Nine Rubies Knitting

Form 571-L

I hate doing unnecessary paperwork. Being a small business owner has driven me crazy with paperwork. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t mind paying taxes for all the nice parks, schools and the benefits we get for living in this beautiful, wonderful area. I don’t mind paying my personal income taxes, business taxes to the Federal and State governments once a year. I don’t mind paying sales tax - I do mind paying them monthly  though. But I have to give props to the state of California for finally allowing me to pay them online.

But county taxes? I know that a portion of the sales tax goes to the county. What I did not know until recently is that you are supposed to pay taxes to the county of San Mateo.

So I get an official notice from the county and now I have to figure out Form 571-L. The form wouldn’t be bad by itself but the lady at the county office wants our annual tax returns - I suspect she needs Form 4562 actually - and I am gathering those up as well. And then I have to make sure some of those numbers match and I have to figure out how much to take out for depreciation. Following me so far? No? Me neither. I lost myself a while back.

The final upshot is that I am going to owe the county something in the range of $200 for 2 YEARS! So, I am telling this story to my sister-in-law who is a CPA and she has a very pithy comment - it’s not even worth anyone’s time to process all this paperwork at the county office. That got me thinking - so what’s the point?

1 comment July 31st, 2008

Free Ice Queen Knit-a-long with Sudha

Our recent workshop with Rosemary Hill has inspired a number of people to take their lace-knitting skills to the next level. We’d like to invite those who participated in the workshop (and anyone else enamored of this design who couldn’t make it), to join Sudha in making this beautiful and versatile project.

All you need is one skein of Kidsilk Haze and 16″ needles in sizes 5, 7 and 8. The cowl pattern is available on the Knitty website. Please print out your copies before coming to the first class. The pattern can be made with the beads or without the beads. If you need beads, the closest store is our friends at the Beading Frenzy.

There will be four Sunday afternoon sessions from 2-4 pm, beginning on August 10th. You should get your materials before the first session, if you are planning to join us.

Here’s the schedule for the KAL:

• Sunday, 8/10: Getting started: learn the picot beaded cast on, how to join in the round and establish the pattern
• Sunday, 8/17: Changing needles, increases and decreases in pattern
• Sunday, 8/24: Problem-solving and catch up
• Sunday, 9/7: Finishing up and casting off!

We hope you can join us for any or all of these sessions to work on this great project. Please call the store and register for the KAL. We are limiting this KAL to 15 people and think this will fill fast.

Add comment July 30th, 2008

Nine Rubies Bags are Finally Here!

The much-anticipated Nine Rubies bags are finally here, coinciding with the new iPhone release from Apple. I can safely say that our bag launch will be smoother, will not require 2-year contracts, and will not require you to stand in line for three hours or more. The bags are in the store. If you got coupons from us at the WWKIP day, come by and exchange a bag for a coupon. If you did come for WWKIP day and we ran out of coupons before we could get one to you, your name will be on a “special” list at the front desk. If you would still like one of the great new Eco bags, you can buy one for a nominal price of $9 - all your regular discounts apply.

If this the first time you are hearing about this, the new bags are so we don’t give out as many plastic bags as we do. If you have a bag and then make a purchase of $20 or more, we will refund you $1 on your purchase. Of course, this means you don’t get one of our plastic bags.

Hope you’ll help us make the environment a wee bit healthier with recycle-bags that you’ll be happy to carry.

Add comment July 12th, 2008