*Sigh* - Taxes and Ants - They Never Disappear

DH laid down some ant traps yesterday in hopes of catching those micro ants that we had in the pantry. He put them into the pantry as well as into the yellow bathroom that is adjacent to the pantry - the one that Sharon uses when she's in town, and that I've taken over for my own over the past few years. I had seen a few of these micro ants in that bathroom before, and had made sure DH was aware of that. 

So, this is the pile of ants clustering around the one ant 
trap in the yellow bathroom. The small circle below is one 
of the small rubber bands for my braces and it measures 
1/4" (7mm) from edge of the circle to the other edge. So 
these ants are SMALL. They're hopefully taking the poison 
back into their nest. That's what the ant traps are supposed 
to accomplish because if they're inside the walls, I'm 
not deconstructing things to kill the suckers. 

When I got home from work, I checked out the ant traps in the bathroom. Two of them were pristine, but the third was "Disco Club Gone Wild". It was teeming with the crazy micro ants. DH thinks he knows where they are coming from, but I'm not sure we're going to be able to do much about that - it's an inside the walls thing caused by some plumbing fixes from a decade or two ago. Still, we're at least a bit more aware and on top of things now, and he'll tackle things again on Thursday. 

Tonight, right after DH gets home from the shop, we head 
over to our accountant for our personal income taxes. I hope 
I've got all of the paperwork together - I've spent the last week 
accumulating the various reports and printouts. I'll have to 
double-check my charitable contributions and make sure I haven't 
missed any of them. The monthlies usually aren't the problem, 
but I do occasional off-the-cuff donations now and again and 
have to make sure I've got those listed. Just one more thing to do 
on a busy day. 

On the other aide of ants is another annoyance - income taxes. We have an appointment with our accountant late this evening for our personal taxes. I think I've gathered everything we need - I'm pretty good at that. DH is responsible for his own reports on his investments, etc., but I gather all of the household stuff, my own financial things, and other banking materials. As we've gotten older and certain funds have been merged together, it's become a bit easier, but it's always a chore gathering the paperwork and making sure we have everything together. I'll be making sure during the day today, before I chat with Aearwen. 

I love cooking ribs in the slow cooker. Since 
DH and I use completely different Bar-B-Q 
sauces, I actually have a dam set up in the 
middle of the crock pot, and use a roasting 
bag to keep the two racks completely separated 
(and make for REALLY easy clean-up). I curl 
them into their sides, pour on the BBQ sauces, 
put on the lid, and cook them for six hours. 
They fall off the bone. So good (and so easy)! 

So it's a busy day today. I really need my time in the pool to decompress before diving into it. I have my first load of laundry already in the wash, and I need to survey the refrigerator at some point to figure out if I need to cook anything for the upcoming week. We're doing ribs again on Sunday - they were BOGO at the store so DH picked some up. At least that's an easy cook, and several days for eating. I'm off to the pool - need to work out some of this stress. Have an excellent Wednesday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.