Dry Spell in the Land of Taxes

The calendar is not bursting at the seams today. 

The past month has been taxes, taxes and more taxes.  A nonstop parade of W2's and itemitized deductions.  People would walk in apprehensive and worried.  By the time they left they were relieved and feeling on top of the world.  (Well, most of them.)

But those days have abruptly dried up.  There's two rushes in a tax season.  First it's the people who know 100% they are getting a refund and they need it right now.  And I mean right now.  These are people who are going to call daily, if not hourly, if there is the slightest delay in the day they are expecting their money.

Those fair folk have come and gone.  I'm certain the same goes for the money they received.  Most of them had it spent before it even showed up.  Hence the demanding phone calls.

There's going to be another rush which will start right after everyone sobers up after St. Patrick's Day.  These will be the people who know 100% that they owe money and are putting off the news until the last moment.  Not that the news is going change with waiting.   Even if you file in January and you owe money, it's not due until April.  Waiting to file is just torturing yourself.

Funny enough, the idea of a big push on the day before taxes are due is mostly a myth.  Last year we had one appointment on that day and that was someone who had already filed an extension which actually made them six months ahead of the game.

So to get back today, there is nothing doing around here.  Whenever the phone rings we all jump a mile.  I've cleared out the inbox on my personal email and work email.  I've caught up the scanning.  I watered the plants and put in new paper towel.  I swept.   I played a whole bunch of Angry Birds.

And now I blogged.

Must be naptime.

A Farewell to Blog (Reading)

Friday I opened my Google Reader and discover something altogether disturbing.  I had 517 unread stories.

517.


That's a crushing amount of Damn You Auto Corrects, Cake Wrecks, Wil Wheaton, Lifehacker plus many, many, MANY other post that there was no possible way I could read.  Ever.  That's why there were so many unread posts.  I just don't have time to read them all.

So I did the most sensible thing I could do.  I deleted everything unread.

Then I deleted all of my subscriptions. 

Now that might seem a bit drastic, but the idea of unread posts piling up into hundreds, and maybe even thousands, is just overwhelming.

The problem is I am crazy busy all day long.  Taxes, taxes, taxes!  Business is jumping.  So my slack-off time to read posts in the office is completely gone.

When I get home, the very last thing I want to do is sit in front of a computer.  I won't even check my email. 

Put these two facts together and you get a Google Reader that becomes your boss.  And that's no good.

I made a list of all the blogs I did subscribe to so I could put them all back when tax season is over.  So I will return!  But for right now, no, I'm not reading you.  Or you.  Or even you.  It's just got to be this way to preserve my sanity.

I hear you now.  Hey woman, you are saying, if you have time to write this post, you must have time to read my stuff.  Funny enough, not having posts to read gives me time to come up with my own thoughts.  So we'll call this time an experiment.  Will I use the spare moments I have during the day to write more?  I think I will.  Or maybe not.  We'll see how much I post before mid-April!

Watch out. They're armed.

When the sun shines and a warm breeze blows, my sweet children like to play with their weapons.

The Boy with a throwing knife comes after his sister armed with a  BB gun.  An ever watchful mother...snaps photos. 

Now The Boy has the gun.   Seems like he doesn't want his picture taken.

Yeah, I think I better get out of here.

I returned with the blow dart gun.  That sent them running.

Seriously, The Most Adorable Puppy in the World

Grammy and Poppa got a puppy. 

 An extremely cute puppy

Cuteness to epic proportions.

A melt-your-eyes cute puppy.

So cute you start to doubt the possibility that other dogs even exist anymore.

So cute you are reduced to babbling nonsense nonstop.

Cute enough to actually cause physical pain, mostly in your heart.

And then he fell asleep while The Man held him.  

Death by puppy cuteness.