Hyde Park Happiness

Wow, Jenn! You get more accomplished in one day than I even think about doing in a whole week! Makes me tired to read about it! But, we are sure excited to have you come! We wish Scott could come, too. We will have to be satisfied to have him here for Thanksgiving :)

Dad had a conference with LDS tech people in Salt Lake. It was eye-opening and he really enjoyed it. He was able to get lots of questions answered and get a feel for where the church is heading with technology. Very interesting. Emma had a UEA break for a couple of days this week. She spent time with Emilee, finished some school assignments, went for a hike with Dad and me, had fun with Lauren. Not extremely exciting, but satisfying. Thomas has thrilling news - but we haven't heard it yet! We hope to catch up with him some time today.... Maybe you'll all know before those of us here. If so, let us know!!

So, I had a terrifying experience this week. I got a call from the IRS letting me know that there were several allegations of fraud on our reported income on our last few tax returns. They had tried several times to notify us, but certified mail was returned and phone calls were not answered. The phone call got very accusing and demanding. Dad was out of town and I had no idea what to do. I went downstairs to pull out our old tax returns (thankfully I keep copies) and see what the deal was. All of the allegations could be true - I do our taxes myself and could easily have made some mistakes. Thomas was still home so I started to tell him about it and completely fell apart! He talked with Dad and they both realized it was a scam. At the time, none of us had heard of this particular scam. I'd heard of things like this happening to other people about other things, and wondered how they could fall for something so obvious. Now I know! These people were so convincing and preyed upon my honesty and willingness to resolve what was surely my mistake! Looking back, I can see the red flags that should have signaled the scam. However, they had all the "evidence" and used all the correct terminology. Fortunately, I didn't give them any personal information they didn't already have. They knew our names and addresses and phone numbers and a few other things about us. They had titles and case numbers and all that stuff. I'm very grateful to Thomas and Dad for being level-headed and helping me through this. I was truly frightened. I believed that Dad was going to come home from Salt Lake and I'd be in jail (that was the threat if I didn't get this resolved immediately). The sheriff was supposed to come within the hour with a warrant for my arrest and Emma would know I was a criminal! It left me feeling very vulnerable and gullible and shaky. It removed any self-confidence I'd had, which wasn't much to begin with! I'm sure it may eventually be funny, but I couldn't function the rest of the day and still have nightmares about it. It's kind of put a cloud over my days ever since; every time the phone rings, I don't want to answer it.  I'm sad that people spend their time doing that to other people. Seems like a miserable way to live. I know you are all smarter than I am,  more informed about current events, and will never fall for something like that. I guess I just innately trust people, which is probably okay most of the time. Just not this time. I'll laugh about it sometime in the future - but don't tease me about it just yet....

We are looking forward to a better week coming up. Can't wait to see Jenn. She will be a calming influence as I will be taking my 7 hour national certification exam this week. Any prayers will be welcomed (and invited)! Hopefully I can stop bugging the family about needing to study if I get this over with.

Have a great week, All!!