Morning Trailers.  SRD today, we're meeting with our tax person after work.

qotd: typically get a refund? pay? break even?  I know the best strategy is to break even, but I always claim 0 at a Single rate to maximize my return- forced savings (albeit at 0 interest)

few more pics from Sundays run, posthole, snowshoe, run

Light snow coming down. I really should go for a run up on the mountain but I have so much to do around the house and my knee is a little sore.  Basically I'm trying to justify being a wimp so I can feel good about doing a trainer and elliptical session.   Since today is Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, doughnut day or whatever anyone else calls it, I went and picked up a dozen homemade creame filled fat bombs this morning. I'll repent of my sin tomorrow .

NHLA - 2 miles up and 7 miles down? Sounds like nice hill training but I'm guessing that the 7 miles down is not as steep as the two miles up.

QOTD:  I always try to balance it out or pay some in. I don't like a large refund. This goes back to my days of being self employed. Then the data showed that you were more likely to get audited if you were self employed and got a refund so that has stuck with me. Preliminary figures show that I might be able to buy a cheap pair of sneakers with my refund this year but I'm still waiting on a bunch of stuff to file.

QOTD 2:  Thought I'd add this one in since today is Doughnut day, at least here in my area. Is this a tradition that is big in your area? For some reason I can't remember it being a big deal in a lot of the places that I got to when I was driving truck. The interesting thing is that in my area few people, even the most religious, observe Lent. Yet the reason for Doughnut day is to use up all the forbidden items before Lent. Many years ago we lived in a area that had a lot of Catholics who were almost fanatical in their observance  of  Lent, yet my parents don't recall them making a big deal of this.

A nice little 5.5 this morning with the mutts.  Felt like an early morning summer run.  Ran into old man Bob (makes us look young AT).  We always chat for 10 minutes making me late to work but ah f'k it.    I had an asshole riding my ass this morning on the way to work.  I couldn't pull over and had no plans to speed up so I gave him the bird in my review mirror.  He was finally able to go around me and he returned the favor.  It actually made me feel good because he got the message.    He then proceed to ride the person in front of us ass all the time serve back and forth.

QOTD:  Pay, pay, pay, and pay!!!  April is always a painful month for us..pay taxes, including property taxes on 3 houses, insurance on houses and a few cars.

QOTD2:  No idea what you are talking about DD.  so umm no.  We had lent but we didn't indulge before beginning.

11.5 snowy miles around Fort Indiantown Gap in the snow.

I saw about 30 Army soldiers having a snow ball fight outside their barracks. I heard them jokingly yell hit the jogger, I chuckled and waved as I kept on running. Was nice to see them having fun!

QOTD I get back a few dollars back, maybe enough for a tank of gas.

QOTD 2 Fastnacht day is big here but I never need a reason to over eat doughnuts.

Quiet day for me, waiting for the snow/rain mix to pass (seemed to be much colder with this combination ).  Will get 30 minutes of intervals on the treadmill instead.  And the strength training I skipped from yesterday.

Same here.  I feel I missed out on this growing up-- just had to do the hard stuff and missed the party.  Sounds pretty Catholic to me.  But my stomach has finally settled and food looks good so I'm making up for it today.  I'm good with saying it's for Fat Tuesday, though I have no intentions on following Lent.

Yes, grew up Catholic and went to Catholic School, my Dad was the superintendent.  We did the ashes and had to give up something for lent and no meat on Fridays...but don't recall any fat Tuesday binge.

 

6 snow miles up and down the mountain on a most technical trail. With the layer of wet, slippery snow it was even trickier today, if that is possible at all. Upside is, I had all trails to myself. There were tracks of a woman and her dog (at least, that's what it looked like) about a quarter mile into the trail, but as the terrain gets more technical with lots of rocks, natural steps, and giant roots at that point, they turned around and went back again. Lucky for me.

More snow gently trickling down in the late afternoon. Perfect time for - driving with my student driver. And while I was riding along all the roads that lead to my favorite trailheads, I was thinking " Oh man, I could be out here running..."

Still it was fun, sitting on the passenger side, popping candy and chocolate, letting the teenager struggle through the snow and fog (sorry, no eating for student drivers!) 

QOTD1: Refund. DH still always files late. 

QOTD2: Here in central PA, we have Fastnacht and Lent. At my workplace, the bakery has a special "Fastnacht" donut, but it does not look like anything that we would have for "Fasching" (another term for Fastnacht) in Austria, where the tradition comes from. The Wegmans "Fastnacht" donut is rectangular, just a plain donut coated in medium-size sugar crystals, whereas in Austria and southern Germany, the "Faschingskrapfen" would be round, coated with confectioner's sugar, and filled with apricot (Austria) or strawberry (Bavaria) jam. I don't remember any more which special kind of donuts they had in northern Germany, and I can imagine they'd have different goodies in Switzerland for that tradition, too.

Unfortunately, today was my day off from work...

When I was growing up and living in Austria and later Germany, Lent was usually observed, pretty strictly while I was a kid (not much by my own parents, but by my grandparents and many friends' parents), and much less strict later. Nowadays, people usually give up just one bad habit, like drinking alcohol, or eating chocolate, for lent. I personally am aware of lent and try to behave my best with people, not get impatient, not scold and swear, etc., but I don't restrict my foods.

Did 5 mi up on the single track this morning.  A little warmer today (abt 36 deg) without any wind.  Just a great day to be out there.

qotd 1: I have my withholding set so I pretty much break even at tax time +/- 100 bucks.

qotd 2: down in TX they serve King Cake, especially as it gets closer to Fat Tuesday.  Where I grew up in NY, most of our Catholic friends had to give up something for lent, but us "part time Protestants" didn't...  :-) .