Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Love

Have you ever been so worked up internally for one bullshit reason or another, and then look over at your child's face and soften inside, weakening, melting to a puddle of nonsense as the love you have for them rises up and overpowers what's boiling inside?

That's the kind of day I had today.

Things have been stressful lately, and I have been short on patience with Maraea, sadly.  I try.  But I'm the type of person that wears it all on my face.  It's really hard to hide.

The past two days I've been at work late dealing with production issues for one of my applications.  It's frustrating on so many levels.  I won't bore you with all the reasons here but suffice it to say that the later I'm at work, the more I hate it, the longer my commute home will be, the more irritated I get.  I should be happier when I pick her up from daycare but by that point my patience is fried and I just want to get home and zone out and do nothing and not be needed by anyone or anything.

I finally made it home today, and I sat down to eat dinner with Aaron while Maraea waited on the couch for her dinner to finish cooking.  I looked over at her on the couch and her face - it's just so perfect.  I weakened.  All the day's worries melted away.  I felt better.  

Thank God for my kid.


My cat is super snuggly lately.  I like it.  She's also been spending a lot of time in Moko's crate.  Which is really odd.  

I know, I know.  It's time to put Moko's crate away.  I'm getting there.

Annnnnd there I go.  Tearing up about my dog again.  Oh, Moko.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

2014 can suck it.

2014 is just not my year.

One has to wonder just how much worse it can get.

My husband's car got smashed up by a public transportation bus.
We had to put my dog down.
Maraea's KinderCare is doing away with kindergarten, so there goes our backup plan.
We want to sell our house but will probably have to pay someone to buy it from us.
I'm not healthy - my body is in starvation mode and I'm doing what I can to get it out of it, but the past two weeks have been hell on me physically.  Maybe more on that in a future post.

We owe the IRS money - a lot of it - let's just say it's 5 digits.

Last year Aaron and I both made more money so I think we got bumped up to a higher tax bracket (sucker!  Stop doing better for yourself!).  And, despite what our previous accountant had told us, we apparently should both be claiming 0 on our W-4s instead of Aaron claiming 3 and me claiming 0.

If only this stupid country could adopt a flat tax rate.... wouldn't our lives be easier?  No matter what I make, just take 30% of it.  Here.  Take it.  I could live with that.

Also awesome?  Because Aaron and I made "so much money" (PS, according to the IRS, we fall into the "wealthy" category... did you know wealthy people live in brick rowhomes in NE Philadelphia?  Me neither.  If I'm wealthy, what the heck category do REAL wealthy people fall in?) last year, all of the deductions and credits I was counting on to reduce our tax bill - child care, education expenses, etc - we qualified for none of it.

I just want to know how wealthy do I have to get so that I can get some tax breaks for being so darn rich?

Sorry middle class sucker!  You don't need this free money.  What YOU need to do is PAY US MORE!

I hate tax time.  I don't know what we do wrong.  Other than go to work every day, live paycheck to paycheck, go to school to try and better ourselves, and do everything we can to make sure we aren't living off the government.

I could totally quit my job.  Have a whole ton of kids.  Get my daycare paid for.  Get some free milk and bread and cheese and eggs.  Get me some free healthcare.  AND STILL probably get a tax return.  But noooooo.  Silly me and my pride and my drive.

I'm a middle class sucker.

Oh well.  I can't give them what I don't have, right?  They'll get my largest state refund ever (go figure).  They'll get all the money I set aside specifically to pay them because I figured I would owe.  They'll get all of what's currently in my savings account - that was supposed to be to pay someone to buy my house.  And they'll get all of our future vacation checks for this year (that was supposed to be to buy a new house).  If I'm lucky, maybe I'll have them paid off before December so we can have something of a Christmas this year.

Sometimes it really just feels like I'm not ever supposed to do better.  Like I'm always supposed to live here and never have anything better.  Despite my degree, my salary, my husband's salary.  I mean jeez, we aren't living the high life here.  The assumption would be that since we owe so much money, we must have been living large last year.  False.  If we were, trust me, I wouldn't still be living in NE Philly.

Chuck it in the fuck it bucket and move on.