Where have you been?!?!

That may be what you want to ask me! I've been swimming in a world of taxes...and no matter how glitzy I try to make it sound, its just not that exciting. I've been so bogged down with state estimates, the federal return, testing for a system conversion, and other misc things that always seem to pop up that I haven't even had time for my "smoke" breaks! (if you didn't read about my "smoke" breaks last week, please do so you don't think I'm smoking while pregnant...or ever for that matter)

But, regardless, here I am now. I've made this a higher priority than my work for the morning - you should be thanking me for providing you with a few minutes of entertainment amidst whatever your day will bring you. (I am certain it is just slightly more exhilarating than corporate tax...slightly)

I had a pretty busy weekend, on top of being busy at work, so I am in dire need of Sunday to roll around so I can sleep all day. Friday night one of Austin's friends had a cook-out at his house. He had taken some of the backstrap from the deer Austin shot back in January and offered to smoke it for a little "birthday party" for Austin. Perry loves to have people over and cook for people, but his idea of a cook-out is starting to cook once everyone has shown up. Well, when some people don't show up until 8...the meat doesn't finish smoking until 10 at the earliest. I felt bad bolting right after we ate, but it was just a little too late for me after a long week. It was fun though - there were a lot of people there that I hadn't met before, which is usually not my favorite social situation, but we had a good time. Perry and his wife Paula just bought a house in July and I hadn't seen it yet, so it was nice to see their new house too - they're so excited!

Saturday and Sunday during the day I was a busy bee working on crafts - more on that in a bit though. Saturday night I had my first-ever fantasy football draft. What an experience. When I started working at Western Union last year I caught the end of the fantasy "season" and was bombarded by trash-talking and loud screams across the tax department about random players injuries, interceptions, great and horrible games. I love football, but it made it a BIT distracting to work through all the yelling. So this year when they were getting geared up for their league and asked me to join I thought, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" Had I know how seriously each person took this league, though, I may have opted out. Austin and I formed a "team" with my coworker Dottie. Austin isn't technically saying he's part of the "team", but I'm sure if we win he'll gladly help me spend the $350! He was mostly involved in helping me rank players and assign a "value" to each. For anyone familiar with fantasy football, this league does an "auction" rather than a "snake draft" so when it's your turn at draft night to name a player - you aren't claiming him, or are nominating him for bidding and he goes to the highest bidder. It adds an element of strategy (and confusion) as you have to determine who is worth how much, which positions you are still in need of, who has what bye-weeks...gets a little complicated. We had fun though, and my mistake of wearing a Texans t-shirt ended up causing other people to over-bid for Texans just so we couldn't get them...which ended up being a decent strategy because then people were out of money sooner than they would have hoped. For example: we had valued Steve Slaton at $40 max, but were hoping to get him for $35. Someone ended up buying him for $51 - which may not sound like much but when our salary cap is $200, its a big chunk. I am realizing that at this point I may have lost 1/2 my readers in this fantasy nonsense, so I'll move on...basically, it was an experience for the books and one I'm not sure I'll repeat next season - but fun nonetheless.

Back to the crafts. I've been working on all sorts of crafts lately - can't really name them all because some of them are surprises for different people so I can't go too much into detail on those, but let's just say I've been busy. I've had a lot of fun - and found talents/skills I didn't know I had. One thing I'm working on, that isn't a surprise, is a scrapbook for myself of letters that people wrote about my dad after he passed away. My mom had the smart idea of asking that everyone who wanted to write a letter, short or long, about their relationship with my dad and how he impacted their lives. I'm not sure what inspired her idea, or why she thought it would be a good compilation to have, but I think it turned out to be a great idea. In hindsight, for me anyway, it has been a great way for me to learn a little bit more about who my dad was as a person. At 13 years old, its difficult to expect that someone would know their parents as deeply as you may at 25. There are so many things that we just never got to know because we were kids, and we didn't know that our time was going to be cut short. So having these letters, learning about different quirks and traits he had, learning about memories he made, lives he touched, people he helped (and people he taunted) has helped us to know him a little bit better. For the Christmas of 2005 I made books for each of my brothers with some of the letters and some pictures. There are far too many letters to include them all, so I included a variety - some from family, some from children, some from close friends and some from admirers - so they could get a broad range of viewpoints in their books. I never made one for myself, and I never helped my mom organize the letters in a better way than her manila folder. Over the summer I decided I would take on those 2 tasks. I began sorting the letters, making copies, sifting through, and selecting my "favorites" for my book. I'll need to make copies for my book and then I can make a book for my mom with the originals. Because she'll have ALL the letters in hers, hers will just be a simple book binding all the letters together with a protective cover, whereas my brothers and mine have stickers, pretty paper, pictures, etc. I asked Brandon if I could borrow his to get some ideas, and I realized that his had a letter in the back written "Dear Brandon and Lindsey" and a note in front that said "Merry Christmas Brandon and Lindsey" so I need to update those as well! With all the fun, crafty things I've been doing - I wish even more that I were independently wealthy and I could spend all my time doing things like this rather than those lovely taxes I wrote about earlier.

Last night Austin and I went out to a sports bar/grill with Rick and a few other people from their work. We were planning to go to the Grizzly Rose to see Cross Canadian Ragweed but Rick and Tiffany were too tired (as if THEY have an excuse like being pregnant!) so we just went to this bar/grill instead. Rick is leaving in November to go to San Angelo, TX. He'll be a platoon sergeant at AIT, which is job specific training that soldiers go to after basic training. He spent most of last night trying to convince Austin to try to get transferred down there, which resulted in him trying to convince ME that I should get on board so that Austin will be more likely to get on board. Let me remind you, first, that I have absolutely no desire to leave Denver. In a perfect world, or in my perfect world, we'd live here forever. However, I know that all good things must come to an end, and my tenure in Denver is no exception. I still hold out hope that the "end" isn't until 2011 when Austin is done in with active duty, but I also know that anything is possible and we could end up anywhere at anytime. Rick kept pointing out that San Angelo is in Texas, to which I responded that "Texas" is only a good argument for Austin, not me. Then he resorted to just reminding me over and over that HE will be there, and that in itself should make me want to go.

San Angelo, TX: population 80,000. San Angelo is centrally located IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE about 3 hours from San Antonio. Austin tried to boost its appeal by telling me that when he was there for AIT they had enough snow for a snowball fight. Weak argument, as I'm sure that happened once. I told Rick that all I would care about, or the only 2 things that would hinder me from agreeing, would be selling our house and finding a job. Not just any job - I'm not paying off student loans so I can work at starbucks - and I don't want to sell our house without making a small profit on it. Those 2 things may not sound like large hindrances, but in the current housing market and given the location of San Angelo, I would say they're pretty tough feats. I looked on my phone at careerbuilder.com for "accounting San Angelo, TX" and found THREE job openings within 30 miles. One listed the job requirements as a high school diploma - NIX. The next listed the job description as "selling basic banking products such as checking accounts and loans" - NIX. The last was an accounting position within a midsize corporation, paying about what I'm making now. That was the closest thing I could find, but it was in accounting rather than tax accounting - 2 different things.

Sure, I could take this opportunity to be a stay at home mom and take care of our will-be toddler until he/she is of school age. By that point, Austin would be out of the Army and we'd have moved on to greener (and probably more humid) pastures. But that's really just not my thing. It's not in ANY way a knock on moms who do choose to do that - I think moms all try to provide for their kids in the best way they think they can/should and whichever path a mom chooses, she (generally) has the child/ren's best interest at heart. I can certainly see where the positives are for stay at home moms- #1 your child is always in YOUR care. you get to raise him/her how you choose, no worries about what the child is being exposed to, and you never miss a moment of their development. #2 the child gets to have the closeness and the bond of having his/her mother around at such crucial points in life #3 no childcare costs! day care costs a fortune! It's just not my thing. I'd do it if I had to, and I'd certainly make the best of the opportunity - but overall, that's just not me. I'd like to be able to provide as much for my child's future as possible. I'd like to be able to allow my children to join sports or activities that they're interested in without having to crunch numbers to make it work. I'd like to pay for my child's college, or most of it, and I'd like to provide things that I do not think would be as feasible just on one income (especially if that income is an Army income...don't let the congressmen fool you, soldiers work for peanuts) Austin pointed out, after I made my case for needing a job, that after all the crafts I've been working on I could just go into a business of my own. Make my own hours, be home with kids, still have the fulfillment of a job and the luxury of a second income.

Sounds like a FUN idea, not so much a profitable idea. I'm not sure people would pay too terribly much for my products :)

Keep in mind that in the Army, anything that remotely sounds like a 'plan' is sure to never come to fruition. So don't go searching for houses for sale in San Angelo for me or finding a buyer for my house here - as I'm certain this idea, too, will fall off and die soon. I also think that in order for Austin to be moved to San Angelo, he'd have to extend his time in service by at least 6 months - because I think he'd need to be there at least 2 years. I'm not sure if that part really entices him. But - this is the latest "planning" that has gone on...I've learned from Brian, Austin, Jesse and other friends that military men/women come with this extra part of their brain that causes them to constantly come up with new plans and ideas, knowing that most of them would never happen anyway.

As I've spent the last 2 hours juggling blogging and work, I realized that I may have over-written in this one. I may have lost your attention, and I may have caused myself to end up with writer's block later in the week as I won't have much else to talk about! Let me just add quickly to anyone who may see Austin in the near future: please do not bring up the incident with the soldier that I wrote about last week; he would NOT appreciate my sharing the situation over the world-wide-web. oops.

So I'll close this now - hoping I'm not writing this last sentence to myself, my lone reader.