Well, work has been a wee bit crazy.

New employee is nice, but not so nice for the 1/31 crunch (W-2s, 1099s and such). He needs to be learned. So I think things will be a bit crazy in January, but that Feb - April will be a little calmer than last year. Also, as expected, losing a few of our individual tax clients. Which is actually good. We don't want them. Kind of losing the trouble makers anyway, which is always nice. We are more business accountants who do the individual returns for business owners to be nice. But then they refer their relatives and friends, and next thing you know we are doing a million individual tax returns. So, this year could be good. Though I am sure losing too many clients isn't great either... But I certainly expected it.

In other news, first real life foreclosure (outside neighborhood). Acquaintance has hinted for a long while they would lose their home. Well, it's official. The kicker is guess how much they paid for their little slice of suburbia? $100k in like 1998. Yeah. (Reminds me, dh's cousin got hurt at work and is also worried about it - he paid about $100k too). Yeah, ask me how sorry I am about people who can't afford $100k houses. This is California after all. I can't see past my jealousy that if I was like 3 years older I could have a $0 mortgage instead of a $200k mortgage. But yeah - that's the extent of it. Actually, I don't envy their situation (today) at all. It's just sad.

BUT anyway. The first person did pay $100k for their house. BUT they borrowed upwards of $200k against it. Yeah. That explains that one. So they are in their 40s, with 4 kids, and moving in with relatives.

Our friends who paid $600k for houses worth $300k today? They are still hanging on. Don't ask me how.

There will definitely be more foreclosure tales to come.

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In other news, BM and I went for a bike ride the other day and he found a laptop bag. I kind of thought, "Ooooh - that's a nice bag" as we have been meaning to buy one. BUT at the same time, I watch too much reality crime TV. Wondered if I should even touch it. Could be evidence.

In the end, I touched it. It was actually a bag with a Bible in it.

The scenario became clear to me at that point. Probably stolen from a parked car; tossed aside when it was found only to be a Bible.

A surname was in the bible but I had no luck tracking anyone in the white pages. There were also 2 church programs, so I tried contacting both churches. They don't seem that interested. I feel bad; no idea what to do with it. I will keep trying for a bit. Reminds me, I should ask around the neighborhood. Can't help but feel it was stolen/lost from our neighborhood.

Anyway, around the same day we found that, I was watching a reality crime thing. Lady was shot to death in her office building for a laptop bag. What was in it? Books! This is my PSA. Laptop bags may not be the best place to store non-valuable items. What a sad world we live in. Maybe I don't want a laptop bag after all. Those things are dangerous. Maybe we just need an unassuming backpack...

Anyway, still determined to find rightful owner. I have more I can do.

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BTW, VERY sorry for the many who have been losing jobs lately. Reading the blogs it appears pretty brutal out there.