The good, the bad and the ugly

The good:

I finished our taxes! Hooray! I'm considering paying someone to do it for us next year. If I thought this year's taxes were tricky what with the international earnings and all, next year is going to be an absolute nightmare because I'll have freelance income to add to the madness. But this year's taxes are done, which means that I can now get around to filling out all those financial aid applications.

The bad:

It's required by law here that an electrical and gas inspection be performed every year. So we had our annual inspection yesterday and received some rather bad news: our boiler is badly corroded and needs to be completely replaced. It's not terribly fiscal news for us because we don't own the house, so the new boiler certainly doesn't have to come out of our pockets. But, but, but...finding folks who are competent in the boiler replacing field on such short notice is nigh near impossible. So try as they might, our property managers have not managed to find someone who can replace the boiler before Monday. And of course the weather has decided to be Oh So Very British, so it's cold and it's rainy and it's windy. We've spent a lot of time today gathered in the living room with a space heater that Eric borrowed from work. And three munchkins confined to a rather smal space makes for a level of restlessness that is completely unacceptable to the freezing Mommy who is trying to work from her laptop in the same room.

The ugly:

The ugly? I'm sorry? Have you seen my munchkins? What ugly?