Since I don't post everyday the new year is likely to be here and I won't have the chance to wish all the (e:peeps) Happy New Year.

Best wishes for a wonderful 2009 for everyone.

well at least it will be my last one for 2008.

We're going to be reorganized at work and this is basic plan they have come up with.

They = very upper level decision makers

They will survey all impacted employees.

They will hunt you down if you don't want to answer the survey. It's not an anonymous.

They will gather all the information and take this back to the upper level decision makers for each unit and the budget/financial persons.

I will get reorganized in some way since I have been by someone close to the process that everyone will get reorganized in some way.

I will get a letter/email telling me where I have been reorganized to.

No one will lose their job and that is good.

I have no idea if I will continue to work for my current boss, if I will move from my office and building, if I will get promoted or demoted or move laterally or anything and not knowing causes me some stress, not a lot but some.

So Sunday morning my husband tells me we have a flat tire on our Saturn so he goes out and puts some air in it. The Saturn has a built in air compressor and then waits to see if it's slow leak or something more.

It was something more. The tire was shot and we needed a new one but since we have a super sized Saturn places like Sam's club don't carry a tire that size in stock and most tire places are closed on Sundays. At least the tire places I could think of were closed.

We found that Firestone was open and we ended up buying a tire from them. We had to jack up the Saturn, get the old tire and rim off, take it to Firestone, get the new tire installed on our rim, go home and install the tire on the car...in the rain. It totally killed our day! I swear it took us about 3 hours to get everything all settled.

Spending $150 on a tire 10 days before Christmas was not exactly what I was planning on doing but gotta have a tire on the car. The guy who looked at the tire told us that the wear isn't right and we probably need another tire and that we should take the car to the dealer.

My husband confirmed when we got home that the other back tire should be replaced. Now we need to replace another $150 tire and possibly have a car repair bill too.

Congress I still need that bailout!

Later that night, I passed our neighbor on my way home from Wegmans. His car was being loaded on a flat bed because he had a flat tire. Since it was too busy of an intersection to stop at and I was already through when I saw his jeep, I pulled over and called his partner to make sure no one needed a ride home.

stupid cars!

I'm preparing my case to fight out recent house assessment.

I will be taking photos of the exterior of our house, it needs a paint job terribly. I will be taking using photos of our kitchen and bathroom that show they have not been updated, well the bathroom was updated in the 50's but it's crazy.

Our bathroom is pink and baby blue including a baby blue tub and sink.

I am also going to look at the sale data for the house next door as our houses are planned out the same way and roughly the same square footage.

I have an email into my neighbors who are also fighting the assessment on their home.

ahhh the age old question my mother asks every time a holiday or family gathering of some sort is going to happen.

Why? Hubby and I are both vegetarians in a family of non-vegetarians and we apparently still confound and confuse them - we probably do that on many levels.

Neither one of us is a crazy strict veg nor are we veg for moral reasons. You can't control every food product you eat, esp. when you go out to eat so we try to take in stride when we discover that after the fact the soup was made with chicken stock but the serving staff didn't know that.

It shouldn't matter that we don't eat meat but it's always something my mom worries about. It's not like we're going to go hungry anywhere we go as generally all of the sides dishes, appetizers, drinks and desserts are meat free and available in such abundance that no normal person could consume all of the food at one of my family gatherings.

My favorite is when my mom offers to cook us something. I always tell her no since she usually picks something crazy and then doesn't execute it well at all. If I think it's such an issue, I can cook something for us. I'm the person who is the veggie and who has been preparing my own meals as well as the meals in my household for a long time. She means well, she is just trying to show she cares and is sensitive to things.

I lost track but I think I've considered myself a vegetarian for about 15 years or so maybe longer so my family shouldn't be too surprised anymore but I'm sure it will continue to be an issue until far into the future.

Dear City of Buffalo Assessment and Taxation Office

We are one of the 7,065 property owners, that has received a higher assessment and we're puzzled as to how you came to the conclusion that our modest home in N. Buffalo is now worth $24,000 more than it was last year when you then said it was worth $19,000 more than in 2006.

I know Buffalo is different from other parts of the country when it comes to our strange little economy. I hardly can believe that our house has increased in value by so much in such a short time.

We might have been happy since this would have meant that we had a nice amount of home equity but surely you know that the credit market is pretty tight these days.

Last time I heard the doom gloom news, it was estimated that only 1 in 4 people who wanted to get a loan could. Stats can be misleading but I also read that in the US there are 5 major banking players and none of them a readily lending so I am inclined to believe we won't get a loan if we wanted one.

I feel like this is pretty thinly veiled tax increase in the works. Yes, I read and understood that nice statement that our taxes are based on many factors. Our memory isn't that short and I keep all our records and the last time you raised our assessment, the city raised our taxes so I'm a bit skeptical at this point.

How about you talk to the Mayor's Office and suggest revitalizing some of the more depressed areas of Buffalo and expanding our tax base so we don't need to concentrate so much of the tax burden.
As a tax payer, I would welcome intergovernmental communications that could lead to some positive progress and increased efficiency.

We'll be sending in our grievance letter shortly or my husband may show up on the ultra convenient grievance day of December 31, 2008.

Thanks in advance!