Good News/Bad News

Okay, so I didn't get everything done that I wanted to do. Especially sleep.

Okay, Friday was pretty awesome. I met Adin for lunch, and then the two of us went to a pottery painting place and had fun making a mess of some ceramic. (We'll get our pieces back at the end of this week, I think. I'm looking forward to seeing how awful mine turn out, or if they're actually half-decent.) And then, because the weather was so nice and warm, we had grilled meats for dinner. Yum!

I'd forgotten I had a hair appointment Saturday morning, so even though I actually went to bed more or less on time (thanks to Alex throwing a hissy fit so I took him home rather than put him to bed at the Hegemony), I was up at 8 so I could caffeinate and get over to the salon.

Hair re-colored and trimmed, I considered Penny's plea that we join the Hedge at Busch Gardens' pre-opening preview day for pass holders, and decided it was good. So we left the boys at home (Alex was still in pretty dire need of a nap) and headed out. Naturally, the park was completely packed -- we left home at 11:30. It took us 5 minutes to get to the park grounds, and then another twenty minutes to get through the parking line. And then by the time we'd made it to the back of the park to where the Hedge were having lunch, it took us another hour to get our food. (Note to self: Remember, when at Busch Gardens this summer, not to eat at "normal" mealtimes. Get a snack at noon, and have lunch at 2.)

But we did eventually get to have some fun, though Penny didn't get to do any roller coasters, as she was hoping. (There were pictures, but I haven't had time to upload them to flickr yet.) But after we left Busch Gardens, I went home and collected Alex so Matt could go to his D&D game, and then we met up with the Hedge again for dinner. Some begging had induced me to agree that Sarah could sleep over at our house, so we packed up and came home shortly after dinner, and I got all three kids to bed.

Blam! Saturday gone.

Sunday was the usual chores, mostly. We met up with the Hedge for lunch so we could give Sarah back to her dad, but other than that just lounged around the house. I made a pot roast for dinner that turned out very well, though, and I'm eagerly anticipating the leftovers. (Pot roast is always better as leftovers. I don't know why, but it's true.)

And then Monday -- yesterday -- was supposed to be my day off to really relax. Catch up on sleep, do some writing, maybe run a couple of errands. Matt looked at the calendar Sunday night and noticed a doctor appointment I'd completely forgotten about, so that was good, because otherwise I'd have missed it.

The morning got off slow, though -- I did more chatting with KT than writing (this is why I should register my copy of Freedom) and when that two hours was up, I finally guilted myself into doing our taxes.

That was a weird conglomeration of good news/bad news. Good news: We've paid down quite a chunk of the principle on our mortgage, so in 2011 we paid only half the interest we'd paid in 2010. Bad news: That drop meant that our itemized deduction was actually smaller than the standard deduction. Good news: Using the standard deduction is loads easier and lighter on the paperwork, so next year I can probably skip straight to the standard unless something happens to make me think itemizing would be a good idea again.

Good news: I actually did save the receipts from my Vistaprint orders and when I went to Roanoke Pride in September, so I could claim all that stuff as a business expense (advertising and promotion travel are allowable). Bad news: I made less than $1600 from my writing and editing combined; less than $1400 after factoring in the expenses. I won't be able to give up the Day Job any time soon. Good news: That means I got to use the "EZ" version of the self-employment form. (That would be Schedule C, for my writer friends who haven't done their taxes yet...)

Good news: We owed less than last year. Bad news: We still owed. Good news: We make enough money that we owe taxes.

Bad news: The VA form is still put together by epileptic meth addicts. Good news: The VA form still lets us claim a lot more of our daycare expenses, so we're getting a small refund from the state.

Back and forth like that. I think if I had to write them all down and add them up, the good outweighed the bad... but only just barely. Anyway, I lost a solid three hours to wading through all that paperwork. Which is nothing compared to, say, my brother and sister-in-law, who operate their own business out of their home. (Sam spent over 20 hours just gathering files and organizing things for their CPA.) But it was still three hours out of a day I'd really wanted to spend on less mentally draining efforts. Or at least, more enjoyable ones.

Then I ran some errands and ate lunch and tried to wake up a little. Later in the afternoon, I drove over to the doctor's office and had my annual boobsmashing. (I realize I am now old enough that even if I switched to a different insurance company, they're pretty much guaranteed to agree to pay for annual mammograms. I guess that's... good?)

I thought about going to bed early last night, but instead I thought I should recover some of the writing time I'd meant to have earlier in the day, so I started up Freedom (Twitter is my nemesis in the evenings) and dove into my current project. I didn't do a progressive word count, but I wrote a solid two and a half single-spaced pages, so probably 1500 words, give or take? That felt like pretty good progress. I'm only another maybe four pages from wrapping up the story, so I might make that April 1 submission deadline with it, after all. (And if not -- or if they reject it for the anthology -- I think it's good enough that a little scrub would let it stand alone.)

So that was my long weekend. Not nearly as relaxing and sleep-intensive as I'd hoped, but still (mostly, except for the taxes) pretty good.

Now, I just need a good, long nap... What? Work?

Dammit.

Lordy, Lordy

I had, quite possibly, the best possible 40th birthday. No lie.

I couldn't take the day off from work -- too much workstuff to do, alas -- but the day before my birthday was a school holiday for Penny, so I opted to work from home, which turned out to be a great decision, as Adin and Ripley were at loose ends for the day due to a cancellation from another friend, so they came over and hung out with us. We went out to lunch at Penny's favorite restaurant (Wasabi!) and then later in the afternoon, after I'd cleared a little more workstuff, we went out and had mani/pedis. (It was going to be just pedicures, but it turned out that the shop runs a combo special on Tuesdays. How do you pass that up?!) So I had freshly painted, gorgeous nails ready to go for my birthday!

 

That afternoon, Penny and Ripley did coloring and papercrafts while I did more work (see, I do actually get work done when I work from home!) and they both made me birthday cakes! Ripley's was a flat cutout of a gorgeously-decorated tiered cake (she snipped a hole at the top and tied a string in it so I could hang it up) and Penny managed to craft a 3-D paper cake, plain and smooth, decorated tastefully with a ribbon around the middle and a small sprig of fresh blueberries on top. Penny also made me a sign to hang on my office door at work, "just in case anyone doesn't know it's your birthday!"

I got up on my birthday morning to even more hugs and kisses than usual (which is really saying something, as Alex and Penny are always both very affectionate) and presents from Matt (the OOTS Dragon Tales collection, Leverage Season 3 DVDs, and an Amazon gift card!). After I took the kids to school, I went to work, where I had promised Caren that she could decorate my office and be as evil as she wanted.

Thanks to a picky customer and a snarl of workstuff and a bored kid in tow, she hadn't had time to decorate liberally, but when she came in, she brought me a little pot of very pretty peach-colored begonias, to which were attached two enormous balloons. Well, the pirate ship is enormous. The other one was only enormous in its evil, because she'd deliberately gotten one with the wrong age on it.

Diabolical! But then she went with me to meet Matt and Adin for lunch at Plaza Azteca, where we all had margaritas and tableside guacamole. We got a couple of appetizer-type things to split, because dessert was the plan! But when we got to dessert, we just couldn't narrow it down, and we were talking about all getting different things and sharing, and Matt said, "I only want to share if I can have two," and there were only six desserts on the menu anyway, so when the waiter came back for the order, I just said, "Bring us one of each!" The look on the man's face was priceless, and we all laughed when all six desserts came out and we arrayed them on the table in the middle to sample. It was awesome.

(I should have taken a picture, but I didn't think of it. Alas.)

When I got home, Matt had a final present for me, which was the completely brand new expansion pack for Cards Against Humanity that was just released on Monday! Squee! I perused the cards, and now I can't wait to give them a whirl! (Though I may just have to order the official CAH starter deck so all the cards are the same size...)

Penny made dinner -- a "sandwich salad" recipe of her own invention -- almost completely by herself (I helped her core the lettuce and I sliced carrots, but she made the rest of our salads entirely by herself, sharp knives and all!) And then Matt and Penny had picked out a coconut cake from Martin's/Ukrop's for me -- which is one of my very favorite cakes, from one of my very favorite bakeries, so 100% WIN on that! Matt and I were still full from all the guacamole and dessert we'd had at lunch, so we didn't have much cake... but that just means more leftovers!

(You know what one of the best things is about being 40 years and 1 day old? Birthday cake for breakfast.)

My parents called to wish me a happy, and throughout the day, I got a ton of well-wishes on Facebook, too, which was incredibly sweet and nice. KT "combarded" me with snarky e-cards that made me giggle, and Karen sent another e-card later in the day containing an awesome, punny joke. (Knock-knock! Who's there? Señor! Señor, who? Señor share of birthdays, haven't you?!) (Actually, there were multiple puns, and the first one was even off-color, which goes to prove that Karen understands my taste in jokes quite well. Well, of course she does; she's played Cards Against Humanity with me!)

After we got the kids to bed, Matt and I watched all the special features on the Leverage DVDs, and after Matt went to bed early to sleep off his coconut cake, I finally finished the last level of Gemcraft: Labyrinth. A fitting and perfect end to the day.

Surprise!

Wait, what's that? Who's that in your RSS feed...? Why, it's ol' Liz! Nearly thought she'd given up and left this blog to become a ghost town, decorated in out-of-date pictures and populated by only a few hardy hangers-on hoping against hope for just one more spider encounter, one more anecdote about the kids, one more tale of corporate lunacy, or even one more miserable whine.

But here I am! Not dead! Not deserted! Alive and kicking!

So what's happened in the last 12 days or so?

I eventually got the Hallowe'en decorations down and put away, and turned over all my paper turkeys to Penny for her to put up. She put a sign on the wall by the dining room: "Beaware! Turkey Atack!" and put turkeys at every place at the table (like tiny placemats), and on every chair. It was merely amusing until she said, "Do you know why I put the turkeys on the table?"

I said, "Um. To decorate for Thanksgiving?"

"They're so we can all write what we're thankful for!"

Wow. I mean... Wow. What an awesome idea, Penny! She wrote on hers, "I am thankful for my family and friends." She's come a long way since last year, when for her class play, she wrote about being thankful for puppies and ladybugs.

***

 Work has been... busy. Thus, the neglected blog. This week in particular was insane, as I had four software components and sixteen documents to edit and deliver, and a couple of those documents were in excess of 200 pages. Next week should be calmer, thank goodness, and the week after that (Thanksgiving week) is currently scheduled to be completely dead. I may take off a day or two more than I'd initially planned, if nothing extra crops up.

***

I got my first royalty check from my book last week (as those who follow the writing blog may already have seen). If seeing it up for sale made the whole thing feel official, it was the check that made it all feel real. I'm still waffling over what to do with it, though. I feel like this first one should be spent on something celebratory in nature... but what? If it had been the $50 or $100 I was expecting, I'd have gone out to eat somewhere extra-nice, but what do I do with $300?

***

I had a birthday earlier this week. My 39th, in fact. Vicki came over for dinner on Monday and brought me a present (the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince DVD -- she was shocked and dismayed to learn we didn't already have it, apparently) and then Tuesday morning I got up to extra hugs and kisses from the kids, and presents from Matt (the How to Train Your Dragon DVD and the Mouse and Dragon book and a really awesome necklace) and then I spent most of the day working from home. (Admittedly I stayed home because I was waiting for a locksmith to come and repair our front door, which apparently had gotten something stuck in it and no longer unlocked, but working from home was nice nonetheless.) That evening we had a nice dinner and chocolate cake, and then I stayed up until 1 in the morning to finish reading Mouse and Dragon. And then Wednesday, KT came over for dinner, and she gave me a mix CD (she is the undisputed champion mixer among my friends) and The Hunger Games (which she recommended recently and had been next on my to-buy list and I'm looking forward to reading).

I also got lots of Facebook waves, and cards and presents in the mail (checks and gift cards and Karen sent a gorgeous picture of a flower that she took and I've been wanting a print of since I saw it months ago). So all in all, it was one awesome birthday!

I admit to some trepidation over next year's. When I turned 30, it didn't bother me in the slightest, but for some reason, 40 sounds much more intimidating. Somewhere in my subconscious, I guess, 40 is the age at which physical appearance is no longer expected to be attractive. Which is not to say a woman over 40 can't be attractive, but where a woman in her 30s might be simply "sexy," the same woman in her 40s is "sexy despite her age." (I hasten to underscore that this is my subconscious and very much a mileage-may-vary thing.)

At any rate, it's a bit disheartening to have the magic age looming so closely, when I've only just started to have any real confidence in my appearance.

But rather than get entirely neurotic about it (I hope) I have decided that I'm going to throw myself an enormous birthday party next year. No, bigger than that. Not a joke party, with coffins to symbolize the death of my youth and "Over the Hill" balloons, but a fun party, with good food and great music and games for the kids (and possibly some for the adults) and bright, happy colors. The idea is to drown out the encroaching depression with cheerfulness. Mark your calendar; you're invited!

(Seriously. I'm considering renting a space and hiring a caterer. That big.)

 

Cruel Eld

My new reading glasses are going to take some getting used to.

I had thought, when I ordered them, that I'd be able to use them for being on the computer, as well, and thus about 85% of my working day. Alas, the reading glasses are useful to exactly the tips of my fingers when I reach my arm out in front of me, and my computer monitor at work is a good foot and a half or two feet further away than that, when I'm sitting back and have the keyboard tray pulled out.

So either I need to rearrange my desk to bring the monitor closer, or I'm switching back and forth rather more frequently than I'd like, or I'm just sucking it up and using my "normal activity" glasses for reading at work. I'm still playing around with it; I'll figure it out eventually.

They worked fairly well at the gym (I read while I'm working out) though I had to take them off whenever I was actually walking anywhere or risk bumping into things. Walking back to the car, carrying my book, iPhone, headphones, glasses, and keys in my tired and sweaty hands, I dropped the phone twice and began to consider the notion that I need a small bag to carry my workout gear around with me.

After I'd showered and changed, though, I thought I'd take a stab at writing for an hour or so, so I pulled my laptop onto my lap and then put on the reading glasses, and ZWOM! the screen was suddenly enormous and I could see the actual pixels making up the letters on the screen. No, seriously, the screen was magnified by at least 5%, which doesn't sound like much but was actually quite shocking.

I observed as much to my twitter feed, then realized that being excited about reading glasses is quite likely the oldest thing I've ever done.

And the fact that I'm hoping to spend a significant portion of the weekend sleeping and reading is not helping my case any, I suspect.

Ah, well. If I actually worried about getting old, I'd be a lot older already.

At Your Age

I remember a conversation I had with my mother -- I think I was in my early teens -- where she was talking about her doctor, and how the one phrase she hated hearing more than any other was, "At your age..."

The first time I heard it myself was when Matt and I decided we were ready to start a family. I went to my doctor for a physical and to ask if there was any particular advice we should follow in order to make it easier for us to conceive. He loaded me up with some good advice, told me to start taking prenatal vitamins immediately, and then said, "Of course, at your age, you're already past your ideal fertility period, so if you're not pregnant in six months, come back to see me."

Hahaha. Fertility turned out to be one health issue that is not on my plate; both Penny and Alex were conceived on the "first try".

I heard it again about a year or so ago, when I went to an orthopedist about my bum knee. This time, it was, "At our age, things don't heal as quickly or as well as they did when we were twenty. It's not likely this will ever get back to 100%, but we might get it to 80." At least the orthopedist being close to my own age took some of the sting out of it.

But last week, I went to the eye doctor for a routine exam. I'd thought about skipping it for a year -- my stupid vision insurance will cover new lenses every year, but new frames only every other year, and how am I supposed to see for two weeks while my frames are being refitted? But thanks to last year's bungle, I actually have two pairs of glasses, so I could get my favorites updated and wear the other pair in the meantime. (I've enjoyed having two pairs of glasses, actually. I'll miss it.) And what clinched it for me was realizing that I was squinting slightly to read the reminder card they'd sent me. So off I went.

Only that neat little plan went straight down the tubes when the doctor had mostly finished the exam. "Most glasses correct for distance vision," he said. "You need these for driving, but probably not for normal, everyday activities." Well, that's true. I've been known to forget to put my glasses on after my shower and not realize it for quite some time. "But for reading, now... Well, see, focusing up close requires the fine control of particular muscles, and usually somewhere right around your age, those muscles start to deteriorate..."

I need bifocals.

Or, since I spend a solid 12 hours a day looking at computer screens and another 2-3 hours reading on paper, and I've been told by multiple people that using bifocals with a computer is a massive pain in the neck, I need two pairs of glasses: one for driving, and one for reading. (When I'm not doing either, the doctor says I won't make my vision any worse by going without, or by wearing whichever glasses I'm most comfortable with.) Of course, I sit fairly far back from my computer screen at work, so I'll be interested to see which pair of glasses works better there.

And of course, my stupid vision insurance only covers one pair of lenses each year. So even though I'd taken in my favorite frames to get them refitted with the new prescription, I'm still having to pay for one whole pair of glasses completely out of my own pocket. And let's not pretend that the covered lenses are completely covered, or that the anti-glare treatment is covered, either. Grr.

On the plus side, a co-worker reminded me that I could submit the bill to my Flexible Spending Account, which I'd completely forgotten about. I don't usually put much into my FSA, because it's a use-it-or-lose-it account. Last year, I got the entirety of my FSA back to cover my allergy testing and a couple of months' worth of shots. So at least I'll get that back. And next year, since it looks like I'm going to have to be maintaining two pairs of glasses each year, I'll bump up the amount in my FSA.

So I should (should -- I trust nothing, after last year's six-week fiasco) be trying to figure out how to juggle two pairs of glasses in a couple of weeks, here, when they come back from the lab. Whee.

And as if that didn't have me feeling old enough, the kitchen stool tried to kill me yesterday. I got up on it to get to something on the top shelf of a cabinet, and on my way back down, I failed to put my foot solidly on the floor. I caught my instep on the side of the stool, which rolled my foot over and made me lose my balance so that I ended up dropping my full weight on damn near the top of my foot. Which doesn't work so well, so I staggered and fell sideways, barely catching myself on the edge of the sink. Which dropped at least two-thirds of my weight on my bad shoulder.

I just hung there for a moment, gasping in pain and seriously wondering if I'd just broken my ankle and whether I was going to be able to hold on to the side of the sink until Matt got home with the kids. But after a bit, my vision cleared (I hadn't realized it had gone all spotty until I could see again) and I gingerly pulled myself upright (I'm very surprised I don't have an enormous bruise along my ribs, where the edge of the sink gouged me). Matt and the kids got home just at that moment (so I guess I would have been able to hold on, after all), but when I cautiously put my foot on the floor, it ached a little but didn't hurt, so nothing seems to be broken.

I certainly strained something. I can walk, but if I try to roll my ankle to make a circle with my foot, it protests turning outward slightly, and inward quite vehemently. I'm not sure if I should continue to try, gently, to keep it stretched, or leave it the hell alone for a few days, to let it heal.

Going to the gym today will be a real treat, I bet. If nothing else, I suspect I'm off the treadmill and back to the stationary bike for the rest of the week.

I really should be more careful, at my age.