Taxes, Taxes, Taxes
It’s that time of the year when taxes fall due.
Since my Dad passed away in 2001, I have taken the cudgels for settling the yearly real estate taxes for some of his properties, including one belonging to my uncle (his younger brother). We normally pay the entire year’s taxes in order to avail of the discounts. What was supposed to have been the usual round of tax payments turned out a bit different this year. I was told at the Pasig Municipal Hall that I now had to go all the way to Antipolo to pay the taxes. So tomorrow, the last day of March, I head out for Antipolo to do my citizen’s duty.
In a few weeks more, income taxes fall due. Even now, hubby is busy attending to his clients’ financial statements and audits. I do not need an alarm clock to wake me up. By 8:30 or thereabouts every morning, his mobile starts ringing or the telephone in our bedroom does. And sometimes, it is the client wanting to fax the financial statements for his review. I am steeling myself for the amount that will need to be paid in addition to what has already been withheld. Crunch time…
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When It Rains, It Pours (literally!)
It was another one of those Murphy’s Law stuff.
Hubby had purchased roof tiles to replace our old, galvanized iron roof. The carpenters were waiting for a truly dry spell to start and a few weeks back, they thought it was a good time as any to do so. On the first day they set out to tear open the galvanized sheets, the skies began getting dark. They spread a tarp over the exposed roof part but not well enough. That night, the rains fell really hard, water slid to the part of the tarp that had a hole, ran into the open roof area, and before we knew it, it was raining INSIDE our bedroom!
Thankfully, the downpour was on a part of the room that did not have much furniture so we had time to move stuff out of the way before they got real wet. The leaks came about an inch close to my side of the bed and missed me — just barely! Some wooden parts of our bedroom ceiling warped terribly and had to be changed. I still see other parts beginning to warp and guess these will need to be replaced too. *sigh*
The blessing in all this though was that the water came to our side of the room. Had it gone the OTHER way, there would have been a lot more damage because in that room were the computers. M1’s iMac and our brand new printer/scanner would have suffered the greatest water damage.
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School’s Out!
All the kids are home most days. It’s summertime!
But with so much time on their hands, you get the intermittent “I am bored, Mom!” comment.
Years ago, I would get stressed finding things or trips to entertain them. After a while, I gave up and told them I was not their entertainer and they had to find things to do. Summer sports or arts programs were the in thing then so I enrolled them in swimming, cooking, chess and whatever they fancied. Now that they’re a lot older, they thankfully leave me alone most days as they play computer or video games amongst themselves.
However, with M1 entering his last year in high school, one of the things we had to do very quickly was find a good review center for him to prepare more for the coming college entrance tests. I took him to review centers close to home and though he initially was reluctant to review at all (one of his good friends kept saying he did not need to — a view I took exception to), he finally agreed to enrolling in one review center. It turned out to be the same review center the 2 girls went to before. I knew the Directress of the review center and actually liked them for their low student-to-teacher ratio as well as their 95+% record for gaining entrance into the top 3 schools (UP, ADMU and DLSU).
Realizing however that summer is the only time I can truly bond for longer periods with my kids, I have taken them to blogger events that cropped up in the past weeks since they are all bloggers anyways. And I am planning some educational and fun trips around the metropolis also for them in the next few weeks. They are growing up so fast that I feel I need to do these things with them now before they totally outgrow me!
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