Believe it or not, this was my second time being audited – the first time was when I was about 24 years old. The previous year I had worked as a graduate teaching assistant on a study-abroad program to Spain. I taught European humanities to BYU students for six months, received full room and board, plus a small monthly salary. Since I travelled throughout Spain and Europe with the students – teaching about art history and humanities wherever we went, I had deducted all of my travel expenses. I was sure that the IRS was going to disallow those expenses and I would be stuck paying additional taxes. It turned out that I had paid off my car that same year and they were questioning the interest expense deduction I had itemized. I had legitimately made a mistake, ended up paying about $35 in taxes, and that was it. But it probably cost the IRS much, much more in time to do the audit.
On the quilty side of life, I finished sewing up the top of one of the quilts I did at last week’s quilting retreat. This was the “Mystery Schnibble” that Carrie Nelson taught last Saturday morning. I only sewed one row during the class and was surprised at how quickly it sewed up. It may become one of my go-to designs for a quick baby quilt. And like most of the Schnibbles, it is perfect for charm packs – although I used some 10-year-old Debbie Mumm fabric from my stash that I cut into my own charm squares. The quilt uses 80 squares plus several 2-1/2 inch strips of background (plain old white in my case). This may be a baby quilt for one of the babies to be born this spring to two of my nephews.
Some of you may have seen the story about the girls' basketball team that lost a basketball game by more than 100 points (the actual score was 108 to 3). As it turns out, the losing team is from West Ridge Academy, the boarding-school for at-risk kids where my brother is the executive director. There are only 33 girls at the school, and about a third of them are on the team. Not only have they never played as a team before this school year, most have never even played basketball before. But the girls took the loss in stride -- and now are famous for their great attitudes. Here are links to some articles and videos if you're interested in "the rest of the story".
Fox News story about the game.
Former NBA star Shawn Bradley is on the West Ridge Academy board of directors. He took time out of his busy schedule to do some coaching with the team.
Link to newspaper article following the rematch (which they also lost).
Enjoy!
The quilt is beautiful - great pattern.♥
ReplyDeleteI would think at-risk kids haven't done much as any kind if team in life, this must be a great experience for them.
ReplyDeleteWe've done our own taxes for years, and even though we don't have any unusual deductions, I can't help but think about it each year, and pray!! Our neighbor whom I mentioned died last year, was an IRS guy, audited the really big ones, like in the islands. Miss him for many reasons!
Great quilt
Linda