Almost...got....it

I can see it. I can smell it. I can feel it. It just isn't here yet. I am referring to my tax return. The Where's My Refund thingy over at the IRS website said it will be direct deposited today, but I should not worry until after Feb 3rd. But I don't wanna wait. I was hoping to have it today and actually be able to do something this weekend. The following weekend I have drill, so I can't do anything then. I just have so many plans on what to do with the return, but the more things I think about, the less money there is. I guess that is the way it is. I need to win the Powerball so i don't have to worry about money.

Since I did not receive my return today, I have no plans this weekend. I did watch a few movies the other night. BROTHERS AT WAR is a documentary and it wasn't all that great. 9 by Tim Burton pretty much was a waste of money too. I got like 10-15 minutes into it and went and did something else and let the kids watch it. GAMER with Gerard Butler was a great movie. One of my Soldiers just returned from Korea and gave me a couple of movies he bought over there. If you don't know about other countries, they can get movies on dvd that are currently in Theater. So last night I watched 2012. It was a preety good movie. The graphics were great. I also have AVATAR and THE BLIND SIDE, but will probably watch them this weekend. I also have Season 5 of THE OFFICE to watch. I guess that is my weekend.

Nothing else going on that is worth writing about right now. We'll see about next week. Hopefully Monday I can post with excitement if my return is deposited. Hopefully.

Excited, but yet not

Well, I checked on my tax refund from IRS today and was shocked. Last week it originally told me Feb 3 I would receive it. Sunday and Monday it said Feb 9. Today it says it will be direct deposited 29 Jan, but check the bank by 03 Feb. So, I may have it Friday, but should definately have it Wednesday. I am a little excited, but then it is like, already gone.

See, I am only getting back enough to cover a few things. I have to clean up my credit so I can pre-qualify to buy a house. I owe my sister some money. I promised my two oldest to get them something. So after all of these things and paying all the bills of course, I don't have it anymore. However, I will be caught up on all my bills, no more collection companies calling me, and I can really start looking at buying a house.

My oldest is also getting ready to get into braces. The total cost is around $4500. This had better be worth it. He does have the worst teeth out of my three children though. Most of it is because his mouth is too small, so he will be getting an expander put in as well to expand his gums or what not to make room for the permanent teeth.

Nothing else coming up too soon that I can comment on. Super Bowl is far from my mind after Sunday's loss to New Orleans. Oh, well, be safe ya'll.

Overconfidence and Cockiness

Those are the two things I blame today on. First, the race. No excuses. My sister beat me by Army standards for her age and gender. She scored a 67. I scored a 62, although I felt it was longer than two miles because I ran it 30 seconds slower than I normally do, but still, she ran the same distance, so no excuse. However, I was extremely pleased by my mother's results. She scored a 61 for her category. I am very impressed with that. We have a rematch coming up in a few months, but I will allow them to continue working out and stop from being so overconfident and cocky.

The second bad thing...the Vikings lost. It was an extremely close game, but in the end, the Saints won.

The third bad thing....on my way home on the freeway, doing 65 MPH, I blow a tire. With my wife and three young children in the car. Scared the crap out of me, but I was able to get 3 lanes over to the side of the road. Called my sister, whose house I had left and was 30 miles away from. She called Triple A and came to meet me. Triple A showed up first and we had my tire changed and everything before my sis got there. I was like, great, now I will be charged. However, the guy was like, no worries, she doesn't need to be here. So I waited for her to show up at a nearby gas station where I had to fill up the spare anyways. I am thankful for my sister...even if she did beat me.

Anyways, there are several things to learn from today. My main lesson I learned is everything I have to be thankful for and stop being so overconfident and cocky.

Decision Day

Well, today is decision day for two reasons. First, it is the day Minnesota Vikings play the New Orleans Saints to see who goes to the Super Bowl. My bet is with the Vikings. The second, is it is race day. For some reason, I feel my sister has been praying to the lord lately. She first tells me last week not to come up with any sickness or injury to get out of the race today. Then she tells me I should drink plenty of beer or eat plenty of food before we race. The other night, we had a real bad storm and we actually had tornado warnings in my area. Which is very very rare for AZ altogether to have tornado warnings. This is what made me start thinking she was praying. Then on Friday, I come down with a type of stomach flu. I am not the type of person to see a Dr unless I feel something is really wrong. I have had the flu before, but it was never as bad as this. I even thought it could possibly have been the H1N1. ANyways, I went to the Dr friday afternoon and he said it was a type of stomach flu. Here it is 2 days later, and I am still prepared to race. Let's see what she prays for next, because she will need a miracle. Just like my Vikings. Well, maybe I will post later today with good news. We will see as I have homework due today as well. Almost in the end of my third week of this class and I have an A. GO VIKINGS!!

The WII is dangerous

In case any of you are wondering, fret about it no further for I have discovered some things recently. The WII is dangerous. Yes, that is correct, it is dangerous, especially for us adults. I was partaking in some adult beverages last night and my 8 year old son wanted me to play WII Sports with him. I fugured, what the heck, everything was a repeat on TV. So we started with Tennis, then Bowling, and finally Baseball. One thing you need to remember, if your kids constantly play games, they will beat you. Don't let the liquor make you think you can win. And don't bet money you don't have. Needless to say, I had enough in me to think I was the greatest athlete in the world. My arm is sore and I owe my son $100. I should sue Nintendo.

Super Bowl is coming

I am really impressed and excited this year. Although the Cardinals had another good year, they were defeated this past weekend by the Saints. However, my team is the Minnesota Vikings. Next week the Vikings play the Saints and the Colts play the Jets. I predict for the Super Bowl, the Colts and Vikings, with the Vikings winning it. Although the Vikings had acquired Brett Favre this year, I am not one of his biggest fans. I've hated Favre since he was with Green Bay and had broken 3 remotes within a 2 year period when the Packers and Vikings played because Minnesota would be ahead and somehow in the last 30 seconds of the game, Favre would do his magic and Green Bay would win. Now that he got the Vikings to the playoffs, and possibly the Super Bowl, I'll have to admit I am starting to give him a chance.

Watched a few more movies this past weekend. S. DARKO is the sequel to DONNIE DARKO, which I had seen several years ago, but do not remember it that much. This sequel was not good. Not worth even a free rental to watch. FAME is a movie that was originally a tv show. I actually enjoyed this movie. POST GRAD was a good movie also. HALLOWEEN II, of course is a remake made by Rob Zombie. I don't remember the original one, so I am not sure if it even followed the original movie, but it was still good. I love Rob Zombie movies because they have more realistic blood and death.

Next Sunday, we go to the sister's house for my nephew's birthday. I guess that is when we will do our "run". My sister had informed me I will probably beat her in points, but, oh, well, we will see. I haven't ran since October and she runs more often than I do. So, we will see how it goes and probably do it again in June or July.

I am currently house hunting right now. I am waiting to get my taxes back so I can pay off the collections on my credit report and then go and prequalify. Right now in my neighborhood, I am finding many houses for sale for cheap. I am looking at a house right now that is 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom, and over 3000 square foot going for $115,000. I am really leaning towards this one as long as it stays on the market long enough for me. They are getting ready to build a film studio for tv and movies about 12 miles from my house as well as an International Hotel and Resort. So I imagine in about 5-10 years, the housing market will be back on track and the value of the house will increase tremendously, but we will see.

That's all I got today.

IRS is open for business

Today, the IRS is now accepting tax returns for processing. I just called H & R Block and I am able to come in today to file. I had mainly called to ask about the 1098 for my college. I told them I want to do my taxes as soon as possible and I only took 2 classes last year, but I am using Tuition Assistance for it through the military. Since they said I am not paying out of pocket, I don't need to wait for it. I have everything else. So I will go and file tonight. Hopefully I will get it back quickly.

With my tax return, I have a few plans. First, I need to pay people I owe money to. Not too many people and not that much to pay. Next, clean my credit up as I am trying to buy a house and need to clean up my credit to pre-qualify. Lastly, I plan on buying my boys a couple of computers for them to play on so they quit destroying mine. I have been looking at WalMart for a laptop and found ones for like $300. It is good enough for them to get on and play games.

School is still going ok. Received a few positive comments from my instructor. I think this has to do with the way I write compared to everyone else in class. It is an English class and I can not believe how many people can not spell correctly or even use spellcheck. On top of that,they can't even make a complete sentence. It is so confusing trying to read something and you can't make heads or tails of it. So, yeah, I agree I am doing pretty good in this class.

Nothing coming up that I am looking forward to right now. Did watch a few movies. WORLD'S GREATEST DAD has Robin Williams in it. Bad movie. Doesn't even fit the title. I got it because of Robin Williams and was disappointed. Watched JENNIFER'S BODY with Megan Fox. It was pretty good. Also watched THE HURT LOCKER. It is about the EOD (Bomb Squad) for the Military. I really liked this movie, but after watching it, I wonder how people not in the movie will portray it like all people in the military are crazy or something. It was a great movie, though. Have a few others at home to watch, which I plan on watching this weekend.

Is it over yet?

I am waiting for a day off still. It seems like I have been working non stop for days. I have started looking into buying a house recently. Don't really know why, I just feel like I should buy a house now. I am looking in my neighborhood where I am at now so I don't have to have the kids change schools. I found a 5 bedroom, 2 story house for 100K. I am like, well I am paying $850 a month now, that would lower my mortgage to about $550-$650 depending on interest and everything. So I went to BofA yesterday to get pre-qualified. Didn't take long for them to tell me that they can't pre-qualify me at this time. My credit sucks. I printed up a couple of copies of my credit report to see what I can do. I basically have like 3 or 4 things in collection that I never bothered to take care of and they are all only a couple of hundred dollars each. I figure when I get my taxes, I'll pay them off and pay off my car loan. It only totals to around $2000. Then all I will have left on my credit is my van loan and student loan, which I don't really worry about. I had them run my debt to income ratio just for the heck of it and found out I will qualify for more than I thought I would...once I clean up my credit. They also said they look at the 12 month trend. I am like, so what, if the collections are paid off, it shows they were paid. So, I will have to wait until I do my taxes and get them back to pay these off and see if I can pre-qualify. Then it will be time to go house shopping.

Have my nephew and sister's birthdays coming up this month. Don't know when we are getting together for all that yet. My next drill is during Superbowl weekend. I plan on releasing everyone early so they can get to where they need to go for the game celebrations. It's ok, the Vikings will be in it this year. Well, we'll see after Sunday when they play Dallas. Cardinals did pretty good last week. I am glad they knoked out the Packers. I believe they play the Saints next. Well, gotta get back to work.

Another Monday

Well, it is Monday after drill. It kind of sucks because I work 12 days straight due to drill. On the drill weekends, I work more than I do during the week. I don't know why these Soldiers can't understand that if they need something, do it during the week when I am slow, not wait until we have drill. It just creates too much work which causes us to stay 12-15 hours on the weekend. Oh, well, procrastinators.

I was thinking about taking the APFT this weekend, but Soldiers had ticked me off too much before we took the test, I was too stressed out to concentrate on doing it. So, I didn't take it this wekkend. I also found out they are keeping our next drill over Superbowl weekend. Sure, they change their dates, but we have to keep ours. I think they are just upset with our platoons because we are making them look bad by having all of our stuff done on time and they continuously miss deadlines.

School is going ok. I am starting my second week of my class. I will have a paper due at the end of this week. Still waiting on tax documents to do my taxes, but it is starting to look more and more like I will be filing at the end of Jan/beginning of Feb. Which means I probably will not receive the taxes back until the end of Feb/beginning of March. Oh, well, I should be good until then.

All is...well....

Well, I went and picked up a fe movies last night to watch. THE FINAL DESTINATION, CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, IN BRUGES, and WORLD'S GREATEST DAD. Well, I watched THE FINAL DESTINATION last night. I was not impressed with it at all. The only thing I did like in this movie were the deaths. Overall out of the 4 Final Destination movies, the first one is the best. I'm glad I didn't buy this movie like I had planned on. WORLD'S GREATEST DAD is with Robin Williams and I just got it to see if it was any good. These other three I have until Sunday to watch. IN BRUGES is a movie with Collin Farrell and I was told it was hilarious, but we will see. My buddy just finally got the last season of THE OFFICE. So when he is done watching it, he'll let me borrow it.

I have drill this weekend. All I can say is it will be interesting. It will be interesting for several reasons that I am not about to get into. It is the type of interesting that you kind of want to hold your breath and hope for the best. I am thinking about taking the PT test this weekend. I don't have to, but I figure what the hell0. My sister wants to challenge me at the end of this month on running. I do find it kind of funny how she wants to go by Army standards as far as age, time, and score. However, the way it is set up is to do push-ups, sit-ups, and a 2-mile run. Oh, well, I'll play. If she wins, she wins. All I have at stake is if I win, she'll watch my kids for a weekend. If she wins, she has the satisfaction of knowing she beat me. Again, this is going by age, sex, time, and score.

Other than all of that, I am trying to get everything in order to do my taxes. It seems I have to wait until the end of the month though because some of the places I am waiting on do not send them out until Jan 30. Morons. I want to do my taxes now, not next month. I have my W-2's already for the military and work. I am just waiting on a 1098 from my college and a 1098 from my student loan. Every little bit helps, I guess.

New Year...same crap

Today is day 3 of the New Year and it already seems like the same old shi*. It is now 7:20am on Jan 3rd. I received a call about an hour ago, and yes, I was asleep. Apparantly, it was a local city's police department calling me to notify me one of my Soldiers have been arrested and will be seeing a judge within the next hour and a half. Usually I would just say ok and go back to sleep. However, this Soldier is one of my Soldiers getting ready to fly out today to begin pre-mobilization as he he will be deploying within the next few months. Needless to say I can not do anything at this time as I have to wait for him to appear before a judge within the next 2 hours. I will more than likely have to pick him up. I did talk to the arresting officer and he told me tha more than likely he will be released with no Bail set. I was thinking, why couldn't I have been arrested in that city when I was arrested. Anyways, it is a waiting game right now. As long as he goes before a judge and gets released, I will pick him up and he should still be able to leave today as his flight is not unil after 2pm. I think I will kick his a$$ for getting me woke up so early, worrying about the situation, and having to pick him up to make sure he is where he is supposed to be.

So, I hope everyone else is having a good year so far. Heard from my little sister the other day, which is good because I was starting to worry as her phone was shut off. I guess that is what happens when you buy minutes for your phone and people call the wrong number and telemarketers use up all of your minutes. She has a new phone and new plan now, so I should be able to reach her more often now. Anyways, everyone have a good new year and hope it is better than the way mine is starting.