Post-Busy Season

The first few weeks after busy season are always amazing. First, I take some time to rest and recoup and then I only have to work an 8 hour day! It's amazing how much I can get done after work and how good a home-cooked meal tastes!

Monday evening, I walked Emma, cooked dinner, cleaned my kitchen and trimmed back a shrub in front of my house. Of course, there was some TV watching, too. My DVR is not in danger of filling up any time soon!

Tuesday, I had some errands to run, so I didn't cook dinner, but Emma and I still managed some play time and also swept all the dead blossoms from my Bradford Pear trees off my deck. Trust me, this was a bigger job than it sounds like!!

Tonight, I was freezing from the rain and the temperature change, so soup sounded like a good idea. It may or may not have been 8PM before I could eat, but it was still tasty! Like I said, I was cold and just didn't feel so hot (possible caffeine withdrawal!), so I laid on the sofa, threw one of Em's many toys over and over and rested. Not a productive evening, but at least I feel a little better!

Post-Busy Season life is just grand! It takes three months of torture and boring sandwiches to realize how good the other nine months of the year are.

I have a few pictures from last week at the condo. Apparently no one in my family was feeling very photogenic since there were far more outtakes than I will share with you! In any case, at least I have photographic evidence that we were there!!

Tax Season: Check!!

I made it! I'm so glad it's over and things won't be so hectic again for several months.

Monday, I helped others with extensions and electronic filing forms until about 4:30. I went outside to the firm party, but I'd missed most of the fun. Instead of hanging around with mostly the audit department, I headed home before traffic picked up. It was strange to be home during daylight hours, but I'll get used to it! All I did was eat dinner and get my DVR under 50% full, but I enjoyed not worrying about work.

Tuesday, I started my four days of vacation. I ran a few errands and met my friend Melissa for a pedicure. Then I had mountains of laundry to tackle and a dirty car to wash before Mom and Dad picked me up for our trip to the condo.

This morning, we have an electrician installing ceiling fans at the condo, so I'm camped out in Mom's best friend's condo so I can sleep without interruption. I'm making homemade pizza tonight per Dad's request, but that's my only real plan for today.

I'm sleepy again, so I'm not going to fight it. I've been fighting sleep for weeks and that's coming to a stop today!! :)

Day Zero

Tomorrow is the day tax accountants look forward to all year--the end of tax season. It's been a long, hard three months, but we made it!

I was super stressed until yesterday, really. It just didn't seem possible to get everything done. Thursday night (or Friday-the days all blur together) I really felt like I was drowning, but I made it though. I made it through a whole tax season without a single tear and with a minimum of harsh words. That's an achievement in itself!

I'm so grateful for my two work BFFs that have become true friends and not just work friends. Without them, there's no way I would have stayed sane. We may be a clique in the eyes of some, but we definitely have each other's backs. That's what's most important!!

I'm in my pajamas in bed with my iPad and a glass of wine before 9PM. I think I'll celebrate and go to bed early!

Happy April 15th Eve--hope you filed your return so Uncle Sam doesn't come to get you! :)

7 Days!!

Seven more days until busy season is over!  I can't express in words just how excited I am!

Mom sent this as my inspirational quote of the day.  I hope it helps the other Type-A, cronic worriers like me!

Another Thought for Another Day

Mom found this on Pinterest and I've circulated it around my other CPA-friends.  I know things could be a lot worse than having a good job that just happens to require me to work 80+ hour weeks, but right now it seems pretty awful.  I keep telling myself that I can do anything for 10 more days!

 

We still have over 1,000 returns to prepare or extend.  I don't know how more than 100 returns per day will go out the door.  Somehow, it always happens and I have to remember to only worry about the clients that are assigned to me!

Thought for the Day

 

The wife of one of my coworkers found this and I have made it my motto until April 15.

 

 

I'm exhausted, but I'm trying to power through.  Time for another mega dose of Five Hour Energy and hot tea! :)

Finding an Easter Dress...

...otherwise known as go shopping during your lunch break and don't be gone for over an hour.

I bought a dress on sale at Marigail's back in January that I was saving for Easter. However, I didn't realize Easter was so early when I bought the dress. Since its going to be cold and rainy, my unlined dress simply will not do unless I want to be laughed at while simultaneously freezing to death. I'll save this dress for a warmer day...if it ever decides to warm up and stop SNOWING!

Anyway, I decided last night that I really needed something else that would be more weather-appropriate. I searched online at my go-to store, Banana Republic. There were several things I thought I might like, but most of the dresses were not available in-store in my size. I also thought about risking it and waiting to go to Marigail's before closing on Saturday, but decided that was a bad idea.

I don't know what possessed me, but I decided to check out the Anthropologie online store. I found several things I liked and narrowed it down to my favorite dress which also happened to be in stock. The traffic gods shined on me and I made it into the store within 10 minutes of leaving the office. I immediately asked to try on the dress that caught my eye online, but unfortunately they didn't have my size. I tried on the size above and below what I needed before deciding to try other things. I probably tried on about 5 more dresses and liked two of them--my biggest complaint with the others was the length. I'm a bit too old to be wearing dresses that hit WAY above the knee!

I ended up buying the two dresses I liked that were in-store and ordering the one I really loved that wasn't available in my size. I'm hopeful that it will arrive Saturday before I leave, but I know which of the two remaining dresses I will wear otherwise. I made it back to work in just over an hour. Not bad considering how productive that hour was! Ha

I'd never bought anything from Anthropologie before today. I'd only been in the store at Bridge Street in Huntsville and wasn't really looking to buy anything at the time. Everything seemed to be priced similarly to what I would expect from Banana or J. Crew instead of very overpriced, as I'd always been led to believe.

Everyone needs a little retail therapy, right? Anthro definitely helped to cure my Monday blues. Plus, I won't freeze my (in the words of my Grandmother) "tee-hiney" off at church on Sunday morning!!

Checking In

I'm in the home stretch of the first big deadline of tax season...March 15th is the deadline for corporations to file their tax returns.  Thankfully, with the help of codine cough syrup, a Z-pack and a little TLC from my Mama, I'm finally feeling like my usual (exhausted) self.  It just worked out perfectly that she needed to be in Nashville at the same time I thought I was getting pneumonia.

Work is crazy.  I worked more last week than any other week ever besides the one immediately before April 15th.  I'm almost 40 hours ahead of where I was last year which is scary.  I'm ready for a break.  The quote (below) describes what my busy season has been like so far:

While I'm grateful for the opportunities my promotion has brought and for what I'm learning, I'm so tired.  I wonder how I'm going to make it through another month.  There's no option other than to power through, so that's what I'm going to do.  Like I told a good friend earlier, "it all gets done somehow!"

Nothing Interesting

Not much is going on at La Maison de Katie. I worked yesterday and then went in again today. I think I have bronchitis (despite the PA at the urgent care I went to after work yesterday). I must really feel bad since I went to work with no product in my hair and not a stitch of makeup. Thankfully, I only saw one person (a guy) at the office. I don't think I scared him TOO badly!!

Busy season is still busy. I'm working more than I've ever worked before, but somehow I feel like I'm getting less done. I guess it's because in working on much more complex projects instead of more straight-forward first year returns. At the time, I thought those were hard...haha!!

I started talking with Mom about what we're going to do after April 15th. We will probably go to the condo for at least a few days, but I also suggested visiting my parent's best friends in Houston. I haven't seen them in a while, but they will always feel like family. I'm also hoping for a friend's trip to NYC sometime this summer. I haven't been since college and I think it's high time to go back!

Mother and Daddy got a subscription to Amazon Prime recently and I finally linked my TV to the video service. After I got home from work, I turned on a movie instead of going straight up to bed. I'm looking forward to seeing what all Amazon Prime offers! We've had Netflix for several years, so I'll see how it compares.

I guess I should go upstairs and get ready for bed. My alarm will go off before I know it and it'll be time to start another week. One closer to April 15th! Yay!!

Busy Season Guilt

I feel guilt of one kind or another throughout busy season. Either I'm not working "enough" hours or my house is not clean "enough" or I'm not being a good "enough" daughter and friend.

This time of year, my sole focus, whether I like it or not, is tax returns. Sleeping enough hours, cleaning my house and spending time with friends and family unfortunately becomes secondary to completing another tax return.

The lack of sleep catches up with me first. Some days, it's all I can do to get out of bed in the mornings. I have trouble going to sleep almost every night since I go to bed as soon as I get home. Since I haven't had any time to mellow, my brain keeps thinking about the next tax return and its after midnight before I know it. If you don't believe me, ask the friends I play against in Scramble and Words with Friends. More than one person has asked me why I'm still awake considering I have less than 6 hours before starting a new day. Thank goodness I don't have to clock in at 8AM!! It really does work better with traffic to leave at 8:00 and get to work at 8:30. Nashville traffic is awful almost all the time...

I know I complain about my house not being clean enough when others would say its spotless compared to theirs, but messiness still bothers me. For instance, I still have laundry that I hung up to dry in the laundry room and have yet to put it away. I guess, if it really bothered me so much, I would have put it away instead of writing about it. I think I'll go do that... :)

Guilt about not being a good enough daughter and friend is the kicker. I so wish I could spend time every weekend with Grandaddy, but it's just not possible. I have a (justified) fear that he will forget me while I am working weekends and can't visit. I have to hope he still remembers me and I send him cards that he reads over and over again. I think seeing my name and phrases he always used to tell me he loved me might trigger his memories. Mom and Dad understand to an extent. They don't expect me to come home and they take care of Emma. They even do my shopping for me. (I need air filters for my HVAC and Dad is going to get them before they come to the doctor next week since I can't fit in a Home Depot trip.) I know they understand working late and working hard, but I also know they get tired of hearing me complain about how tired I am and how frustrated I am with a person or a project. I try to keep it to myself, but it usually doesn't work. Many of my close friends are CPAs (or the wife of a CPA), so they understand. It's nice to talk to someone who "speaks the language". It definitely helps to hear that things are not just ridiculous at my firm. My other friends unfortunately have to accept that I'm pretty much MIA until April 15th.

I'm going straight to sleep now--maybe I can sleep 8 hours tonight, get to work earlier than usual and charge more hours! We'll just have to see if I can break the vicious cycle that starts every morning when I can't get up and moving. Night all!!