Mildly productive

I've had a good day and I'm currently rewarding myself with a hot chai tea, All Things Considered on the radio, and a little blogging. I completed another client's year-end work and (whoopee!) she didn't need any 1099's prepared. I have one client left and then my January push is officially over. The one I have left hasn't given me his stuff since the end of June so I have six months of work to do, but his work is simple, repetitive, and fairly easy. And he doesn't have me do his 1099's.

Then it's on to taxes. I only do ours and my kids' so it's not so bad. A couple of years ago I wised up and bought some tax software which has been totally worth it, even with the annual replacement cost. And even with the souped-up version I need for R's work. We were at OfficeMax the other day buying the software and ran into a neighbor. She's a bit of a crank. We visited and I told her I was buying tax software so I could prepare ours and the kids' returns and she said, "Well I hope you're charging them!" kind of adamantly like I was a sucker or something. I told her there was no way I was charging my kids to do their taxes and besides, they were easy returns. Like I had to justify it! She's such a crank.

R has officially been put on notice not to let me turn into a crank. I have cranky tendencies, and can lean towards the curmudgeonly, but I think I'm relatively self-aware. So we'll see. I am allowed to be cranky towards other cranks (my new rule). Plus my daughter would keep me in check I think. And I would hate to be a cranky grandma.

R and I are making a list of things we want to do this year. Just short day trips to take on the weekends that sound like fun. We will also probably start exercising together. He went for the blood work for his full physical this past week, and they scheduled him for a treadmill test. His family is lousy with heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a couple of heart attacks. It made me tear up when I helped him complete his family history, knowing my guy is inheriting a tendency for all that. He is in good shape (relatively) and has a fairly active job, but he knows he could do better. And he's slimmer than a lot of the siblings with problems, but still. Heart disease doesn't always care how slim you are.

Maybe we'll run together. Now that we have snow on the ground again, I'm still waiting to get back to it. But I have been walking at the university's arena which is way better than nothing at all. Can't say there is improvement, but I'm hanging in there. I'm not falling out of shape completely.

That's all I know. I'm hanging in. Some days, that's the best result one could hope for.