I have used turbotax for the last three years. It is very easy to understand and use. Before you start it tells you what forms you will need and as you go through and enter more data it will ask you if you own your house or how many dependents you have. It will tell what box on which form to get the correct information for a particular part of the form. If you cannot find a form or do not have it yet you can log off and when you come back and log back in turbotax will return you to where you left off. At each point turbotax will ask you if you have something to deduct for childcare, property taxes, IRA, state income tax, etc. If the total of the deductions is less than the standard deduction turbotax will let you know which is the better way to get more money back or to pay less if needed. From the day you file if you are getting back money and have it sent to your bank rather than mailed to you it takes about ten days from when the IRS accepts your return. Lance

Hmm. I suppose you could. Add a drain and a trap. Yes, that's what we did - 2in line & trap, shower drain on top. Where does your flood water discharge to? Do you have a sump with pump to make it go vertical? Or does it go to daylight? There are no drain tiles or sumps any place. I don't think the builders thought of it 130 yrs ago, and with our elevation, exterior flooding is extremely rare (other than the possible freak snowstorm and fast thaw causing really high hydrostatic pressure on the house). Before the river could reach my door downtown Omaha would be about 10 stories deep, I'm 150ft over the flood plain. This is really for "just-in-case of interior flooding". It's connected to the household drain waste. Will it be connected to the shower drain line? No. It's on its own wye. It's connected to the main line about 2 ft away on the 4in nearly horizontal run (1/4in per ft) that is on the way to exiting the house. If so, any chance of an overflow in one drain backing up through the other? Any chance of sewage back up, ie, will you need a check valve? I think a check valve isn't the worst idea - I asked about one at one time, but I might have been asking about one right at the zone where the 4in main leaves the house (as in a whole house protector at the entry point for any backflow from outside). But I didn't think about possible problems of back pressure from a slow inside line or again that freak exterior backup (everything that's horizontal in the basement is pitched is at least 1/4in per ft, but not much more - the main line is just barely under the bottom of the slab). He just glued up the last pipes yesterday and backfilled them all today - I am betting this might make him a wee bit cranky, but I'll bring it up! Better to be cranky now, than for both of us to be REALLY CRANKY when we have to tear out concrete and tile later. Quick update: Oh happy news! I just discovered Flood Guards! So he won't have to tear out his new pipes and we'll have a backflow protector on that line. Any other concerns? - I'll have 2 standpipes (one for the washer, and one for the water softener - obviously both of those are over the flood plain of the basement sinks & tub) and a bathtub. Do any of those need backflow protection? The tub? (I once lived in a house that had a backup into the tub - yuck.) The bathtub line is on a wye about 2ft off the main too - just a little downstream of the floor drain & on the other side on the main. This is why I ask so many questions. Always ;-) Hunzi Enjoy your weekend! I owe you another beverage.

help! i need to throw out tons of stuff like this, but i'm chicken. part of why i have tons of old papers is because i knew they needed to be shredded. but i took forever to buy one. now that i have one, shredding 7 pages of paper at a time is going to take forever. my mom gave me the solution--a roofing company near her "recycles" paper into their products. even the school system takes their sensitive "to be shredded" papers there for safe disposal, so i feel comfortable with that. the thought of getting rid of it all in one fell swoop REALLY appeals to me. now i just need to know what i can toss. i read the recommendations at the link above, but i'm always confused after reading those. or maybe i'm just chicken. i have utility bills from the apartment i lived in during 2001. i bought my house in 2002 and plan to be here for a while. can i get rid of the old bills? can i get rid of utility bills from my house? phone bills? can i toss anything more than a year old? what about credit card statements? i feel like i should keep those. i've never had more than 3 at a time, so it wouldn't be all that much paper. my tax stuff i know to keep. but everything to do with my taxes comes to me at the end of the year and i keep that all together. then there's the health insurance stuff. i've been through five different companies since 2000, what with being a student and then a university employee--the university switched nearly every year for a while. do i have to keep all of that stuff? for instance, i went to a chiropractor at least three times a week for a while. after EACH visit, my insurance company would send me paperwork, "just for reference." how much of that crap should i keep? all of the paper they send me really makes me want to scream! sorry, i just realized my questions turned into a mini-rant. thanks for letting me spout off. :) any advice would be greatly appreciated! thanks! julie

Thanks for all the answers, folks: I'm glad to hear from other bakers! Of all the breads I hear about here, plllog's are the ones that speak to me most. But, although, if I really set about it with determination and a decent financial investment, I might be able to get the tools and supplies necessary to make bread as I see described here, I'm not willing to do that. I live in the country in Italy, and 98% of my groceries come from our small local supermarket. There is no Costco. No Whole Foods. I have no store that offers rye flour, grain berries, molasses, bran, wheat germ, reasonably priced oatmeal, or a host of other ingredients for baking standard in the U.S. I don't like to drive, I don't like to run around, I'm reluctant to add to our terrible air pollution, and gas costs about $7 a gallon. Add to this the absolutely horrible dis-service offered by our post office-affiliated package delivery company, which, after my last traumatic experience, caused me to swear that I would never again order by mail anything that would have to be delivered through them (there are other couriers, if one has a choice). So I work with what I have. This suits me, from a philosophical and practical standpoint, and while it's likely possible to make better bread, mine makes me happy. I've gotten used to the fresh yeast, which is reliable, and I have a fair variety of recipes I've worked out. The last one was potato and buckwheat (I was able to find buckwheat flour again, thank goodness!) and it turned out really tasty. That one was majority whole grain, simply because I had run out of white, and that improved it. Plllog's comments make me think, again, about how much I could learn about bread baking. The "soaker" is new to me. Who knows, this may stimulate me to some modest experimentation. Like Annie, if I want substantial nourishing bread, I have to make it myself. The Italian bread is good with a bowl of beans and broth but it just doesn't work as standalone food. Add to this that Italians don't really eat breakfast, so there's not much of an offering of sturdy food for the start of the day. I think my tolerance of grain-based foods has diminished as I've grown older, and it may be that baking with a sponge, and adding a variety of ingredients improves the digestibility of my breads. My diet is relatively low in cereals--I eat them regularly, but in much smaller amounts than when I was younger--and I mostly eat bread as the centerpiece of breakfast. It powers me up! in the most satisfactory way. Today is the potato and buckwheat bread--we're on our last loaf; I'll have to make more. There's a non-sweet almond bread in the freezer, made with milk, olive oil, and lots of almonds. If it gets cold enough I might even want to try a sweet bread. I made one last year with raisins, fennel, and orange juice and peel that I remember as being good. The basic dough of that one was similar to that of the almond bread, made with milk and oil. The loaves made with fats don't need butter. All my breads are part whole-grain, usually one third, though I may try upping that in some cases.