Wahoo! (and then not...)

Did you ever have a task to do that you knew you really had to do, but really just didn’t want to because it kept getting pushed to the bottom of your priorities pile? Well, that task, for me, was my project progress reports. When push comes to shove, it’s just easier to give high priority to doing your work instead of writing about how you’re going to do it, since only one of those things is really important in the short-term. So, I’m embarrassed to say it, but I got a little (lot) behind. FORTUNATELY, I have spent the last week or two working on this off-and-on, and I am 100% caught up!!! This means that I have written close to 20, that’s right twenty, of these things by reviewing old notes from phone calls, old archived e-mails, and notes in my calendar to make sure I’m getting it right. Is this more time-consuming than just doing them as they come? Oh, heck yeah. But since they’re DONE, I’ve now added a reminder in my Outlook calendar to do them every month so that I can remain caught up. Which I’ll likely ignore, but at least I’ll be aware of it!

So I’m doing a little happy dance in my head. I’m not going to lie – there’s booty-shaking involved.

And now for something completely different.

Marriage is, on the whole, great. The only thing that isn’t, the fly in the proverbial ointment, is this: taxes. Since we’re married but don’t have kids and don’t own a house, and won’t have either of those things for several years, we’re subject to what some people refer to as “the marriage penalty”. Which means that even with zero exemptions, we need to have additional money taken out of each paycheck unless we want to have to pony up a few thousand dollars around tax time. Again. So that means, after I’ve done my research and calculations, that I will be taking home less per month than before I got my raise. Is it because now that we’ve pooled two incomes, we’re out living the high life, with me buying Manolo Blahniks and Kate Spade purses while K tools around in a brand-spanking-new BMW?

Nope.

It’s because we’ve pooled two incomes and we’re not instantly pursuing the “American Dream” of having kids and buying a house we can’t really afford. It must be because we hate freedom. (Or because we're trying to be realistic about our finances.)

It’s good that I’m not bitter.

Mmm...cake

As I mentioned previously, a good friend of mine asked me to make her wedding cake for her, and I happily, if somewhat nervously, agreed to. Well, we had our trial run on Saturday, and after a good bit of time spent in the kitchen and a good bit of anxiety over how to get the frosting to look perfectly smooth (which it still didn’t), Special K and I boxed that puppy up and headed to their house for dinner, complete with champagne tasting. Fortunately, the cake was a big success (lemon-raspberry, for anyone who may be interested), so much so that six of us polished off a cake that contained 12 – 16 servings. None of us are proud of that, but none of us are regretting it too much, either. (That’s because I didn’t mention how many sticks of butter were in the frosting. The light taste is very deceptive.) As we headed into the champagne testing portion of the evening, it soon became clear that none of us were in a position to drive basically anywhere, so sofa beds were pulled out and we crashed hard. After a lovely spontaneous brunch the next morning, Special K and I trundled off to our house, where we proceeded to do some laundry and sit on our butts – which is kind of what we did last weekend. I think I’m seeing a theme…

Keeping in mind that the cake consumption is NOT the norm in our house, K and I have been good about getting up at an obscenely early hour, or if we don’t then making time for the gym after work, and it feels really good – sore muscles and all. There’s something about having a doctor tell you “you must do this” that really puts things in perspective.

I had a realization the other day that was kind of nice – nothing Earth-shattering, just something that hadn’t really occurred to me before, at least not in these words. I am really content right now. Just…really happy with what we have. I mean, we still have goals and things that we want, but we really have everything we need. Our little house is plenty big for the two of us, we can pay all our bills every month and not wonder where it will come from, and we can work toward all the big-picture goals we have.

Plus, my husband rocks.