Facie’s Ramblings

I spent bits and pieces of the past week gathering tax papers in "anticipation" of our accountant coming to get all our crap this weekend. On Saturday, the 1st, I could not understand why one of our banks had yet to send us an interest statement for our interest checking and money market accounts, when I had thought everything had to be in our possession by the 31st. Then an awful thought occurred to me, which I was certain could not be the case: What if we had not earned enough interest last year to actually get an interest statement from the bank? Nah, I was fairly certain you needed to earn at least $10 to get a statement, and surely we had earned that . Spoiler alert: We did not! This may not seem a like a big deal, but since we started saving money many years ago, we had typically earned a decent amount of interest. I know the interest rates have been quite low for the past few years, but I still thought we were making some money. So I logged into my account, and saw...

A number of blogs I read include posts about must-haves, recommendations, and favorite things. Unfortunately, there are very few material things that I absolutely love, and on top of that I have almost no brand loyalty, save for Heinz ketchup because I am a Pittsburgher (I refuse to buy another ketchup for fear I would like that more). I am also a big fan of Kohl's, having shopped there regularly since 1999, but I think the quality has gone slightly downhill. Not so far down that I will stop shopping there, mind you; I hate the mall and love that I can buy most of what I need for myself, my family, and gift-giving in general at Kohl's. But this post is not about those large companies, but rather about two friends who have put their different talents to business. Let me tell you a little about them. A former coworker started HappyJack Bakery just last month. Lynnette bakes out of her house and sells her goodies at the Whitehall Farmer's Market at Caste Village in the S...