procrastinating again. it must be tax time...

so today . . . i spent the day avoiding doing my taxes.

i hate taxes. it isn't that i mind paying them--i know it costs money to run our government (although i have some choice words for the games currently being played...) and i don't mind paying my share. what i hate is figuring out how much of the tax burden is mine.

i've actually spent the last couple of weeks avoiding doing my taxes--i'm quite good at it--but rollie has an appointment with h&r block on monday. this means that my time is almost up. soon, avoiding this odious task will no longer be an option. soon, i am going to have to wade my way through mountains of receipts and stacks of file folders and put my calculator to work.

every year when i get the stuff ready for taxes, i say to myself, "next year i am not going to wait until the last minute to do this. next year, i am going to organize the receipts and paperwork each month during the year. next year, doing the taxes will merely be a matter of adding up the monthly totals that i have carefully calculated all year long." which might work, except for one thing--since i never get the taxes done until the last minute, i am already three and a half months behind when this brilliant revelation comes to me...

my plan for this weekend was to do the taxes on friday afternoon. then i could goof off the rest of the weekend. that was my plan. and it was a good plan! rollie was out of town and wasn't scheduled to be home until about 8:00 p.m. friday night. diandra had a youth event and would be gone friday afternoon and evening. so, my plan was to drag all the paperwork to the family room floor when i got home from school, get a large soda, watch some tivo, and get organized.

i was somewhat successful. i got a large soda, and watched some tivo...

when i went to bed, late late late last night, i had a new plan. i would get up first thing this morning, drag all the paperwork to the family room floor, get a large soda, watch some more tivo (have i told you lately how much i love tivo?) and get organized. once again, my plan was not totally successful.

i tried... kind of. i had a large soda. i had the tivo on. i was thinking about dragging out all those papers. i was mentally organizing. and then diandra came into the room. it was lunch time, so we discussed options, and she agreed to come with me to do an errand. at ulta. and then have lunch. (can you say, "reprieve?")

i had to go to ulta today, because i had a 20% off coupon. i get coupons from ulta all the time, so i have become somewhat immune to their charms. but this coupon said i could use it on some products that are never discounted. ever. products that i use every single day. so the deal was too good to pass up. i got my products, and diandra looked at hair stuff. i picked up some clearance items (that were almost free!) and diandra looked at make-up. i paid for my stuff, and we headed for el pollo loco.

yes, back to the crazy chicken. they have recently added sweet potato fries to their menu, and diandra is in loooove. sweet potato fries at a drive-thru just five minutes from our house! i'm pretty sure she thinks it is a preview of heaven...

as we left el pollo loco's drive thru, i looked at the clock on my dashboard. "we haven't been gone very long at all," i said. i was feeling pretty good. i knew i still had to do the tax stuff, but it was only 2:00. i had plenty of time...

...that is, until i remembered that i haven't yet changed the time on my dashboard clock to reflect daylight savings time. it isn't a big deal. usually i just mentally add an hour to the time on my clock. but that only works on normal work days when i am on a schedule and already sort of know what hour it is. it does not work quite so well on saturdays.

when we got home, i started the laundry. i should have started it sooner, but as i said, diandra was at an overnighter last night, and i thought she had probably been too tired to get her laundry together. (and before any of you get all worked up about me doing her laundry, i don't fold it or put it away--i just throw it into the machines with our clothes. it saves water and electricity. i'm just trying to be earth friendly here...) i checked my email. i looked longingly at the red wii on buy.com. i put the clean sheets back on the bed. and then rollie wanted to eat...

you see, this is our problem. on saturday, we are all sort of on different schedules...

we ate dinner, watched last week's survivor, and then i dragged the receipts and paperwork out to the floor of the family room.

i was making progress...

then i looked for some pictures diandra wanted that we thought might be on my computer. of course, we didn't find them, because the picture files on my computer are still a big mess. and it just keeps getting worse! because now, not only do i have the photos i take with my camera to organize, but also the pictures i take with my phone. and all the old pictures i have been scanning into my computer. my picture files are a nightmare!!

finally diandra went to bed. rollie went to bed. i did a couple more loads of laundry, and virtually purchased some stuff on pet society (that's a facebook game, in case you didn't know. my poor pet, penelope has been sadly neglected the last few weeks...) and then i remembered that i hadn't blogged yet.

i've been trying to get back into the habit of blogging after being off for a couple of weeks, but it isn't as easy as you might think. my brain has not wanted to get back into blogging mode. and we continue to have internet issues, which make me a little hesitant to spend hours writing a blog only to possibly lose it if the network goes down. and sometimes i can't stay connected long enough to get something posted, even if i write it off line! but i need to try anyway...

i looked at the pile of stuff on the floor in the family room. and then i picked it up and moved it back to the kitchen counter. because it is late and i am tired. and i can't leave it on the floor while i go to church tomorrow, because of the dogs. and i can't deal with it tonight, because i need to blog.

but tomorrow i have to do the taxes. i have to. i can either do it during the afternoon and go to bed at a decent hour, or i can spend the day avoiding it and then stay up most of the night to get it done. i'd like to say that i know i am going to make a good choice and get a good night's sleep. that is what i would like to say. but i know myself. i know the odds are not in my favor. if you were going to bet on my behavior tomorrow, the smart money would be on avoidance and a late night. because i am a world class procrastinator. if procrastination was an olympic sport, i would be the gold medal winner. every time. no one else would even be close!

sigh. tomorrow is another day... yippee...