Tax Time

WOW! Aren't taxes stressful?? If you are wondering why I'm complaining about taxes in October it's because we filed for extensions which means we didn't have to have our taxes in by April 15th like most everyone else. Now the clock is ticking away. I've got until the 15th of October to get them filed. So I haven't posted in the last week or so because I've been getting my receipts all together and inputting all of the information into Quickbooks for my personal taxes and 2 S Corporations. Not completely sure I did everything correctly, but I got it finished.
I took everything over to a CPA yesterday. I tried to explain it all to him. Hopefully he understood what I was trying to say. He said it looked like I had a loss on both S Corps and that I may not have to pay any taxes but he didn't think I'd get any back either. I hope he's wrong about the getting some back part. I could really use some money right about now.

I had to gather some more paperwork for him today. This process of getting all of my papers and files in order has made me realize I really have no idea what's involved in owning your own business. No wonder so many small businesses fail. There's A LOT to keep up with, especially when you start adding entities (LLCs & Corps) to the mix.
Wish me luck...keep your fingers crossed...pray for me.

There’s a Mouse in my House

I hate mice!! I just can’t stand finding mouse poop in places that I want to be mouse free. But those nice little sign posts they leave for us seem to show up in the worst places. At first I only saw one mouse run along the wall past the front door shortly after midnight each night, but now they sometimes run by a couple times a day.

One night I had to get up to go to the bathroom. I went to the one in the hall so I wouldn’t wake up Jasmine. As I was getting ready to leave, a mouse ran right past my bare foot and under the cabinet. Scare me silly! I don’t think I screamed out loud because the girls didn’t wake up but I most definitely did in my head. Talk about freaking out a half asleep, blurred eyed woman. That certainly woke me up.

I have a mattress on the floor next to my bed for Jasmine or Lily, you know just in case they decide to sleep by themselves :-O. I was lying on my bed one afternoon trying to get Jasmine down for a nap when I noticed mouse poop on the comforter on their mattress. Does that mean they are crawling into my bed at night too?? I haven’t seen any actual evidence that they’ve been in my bed but I have to admit it makes it a lot harder to fall asleep with that on your mind. Like I need the added stress!!

Disappointing fact – our Chihuahua is a very poor mouser. Should have gotten a terrier.

We’ve already caught 6 mice and I know there are more because they are bold little suckers. We caught a couple with the regular Victor snap traps. I guess the mice got wiser and more careful because we stopped catching them. So we tried the new design of Victor trap and caught a couple more, but then those traps became ineffective. We tried using one of those “catch’em live and release ‘em outside”, “humane” traps. The “humane” trap worked at my brother’s house, but not mine. Didn’t catch a single mouse with it. Most recently we tried the glue trays – it’s like flypaper for mice. We got two more with the glue trays. I think we’ll switch back to the snap traps because as much as I hate mice I prefer them to have a quick death rather than suffer a slow demise in a quagmire of sticky goo.

I thought of using baited poison but with the toddler and the puppy that’s not an option. Besides my Granny and Pop tried the poison at their old place once. It worked but the critter died in some inaccessible place in the walls and stunk the place up with decomposition odor for a couple weeks. Not something I want to experience. Isn’t it great that we can learn from other’s mistakes?

Anybody got any suggestions for eradicating the mice?

My quest for child support.

I’ve been trying to get Jasmine’s father to pay child support. He’s never paid any. He said he wants to do it the right way, which means the way that’s going to cover his rear. He won’t even start paying just a little bit to help buy diapers because he wants it to go through the courts so that I can’t come back later and say that he hasn’t paid. Something I’d never do. On the one hand I can understand his position and on the other I know it’s the child that is negatively impacted by his selfishness.

He’s planning on taking out a loan so that he can get an attorney. I think Child Support Recovery may be the better route to go so I asked him to at least look over the paperwork. He agreed to look it over.

He came to my house last week. The first time in 6 months he’s bothered to come see his daughter. Things went well. At least I thought they did. He called me 2 days later and said that he was going to go ahead and get himself an attorney, but for me to do what I needed to do. I have no idea how long that will take and I need some child support now. So, I’ve decided to go through with Child Support Recovery to cover my rear and make sure I get timely support payments.

I have been receiving monthly child support from Lily’s father every month, but several times it has been late. I count on that money to be in her account on time. I have to do some major scrambling and juggling to put food on the table when it isn’t. It is not fun having to call the ex up to find out where child support money is, especially when it is obviously not a big deal to him. So instead of playing that game, with the advice of my friends, I’m going to file for Child Support Recovery on him too.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to fill out the paperwork required but it is a royal pain. Not to mention all of the documents you have to provide. I certainly hope it is worth all of the time and effort.

I have a rant!

As you may have read in my previous posts I have 2 little girls, no husband, and no job. That means I’m a struggling stay at home mom who tries to make it off of the child support I receive. It isn’t much. In fact, it doesn’t even come close to being enough to raise a healthy, well-fed, suitably clothed child. Lily’s father, who owns a thriving pest control business in California, got away with paying next to nothing (a couple hundred a month). That was okay when she was a breast fed infant but now that she’s a fast growing, high energy five year old, it’s not nearly enough to cover her expenses. Jasmine’s father has never paid anything. Both fathers have moved on with their lives and gotten live-in girlfriends, etc. And that’s fine with me. I have no problem with that. But please have some concern and regard for the offspring you so callously left behind!

I was talking to a friend from church yesterday. She is also a single mother of 2 girls, not married, and works from home on a contract basis. We were discussing the unfairness of a society that allows men to marry, father children and then move on without adequately providing for those they leave behind. Why is it ok for the men who were the breadwinners to move on and live in expensive houses, drive expensive cars, buy expensive toys, and indulge in expensive hobbies while their children do without? Why are these men able to just turn their backs on these beautiful children that they so willingly and eagerly helped to create?

Fire in the Forest

We had a bit of excitement around here on Friday. I was returning home from picking up Lily, my 5 year old, from school when I saw 2 big, red fire trucks in the yard of the house across the street from our home. My heart sank and my anxiety level skyrocketed! I said a little prayer, thanking God that they weren’t at my house. Since everything else looked normal, we went on into the house. I didn’t want to be a “nosy neighbor”, but my curiosity got the best of me and I decided it was time to take Angel, our Chihuahua puppy, out for a little walk. As I walked her around the yard I was trying to scope out what had happened. It didn’t look as if anything was happening at or to the house, plus there was not an ambulance there so I released thoughts of injury and illness from my racing mind. As I stood in the front yard waiting on the dog to do what I thought it needed to do, I looked out towards the trees behind my neighbor’s house and it hit me. DUH!! There's a fire in the forest! I saw the smoke. I saw the flames!

By this time the Forestry guys were showing up with bulldozers to cut a firebreak. I breathed a sign of relief and thought, “Good! They’ll take care of everything and I don’t have to worry about the whole neighborhood burning up.” Thank God for firefighters.

I took a few pictures, but you can't tell too much. My Dad said it looked like berries on the trees. Here have a look for yourself.




















































Here's a picture from the local paper. It's a close up...

My Silly Girl!!

Well, Papa is instilling in my daughter that "it's all about the money, boys!!" And he's mainly doing this because when my brother and I were growing up, we always heard about how important college and a good education was, but now that my Dad is retired and we've spent most of his money trying to buy a farm, invest in real estate, and get in the restaurant business, he's come to the realization that having a Master's Degree hanging on your wall, as he does, will not necessarily get you very far in life financially.

So he's holding out hope for a miracle and keeps trying his luck at the lottery;trying to absolutely convince himself that he is the winner(that's what the Secret says to do). I give him kudos because he's quite the cynic and not generally much of an optimist, but he's trying very hard to be a "half full" kind of guy.

So anyway, my daughter had decided that she's going to go ahead and make her wish list for Papa now, before he's actually won "his million dollars." So at least once a day I hear "when Papa wins his million dollars can I have____?" And of course I always say sure. Well today she says, "maybe when Papa wins his million dollars he can give us a credit card." And finishes off with "and we can tear down this house and build a rich house because when Papa gets his million dollars my room won't be big enough for all of my stuff." Jeez!! Where did she come from?? She cracks me up.

Fast Forward

Well, we found that farming wasn't putting food on the table, so, my Dad suggested I get into real estate investing. So, I attended a 90 minute seminar in Chattanooga. That just wet my appetite for more knowledge regarding real estate. I ended up going to Ron LeGrand's Ugly House and Pretty House Boot Camps and thus began my real estate investing career.

Here it is more than 2 and a half years later. I never had any of those killer deals all the gurus touted. Sure we made a little bit of money but not what we had anticipated. Especially for the money that we put into it. So I am once again faced with finding the "golden egg".

I've reached the point of considering get getting a J-O-B, but I still have a hard time with the thought of someone else raising my girls. Not to mention the fact that a job might produce some income but for a single parent that doesn't really equate to much money because after childcare, clothing, transportation;how much will really be left over? If anybody has any suggestions I'm definitely open to them.

I have started an eBay business. I even have a store. www.TippetoeTreasures.com. But from most of the research I've done on eBay it takes a while to make a profit. But I guess you have to start somewhere.

Here's a cute picture of my girls...

Mustang Anyone??? Part 3

OK. I know the suspense was killing you. We hauled round pen panels and a bucket of food over to William's "secret hideout". We lured him to the "trap" we had set with the bucket of food. It took a day or two to finally get him over to the panels. Our plan was to get him used to eating the sweet feed inside the panels by having one end open and when he was in there eating we would shut the other panel and then he'd be caught.

It worked!!! But, it was like, now what do we do??? We didn't know anything about this animal, where he had come from, had he ever been handled, etc. But now we had the responsibility of making sure he had water and food until we could figure out how to get him back to my house.

So, a day or two after we had him caught in the "trap" I was gone and my neighbor called me on my cell phone and said William is at your house. I couldn't believe it!! He rode his horse, Blaze, over there, threw a rope around William's neck and tied the rope off to the saddle on Blaze. He said he had a heck of a time getting him to the house, but he was so proud of himself. Plus, I never told you, but my neighbor was in his mid to late sixties at the time.

I finally got a halter on William and had the vet come out and check him over. When I was brushing him I noticed he had a mark under his long mane running almost the whole length of his neck. I did some research and found out it was a Freezemark that the Government(Bureau of Land Management aka BLM) puts on horses that they have caught out west and adopted out to people. They adopt out donkeys as well. Come to find out William was caught in Nevada and was about 10 years old by the time I got him. Also, he had been adopted by someone. Well, it was obvious by the looks of William that someone must have let him go because he wasn't what they had anticipated. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

I still have William and he looks great now. He's a wonderful piece of yard art. He is what he is, a wild mustang stud. He doesn't like to be messed with and has long since gotten the halter off. We moved, before he got the halter off, and we brought him with us, but that's a whole other story. He has a pasture that he shares with our donkey Jack. They have bent the fence down so far that all they have to do is step over, but they know they have it so good that they never attempt to leave.

Mustang Anyone?? Part 2

The horse story doesn't end there. The man that came to ask us if it was our horse had made a call to the humane society and they sent someone out to catch the horse. Apparently having a horse running around is not a good thing because they could cause an accident if they were to get in the road.

The horse catcher showed up and I was able to talk to him and find out what exactly would happen to the horse. He said they would put the horse up for auction and if nobody bought the horse then they would put the horse down. Being the horse lover that I have been since I was a little girl I couldn't stand the thought of them putting this horse down. However, the horse catcher told me that if I were to catch the horse then I could keep it. At that point I decided I was going to rescue that horse from the chopping block. I deemed him William Wallace.

To shorten up the story a bit, the horse catcher was unable to catch the horse and actually scared him so badly that we didn't see him for a week. I called on the help of our neighbor who had two horses. We rode around for six hours looking for William and when we were giving up we finally found him.

I once again was able to get close enough to feed him by hand, but that was all I could do. My neighbor and I were going to devise a plan to catch this horse and make him mine. Can you guess what our plan was?

Mustang Anyone? Part 1

At the farm one morning, as I was sleeping rather soundly, a man knocked on the door. He was putting in a new Equestrian Community just down the road and apparently that morning he noticed a horse hanging around. He knew we had horses, or at least we used to, and wanted to see if this was one of our horses.

The neighbors, down the road the other way, had a mare that got out and came to our house all of time, so I figured it was her. I threw some clothes on and grabbed a bucket of sweet feed and headed over there.

I was quick to determine that it was not the neighbors horse. I wasn't sure whose horse it was, but the poor thing was starving. You could see both hip bones and just about all of the ribs. Turned out it was a stud horse. He had a large head which could have been because he was so thin but he had a different facial bone structure than I had ever seen on a horse.

I tried to approach him without much luck. My Mom was there now and she told me to try walking backwards to the horse so that I would be less intimidating. Well, I got pretty close and knelt down and extended my hand, full of sweet feed. It was more than he could handle. He gave in and ate from my hand!!

I Can Farm..or at least try.

OK, so where was I? To fill you in a couple of details, my mother's then horse racing husband was kicked to the curb and took all of the horses with him. Thank Goodness!

My father was spending quite a bit of time with me a the 3 acre "farm". So, after researching the alpaca farms and finding out they were out of our price range, we opted to go with fiber producing goats. Angora goats produce mohair. So I looked in the local Market Bulletin and found a woman getting rid of 2, a female (doe) and a castrated male (wether). We carried them home in the Jeep Cherokee and of course they peed in there and made the Jeep smell terrible. So I wouldn't suggest hauling goats inside a car.


We got home with them and put them in the barn. Our "farm" was started. From there we began acquiring some more livestock and ended up with another angora goat (a wether), 2 pigs, 2 llamas, a donkey, a wild mustang ( I'll tell you about that in another post), 2 more angora goats (both bucks), 2 angora rabbits, 2 Holstein steers, and 40 or so chickens. We had a real farm going on. It was a pleasure to sit in on the swing and watch all of them together in the pasture.

No Job, But not just sitting on my Bum either.

I was thinking that maybe my last entry made it sound as if I was just sitting around doing nothing. Well, to be honest I have been busting my rump at several different partnerships and businesses over the past 5 or so years.

My first endeavor was taking care of my mother's then husband's race horses. I had to feed, water, muck stalls, and actually walk one of them by hand. I don't know if you've ever walked a race horse, but it is not an easy task. It's actually quite scary, especially at 4am. I dreaded walking that horse. She was so mean and hard to handle. On top of the devil horse, I had to unload and stack the 50 pound bags of feed and the huge 80 pound bales of alfalfa/timothy mixed hay, which of course had to then be stacked in the barn. Unfortunately (because of the money not the tasks involved) this "job" ended a few months after it started. Racing horses is a costly business and it is real easy to run out of money when your horses aren't winning, as was the case here.

Have you ever found yourself looking for a way to make a living without having a "job"? I have several times in my life and I found myself at yet another crossroads. After spending so much time on the "farm" and in the barn I thought farming might be a good way to go. I had read Joel Salatin's book You Can Farm and thought "we live on 3 acres and have a huge barn, I should farm." I did a little preliminary research and alpacas jumped out at me. So, I wanted to start an alpaca farm and turn their hair, also known as fiber, into yarn and even turn the yarn into clothing and accessories. I had planned on adding value as Joel talked about in his book.

Then the bad news hit...after visiting a few alpaca farms and pricing them, I found out they were darn expense!!! Like $10,000 for one female and that was on the low end of alpaca prices. It would cost nearly $100,000 to get a small "herd"(1 male and 2 females of good stock). Well that pretty much ended that idea. BUT I was also doing some research on spinning and knitting and crocheting. There were other animals that had fiber to use...sheep, goats, llamas, angora rabbits...and they were much less expensive.

Sorry, gotta run, 18 month old to chase. Check back, I'll tell you more.

2 Kids No Husband No Job

Well, I started off with 1 kid, a husband, and no job. I had always wanted to be a stay at home mom and I was finally realizing my dream. But as always there was a price to pay. I ended up with 1 kid, no husband, and no job. Keep in mind I waited 2 years for the husband to join me across the country, meanwhile he had a new girlfriend. So that was the end of that dream. At least the whole package. But then I met someone new and thought eureka, I sure am lucky. Come to find out not so lucky. He wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed and preferred to start a project, grab a beer, watch a movie, and you guessed it, never finish the project. So it should be of no surprise that I ended that marriage with a lot of unfinished projects, which included a new baby girl. So here I am finishing what these men helped start; 2 kids to raise with no husband and no job. You may be saying, "put your kids in daycare and get a job", but I'm still struggling with that decision. I didn't have children so that someone else could raise them and I feel like if I were to get a job that's exactly what would become reality.