April Fifth

I remember being excited about April Fool's jokes when I was a kid. We haven't done much of anything with April Fool's Day with our kids over the years. Normally I do take pictures of the kids wearing green clothing on St. Patrick's Day, but I could care less about things like that right now. Similarly, I don't think Bo Peep was said about April Fool's Day this year, but this morning it seemed like a bit of a belated April Fool's joke as it was snowing when we woke up this morning. I'm hoping this was our last snow until next winter. Thankfully it's supposed to be in the 60's tomorrow (quite a big temperature shift in just one day!), and the forecast for Monday shows the high of 73! I'll take the 60's and 70's over today's weather any day of the week (high of 41 today).

I was out and about quite a bit the past three days since I work on Tuesday/Thursday and I took the kids to a four hour program at Bald Eagle State Park on Wednesday (plus a two hour round trip drive). Today we were home most of the day. We were at church for about 45 minutes during Nadia's art class,

and then this evening we dropped her off at Grace's house. Grace had invited three girls over for her birthday sleepover. One wasn't able to make it. Nadia wants to invite the same three girls to her birthday party in June. All four girls are in the same art class on Fridays. Grace has always gone to the Christian school. The other two girls were homeschooled as recently as last year but this year are also at the Christian school.

On Wednesday I worked on Maurice's taxes and then found that I can't file them until I have a paper from a court stating I am his executor. I am pretty certain I won't have that before February 15 since I haven't filed anything with the Court yet. So today I tried to electronically file the request for an extension. I have never requested an extension before with my taxes. The IRS rejected my electronic submission so I just need to mail it in. Today I contacted Verizon to cancel his phone service. They tried to get me to add his phone to our plan. Nope not interested. Paul and I have phones, and we don't plan to get

Nadia a phone for a few more years. I think Maurice's phone will eventually become his nephew Andrew's phone. Someone from the company where Maurice rented his apartment contacted me today and asked for my address so they can mail his security deposit. She said the apartment was empty except for a glass pitcher and an air conditioner unit. I told her we intended for the A/C unit to be used by the next tenant. Maurice had just bought it last August, but we didn't have any use for it. Hopefully the desk, chair, and ottoman were donated somewhere. The chair and ottoman were in great condition, but I didn't have room for them in my minivan. We had hoped to donate the glass pitcher as well. Yvonne wanted the queen size sleep number bed to end up at her house in Maryland. I'm not sure if Penn made those arrangements or not. Considering I ran out of time to clean the apartment more thoroughly, I was pleasantly surprised about the security deposit. I don't think the carpet had been vacuumed since he moved in, and I ran out of time to clean his bathtub and toilet. A lot of Maurice's technology has been in our bedroom for almost a month. I put a lot of it away today - stored the extra monitors under the bed, etc. I wanted my bedroom to look tidy again plus it's a bit painful emotionally to see his stuff all over the place. His desktop computer is still on our desk, but the phone and iPad are now stored in a closet. The only thing of his we're using at this point is his Nintendo Switch plus Ian is sleeping with his plush fox that might end up with another niece or nephew eventually.