Taxes & Diet Results

Anticipation was high this morning when the hounds and I started our day. The calendar said it was 'April' and that means spring is here, just as soon as the temperature would climb above freezing and head that 50° they are promising me today. I had a plan for this morning which is rare but that plan changed and it turned into a morning of multi-tasking. So far, all with good results.

I've mentioned before that I keep spreadsheets for normal things and the first day of each month is update time. Some of these are for information, some for fun and all of them are used because I love spreadsheets. It took less than 10 minutes to update, monthly mileage driven, body measurements, financial stats, used electric, and diet tracking.

I caught Stella running this morning but this picture shows I caught her on the downward part of her run as her ears are pinned flat against her head. When the camera focused her ears were flying ... but she was too fast this morning, faster than the camera shutter.

If you remember March 17th I announced I was going to get serious about my eating plan. I'll not review all that I was going to do but will say that in the past few days I have been feeling "lighter". I'm serious when I say that. When I sit at my desk or on the couch I could also tell that my gut was looking smaller ... so this morning's monthly measurements might tell me if my eyes were deceiving me.

It might have been only 13 days ago when I was going to get serious about what I was eating but the tape doesn't lie. The skin calipers don't lie and neither does the scale. It's one reason I always like to record the truth so I can see the real differences, good or bad.

Comparing my measurements to what they were just a month ago on March 1st, I've lost 4 pounds, an inch off my gut, 1/4" of fat on the side or 4mm ... measured by skin calipers.

Although I fluctuated between high and low carbs or fat, all plant-based or fish, meat a chicken ... one thing that I did not deviate on was ... NO Dairy. Also I fought through urges for junk food like cookies, candy and anything else in a package. That continues to be a daily battle.

One week I thought I was going Vegan, Vegetarian or was it going to be Paleo?? Like I posted a few times these past few weeks, I migrated to what I have done before in making modifications to where I was eating somewhere in between all of the diets. Still staying away from dairy, processed foods.

I did not go one extreme or the other but in the past week had decided to lean in the direction of 'low fat', higher carbs and the required amount of protein.

So the bottom line is, in the past two weeks I have decreased my gut, weight, and fat. I have only added sugar to my coffee but no longer use it for anything else. If I had not lost weight this month I was going to eliminate those two teaspoons from my cup of coffee every morning and I still might do that.

Last night after the last NCAA basketball game was over, I was channel surfing and caught the last part of a diet presentation on DrOz tv show. They were explaining THE SAME THING I AM DOING !!!! Where's my commission ???  LOL

They were explaining their reasons for Monday, Tuesday and Thursday would be  'low carb' days. Wednesday and Saturday would be 'high carb' days and Sunday would be a 'cheat day' ... where you can eat anything you want plus add 1000 to 1200 more calories on top of your daily limit. In my case that would put me around 2800 calories on Sundays.

I looked at my Cronometer app where I can see all of my food breakdown by day. It's easier of course to look at that site on my computer instead of my phone. What it showed over the past few weeks was that I was alternating Keto and Vegan diets throughout the week unintentionally. Oh ... that Wednesday and Saturday are basically Vegan days ... meatless on their plan.

I can go to the DrOz website and either see or read the first part of the show I missed last night. The dietitian was explaining the reasons for alternating that way of eating on different days, as boosting your metabolism and burning fat faster, thus losing weight. The Sunday cheat day was a reward plus it would also help change your metabolism.

Yet, like I said the other day after reading this in one of the two books I was reading about food. Someone with an addictive personality (me) might have a really hard time with that Sunday Cheat Day because one day of junk food would be too much and seven days of junk food wouldn't be enough. (that is my saying) ... It's either one extreme or another ... but ... I'm willing to try the cheat day concept and see if it works.  :)

Since it has been possible to file federal and state income taxes online years ago, I have. Every year went smoothly, refunds were received and payments were paid electronically without a hitch. Most of my life is electronic, all of my monthly expenses are paid not only electronically but automatically such as phone, tv, internet, water, electric and insurance. I do the automatic payments just in case I end up in the hospital sometime and can't get to a computer. I NEVER make these transactions on my iPhone.

With my income electronically received and all my basic expenses paid, it would actually be possible to pay those monthly expenses on time and I would never have to be around. A sick side of that story is that I have joked about it to friends, I could die and based on my bank transactions no one would ever know I was gone. Life would go on like always. LOL

Over the years I have used different online tax services from TurboTax, TaxAct and HR Block. In all of those services I have been able to file electronically and if I owe taxes I could pay at the same time, a smooth process.

Not this year.

I get to the point of finishing my state tax and it tells me that my state is not accepting electronic debits. The real problem was I could not proceed past that problem to file my federal taxes nor file my state taxes electronically. The tax service website contact info did not have a phone number and if I needed help I had to pay money for their "free tax advice" with a real person on the phone.

So back in February I wanted my federal tax refund so I went to another online service, filed my federal and received my refund. The online service I was currently using said I could file federal and state separately but after reading their help section and trying to do that multiple times, it wasn't possible. They wanted me to print out my state tax return and mail it in.

I played along and printed out my state return and let it sit to simmer for a couple of months as I decided what my next plan would be.

That one line in my state tax instructions told me I could go to their website and pay my state tax obligation and mail my return separately. So .... long story short ... I only did part of that.

A little break in the action ... do you notice the one on the left is now filled with dirt ??? Just yesterday they were both open and in fact filled with water.

Here is what they looked like yesterday.

So this morning I had a plan, a tax plan. I didn't like it but I was going to do it and get it out of my life and since it was April I wanted to close my 2018 Income Taxes for good.

My plan was to mail in my state tax return WITH a check, certified mail for proof of delivery and be done with it. I was even telling Stella along the walk that I was going to the post office after this walk.

Of course when she heard the word "go" she changed her attention from the back of the field to me and decided to walk with me back home.

I get back to the house. It's funny because Stella hearing that was going somewhere, immediately walks straight to the bedroom and lies down on the floor waiting for me to shut the door. I still had to fill out my envelope and write a check. (I can't remember the last time I have written a check) In fact my checks are so old they have the printed address of what I had prior to my current mailing address, when they changed it for the 911 Emergency System.

That has been years ago !!!

I am almost to the point of writing my check when I catch that one line again "Pay online by visiting 'their website' " I did that without any issues and received my receipt of payment for my records. I still wanted to talk to a human voice at the state revenue office so I called to explain my problem and wanted to confirm as the written instructions indicated ... that I could still mail in my state tax return without a payment.

She said, I can suggest even something better than that if you don't want to mail it. Drop off the return at a district office. Well they have a district office not only in Bloomington but right on the way to Mother Bear's Pizza ... a favorite of mine.

Can I have one of those "Sunday Cheat Days" in my diet plan on a Tuesday ??? Like tomorrow ???  :)

So basically I am finished with my 2018 income taxes with a few glitches this year.

The new and improved Cincinnati Reds this year looked like the terrible Cincinnati Reds of the past FOUR YEARS yesterday as I tuned into their game on tv. They were starting their game in the second coldest temperature in the HISTORY of their franchise (150 years). It was 33° and that is just too cold to be playing baseball. The Reds played like they were freezing, losing 5-0. Wasn't the other team cold or did the Reds just simply suck yesterday??

Luckily the first of two games in the NCAA basketball tournament started within the hour of the baseball game so I was able to limit my misery. It was two great basketball games, exciting but more than anything, both teams I wanted to win did win ... so they have a final four WITHOUT what I call "The Best Teams Money Can Buy" ... meaning, money involved to have certain players show up to that school to play basketball.

There has been a little news in the past month where some assistant coaches and shoe company handlers are going to prison for these illegal payments. The real action will start after the tournament is over on the 8th of April, a week or so later. That is when the NCAA holds their meetings on crap like this and the rumor is many many many coaching job openings will occur after those meetings.

Don't be alarmed with what I am about to discuss. This is just for information for anyone that might want to transfer their WordPress blog back to Blogger. I know, that sounds strange because why would anyone want to do that? I'll not go into the reasons nor compare the two but I have found a valuable tool that works perfectly in the process of importing your WordPress blog into Blogger.

The issues have always been that they don't play well together, even when you want to transfer a Blogger blog to WordPress. It's possible but a lot of extra work and on a level where you have to know what you can do behind the scenes.

Most of the time over the past five years, I could find a converter tool for the .xml file imported from WordPress but every time that tool no longer worked. There were no updates.

Yesterday through internet searches I thought I had found one but when I clicked on the link, it would return me right back to the WordPress blog article I was reading. It described the process. So I made a comment about the problem, asking if the converter site still worked?

Within the hour I had a reply and was told they were fixing it and were unaware that it did not work.

Long story short ... they fixed it and it worked perfectly and fast this morning.

If you are needing a converting tool online so the WordPress file you downloaded can be imported into Blogger without any problems ... click here for that converter.

So why was I playing around with that, if I am happy with my blog on WordPress? I know it's not much money but I don't like having to pay $96 per year for their Premium account just so I can use my own domain name that I have paid for plus have a few more templates to choose from. In fact I am not even sure I need the Premium account to use my own domain name, maybe I don't.

I'll be reviewing their Premium account info again today. I did read it before I paid last December and for some reason I thought it was a requirement.

Yesterday I started thinking and that is always dangerous when I start thinking ... what if I have to pay that $96 next December to keep my domain name for the blog? What if I don't want to pay that? I know it's not a lot of money spread out over a year but it's close to a $1,000 per year and I could use that much money on something else. For food or fun or even save it.

So the only backup plan would be ... move the blog back to Blogger to my old blog and transfer the domain name for FREE because Blogger doesn't charge me for that process. I just pay for the domain name. Also Blogger gives you unlimited photos for free ... Wordpress gives me 2Tb of photo space before I have to pay for more storage.

Since I have used only 15% of that storage, it isn't an issue.

I set up a free blog on Blogger yesterday "Steve's Test Blog" just to see if I could complete the transfer without any problems. I also found they have improved their customization with more options and I swear I am sure they use to call them templates but they had the word themes listed and that is the same word that WordPress uses.

I have no plans to move ... but I have to admit ... having all the blog posts on this blog from December 9th 2018 to this one, on my old blog, making ONE blog with all of my blogging history with the hounds ..... is very tempting.  LOL

Too much rambling ... too much time ... and Stella wants her lunch ... I gotta go

Spring is here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Don't Worry About Weather

As bad as I want warmer weather and Spring to arrive, the bloodhounds don't care ... but Heidi does. She is like me ... wants it at least 70°. Since our last post nothing much has happened. About every time I put the wool socks and long underwear away, the temps drop below freezing. We took off this morning with 25° and an adjustment to Daylight Savings Time.

Even though the walks remain the same, Stella has changed her walk routine as usual. I've been letting her hang back while Sadie and I make the half mile walk. Stella has made two changes ... she gets as far as the first corner by the time we meet her on the way back ... and she comes when I call her.

I tried a few changes to my camera settings even though most of our walks anymore are taken without a camera. For some strange reason Stella seems to follow Sadie and I, when I don't take the camera. I spent a few days taking large file images in the RAW setting instead of JPG-Fine. I could tell a slight difference in sharpness but it wasn't worth the extra time it took to export the images from the computer to the blog.

About the time I made the change back to JPG-Fine, I received an updated article from 'Digital Photography' where a professional photographer made the same comparison and the same change for this general family photos.

Heidi was able to make a few laps around the house a couple of days when the temps were in the 40's after her lunch. I let her do what she wanted, but she always made it back to the door to be let in right after her lap and spent no extra time outside.

No matter what, every walk morning or afternoon, Sadie is always tracking scent ... that's what she is made for. Where Stella prefers food and sleeping.

I've really enjoyed the change from Directv to Dish Network. I now have a feature I can split my tv screen into 2 or 4 screens, showing ballgames in each smaller screen. A nice feature for a sports addict like me. With a DVR that tapes up to 16 movies, tv shows, or ballgames at one time, I no longer have channel conflicts. The nicest thing is the ability to export all saved movies and games to an external hard drive instead of taping them on DVDs, after the 2Tb DVR is filled.

We had a few days of rain mixed in between the freezing cold days but when the roads have been dry and no rain in the forecast I have taken short drives (1 hour) with the Z4. It does not get driven that much over the year but it's there when I have the urge to go out and enjoy the local scenery plus the smooth driving Z4.

Back to Directv, I am in the final few weeks to officially close my account. Since my DVR is an older model they did not request that I ship it back but they did send me an envelope to return the card inside the DVR. Of course they cannot let me know that they received it, nor can their customer service reps tell me if that card has been received, thus leading to a possible charge.

I have been told different stories, one saying that if I have received my final bill, which I did and paid immediately, then all is good without any additional charges. Directv forums tell a different story, so we will see I guess.

They continue to make offers for me to come back, this week by snail mail. My same 'Choice Package' for $29.99 for the next year instead of the $99.99 - $114.99 I was paying. To sweeten the deal they offered a Visa Gift Card worth $300 this week. Yet they day before I cancelled my account they told me they could not offer any discounts.

No matter how far back Sadie gets behind me, she will always come sprinting to and past me in a full sprint.

It shows it will be warmer by the end of the week and possible snow a few days later on Tuesday. No worries, I've seen it snow the first few days in April many years ago. While we had the coldest winter that I can remember this year, the national weather service says the Earth was warmer than ever in January.

It's the middle of March but looks like the dead of winter in freezing January.

With each step by Sadie I could hear the frozen weeds, grass and dormant flowers crunching under her paws.

This has been the area we see Stella as we make the turn toward home, at least the past week.

While looking like she is ignoring me, this week she will walk over to me and push my knee with her nose to let me know she is there. Instead of taking her normal 'alternate' path home, she had been leading Sadie down the normal return path home.

With all of the deer scent and the field cat we rarely see if every, they have plenty of work to track all the way home.

That 'field cat' made an appearance the other day during our afternoon walk. Sadie of course had to check it out and by the time I caught up with her, the cat swatted Sadie across her nose drawing blood. With the cat arching her back and hissing ... Sadie would not leave yet decided it was best not to poke her nose toward the cat.

By the time we returned home, Sadie had stopped the bleeding by having her nose pressed to the ground on the way home the other day.

The next month will be filled with 'March Madness' in college basketball, sprinkled with a few games of MLB spring training. The Reds open their season in just 16 days, snow or now snow.

The 'to do' list will be started the first day it is warm. I have a lot of things to get done this spring which will mean even less computer time than now. In the last billing cycle that just ended a few days ago I had my lowest data usage EVER!!

All is good here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.