Orchid & Mary's Chinese Pot

Peony Heaven 2007

Finally, tax reporting time was over. It was a stressful time of the year, especially this year. The good part is that we can get some refund instead of payment. We have been working in the yard and simply a lot of work needs be do to make it fabulous. I almost complete the shady side yard. I went to my friend LaiYee's yard which is 19 acre wood land right inside Athen city. I was so fascinated to see so many plants I have never ever seen before. I digged a few for each of them. They are just so unique and are not available in nursery. I hope that they will survive and thrive. By the way, I make a bonzai out of them as well.

Kitchen is 97% done. It looks and funtions nicely. Sammy altered the island to replace it with a big stainless top and put a space for microwave. We do not need to go to the bathroom to heat our food any more.

Originally we planed to use two big Ikea red Lacquer boards for the kitchen. Somehow Sammy changed his mind to paint the sides instead. Well Here they are -biggER dinning table top. Surely it is very rustic mod. Peony flower from our garden is simply charm with this reborn dinning table. It was not ugly the first time and just gets better born again.

A Few Accomplished Today

1. Bird Watching - Bird feeder right outside our office window
2. Cut Rosewood for Kitch Sill
3. Cook Beef Stew from Julia Child

Am I Still Chinese Or Not Any More?

When I came and studied in the early 90s, I had to live in the student dormitory for the first quarter. I arrived too late and could not find a rental place. I had to buy the cafeteria passes since no cooking was allowed in the dorm. Food would be the best comfort when someone is far away from home. But I had to eat all the "lousy" American food. I remember that Thursday's dinner was the only once a week menu that I slightly looked forward to. It was either fried chicken or fried shrimp. The worst one was pizza day. I just could smell the tomato sauce a mile away as our kitty Gorme does for anything milky. But she loves it and I absolutely hated it. I would hold my nose, go directly to fruite or ice cream bar and grab one and run out of cafeteria.

That was more than a decade ago. Surely life comes at you fast. Well I might still not be crazy about pizza. But I love many other cruisines than Chinese. Even though Chinese may still be my very food for comfort, I become more critical as well. Well that will be on my another post.

No matter where I go, I always have some of Chinese colleagues and friends. I do not know if I have changed but they remain the same or I lost part of my very Chinese but they preserve it. I feel the gap of interest, the difference of perspective and ... Sometime they are so conspicuous. sometimes they are subtle.

I am still practical but become more idealistic.
I appreciate more of quality of life than quantity of material.
I still treasure money and wealth but not worship them.
I am more conscious of enviroment we all depend on.
I am learning to be more gracious to the others.
I believe that life is more adventure than a comfortable routine.

From me, my journey is more rediscovering of my Chinese root in comparison with Western system. After all, the world is so much in common and so different.

Still or not, I realize that I am finally able to be an American as a Chinese than try to fit in as an American.

$24K Surprise From IRS

Well it is a tax season once again. It is the time of year that I just drag my feet to sort out all our tax documents before filing our federal, state and deceasing S corp tax returns. Well I have to file my S corp return by 3/15, which is today. I failed to have it done past weekend when I planned and dragged until this morning.

The difference is that I did have an excuse this year. Once a while I receive some IRS letters for my S corp, which are all junk. Usually I did not even open it and throw right into my recycling basket. Well this one came several days ago and stayed on my desk unopened until two night ago. Before I was going to toss it, I opened the letter for no particuliar reason and read a few lines on the first page. I am just grateful right now that I did not have a heart attack then. I could not believe my eyes - OWE $24,334.xx to IRS. It tooks me a while to calm down and see what heck IRS wants from me.

Well the story is simple. I exercised and sold all my stock option before I left Earthlink. Since I did exercise and sell the stock at the same time, the profit was treated as ordinary income like my salary instead of capital gain. It was reported in my 2005 W-2. Supposedly that ends the story. However, the broker reported to IRS as well. Even worse, it only reported the total sale which was much higher than exact profit since the stock option had cost. Then IRS assumed that I did not pay the tax since Schedule D(for capital gain/loss) was not filed. I did not have choice but dig into my archive to find all the supporting documents. I barely slept last two nights to put all the information together to respond this IRS notification.

It does make me so mad that our government is capable of wiretaping anyone around the world. But can not avoid this stupid mistake. Instead it really can use this aggressivenes and our taxpayer's money to go after those real crooks.

I finally sent my response to IRS this morning and hope that It is good enough and do not have to deal with it again.

Some More

Serious cooking once again!

Finally Hooked

This is the first step to have a normal kitchen back. Sammy finally got plumbing job done after many trip to Lowes and other hardware shop. We can not remember how many packages we bought and error and try sessions. But it still saves a big time to hire plumber. We had first hand experience how expensive the plumbing can be. Ikea's faucet is beautiful but the hook up is bitch. It uses not common dimensions. Just does not make sense.

Check out our first successful load of dish washer.