Weasel Of Doom

I have tried filing our 2010 tax return w/out logging in. It told me to create an account, and then wigged out. I have tried filing with logging in. It keeps wanting to charge me $10. GRRRR! What happened to “free e-file for everyone”?) Sent a message to support, asking how do I switch my account from Deluxe to Free. This is now 4 hours of my life that I am not getting back… *sigh* (Good thing I have an alternative – HR Block software from Shannon. Thank you, Shannon! Tomorrow shall be Attempt To File Taxes, Take 3.)

But on the plus side, I did manage to go through all the mail. Found a bill for OldestOne’s 5K registration fee. Which was supposed to have been paid a year ago. Oops.

Other things that got done:

• Filed Dependent Care and Health Care reimbursement forms.
• Paid OldestOne’s 5K registration fee (just in time for 1st grade).
• Registered MiddleOne for 5K.
• Finalized YoungestOne’s registration for daycare.
• We went to IKEA, got a bunk bed and mattresses, and Bill put the bed together already.
• Bought school supplies.
• Transferred my 403b contributions to a different plan.
• Paid the bills.
• Mowed the lawn.
• Did laundry.
• Went to State Fair with Karen. Thanks to me, she is no longer a cream puff virgin.

Short-term goals for this week:

• File the stupid taxes.
• Buy small gifts for Russian relatives.
• Not forget to pack anything for my flight to Russia on Friday.

And now that I have bored everybody senseless, time to catch on my Go Fug Yourself reading :)

Apparently, it was Rita Mae Brown who said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” She also said, “Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.” Rita Mae Brown is wise. I, on the other hand, am a poster child for her definition of insanity, with a bonus helping of adult onset of Attention Deficit Disorder thrown in.

Back when I was a teenager, once every few months I would try to “Start A New Life.” That consisted of writing out a set of goals (be polite to parents, develop strong willpower, do homework early, clean house, get up early and exercise – you get the idea), sticking with them for a few weeks, then derailing, waving hands in despair, and returning to my Old Life ways. Since I am also a poster child for failing to learn from experience, a few months later I would give New Life another try. Rinse, repeat.

The reason for my continuing attempts at New Life is that writing out “to do” lists IS the best way for me to get things done. I am REALLY GOOD at writing “to do” lists and sticking with them for a week or two. Unfortunately, I am REALLY BAD at going the distance. I get distracted. I get discouraged. I look for excuses. I fail, and I quit.

The point of this rambling post is that August is a new month, and I am going to make another attempt at Starting A New Life. This time, the theme is “Baby Steps.” Here’s my list; some items are pretty specific, some very generic:

• Try to get to work between 8 am and 8:30 am
• Write down everything I do at work
• Only check Google Reader and Facebook before 8:30 am, during lunch, and after 5 pm
• Keep tracking food and exercise on LoseIt
• Write down short-term goals for things to do at home that week, and do them
• Try to waste less time online
• Be a better parent to my kids and a better wife to my husband
• Try to keep up with my blog, book blog, and photo gallery
• Try to go to bed before midnight
• If everything is going well at work, not buy cigarettes

Short-term goals for week of August 1-7:

• Go through mail
• File taxes

Wish me luck!

1. Get back on antidepressants. FAIL.
2. Apply for American citizenship. FAIL.
3. Renew my Russian Foreign passport. FAIL. In my defense, all Russian government agencies are closed for New Year and Christmas until Monday, January 10th.
4. Apply for Russian citizenship and passports for the boys. FAIL. See excuse above.
5. Lose 30 pounds. FAIL. Baked cookies four times, and ate most of them. Also ate three boxes of Cheez-Its. Not proud.
6. Teach the kids some Russian. FAIL.
7. Stay on top of things at home. SO-SO. RSS feed down to 250, dishes are clean, and laundry is done. But kitchen floor is disgusting, house is trashed, and bills are unopened.
8. Play with the kids more. FAIL.
9. Yell at the kids less. FAIL. Been a bad week for dealing with kids.
10. Go to church at least twice a month. FAIL. Though we still have three Sundays to make this one into whatever I will call non-failing. (Suggestions? I don’t like WIN. SUCCESS, perhaps? Share your thoughts.)
11. Get together with friends more. Finally let people know that DSX will have a birthday party on the 29th. Saw Karen on Sunday. SUCCESS, I guess.
12. Do some fun personal projects. SO-SO. Managed to create one square for Share-A-Square, and made a GiST post more or less every day. Read a bunch of books, but haven’t posted reviews.
13. Be a better friend and partner. FAIL.
14. Take better care of myself. FAIL. (Writing this at 1 am on a Sunday night.)
15. Be a better employee. FAIL. Got in trouble for not having something done on time, actually.

Verdict (with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel): Hello failure my old friend, I’ve come to talk to you again…

It’s 2011, and that means it’s Resolution Time, otherwise known as “Let’s Write Things Down Now So That We Can Feel Like Total Failure Later.” However, I am (a) somewhat inoculated to feeling like a failure since I have been failing New Year’s resolutions for about 15 years now and (b) a slow learner, so here’s my List Of Things To Achieve in 2011:

1. Get back on antidepressants. I am sick and tired of being depressed, people around me are sick and tired of me being depressed, and something needs to be done before my friends get me involuntary committed to the mental health ward at the County hospital. Step one is getting a new primary health provider. Step two is convincing him or her that I really am depressed.
2. Apply for American citizenship. But first I will need to renew my green card, which expires in February. That will cost me $450. American citizenship application is $680. I really should have timed this better.
3. Renew my Russian Foreign passport, which I need for traveling, and which expires in June. As far as I can tell from the Russian Consulate in Seattle’s website, it will only cost me $30. Of course, I will also need to fly to Seattle in person to drop off the paperwork and to pick the passport up. Somebody please explain why the hell is there no consulate in Chicago???
4. Apply for Russian citizenship and passports for the boys, to make yearly traveling to Russia easier. At least I can schlep all the paperwork along when I fly to Seattle with my stuff. Silver lining – while reading all the horrible bureaucratic instructions (oh, Russia, how you love your bureaucracy) I learned that having American citizenship DOES NOT negate having Russian citizenship anymore, as far as Russia is concerned.
5. Lose 30 pounds. I would like to go back to my post-Sergey’s-birth weight, which was 125 lbs. I weigh 155 lbs now, and the extra thirty pounds have chosen the most unflattering locations they could. I hate looking in the mirror and seeing the double chin, the muffin top roll, and the thunder thighs. I wish I was more comfortable with the way my body is now, but I am not, so it’s time to try and do something about it. I plan to use LoseIt to track my daily calorie intake, and try to do T-Tapp’s Step Away The Inches at least three times a week. Also, should probably stop eating cookies by the dozen.
6. Teach the kids some Russian. Not sure how to go around it. 90% of the time, I think in English, and I often don’t know the proper Russian words for things. (Sergey asked how to say “yogurt” is Russian. I told him it was “yogurt.” Bullet dodged.) Last week I learned that the father of one of my UWM classmates teaches “Russian School” on Saturdays, but I haven’t called him to find out details and costs yet.
7. Stay on top of things at home. This includes mail, bills, kids’ stuff from school, basic housekeeping, email, and RSS feeds. With email, it’s mostly remembering to use the Label and Archive functions in Gmail BEFORE my inbox goes over 100 messages. My Google Reader has about 700 unread RSS feeds right now. 260 of them are from book blogs I follow. The rest are somewhat work-related, and 90% of those can probably be discarded without reading. The trick is to not LET it get to over 100 to begin with. And I do need to start unsubscribing from blogs I no longer enjoy reading.
8. Play with the kids more. I am praying that the anti-depressants will help with that, because right now I mostly just want to be left alone.
9. Yell at the kids less. Please let the yelling be a symptom of my depression, and not a sign of what a total failure I am as a parent.
10. Go to church at least twice a month. There is an ELCA one near us we would like to check out. I want the kids to go to Sunday school, too.
11. Get together with friends more. We see Eric & Shannon every week, and Mel comes over to play with the kids twice a week, but we haven’t seen our friends in Madison and Green Bay for months now. Our kids don’t mind long car rides, Bill and I don’t mind the drive, so we really have no excuse.
12. Do some fun personal projects. I want to revamp my photo blog, post a couple reviews a week on my book blog, So Many Books So Little Time, crochet a bunch of squares for Share-A-Square 2010, and blog here more frequently.
13. Be a better friend and partner. Talk less, listen more. Help more, complain less. Be a nicer person, try to focus on the positive, and when focusing on the negative, at least be amusing.
14. Take better care of myself. Which means remembering to take my vitamins and calcium supplements, flossing daily, and trying to get at least 7 hours of sleep a night.
15. Be a better employee. I need to keep on top of my projects, be proactive instead of reactive, and develop a stronger work ethic. Also, should get in every day at 8:30 am at the latest.

To add some accountability, I am going to post monthly updates on my goals, so when December 2011 rolls around, I can honestly say, “to no-one’s surprise, the only goals met were the ones I could not afford NOT to meet” – in other words, I can guarantee that my Russian passport and my Green Card will get renewed, but everything else has about the same chance as snowballs in hell :-)

We are at the 6-month mark. Time to see how the resolutions from January are doing ;-)

1. Be a better wife – not so good
2. Be a better mother – doing OK for a given value of “better”
3. Be a better friend – needs improvement
4. Be a better employee – would help if work decided to be a better employer first…
5. Get organized – so not happening
6. Take pictures of the kids every day, or at least every other day – changed to “Take pictures of the kids at least once a week”
7. Blog every day, or at least every other day – changed to “Blog at least twice a week”
8. Keep track of money – made some progress, realized we don’t have any money to keep track of, gave up in despair
9. Pay everything on time – automated all that could have been automated, took out a home equity loan to pay for everything else
10. Go through all the boxes in the house – sixth months, zero boxes. Not looking good.
11. Waste less time – doomed
12. Get American driver’s license – DONE. Hell reports first snowstorms in millenia.
13. Decide whether or not I want to apply for American citizenship this year – DONE. Not this year.
14. Send out S.’s birth announcements and Christmas cards – oh, forget the Christmas cards. Still hoping to get to the birth announcements.
15. Go through my clothes and get rid of at least some of them – not yet (see point below)
16. Lose 10 lbs – changed to “Get in shape.” Status: bought book to help self get in shape, proceeded to eat fattening foods and sit on ass. Result: bigger stomach and thighs. Why are we not surprised?
17. Not kill any more house plants – strategically killed off a few. The rest are still alive, and hoping to be repotted.
18. Videotape kids doing cute stuff at least once a week – changed to “Videotape kids at least twice a month.”
19. Clean and organize office at work; keep it that way – postponed until after I get back from vacation in August, since we are moving offices in July, and that’s a perfect time to organize everything how it should be.
20. Finish OGRE afgan for B. – no progress; think will take it to Russia with me.

That was me falling off the “blog frequently, take photos frequently” wagon AGAIN. Let’s take a look how our other resolutions are fairing…

1. Be a better wife – ummm… ummmm… I suck… Or, as the case may be, I don’t suck… Yeah…
2. Be a better mother – surprisingly, doing somewhat better than expected there. Still nowhere near patient enough, and tend to slip into English when the going gets tough, but DemonChild has learn a couple of Russian words, even if he absolutely refuses to say any of them
3. Be a better friend – that did not go too well. Haven’t emailed anybody. *sigh*
4. Be a better employee – hard when half the time I am a tired out zombie, but I am trying.
5. Get organized – *insert maniacal laughter here*
6. Take pictures of the kids every day, or at least every other day – was actually doing pretty good at that one, but now my camera decided to bite the dust (well, partially bite the dust – I can still take pictures if I use the manual focus, but that’s about it)
7. Blog every day, or at least every other day – join me in the hearty “Ha Ha” here. Last two weeks, the blog entries would have been “so tired… falling asleep at keyboard….haiietiaeghaighsagdohdgif” You get the idea
8. Keep track of money – As my Dad says, “There are two questions we need answers for. Where does dust come from, and where does money go?” I have no answers
9. Pay everything on time – *sigh* if it ain’t automated, it ain’t getting paid
10. Go through all the boxes in the house – I think the basement will just have to resign itself to being a scary scary place
11. Waste less time – but that’s my one skill!
12. Get American driver’s license – amazingly, that one got done. Temperatures dropped in hell, etc, etc.
13. Decide whether or not I want to apply for American citizenship this year – still thinking
14. Send out Squeeker’s birth announcements and Christmas cards – I think we can forget about Christmas cards. There is some hope for the birth announcements still
15. Go through my clothes and get rid of at least some of them – but this would actually involved DOING something…
16. Lose 10 lbs – this should probably be “get in shape” and no, I have not made any progress on that, either
17. Not kill any more house plants – solution: get new house plants, because the old ones has been tortured so much they need to be put out of their misery
18. Videotape kids doing cute stuff at least once a week – still kinda-sorta managing to keep up with that one, but if I had to give our effort a grade, it would be a D, possibly a C-
19. Clean and organize office at work – half-way there, and then my motivation committed suicide
20. Finish OGRE afgan for BelovedSpouse – have not touched yarn this year

To summarize: ONE done. Making some progress on FOUR more. *hangs head in shame*

Friday evening, we had Alan’s game at our house. I actually managed to stay awake, but ended up trying to catch up on work instead of socializing. DemonChild did his part in tiring out the baby-sitters, and did not fall asleep until almost midnight.

On Saturday, I went to Target to buy gifts and necessities. Twice, because the first time around I forgot half the gifts. Saturday afernoon Rachel stopped by with baby Caden. He is a cute big guy, weighing 16 lbs at 2 months. It was good to see Rachel again, and as a bonus we managed to get Caden to drink some milk from a bottle. On Saturday evening I drove to Shannon’s neck of the woods for a girls’ night out, dragging Squeekers along. The evening started off somewhat unpromising with the discovery that one of the Jetta’s front headlights has burned out, meaning that I would have to take the road test on the Saturn, which I have not driven in ages, and to which I lovingly refer to as “blind spot on wheels.” The girls night out was a lot of fun, though.

The Road Test of (Thwarted) Doom. It’s a good thing we took the Saturn for the test – the streets around Mill Rd DMV were not plowed very well, and even with the all-wheel drive and going slow, the SUV was sliding all over the place. The examiner was very nice. I tried to keep my nervous chatter to a minimum. I remembered to check The Blind Spots of Doom. I slowed down for railroad tracks and uncontrolled intersections. I pretended to parallel park and backed more-or-less straight back when asked. In the end, I only lost 8 points, compared to 28 and 31 on my previous attempts. Larry’s coaching definitely paid off…. And oh yeah, it is five failures in any given 365 days. Afterwards, BelovedSpouse and I went out for a celebratory lunch.

Next day, my coworkers trusted my mad probationary driving sk1llz to get them to MSOE and back four days in a row. At first I was going to let my boss drive, but he turned out to be one of those “they gave HIM a license, but failed me???” drivers, so we had a better chance of survival with me at the wheel (boss ran through a bunch of red lights, went down the wrong way on one-way streets, and in general drove like God was his copilot. As one coworker later put it, “I rode with him twice, and it was two times too many.” Eeep.).

I passed my road test. W00t!

As I was pulling out of the driveway to go to our Girls Night Out, BelovedSpouse noticed that one of the front lights on the Jetta has burned out. Figures. That means I will be taking the road test on the Saturn, aka Blind Spot on Four Wheels, which I have not driven for months, have no idea how to parallel park, and am not bloody likely to handle with confidence. I think my first question to the unfortunate person getting the dubious priviledge to test my driving skills will be, “So, that thing about having to go to driving school after you fail five times in a year… Would that be a calendar year or 365 days from the first failure?” Shannon says I should go to take the test expecting to pass. Seeing as I have tried that twice and failed spectacularly, this time I am going in expecting to fail. This way at least I will not be disappointed. Of course, there is always the possibility of Saturn’s lights experiencing critical failure between now and 9:00 am Monday, in which case I will fail the test without even having to do anything. Go me.

Well, I managed to post almost every day for two weeks before temporarily falling off the face of the earth. I am not ignoring the blog, I am just asleep as soon as the kids go down (and sometimes before then). Last time I felt like this, I was pregnant with Squeeker. Since I am currently not in a gestating state (and if I am, there better be an angel of God showing up before BelovedSpouse and pointing a finger at the Holy Spirit), I have no idea what my excuse is. *sigh*

I feel overwhelmed these days. Still haven’t managed to schedule a road test, because whenever I look, there are no openings available. Have not looked through a single box in the basement. Have not replied to emails from friends. Half the time I fall asleep before getting Squeek’s bottles ready, and then the next day I am behind schedule from the start. Need to gather data for surveys at work – have not started on them yet. Need to go through a month worth of mail that is currently threatening to collapse my antique writing desk. Probably don’t need to be up at 4 am blogging, but when have I done the smart thing?

So far, have managed (more or less) to blog fairly frequently, take pictures of kids almost every day, and even videotaped them once. Office cleaning continues apace; all that’s left is one box of stuff to go through, and then the great exodus of textbooks from the home shall commence. Am trying to talk to DemonChild in Russian a lot more. Taking adult driving lessons. Attempts at being a good wife derailed by rampant sickness and general lack of sleep. Overall, nothing to write home about.

Not that I will actually accomplish any of these, but what the hell… Here are my top 20 resolutions for 2007 – some big, some small, all very likely doomed:

1. Be a better wife (yup, it is what you think it is)
2. Be a better mother (must find patience and hold onto it with a death grip; also, must speak to kids in Russian)
3. Be a better friend (emailing people on a regular basis should be a good start)
4. Be a better employee (learn new skills at work, manage time better, slack off less)
5. Get organized (there’s a doomed resolution if there ever was one; I have been making it for the last ten years running)
6. Take pictures of the kids every day, or at least every other day
7. Blog every day, or at least every other day
8. Keep track of money (ooooh, monthly budget, here I come)
9. Pay everything on time (since I automated almost all payments, this one may even get achieved)
10. Go through all the boxes in the house (because the basement is a scary, scary place these days; would be cool to find all my jewelry again, too)
11. Waste less time (says she, and wastes most of the day today; cue in the Imperial Death March)
12. Get American driver’s license (attempt to do so without becoming a horrible warning on how NOT to take road tests)
13. Decide whether or not I want to apply for American citizenship this year
14. Send out S.’s birth announcements and Christmas cards (why yes, I am well aware I am at least four months late on the former and a month late on the latter. See item 5 above.)
15. Go through my clothes and get rid of at least some of them (have to keep reminding myself that if I haven’t worn something for the last five years, odds are I will not wear it for the next five, either)
16. Lose 10 lbs
17. Not kill any more house plants (memo to self: watering plants once a week goes a long way towards achieving this goal)
18. Videotape kids doing cute stuff at least once a week (because we forget, and they are only little once)
19. Clean and organize office at work; keep it that way (because while some mess may be good, the state of my office now has gone past “creative” into “horribly depressing;” also, basement will thank me for moving away the old textbooks)
20. Finish OGRE afgan for B. (15 hexagons done, over 200 still to go…. eeep)