Delivery for the De Boers

No...not that kind of "delivery". The stork can't come until long after we're married, you know!

Saturday Sarah and I bought a bed! We're extremely happy with it, and it was delivered and setup for us yesterday afternoon. Sarah's roommate Michelle moved out this weekend, so I'll gradually start moving my stuff in throughout the next few weeks--saving the big items for the hours before W-day.


Then, yesterday we borrowed Jim and Teresa's truck and picked up two couches from Craigslist! We're thrilled with their value, comfort level, and general aura for the room. They've pretty much transformed Sarah's apartment. See them below:

Free water ice

Tomorrow (Thursday) is the first day of spring. As always, Rita's Water Ice will be giving away free water ice all day at all locations!

Excitement in Fishtown. Okay, more like craziness...

This week has already been a busier one than usual for Fishtown, USA. First, the predominantly Irish population had plenty to celebrate this whole weekend with the St. Patrick's Day holiday. I even saw my first parade in Fishtown--a band of about 8-10 cars with Irish flags proudly flying, egged on by stacatto car horns and woofing speakers. It was the closest I've ever come to the Dukes of Hazzard.

To top that off, an inspector discovered a severely cracked beam in I-95--the highway built above much of Philadelphia, which happens to be the most trafficted highway on the east coast. PENNDOT (Pennsylvania Department of Transportation) decided to close the highway right before my street...for at least two days. They closed it this morning, and TONS of traffic has been re-routed through Fishtown and other various exits. There are police at EVERY intersection assisting traffic through the crowded arteries adjecent to I-95. It's a good week to be on spring break!

Here's a picture of the beam, and the story from a local news station.

Taxes

Phew! I just e-filed my taxes. The software I use to prepare it is Turbo Tax, who wanted to charge me $18 for each filing ($18 state and $18 for federal). I did some quick research (ahem...I mean I Googled "free tax filing") and discovered that I could file my federal ones online for free! So, I had to re-enter my W2 info and such, but it saved me $18! Now I can look forward to my refund AND economic stimulus package! What a country.

P.S. Quick tax gripe: the city of Philadelphia charged me 4.3% of my gross income. That's over 1% more than the entire state of Pennsylvania taxed me!

Holiday-packed week

Have you realized how many holidays are in the coming week? Starting with yesterday, we have:

Pie Day (3.14159...)
Ides of March (3.15)
Palm Sunday (3.16)
St. Patrick's Day (3.17)
Maundy Thursday (3.20)
Good Friday (3.21)
Easter Sunday (3.23)



P.S. I'm officially on spring break!!!!

Improv Everywhere strikes again

This looks like too much fun:

Much to say, little time in which to say it

Tomorrow's my last day teaching before spring break! Actually, it's only a half day of teaching, but we have parent/teacher conferences until 8PM, then again on Friday from 10-2. Besides that, I'm a free man! This afternoon I made a to-do list of all the things I'd like to accomplish over break.

I've been working on report cards last night and tonight with mixed success. I'm going to hunker down and see how many more I can get done before it's bedtime.

In other news, Jim got a job! He's sent out over 275 resumes, and he'll be starting as the manager of an audio warehouse starting soon. He and Teresa are pretty excited, with good reason! Praise God!!!

We made the paper

There's a short announcement in this past week's Holland Sentinel about our engagement. Click here to see it. If you're reading this blog, there isn't anything you don't already know, but it's still fun to see. =)