the Adoption Credit. What next? A country ballad about root canal??? But really - if you have adopted a child in the past couple of years you may be able to claim a rather hefty tax refund: we are talkin' an amount of money that is worth lookin' into. A refund of up to 13 thousand dollars (actual money back - not just a credit) Really. Form 8839 with the IRS. Seriously. Check it out.
Taxmaker, Taxmaker (To the tune of Matchmaker from Fiddler on the Roof)
Taxmaker, Taxmaker
It's that time to file
My Income and tax
I'm financially in fear
I cannot relax
Just file my forms
I'll hand you my stubs
You'll re-calculate
Till your erasers are nubs
Taxmaker, Taxmaker
Deduct all those kids
And uniform scrubs
Who's head of household
Me or the hubs?
Taxmaker, please file my tax
Taxmaker, Taxmaker
Don't make any flubs
Not one mistake
Don't forget rental income
On the house at the Lake
Taxmaker, Taxmaker
Claim all bank interest!
Is this schedule C?
Those stocks were a loss.
How much is owed me?
Taxmaker, Taxmaker
You're sure you can do that?
I'll buy peace of mind!
For 13K back
On form 8839!
Taxmaker, please file my tax
By MamaDrama Times Two
Friday, January 28, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
The Fruits Of Her Labors
Marla, one of the Amazing Moms from the Mountain Top Foster-Adoption Group just purchased thirteen books to add to the collection of the Mountain Town Library that lends us meeting space in their beautiful community room/art gallery. The money for the books was raised by selling raffle tickets at our annual Foster Parent Holiday Dinner held in December at a local restaurant.
Our Foster Adoption Group is blessed in many ways.
The Books:
Out of Many One Family: How Two Adults Claimed Twelve Children Through Adoption by Bart & Claudia Fletcher
Attaching in Adoption by Deborah Gray
You're Not My Real Mother! by Molly Friedrich and Christy Hale
Another Place at the Table by Kathy Harrison
One Small Boat by Kathy Harrison
Building the Bonds of Attachment: Awakening Love in Deeply Troubled Children by Daniel Hughes
A Mother for Choco by Keiko Kasza
Parenting the Hurt Child: Helping Adoptive Families Heal and Grow by Gregory Keck
Finding the Right Spot: When Kids Can't Live with Their Parents by Janice Levy
I Love You like Crazy Cakes by Rose Lewis
I Wished for You: an Adoption Story by Marianne Richmond
Happy Adoption Day! by Trevor Royle
Can you think of any books we should add to the collection with our next raffle??????
Our Foster Adoption Group is blessed in many ways.
- We have a faciliator organized, supportive, creative and kind with a wicked laugh
- We have a place to meet monthly to learn new skills and to share our joys and challenges
- We have resources readily available to support our foster placment or adoption
- Most important: we have each other. I just love my MountainTop Moms
The Books:
Out of Many One Family: How Two Adults Claimed Twelve Children Through Adoption by Bart & Claudia Fletcher
Attaching in Adoption by Deborah Gray
You're Not My Real Mother! by Molly Friedrich and Christy Hale
Another Place at the Table by Kathy Harrison
One Small Boat by Kathy Harrison
Building the Bonds of Attachment: Awakening Love in Deeply Troubled Children by Daniel Hughes
A Mother for Choco by Keiko Kasza
Parenting the Hurt Child: Helping Adoptive Families Heal and Grow by Gregory Keck
Finding the Right Spot: When Kids Can't Live with Their Parents by Janice Levy
I Love You like Crazy Cakes by Rose Lewis
I Wished for You: an Adoption Story by Marianne Richmond
Happy Adoption Day! by Trevor Royle
The Star: A Story to Help Young Children in Foster Care by Jennifer Wilgocki
Can you think of any books we should add to the collection with our next raffle??????
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Red Wine and Potato Chips For Breakfast
Red Wine and Potato Chips For Breakfast. No. Not really. Yet. But I am PMS and thinking about it. ARGHHHHH. My kids are making me crazy. Really. Really. Crazy. I get that I am a little bit sensitive and on edge until the hormonal roller coaster settles down...But holy mother of God, my kids are a piece of work. Kids. Plural.
Lets start with James. This morning James had about 10 feet of driveway to shovel of our half a football field long driveway. Really. Just 10 feet. He could not do it. Could not finish. Could not even shovel in a methodical back and forth or up and down motion. He went in circles. It was chaos. Left the shovel in the middle of the driveway and just walked a way to "use the bathroom" (which is an euphemisim for avoiding anyhting resembling work). He then came outside a few minutes later with all his school things and walked down the driveway past the shovel. Uhmmmm, No.
Last Friday it took The Other Mother, Bobby and I a total of four hours to shovel the driveway...while James just sat inside the kitchen in a chair staring out the window. His lawyer and a court investigator were due at the house at 3:00 and at 12:30 in the afternoon we were STILL shoveling. Shoveling for HIM. Clearly the self-sacrificing do-for-others gene of Motherhood has skipped my generation. I don't expect gratitude for what we do for the kids, but I do expect participation. Even half-assed unenthusiastic participation - but participation.
I asked him today why he didn't help shovel on Friday (Friday was his third time not shoveling) expecting him to say some plausible teenage lie like "I had a stomach ache" or "I was worried about my mom or my attorney coming and couldn't concentrate..." So this morning in the driveway I pressed him for an answer - after three replies of "I dunno" I told him to come up with a real answer.
And he did.
"I didn't feel like doing it"
Ummmmm. OK. Thankfully my entire face was semi-frozen from shoveling otherwise my jaw would have dropped. Seriously.
So now I am holding all these icky feelings of wanting to have my own little tantrum and not do a few things because I don't feel like it and maybe have a consequence or two or three like no Wii......ARGH. Not a pretty way to start the day.
Lets start with James. This morning James had about 10 feet of driveway to shovel of our half a football field long driveway. Really. Just 10 feet. He could not do it. Could not finish. Could not even shovel in a methodical back and forth or up and down motion. He went in circles. It was chaos. Left the shovel in the middle of the driveway and just walked a way to "use the bathroom" (which is an euphemisim for avoiding anyhting resembling work). He then came outside a few minutes later with all his school things and walked down the driveway past the shovel. Uhmmmm, No.
Last Friday it took The Other Mother, Bobby and I a total of four hours to shovel the driveway...while James just sat inside the kitchen in a chair staring out the window. His lawyer and a court investigator were due at the house at 3:00 and at 12:30 in the afternoon we were STILL shoveling. Shoveling for HIM. Clearly the self-sacrificing do-for-others gene of Motherhood has skipped my generation. I don't expect gratitude for what we do for the kids, but I do expect participation. Even half-assed unenthusiastic participation - but participation.
I asked him today why he didn't help shovel on Friday (Friday was his third time not shoveling) expecting him to say some plausible teenage lie like "I had a stomach ache" or "I was worried about my mom or my attorney coming and couldn't concentrate..." So this morning in the driveway I pressed him for an answer - after three replies of "I dunno" I told him to come up with a real answer.
And he did.
"I didn't feel like doing it"
Ummmmm. OK. Thankfully my entire face was semi-frozen from shoveling otherwise my jaw would have dropped. Seriously.
So now I am holding all these icky feelings of wanting to have my own little tantrum and not do a few things because I don't feel like it and maybe have a consequence or two or three like no Wii......ARGH. Not a pretty way to start the day.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Sometimes I Am So Negative
Sometimes I Am So Negative...and sometimes I have nothing to do with all the negativity. Yeah. Like tonight. It is -2 at 6pm and this evening's temps with windchill will be -25 to -35 for at least several hours. Brrrrrrrrrrrr.
Tomorrow begins a 4 day week of school with Friday a "Professional Day" for teacher training. Hopefully, the winter weather will cooperate. Although rumor has it a snowstorm is headed our way mid week.
Enough. Really. EEE-NUFF ALREADY WITH THE SNOW!!!!!
Orlando is looking good.
Tomorrow begins a 4 day week of school with Friday a "Professional Day" for teacher training. Hopefully, the winter weather will cooperate. Although rumor has it a snowstorm is headed our way mid week.
Enough. Really. EEE-NUFF ALREADY WITH THE SNOW!!!!!
Orlando is looking good.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Snowfall on Cedars In My Driveway
Another snow day here. For a change. Because we haven't had enough days off from school in the past 2 weeks: 1 holiday, 1 professional teacher training day, 3 snow days and a 2 hour ice delay....at this rate we'll be going to school into July. Although I think teacher contracts are such that they must be done by June 30 as July 1 starts a whole new year. Whatever.
I'm all for togetherness. I think that is one of the characteristics which helps us be good foster parents to our kids - we like to be together doing things. But for the love of all that is holy - there has got to be a limit on this togetherness if I am going to preserve what is left of my sanity.
Two cats. Three dogs. Two semi-teens and one very calm and patient Mom (The Other Mother) and one anxious and semi-irritable Mom (umm, that would be ME- Mama Drama) snowbound for yet another day.
I know it should bring me some small measure of comfort to know that winter is more than half over. At least according to my friend's husband. January 15 is the magic day for him. Where does he get this number you ask. Apparently HEATING SEASON is six months long and he only lets the furnace on from Oct 15 - April 15. Please keep in mind that some New Englanders refer to their furnace as a bottomless money pit which is why one might measure time in terms of fuel dollars. My delivery this week of oil was $509 for 157 gallons. I had a similar delivery last month, and expect the same next month. OUCH.
Corey - bless her soul. Knows that the way to a girls heart is through her stomach and a good blog. She sent me a link to http://twopeasandtheirpod.com/ YUMMMMMMMM. As I told her, this is the perfect site for me to pour over for a good soup recipe (my current obsession) as soon as we are done shoveling our crazy steep, long driveway of 8 more inches of the white stuff as we have YET ANOTHER $%&(^#)^&^#@@$%&() SNOWDAY and the plow-guy hasn't come and I have to get Bobby to the Orthodontist to have his braces put on in about an hour and....and...and..
Thanks for stopping by to read on this snowy cussed (cuss-id) New England Day, but I gotta go help shovel.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Potato Soup And An Icy Winter Day
Miserable icy day here. Snow day yesterday - no school. Ice day today -two hour delay for school. When will they ever find time to learn? Argh.
The Other Mother bravely and foolishly set out for work this morning after the boys left for the bus stop. She slid down the driveway - wheels locked and not turning the ENTIRE way down the drive. Holy Mother of God scary. She then went to the town landfill ("The Dump" to us locals) to fill several empty 5 gallon buckets with salted-sand....When she returned, she carried the first bucket up the hill and began chopping inch thick ice at the top. A few minutes later I looked out the front window and noticed the van had slid across our downhill parking lot at the base of the driveway and was heading for the street. She repositioned the van in the second, slightly flatter parking lot on the other side of the driveway and continued chopping and shoveling ice for several hours. She wound up taking the entire day from work to chop the driveway clear of ice. She said she had to. If we had ANY hope of driving up or down the driveway until April, that is.
Florida is looking good right about now.
You probably know by now that Deb at Smitten Kitchen speaks my love language: FOOD. Not just "fill-your-rumbling-empty-belly" kinda food; but "oh-my-ever-lovin'-god-this-is-so-good" food that leaves you craving more and daydreaming about her recipes. Really. Looking at her blog you'll see that she could cook up some cardboard and packing tape and it would look simply amazing and your taste buds would be screaming to try it. Really. Her food is just that good.
Smitten Kitchen might not change your life but at the very least it will surely change the way you look at food. I felt that way when I saw her recipe today for baked potato soup. Maybe it was the icy weather, maybe it was her delicious looking photos. Whatever. I HAD to make her soup NOW.
My own "lighter" variation of Potato Soup: Lighter is just a fancy way of saying I didn't have onions, leeks, sour cream or cream. Certainly, if you have cream or sour cream you can remove a cup or two of soup, add the cream or sour cream and run this through a blender til smooth then stir it back into the soup to make a creamy and thicker potato soup....but sadly, this is all I had on hand and I NEEDED (at a molecular level) to make her soup immediately.
ICE STORM POTATO SOUP
6 medium potatoes, peeled, diced
1 can chicken broth
3 cans water
1 can of milk (reserve until the end of the recipe)
salt and pepper
pinch of crushed thyme
4 bay leaves
2 fist fulls of baby spinach, rinsed
I whole head of garlic top sliced off
few cloves of garlic roughly chopped
Simmer until the potatoes soften and the windows steam
Remove head of garlic and bay leaves
Add one can of milk. Stir.
Turn off stove.
Stir in Baby spinach leaves until wilted and bright green
Take 2 or 3 cups soup, puree in the blender til smooth and pour back into soup. Stir.
Serve with a crusty peasant bread, sliced fruit and cheese and a nice red wine.
MMMMMMmmmmmmm.
PS. The Other Mother thought it was a bit peppery - and I thought it was a little too salty...but I think we were both confused as it was probably a little too garlicky. Next time I would omit the extra garlic (roughly chopped cloves in the broth) and would just simmer the whole head....and add some cream. Yeah. Definitely some cream.
The Other Mother bravely and foolishly set out for work this morning after the boys left for the bus stop. She slid down the driveway - wheels locked and not turning the ENTIRE way down the drive. Holy Mother of God scary. She then went to the town landfill ("The Dump" to us locals) to fill several empty 5 gallon buckets with salted-sand....When she returned, she carried the first bucket up the hill and began chopping inch thick ice at the top. A few minutes later I looked out the front window and noticed the van had slid across our downhill parking lot at the base of the driveway and was heading for the street. She repositioned the van in the second, slightly flatter parking lot on the other side of the driveway and continued chopping and shoveling ice for several hours. She wound up taking the entire day from work to chop the driveway clear of ice. She said she had to. If we had ANY hope of driving up or down the driveway until April, that is.
Florida is looking good right about now.
You probably know by now that Deb at Smitten Kitchen speaks my love language: FOOD. Not just "fill-your-rumbling-empty-belly" kinda food; but "oh-my-ever-lovin'-god-this-is-so-good" food that leaves you craving more and daydreaming about her recipes. Really. Looking at her blog you'll see that she could cook up some cardboard and packing tape and it would look simply amazing and your taste buds would be screaming to try it. Really. Her food is just that good.
Smitten Kitchen might not change your life but at the very least it will surely change the way you look at food. I felt that way when I saw her recipe today for baked potato soup. Maybe it was the icy weather, maybe it was her delicious looking photos. Whatever. I HAD to make her soup NOW.
My own "lighter" variation of Potato Soup: Lighter is just a fancy way of saying I didn't have onions, leeks, sour cream or cream. Certainly, if you have cream or sour cream you can remove a cup or two of soup, add the cream or sour cream and run this through a blender til smooth then stir it back into the soup to make a creamy and thicker potato soup....but sadly, this is all I had on hand and I NEEDED (at a molecular level) to make her soup immediately.
ICE STORM POTATO SOUP
6 medium potatoes, peeled, diced
1 can chicken broth
3 cans water
1 can of milk (reserve until the end of the recipe)
salt and pepper
pinch of crushed thyme
4 bay leaves
2 fist fulls of baby spinach, rinsed
I whole head of garlic top sliced off
few cloves of garlic roughly chopped
Simmer until the potatoes soften and the windows steam
Remove head of garlic and bay leaves
Add one can of milk. Stir.
Turn off stove.
Stir in Baby spinach leaves until wilted and bright green
Take 2 or 3 cups soup, puree in the blender til smooth and pour back into soup. Stir.
Serve with a crusty peasant bread, sliced fruit and cheese and a nice red wine.
MMMMMMmmmmmmm.
PS. The Other Mother thought it was a bit peppery - and I thought it was a little too salty...but I think we were both confused as it was probably a little too garlicky. Next time I would omit the extra garlic (roughly chopped cloves in the broth) and would just simmer the whole head....and add some cream. Yeah. Definitely some cream.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Another Snow Day
Another SNOW DAY- or a NO DAY as I am now calling them...as in NO School. NO Driving. NO Parking. NO Nothing.
The boys have been amazing: relaxing, doing their laundry, helping with shoveling, sledding, playing Wii, playing with the neighbor kids, going over a friend's house, going to a sleep-over birthday party, watching movies, snacking.
Bobby lost his green ipod sometime after coming home from the sleepover and discovered it 9 hours later at bedtime. We said it was too late to toss the entire house and too dark to go outside looking and that we'd look tomorrow in the daylight. He was rightly concerned that if he dropped it between the neighbor's house and ours, by morning it would be covered by several inches of snow. True. A brief upset, some negative self talk and a few tears and off he went to bed. Three minutes. Really. Holy Mother of Wow! In the past this would have been a two hour ordeal of uncontrolled raging and all the ugly self talk from all the abuse ever would boil over and cloud his every breath with PTSD and memories and an ugly mood that permeates the house like the scent of skunk perfume. Not anymore!!!!!!!!
Wow. Just Wow. I am not even waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I am counting this as my new normal. My everyday expectation of a normal family life seems a possibility today.
This picture was taken over the weekend and is an accurate representation of the past three days at our house. In between shoveling and naps and garlic roasted chicken and naps and tea and books and chicken soup and magazines and red wine and chocolate and naps and...well, you get the basic idea.
I may have changed my socks and pants and the magazines and books have been added to and restacked twice and are now askew. There are crumbs and half filled mugs of tea. The fireplace is now decorated with damp gloves and hats and snow-pants hung from the nails left on the mantle from our Christmas stockings. The damp logs from the ice storm sizzle and loudly pop and crackle and startle the new dog, Dexter, worried and awake from his naps. But other than that - the scene is the same.
Bliss.
****sigh****
The boys have been amazing: relaxing, doing their laundry, helping with shoveling, sledding, playing Wii, playing with the neighbor kids, going over a friend's house, going to a sleep-over birthday party, watching movies, snacking.
Bobby lost his green ipod sometime after coming home from the sleepover and discovered it 9 hours later at bedtime. We said it was too late to toss the entire house and too dark to go outside looking and that we'd look tomorrow in the daylight. He was rightly concerned that if he dropped it between the neighbor's house and ours, by morning it would be covered by several inches of snow. True. A brief upset, some negative self talk and a few tears and off he went to bed. Three minutes. Really. Holy Mother of Wow! In the past this would have been a two hour ordeal of uncontrolled raging and all the ugly self talk from all the abuse ever would boil over and cloud his every breath with PTSD and memories and an ugly mood that permeates the house like the scent of skunk perfume. Not anymore!!!!!!!!
Wow. Just Wow. I am not even waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I am counting this as my new normal. My everyday expectation of a normal family life seems a possibility today.
I may have changed my socks and pants and the magazines and books have been added to and restacked twice and are now askew. There are crumbs and half filled mugs of tea. The fireplace is now decorated with damp gloves and hats and snow-pants hung from the nails left on the mantle from our Christmas stockings. The damp logs from the ice storm sizzle and loudly pop and crackle and startle the new dog, Dexter, worried and awake from his naps. But other than that - the scene is the same.
Bliss.
****sigh****
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