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December 30, 2017 - 1:34 a.m.
"14 years together" or "brooklyn adventure" or "paying taxes"

Hey Journal!

Today we both had the day off and we had a lot of little things we needed to do! We got up at 8am because I had to call LIPA to find something out for Steve.

The plan was to get back to sleep after that but with all we wanted to do we figured we should get an early start.

Dan got on the treadmill and while he was doing that we calculated the potential tax benefits of paying our property taxes early, in 2017, so that we could deduct them this year. The end result was, after comparing with last year, by making the payment this year we will save an additional $3,000! After this, we will be taking the standard deduction because without state taxes and the cap on property tax deductions, we'll never hit the 24 by itemizing.

As soon as Dan was done we had some eggs for breakfast and then went over to my grandma. I had spoken to her this morning and she said she also wanted to pay her taxes today but didn't want to go out to the tax office. We picked up her check and then headed for Town Hall.

The line was insane! It wrapped all the way down the hallways and around the building. Everyone was grumbling and irritated about having to pay early. We had bevern been to the tax office because we use our online bill pay. This was a first.

Dan was loudly complaining about local politicians and found a sympathetic ear who equally did not like Lee Zeldin. They were chatting it up the whole time we were waiting.

A girl came out and collected a bunch of payments and brought them in the back, rang them up, and came back to hand out receipts. She was nice and that really sped up the process.

Once we were done with that, we went to St. James. My grandma wanted us to drop off some mail for her and to pick up a pizza. We ordered at Matt's and then after the post office the pizza was ready.

Side note: I can't remember the last time I was inside the St. James Post Office. I think it was when I was little. It's exactly the same inside so I like that a lot!

We brought the pizza back and ate with my Grandma. My Grandpa has already eaten his lunch and was sat in front of the TV.

Grandma showed us her photos of Hawaii since we told her about our upcoming trip! It was great, she had a log of all of her activities and everything they did there. They stayed at the same hotel as the Brady Bunch. I was jealous. On the last day of their trip, my grandpa tripped over a stage and broke his rib. My grandma had pictures of them at the restaurant just before it happened and I decided that I want to go there for breakfast, too. I'll leave out the tripping part!

We hung out there for a while and my grandma told us stories about her old friends who are all dying. She also told us about friend she met on her trip to Hawaii. I told her she should look them up on Facebook. She said she had lost contact with them long ago. Dot and Dan. Unfortunately, they weren't on Facebook. But, we did find a person she met on her trip to San Diego. She lives in Nebraska and my grandma sent her a friend request. She was very excited to reconnect with her.

My mom only worked half a day and came home around 2. We said hi but left shortly after she got home.

I always say this, but it's amazing how much you can get done when you're off from work. The days seem like it went on forever. We got home around 3 and watched half of an episode of TURN.

Today was our 14th anniversary! That was one of the reasons that we took the day off to spend together! We knew we wanted to do something special, but we weren't sure what. Last night, we had gone to cheesecake factory so we weren't dying to go out to eat alone again. It would have been nice but we didn't have to do it.

Kristen texted us in the middle of the day and asked us if we wanted to go to dinner. I told her that it was our anniversary but that after the 13th, you're allowed to go out with other people. We told her that we were going to go on an adventure. She came to our house at 4:45.

The adventure we planned was to go to a Polish restaurant in Brooklyn! We have been there a few times before and I was in the mood for Polish food. I thought it would be fun to travel somewhere that we don't usually go.

The weird thing about this is that we have been to the city three times in the past two weeks. That's more than we usually go to the city in a year!

There was a little traffic heading into the city but it wasn't terrible. It took about an hour and 40 minutes. We found parking right near the restaurant and we went in to put our name on the list. The girl at the door told us it would be about 20 minutes so we went outside to take a quick walk. It was freezing cold outside so we weren't going to be out there long. Just as we took a few steps away from the restaurant, the girl came out the door and told us that she had a table ready right away. We went back inside and got seated.

The past couple of times we went there I got the same thing for dinner. Tonight I decided to go with the goulash. It looked good on the menu but when it came it was a different story. First, it was topped with sour cream which I hate. There was no mention of that on the menu. They were also strange vegetables inside.

Instead, I ordered the pork cutlet with mashed potatoes. It was much better.

I also got the chicken noodle soup which is also amazing. It may not be as great as Carrabba's but it's great in a different way.

After we finished eating we looked for a bar to go to. We found a rooftop bar that looked interesting but when we arrived the line was insane. We decided not to wait and went to a place called Ramona instead. I got a Mai-tai and it was good BUT all of their drinks were so overpriced. They gave you a drink of the approximate size of two shot glasses in a small sized glass filled almost entirely with ice for like $16! What a ripoff.

After our drink we headed home and made a pit stop at the golf course because I had to collect some important papers I needed to scan for Steve. I got them and also got some tea for the road. Kristen took some more expired supplies and we were on our way.

When we got home, Kristen departed and dan and I showered up. We watched two episodes of TURN and now it's time for bed!

It was a fun and packed day for our 14th anniversary and were ready to start on the next 14 year chapter!

Until tomorrow...

Goodnight! :)