February 16, 2005.

This picture made me giggle (thanks to mah baybee for the link).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ This is horrible to admit, but from April of last year to February of this year, I didn’t touch the company financial books (the company being the publishing company we formed to publish Fred’s book) aside from entering a few invoices. I didn’t enter the monthly bills into the books, I didn’t balance the checking account every month, nothing. Nada. Zilch. Don’t you wish I was responsible for your books? Since Fred needed to get our stuff to the accountant so that she can do our tax return this year, I finally sat my ass down almost a year’s worth of bank statements, a ton of printed-out Amazon orders I’d never entered, and I concentrated on getting the books in order. Know how long it took me? About an hour. After putting it off all month long because I didn’t want to deal with it, it ended up being almost painless – I started music playing, sat down with a big cup of ice-cold Diet Coke, and got it done. I plan to stay on top of things for the rest of the year. Har. The books are almost gone, which means that hopefully before the end of the year we can shut down the company and close the company checking account, and I won’t have to do it all again next February! I kind of made a resolution at the beginning of February to keep on top of our personal financial books, because I have a bad habit of letting a week or two go by without putting in the debit card purchases, and so far I’ve done a pretty good job of it. Does this mean I’m turning into a grown-up? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Speaking of turning into a grown-up, Fred and I had an appointment this morning with a lawyer. That’s right, a lawyer. Because we’re getting a divorce. HA! JUST KIDDING! Did I make your heart skip a little beat there for a second? No, we’re not getting a divorce – we were doing something that requires MUCH more paperwork than getting a divorce, and that is refinancing the freakin’ house. We signed and signed and signed and signed, and every time I had to sign “R0byn L. And3rson”, I clenched my teeth, because I’ve made it a point to always use “R0byn And3rson”, no middle initial for everything – checking account, credit cards, all that good stuff, specifically because I hate having to sign with that middle initial, and here I was having to sign that freakin’ middle initial 45,000 times. But it was actually fairly painless, and now our mortgage payment is reduced by (approximately) 21.428571 percent. AND we don’t have to make a mortgage payment for March! Par-tay! Also – and this makes me so happy I could just giggle – this means that Chase Manhatt@n is OUT of our lives. Buh-bye, Chase Manhatt@n, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out! Our new mortgage company is a small company in Ocala, Florida, and I think we all know what that means: our mortgage will probably be sold to Chase Manhatt@n in two seconds flat. Ugh. So now that the refinancing is done, we’re going to go shopping for a car for me, and just in the nick of time because I think the electrical system on the Jeep is going a wee bit haywire. Last night I drove to McDonald’s for an ice cream cone, only there were about fifteen people in line and I said “FUCK THIS”, and drove back home, and I was driving along minding my own business, and suddenly the lights started flashing on and off and on and off and I had no clue how to make it stop, and I worried that the person in front of me was going to wonder why I was flashing my fucking lights at her, but just as I was about to pull off the road and figure out how to deal with the flashing lights, they stopped. I fully expect that any time now, I’ll be driving down the road, and the Jeep will fall to pieces, and I’ll be sitting there holding the wheel, with my foot on the gas and a big cartoon question mark hanging over my head. I have a pretty good idea of what I’ll end up getting as a car, but y’all will just have to wait ’til I actually have it in my possession before I tell you, because if I tell you, someone will have something not-nice to say about it (not YOU, of course, but see that scowling chick over THERE? Yeah, she’s primed and ready to snipe, I can just tell), and Fred’s head will fall off and bounce across the room, and I kinda like his head where it is. But worry not – once the car is mine, there’ll be pictures galore, I promise! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ “Whatnot” would an excellent name for a blog. You could even make it a wedding blog and make a play on words with “What Knot?” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ So after the refinancing, I went to Sam’s since I was in the area anyway. I wandered around and got annoyed because Sam’s has stopped carrying the gum I love – Trident White Spearmint – and also they had no tea, no Crystal Light Pink Lemonade, AND no cherry Kool-Aid. I did get bottled water, boneless skinless chicken breasts, and a bottle of Flintstones vitamins, so the trip wasn’t a total waste. When I was standing in line at the checkout, I saw the 32-ounce cups they sell for 74 cents (which you take over to the soda fountain and fill up with the soda of your choice), and I decided that I should get a cup of Diet Coke at Sam’s instead of going through the drive-thru at McDonald’s – which I’d been planning to do – because the 32-ounce Diet Coke at McDonald’s is twice as much as the same size and same soda at Sam’s. I bought the cup, filled it up with Diet Coke, and when I sat down in the Jeep I took a big swig of the Diet Coke, and it sucked. I don’t know if it was flat, or the machine needed to be cleaned, or maybe just that McDonald’s puts crack in their Diet Coke, but my Sam’s Diet Coke was a great big letdown. Guess I’ll know better next time. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Fred found a pile of floppy disks in the dining room the other day and started using them to copy stuff for the thing he’s working on (she said obliquely), and I took one to make a copy of our books for the accountant. I checked first to see what was on it, and found a little treasure trove of Tubby pics from November 2003. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~]]>