Jake’s Eagle Scout Court of Honor was yesterday. The event was really nice and we had a good turnout. Finally, all those years of hard work have paid off! He didn’t seem too thrilled at the time, but he’s glad that he did it now.
My mom and I made a bunch of cookies for it. I also made a cake and she decorated it. Not surprisingly, we have enough cookies left over to hold another event.
Up next: graduation.
As previously documented, my new (as of January) washing machine was throwing error codes in February. I had a repairman look at it but the diagnostics ran fine, so he didn’t do anything to fix the problem. Last week, after working for about a month, it started throwing the same codes again. So, we had a repairman come again today. This was a different guy and he’s ordering three parts to fix the problem. Of course, they won’t be in until sometime next week, so I’m without a washer for the foreseeable future. So, I guess I’ll be washing at our rental property again, which is not the most convenient thing in the world, but it’s better than going to the laundromat. Also, my mom is slated to do a load for me (thanks, Mom!).
Today is the first day of spring. I also saw the first robin of the year this morning. Despite this seemingly good news, we got a few inches of snow dumped on us today, with more to come tonight and tomorrow. Will gardening season ever begin?
I’ve spent the last two weekends gearing up for Jacob’s upcoming Eagle Scout ceremony. I’ve made dozens of cookies (chocolate chip, no bake, and peanut butter) at home. Jake even helped me out with some of them. Then, last Saturday, I went to my Mom’s and we knocked out five dozen or so sugar cookies. I also helped ice them and my Mom finished decorating them herself.
Despite all of that, I made some Twix Thumbprint Cookies last night. This was my second time for these and I made some adjustments. First, I cut the caramels and inserted them into the individual cookies before baking. Second, I drizzled the chocolate with a fork rather than using a bag. Doing it this way evidently leaves you with an excess of melted chocolate, so I made pecan and almond bark with the leftovers. It was a win-win situation.
We finally signed our tax forms yesterday, despite having had an appointment to get our taxes done over a month ago. There was a holdup with one of the businesses due to some tax credits it received. The bad news is that we owe some money this year. After years of getting large refunds, we adjusted our withholding, but we ended up making a little more than expected (I guess this is the good news?), so now we owe. Go figure.
And, speaking of business, we tried putting our rental house on the market again after our renters moved out last year. Our listing was to expire at the end of last month, but there were a couple of latecomers who expressed interest in buying the property so we extended the listing for another month. Of course, we’ve since heard back from none of them, because that’s how that goes. I guess the good news there is that we’ll be renting it out again soon and recognizing some income again. It seems there is always good news. Haha.