DONE!

In celebration of finishing tax stuff, I'm going to go buy myself a piece of German Chocolate cake & eat the whole thing all by myself... if, that is, I can hide it long enough from my number one son who is an eating vacuum at the moment.

It's done.
Finished.
Complete.

I've paid the state sales tax bill and gotten confirmation online already (took five minutes to fill out the online form & get back a response -- not believing a soulless machine, I had to do it on paper on the form myself first...but that's another story.) I also figured out the city sales tax & will ink over my penciled numbers and make out the check tomorrow and mail it off. Then it's completely done until next year.

Hopefully, I'll be more up to date about getting my monthly totals done this new year.

And, strangely enough, I was completely flummoxed to find out that this last year (2008's ) grand totals were just $10.00 different from the year before (income I mean...)

THAT'S WEIRD -- at least to me it is. It's never happened before. Also, because prices on EVERYTHING increased so much during the last year, it FELT as if I was making far less.

I wasn't. I was just spending WAY MORE on everyday things like FOOD (which is a BIG part of the household budget -- see the note about my vacuum cleaner number one son).

Even December wasn't as bad as I thought it was.

Now I can get back to funky, cool, unusual books.

Update again... getting tired...almost done

Another quick tax update.

I'm up to November with monthly totals. I HAVE to be finished by tomorrow night with December so I can get the yearly totals figured out & mail out my payments for sales tax for the state & city. It WILL get done.

Once that's done, I can get back to blogging about BOOKS...

and then complain about the upcoming article that I need to get working on.

Oh, and it would be nice if I could make some money on book sales to PAY my taxes...

Anyone want to buy a book?

Please?

NOW?

thanks!

Another update... taxes this time...

I've been toiling along on my monthly tax / business totals --

Not as quickly as I'd like, but it will get done by the 28th -29th...

The final totals have to be done & turned in by January 31st, so I have a definite deadline.

Last night I finished August totals so four more months to go.

Maybe, if I work hard and get the whole shebang done really early, I'll reward myself with a piece of cake from the bakery....hmm... encouragement and bribery work well on me....

I'll try for something more bookish tomorrow.

Have a great day.

Nutshell Library update...

I mentioned that if I found any further information on the Nutshell Library (the one from the 1960's) I'd add a note to the blog...

Courtesy of Richard Mori of Mori's Books, there IS a fourth set available... by A.A. Milne -- it's four miniature books in the Winnie-the-Pooh series.

That brings the list to:

Maurice Sendak
Hilary Knight
Robert Kraus
and
A. A. Milne

if you happen to know of more, please let me know.

The Legends of the Mighty Sioux - A WPA book...

I wish I had a better technique with my camera... but...

This particular book is one that was published as part of the WPA -- if you've never heard of it, that's the Works Project Administration which was founded by Franklin Roosevelt during his administration to help alleviate some of the unemployment due to the Great Depression (which some folk are considering starting up again to help with out current "recession"). At any rate, one of the sub groups of the WPA was the Writers' Project (which actually included photographers, writers, editors, artists, painters, etc...).

This book was a product of the Workers of the South Dakota Writers' Project (no citation for an actual author, though I found, through a tiny bit of research, that the Library of Congress is going through & matching authors with unattributed material even as I write this...) and illustrated by "Sioux Indian Artists" (again, mostly unattributed). This book compiles forty-five legends of the Sioux Indians of South Dakota -- "Much of the material was narrated to Project members when the Indians were assembled for pow-wows, or at church meetings. There were separate meetings between the old and young men as well." (from the front blurb material on the dust jacket).



While the WPA Writers Project is mostly known for its state guides (for more information see: Works Progress Administration ), there were a number of other books done, most of them on very specific subjects, like this title.

This is a wonderful book.

I hope you enjoy it.

New President... new administration... new order.... hopefully.

Just like millions of other folk around the world, I feel it is important to at least mention that an historic event has just taken place. Congratulations, Mr. President Obama, I wish you well.

I was a supporter of Hilary Clinton, and quite hesitant to find our next president was going to be rather less experienced in many ways than I had hoped, but I have to admit that during the transition Mr. Obama has made some very hopeful and, I hope, SMART steps towards fixing some of the ills that have befallen us as a nation. I also hope that the nation as a whole, and the congress in particular don't end up stifling some of the positive changes that can be made (take a gander at what the state of California's legislature has done to take a sorry situation and muck it up further...).

There have been times in the last few years where I've felt like apologizing to the world for being an American. A former neighbor of mine, who emigrated from Iran, (not only were he and his wife my friends, but his children were my sons best playmates for several years) and I had numerous, long conversations about what it was like to live in the US and in Iran... and about changes he had seen in the 30 years he has lived here...there were times when I wanted to tell him that I wasn't THAT type of American, that I didn't believe in some of the wrong-headed, wrong-hearted things that were being done in the name of MY country.

I hope, that with Mr. Obama's leadership & forward thinking attitude, that I won't feel that way again. Ever.

Good Luck, Mr. President.
God Speed.
I wish you well.

A Firefly in a Fir Tree.... la la la....

Last weekend, I went book hunting and while others (it was a friends of the library book sale) were rather frantically scouring through piles of books (lots of ex library copies), I happened to glance down on one of the tables & see the above listed little slipcased set.

Here's a better view of the front:



Well, a better view of the front of the box and the four tiny books that go inside...

This is the Christmas Nutshell Library set illustrated by Hilary Knight (best known for his work on the Eloise books by Kay Thompson. There are other Nutshell Library sets (Maurice Sendak's version is VERY collectable, but there's another that I found by Robert Kraus... so far, those three are the only sets in THIS version of the Nutshell Library. I'll update this if I find others).

I love this set. I haven't seen one of the Hilary Knight versions before (in fact, there seem to be less of them available than the Sendak set, but that's likely because this set was never reprinted & Sendak's was). All the illustrations are by Knight & show the delicate, humorous style he is famous for. In fact, slipcase cover at the top of this post shows a little girl who looks a LOT like Eloise...

Here's one of the books:


And another:




Though I've always primarily thought of myself as a Science Fiction / Fantasy dealer, my luck at finding collectable children's books has grown and I seem to be wending my way more down that path...

I love this set. It's darling. It's funny. It's miniature. It's cool. It's collectable. It's the best find from a friend's sale in a while.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.