Crown

I was away for the weekend when the molar I had the root canal on in April cracked and I lost the filling.  They really should have put a crown on it in April, but they said it wasn't necessary. Thanks to my sister, I did not have to cut my weekend short. She gave me "brace wax" to put over the tooth so I wouldn't bite down or get food stuck in it until I could get to my dentist today.  Not much of the tooth was left to save. I had to choose whether to get it pulled (less expensive) or get a crown.  I decided on the crown, because  think it is better to keep your own as long as possible.  If I have to get it pulled later, I will need to get something to fill the space.

Kudos to Wal-mart customer service

Yesterday, I bought a few groceries & several other assorted items. When I got home, I only had 2 of my 3 bags,  I had left the bag (with the most expensive items - printer ink, batteries, etc) either on the turnstile or in the cart.  I went back, and the cashier remembered me, but she did not recall whether I had forgotten a bag, and it was not there at her station. She thought it was possible that the next customer wound up with an extra bag and might return it. The manager was unable to check the video, so he just had me "re-shop" for my items.  Thank you Wal-mart.

Syncing Yahoo Bookmarks & IE Favorites

 When my Yahoo Bookmarks disappeared for several hours the other day, I decided to sync the Yahoo bookmarks with my IE favorites & clean up outdated links.  They are still not perfectly synced between the laptop & desktop, but I don't have to worry about losing the Yahoo Bookmarks.

IE 9; Firefox 4 and Google Chrome

Firefox has been my preferred browser for some time.  I appreciated the built-in pop-up blocking and tabs, though IE also added these features starting with IE 7.  Firefox also has some useful add-ons such as Ad-block Plus and my Yahoo toolbas.  My laptop came with IE8 and Google Chrome pre-installed, so I tried out Google Chrome and I appreciate its simplicity.  Now it seems like both IE and Firefox wish to emulate the simplicity of Google Chrome.  Firefox 4 posed a problem with the Yahoo toolbar.  I avoided downloading Firefox 4 until a "Yahoo optimized" version became available.  My toolbar is now compatible.

Bad experience with www.furniturefix.com

Husband asked me to order the slats for sagging furniture as seen on TV.  I went to the website to order.  You have to click through multiple additional offers, and each page is so similar that it appears you didn't move on to the next page.  This entices you to click yes instead of no in order to proceed.  Then, you are not given an opportunity to review your order before it is processed.  I wound up ordering way more than I intended to.  My order does not yet appear in the web based customer support, and the phone base support is not open until Monday.  I intend to cancel on Monday.  This is highly unethical business practice and I will not deal with this company.

Root Canal

Other than a few fillings and an ongoing battle with gum disease, I've had very little problem associated with dental care.  This past Saturday, I had some irritation on the upper left side of my mouth, which I attributed to food particles getting stuck in my gum.  I used the water pik, floss and the proxy brush, but still had the irritation.  On Sunday, I used the water pik full blast and the pain got worse.  On Monday, I went to the dentist for x-rays.  They did not find any cavity, sent me home with instructions to brush gently and rinse with warm salt water, skip flossing & water pik for a few days, and if the pain didn't go away, call them Thursday.  The pain got progressively worse, both hot and cold made it worse, and I couldn't bite down on the left at all.  I went back to the dentist this morning and he did a root canal.  Resting now. 

Tax Software

Once again, I let the Federal and State governments use way too much of my money over the past year.  I am getting a nice refund. Last year, we went to an accountant.  I had used software since 1996; first Turbo Tax, then Tax Cut.  Since we had a major change in our status after mom passed, we thought it was a good idea to use a professional preparer.  Our return is pretty basic, and though we usually itemize, the standard deduction was better for 2009.  This year, I had to decide which software I wanted: Tax Act, Turbo Tax or HR Block at Home (formerly Tax Cut). Each offered a free basic edition, but charged a fee for the state return. In the past, I have used the basic or free online software for the federal return and did the state return by hand.  Several people had recommended Tax Act, which has the lowest cost for the state return.  I found that I could not retrieve any of the Tax Cut returns I had saved on my hard drive without installing the actual program for the year I wished to view (#fail); however, the year I used the online version of Tax Cut, I was able to save a viewable  .pdf version. I won't bother to purchase software again.  HR Block at Home gave me an error that I was not able to correct and would not let me e-file (#fail). Tax Act worked fine until I made some changes, and it would not remove a deduction I knew was incorrect (#fail).  Finally, I used Turbo Tax, which I have not used for years.  I was very pleased with it and I will most likely use Turbo Tax next year.