GetSheila

Life Reboot

The morning after the end of tax season:

1. Sleep ‘til 8:00? check
    
2. Shower? check
    
3. Forego blow drying hair in favor of a Medusa Day? check
    
4. Put on fresh PJ’s and vow to stay in them all day? check
    
5. Turn mattress and ponder whether it might be time for a new one (even though those commercials that claim your mattress doubles in weight due to dust mites and their poo are bullcrap)? check
    
6. While thinking about bedding, fondly recall the story a partner’s wife told at the Tax Season Survivor’s Party last night about knowing he was getting stressed out by tax season when he complained the new sheets were “too loud,” as in they make too much noise when you move. 
    
7. Determine Medusa Hair is just too awful so blow dry just the front in compromise? check
    
8. Think about catching up on personal finances in Quicken, responding to Evite invitations, and doing various other “shoulds” but decide they can wait one more day? check
    
9. Email funny picture of other partner to partner’s wife as proof he cannot destroy the evidence just by putting the original hard copy in the shredder? check 
    
   Ed Spinardi broke his hand “blocking a charge” but we got tired of hearing him tell the same story every hour to each client he walked down the hall, so we put this on his office door and changed the story daily:

I FELL DOWN PLAYING BASKETBALL BUT THAT STORY IS TOO BORING SO TODAY WE’RE GOING WITH:

I tripped over a cat toy chasing my cat Marleau

I arm-wrested my partner Randie Jones…and lost

I thought I was tougher than I really am

I had a freak photocopier accident

I told my last client how much tax he owed

I asked my last client how old she was

I hit my hand on a rock while bungee jumping

I landed wrong while sky diving

I had an altercation with a surly IRS agent

There were many, many more but these are the highlights.

10.   Contemplate which of the awesome leftovers I brought home from DeAngelo’s to have for lunch and decide on the Crab Ravioli with Pink Vodka Sauce because resistance if futile? check
 

I LOVE the day after tax season ends!

 

Technorati Tags: tax follies,tax season,deangelos,survivors party

Lessons learned this tax season

1. When the computer doesn’t connect to the network, try changing out the cheapest item first – the network cable – before freaking out. Celebrate with tea and biscuits when it works.
    
2. It is most gratifying when confronted by a grumpy boss – “Show me where this number came from. I don’t like the way you enter things, they get lumped all together” – to point to the exact location in the workpapers where that number came from and say, “Why don’t you look on the next page of that tax form, where you will find the “missing” numbers in detail not, in fact, all lumped together.” Bonus points for tossing “and don’t be mean to me!” over your shoulder as you flounce out of the room.
    
3. It is possible to not work until midnight-thirty during tax season yet still get a shitload of work done.
    
4. Stale donuts are a perfectly acceptable dinner food.
    
5. My iPad deux is awesome. That doesn’t really have anything to do with tax season. I just thought I’d mention it.
    
6. Many people STILL prefer to write things out by hand on lined paper (like from high school, yo), which must take hours because they have to write the descriptions, too, rather than drop the numbers into the proforma’d tax organizer we send out with their prior year information in the margin showing them where to put this year’s data. And these are not just old people who don’t like change. DO. NOT. UNDERSTAND. 
    
7. Some really pleasant people keep horrible records while some assholes keep good ones. Go figure.
    
8. The same people procrastinate and bring their stuff in at the last minute every year, yet expect us to get their return done by the filing deadline. I have learned the word “extension” this year. I have known that word for quite some time but have not used it judiciously in the past. Can I get your return done by the deadline? Possibly, but I’m not going to. I’ll work up the numbers as best I can to determine if you need to pay something in with your extension to avoid penalties later, but that’s it. I’ll finish it properly in the next few weeks. “Lack of planning on your part does not create an emergency on mine.” Unfortunately, my boss prefers to get it done and out the door since we have to work up the numbers anyway, thereby rewarding the Latey McLaterson and guaranteeing he’ll be just as late next year. Some days I don’t like him very much.
    
9. What happens in D.C. doesn’t stay in D.C.
    
10. Working less per #3 and going home at a decent hour does is lovely, but does not eliminate losing track of which day of the week it is (because you’re working all 7 of them), missing hair appointments you were sure you had on your calendar, and the inability to get to the grocery store or do the laundry.
     

 

Technorati Tags: tax follies,10 things,lists

30 Days of Me

My kinder-friend Deidre just finished posting something every day for a month, which she got from this person, who is brilliant. Since tax season is kicking my ass – as per usual – and whatever free time I do have is spent stalking my Facebook friends, I’m going to give it a shot here.

So starting tomorrow, prepare for more than you ever wanted to know about me. (My apologies in advance.)

Here are the topics for the next 30 days:

Day 1 - Introduce, recent picture, 15 interesting facts
Day 2 - Meaning behind your blog name
Day 3 - Your first love
Day 4 - Your parents
Day 5 - Your favorite recipes
Day 6 - A picture of something that makes you happy
Day 7 - Favorite movies
Day 8 - A place you've traveled to
Day 9 - A picture of your friends
Day 10 - Something you're afraid of
Day 11 - Favorite TV shows
Day 12 - What you believe
Day 13 - Goals
Day 14 - A picture you love
Day 15 - Bible verse
Day 16 - Dream house
Day 17 - Something you're looking forward to
Day 18 - Something you regret
Day 19 - Something you miss
Day 20 - Nicknames
Day 21 - Picture of yourself
Day 22 - What's in your makeup bag
Day 23 - Favorite vacation
Day 24 - Something you've learned
Day 25 - Put your iPod on shuffle, first 10 songs
Day 26 - Picture of your family
Day 27 - Pets
Day 28 - Something that stresses you out
Day 29 - 3 Wishes
Day 30 - a picture

Day 15 should be interesting. I do actually own a bible. Guess I’ll have to crack it open.

 

Technorati Tags: 10 things,lists

Update on mom

If you’ve Friended my sister Karen on Facebook, you are up to date with our 82 year old mom’s status. If not, here is your executive summary:

1. Kidney stone went walkabout, landing her in the hospital up in Idaho, where she was visiting my sister Karen;
2. Two additional stones found still up in her kidney. All three stones of massive proportions, as kidney stones go;
3. Master Blaster kidney stone pulverizer procedure scheduled for one week later, when machine comes back to town (the perils of living in BFE);
4. In the meantime, developed an infection due to blockage caused by walkabout stone, which turned into sepsis/septicemia;
5. Almost died;
6. Released into Karen’s custody after 6 days in hospital;
7. Gradually gaining back her strength and appetite (today is Day 5 at Karen’s);
8. Not much interested in eating, watching TV, reading, talking on the phone, or getting on the computer (children very worried about that last one, computer-addict that she is);
9. Complains about being bored and pissed at her body for betraying her. (Getting better!);
10. Master Blaster scheduled for this coming Friday. Sees the doc early in the week to verify she is strong enough to undergo the procedure.

I’m not sure why I feel compelled to refer to her as “my 82 year old mom” any time I write about her. I think I’m just happy the females in my family are long-lived (in general) and she deserves to be recognized for her octogenarian status.

BTW, I just looked it up and I am a quadragenarian, being in my 40’s. Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it?

 

Technorati Tags: mom

Life by the Numbers

1 preggers co-worker who looks so cute waddling around the office with her big belly, yet so tired and uncomfortable (It’s okay that I said “waddling” because she doesn’t read my blog. Shh…nobody tell her.)

2 computer monitors at work is still not enough. DAMN YOU, TECHNOLOGY.

3 days into a new anti-depressant regimen, 4 to 6 weeks before I stop wanting to kill people.

4 TV’s in the house and sometimes I don’t turn a single one on for days.

5 days too early to get the Kindle 2 $70 price drop refunded. Bastards.

6 months before tax season starts all over again. God I need a vacation.

7 days off remaining in the year for official holidays. Not that I’m counting.

8 glasses of water a day, even if I do have to pee every 10 minutes.

9 days later and still my neck and arm pain won’t go away. I start physical therapy this week. It sucks to get old yet I’m not even 50. Holy crap, is this what I have to look forward to? Come on, number 3!

10 pounds to lose. Okay more, but I am taking baby steps and setting achievable goals.

 

 

Technorati Tags: 10 things,lists,life by the numbers

10 Things I Discovered This Weekend

1. Arnold (the town) and Big Trees (the State park) are a mere two hour drive from Merced, even though Google Maps says it will take three.
    
2. I can hike for four and a half hours without incident, aside from the occasional burning sensation in my hips and having to replace conversation with laboring-to-suck-in-air during hill ascension.
    
3. “Without incident” would almost be funny on Day Two as my shin and calf muscles scream at me, if not for the recollection that Day Three is usually worse.
    
4. There is such a thing as frozen meatballs you simply nuke in the microwave then plop on to your spaghetti. And they even taste good. Eureka!
    
5. Thanks to my friend Astrid and her Cranium Hoopla “Soundstage” clue (think: Charades,) I will never be able to watch a Pillsbury Doughboy commercial with a straight face again.
    
6. Some vacation rentals require you to bring not only your own towels (!!) but your own bed linens, too. WTF? Then you find a mysterious, locked closet you just know contains towels, bed linens, and dry goods.
    
7. I am not very quiet when I find myself wide awake and bored while other people are trying to nap before dinner after a hard day of hiking. I should have brought better reading material.
    
8. Two identical plastic laundry baskets are better than one plastic one and one wicker one that snags clothing and sheds twigs. Why I did not buy a second plastic one years ago is beyond me. Must be vestiges of growing up in a house where two of anything you had to pay cold, hard cash for was an unnecessary luxury.
    
9. The cats will not wither away and die if I leave them alone for two nights in a row, as long as I fill their food and water bowls to overflowing and leave the toilet lids up, just in case.
    
10. Laundry still does not wash itself while I am away. Dammit.
     

 

Technorati Tags: 10 things

10 Reasons to be stressed out this holiday season

1. Christmas cards. It is 8 days before Christmas and you haven’t even bought Christmas cards, much less signed, addressed, stamped and mailed them.
2. Office party. In past years the Christmas party has always been on a Saturday night. You wonder if you are supposed to wear your work clothes to the party since it is right after work on a Friday night this year. You remember Friday is Casual Day at work and everyone wears jeans. You decide to get poop-wrapped-in-straw for the gift exchange game. That’ll teach em.
3. Office party gift. Your office Christmas party is Friday night and you have yet to shop for an under-$30 gift for the steal-a-gift-from-your-coworker game you play every year. Cat poop, check. Now to shop for some straw.
4. Hosting Christmas. You are hosting Christmas at your house this year (maybe) yet you decided to rip apart your kitchen after Thanksgiving and it is not yet put back together.
5. The Dentist. You had some extra cash to spend on Christmas but then the dentist filled a cavity on one side of your mouth and installed a crown on the other. Your company has no dental insurance and you have already reached your paltry $250/year dental reimbursement limit. You decide to put an extra heap of poop in the straw at #2.
6. Family Gifts. No one wants to do Christmas this year. “Let’s spend the money we would use for family gifts on ourselves and call it a gift from each other.” You have tried this before and no one ever buys themselves something. Even when you do, it is just not Christmas when there are no presents to open. Then some asshole buys you a gift anyway but you didn’t buy them one because you were following the rules. So then you feel bad. Merry Christmas.

Okay, that is only 6 things to be stressed out this holiday season. I am sure you can add to the list. I will update the post with your ideas. Hit me, Santa baby.

 

Technorati Tags: christmas,holiday stress,10 things

10 Things I Learned Installing Ceiling Fixtures

I plugged the very last hole in my ceiling this weekend with a big fat fan. Hurrah! Take THAT, PG&E. A few things I learned along the way:

1. CEILING FANS. Installing your first ceiling fan is hard. Installing a ceiling fan after that, not so much. Installing an expensive ceiling fan after having installed a cheap one is even easier because it comes with all kinds of helpful things, like a hook to hold the motor up near the ceiling while you, lonely installer with only two hands, connect the wiring. The hook also supports one end of the 25lb motor while you tighten the screws on the other side. 
   
   My boss told me more expensive fans are easier to install but I did not believe him. Oh me of little faith.
   
   
2. LIGHT FIXTURES. Installing a mere light fixture after installing ceiling fans is a cakewalk.
   
   
3. ATTICS. Attics are dirty. And hot. And lack proper walkways and lighting. But if you are installing a ceiling fan, you MUST go up there to inspect or install extra bracing to support the weight of the fan. If you do not, the fan WILL come down one day and squash whatever (or whomever) happens to be below it at the time.
   
   
4. DRILLING. Never stand directly beneath your drill when drilling into the ceiling unless you want plaster dust stuck to your by-now sweaty face, neck, upper chest, and in your bra.
   
   Tip: Drill a hole in the bottom of a disposable plastic drinking cup and insert your drill from the bottom when drilling into the ceiling. The cup will catch any falling debris and keep the dust under control. (Gotta love that Amy Matthews and the DIY Network.)
   
   
5. TOO LONG IS BETTER THAN TOO SHORT. Never shorten anything - not chain, not wires, not anything - until you are completely finished and know FOR CERTAIN you do not need that extra length.
   
   
6. CHAIN LINK. Opening and closing chain links is an exercise in frustration. I found a site that told me to hold one end with pliers (after protecting it with a towel so you do not damage the finish), then insert a screw driver into the other side and use leverage to bend it up or down. This worked, sort of, but I could not get it open quite far enough to fit easily over the big ends to which I had to attach it nor could I quite get it closed back perfectly with no gaps. Bother.
   
   
7. REMOTE CONTROL CEILING FANS. These suckers are a nightmare to install because the receiver, extra wires, and J-hook all have to fit into the tiny canopy at the ceiling with virtually no wiggle room. The bracket is only about the size of the ceiling opening and can edge up into the opening if you are not careful, making it hard to get the canopy aligned with the mounting screws that are now practically embedded in the ceiling.
   Also, many (all?) of these fans are ONLY operated by the remote, i.e. no pull chains, so if the remote goes out, too bad. Or as in my case, if you cannot get it to turn on when you finish installation, you have no way to determine if it is a problem with the remote or the power connections without taking it all apart again.
   
   If I was going to have to take the GODDAMN fan apart one more time it was going back to the GODDAMN store. (See #10 and do as I say, not as I do.)
   
   
8. DRY FIT. Do as much as you can on the floor first. Dry fit anything that inserts into another part to find out BEFORE your neck is kinked and you have lost all blood flow to your fingers whether you need to maneuver around any protruding objects or wrap the wires a certain way to get everything to fit properly.
   
   
9. GOT POWER? Verify the fixture has power before putting on the pretty parts, like fan blades and glass shades, so you have less to take back off if you have troubleshooting to do.
   
   
10. PATIENCE, PATIENCE, PATIENCE. Patience is not only a virtue, it is a requirement when installing ceiling fixtures, with or without a fan. Take your time. Take breaks. Stay hydrated and have your party beverage of choice available when the job is done.
    

I cannot express how immensely gratifying it is to install ceiling fans and light fixtures myself. To someone who does this sort of thing all the time, that may seem silly, but I have a new skill now. I feel empowered and motivated and, um, OW…since when do I have muscles THERE?

Good thing I have a hot tub.

Have you installed any ceiling fixtures? Got any tips or stories?

Technorati Tags: install ceiling fan,install ceiling fixture,10 things

What did I miss while I was gone?

I stopped writing for a few mere months and now suddenly it is hard. Who knew?

Since tax season ended, I want to tell you I:

1. Used my overtime money to end hunger in a third world country re-named "GetSheilaLand" in my honor;
2. Had so much overtime money left after that I paid off my house;
3. Got a boyfriend;
4. Remodeled my house;
5. Started a rigorous exercise program and am now slim and healthy.

But here is what really happened:

1. Used my overtime money to replace my "it's so old it's Harvest Gold - crawl inside the drum to reach the lint screen - give it three extra go's at the end of each cycle to get the clothes actually dry" dryer with a brand new digitally programmable steam dryer on a pedestal;
2. Had a chunk of change to put down against my Prius loan but got depressed when I realized it will still take me over a year to pay off the balance;
3. Got a Wii;
4. Moved all my furniture around so the living room is now actually the living space and the family room - the only carpeted room in the house - is now the exercise room, complete with formerly unused treadmill from the bedroom and yoga DVD's;
5. Have been on the treadmill a total of two times since tax season ended but I do still do yoga every morning and am now adding it to my evenings. Some days are more bendy than others.

Sooooooo, I feel a tad out of touch these days. Did I miss anything good?

Tags: tax season follies

Things That Shattered My Rose Colored Glasses: School Attendance

I always thought I was required to attend school because it was important. Then one day I asked myself WHY it was important. Was it because the public school system cares about my education? Not missing a single day of school is rewarded with a plaque at graduation - A PLAQUE! - so that must be it, right?

But that cannot be it, can it? Why? Why is it important? Maybe it is because I proved I had the fortitude to keep illness at bay enough to drag my sorry, sick ass to school so as not to miss a single moment of state-funded education, yet thereby exposing all of my fellow students to my germitude. Or perhaps it is because I opted not to attend that family funeral so as to maintain the perfection of my attendance record, yet thereby broke my grandmother's heart and branded myself the family black sheep for all eternity.

No! It is because the public school system receives its money from the public coffers based on attendance records, that is why. Less kids attending school means less money from the government.

I felt cheap and naive when I discovered this, and that was just a few short years ago.

Now that I am an adult, with friends I knew as teenagers who are now teachers, I think, "OMG, were MY teachers former partyers that produced a degree suddenly granting them instant respectability and the authorization to influence the minds of today's youth and tomorrow's leaders? OMG!"

And then I think, "Thank god I never had children."

Followed shortly by "OMG, I still have to live in a world with these people and their progeny in charge, OMG!"

And people wonder why I drink.

******************************

In case you were wondering, no, I did not receive a plaque at graduation to commemorate my flawless attendance. In fact, I ditched school one whole day my Freshman year in high school. A friend and I walked the two miles to my house because I had a single, working mom so the house was empty. We spent the day calling car dealerships to inquire as to the pricing of hot, fast cars. Oh, the wickedness.

...

Shut up.

Tags: 10 things, school attendance