Good morning! I thought I would pop in mid-week and give an update. Mainly just working hard and trying to keep up with life.
Our neighbor did pass Sunday and I have heard the services will be up north where they are originally from. A celebration of Life will be held here in town later with friends here. It is really sad and shook our neighborhood. I look next door with sadness and a little bit of anxiety not knowing what to do. The Lord laid it on my heart to make two fudge pies, but I will wait til they return. And their church has been bringing food for many nights. I’m not sure of the schedule. Also I need to get George to swap numbers with our neighbor so we can communicate. Pam (the wife that passed) and I had each others number and also FB messenger and talked whenever things were going on, letting each other know we were away, asking each other to do things like turn the crock pot off and so forth. We even chatted about the neighborhood skunk. She was such a sweet person and loved her two boys. We will be taking them dinner at some point too.
So, let’s see…the payroll is closed for last week. My goal is always to get 4 plants closed in one day b/c that allows me more time to work on the taxes and do extra things besides payroll related things. If I don’t get that done it’s harder to find time to work on the taxes. Mainly doing the tax part I have to come in early or stay later to do – and work it in here or there. So getting it all done in one day gives me a little more time unless the plants have missed getting their PTO’s in or such in which I spend my spare time cutting checks and fixing instead of doing more productive things. Sad when that happens but everyone is human I guess. We don’t want unhappy employees on pay day b/c no one is happy when that happens. So I’m trying to plug away at this quarter end/year end thing. I’m finished with the plan’t withholding returns across the states, but need to work on our Transport’s withholding returns. They don’t take too long but every state is different. Most of the time the worst part is finding where to file it on some states. Ohio is weird and so is Oregon. Oregon takes three people to get it filed. lol Most states have a simple layout. Ohio and Oregon could learn some lessons, but they have extra local taxes and that is where it kinda gets a little more challenging. So hoping the plants have done a good job with their payroll (I always know on Friday) and I can make progress with these withholding returns that are left and also begin working on the reconciliation spreadsheet and then begin working on the unemployment returns. And then the year end w-2 filings that some states have you do on top of everything else just as a reconciliation feature – (if you missed any reporting or tax paying they have one last chance of making sure you paid the taxes, lol).
So yesterday doing payroll I kept getting hung up where the system wouldn’t let me finish. It was so frustrating. It kept happening and I would go around asking “is anyone in the system?” I emailed across the company to see if people in the system and finally had to go and have IT fix it. Come to find out it was being worked on as someone was doing some programming. Only one of us at a time can be in certain parts of the system. I figured I wouldn’t get closed with all four plants due to those continual delays and even stopped to eat lunch hoping whoever was in it would be done. I finally got through though and was ready to head home at that point. No tax paying for me after closing four payrolls and fighting with the system all day. My brain was done and my frustration was high and my tolerance was lowering with each thing that would go wrong. At 4 I began locking up and at 4:30 I was out of there. The main problem was that I’d not slept good the night before as the storms rolled through and Maisy was scared. I was awake numerous times between midnight and 4 – just disruptive sleep. Not only to mention that it was “Testy Tuesday” coming off of a Monday Cleanse. If the cleanse didn’t work so well, I wouldn’t do them, but they do release fat and increase metabolism. So lack of sleep and lack of food intake on Monday make Tuesday “Testy”. We called it Testy Tuesday. I have less of a tolerance for nonsense on those days, and my expectations of everything performing around me as it should in my world is “quite high” – where as other days it’s less taxing on me and I can shrug it off with a “well that sucks but oh well it’s life” and go on. Because we all know that life never goes perfectly even when you try to make it perfect. All one really can do is what they can control – and in today’s world – that is minimal.
So at night this week, I’ve watched Sister Wives. They are back on. I’ve been able to watch it on the iMac. I have a chair back here and I can sit and watch my show while George watches sports up front on the big TV. I enjoy watching the Sister Wives. I don’t believe that is the lifestyle God intends much as I don’t believe that a gay lifestyle is what God intends. I’m getting that from the Bible which I believe to be God’s inspired word. But they are people and it hurts my heart that people are so rude to them. I’ve watched and learned the personalities of each sister wife and I really like them a lot as people. They are kind and do not want to hurt anyone. It makes me mad that people are so rude to them. So they are in Flagstaff now and have a beautiful property. I am glad I’m able to watch it on the iMac through TLC website, and through Xfinity which is through my Comcast cable company. I had to sign in to a link that TLC gave to select my cable service and chose Xfinity and then signed in through that and had to download flash for it to work. It led me through each step but within 3 to 5 minutes I was streaming. It let me do the first one w/o all that – the day before – but yesterday after they have you hooked you have to go through your service or pay for viewing through TLC. I’m glad I didn’t have to pay extra.
So during commercials I often “people watch” and it’s especially exciting to do this over coffee the mornings I don’t blog b/c the over seas cams where people are already up and moving about – you can watch more. Here’s a few snapshots (screen shots) of things I’m watching through the webcam app.
Look at that huge chess board above. lol
The above is my favorite. I like to pop in and check in on them. It’s a family of 4 and they have 3 dogs. It seems funny to be able to pop in to someone’s living room and see what they are doing. I love to watch them and the doggies. They love their pets like we love ours. Seems like a sweet family. I watched her wrapped gifts and get ready for Christmas and even watched their little Christmas party. She worked hard getting ready for it. I’m not sure where Vineland is, but I pop in on them just about every night during commercials. It’s like watching a silent sit com. lol
This one has become a favorite. I could have sworn I saw Edward Snowden in there one day. I should have done a screen shot. I’m not sure where he is now? But anyway this has become one of my favorites. The workers faces are familiar to me lol. It’s fun to watch them make the coffee drinks and work the bar. And fun watching the people come in and out. It’s both a coffee and a tavern type place. I’d heard overseas they were not as separate as they are here in the US. Often we have our coffee shops, our breweries, and our wine bars – each with a separate focus.
The rest I’ll put in gallery style but here are some that I pop in on here and there at random. There are offices, runways/airstrips, pools, RV parks, backyards, laundry mats, city streets. It’s endless.
And then back in our own living room….lol
Oh how could I forget? Sunday I hooked up Alexa for my car. I love it. It helps with the handsfree thing. She will call Momma and drop in on George at home and will open my Audible and tell me about the weather and how traffic is b/w work and home. She will put things on the grocery list and do my reminders and even order things. I’m loving this!
So I guess I better get my make up on and head in. Much to do today.
My vacation was approved within just a few minutes. Been a long time since that happened. So Katy and I are set to go to Tulsa in March. I’m longing for just a vacation day to be able to do nothing but what I want to do – it’s been a while. A long while. Weekends don’t count. There’s too much of a pace that has to be kept on the weekend. One day quarter end will be over. Maybe I can take a day in Feb just to BEEEEEE.
Got a Christmas gift package from my sister. Was thankful for that.
Ya’ll take care!
It makes my day when I hear from you…