it's that time again...

so today . . . i am sitting here, waiting to race to the bathroom...

yes, it is that time of year again. my annual colonoscopy is scheduled for friday. i say annual, but i have managed, thru several circumstances, to avoid it for an extra seven months. maybe not the best decision health-wise, but as i am sitting here, drinking my first bottle of magnesium citrate and waiting for it to do it's evil thing, i can't say i am sad that it has been so long...

as you know, i am a world class procrastinator. it's amazing i ever get anything done at all! but i find my procrastinating skills are best showcased when it comes to making doctor appointments. i am an odd combination of whiny crybaby and doctor avoider. i don't mind actually going to the doctor, but i hate making the appointments. i don't know why... it is probably because i have kaiser insurance (which i mostly love,) and their appointment center is automated. machines don't give you choices. machines don't listen to my scheduling issues. machines just say, "here is the next appointment. do you want it or not." and if i say i don't want it, there is no going back if it turns out the first appointment was actually the best choice. so i just avoid all of this by not making appointments... until i absolutely have to. in fact, i've been known to go sit for hours in urgent care waiting to see a doctor rather than make an appointment.

i know. i have issues.

right now, my issue is hunger. i'm starving! all i can think about are chocolate chip cookies and cheeseburgers! but instead i'm drinking my water. it is not satisfying. at all. i've been wondering if i could get by with eating just a few bites of a chocolate chip cookie... i'm thinking that if i chew and chew and chew it up until it is pretty much liquified, how much trouble could it cause? i bounced this idea off rollie, who said "don't do it!" (of course. of course he said don't do it! that would be breaking the rules of colon prep.) but he continued, "it's a slippery slope..." (that's what i say every time a store tries to get me to sign up for a credit card :) ) ok, so maybe a chocolate chip cookie isn't a good idea, but maybe i could just suck on a piece of dove dark chocolate... or lick a hamburger...

and this is only the beginning. i can't eat anything all day tomorrow either, but it will be worse, because i am going to be home! my only consolation is that at least my kitchen is not currently stocked with delicious things to eat--i haven't made it to the grocery store yet after being gone for two weeks.

finally, my procrastination pays off :)

and so, here i sit, with nothing to eat, waiting... just waiting... and waiting...

don't look for a blog tomorrow. i'm pretty sure you are not going to want to hear about my day.

unless you are a fan of whining...

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...

what? you can mail income tax forms before april 15th?!?

so today . . . is tax day, which means (drum roll please . . . ) it is time for a story . . .

filling out the tax forms has always been my job. it started out simple enough--poor college students, 1040EZ form, 10 minutes to fill it out--so there was never any real hurry. in our early married years, we usually got back some of what we had paid, because we hardly got paid anything! you would think the possibility of money we had already earned being returned to us would be quite an incentive to file those taxes early. but, being the world-class procrastinator that i am, the ease of filling out such a short form negated the result of a check in the mail, resulting in me filling out the form at 4:00 p.m. on april 15th and then dropping it off at the post office. mission accomplished. no laws broken.

we got older. we made slightly more money, because we both had jobs. we still didn't have enough deductions to itemize, being young and healthy, but we did graduate to form 1040A. since rollie is a pastor, the government considers him self-employed (which is pretty hysterical if you have any idea about his job,) so we have to pay self-employment tax--which gave me four times a year to play beat the clock with the post office when mailing his quarterly taxes.

we got older. our lives got more complicated. we graduated to form 1040. many years, instead of getting money back, our tax forms showed that we owed the government even more of our hard earned dollars. and of course i wasn't going to give it to them a moment earlier than i had to, so i still did the tax forms on april 15th, wrote the check, and raced to the post office, making sure to drop it off before the overtime staff went home at midnight. these were not fun times. i would look at the clock at 11:15 p.m. and think, "there is NO WAY i am going to get this finished and at the post office by midnight. no way." and yet, i always did. and then i would vow to start earlier the next year. which i never did.

and then we moved to california.

the first year we lived here, i didn't have a job, so i had plenty of time to get the tax forms done early. but of course i didn't. by now it was a sort of nightmarish tradition that just wouldn't die. i would think about doing them earlier, but it just never seemed to happen. so there i was, on april 15th, 2002, working on the taxes as i watched the minutes tick by. i finished up about 11:00 p.m. and since the post office is only about two minutes from our house, i was feeling pretty proud of myself! those forms were going to be sitting in that post office, and i would be back home in bed well before midnight. i thought.

i got in the car and drove to the post office. oddly enough, the small parking lot only had a few cars in it. i drove up to the drive through mailbox, but there was no special sign on it proclaiming that there would be a mail pick up at midnight. hmmm. i almost dropped it in anyway, but i decided it wasn't worth the risk. so i parked the car and went inside--only to see about half a dozen people wandering about in a zombie-like state. i soon realized that there were no employees working overtime at this post office. this post office was done dealing with mail for the day. it was closed.

ohno!OhNo!OHNOOOOOOOOO!!!!

i was toast.

it was now 11:15 p.m. on april 15th, and my tax forms were still in my hand and the post office was officially closed. this couldn't be happening to me! i didn't have time to walk around like a zombie, so i dashed back outside and started looking for notices. i finally found a piece of paper with a very short list of post offices that would be open until midnight.

there were three. and i only knew where one of them was. and i had to drive all the way to long beach to get there.

fortunately i had been at that post office once before and kind of knew where to go, because this was before everyone had a gps in their cellphone. i jumped into my car, slammed the door shut, and sped (yes i said sped) to the freeway. i checked the time, and noticed that my gas light was on. but i didn't have time to stop for gas. i started doing the math in my head, "let's see, the light just came on, so i can still drive about 60 miles, i think--i'll get gas on the way home AFTER my tax forms are safely delivered." because the clock was ticking.

11:40 p.m.--i could see the long beach post office. it, of course, was on the opposite side of the street from me and there were an awful lot of cars on that long stretch of road. there were traffic cones and uniformed officers directing traffic--apparently i was not the only one on the southeast side of los angeles trying to mail my tax forms before midnight. i approached the cross street, drove between two rows of orange traffic cones, and waited for someone to let me cross traffic so i could get turned around the right way to enter the post office parking lot. i saw a traffic officer running my way yelling and waving his arms. yes, i thought, come over here and make these people stop so i can get across. otherwise we are going to have a traffic jam!

to my surprise, he came to my window. "ma'am," he said, "what are you doing?!?!?!" so i explained that it was almost midnight and i had to get my income tax forms in the mail, but there were all these cars out tonight and no one would let me go across so i could turn around . . . and then he said, "why do you think all these cars are out here? they are ALL here to mail their tax forms!!"

you have got to be kidding me! i was stunned. i had never seen such a line of traffic in my life! (of course, i hadn't been on the 405 during rush hour yet!) "and didn't you see the orange cones?" he continued. "you can't turn here. it will create a traffic jam." oh. i thought the orange cones were there to mark where to turn, not to keep me from turning. as i was saying this to the officer, he looked at me like "what planet are you from?" so i did the only thing i could think of to do. i played the out-of-state helpless female card.

"i'm so sorry!" i said, because when a police officer is leaning in your open car window, that is probably a good way to start. "we just moved here from oregon," (ten months ago, but i think anything less than a year counts as 'just'.) "and in oregon the post offices stay open until midnight on april 15th and i live in cerritos but the post office there is closed and this is the only post office i knew how to get to and my husband is already in bed alseep and i had to drive on the freeway to get here in the dark and i thought the traffic cones were marking where i was supposed to turn and if i have to get in that long line not only will i probably hit something when i back up, but i will also probably run out of gas before i get to the post office because my gas light came on 20 minutes ago and then people will get mad and honk their horns at me . . . " and then i looked like i might cry. actually, i felt like i might cry--and it probably didn't hurt to have tears threatening at just that moment . . .

he should have made me get back on the road and drive clear to the end of the seemingly endless line and wait my turn. but he didn't. he let me cut the line. i think he just wanted to to be done with me--and preferably before those threatening tears erupted or a traffic accident occurred. i thanked him profusely and promised that this would be my last midnight run to the post office on april 15th.

and i've kept that promise. the following year we hired carol at h&r block to do our taxes, and she always calls us well before april 15th to get us started. rollie meets with her, they fill out the forms, and all i have to do is sign my name.

carol mails them. early.

tax time. again. sigh.

so today . . . i'm doing our taxes.

well, technically i guess i am blogging. but i am thinking about doing our taxes.

and technically, i guess i don't do our taxes--someone from h&r block does them. but i make it possible. i collect all the data--you know, all those pesky receipts--and organize them so that the tax lady can fill out the forms. it's a big job! and every year i plan to do it early, but that never happens. so here i am, in the middle of march, tracking down deductions.

i am all about getting back as much as we can from the government. i don't mind paying some taxes. i appreciate having police and fire protection. and i guess we need some sort of decision-making hierarchy, and no one is going to do that for free! but i don't want to have to contribute anymore than i have to. i would rather get to spend my own money!

so . . . that requires some work--keeping track of all those medical expenses we have had, adding up all the sales tax receipts, and listing each item we have donated to charity. yeah, you can see why i am avoiding it by blogging . . .

medical expenses aren't too bad. all the receipts are in a folder, and i just take them out and add them up.

but the charity donations are more daunting. i've always made lists of what was donated, because that's what my mom said to do--and she is pretty smart! and that wasn't too bad--i just listed things as i popped them into bags. then a few years ago my sister-in-law (who is also pretty smart,) said the irs was getting tougher on those types of contributions, and she suggested taking digital photos of stuff. i can see why a list in itself might not be enough--i could say i donated anything! but this whole photo thing complicates my process, because i have to take pictures and make a list. if i didn't get rid of so much stuff, i wouldn't do it! of course, if i didn't get rid of so much stuff, it would be easier.

which brings us to the sales tax receipts.

we have a folder for sales tax receipts, just like the medical receipts. the difference is, the sales tax folder is bulging by the end of the year. bulging. we pay sales tax on everything!! so by the end of the year, it is daunting. every january i vow to deal with these receipts at the end of each month, so that it isn't such a big job. but it never happens. so here i am, trying to read the faded ink on year-old receipts, sorting them by month (because i need some sort of system here,) and circling the tax amount (so i can see it when i start adding up the numbers.)

the first year i did this, i used a yellow highligher instead of circling the amounts. i found it oddly satisfying, and it didn't take too long to highlight all the tax amounts. but a few days later when i got around to adding them up, i found that the ink on some of the receipts had reacted with the highlighter and disappeared! so that brilliant idea backfired . . .

i am always amazed at how much we spend in sales tax every year. actually, it is a fairly painless way to pay taxes, even at nearly 10%, but when i see the total i am always shocked! and also glad, because we can deduct it all somewhere on our tax forms. so you see, shopping is actually saving us money. without shopping and eating out, we would have to pay way more in income tax--but only if the receipts make it into the receipt folder.

every year when i deal with the mountain of paper, i always find a few receipts from the year before. "oh no!" i think. "we could have deducted this $3.48! why, oh why weren't these receipts in the folder last year!" i don't know how this happens, but it always does. so, to offset "the lost ones," i am not above picking up receipts carelessly abandoned by others.

i mean, those sales taxes deserve to be part of someone's returns. it isn't their fault that someone dropped them. or left them on the table. or threw them away.

no wait--i don't go diving for receipts. really.

that would just be weird.

let's just not forget who we are here . . .

so today . . . was not a typical friday. we planned to detour from our usual schedule of going to the movies as soon as i escaped from school, because of a scheduling conflict. so our new plan was to meet for lunch, and then come home and spend the afternoon catching up on all our favorite shows that tivo had thoughtfully recorded for us. we needed a low energy afternoon.

but trouble loomed. i texted rollie on my way out of the school parking lot to tell him i was on my way, and he should go ahead and order food. his return text informed me that rubio's was really busy, so he couldn't order the food--if he left the table he had managed to score, we would lose it. and while it was a really nice day, i was pretty sure i didn't want to sit on the concrete in the middle of the town center to eat my burrito.

rubio's is CRAZY on fridays at lunch time. we didn't know this, because as i said, we are always on our way to the cheap movie theater at that time. but we learned our lesson today . . . after guarding a table, standing in a long line, braving the crowded soda machines, and finally getting our food, we found ourselves practically sharing our table with another couple. they seemed like perfectly nice people, but their voices were LOUD. everyone's voices were loud! and we were trapped next to the window with no easy way of escape, surrounded by a sea of people.

this is my idea of hell.

i know, we live in a metropolis and you think we should expect this. but usually there is enough room for everybody. usually we don't have to share our table with people we don't know. usually i can put my handbag next to me instead of having it crowd my lap. usually i don't have to plan my trip to the soda machine like i'm trying to cross the freeway in a game of frogger.

but not today. today it was, well, you know what . . .

i couldn't eat. i just wanted to flee! i spotted a table outside and said to rollie, "do you mind if we move outside to eat?" normally he is up for that, and it was a beautiful, perfect day. but here's the thing--he had just spent the last 45 minutes fighting to hold onto our table while waiting for me to get there, and i thought he might have formed an attachment to it. but he was ready to move out into the wide open spaces too, so i made a break for it. because when changing tables, there is always the risk that you will end up without one. so rollie stayed where he was, i took my food and dashed outside to the empty table, only knocking down two little old ladies (not really--but only because none got in my way,) while rollie stayed in possession of the indoor table. then, when he could see that i had laid claim to the outdoor table, he picked up his food and joined me.

and there we sat. in the warm sunshine, in our tshirts, under the palm trees, eating mexican food. in march. this is why i love california!

finally we could talk to each other without having to yell. we were catching up on what our mornings had been like, and what we needed to do this weekend. and rollie said, "there is so much to do, and i don't want to do any of it!"

wait a minute. huh? this is a very un-rollie-like statement. rollie is king of the work-first-then-play-later philosophy of life. and i am really glad he is, because that allows me to be the queen of do-whatever-i-feel-like-doing-until-a-deadline-must-be-met philosophy. and then he said, "i guess you are rubbing off on me."

oh nonononononono!!! this is not ok! i am the one who goofs off and waits until the last minute to get things done. rollie is the one who plans ahead and makes sure the important stuff is taken care of. he cannot start putting things off until the last minute! nononono! my world will tilt off it's axis!

i was sitting there trying to think of what i could say to get the planets back in line, when he said, "you are the . . . " and i just knew he was going to say "wind beneath my wings." i don't know why i thought that--he doesn't usually talk in cliche's. so to head him off, before he could finish i said, "anchor beneath your bow?" because apparently i am taking him under with me. he just looked at me and said, "no, i was going to say, the 'i'll-do-it-later goddess.'"

oh. what, he doesn't think i am the wind beneath his wings?? i could be the wind. in fact, i think i am. i am the one who makes it possible for him to be the responsible one, since i am the goofing off one. really. he is the wonderful, thoughtful, organized, get-it-done, be prepared boy scout that he is, because of me.

i know. it is so unselfish of me to be the disorganized, where did i put it, i'll never get it done, you need it when? one. but that's just how i roll . . .

;)