The Mom Weekly

Category: Weekly Newsletter

  • Lent, Lent, Time to Repent …

    Lent, Lent, Time to Repent …

    The Mom Weekly Volume 82: Tuesday, March 4, 2025

    You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

    Lent, Lent, Time to Repent….

    Do you remember the CD we had back in the mid-2000s from the “Dogma Dogs”? I think it was two young college students who created all those fun songs, such as “21 Ecumenical Councils” (I know but remember it was very funny!).

    One of the songs I remember is “Lent” and it had a chorus, “It’s Lent, Lent, time to repent.” 

    Sadly, I could not find the Dogma Dogs on Spotify. Dogma Dogs, if you’re out there, upload your songs to Spotify. 🙂

    Anyway, I did find this link to a description of the group and some of their fun songs. Helpfully, the post links to a clip of the song itself (and a few others), and I encourage you to give it a listen, just for the smile:

    Clip of the song “Lent”

    And to get yourself in the mood for Lent!

    Preparing for Lent, In Tiny Ways

    So, yes, Lent begins with Ash Wednesday on March 5, tomorrow. It might be a good idea to take a few minutes to think about planning for those six weeks.

    I know Lent can be a less than positive time for some of us, but I would propose that planning for some of this can help make it less burdensome.

    First, remember that there’s no holy day of obligation for either Ash Wednesday or any of the Easter Triduum. But if you want to go, especially on Ash Wednesday, and if you go early in the day you can have people asking you all day, “Did you know you have something on your forehead?”  🙂

    Fasting and abstinence. Here is an article about the “rules” .

    But briefly: No meat on Ash Wednesday and all the Fridays of Lent. 

    I remember when I was young and since, and I didn’t have an easy way to remind me about what day of Lent is. More than once, I accidentally at a Wendy’s cheeseburger on a Friday. (See, I’ve liked Wendy’s for many decades! I’m consistent).

    Today, though, we have online calendars and reminders. So consider putting in your calendar “fast” on Ash Wednesday (March 5) and Good Friday (April 18). And then “abstinence” from meat on Ash Wednesday and all the Fridays of Lent. 

    But especially the fasting rule does not count for health reasons. You know what those are, and using your best judgment to decide how to proceed.

    Also, what are some ways to make Lent meaningful when it may be especially hard?

    First of all, we can bring any of those to prayer. God knows everything about you, and He wants to hear from you, so taking the time to pray about what you detest or dread about Lent.

    There are innumerable articles online about creative things to “do” or “give up” for Lent. I would have my own (eat more protein! Talk to a friend every day! Text your Mom more often than you do! Haha), but I know you can come up with some good ideas on your own, that would help you live this season in the way that’s best for you. You could even do something nice for yourself, every day of Lent.

    I really liked this one from Lent 2024.

    If you read through the ideas, there are quite a few creative ones that would be a way to make Lent more “doing.” “Here are few I loved: “give up speeding for all of Lent” “daily games with family” “every time you go to Mass, introduce yourself to someone new” “call someone you don’t regularly talk to” “intentional give sincere compliments to everyone you have a conversation with”

    I also like this list—it’s for kids, actually, but really helpful for adults, too!—from our own local Katie Bogner of Look To Him and Be Radiant. She has a new book coming out on Lent, which I’ve pre-ordered, but has not arrived. However, the printable from the book are on her website. She is so prolific, and such a great artist!

    These are all super simple things to do —- “ways” — for the 40 Days of Lent. They are not to do in order, but just as you think of it. I plan to print this out and to leave it with my daily lists and notebook, and to “check off” things as I meditate on them, and perhaps even accomplish!

    Here is a Drive link to the 40 Ways for 40 Days printable.

    Finally, An aside: For you calendar nerds like me, here is an astronomical website from Australia, naturally?), which lists the dates of all Easters from 1700-2299. 

    Interesting/Notable:

    Marriage Article of the Week: Add to Your Communications Toolbox with These Strategies —- Renzo and Monica Ortega 

    Because the content is so good, I’m ignoring the minor things I want to change about their website font and a few other things. I’m by no means an expert website developer, but sometimes I get strong ideas, especially if something (like a font change) would be an easy fix).

    This article talks about creating a “communications toolbox” — terrific ideas here!

    I also really appreciate their podcast, Two Become Family. A TMW last year on the “manosphere” featured this podcast episode they did about the phenomenon:

    An Action Item: Download the Prayer of St. Ephrem to your phone

    When I looked at last year’s beginning of Lent post, after I already completed this one, I thought, that was good! (Including my first-ever GIF).

    But that post featured an image of the Prayer of St. Ephrem, which is traditionally prayed during Lent. I’ll feature it again here, and consider adding it to your phone, possibly to your lock screen? So that you can remember to pray it every so often during Lent.

  • Marriage Article of the Week

    Marriage Article of the Week

    The Mom Weekly Volume 81: February 25, 2025

    You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

    Marriage Article of the Week

    For obvious reasons (!!!), occasionally in this space, I’ve decided to share a “marriage article of the week.” In my opinion, it is more than helpful to have a wide variety of reading material and information before marriage, and certainly during marriage. 

    When I share articles or ideas, I won’t agree entirely with everything each person says, but it is helpful to consider a lot of different approaches! And article-sized portions are better than trying to read and talk about an entire book. Maybe I can even get Dad to read these articles with me and have a chat? 

    Also, if you have a suggestion for a marriage article of the week, I would love to hear. from you! You can just reply to the weekly email and I will get it.

    I will probably put these, with less commentary, in the “Interesting/Notable” section of future weekly newsletters. But for this week, it’s the main event! And that is why, this week there is no “Interesting/Notable” section.

    Not Once, in 25 Years

    This is a thoughtful, excellent read. This writer (who I discovered on Substack) is not Catholic, but she offers a solid description of the mutuality in marriage, and the give and take of decision-making, big and small.

    I remember reading articles from Catholic or other Christian bloggers decades ago, and some (yes, even the Catholic ones) talking about how the husband “gets the deciding vote.” I always thought this was utterly ridiculous, and so does Dad, and we always grieved for those who were harmed by this concept.

    This article really encapsulates how much mutual submission goes on in a healthy marriage. Her description of using “giving a fig” (this is what that means, in case you haven’t heard that old-fashioned expression. But you probably have!)

    She talks about the person who “gives more figs” than the other usually gets his or her way (as in the description of wedding china); and when both have strong feelings, they hash it out.

    This longer quote is an excellent description of how this works: 

    Years later, there was a big thing I didn’t think I wanted. My husband really wanted it. I had fear. He had figs. He gave lots of figs, but he never would have tried to exercise a vote against me, when I had serious concerns, and the decision would matter so much to both our lives. Whatever we decided, we were both going to keep giving lots and lots of figs. In a moment of trust, both in him and in the Spirit, I said, “let’s do it.” I submitted. The results weren’t what either of us expected, and neither of us would ever take back that decision.

    We roll with things. We go back and forth. We make some decisions knowing we’ll need to stay flexible, ready to change if that’s what’s needed to be faithful in our marriage, to our family, in our callings.

    We mess up. Sometimes one of us calls an audible without consulting the other. Sometimes we have to apologize for those calls, but we also trust each other to make them when the game demands it. We’ve gotten things right, and we’ve gotten things wrong. We’ve needed patience, wisdom, and discernment. We’ve needed lots of repentance and forgiveness. We’ve needed mutual sacrifice. But never, not once, in 25 years have we needed a deciding vote.

    ——–——–

    I would agree with so much of that, only adding: never once, in more than 30 years!

    Also, it’s important to note that sometimes you will come to a decision together, or go with one person’s “figs,” and later realize that wasn’t the best decision. 

    You might even, like Dad & I, disagree about whether something in the past was a good decision or not. But there’s no recrimination about it. Our relationship takes precedence. We can “agree to disagree” as we imperfectly work through our decision making.

    Action Item of the Week: Clean Out Your Freezer

    I don’t mean clean out, like defrost and wash your freezer. That can be a goal for some other time!

    What I mean is for you to take a few minutes to go through your freezer and see what you have forgotten about, and what you can maybe incorporate into your meals this week.

    Toss anything that you don’t like after all or that is expired. No need to keep things—that is the sunk cost fallacy in action. Make more room in your freezer for things you like to eat!

  • The Sunday Tramps

    The Sunday Tramps

    The Mom Weekly Volume 80: February 18, 2025

    You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

    The Sunday Tramps

    Last month, I finished a wonderful book from the library: The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary by Sarah Ogilvie. The book tells the story of the thousands of unpaid volunteers from around the world recruited by James Murray, one of the first editors of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Each chapter tells of one category of volunteers, based on a letter of the alphabet. For instance, “A for Archaeologist,” “F for Families,” “O for Outsiders.”

    The “T” chapter is “T for Tramps, the Sunday” and is worth some explaining. 

    The “Sunday Tramps,” was coined by Leslie Stephen, a writer who also happened to be the father of Virginia Woolf. He gathered a group of intellectual men (“tramp” being a term at the time for ‘walking excursion.’) who met every other Sunday for long (up to 25 miles) walks (and conversation) in the countryside around London. Stephen was known as the “Captain of the Tramps.”

    I thought at first: I would love to have a group like that! However, I don’t think my local hiking women friends would like the name much? Also, I don’t think I would have fit in very well with this male-only group, who were atheistic and walked on Sunday in defiance of honoring “the Sabbath.”

    And then I came across this long passage about Murray being an avid hiker, and why he, too, would not have made him a good member of the Sunday Tramps. Here it is:

    Murray’s Christian conviction would never have allowed him to join the Sunday Tramps in their sabbath-defying hikes. Walking in nature was for him a religious experience, an act of devotion, which went back to a mystical experience the had when he was thirty-eight years old. Murray was on his annual holiday with Ada and their young family at Easedale in the Lake District. Early one evening, he went out walking alone in the mountains, in anticipation of rate rising of the full moon. As night began to fall, he got lost. The moon had not yet risen, he fell in the darkness and badly injured his foot but kept on going. Scrambling down a steep incline, he reached an expanse of deep black in futon of him. He stopped and suddenly realized that he was in great danger, and clung to a heather tussock on a precipice overhanging the lake far below.

    Writing in his diary afterwards, he explained, “I could myself do nothing but one thing. I dropped to my knees on the heather tussock on which I stood and earnestly besought God to guide me in this, one of the most dangerous emergencies of my life.” He got up and went to walk in one direction, but a strong feeling told him to turn around and go the opposite way. This decision, he believed, saved his life. “I have absolutely no explanation save that it was God’s answer to my prayer and such I have ever felt it. One does not proclaim these things from the housetops; they are too sacred. But they are among the most profound convictions of one’s soul; and, many a time since then, may faith in the Invisible has been restored by remembering my experience at Easedale Tarn.”

    Murray’s belief in God sustained him throughout his work on the Dictionary. On his seventieth birthday, he gave a speech which reflected his lifelong devotion: “The Dictionary is to me .. the work that God has found for me and for which I now see that my sharpening of intellectual tools was done and became to me a high and sacred devotion.”

    Murray’s religious beliefs, his lack of formal education, and his different social class are some of the reasons why he was not a member of the Sunday Tramps.

    ——-———

    Isn’t that just wonderful? I hope you noticed that he got injured hiking in the Lake District, like I did last year. And I am so, so very glad that I wasn’t alone, and he was not alone, and that I was taken care of so well. But, as Murray would say about experiences like this “one does not proclaim these things from the housetop; they are too sacred.”

    Remember how much I love you,

    Mom

    Interesting/Notable:

    When Paying More Tax, Not Less, is the Smart Play (gift article unlocked)

    This is such an interesting topic, at least to me! I always say to Dad, “It’s a good problem to have to pay taxes.”

    I was lost in the cesspit of social media. Then Jane Austen showed me the way out—The Guardian 

    “My brain got into the rhythm of the denser text at more or less the same time as I worked out who all the characters were (it helped to have seen Clueless several times), and suddenly I was … enjoying Austen. The chapter openings are consistently great, the asides are savage, and the social critiques are delivered in a flurry of bon mots. There’s a bit where a character goes to London for a haircut and everyone else is so bracingly mean about it, I laughed out loud in a cafe.”

    An Action Item: Consider Maxing Out Your 2025 Roth IRA

    Hear me out!

    As I’ve written about before:

    Probably one of the best financial things you can do for “future you” is add to your Roth IRA. If you haven’t opened one? Read the “action item” section here about how to open a Roth IRA.

    Not for the first time will you hear that one of my big regrets is not maximizing Roths when we were younger. Roths have only been around since 1998, but I could have rolled over old IRA money into a Roth decades ago. (And I have started gradually rolling over some money each year from IRAs into my Roth).

    The maximum Roth contribution for 2025 for most people under 50 is $7,000 (see this page for details). You may or may not have $7,000 hanging around to put into a Roth, but even if you have part of it, wouldn’t you be glad that you did it early? That way, at the end of the year, you can look back and see that you have already checked that item off your list.

    Even if you don’t have the amount right now, consider using some or all of your tax refund to go towards your Roth IRA.

    I’ve explained to some of you how you can consider or use your Roth as your emergency fund. That’s because you can always, penalty free, take the money that you have put into your Roth IRA. (It’s the earnings that are “locked up” until age 59.5)

    Here’s an article explaining how that might work.

    If you make more than $153,000 and you filing single, or $228,000 married filing jointly, you can’t contribute directly to a Roth. 

    If that is you, so-called “Backdoor Roths” are a good possibility. Read about how to do that in this article.

    If you need help in the next few days doing some of this, I’m happy to help. Just let me know!

  • The Ball in My Head (From the Vault, July 2009)

    The Ball in My Head (From the Vault, July 2009)

    The Mom Weekly Volume 79: February 11, 2025

    You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

    Notes:

    I was actually looking for something else when this post popped up, and I laughed and laughed all over again. Please enjoy!

    Also, today is the birthday of my youngest sister and one of your aunts, so be sure to wish her a happy birthday! It is also Our Lady of Lourdes, and World Day of the Sick.

    Remember how much I love you,

    Mom

    The Ball in My Head (From the Vault: July 2009)

    Earlier this week, Max had a “feber” as he used to like to say, and was quiet and under the weather for a day or so. At several times he talked about “the ball in my head,” as in, “Mommy, the ball in my head hurts when I cough” or “I have a ball in my head.” It means a headache. It’s actually a really good image.

    This is similar to his regular question “how many motors do you have?” to ask how much energy you are feeling. “Mom, how many motors do you have? I have 100!!” to which I reply, “A lot, but not 100.”

    This morning, in my continuing “training” for the Seattle sprint distance triathlon in a month (I’ll be doing it with my sisters), I ran 3 miles, and then decided to go to a fitness class at the gym. We joined this gym that our family joined in May so I could swim laps. We’ve all enjoyed going to the pool, and taking advantage of the gym and the classes.

    On Monday, I attended my first Body Pump class. Fortunately a friend who belongs to the gym went along with me and introduced me to the instructor. There were a few of us first-timers, in a fairly large class of women of all ages at the noon class It is basically an aerobic weight-lifting class, and exactly what I need because I don’t lift weights and can’t seem to figure out the machines. Lifting weights is good for building strength and endurance and preventing injuries, all things I’m for. The class was truly enjoyable, and I chatted with my friend, the ladies around me, and the instructor afterwards.

    Today’s about the first day I wasn’t too sore to consider going again. It was suggested that suggest you try to do Body Pump twice a week.

    This morning, what a difference! Same music, same routine. But huge, huge numbers of people, lots of age ranges though mostly in the 20s. There were a majority of men, some even around my age. Some couples of various sizes and ages. I thought, maybe I will try to get Sir to attend one of these with me, as it is really a good workout.

    The only problem I encountered at first was I wondered about club etiquette of where to place my weights and mat, etc., since there was so little room in the gym half. The class was taught by a man/woman team. Were they married? Dating? Don’t know, even though they were chit-chatting back and forth the whole hour because once it started the MUSIC WAS SO UNBELIEVABLY LOUD I COULDN’T HEAR A THING.

    The instructions, the banter about their kayaking trip (maybe?) —at least that’s what I THINK they were talking about—COMPLETELY DROWNED OUT in music about 10x louder than the weekday class.

    I looked around, but no one else seemed to NOTICE. During the break times between types of exercise, I literally put my hands over my ears. At one point the male instructor turned down the music to talk about form in a particular exercise, and I thought, please, for the love of all that is good, please keep the volume there. But no, once he screamed, “IT’S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE,” he turned up the music even louder than before, if that is possible.

    I left the class with my muscles well-worked, my ears ringing, and a firm resolution to never attend the 8 a.m. Saturday class EVER AGAIN.

    I called one of my sisters on the way home to chat and said, “If it seems like I’m screaming, here’s why,…” and she screamed, “Okay!”. On purpose, I didn’t call the sister who thinks I speak too loud sometimes. You know who you are 🙂

    When I got home, I told Sir that the ball in my head hurt. He reported that before he had his coffee, Max sought his help putting together something Lego, and that gave him a ball in his head. The coffee helped.

    Interesting/Notable:

    Twelve Dudes and a Hype Tunnel: Scenes from the ‘Super Bowl for Excel Nerds’ –NY Times gift link.

    Nerd alert! Nerd alert! Spreadsheet competition! This is wonderful.

    The Agony of Adoring Online Dogs—NY Times gift link

    I know many of us have followed Norbert, and this article features him prominently. A sweet read.

    An Action Item: Consider Filing An Extension for Your Tax Return (even if you plan to file it on time)

    This is such an interesting concept, and something I had never heard of before. 

    Basically, this tax attorney explains how you can prevent getting an IRS notice years after you made a mistake on your taxes. This is just a little over 7 minutes—well worth watching. My takeaway from this is to check my IRS transcript, and to file an extension 

    How to Avoid An IRS Notice—Jasmine DiLucci

  • “It took bad words to qualify what had happened.”

    “It took bad words to qualify what had happened.”

    The Mom Weekly Volume 78: February 4, 2025

    You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

    Notes

    I am very glad that we could celebrate Pride & Prejudice Day last week, which also gave me a head start on this week’s TMW, since I had already written it. But another week allowed time to find another article to add to the “interesting/notable” section related to today’s theme, so it all worked out.

    Remember how much I love you,

    Mom

    “It took bad words to qualify what had happened.”

    “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” the children asked him all at once. He flung himself on Ralph, burying his face in the other boy’s coat, and sobbed out some disjointed story which only Ralph could hear … and then, as last and final climax of the disaster, who should come looking over the shoulders of the children but Uncle Henry and Mr. Pond! And ’Lias all ragged and dirty again! Betsy sat down weakly on a pile of wood, utterly disheartened. What was the use of anything!

    “What’s the matter?” asked the two men together.

    Ralph turned, with an angry toss of his dark head, and told them bitterly, over the heads of the children: “He just had some decent clothes. … First ones he’s ever had! And he was plotting on going to the exercises in the Town Hall. And that darned old skunk of a stepfather has gone and taken ’em and sold ’em to get whiskey. I’d like to kill him!”

    Betsy could have flung her arms around Ralph, he looked so exactly the way she felt. “Yes, he is a darned old skunk!” she said to herself, rejoicing in the bad words she did not know before. It took bad words to qualify what had happened.

    —Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Understood Betsy

    Understood Betsy is one of the lesser known but finest children’s novels of the 20th century. Dorothy Canfield Fisher was a feminist, an education reformer (she was one of the earliest to bring Montessori methods to the US), and, obviously, a terrific writer. (In the last year or so, I read The Home-Maker and wow: was she ahead of her time).

    In the novel, Elizabeth Ann (Betsy), is sent away to her “dreaded” Putney cousins when her Aunt has to go away to recover from an unspecified illness. How she slowly becomes her own person, develops a strong constitution, and becomes a strong young woman, is the story of the novel. It has a lot of elements of Montessori education, and how Betsy learns what learning is for—to become a well-rounded adult, rather than just “passing from one grade to another.”

    If you haven’t read Understood Betsy before, it is available for free on Project Gutenberg. And if you have an iPhone, you can send a copy to your iBooks app).

    Rejoicing in the bad words

    I often think about the (para)phrase “it takes bad words to qualify what happened” when I read or hear about something particularly awful in the news.

    The “bad words” Betsy learns are “darned old skunk.” While I can think of even “worse” bad words, the phrase “darned old skunk” certainly fills in for describing the evil deeds of bad people.

    Initially I planned to share this Louise Perry article in the “interesting/notable” section, and I was trying to word a “content warning” because it’s pretty heavy. And then I thought about Betsy’s “rejoicing in bad words” to describe a bad man.

    What Women Need—Louise Perry on Maiden Mother Matriarch

    This itself is a fascinating read from one of Perry of Maiden Mother Matriarch, one of the most incisive writers out there today (here’s her bio). (Side note:May I just say that I pre-ordered “The Case Against the Sexual Revolution” months ahead of its US release, because I happened upon the UK version doing podcast research on a completely different topic. That also is a tremendous read, and I believe my oldest child has it in her apartment, if anyone wants to borrow it!).

    So read this story, especially Perry’s take on the situation, which I share. I also read the Kat Rosenfeld piece she references, and it left me somewhat dissatisfied. Reading what Perry had to say helped me to solidify a more nuanced response.

    Can we use the term “darned old skunk” (or whatever choice bad words we want to use) to describe this evil man? Yes, yes, of course we can. There is a time to rejoice in bad words.

    Interesting/Notable:

    Apropos of today’s post, there are two recent free articles by Claire Swinarsk of Letters from a Catholic Feminist. If you could only read one, read the first. I so appreciate getting to support gifted and hardworking writers.

    If You Want to Stop Trafficking ….
    The Persistence of Bro-Choice Feminism

    An Action Item: Check Your Passport Renewal Date

    I was about to sign up for the UK “electronic travel authorization” (it became a requirement this month). And then I saw that my passport expires in less than a year. Since I plan for some foreign travel this year, I decided to renew my passport right now.

    The reason for this is that some countries, I think the UK among them, and many European countries, will not allow you to stay there if your passport expires in less than six months. And I am getting close to that!

    Fortunately, I am eligible to renew online, but the photo requirements are quite the challenge. I will succeed in getting a correct photo (no glasses! Light background! Etc) and submitting it soon, but I encourage you to check your own passport renewal and take care of it this week. You know that you will be glad that you did!

  • Happy Pride & Prejudice Day

    Happy Pride & Prejudice Day

    The Mom Weekly Volume 77: January 28, 2025

    You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the website here. https://themomweekly.com/

    Notes:

    I had another newsletter ready to go this week, that I really want to share!

    But I noticed very late that today is “Pride & Prejudice” Day! It’s the 212th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen’s beloved novel.

    And since 2025 is the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth (her birthday is December 16), there will doubtless be several newsletters this year that center on her.

    Remember how much I love Jane Austen, and also how much I love you!

    Mom

    Happy Pride & Prejudice Day

    Let’s take a little detour, shall we, to enjoy an especially wonderful exchange from Chapter 56 of Pride & Prejudice. This exchange is between the haughty Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Elizabeth Bennet. This is towards the end of Pride & Prejudice. I initially was going to have the entire exchange as text in this newsletter, but I realized that this scene 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride & Prejudice captures virtually every word.

    So here it is!

    Now, some fun and funny recent P&P related social media. I promise you that these are really worth watching for some comic relief.

    What I mean when I say I like club remixes:

    Jake Phillips, the “Country Bumpkin” who records audiobooks for his YouTube channel of classics read in a Southern accent. Wonderful!

    Finally, is a rendition of a portion of “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes. I have such a vivid memory of Ideagirl memorizing this for declamation back in grade school. Some of the rest of us can still recite at least “The highwayman came riding, riding, riding, the highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.”

    Interesting/Notable:

    52 Places to Go in 2025 (NY Times Gift Article)

    Note the first location!!! I really hope to make this happen in 2025.

    An Action Item: Get Started on Your Taxes

    Yes, it’s getting to be that time of year… I hope you each have a physical folder that you can refer to to complete your taxes. I prefer to print out the 1099s and similar forms that we get, but usually I can upload them directly to my tax software.

    You don’t have to finish your taxes, but gathering your materials is a good first step. I will actually have another tax-related tip in February, so you may want to hold off on actually filing, even if you are ready. But if your taxes are relatively simple, go ahead and file, and you will have that off your plate.