Tidbits of our lives

I had meant to post yesterday, but got sidetracked. Seems that happens every other day-such is life. On with my tidbits.

Wednesday went smoothly-no money was spent except for the $12 at Costco on groceries-yep, $12. Wow! Due to pictures taking longer than expected, the boys and I had lunch at preschol before meeting up with friends at the park. After a short trip to Costco, we went home, and the boys played outside while I vacuumed out the car.

Today started out slow, but ended on a high note. My moods have been all over the place, not sure if its related to weaning (not intending to, but it is slowly happening), or just the fact that I have more than enough time to think about what I'm doing with my life. R encourages me to relax, not overanalyze situations, that the economy stinks for many professions-heck I've heard about more layoffs from people who do IT work in this area, I don't even want to think about how dismal the social work profession is right now. Sigh. I told R I'm just glad he has the job he does, otherwise we'd really be up a creek right now.

I'm pondering getting my license for social work-there's no shortage of hiring for LCSW's, and while the prospect of going back to school isn't thrilling, having that notch on my belt could help us if we see more cuts w/ R's paycheck. I don't want to overdo it w/ backup plans, but I want to make sure all our bases are covered. Nothing's decided yet, I still need to reseach and see what I need to do. In the meantime, I'll continue subbing and picking up whatever mystery/merchandising jobs come my way.

The last tidbit is some exciting news. The H&R Block mystery shop I had applied for was approved, so now we'll get our taxes paid for via a mystery shop-and its a company that is great to work for! Yay! We were planning on going there anyways, since they find so many deductions beyond what I was able to find on my own, it really made the minimal cost worth it, but now its covered! I told R, even if this shop doesn't pan out, 1. I learn not to work for the company again, and 2. we were doing it w/ H&R Block in the first place, so its not like we're spending money somewhere that we weren't planning on spending it. We should come out ahead, even though we get almost our full check. We have a ton of deductions, donations, childcare, R's work clothes and other work related expenses, which helps. Adding to my excitement, I've been slowly going over our documents, and collecting my receipts and formed a nice database to store all my shop information. The system I had was very rough, but someone on a local messageboard had some great tips, and that helped out. I've been getting paid regularly, shops from December are all in (including the Santa pictures, oil change, and restaurants), and now Jan is starting to trickle in (gas station, postal, coffe, and retail). It really helps to have the database to back it up-so when tax time comes, I'll have a clear picture of the income, along with all my deductions (supplies, mileage, and phone).

Yeah, a lot is going on, nothing really that's glamourous, but heck, it is what it is, and that's our life.