tax season

Quick Note

Hi guys! I promise that I am still alive and working on the blog, just in the hidden back room.  My day job unfortunately has me under piles of paper leaving very little time to get things posted and up.  But since it has been awhile since I posted I wanted to swing in and give you a glimpse into what has been happening in that hidden back room.

Things are in full design mode for my upcoming Etsy shop; I am working on some stamped metal jewelry as well as screen printed notebooks.  I am just trying to narrow down a few designs and will get the shop listed hopefully by the end of next month; with a few select pieces just to see how things go.  I have been trying to find the right materials for the jewelry because there are just so many options out there I am still trying to learn which are the best quality.  The notebooks I have already waiting to be printed I am just trying to decide if I want to print them as they are ordered or all at once.  It’s funny what goes through your mind when you are starting an Etsy shop.

I have also been dealing with the fun oddities of owning a home.  I tried to buy a new fridge since the current one I have is just not working for me anymore.  I went and picked out this lovely new Kenmore Elite Grab-N-Go fridge from the Sears Outlet.  It had a couple dents in it but I was told they are totally functioning.  So I bit the bullet and bought it saving approximately $2500 on the cost because it had a couple dents.  Well a week later on Valentine’s day I was patiently waiting for my lovely new fridge to get there.  It of course did and I was so excited, it got hooked up and looked all pretty in my kitchen.  But that was were the fun ended, while the installer was testing the water line nothing was happening.  Fast forward 5 mins I notice that water is now on my floor but we can figure out where it is coming from.  He was checking the line on the back and it wasn’t dripping.  That is when I decide to open the french doors and was greeted by a rush of water.  The fridge had been collecting water inside the entire time we were pushing the water button on the outside.  Needless to say I had to send my Valentine’s present to myself back and I am stuck with my boring fridge until after tax season.  When I will have more time to take time off of work for deliveries.

On the tail end of this delivery when they were turning the water off and on under my sink it loosened up something and I got a leak.  Which of course I didn’t know about until a week later when I went in for dishwasher soap.  I managed to narrowed down the leak and kind of knew what I needed to do in order to fix it.  But that meant I would need to head to Lowe’s where I get to be that girl wandering around with no clue where to go in the home improvement store.  I stood and stared at the wall of valves for what seemed like forever until I saw an employee, unfortunately he had to pass me off to a gentlemen who was only moderately happy to help me.  I say moderately because he admitted it had been a long day for him and I could tell he really didn’t want to help me.  But he sucked it up and helped me find the right valve.  I went home all ready to switch the valve out and then quickly learned that while I have all the brains to do this I lack the brawn to complete the task at hand.  I did manage to put some teflon tape on the threads of where the leak was coming from and when I screwed the tube back on it seems to be holding the leak at bay.  But while the leak may have stopped I am still in need of replacing the valve because I sense that when I get a new fridge again this could happen all over again and I want to prevent that.  So lucky for me I have a step-dad who has the brawn to come over and get the valve off the wall for me sometime in the near future.

Of course all of this is happening during the busiest time of year for me at work.  I am working crazy hours so I have to admit I am dead tired once I walk through my doors at night so I am a little slow at getting posts written.  Hopefully I will get a break and can get something up over the next few weeks.  So please stay tuned as I work through all these kinks!!

What Day Is It?

Things have just been insane at work lately, I know I shouldn’t be surprised I run a CPA office and it is tax time. This is nothing new I have been doing this for over seven years, but really I told someone today on the phone that it was Friday. I guess that was wishful thinking that the week is over because that means there is only one more day of the craziness.

The downside to my work life being so crazy is I slack off on all the other things in my world. I am just so tired and lazy by time I walk through my door at night that the last thing on my mind is taking care of myself. Because of this lack of motivation my diet has slacked a bit over the last few weeks and I have hovered in this gain a pound loose a pound roller coaster for about 3 to 4 weeks already. While at work I am making good choices; luckily for me our office is part of a fruit of the month club so there is fresh fruits around and I have a drawer of yummy health bars to snack on.  I even make a few bad choices like indulging in a fun size candy bar here and there but nothing that is a diet killer.  It is the after work decisions that I am not doing so well on I know I am not making smart choices.  I own up to the fact that I would rather hit the drive thru than go home and cook something.  It is almost like I do not have an appetite for anything but junk food.  I do wish my days had been a couple hours shorter so I could have used my crock pot more, but that thing cooks on the high end to begin with so a 12 hr day my food is going to be a rock by time I get there.  So I am really looking forward for this tax season being over so that I can get back on track.  I am even too lazy to work out after work; first off because I don’t have any energy and the other is after a work out I get a burst of energy which makes it hard to get to bed.  So when you are coming in your door at 8:30 pm you only have so many hours before you need to get in bed to start the cycle over.  Which means if I work out all that new energy makes me stay up late which makes my next day at work horrible because I am tired.  It is a viscous circle, especially since I can’t bring myself to get out of bed earlier in the morning to work out before work because I like my sleep.  Maybe one day I will get that motivation but it just hasn’t hit me yet I really prefer to sleep.  I just haven’t broken up the love affair with my bed.

I have set some personal goals that have had to be altered due to my laziness over the last few months but I do want to be 30 lbs down by the middle of the July, which will hopefully keep me on my goal to start 2014 by being down a total of 90 – 100 lbs, that is one full year of weight watchers.  So I really hope that after the 15th I can make some changes and form a routine so that when the next deadline in September rolls around I don’t let the laziness hit me and I slack off again!

The one positive thing I have been doing to combat the laziness is doing at least one house upgrade or change a weekend, I do it on the weekend so I am not trying to accomplish things after a long work day.  It seems to be helping a bit, like this past weekend I managed to clean my patio furniture and get it ready to be transported to my parent’s house this coming weekend hopefully.  Doesn’t seem like much, but really, if you live in a desert you know how dusty life is.  There was a nice layer of dirt on everything so it was nice to finally clean things up.  By doing these things to my house it is helping me feel less lazy and like I am doing more than just taxes.  It also leads me into doing other things as well because I start to get in a groove, I then managed to sweep up the patio get it all cleaned up, then I gathered up all my clothing donations that have been sitting in a huge pile in the corner of my room making my room feel disorganized and got them dropped off a the donation center and last but not least finally took all the empty shoe boxes out of my closet and put in the recycle bin.  So it was one big project followed by three little ones and it really helped put me in a better mood.  I finally felt like my world wasn’t all about taxes.  Hopefully I can keep this up through out the rest of the year, because I notice focusing on my house helps me focus on me just a little bit more.  Now if I could just not love cheeseburgers so much I would be in a better place I am sure!