Happy 23^rd Birthday, Caleb!

Taxes, Taxes, Taxes

Yes, yes, we all know. It’s that time of year. Taxes are due. And even though I filed ours back in the middle of February, I’m still having conflicts over it.

In the state of Pennsylvania, there is a tax known as the Local Services Tax (LST). And you more or less get hit with it twice – once for the borough (township, municipality…whatever) you live in and a second time for the one you work in. What does it do? Nothing that I’ve figured out. The streets are still teeming with potholes, the roads are barely plowed and the sidewalks not at all and most of the parks and town property are run down with weeds. All I can figure is we’re paying the people that sit in the tax office and collect the thing…and don’t know how to process it.

For you have to file a return with the agency that represents the town you live in. And if you lived in two that year, you have to file it twice for each town. Because each town wants their fair share. Which means counting days, figuring out who gets what and then trying to explain that to them. But do they understand? Apparently my letter and very detailed spreadsheet helped one agency. The other? Well, let’s see…

I had to fax them quite a bit of information this week. And when I called to make sure they had received it, the extremely rude woman on the other side of phone asked for my name, account number and address. I gave it all to her and her response was: “I have a Texas address on file for you.”

“Texas?” I nearly shouted into the phone. How in the world?!?!?! I have NEVER put one of my Texas addresses on anything the state of Pennsylvania has ever received. Not that it isn’t somewhat public record, but I moved to Pittsburgh from Minnesota. The first year I filed taxes here, I wrote that down very explicitly on the silly LST filing – complete with address. And they have a TEXAS ADDRESS?!?!?

All I can say is, no wonder they can’t process the tax forms. They can’t even get an address right.

And why in the world do I pay this stupid thing anyway?!?!?!

New Things this Week

Since the past month has been more or less quite cold, I’ve realized our days are mostly the same which doesn’t allow for lots of pictures being taken. Therefore, I haven’t posted pictures of the kids in…well, quite some time. But I did take pictures of our spring celebration:

Yep…the day after spring we got about 8 inches of snow! (And I am certainly one of the very few not complaining.)

Little Emry and Ethan are growing up. Just this week Ethan walks most of the time. At least, until he falls down. Then he crawls over to something so he can pull himself back up to his feet and walk some more. Many people will say, “Oh, now you’re in for it!” But, honestly, he got into so much already (everything!), I don’t see much difference now that he’s walking.

However, today my son showed a glimmer of common sense! Ethan’s way of doing just about everything is head first. That includes the steps. He’s good at up, but not down. And he can be extremely careless and distracted even going up. Today he and I were upstairs and I watched him as he headed head first to the steps. But then he stopped, turned his body around, slithered to the edge and went to down feet first!!!! I was so proud I cheered very enthusiastically. And he spent the next ten minutes quite proudly going up and down the steps.

Earlier this week, Emry had me laughing. For Christmas, Unc (my brother Daniel) gave her a Little People Cinderella castle. (A huge hit!) It came with Rapunzel and Cinderella. She had seen Tangled, but she had not seen Cinderella so I got the DVD from the library so she would understand who the princess was. While Beauty and the Beast remains her favorite (like her mama!), she loved it. As I was putting her to bed several nights ago, she laid down on her tummy and pulled her pillow up over her head.

“Mama, I’m Cinderella!” she declared.

It took me a moment to recognize the opening scene of Cinderella when she’s waking up in her tower singing A Dream is a Wish your Heart Makes and then I laughed.

“But,” Emry added sadly, “I don’t have any birds to wake me up.”

And we also experienced another rite of passage in growing up. She saw them in the store when I was getting some badly needed socks (I’m was down to three pairs with no holes in them), and since she 1) needs summer shoes, 2) they were cheap and 3) she can put them on buy herself; I let her get the “sparky” (interpretation: sparkly) pink jellies. She was soooo excited, she insisted on wearing them to bed.

Ah, I so remember that rite of passage. Except mine were white high top tennis shoes with rainbows and I was five or six years old. But I remember it like yesterday…

The First Day of Spring

Today it is the first day of spring! Temperature: below freezing. Grey skies. Snow flurries. And tomorrow, a prediction of 5 to 8 inches of snow!

Personally, I’m delighted!

The Great Rhinoceros Hunt

Emry woke up yesterday morning on a mission. She had already found the bamboo back-scratcher and pulled out one of the drawers under her captain’s bed (as far as it would go), poking and prodding in a vain attempt at getting the stick beyond the drawer before I understand what she was seeking: her rhinoceros. Rhinoceros? What rhinoceros? It took several moments before I remembered – oh, that rhinoceros!

Her first Christmas, Aunt Grace gave her a little black wooden rhinoceros from Kenya – an object to remind her of Aunt Grace who has thus far been half way across the world most of her young life. For a while, it sat in her room with other little mementos. Then she started playing with them during naptime, so I removed them up high where she couldn’t damage or break them. But I hadn’t seen the rhinoceros in months. A quick glance at the shelf in her closet told me he wasn’t within my line of vision, but didn’t mean he wasn’t there. I told her we needed to get breakfast first. Then we would pray to Jesus to help us find the rhinoceros and look for him. Amazingly, she agreed. But it was a short breakfast before she marched back upstairs, back-scratcher in hand and ready to hunt.

We did pray that we would find the rhinoceros because a more thorough search of the shelf (with the help of a stool) quickly told me the little black object was not where I had thought I had placed it. I searched some of Emry’s common “hiding” places (the little corners she puts things she doesn’t want Ethan to get), but no rhinoceros. Emry, meanwhile, was still prodding at that one drawer, jabbering that rhinoceros was in the drawer. If she had had him in bed, it was likely he could have slipped down the side of the mattress, through the slats and into the drawer; but we emptied the drawer and came up empty. But Emry was insistent. So, I started taking the bed apart.

Not literally. But I did have to pull all her “friends” off the bed and tip the mattress up on it’s side so I could get under the bed. The drawers don’t come out of the frame simply and the frame is too heavy to yank it from under the bed. But once I could see below, I could pull out the two drawers as far as they would go and see below them. Sure enough, there sat rhinoceros hiding in the corner.

I don’t have any clue how he got in there. Nor can I figure out how she knew this after we had not seen the rhinoceros in months. But we thanked Jesus for helping us find rhinoceros.

Later that day when we went up for a nap, she found one of the Turtle Tots Aunt Katey had given her (they had been Aunt Katey’s) lying on the floor with her other “friends”. I had found it wedged under the mattress in search of the rhinoceros and tossed it on the floor. She was so delighted.

“It’s Papa turtle!” she exclaimed happily. (Almost all her toys are qualified as “Papa”, “Mama”, “Emry” and “Ethan”.) “Jesus helped us find him!”

So, we thanked Jesus for helping us find “Papa Turtle”. Proof that often God provides even when we don’t ask!

Do you 'member?

Isn’t it funny how one rather small thing can lead to a huge one? This past week that was purchasing a frame for Ethan’s 1-year-old picture. Suddenly the few pictures we have on the walls needed to be moved…and more pictures needed to be pulled out of a box. I’m not exactly sure why, but two days later…well, our new photo gallery does look rather nice if I do say so myself.

The truth is, I simply didn’t hang pictures when we moved here. We didn’t plan on being here long (still don’t) and one childhood rule from moving about and living in rental homes still penetrates my conscience: unless there’s a nail in the wall, don’t hang pictures. I still feel a bit guilty as I type this…

Ed insisted I should hang pictures when we moved in: he can fix the holes and our landlord will repaint everything when we move out anyhow. But even though he says that, I can feel him cringe the couple of times I have put something of Emry’s on the wall. So, I hung up my beloved Arlington National Cemetery photograph above my desk and Emry’s 1-year-old picture. But then we had a nice photo taken of the Sturm grandkids this past summer for my parents’ 40^th anniversary and that needed tobe hung…and then Ethan turned one…and it was starting to look very bizarre having random photographs hung in random places. While we agreed the three pictures of the kids needed to be brought together and displayed over the couch, it was going to look a little odd on such a large wall. So, I dug into my un-hung picture box and pulled out all the photos I wanted to make into a “gallery”. With a little help from Pinterest (because all I could see in my mind was a pile of frames on the table and a huge expanse of white wall), I mapped out a layout and got started. For someone who needs serious help just to hang photos, I think it turned out quite nicely.

And Emry apparently loves it. For one, she is in several of the photos. Which she loves to talk about, beginning the conversation with one of her favorite phrases, “Do you ‘member?” Now I will say that Emry has a keen memory. It’s been well over a month since we went to get Ethan’s 1-year picture taken and she can remember it down to what color lollipop she was eating. It’s been 9 months since she saw all her cousins and we managed to herd them into a very nice photo-opt, yet she knows each of them and can tell you things they did on that trip to Indiana. But when it comes to remembering the picture of her, myself and Ed within an hour of her birth…well, this is what she had to say:

“Do you ‘member? When Emry was born. And Mama came. And Papa came. To see Emry born. Do you ‘member?”

In this situation, I have to say I don’t quite remember it the same way she does. I don’t remember having the option of coming or not. I’m pretty sure I was required to be present for this very important moment of Emry’s life. But memories are funny things. It has been nearly three years. I could be wrong. Even though the parts of my body that will never be the same again tell me otherwise. And often wish that Emry’s version was the truth. Although, I would do it all over again…as that picture often reminds me.

It's a Start

When I die, I want my epitaph to read, “She was half the woman her mother was.” It will be the greatest achievement of my life.

I like goals that include checklists. A lot of people do. For one, it means the goal is very likely achievable: finish the list, reach the goal. Two, everything in my life is condensed to lists. It’s the only way I get anything done.

The best lists are the ones that don’t have to be done in order. (Well, for most of us. For those of us with serious OCD, maybe not. Fortunately, my OCD does not tend that way.) That way, you can check off the easy things first and look like you’ve really accomplished a whole slew of tasks as you head towards your goal. And in my life right now, well…five minute tasks are great. It’s about all the time Ethan allots me before he’s neck deep in yet another thing he’s not supposed to be in.

So, I feel I have accomplished at least one task on the way to fulfilling my epitaph: a desk that is never clean.

Growing up, we teased my mom a lot about her desk. It’s a simple corner desk she’s had for at least as long as I can remember. Not very big, one drawer – very simple. And yet it is amazing how many things congregate on it. Like a super magnet drawing every piece of metal within 1,000 feet of it. Pictures that need to go in albums. Ink pens, pencils, markers – some that might work, other that probably don’t. Recipes to be laminated and filed. Letters to answer. Addresses to be put in the address book. Lists of birthday ideas, things to order, phone calls to make. And if you have something to give mom, her response is likely to be, “Just put it on my desk.” Very rarely did we see it clean.

The beautiful desk I got (and completely finished myself) for my 18^th birthday was rarely a bottomless pit. For one, it had more drawers to keep things in. Two, I hardly ever told someone to put something on it. And three, I had lots of time to keep it neat and clean so I could use it to write on. For 11½ years, I kept it that way. Then I left home and it has yet to find it’s way back into the place where I live. Someday. For I do love that desk.

But for a wedding gift, my grandfather gave me my heart’s desire: his rolltop desk. It’s huge. Eight deep drawers, a huge area to write on, a top to keep books on and I haven’t counted the cubby holes. And it has helped me check off one thing on my way to being half my mom: it’s a bottomless pit.

I try to give the thing I good cleaning at least once a month, but I swear more things congregate on it within the two days it takes me to go through the already existing piles than was there to start with. Letters to answer. Bills to pay. Emry’s school projects. Pens I don’t even know how they got into the house. Hairbows to make or fix. Magazines to read. Pictures to hang or put in albums. And I am continuously saying, “Just put it on my desk.”

So, I am well on my way in this lifetime long journey. I just don’t know that I’ll ever actually have a clean desk…

Emry and Ethan

It’s been a while since I blogged about my kids. Not that they’re not always up to something. Although, fortunately, they haven’t attempted to cover the basement with powder again. But my Tupperware is usually all over my kitchen floor…courtesy of Ethan.

Everything out of place around here is usually courtesy of Ethan. Because while he might have dozens of toys, not one of them is quite as fun as pulling Mama’s books off her shelf, pulling the nightlight out of the wall, yanking the towels off the oven door, reaching for things I could have sworn were out of reach, playing with whatever Emry has and, generally, getting into everything! He is constant movement. And now that he takes more steps every day, I am foreseeing a very busy summer on my part. I’ll put in just as many miles chasing him as I will on morning runs.

In other news, Ethan finally has one front tooth. We have been able to see the two front teeth through the gums for over a month now, but one finally popped in. I’m hoping this second one is soon to follow. Ethan is no fun when he’s not feeling himself. He’s clingy and over-miserable. A little bit like his Papa. And I’m not catering to that…because I am simply not the mother who will feel sorry for him forty years from now when he calls to tell me he’s unwell. Nor am I giving him over to a wife to act like that. Because I know how that is – not fun.

Emry is fast approaching three, which is sometimes hard to believe. Everyday she comes up with something new. Her imagination grows. More and more pieces in her little world are put together to make bigger pictures. For Christmas, Unc gave her a Little People Cinderella castle with Cinderella and Rapunzel. She has seen Tangled, so I got Cinderella for her from the library. She loved it. This movie introduced a wedding to her world when Cinderella marries her prince at the end. Trying to explain marriage and weddings, I got out the photo album from Ed’s and my wedding. The first time we looked through it, she could not understand why she was not in any of the pictures. I tried to explain she wasn’t born yet, but that didn’t make a lot of sense to her. Instead, she decided there must be a photo album somewhere of when Emry got married.

It’s moments like these when communication completely breaks down. In her mind, Emry is big. So, telling her one gets married when they are bigger doesn’t make sense. In her mind, Emry has always been around. So, explaining to her yet again that Emry was born after Mama and Papa got married also makes no sense. I wanted to use this moment for “instruction in righteousness”.  To plant the seeds of the importance of marriage, the order of marriage and family, the foundation she may not understand now but, Lord willing, will treasure in the future. As usual, it’s hard to tell how much my not-quite-three-year-old was understanding. So I asked a very pertinent question:

“Emry, who did you get married to?”

Without missing a beat, she stated in her that’s-a-stupid-question-mama-voice, “A man.”

And my heart rejoiced.

Work Project

Admittedly, it took me nearly twelve hours. I got faster as I went along, but it was a lot of data to process and, after a few hours, everything started blending together. It’s been a long time since I had a project of that magnitude…and if I ever have a similar one, I’m hoping I’ve got it down at least enough to shorten the timeframe!

There is still a whole lot about landscape architecture I don’t know. And one of the many aspects of the field is what they call “community planning”. In essence, I think it’s a good idea. For, obviously, a lot of towns have gone up willy-nilly, leaving odd looking neighborhoods mixed with commercial buildings mixed with a random gas station or pharmacy next to a park. On the other hand, zoning can also be a heavy-handed political crowbar. If I had a third hand, I would say that I hardly ever find anything wrong with planning.

In a nutshell, “community planning” is to formulate and draw up a, typically, ten-year sketch of what the town should look like over the next decade in an attempt to balance residential, versus commercial, versus town services. Of course, all kinds of things come into play with such a broad scope, but it’s not a bad idea for a town to look at its revenue and try to figure out how to maintain, bolster and improve what it has both in the present and the future. Interestingly, landscape architecture can include this under the subheading of “planning”.

In just the almost four years I’ve lived in Pittsburgh, there is a northern township that has boomed. We’re talking new houses, new shopping areas, new restaurants, new townhouses, new roads…and everything else that includes. I meet a lot of people who have moved there within the last four years as well. This boom is at the end of the township’s present ten-year plan and the firm I work for has been hired to help it formulate a new ten-year plan. This has included an on-line survey which residents were asked to complete, giving answers to questions about a much-discussed community center, why they live there to start with, how the township is currently doing, improvements, etc. And I just spent over twelve hours compiling that information…

First off, I figured out pretty quickly that most of the citizens don’t actually know the position their township is in (but, then, a lot of them complained about how the town council doesn’t keep the public informed anyhow so maybe that’s why). Because I learned from our planners that, essentially, the township has no more zoned residential property to build upon. This means the growth has plateaued, leaving them with no further boosts in income from new taxes. Which equals, for the present residents, raised taxes. (Not a surprise in Pittsburgh – they raise the already high taxes higher every year anyhow.) And, to be honest, if the citizens knew that, I think they would 1) move away quickly while they could still profit on the sale of their homes and 2) put a whole new spin on their survey answers. Mmh…maybe that’s why the township isn’t very forthcoming…

Secondly, I had to laugh sometimes as my eyes went cross reading the myriad of answers to the eight questions that were not multiple choice. Give some people an inch of a box to write in and they’ll take a mile. Ask some people any question on earth and they’ll write: The taxes are too high!!!!! (Honestly, I don’t think that is the answer to the question: Why have you chosen to live in this township?) Every teacher I ever had would be appalled. Didn’t their teachers ever tell them (a million times) to answer the question asked? Some people never do learn to follow directions…

Since moving to Pittsburgh and getting a job with a landscape architecture firm, I have learned a lot about Pittsburgh than I bet most people don’t know, transplants or natives. Transplants certainly pick up on it (the outrageously high taxes not only in Allegheny county but in Pennsylvania as a whole), but very few natives ever see outside their three rivers. Since I’ve worked with the City invoicing a few jobs I can honestly say it is very poorly run. But, having never worked with a big city before, I can’t say its run any worse than any other city. And the fact that for all intents and purposes Pittsburgh = Allegheny County, these townships are left in something akin to Purgatory. For one, they are limited on their forms of taxation so the only thing they can possibly do for revenue is raise the taxes (and then, probably, give even more to Pittsburgh because it wants is share in everything). And some of their public services they can do nothing about. The county clears the snow, the county, provides the water, the county dictates public transportation. And, so, the cries of the citizens fall on deaf ears because the council can’t do anything about these things and Pittsburgh isn’t going to listen to anyone. It’s an endless circle.

Sadly, in ten years, I don’t think I will see this township improved. Sadly, in ten years, it will start looking like the run down, overpopulated South Hills so many northern residents have already fled. But I can hope that maybe in ten years people will have then fled to the neighboring counties and found some welcome freedom. And then maybe Pittsburgh will get the hint. But I doubt it. After all, this is Pittsburgh.