For those of you wondering about how my ant misfortune turned out, I ended up discovering that night (via the lovely interweb) that they were, in fact, carpenter ants. I.e. these were not the cute annoyances that take over picnics on red-checked table-clothes, these are the monsters that eat at your house like termites. And of course after checking out the box my ant-killer came in, it specifically says "will not work for fire or carpenter ants". SO we ended up calling an exterminator and I've been finding dead ants all over my house ever since. (Less of them every day- I think I only found 3 yesterday.) This is good, no?
Now that I don't have to patrol the ant population, I've had more time for more important things, like cleaning the old toys my sister and sister-in-law have given us for our little one. (I can't believe I'm far enough along to start counting the weeks backward instead of forward!) This kid already has more toys than I had my whole childhood career, so Jay and I have pacted to never buy him another toy again. (We'll see how long that actually lasts...) Well, maybe once he's grown out of Mr. Potato Head...
Anyway, our kitchen countertops seem to be ever-littered with drying toys, but I'm hoping today will be the last. Yay!
As far as other exciting occurrences... We got our property tax appraisal last week. Yikes! All the unexpected joys of "owning" a home (I mean, paying a bank that owns our home). The notice tells you what your taxes were last year and if the rate has increased, tells you what they are this year and when the board meeting occurs so that you can voice your opinion about the whole thing.
Well, the rate has increased.
Being strongly opposed to taxes, we decided this might be a great opportunity to utilize our democratic rights and "do something" about this. Jay gives a great summary of the whole event here. The quick and dirty version, though, is even though everyone who showed up was basically complaining about the tax (and at least one of the board members mentioned this before she made her final approving vote on the tax increase) the vote to pass the tax raise was unanimous by all board members. Sheesh! What a waste of 3-and-a-half hours... (and we left the meeting early.) That's the first time Jay and I have been out past 10pm in a long time- and it wasn't even fun!
Anyway, I at least feel like I've done my patriotic duty and learned a little bit about the bureaucracy of "the system". I only have one question- were the mac-books that all the board members using paid for by tax dollars? 'Cause I'm pretty sure they need that nice of equipment for all their pretty power-point presentations. (Did I mention that the board President took notes during the whole event by hand?)
2 comments:
Wow, Lib. Pardon my vulgar language (don't let the little one see), but you guys have major balls for going to that board meeting. I'm way too passive to ever do anything so daring. Way to stand up for yourselves!
Its good that they have macbooks because they actually make you smarter and more creative just by operating one. So you have a more intelligent board for it. I wouldn't question anything they do as long as they are mac users :)
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