A Very Good Thing in Everyday Ramblings

Noticing a theme here in the pictures? Burgeoning spring! Yippee. These are tulips tended religiously by the older woman who is the caregiver for the fundamentalist church (that is in a historic synagogue) across the street.

The sun is out and it is not raining. The cats are better. Not all better, but significantly better. The weekend was pretty rocky. I am not sure Diego is totally out of the woods yet so I am keeping a watchful eye on him.

Which I can do because I am taking the next two days off!

My big excitement though is that I actually managed to get my taxes done. I still have one City Exemption form to fill out but my Federal and State taxes are done, done done.

This year I used an online tax consultant and it cost the same as the in person enrolled agent I had been using but I didn’t need to go anywhere.

I liked her a lot (very dry sense of humor) but she had family concerns and isn’t doing them this year and lives way the heck out east in a residential area that has elements I don’t feel safe in.

Taxes are the thing I procrastinate on. I am pretty good about most other things and I have never been late (one year I think I filed an extension) but there is something about the consequences of getting them wrong, the prospect of owing more than one expected and all that.

I think part of the issue is that they take time. And I never seem to have a few spare hours. One of the reasons (besides avoiding Motorcycle Man for a week) I am taking the vacation days this week is I thought I was going to be stuck using them to do my taxes.

But now I don’t need to! I can do the exemption form next week. And I am having a massage (rescheduled from last Friday) tomorrow midday.

Two of my favorite students just moved into the big high end retirement community up above the track and they weren’t sure they would be able to continue coming to class but last night they came and paid for a class card for 8 more classes. I adore them and am so very happy this will work for them. He’s 83 and such a great guy. And she is funny and whip smart and they add a lot to the sense of community that I so appreciate in my classes.

We are going out to the Oregon Coast for 4 days in a few weeks and for the first time ever I am taking the whole week off. Not just from work but from teaching. I may just spend three days wandering around in a confused fog as I am so used to pushing myself.

I am hoping to reconnect a bit with my creative self but don’t want to have any expectations at all.

There is some indication this week that my current job is going to be reorganized out of existence at the end of June.

This is a terrifying prospect. I’ll be eligible for Medicare and I have savings and I will get unemployment and will be on a one year rehire list but it is the loss of income that I am counting on that will be problematic. That and the premature loss of my premium health benefits is the other major concern.

It would be just like them to boot me out the door a year early. Not that I would be sad to go, oh no… but anyway I will work on a contingency list while I am away for if that happens.

And I still have a very slim chance of getting a better paying more interesting job for another manager. The application is still active. I talked to him this morning and told him if he gave me the job I would not need to retire next year…I have been thinking about this since I talked to the work counselor.

I actually like working…and I think it would be good for me to keep at it if I enjoyed what I was doing and had coworkers I could actually talk to so we shall see… it is a long shot though.

But those give us hope and with a cruel madman in the White House hope is a very good thing.

Last updated March 26, 2019