curry fingers and vacation partners.

Last night I cooked a new recipe (and it was really good) and while overall the recipe was super fast and easy, it did involve first toasting some curry powder to use in a dressing. Toasting curry powder. It was awesome. It smelled awesome. But for some reason now, over 12 hours later, I'm sitting in my office and every time my hands are near my face, all I can smell is curry. Oops. I'm hoping I'm the only one who notices this. Well, until lunchtime when I bust out my leftovers. But then everyone will just be jealous.

Lest you think I've been doing totally exciting stuff this week instead of blogging, let me set you straight. I haven't been. Just reading. I'm finally over Gone Girl and back to reading books that follow my favorite Formula. In case you were wondering, right now Dee Henderson is my go-to author for books that will suit my current mood. I know. I know. I am completely 100% lame. Oh well. At least I'm entertained. What I find particularly entertaining in her books is how heavily all of the characters rely on pagers. And these books were written in the 2000s!! All the characters have cell phones, because that's how they return each other's calls...but still they ALWAYS page each other first. It really cracks me up. Does anyone still know anyone that uses pagers? Is there some secret underground network of people who can't let them go? I often wonder the same thing about fax machines, which is clearly why I have an entire 'label' dedicated to the fax machine phenomenon. Yesterday one of the volunteers here at my work was hanging out in my office and he was musing on fax machines and why anyone uses them anymore. I must say- some people still love 'em. I probably get things faxed to me about once a week. It's crazy.

Oh wait- something exciting DID happen this week!! We are going to have company on our vacation this year!! Woooo!! Some friends of ours were thinking about planning a similar vacation (relaxing, relaxing, relaxing, unlimited food and drinks, relaxing) and after a few conversations, we decided the best thing ever would be for them to book the same vacation as us so that we can all be sloths together in Mexico. HOLLA!! It took a few weeks for them to get theirs booked, but now it's done and we are going to be spending 6 lovely days in Mexico with FRIENDS this time!! I am super beyond excited. It's going to be the best of both worlds (traveling as a couple, traveling with friends) because we'll have our own rooms (as opposed to staying in a condo together or something) at the resort and we can spend as much time together or apart as we want. Or split up guys and girls! Or whatever! We are just super excited, and at least 40% of the excitement (okay, kidding) is because now we will have reliable people to take pictures of us and won't rely on 'selfies' to document the entire trip! Oh and there will be other people to talk to once Matt and I run out of things to talk about! Don't lie- don't you always hit that place on a vacation? Umm...we've been stuck together 24/7 for x number of days...EVERYTHING that I've seen, you've seen...EVERYTHING that I've done, you've done...THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO TALK ABOUT! That really isn't a problem for Matt and I because we're totally content to spend 80% of our time in silence (well, because I'm reading the whole time), but it'll be nice to be able to leave and go do something with Jessie and then when I get back THERE WILL BE SOMETHING NEW TO TELL MATT!!! Ha. So, yes. A new round of vacation enthusiasm. Because my enthusiasm wasn't already high enough.

I'm getting extremely anxious and antsy for warmer weather to show up so that I can start spending my life outside in the garden and flower beds. I know YOU are getting antsy to start being inundated with obnoxious pictures of my flowers, aren't you? Just wait. It's coming.

Matt has an appointment next week to follow up from his surgery. And I just now looked for the blog to link to about his surgery, and there isn't one? How did I manage to not blog about his surgery? When I had surgery it got its own category assigned! Matt's surgery? Nah. Well, guess we can see who does the blogging 'round here. Oops. Anyway-- this just in, Matt had surgery December 14!! The surgery was to correct a bunch of vein abnormalities and other junk down in The Region. They don't do the surgery follow-up until 3 months later because that's how long it takes to see a change in sperm quality/production/etc. So next week he'll have the new SAs done, as well as some ultrasounds and such to see if the surgery was successful. We won't get the results that day (I won't even be there), probably not for another week or two (or whenever we can get another appointment and I can be there)...but it's exciting/scary to kinda get the ball rolling again. It's been such a lonnnnnng three months with no trips to the RE (not). Of course I am praying that there are huge improvements and that the ultrasounds and SAs reveal that. But I'm also curious/scared about what our next steps could/should/might be. 

Well, that's as much updating as I have for the morning. My heart is rather heavy today as it's a tough day for my sister and brother-in-law...he's being shipped back out to ____ (a place very far away where there's a war and people try to kill people like my BIL) for the next ____ (long time) and I can't imagine how heartbreaking it is for both of them. Our prayers are that he will be safe (of course) and come home to her quickly. He's been deployed many times, but this is his first since they've been married (over 2 years). I just can't imagine how her heart breaks as she has to say goodbye. And now I'm going to make myself cry, so let's wrap this up and yall keep them in your thoughts and prayers if you will. 

faxes and taxes

Strangely enough, Matt and I both had Close Encounters of the Fax Machine Kind today. His story was better than mine…but isn’t it a little weird that we both dealt with faxes today? I mean…unless you’re in real estate…or an athlete on College Signing Day…I just didn’t think people used faxes that much. Hence the reason I created my whole “fax machines” ‘tag’ a few years ago. I thought it would be funny since that was surely the only fax story I would ever tell.

Not so!

My story is rather boring. Pretty much your basic how the heck do these things WORK???? story that involves me standing in the office, randomly mashing buttons on a fax machine for an hour until I just give up and re-type all the information on the form to email it to the girl who needs it while I inter-office-mail the actual form. Right. Boring.

Matt’s story was better. An agent called him and requested that he fax some insurance information to him. Matt repeatedly tried faxing to the number the guy gave him, but the fax kept coming back with no answer. Shortly thereafter, a woman called the bank’s call center and asked to be transferred to Matt. The lady runs a sex phone line on the West coast and Matt was tying up her line by trying to send faxes. Could he please stop already?? Um…okay? Ha!!! I thought that was pretty funny. If you knew my husband in real life, you would think it’s pretty funny too.

Now on an unrelated-but-rhyming-note…taxes.

We did our taxes last weekend. I am always super excited to do taxes because I think it’s fun to fill in lots of little boxes. It could be strange, but it’s true. I do not like to give other people (ie: accountants, my husband…) the joy of doing my taxes for me because then I wouldn’t get to feel like I’m crunching lots of numbers, and also because it makes me feel like a really good citizen to do my own taxes. Oh, it also makes me feel smart to do my own taxes. Because lots of people have to go pay someone else to do it for them, right? So somehow it makes me superior since I don’t.

Just a little over-the-top honesty for ya, there. But please know that I realize we have the easiest taxes ever. I realize most people’s are much more complicated and need more expertise. We have no dependents, no self-employment, no energy-efficient upgrades, no stock-selling-that-led-to-gambling-losses…just two W-2s and not a whole lot else. Anyway. I’ve digressed.

For some reason, one of the other reasons I so eagerly anticipate doing my taxes is that I was led to believe that we would get this windfall of cash known as a “tax refund.” That hasn’t always been the case. Back when I was single (and the first year we were married) I had a lot (relatively speaking, of course) of self-employment income. (Note: and I paid an accountant to do my taxes for me. So I’m not above that.) That meant I always owed lots of money come tax season, so naturally I did not look forward to that day and I procrastinated it as long as possible, even filing for extensions some years! Woohoo, I was THAT excited about taxes. But now that I don’t nanny for a living, and we own a house that we pay lots of interest on our mortgage, and we file jointly, and we have a lot of deductions…I don’t know, I just thought that somehow all that meant you were supposed to GET money come tax day. I didn’t even know how much most people got, but it seems like it must be a lot since I hear about people going on vacations and re-doing their floors and buying TVs with their tax refunds.

I couldn’t wait to get a piece of that pie.

Last year I sure did. But I knew it would be an exception: We bought a house and got the $8000 first-time homebuyers credit. So that was fun and all, but I certainly knew it wouldn’t always be that good.

But, long story short: all my excitement about taxes was for naught. I mean, it was still fun filling in the boxes and feeling all smarty pants and superior. But that cash windfall?? Didn’t happen. Actually, we OWED money to the federal government…$82 to be precise. On the plus side, we do get a nice refund from the state (enough that we’ll still end up on the positive side)…but that owing $82 was just enough to break my heart. I mean, it’s no big deal…it’s 82 bucks. But I was so thinking we were going to GET money. Not GIVE. Tax fail.

Anyway. I’m sure this is a story no one cares about, but I just wanted you to know that NO, we will not be joining you on your tax-refund-funded vacations or car-buying sprees. We’ll be sitting at home (where at least we have INTERNET now!), trying to figure out how to make next year’s tax day a little less anticlimactic.

Probably by filing via fax machine!! Now there’s a scenario that couldn’t possibly go awry.

I love when I can bring a blog full circle.

getting better

I really appreciate all the nice thoughts and advice yall have given me in regards to our housing issues. I tend to get so caught up in the emotions of it all (and I do lean towards the melodramatic) that I probably make it even worse than it is. Anyway, we (and by 'we' I mean Matt, because I did nothing) made positive progress today by getting in touch with the people at his bank (who had pre-approved us a few months ago) and getting the loan ball rolling there. They are infinitely easier to work with-- imagine this, you can actually just email a person and they EMAIL YOU BACK!!! Or-- hold your breath-- they ANSWER THE PHONE WHEN YOU CALL!! Lawd have mercy, who woulda thunk. Anyway, they are going to do an FHA loan (as opposed to the conventional loan we had been doing with the other place) (and no, I have no idea what either of those terms mean...this is just FYI for all those who are more intelligent than I) and said we could go with as little as 3% down (we're still sticking with ~6% that'd we'd previously planned) and we're getting a repair escrow account to finish the floors. AND they will actually just talk directly to our realtor instead of only to us. This I am very excited about. I appreciate that USAA (former lender) respect our privacy as members so much that they refuse to talk to ANYONE except us...but that was really inconvenient. I have no desire to be the middleman for every single little piece of information and "I need you to fax me this"...please just take care of that on your own, thanks.

Miscellaneous thought: For the past few years I've had this belief that faxes were pretty much a thing of the past...I mean, who ever really uses one or NEEDS one? Apparently I was out of the loop...the fax industry must be fueled by the real estate industry, because MAN we have to fax a lot of things!! I had no idea those 'antiquated'(in my mind) machines were so useful!

So, things are looking up today. I'm feeling better. I especially love it when Matt does all the talking/emailing and then can just summarize what went on in the end. It usually doesn't happen that way because I'm such a control freak and I want to HEAR what every single person says. Also, if I tell Matt "hey, call so and so and ask this," and he does, then inevitably I think of like 4 more things I want him to say or ask and I'm trying to whisper them to him as he sits on the phone and he gets really frustrated and says "here, YOU can talk to them." So it's pretty much my own fault, but today I was busy at work til 7, so I really had no option but to let Matt handle it all...and he did a fantastic job.

Soon I am going to post pictures of some of the sweet things I've been cooking lately. And by "sweet" I just mean awesome, because they're all main/side dishes, not desserts. I take all these pictures with the intentions of posting them here, but inevitably I get distracted by things like LIFE and don't get around to it. And all I talk about is buying a house. Or Lola. Maybe I should make a list of things I've been meaning to blog about...I'm a good list-maker and list-crosser-offer.

1. Awesome food I cook
2. Pioneer Woman
3. Google Analytics
4. Funny things kids have said at school lately

That's all I can think of. Feel free to vote on which one you'd like to see me write on first. Maybe then I would actually get around to it. :) But right now I'm going to go watch last week's Amazing Race. Somehow, in the drama of being totally distressed last night, I forgot to catch up!!! Horrors!