Less Hustle More Coffee

Ahhhhhh finally blog time. I have sat down to blog about 4 times this morning. It went something like this….

…..oh wait, I need coffee (I always either have coffee or wine – or sip something when blogging – it’s like eating and watching TV)

…..oh darn, maybe I should take the dogs out before the rain hits

…..oh let me reboot the washer so that can get going

…..hmmmm, I don’t remember seeing that cross I made for the cake – that is going to bother me – I can’t blog til I know that hasn’t been thrown away.

So here I am, sipping decaf b/c I’ve already had 2 cups of the real stuff. I’m listening to some relaxing piano station that Alexa is playing. It’s nice in here with dogs by my side – well one of them anyway – Roger still thinks I’m going back and forth in the house and soon he’ll settle back here when he realizes I’ll be here a while.

It’s rare to have time to blog these days. I’m kinda shocked I’ve not had blog time to tell you the truth. I really like the new job – matter of fact I love it – but right now it is taking a lot of hours. I’m still coming around the learning curve on some of it, but mainly it seems it takes most of the week to do the payroll job and I have to cram tax time either before work, during lunch or after work – when it comes to quarter end stuff anyway. So it’s taken a month of extra work to get through it and I’m still not through. Several more states to file but should be able to toss that off the plate next week after another set of really long days. I’ve been told it will get easier. I can see that it will to some degree. I have spent most of my time on one state that just has an ugly return and it even has my bosses stumped and has required hours of their time to figure out. So I wasted a lot of time there. But – I was told I was headed in the right direction anyway. Most of the quarterly filings I have figured out on my own. Most states have the witholding tax returns and the unemployment returns so I did the witholding tax returns in all states first and did a reconciliation report and had to learn how to do that. I’m still not 100% sure I understand how ALL the report is put together but I learned what numbers needed to match (reconcile) and where to pull numbers to put into the report. So a huge learning curve this week on top of payroll and the normal tax payments and paying garns and uploading 401k. All done and a vacation day to spare. I worked hard and extra to be able to have 8 hours in a row off, lol. A lot of trouble if you asked most anybody.

Momma keeps saying “Well it doesn’t look like to me, that this job is slowing down any on it’s hours”.

I keep saying “It’ll get better – I’m just working on xxx, yyy, zzz.” And I know she is thinking that it’s always something. And it has been. I will admit I have had those same thoughts and if my pay goes down and I am working longer hours – will I be ok with that? I guess that remains to be seen. I’ll have to do the math and we’ll see if it gets any better. I think we are ALL STILL WAITING for the hours to work out. I still have faith. But now even another excuse – it’s the holidays so there will be strange hours worked through December just to be able to get in my remaining holiday days and the holiday days fall oddly so that I’ll be working weekends to get it done. But I can’t complain b/c my boss is going to have to work on the weekend to the Thanksgiving payroll done. I feel horrible but very grateful that she is sacrificing so I get to see my daughter at Thanksgiving. That brings tears to my eyes that someone would do that for me w/o complaint. I told her I owed her one big time. She is my hero and not many people would be that giving. So b/c of that I will try my best not to complain about the hours going through the holidays.

And I am grateful every day that I am in a job that has a definite answer. A definite end to the “to do”. A payroll WILL BE closed. A 401k WILL BE uploaded. A reconciliation will have a definite number. A pay check will be created. There are no open ends – well maybe in one state that has crazy laws where no one can find the answers, lol lol lol – but other than that there is a DEFINITE finish line. And I love love love every minute of what I’m doing. Sometimes it’s like working a puzzle doing the filings, finding the numbers. It reminds me of math homework. I loved doing math. I was not a huge math whiz but I always liked it. And made A’s and B’s in it. I was not good at Corporate Finance and the more advanced accounting and financial classes and quantitative methods and statistics. But I rocked the main accounting classes. Anyway I am just grateful to be doing something I love instead of something that totally frustrated me at every turn. No wonder I was mad all the time and negative and in a bad mood – I was just around only negative things happening or messing up my world, or no communication, or no cooperation, or complete opposite things happening from what needed to happen, and the inability to control anything. My persona was not built for that. Sure I learned to be a rock in a mass confused explosion area – lol – but I’m not meant to wear a hard hat and deal with life’s crises every second of the day. Numbers on a page don’t talk back, and don’t say no. I don’t care if the numbers on a page or computer screen ignore me. They are meant to. I am not longer on an island by myself trying to build a raft to sail around on – I’m a part of a team – and a good one. And that makes me happy. So if there are longer hours – it’s THAT that gets me through. I am at least working toward something I can see and hold it my hand that doesn’t fight me while working on it. And my world is a more positive place and I’m liking that I can be me now and not have to try to push positivity all the time to try and be more positive. I became so cynical and was holding in some anger and it feels good to be able to release all that negativity and wave it good bye and now that I have I see what life can be like and I only wish I had done it sooner. I am so resilient apparently that I have become willing to put up with anything. One can never be sure that change would bring delight. And that is what is scary. But after praying and God “leading the path” – I knew it was going to be ok.

Someone told me they were proud of what I have done and that I worked hard and didn’t miss a beat. That made me feel so good. I appreciated that. And I told them – well – it was either sink or swim and “failure” is NOT in my vocab. So I did and am doing what it takes to succeed.

So all that said, here I sit on a vacation day and can blog til my heart is content. However, I do have a few things I want and must accomplish but the main things are making that dessert I’ve talked about for over a month! And getting my nails done. It’s hard to do that after work during the month after quarter end. And I have major laundry to do and house cleaning.

I’ve not worked at all on my “to list” I last posted. Just no time. And I WILL have to begin working less hours though – and somehow will have to get through the Christmas shopping, decor and all that. We are busy on the weekends and I’m busy during the week working so not sure how where the time will come from but God says only focus on today for now and not be anxious for the rest of it as today has it’s own needs. So I’ll take that approach. I try to plan and prepare ahead though. But it’ll get all figured out.

So let’s get on with this blog entry – with some pics from the past week. I talk about working hard, but we did cram some fun in there at times. Wednesday night I did leave work early to have a beer with a coworker and catch up – which meant the world to me to get some time out to talk and catch up and I went from that to our dinner with Steve, a former vendor and friend from George’s former work. We still go out when he comes to town.

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After we got home, had to change the bed sheets as Roger had thrown up in the bed. It’s not been a good week for Roger. I had gone to the store Tuesday night for yogurt after working a stupid long day but it’s like having a baby – you do what you need to do. So the yogurt helped, but he did have a couple of issues – he’s getting better daily as the big D is going away and getting more normal. So carpets have been cleaned with our machine but we’ll be renting the professional one very soon. And the sheets have been replaced and so that was a late couple of nights and then early morning work days.

Also, I didn’t need to leave the building Thursday but I did go to lunch with some of our crew to Santa Fe, as it was one of our coworker’s last day and so we all went out to share a good bye lunch with her and I ordered a salad to “be good” but look what came out. This big huge salad, lol with a big bowl of dressing. I couldn’t eat it all but I ate the top (not all of the cheese). It was so good.

George and I went to eat pizza last night before our trip to the grocery as he has been wanting to try Calabria since they remodeled and have the 2 brick ovens. No pics of the pizza as we dove into it to fast and devoured it. Yes it is good and their upgrade the restaurant took it from a dark place to a very bright and inviting Italian ambiance. Loved it. Also ordered a wine that was divine. I hate red wine to have a sour taste and so many of the restaurants serve cheap bad reds.

So I think I’m going to try to find that one and get a bottle. I also may switch from Pinot Noir as my “go to” red, to Merlot. It was heavenly and I sipped slowly.

So we caught up at dinner a bit on our jobs and headed to the store. And I was worn out when we got back. I put up the groceries while George took the doggies out and my head hit the pillow and once George was finished playing his guitar and turned the lights out, I could sleep. I thanked God for my pets, my house, my life, my family, my new job and friends and it doesn’t get any better – well of course unless you send an RV and let me go adventure – but in your will and your timing. I’m not even sure I made it to Amen, but it was a good prayer and a good sleep.

At 4 a.m. or something around that time, my alarm didn’t go off b/c it wasn’t supposed to. I remembered to turn it off for my vacay day today. However – ummmm, how do you turn your dog’s internal clock off? lol She came over and put her paw on my shoulder and pushed and I didn’t stir and she did it again and I said “not now”. She argued with a bark and then another. I put my pillow over my head. She laid down for a while. But once George was up she began barking loudly and in my ear telling me to get up. So I mean…she has me trained. Who can sleep through that???? so George got out the shower and took them out while I made coffee and started up my Tropical Farmville game to wake up.

The coffee was good and I have laundry going and the dishwasher going. No I’m ready to shower and reboot laundry again and get started on my dessert. I’m then going out for nails to be done. Working in files and pulling out the green bar reports (those old dinosaur reports still exist in our world) – but I broke a nail on them. It was time to get them done anyway. And then I’ll come home and either cook dinner or set something for George to cook – we haven’t decided who or what yet.

I do want to try to get the house spiffy if I can, b/c it needs some TLC. And perhaps work on my “to do list” but as always the day is over planned so I’ll do the most important things first. Tomorrow begins our Spain weekend with Don and Lisa and so I’ll come back Sunday night with lots of pics as we experience food from Spain.

George gets his Honda Accord from Carvana Sunday. So that worked out so I don’t have to leave work early. I want to be there for it. It’s an important event to put the coin in and watch it come down the conveyor. It’s a milestone event in our family being that we retain the cars til they become Flinstone like. lol It’ll be George’s first one with the back up camera and bluetooth – and it has leather seats. 😉 I’m so excited for him. And he’s trading in Granny’s van – not much value left. But today is his last trip to work in IT. Kinda sad. A lot of memories of Granny and Granda with that car. It was a really good vehicle for them. I liked it til it no longer had AC and I couldn’t do that long drive without AC. Anyway, better get going on my day. It’s already 9:18 but I’ve enjoyed the heck out of blogging til my heart’s content. It’s like talking to an old friend. And if old friends are reading and I hope they are -then it really is. lol If you are reading let me know. I love to hear from you. It makes blogging not such a lonely concept. lol

What are you all doing this weekend?