Rhaevyn hadn't slept well because she was anxious about getting her passport. She didn't want anything to go wrong. The application was all filled out, pictures had been taken, and we headed to the bank before her 11:00 am appointment at the post office. All seemed to be going well until we got up to the counter, and I realized I only had a copy of Rhaevyn's birth certificate and not the original. I had put the original with the application, but I had failed to actually bring it. Rhaevyn waited at the post office while I dashed home and back. Luckily we don't live very far from the post office..............it's just 25mph the entire way. I got back, and we just had to wait for the 11:05 appointment to be done. Who knew only one post office employee at a time can do passports???? We got back up to the window, and the pictures were not in the envelope!!! What????? I double checked before we left to make sure the pictures were in the envelope. Rhaevyn ran out to the car. They had slipped out and had fallen between the seats. The rest of the process went well, and the application has been submitted. Fingers crossed it arrives before April.
Aeva took Myles and Elsa to the duck pond Monday afternoon. They found several treasures on the way back. This was one of them. Elsa found this little gem, and we got a history lesson out of it because I had no idea what in the world it was. We had a good look at it with the magnifying glass and read the words and saw that it was from the state of Oklahoma and a Consumer's Tax Token for Old Age Assistance.
Here Comes The History Lesson:
These tokens were made between 1937-1941 and we think this one is made of brass.
These tokens were issued by various states during the Great Depression of the 1930's.
They were issued to make change for fractions of a cent for customers to pay the new state sales taxes.The token values were usually in "mills" or 1/10 of a cent.
A mill is 1/1000th of a dollar or a tenth of a cent. As you can imagine, people did not like having to carry a second set of coins, and to further complicate matters, different states issued different tax tokens. 1 and 5 mills are the most common denominations, but other denominations include: 1/5 cent, 1 1/2 mills, and Tax on 10c or less.Most issues were for one or five mills.
Merchants had to pay sales tax to the state on the total amount of sales made by the merchant during each day's sales. Tax tokens were created as a means for consumers to avoid being "overcharged" by having to pay a full penny tax on purchases of 5 or 10 cents. You can imagine that if the sales tax rate is 3% and a child buys a 10c piece of candy there is no way to collect the three-tenths of one cent. If you rounded down that meant that the merchant could not collect anything for the tax. If you rounded up the state was gaining 7 tenths of a cent on every 10 cent sale. You can see that if the merchant sold 100 pieces of candy he was loosing 30 cents a day in tax revenues to the state, so the token was born. This allowed the merchant to take 11 cents for the first piece of candy and give change back in mills. The next time you wanted to buy a 10c candy you could present the merchant with the 10c and a token and complete the transaction. This allowed the merchant to collect the sales tax on each transaction.
Isn't that fascinating?? We thought it was.
#1. Did an experiment with milk, food coloring, and a cotton ball dipped in dish detergent
#2. Watched The Spacex Falcon Heavy take off from the Kennedy Space Center. The kids really enjoyed watching the process of pre-lift off, lift off, and the rocket boosters landing. They got a kick out of seeing Starman in the Tesla roadster. It reminds me of when I was a kid and the excitement I felt watching the space shuttle take off.
#3. Myles, Elsa, and Meg played dress up Tuesday afternoon.
Myles played a round of chess with Chris Sunday evening, and Meg's turn to play chess with dad was Monday night.
Favorite quotes this week:
On the way home from church we rounded the corner and Meg says "Uhhhh!! The sun is staring at me in my eyes!"
Then while feeding herself spaghetti, as her fork got close to her mouth, "Here it comes flying to it's nest!"
Myles scooped himself a huge plate of spaghetti. I asked him, skeptically, if he was sure he was going to eat all of it. He lifted one eyebrow and replied that, yes, he was. He made sure to show me his plate at the sink and said "Look mom, I ate it all!"
I keep forgetting that he has two hallow legs. The amount of food he eats still surprises me.
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I decided to try and trim my hair Friday morning. Let's just say I am not sure I will ever learn not to do this. I always think I can do it and it will turn out fine. Every once in a blue moon I succeed, but not generally. I had to laugh. Aeva, giggling, asked me, "When will you learn Mom that it never goes well?" My reply, laughingly, was that if I haven't learned by now I probably never will. My sweet friend came and fixed my hair that afternoon. She laughs right along with me regarding my hair cutting escapades. I tell her I like to help out where I can to keep her in business :)
Over the weekend I decided to add some sunshine to my hair; I put some highlights in. Rhaevyn says she likes it this way 😍 It's very sweet of her to say so.
Last night was movie night, and we watched Blue Skies with Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby. It was filled with lots of songs we were familiar with and of course great dance scenes with Fred Astaire. Love the snuggles with my littles.
Rhaevyn made brownies for movie time, and this is how Myles made sure no one touched his:
Aeva sketched a picture of Molly as she napped next to Aeva on the couch:
The girls register for Spring quarter next week. I can't believe it is that time already. I think they have their classes picked out. They just need to get written consent for the music classes they want to take.
Yay! I'm on a roll with keeping caught up 😊
