Sneeze and Destroy
Gesundheit
I just wrote a nice story. It was about my experiences with chiropractic care. Unfortunately, I sneezed while I was zeroing in on the publish button here at Medium. It’s gone. I don’t even have the Word document where I hammered it out.
I have a tendency to do crossword puzzles with a pen. Yeah, like that.
There must have been a reason. What it is I don’t know unless I wasn’t supposed to put a link to the chiropractor I went to in town. Actually, around the corner from where I live, but still, in town.
You know what? I’m not going to worry about it. Let’s talk about something else.
I’m doing the preliminary work on our 2023 finances now. I’ve done the first month and a half of statements. The first one took me so long to do the day before yesterday. It took me 2 hours. It should have been 15 minutes of work, but because I haven’t done this sort of work in a year and am having memory problems, I had to look every stinking little thing up. I also had to spend time with my laptop while it gathered all the updates that had been stacking up since I’d used it last. My preference is to use my desktop. The screen is huge. It’s got an ergonomic keyboard. I love it. The laptop is a laptop. I can hardly see the screen. The keyboard is miniscule.
I want to ride a stallion, not a hobby horse. I don’t know how people do things on their phones. I can hardly answer the phone, always hitting buttons with my cheek and cutting people off. At least, that’s what I think I’m doing. I was much better when we all had flip phones back when cell phones started.
But I did better work today. I worked for about 3 hours. I even extrapolated numbers for my husband’s paychecks (that he never gave me). The information that came in on his W-2 will satisfy the tax lady. What I smooshed satisfied me. First time I ever did that. Perhaps a useful skill to remember if I need to smoosh something in QuickBooks.
I do forensic accounting. It’s after the fact and nowhere near as interesting as a movie or television show. What used to happen was that our clients would stuff paper bags and boxes with all the receipts, paperwork, and bank and credit card statements they could and ship them off to us. It could be a year’s worth of paperwork or a month’s worth. My boss said she got first dibs on any money we found. Evidently, she’d gotten $5 that way once.
Sometimes, they would organize things. Mostly not. Then, we would tear apart their grocery receipts to find anything we could that could be called a business expense: toilet paper, cleaning supplies, coffee. We drew the line at what they bought for company parties. My boss said if they could provide us with a picture of the food in question at the party, we would count that stuff as a business expense. They never gave us pictures. I don’t think they could be bothered. These were the folks that claimed $500 handbags as expenses.
The only things I’m finding these days for expenses for us are on Amazon, my husband’s gas because he is still working, and my Medium membership fee. I also count paper, ink, clipboards, and notebooks, but that stuff doesn’t really add up to a hill of beans. But I count it anyway. I also count whatever courses we take that are for writing. Every little bit helps when you’re doing your taxes.
I’m getting my car back tomorrow. I haven’t had it for nine months or more. I loaned it to our neighbor whose car was totaled. Then, she gave it back to me and her friend lost her car the same way a couple of days later. She’s had it since the middle of September. They paid for the gas and any maintenance it needed while it was out of my care. I’m glad they were able to use it.
It’s a good time for me to get it back because I’m ready to go out into the world. I’ve got a ton of doctor’s appointments I need to get done. I’m also going to check out a senior citizen’s center in Alameda. That’s what I was doing just before the Pandemic hit, and I had to cancel because everything got locked down.
I also got a bad case of agoraphobia which has happened to me in the past. It coincided with the lockdowns, and I was perfectly happy to sit at home and write. It wasn’t like I had to be anywhere. Plus, the car wasn’t being used.
Now, I’m ready to venture out again. Goodwill and Senior Center, here I come.
It was nice chatting with you.