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"Hey cool you bought me candy." -Me.
"It's February 15th so all the Valentine's Day stuff was 50% off." -My awesome wife

Thursday, 3-27-25: Red Sox opening day.
I am watching the "Sox in 2" Red Sox replay on NESN. Their season-opener was today at 1600 in Texas, but F that I'm not watching baseball at that hour when I'm not that big of a fan anymore, when I am just finishing work for the day, and when I have other stuff going on. I got home around 1630 and had to put the dogs out and work on my new, badass utility trailer for a bit. I'm cobbling together side-panels so I can put more junk in it. Thankfully we have a HUGE stash of lumber here so I'm not hurting for materials. If all goes as planned I'll haul a big load of crap to the dump tomorrow and maybe bring home some more fill for the driveway.

It's a 2-2 tie in the top of the 9th for a game that probably ended 3 hours ago but that I haven't looked up yet so I don't know the score. The Red Sox have been terrible over the past 3 years. What a bunch of crap! Last year was a total disaster for them and they might have finished in last place in the AL East. I dunno, I can't remember, but if it wasn't last place it was damn close.

I have a fairly easy day at the tax office tomorrow with only one client coming mid-afternoon. I don't even have too much to work on so that's a win. I still haven't finished our own taxes, but I'm not in a hurry for that. We've gotten more done here at the house and the kitchen is REALLY close to being done now. We've had a few decent meals sitting at the kitchen table this week with a fully-functional kitchen to use. I write "Fully functional" but I guess it's truly not quite there since the microwave hood doesn't vent to the outside yet. Oh well I didn't even live anywhere that had a vent for the oven for the first 3+ decades of my life hahaha. I will have to throw one in soon, but the weather hasn't been the best for it and I have a lot of other work to do that seems more important here at the house.

Oh great the Sox just took a 5-2 lead in the 9th a huge 3-run home run from Abreu, his second home run of the day. I just speed-watched the end and the Sox won by that score and are 1-0 on the season. Great! They "only" have 161 more regular-season games left and if they don't win about 85-90 more of those games they can forget the playoffs. They aren't favored to make the playoffs this year anyway, or so I thought.

Tomorrow we plan to have a few people over for some drinks and karaoke. Our place is put together enough to hang out with some family and former staff. Speaking of former staff, some of them still haven't found new jobs yet OMG! I thought they'd all land somewhere quickly, but there haven't been great options out there lately. I wouldn't say the economy is bad; I guess it's more a timing thing. I do feel guilty about ending the restaurant, but that decision saved me from a dog-shit life so I don't regret it. I really only regret not closing the place sooner!

It seemed like we might be in for an early spring, but now not so much. We got 6 friggin' inches of snow Monday PM/early evening. What a bunch of crap! Even worse, Spectrum Cable showed up to upgrade our lines for the second time (got stuck in the driveway mud the first try last week) and didn't finish. They just left and we had no TV or Interweb and when my awesome wife called to ask them WTF they said sorry no linemen were going out anymore due to the snow. WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP! Ah well I really didn't care that much the only thing that sucked a bit was not being able to email back tax clients. Thankfully nothing pressing was needed as I stayed at home all day to work on the house.

We have a bit more snow coming Saturday and it will be generally colder than average for much of the next week. Gods damn it! No blizzards just annoying stuff. Too bad because I've gone for a few jogs outdoors this month and I won't go if it's dog-shit weather. It was marginal at best yesterday, I went a mile, and it was just cold and uncomfortable. My lungs barely handle a jog in perfect weather so when it's cold it gets really difficult. I should just quit jogging and get on a bike, but I feel like if jogging kicks my ass that much it must be good for me. Maybe? Hopefully!

Alright turds, all two of you who read this bootleg site, I'm gonna go bivouac because it's about that time. Taps, taps, lights out is usually between 2200-2230 and it's 2208 so close enough. It will take me a few minutes to get settled in and to fall asleep anyway. I do eat a little piece of an edible every night and I've never slept better, perhaps in my entire life, than I have living here and doing my usual nighttime routine. I eat a little edible and an hour or two later it works and I sleep. Between when I eat it and when I rack out I'll either play a stupid little game on my phone called "Wooduko" or watch a little sports.

I wonder how long it would take to fall asleep if I didn't eat an edible? I also wonder why edibles weren't available to me 30 years ago hehehee. I've had so many nights over the years where I can't sleep so I toss and turn and an edible would have been perfect. Can't sleep because too much is on the mind? Eat some pot-laced jonk food, just a little, and an hour later no worries. Can't sleep because it's a massive heat wave and the bedroom is 80 degrees still in the middle of the night? Edible, boom, bye bye.

I can feel the edible kicking in some now so that's fantastic. If I get it just right (which I mostly do these days) I'll sleep great and wake up A-ok. If I don't get it right I either don't sleep well (not enough edible) or I wake up feeling VERY groggy still (too much edible.) Thankfully on the rare occasion when I have too much I put some caffiene and food to me and usually a half hour later I'm all good. Then again some caffiene and breakfast are the normal morning routine no matter what.

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Sunday, 3-23-25: Weekend over... kinda?
It's time to bivouac soon, but before I rack out I need to Google furnace low-volt power cables.

Crowded House, Don't Dream It's Over plays on channel 1928. Timeout for one of the best 80s songs of all-time. I was watching my pre-recorded Celtics game before I wanted more 80s music; the the C's won in Portland vs. the Trailblazers.

I got a new thermostat since the one we have now is ancient and doesn't work great. (Reads a little too high I think.) and this new Honeywell CT87k "The Round" (Because it's round hehehe) seemed like a good way to go. Don't need a really fancy one for our basic, forced hot air oil system. Problem is I can't get it to work. What a bunch of crap! Our furnace cable has 4 lines. One green, one yellow, one red, and one black. The yellow and green aren't used. The new one writes about a red and white wire and all I wanna know is why? Why don't we have a white wire? Did the former owner use telephone wire and not furnace wire hahaha?

The existing thermostat connects one terminal to red and one to black. I tried that for the new thermostat, but when I turned the furnace back on I got nothing but epic fail and what a bunch of crap all rolled up into one. I messed with it a bit before I quit and threw the old, bootleg thermostat back on.

It was a good weekend overall. I didn't work much yesterday, only a couple hours in the tax office, but I did put in a few hours here at the house after that. Kat was mad at me because I suck at organizing the shit-show that is our downstairs, but she handled it like a boss and when I got home I did help removed a bunch of crap from that area.

We watched a Netflix movie called The Electric State last night before bedtime. It was decent, but not great. It cost Netflix $330 million to make that movie ahahahaha! OMG RIDICULOUS. I'd give it a 7/10, but visually it was beautiful. Special effects these days are generally fantastic. Funny we watch TV and streaming series now way more than we watch movies.

Even though it's Sunday night my weekend isn't really over because I don't have any tax clients tomorrow so it's not truly back to the grind like a usual Monday work-day would be. I'll still be asleep by 2230 and up by 0630 (if not sooner) so I can work on the house. Today I reworked these three steps leading from the living room to the kitchen:

The old supports for those steps were laughable, and the pitch of the things was also a fail. No one used a level putting this place together, or so it seems. It's not an eyesore and you can't really tell that everything is a bit off and out of square, but it makes the carpentry fun. Oh well this place is glorious compared to some other places I've worked in and mostly those I owned when I was a landlord. My Kenduskeag Ave duplex was a real funhouse with it's crooked-ass floors.

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Friday, 3-21-25: My new toy! An easy work-week comes to a close.
I had been shopping around some, looking at tractors because I really want one, but those cost quite a bit of precious... precious money and I don't want to burn through all our savings before I line up more work. I was also considering options for a bigger, more badass, and newer utility trailer so I put more of my energy into looking at those and this one became mine two days ago:

^A 1785-pound dump-trailer rated to hold around 5200 pounds of payload for 7000 totl pounds oh Jesus hell ya! It cost me $5000 plus tax, $400 off because of some very minor scratches on the wheel well that I couldn't possible care less about. I scooted out of the tax office early Wednesday on a beautiful 50-degree weather day to make it happen, and I called ahead so it really didn't even take that long to do.

My first stop after buying my new badass dump trailer was to Hughes Bros. to buy a load of gravel. I was gonna start off with 3/4, but the guy recommended some driveway blend they have for dirt driveways so why not? It's only around $11 a yard so that's epic cheap. I think I got 2 yards Wednesday, but I'm not sure I didn't save the slip. It was definitely a heavy load and I could feel it as I towed it up to our new place here in Eddington. Funny story, I did't get it to dump right away so I shovelled part of the load before I pulled in and charged the battery for the hydraulic dump mechanism. I went for a short pathetic jog (my cardio still sucks) then dumped the rest and Dillon helped me spread it around.

Our driveway is pwned from mud, bigtime. Huge ruts and spots that are very difficult. Dillon's bootleg work truck has gotten stuck a couple times. What a bunch of crap! It's not his fault, though. They are too cheap to give him better tires. The driveway blend has helped, but it's too soon to know how good it really is because we had a lot of rain Monday and more today. Today's precip actually changed to a heavy wet snow for a while, but the roads were mostly ok and it should melt off by tomorrow when we hit 52 again. We've had a few 50+ degree days this month and it's glorious!

I took a huge load of crap from here to the dump yesterday morning before I went to the tax office, and I got another big load of fill for more of the driveway. I got 2.5 yards yesterday and it's saturated from the rain so it weighed 5200 pounds. I maxed that bitch right out! I won't do that again if I can help it because that's too close for comfort, but the thing took it like a champ. I probably got 8 miles to the gallon on the drive home hahaha. I think a school bus gets about that AHAHAHAHA.

^That was Wednesday when I got home. I backed off some so I didn't make a huge pile in the middle of the driveway in case someone was coming or going. Backing that trailer is super-easy compared to my little rusty Snowbear trailer that I bought 12-13 years ago and that probably is about to rust into oblivion since I never take care of it. I'll give that thing away for free just to get rid of it now! The new trailer is easy to back up because it's bigger so I can see it. The little Snowbear would disappear at times behind the truck and I'd lose sight of it in the mirrors when backing straight for a bit. I was still pretty good with it, but on occasion it was just too small. Plus it could only handle about 20% of what this new trailer can handle.

I will use the trailer a lot not only here at the house but also for my Bootleg Properties carpentry business. I sure wish I had that trailer 6 months ago, but that's how hindsight works and 6 months ago we didn't have the precious... precious money to spend on it. What a bunch of crap! 6 months ago my life SUCKED. It's exponentially better now.

I might hook the trailer back on and take another big load of debris to the dump tomorrow, but probably not. I have one tax client at 1000 since my other 1400 clients pushed their appointment back a week. That's a HUGE win for me having that 1400 meeting pushed back since the weather is looking fantastic again and I can work on the house more. I've had a REALLY easy week at the tax office. I think I've only worked about 20 hours this week on that side of things including calls and emails to clients from home. I was looking at my client list earlier and most of them have either finished or are close to done. I have 103 paid tax returns checked off the list with another 17 in my usual holding-pattern and just waiting for signatures, payments, or other little things that won't take too long. In essence 120 clients are at or nearly at the finish-line.

I was projecting I'd do about 150 paid tax returns so that leaves around 30 for the year. It's never an exact science, but I can count on 5-10 AFTER April 15 either due to extensions or people being generally lazy. I have a dozen appointments scheduled so that's hardly any after that. Will I "only" work 20 hours a week for the next 3 weeks in the tax office? I dunno, but either way is a win for me. If I get busy I make more precious... precious money and if I'm not busy I can work on the house. This place still needs a lot of work. A LOT.

This week my awesome wife and I did some more in the kitchen. I also worked on the TV entertainment center last Sunday and cleaned some around the yard including the dump-run and two trips with around 4.5 total yards of fill for the driveway and parking area. We got a cool pot-holder-thing for above the kitchen island and yesterday I got the lights installed above it and above the sink. Here is a photo when the top was still damp because we cleaned it:

^The pots and pans hide the two lights, but they still look great and project a soft brilliance that's perfect when we don't want all the other lights on. Today I started working on this section, the final unfinished section of the kitchen/dining/office area:

^It may not look like much is left, but I need two outlets, I have to rework the steps, and all the trim takes up precious... precious time. I got the wires run for the outlets today before I headed into town early PM. I would have cut some trim, but the weather was ten pounds of shit stuffed into a five-pound bag all day. What a bunch of crap!

Speaking of a bunch of crap, when I headed into town I made it about 4 miles before it was game over. Traffic was 100% stopped and it was all-bad. I could see flashing lights from a fire truck and people were turning around so passing through was not an option. I also turned around and almost came back home, but I did have work I wanted to do and a client meeting so I went all the way to 46 and to 1A to get to Bangor. Added around 25 minutes to my drive so a 20-minute drive became 45 minutes. What a bunch of crap! Some simp did this somehow:

OMG WHAT A BUNCH OF STUPID CRAP! All I wanna know is why? Why does that happen? How fucked are you when you drive your ass THROUGH a power pole? It was raining at the time and around 38 degrees so ice was NOT a factor at all. I'd give a pass it someone had a severe medical incident while driving, but it was probably some old geezer who shouldn't have a license anymore or someone texting and driving.

An old guy was going the wrong was on 295 near Portland earlier today and caused a death. What a bunch of crap! Some 86-year old driving northbound in the sounthbound lane and got smashed by a truck, or something like that. Old people mostly should not drive and we as a society need to do better sorting that all out. Maybe an annual road-test once you're 67? I know that costs taxpayers money but it beats the alternative of seeing these ancient old wrinkled-up little raisins trying to drive and barely being able to do it. Nothing worse than some old person who can barely see and who can't even go the speed limit or, even worse, drive on the correct side of the road. What a bunch of crap!

My awesome wife is the DJ for a friend's birthday party tonight at Jeff's Catering so I'm flying solo here. It sucked coming home to an inch of snow, but it was great for the dogs to burn some energy. In Bangor there was a slushy coating at worst so it really is amazing how we get about an inch more snow here per storm than Bangor does, or so it seems. We're only 10 miles from Bangor as well so wow. We are at more elevation, but I don't know by how much. I'd guess 200 feet but that's a dumb guess at best.

Alright turds, I'll watch a little TV before the Celtics play out west in a bit. I don't think I can watch the whole game since it starts at 2130 and won't end until around midnight and F that no way I'm staying up that late gods damn it. We're old and bedtime is usually 2230, give or take a little, even on days when we don't have the baby like today. We could have stayed up late last night since Dillon took today off from work, but we still stuck to the routine and I was up around 0600 haha. We are getting old and routine and old people are like peanut butter and jelly, right?

Maybe I need a road test soon to ensure I'm not too ancient to be driving...

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Saturday, 3-15-25: I took the weekend off, but we've been working.
For the first time since January I took the weekend off. Oh Jesus, hell ya! I left work at 1500 yesterday, too. However, I haven't been skating off too much because there is a lot of work to be done at our house. The work here at our house will last into 2026. I'm hoping to get most of our house stuff done this year, but I doubt I will. We have a lot of yard work still to do. A lot. Plus I want a garage, a new deck, etc.

Today my awesome wife spent several hours cleaning and organizing the downstairs while I did some trim work upstairs and worked on our soon-to-be living room entertainment center for the TV and whatnot. I built one at our place in Brewer many years ago and it worked great. Now I'm a better carpenter so I think I can make this one even better. I'm being more meticulous and sanding the trim; that was a mistake I made years ago building this:

I didn't use my sander at all so when dust collected it was hard to clean. What a bunch of crap!

I went on Youtube to rip out some tunes and for some weird reason the NES game Rygar soundtrack popped up. HAHAHAHA. Probably because I listened to Legaccy of the Wizard: A Love Letter a few times last year. Man, the soundtrack to Legacy of the Wizard is awesome. The main dungeon theme was my old Alcatel One-Touch cellphone ringtone for years HAHAHAHA.

This soundtrack isn't too shabby. I remember paying the hell out of this game when I was a kid, but I also have some weird memory of getting really sick one time around when we played it so that somehow and oddly tarnishes my memories of it. Plus it was a damn hard game and I don't think we ever beat it. I seem to recall making it to some evil castle in the clouds but my memories are from the late 1980s so how reliable are those? I'm old now so they are not reliable at all. What a bunch of crap!

^I'm an analog man in a digital world (Thank you, Joe Walsh) and I miss those epic old video games. One day when I can totally get my life under 100% control I'll play these old games again. First I have half a house to finish remodeling, landscaping, a garage to build, a tax season to finish, etc. Maybe 2026?! Hehehe.

Rygar would probably be too hard for me these days anyway.

I worked on some kitchen trim and the downstairs as well today. It was a very nice weather-day with temps near what I would guess to be 50-55 so working outside was great earlier. I had the dogs out and they did great, too. Didn't wander too far off and came in when it was time. Sometimes getting Tiger Lily in is a pain because she likes to wander some, but she's never totally disappeared on me. I still keep an eye on it because there are a lot of woods around us and it would be easy for one or both of the dogs to take off and not return.

We had a nice family dinner after working all day and then my awesome wife and I watched WWE Smackdown (recorded last night) and after she bivouaced I watched the Celtics - Nets game (Boston won oh Jesus hell ya) and now here I am. It's 2315 so it's kinda past my normal bedtime, but it's a Saturday night so no worries. I've had some drinks, but I'm not wrecked. I've been very good about drinking a couple times a week but only having a little so I wake up just fine, no hangover, and it's all good.

^A little dark because I didn't turn the light on. Jaylen Brown had just dropped a sweet rainbow 3-pointer. I have a lot of the remaining shelves for that entertainment center cut I just need to install them and we need to stain it. I can only work on it on weekends or holidays because during the week we have our granddaughter for 10 hours a day starting at 0700 M-F and no way I'm doing that with her here. No rush it will get done eventually and tomorrow I'll put some more time into it.

Yesterday PM before supper and this morning I got the trim installed in the center around that pole. You can see the door in the background still needs trim, and if you look really closely you can see the trim pieces for the door hanging out off the right in the far corner. I could have done that today, but Saturday is precious so I wanted to put in those hours in the living room since the baby wasn't here all day.

I cleaned and organized the downstairs some, but my wife did most of that since she is WAY better than me at orgnizing our stuff. I see a pile of stuff and don't ever know where to put it all. I arrange some of it then I look for excuses to go do something else because it makes me mentally check out. She's a wizard at it and I suck at it. What a bunch of crap! I'm not a slob, I just can't take a pile of stuff all over a room and make it look neat and organized.

I have one month left of tax season and I've already finished 95 paid tax returns with 18 others mostly done just waiting for clients to be ready to finish. My goal is 150 paid customers so I'll be close. However, the dollar number is the most important one and I am on track for it. Normally I get a slight lull in late March and early April and this year is no different. I only had one client meeting Friday, none this weekend, and none Monday. However, I have things to work on still and extensions to finish.

Speaking of finishing, I am done. It's time to rack out with my crack out so I can get up at a decent time tomorrow and work more on this house before I go play racquetball. Tomorrow will be in the 50s again for the high temperature so that is AWESOME. Since the sun angle is higher now and since temps are increasing we are using a lot less oil for heat. Plus being on a second floor helps. I'm sure come mid-summer being on the second floor will be brutally hot, but it's a win right now!

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Tuesday, 3-04-25: Our president is probably half-insane but this is great!
I don't know what to make of Donald Trump as president. I'm watching his address to congress, and it's been on for about 20 minutes. He brags about how great he is, he craps all over Biden, and it's the most entertaining speech from a president to congress that I can ever recall. They had to stop his speech for a minute because some old Democrat was being a dink so he was warned then he got kicked out. HAHAHAHA.

It's actually sad seeing the panned shots of the congress. All the Republics are drinking the Kool-Aid (Let's face it, Trump could easily lead a cult) and cheering loudly with constant applause. All the Democrats look like their dogs died and that beotch Pelosi looks like she wants to commit mudrer. They hate him!

Trump just put Elon Musk over and the Democrats booed some. Musk is running the DOGE (Dept of Govt Efficiency) and a lot of people hate it. I love it! Musk is stinking rich so he doesn't need to be doing this.

I don't know why our new/old half-insane president is blaming Biden for the price of eggs. All I wanna know is why? Why is that Biden's fault? I hated Biden, he was a baked piece of shit, but that's not his fault. Dems boo Trump some more hahahha. He's listing off all the government waste that is getting cut including Sesame Street in Iran or something like that. He's ending men in women's sports so that's great. Too bad our whore state governor still wants men in womens' sports what a bunch of crap!

^The whole men in competitive womens' sports thing is epic fail and what a bunch of crap all rolled into one.

"Drill baby drill" Trump says as he talks about more domestic oil production coming back online after the restrictive shit-show Biden administration. He talks about Social Security showing millions, literally millions of people still alive over the age of 150. OMG WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

Trump wants to balance the federal budget and this is incredibly overdue. How can we survive as a nation if we spend more than we make year after year? To me that's the most important thing for any administration to take care of. Shouldn't that be basic budgeting 101? YOU CAN'T SPEND MORE THAN YOU MAKE FOR YEARS AND YEARS UNLESS YOU HAVE A VAULT FULL OF LOOT AND WE DO NOT HAVE A VAULT FULL OF LOOT BIG ENOUGH TO PAY OFF OUR 39 TRILLION NATIONAL DEBT GODS DAMN IT.

I overall support Trump's plan, but he is kind-of nuts and too full of himself. I'm not sure what the hell happened last week when Ukraine's president Zelinsky came to the White House and got dumped on by Trump and his VP. It was an embarassing shit-show and that's what we get with Trump from time to time.

Tax cuts are part of his plan so let's see how that goes. He wants no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security. Not one Democrat claps for that one hahahha what a bunch of crap! I don't know if can pull all three of those off and I doubt he can, we shall see, but next tax season is shaping up to be very interesting if these changes do take effect. Hell, this tax season has been interesting and nothing major has changed!

Enough about politics, I did DDP Yoga for the first time all year today; it was the first time I've done yoga since November 10th holy crap that SUCKS. The tax business is really ripping and I've picked up some new clients, some with LLC and business stuff that pays well. It's a lot more work so it's not easy money of course. Lots of research and stuff to work on between clients in the office. I have NOT been bored even once this tax season, but I don't feel overwhelmed either. I've finished around 80 tax returns with 10-12 more all but done just waiting for signatures and final meetings so I'm close to 2/3 done for the season with just under 6 weeks to go. I'd call it 65% done in terms of work left before April 15. I'll do a little here and there after April, 15, but not too much and the trickle of money that comes in after April 15 helps pay for books, supplies, programs, etc.

I'm hoping to take in at least $20,000 from the tax business this year. I won't make that as profit of course, but it will be the most I've done since I've been on my own. I am on a pace to do that right now, but until I get there I'm not counting on it. If I don't hit that mark I won't go out of business, but I will be a little disappointed.

Alright turds, I'm out of here. I won't watch Trump until the end because he is starting to meander and pander some so I'll just get ready to bivouac. I rack out between 2200-2230 most nights including weekends and revielle is 0600-0630 so I get a good 7-8 hours of sleep almost every night. It's better than I've had in many years! I still eat an edible every night, not a lot, but enough so that certainly helps. I feel better than I have in a long time and I'm hopeful things will get better once I get the gym set up and get more regular about doing yoga and jogging outdoors. After tax season I'll also get back into carpentry and that helps me stay in shape, too. I'm doing a lot of carpentry now, but nothing really arduous now it's been more trim, painting, finish work, etc.

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Saturday, 3-01-25: Let's have a great start to spring. Oh wait, winter ain't over.
Wow, it's March already! Today was a good day to start the month; I worked about 4 hours in the tax office and took in just over $1000 by finishing a few relatively involved tax returns that I've had on-hold. I don't take in that much money every day, and most days is much less. Some days I'm there and no revenue comes in, it varies a lot, and that is A-ok and the nature of the business. Sometimes I'll meet with several clients who aren't ready to finish either because they planned to just drop stuff off, they forgot stuff, or they are depressed about the numbers and need to go stew on it. Generally the last one for me is quite rare, especially now that I am my own boss and not beholden to stupid corporate pricing.

The money I take in is certainly not all profit. I have rent to pay, travel to and from the office (not a tax deduction), software, credit card fees when people pay with plastic, paper, ink, etc. I'm hoping to take in at least $20,000 in gross revenue this season and I'm well on my way. Last year I took in $18,000 and back in 2021 it was only $13,900. I had fewer clients back then and I was also doing that stupid fuckin' restaurant. Before that was COVID so I've never had a fluid tax season start to finish where I didn't either have other work going on, other big obligations, a pandemic, or both. What a bunch of crap!

I am past the halfway point for my tax season. I've filed and prepared about 93 tax returns; three of those are dependent ones that are really easy and part of parents' package pricing. (I charge some but bake it into the parents' fee.) I have around 19 unfinished but mostly ready to go just awaiting payment, final signatures, maybe a form or two, etc. Last season I did around 150 total with maybe 10 of those being AFTER April 15. This season I think I will do more, but that remains unclear. A lot of my regulars haven't connected with me yet, but there are still 6 weeks to go. I've also picked up a lot of new clients and some of those ones are a lot of work for pretty good money, relatively speaking. I have one new S-Corp (new to me) that will be great income when it's done.

After work at the tax office I scooted over to the gym to lose to Deno 4 games of racqutball. I had leads in three of the four games that I blew what a bunch of crap! Oh well it was good exercise and I was still home by around 1530 and had time to work on the house some before cleaning up and getting food at the local Eddington Store. That store is great! We've gotten food from them three different times and every time it's been a win. Last Sat was a pizza, Wed was a burger for me and a sub for my awesome wife, and tonight were subs for us both. They even sell chili there you can scoop out into a to-go container. THIS TOWN IS AWESOME!

Kat got up before 0500 and started working in the kitchen. Here it is Thursday morning:

Since then the island is done... kind-of. We took a road-trip to the Ellsworth Home Depot yesterday evening to get a butcher block island countertop since the Bangor Home Depot didn't have any and ordering online was going to cost a $55 delivery fee. I almost paid the delivery fee, but F that it's expensive and our road is now posted HEAVY LOADS LIMITED for the early spring so any vehicle over 23,000 pounds is not welcome. A smaller box truck is probably okay, but if they sent a bigger truck we would not have even gotten our order gods damn it!

So we got our butcher block island, it looked great in the packaging, but we got it home and found some dents. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! It's a showpiece for our entire kitchen so another trip to Ellsworth has to happen now what a bunch of crap! Probably not going for at least a few days, we'll see.

I bought the relatively cheap unfinished cabinets at Home Depot (couldn't do Lowe's as the card was maxed out back at the end of 2024 when we were really poor) and those things are great when you get it right and do a nice stain or paint. I bought a cabinet-grade paint and Lowe's for something like $60 a gallon, but I don't regret the price at all because the paint is fantastic.

Sadly the cabinets don't come with enough shelves these days so I need to either fabricate our own or buy more. I was looking online and they are damn hard to find so looks like I'm going to be making our own. What a bunch of crap! I enjoy doing it so that's okay. It uses up extra precious.... precious time, but buying them seems way too expensive.

Tomorrow I plan to stay home and work on the house. Kat killed it in the kitchen today and got tons of stuff cleaned and put away. I am impressed! For the first time since we've lived here I used real silverware tonight. We had been using plastic utensils and paper plates. Still using paper plates for now becuse we have tons of them on-hand.

We had a couple relatively mild weather days last week and today was in the low 40s, but it's snowing some now (almost over and less than one inch) and the next two days will be around 20 degrees with wind. What a bunch of crap! After that I'm seeing lots of upper 30s and 40s in the forecast so that's awesome. My tax season is also over half-done so I should be able to keep plugging away here at our house. I might work on that huge garage job later this month if the weather really breaks for a bit, but the owner needs to give me more precious.. precious money before I really dive into it. Code has an inspection on March 11 so hopefully that goes well and I am cleared to keep going. I really don't even want to work on it at all until after April 15, but I don't want to get fired from the job for not working on it at all so we shall see how it goes.

Alright turds, all two of you who read this bootleg site, I'm out like a fat kid in dodge ball. Hopefully next time I post my worthless thoughts on here I will have a couple good photos of our kitchen and the short landing connecting the living room to the kitchen. We took out the door separating the two spaces today and having it all open is absolutely fantastic!