February 19 – “A busy, glitchy, income tax kind of day”

Yesterday was one of those sit at the computer and zone out of everything else kind of days.  Most of my Mondays are like that.  I have a long list of things that I have to do each week, and I try to stay focused enough on Mondays to get through a good portion of them.  I have to do summaries of everything that happened on Sunday.  I write an article for the church website.  I put something on the church’s FaceBook page.  I send out bills as well as birthday and anniversary cards.  I also get started on the teaching for the next Sunday.  Well, yesterday I did all that. 

But yesterday something else hit me that was one of those “has to be done” kind of chores that no one really wants to do but everyone has to do.  I started pulling together all my information to send to my accountant.  Yep.  It’s income tax time again.  That basically illegal (as I understand it) action of the federal government to fleece the citizens and stay in operation for another year.  I do keep pretty good records over the course of the year, so I guess it is not all that difficult for me.  It just seems so time consuming.  And I don’t think it would be as bad if I had someone local who could do them.  The guy who has been doing them for years retired a few years back, so I have used the people he recommended.  They have been fine, but now they have sold part of their business to someone else and my file went along with the sale.  I would really like to find someone in Galveston who understands the intricacies of a pastor’s tax return.  Not to mention however Mom fits into the equation.  And whatever responsibilities Chris has for the one account still under her control that is for settling her Mom’s estate.  (No, that still hasn’t been settled.  But that’s a whole other story).  Any ideas?  Maybe I should give TurboTax a try. 

On top of that whole tax scenario, which I haven’t finished, by the way, I turned on my computer this morning and it went straight to one of those dreaded blue screens that warn your computer has crashed and it may or may not decide to return.  I ran the program to check it out and fix the bugs, but it concluded after its study of the situation that whatever glitch it was could not be fixed.  Of course when I closed the program everything came up fine.  Problem is, that’s the third or fourth time it has happened.  Same blue screen.  Same lack of success fixing it.  Same restart and opens fine.  Very much beyond me.  I think I got the important stuff all backed up last time it happened.  Hope so. 

Psalms 67:1-2 says, “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.”

Father, could you help this computer last for a while longer?  That would be a tough new expense to cover right now.  Amen.