For the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to tame my office in my free time. It’s not a large space, but somehow it’s turned into a monstrous project. I’ve managed to put a lot of things in their appropriate places, (e.g. not “staging” piles), but you couldn’t tell now as it’s full again with piles of tax papers! Ugh. At least those things already have a place as soon as I finish. The question is: will I finish my taxes before April 15th this year? I plan on it, but reality never seems to match plans…
To wit: the Secretary of State sent me a letter probably a month ago saying that I needed to renew my license. It had helpful comments in BOLD RED LETTERS saying things like: “renew by mail today”, “no picture needed”, “avoid late fees”. I planned to take care of it right away by putting them in my “things to take care of right away” pile.
This was promptly buried by other “things to take care of right away”.
Yesterday I was showing someone my license and she was like, “happy almost birthday!” I said something like, “oh, no, I forgot to renew my license”, and she helpfully responded that I should do that because they’ll charge a late fee if I don’t do it in time. I don’t know what this “late fee” is, but I don’t want to find out nor do I want to be driving with an expired license.
So, with that fresh in my mind, the plan today was to drop the kids off at school, come home to have coffee and do a little work, then head out to the SOS when they were open.
Unfortunately, Ann suffered a foot injury at gymnastics last week and had trouble sleeping. The Ibuprofen only seemed to last a couple of hours and said no more than one dose every four hours. Needlessly to say we spent some quality time together overnight. She apologized for it today and that was frankly crushing. How did I act or what did I say that made it sound like her “interruption” to my sleep was an inconvenience? This bothers me more than I can express.
When my alarm finally sounded, I hit snooze to get the extra five minutes, (I should use Burma Shave). When 9 AM rolled around, I was already caught up in work and had totally forgotten about the SOS or shaving. It wasn’t until about 4 that I realized that 1) I hadn’t prepped dinner, 2) Ann’s inhaler ran out this morning and I had to get a refill, (another thing in my ” things to take care of right away” pile, 3) I had skipped lunch (again), and 4) I hadn’t made it to the SOS. So, out the door to drop off the refill, renew my license, (after checking that I couldn’t do it online), and back in plenty of time to prep dinner and wrap up the work day, right? No…someone at work calls.
OK, 4 on the dot and I head out. I drop off the refill, then head to the SOS and grab my ticket, (81). It doesn’t look too bad and from what I can tell, I’m only six numbers back in the queue. But there seems to be this steady stream of “recall” people. An hour later, my number finally gets called. This is not good. See, the kids have choir practice on Wednesdays and I need to pick them up by 5:15 in order to not rush dinner too much and have them to church by 6:10.
[3/18/2012 Update] I don’t recall how this story ended, but imagine it involved stopping by Arby’s for dinner to get to church on time.