Today was dedicated to finishing up my tax returns and getting them filed, since I'd been dilly-dallying and this was going to be my last good chance before the deadline. Once upon a time, I'd have them finished in February and the refund spent by mid-March, but not for the past few years. Every year I think that I really should have an accountant to take care of them, as I could probably deduct a good bit more than I do, but every year it ends up being just me and TurboTax. I still end up with a decent refund and considering I'm one of those people who understands the necessity of taxes to keep the government doing its job (though I may occasionally disagree with how they're doing it), I just don't get too uptight about getting back every possible nickel and dime.
This year, I also pledged to meet VUBOQ's 10% Refund Challenge and donated a bit over 10% of my refund to charitable organizations & funds. Some of it was divided among some of the various check-off funds on my state tax return - endangered wildlife, pet spay/neuter, and children's funds all got a little something from me - and then I donated a pretty good chunk to Seva Foundation. I very much like the work that Seva does and highly recommend them. They'll likely get another donation from me near the end of the year. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was only a couple of blocks from their headquarters when I surprised Stephen at work last week.
At some point, I also need to sit down and figure out how much spare change has accumulated in my underwear drawer (Yes, that is where I keep it.) so I can send a donation to Médecins sans Frontières.
Game On!
When I was in California weekend before last, my friends Karl & Michael spent a good bit of their down time in the evenings playing Scrabulous on Facebook. Now, I've never been much of a gamer. Video games for me pretty much ended with Frogger and I've never really played them online. But I love me some Scrabble and can generally kick butt at it, so the other day I added it to my Facebook applications. Now I know how those WoW geeks feel.
Well, maybe.