Day of Many Things

Today was tax day! I had some Staples Rewards money to spend from last quarter, and I wanted to know if I had to spend it on a desktop version of TurboTax. As it turned out, it was far cheaper to use TurboTax online and just pay for one state filing. I called the Ohio tax bureau and learned I did not have to file in Ohio, which made me very happy. We will be getting an extremely helpful refund in a couple of weeks now, half of which I am directing into our savings account for summer. Summers are hard here, because M's stipend is much smaller. But I scored a 100% on the Census employment test last week, so even if I don't find other work, that could be a good addition to our money supply as well. Unless an emergency comes up, I will probably put the rest towards our credit cards. Having student loan debt is bad enough, I am trying to pay down the credit cards and not have to worry about them anymore.

Today was also pulled pork day. I bought a big pack of pork shoulder rib last week at 99 cents a pound, and today I browned them with some butter in a skillet, tossed them in a crockpot, sauteed some onions and garlic, poured water over them, poured the whole mess over the ribs, then added a tablespoon of liquid smoke and let it all cook. After six hours, it is one of the most awesome sandwich fillings imaginable, just add barbecue sauce. The pork fat I strain off is good for cooking, and the leftover liquid makes great rice for pork fried rice when the sandwiches are gone. It is a very stretchy sort of meal.

Today was also fussy baby day! I don't know quite what's gotten into Robert, but he's been getting quite fussy in the afternoons lately. He'll be good all morning, interested in looking at everything, playing in his tunnel, etc. Then in the afternoon, he's mad, mad, mad! We went on a walk around the expanded block and he slept for awhile during that, at least. The weather has been great today. Tomorrow we will be very busy and there'll be no time for a walk, but I enjoyed it while we had it.