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Condessa

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Condessa last won the day on November 16 2021

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  1. I did every year until last year. Just followed the step-by-step instructions from the IRS, no need for software. Last year, dh's small firm offered to pay for their tax person to do the partners' taxes, too. I was relieved--I had never had any issue with doing it myself, but that was the year dh became technically both a part owner and an employee, and I was stressing trying to figure out what that meant for taxes. I would have figured it out eventually, but having someone else take care of it was a nice luxury.
  2. It's not that I dislike surprises so much as that I would rather have what I really want than be surprised by something I don't prefer. I really appreciate that dh no longer tries to surprise me with gifts, but instead asks me to tell him exactly what I want, because it means that instead of being surprised with things like jewelry, I get gifts like interesting breeds of day-old chicks. But it's not the fact that it's a surprise that's a problem; I have been absolutely delighted on the rare occasion that someone anticipated my preferences well enough to surprise me with something I was excited about. I just recognise that that's really hard to do for someone with interests as weird and particular as mine.
  3. I tried a new recipe and made colcannon for dinner last night. It worked out to $7.75 for the family, and we’re eating the leftovers now for lunch. It is an especially good one for getting extra calories into my underweight kid, so probably not one I should eat too often, myself.
  4. I agree with you on this point. I think that a lot of good would be done by removing many residential zoning restrictions that restrict higher-density housing from being built in many areas. People who dislike higher density housing and want to live in neighborhoods without it nearby could still choose neighborhoods with CC&Rs restricting that, and all other residential property owners could have the option of building several smaller dwellings, or duplexes, or adding a tiny home to the yard, or tearing houses down to build apartments, or taking in several roommates, and the supply of affordable housing would increase. This is especially a great option to increase the housing supply in higher population centers.
  5. So restricted housing supply driving prices up is a terrible crisis that we desperately need to address when you see STRs as a driving factor of the restricted supply, but when the restriction is driven by the federal government holding that land for renting out to businesses for profit, this is a non issue? Restricting individuals from using second homes for income purposes so as to make more homes available at lower prices is a great public good for those most disenfranchised, but restricting the government from holding the majority of the land for income purposes to make more property available at lower prices is "benefit[ing] a very few private individuals, constitut[ing] a form of entitlement"? Make up your mind. Are the people who would be helped by increasing affordable housing supply (by whatever means) a very few private individuals seeking entitlement, or are they a significant portion of the population that needs help to overcome current disadvantages?
  6. The federal government owns the majority of the land in my state. (They own 47% of all land in the western states). I am totally in favor of the government maintaining national and state parks, but most of this land in my area is not in the form of parks that the public can make use of. It is mostly vast tracts of land managed by the BLM or the forest service, usually rented out for use by private ranchers as grazing here or to logging companies near our old town for profit. In our neighboring state, these vast government lands lie right on the edge of the state capitol which has been undergoing exponential growth in recent years. Within twenty minutes' drive of my town in more than one direction, I can reach vast tracts of government land that take hours to drive through. It is not the most desirable locations, but neither is it useless or so out of the way that no one would be interested in buying it, rather it is identical to the privately owned lands of ranches and smaller, affordable outlying communities like ours. The government lands near my old town on the other side of the state would actually be very desirable based on their proximity to desirable locations and are close to an area with an extreme housing crunch, but it is also very profitable to the government through the logging industry. I am not talking about the last bits of green or open space, but places where there is far more open space than there is land owned privately. I recognise that this is a regional issue that doesn't apply in many other areas, but in much of the western U.S., government held lands are a huge factor in keeping the housing supply limited.
  7. I currently have seven from the local feed store-they were hybrids I think called Golden Comets. I have fifteen chicks coming this summer from the hatchery, and I have Cream Legbars, Whiting True Blues, Cuckoo Marans, Light Brahmas, and Egyptian Fayoumis coming. I am looking forward to playing with chicken genetics in future generations.
  8. Mine are not treated with anything. They haven't worn out yet in four years of extremely heavy use, though I did replace a couple that the kids played with and lost. I accidentally bought smaller ones when I got the replacements, and the smaller, newer ones are looking kind of raggedy already, so I would recommend the large ones. I have timed it and my dryer takes about 12 minutes less to complete a full load on the sensor dry setting, but you need to have enough balls in each load to make a difference--about 8 balls. They do get stuck in pant legs, etc., and need to be fished back out. They are noisy, so that might be an issue. I'm not a very good judge of how much bother they would be because I'm hard of hearing.
  9. I'll get things started here. I have been tracking our medical mileage as we go along since the start of the year for taxes, and I can see that I must have been missing a lot of miles with my prior efforts to work out mileage after the fact. We drove over 1,000 miles for medical care in the first two months of the year, and that is with ds currently off treatment! I am itching to order seeds for the spring and at the same time resisting, because I don't want to commit myself to too much gardening for so soon after the baby comes. The farm supply store had a sale the other day where everything was 10% off. I went and bought as much chicken feed as I can fit in my feed bin with gift cards I bought there in December when they had a $30 gift card for $25 sale. We now have chicken feed for the next two months and I calculate that I am currently getting my eggs for about $0.92 per dozen in feed costs, pretty good when the cheapest store bought eggs are nearly $3/dozen right now. We currently eat all the eggs our chickens produce, but I have chicks coming in June. Because there is a minimum order size, we will have more chickens with the next generation than currently, and I'm wondering if it would be worthwhile to see if any of the neighbors are interested in buying eggs once the new batch starts laying. They will be very pretty eggs, with some interesting colors. Selling our extra eggs might be a great little project for one of the kids to take on to help save up towards college.
  10. Wool dryer balls replaced dryer sheets here about four years ago. They prevent the static and also make the loads finish drying faster. I do keep a box of dryer sheets on hand for when my mom comes to visit and help me, as she is allergic to wool, but if you don't have a wool allergy I prefer dryer balls, and I never have to buy more.
  11. -Store bought bread and bagels (I get mine for very cheap from a bakery outlet store, $1 per loaf or bag, but making my own would still be under half that in ingredients + power, and my family goes through a lot of bread) -Disposable diapers (I used the old fashioned trifolds with pins and plastic pants at two points in the past when things were tight for us) -A dryer and the power costs to use it, if we hung things to dry -Laundry detergent (I actually gave up buying detergent this past year, when I decided to try making my own because of the cost and discovered that my inexpensive homemade detergent works better than the store bought kind) -Paper towels (we have gone to rags for cleaning in the past when things were tight) -My monthly date out with dh -Heat the house with the wood fireplaces in the winter (we've done this on two years) -Be colder in the winter and hotter in the summer -Take our trash to the dump instead of paying for garbage service (used to do this in our old town where it was more expensive, but I sure have appreciated having this convenience since we moved here!) -Individual flossers vs. a roll of dental floss -Give up oldest's gymnastics class and the younger kids' summer music lessons (the younger kids' extracurriculars are covered by the homeschool charter we use during the school year, but oldest is in public school) We already don't buy alcohol, coffee, or tea, rarely any soft drinks or convenience foods, and rarely eat out, other than our date night. I cook from scratch, raise our own eggs, save on utilities with well & septic, cut the family's hair myself, buy clothes from thrift stores, cut off and hem my kids' pants with worn out knees into shorts for the summer, etc. I have felt like there really isn't much fat to be able to trim, but this exercise has reminded me that there are still quite a few optional luxuries/conveniences that we enjoy!
  12. And there need to be reasonable housing options available. In some areas, that may necessitate limiting short-term rental properties. I didn't say don't address the problem, I said solutions that don't take away people's rights should be tried first. Except that I didn't say that at all. I said that if there are other solutions we could use, those should be used before resorting to taking away people's rights. It isn't just some evil, money-grubbing resource hoarder that you protect when you adhere to a policy of the least infringement possible on personal rights. It is everyone. In this particular case, everyone who owns property or would consider owning property in the future, from the aspiring young home owners you want to help to the big, bad corporations to the older couple maintaining a couple of rental properties to help afford their retirement, as well as the non-property-owning folks who prefer to stay in a single family home when they need a short term rental. But in general, it protects every one of us to avoid taking rights away from people if we can find another way.
  13. But why should another option for short term rental needs not be allowed to exist? I get that some people dislike them, but others greatly prefer them. Is there a compelling motivation to remove the option for everyone, rather than allowing people to choose for themselves? I believe that a compelling motivation to remove people’s rights would have to fall under either a moral wrong, or a significant widespread public good that cannot be achieved in any other way than through the removal of individuals’ rights. Making money off of one’s property is not a moral wrong, so it comes down to the public good. And the question is Is the public good worth it, and can that good be achieved in any other way? If there are other possible solutions to achieve the same good, is it conscionable to instead remove the rights of individuals?
  14. A house is a home. Many people who make money through Airbnb or vrbo do so by renting out part or all of their personal home. People I know who now own a few airbnbs started that way, then saved up their profits to invest in other properties. Many people who make money from real estate get started by retaining what was their primary residence when they upgrade their home and turning it to investment purposes. It’s not BS to call a house a home, whether or not someone makes money from it.
  15. Yeah, I would prefer that, unless an individual has chosen to give up certain options in exchange for certain guarantees of how neighboring properties will be used by choosing to live with CC&Rs, they should have the ability to turn their property to money-making means. Including incorporating or selling to a corporation.
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