Three Day Weekend... in These titles mean nothing.

After working every Friday and Saturday in March, it’s nice to have Fridays off in April. There is something luxurious in three days in a row off work. When things work out well, you have time to do nothing, to do what you want to do, and to do what you need to do too. This one worked out pretty well.

On Friday I slept late and did not a whole lot. There was conversation involved though. Later afternoon I had an appointment to give blood in College Town. I drove over and found congenial blood letters. They told me my hemoglobin was really good , and my heart rate and blood pressure were both low in good ways. After I was down a pint, I stopped at Happy Joes’s and ordered a pizza to go. While waiting I went for a walk around down town.

On Saturday I was up early and I did my taxes. There are steps in doing taxes:
- First I found my return and associated documents from last year.
- Then I found my important documents for this year. They were all clipped neatly to the calendar.
- Then I added up my share of farm expenses from my checking account
- Then I went online and figured out what goes into what blank.
- I figured farm profit - not loss this year.
- I figured out SS to pay on farm profit.
- I figured out tax to pay on SS that I received this year.
- I figured out total income - minus the amount I will put in my retirement account.
- I found standard deduction and personal exemption and subtracted them from income.
- I found tax on tax table. What I owe is less than what was withheld from my job, so I get a refund. We are talking small numbers, all the way around.

I didn’t really fill out the forms. I will do that tomorrow night after I stop at the bank to make the deposit to retirement account.

Then still on Saturday I went to town to the library to work on the fair book. I think I got it finished. Of course I thought that last time too. Wish me luck, please.

I came home and did a bunch of laundry - hung it all out on the line and brought it in when dry and put it away. I raked part of the yard and dug in the new-ish flower bed, planting the lily bulbs and coneflowers that I had bought at the grocery store. I cleaned house - just a little bit. Washed dishes, cleaned off the counter and table to some degree, and cleaned the top of the range pretty well. More conversation.

Today I got up medium - not late, not early. Jim suggested breakfast at Fayze’s and a walk on the dike. Well, great. Nice drive north, as always. Buick is all fixed, cross all my fingers and toes. We had to wait a bit for a table so we went for a walk along the river that shows as first green and orange bars on the graph. Nice breakfast, nice waitress. We were on the balcony. Interesting people watching too. Little girl with a pink bow in her hair for one.

Then we went to the book store and I bought the books I didn’t buy the last time I was there - the one about the cathedral and the Claire Messud novel, The Last Life. I also got a biography of writer Mary McCarthy, a book of John Barth’s essays and occasional writings, and a book of Pauline Kael’s movie reviews. Yeah, I’m irresponsible. Then we went to the grocery store and bought stuff that did not need to be refrigerated. I bought potatoes. Please remind me to cook potatoes.

Reno Bottoms was its lovely self. I had to go back to get my cap so I wouldn’t get sunburned. I hit ten thousand steps soon into the trek. There were many black ducks and a fair number of fishermen. We didn’t go all the way to the end of the dam this time. The middle colored bars are that walk.

When I got home I decided to try for twenty thousand, so Gracie and I went almost up to Joana’s. That’s the third colored bars.

Add in some sudokus, Donald Hall poems from the library, and that is pretty much the weekend.