WORDLE!

With every 1099 that pops up on my screen, with each box I check off on my list in the "For Tax Filing" folder, my excitement grows. I'm going to get my taxes out of the way soon!

Stacking Pennies and Well-Heeled shared my excitement on Twitter but mostly (or only) because they both knew they were getting money back; I'm a fool who's just excited to get them done solely to have them done.  It's the excitement of crossing the finish line, and chucking the folder, never mind the penalties potentially associated with filing when you aren't expecting a refund.

Adding to the weird tingly eagerness is the knowledge that this may be the last year I have a relatively simple tax situation.  It just dawned on me, as I was doing the 1099-dance a couple weeks ago, that PiC's taxes are always still lingering incredibly, disconcertingly late in the year.  When I commented on this, he mentioned something about "complicated" and "extensions" and I'm sure there were other words in between but the buzzing of denial quickly set up shop in my brain.  Not quickly enough to prevent me from realizing - *sob* - we're going to have to file together, late, once we get married.  (Technically, that should make me savor this last filing, one supposes.)

Now ... I'm not saying, that I'm going to put off the wedding as long as I can so as to enjoy as many years filing head of household as possible, I'm just saying I'm going to miss nearly being able to do my own taxes.
To be honest, previous years weren't entirely my own work.  I cheated because I only handled the dry run and double (triple) checking the forms after they came back from the family CPA, but there was still satisfaction in knowing whereabouts the numbers should fall.

After marriage, let's just say these eyes can't handle that much crossing and still be good for anything.

Is anyone else happy to deal with their taxes this year or any year?  Does the bliss of having them out of the way make it worth the trouble? 

Q1.  Will it be a traditional wedding? (in my head, on my dad's mind)
A1.  I opened negotiations with family on this point, especially the formal engagement, and settled that for the most part this is going to be done my way: practical, simple, budget-friendly.  Every dollar in cash, not a penny for debt!

I quite care about my parents' feelings, which is why I always felt obligated to do this wedding thing the traditional way.  This year, though, I had an epiphany: "No."  Why be held hostage to the traditions that require months of preparation, stress, loads of fussing over frills that mean nothing to us solely for the sake of the approbation of masses of distant relatives I'll never see again?

My dad and I agreed that all of the protests that we expect from 500+ relatives should they be left out is hot air. If we thought for a minute they were sincere or actually cared, I would make an effort to include them but he assured me that it's nothing more than a cultural expectation and if we navigate carefully he doesn't have to deal with too many guilt trips.

PiC may weigh in on what he would like to retain but other than that ... /snkt snkt!/  Ye shall hear the ruthless snipping and trimming of globs of the cultural Wedding Industrial Complex. 

Q2.  Do we want a professional photographer?
A2.  We're still on the fence. We don't even know if we want anything that's photographable.

Q3.  Cake or cupcakes?
A3:  Cupcakes are far more fun as long as we can get someone to make them without three inches of icing.

Q4:  Location?
A4:  If we do any kind of reception, it makes more sense to do it down south rather than ask most of our family and friends to travel up north. Even if we decided to do just a civil ceremony here, PiC would want our families in town for a dinner afterward and I honestly can't imagine asking my dad to travel with my mom in her condition.  He's harassed enough as it is with his daily responsibilities. I just can't fathom adding travel to the mix.

Conclusions?  None.  Except that I'm so annoyingly detached about most of the details that PiC is starting to get after me about actually having an opinion. 

Oh!  Yes, there IS something.  I've ordered a sub (barely) $200 dress to try on from J.Crew, and then at a dinner with friends the other weekend, I was offered the loan of her dress which is really close to my size. Score! It's way fancier than anything I would have picked for myself but I'm absolutely willing to consider just borrowing a dress. I think that'd be pretty cool. 

Would you consider borrowing an article of clothing for what's purported to be the most important day of your life? 

We've been paying what I'd call an outrageous amount for cell phone services.

PiC has an outmoded phone with lots of talk and messaging, no data, with Verizon and pays $63/month with the occasional overage;
I have the legacy iPhone with unlimited data and pay $63/month;
MY PARENTS have a family plan: two phones, 700 talk minutes per month, and I pay $67/month.


My goals:
1.  Consolidate our three services onto one service;
2.  Replace both our phones as PiC's ready to have a phone that doesn't have an antennae that breaks off and my iPhone maybe works 60% of the time;
3.  Save Money.

Any non-legacy data plan with the usual Verizon/AT&T services will cost at least $20, more likely $30, per phone so I wasn't particularly hopeful about our outlook but I was determined. 'Cause that's all it takes.

My parents are already on T-Mobile and so far my research bears out that they offer the best plan options for our needs:  Combination talk, text and data family plans for 2 lines with the ability to add up to 3 more.  In this case, adding my parents as the additional lines with talk and text only as they definitely don't need data would keep the cost down between $5-10/line.  I'd researching Sprint options but they are all inclusive for all lines which is great for the wholly techie family but not suitable for our hybrid needs.


PiC and I were happy with the special deal being touted on Twitter as good through January 20th for the free after rebate G2 Android phones, but apparently T-Mobile's idea of what January 20th meant didn't extend to 6 pm PST.

Once known for their top-notch customer service, in my experience, I was less than impressed by the current state of their service now.   Aside from their shoddy response to the inquiry regarding the miscommunication or mistake or whatever you'd call the issue of an offer yanked before the stated end of the promotion, I had to get my parents a pair of replacement phones and change their account to my responsibility for easier access since I pay the bill anyway. 

Every department's aim was incredibly siloed and tightly focused and this didn't produce more efficiency. Rather, it meant that I wasted almost two hours on the phone with each representative explaining what I needed every time I got transferred. And honestly, the majority of the reps were simply neither bright nor competent and failed to completely note their actions for the next CSR I was transferred to. It gives me pause whether I really want to give them any additional business.  At the same time, I figured that if the savings outweighed this initial aggravation and I rarely had to deal with them again, perhaps it'd be ok. 

The sticking point that kept me from pulling the trigger was the activation fees for the new phones for PiC and me now that we'd missed on the really nice two new phone deal. 

Searching on Fatwallet, I found that you could sign up for the Freelancers' Union for free (and I do freelance work, so it's legitimate) and reap the following benefits with T-Mobile:

-No activation fees (savings: $70)
-10% off talk, text, data plans monthly (savings: pretty much taxes/fees)
-Discounted equipment (might be better than what you can get online, might not be)

We could potentially pay $100 for the G2 that PiC still wants, find a free one for me, and switch to 3000 minute, unlimited text and data family plan for $170/month (including two lines with talk and text only at $10/each). 

Since the monthly saving is only $20/month, it'd take us 5 months to break even on that deal.  I'm not thoroughly impressed with this, on balance, so I'm going to take a minute to call and see if the Freelance Union discount on equipment does us one better on the online pricing and then double check if being an AT&T Premier member actually does me any good. ;)

Squeezing money out of stones is hard work, but darned if this isn't going to be satisfying when I finally strike the best bargain I can find!

Thank you to everyone for your warm wishes about the engagement and the outpouring of support when I had to say goodbye to my beloved pup of 16 years.

It's probably strange but in some ways, it's much easier for me, a normally intensely private person in real life, to share some of these things here in this space than it is to tell people of my joys and sorrows. As one person new to my life protested not being told about the engagement, I smiled and said, well what did you expect?  You sat to my left and I was wearing the ring.  Did you really expect me to stand up and make an announcement about myself?

But here, it's ok and I really appreciate y'all being here to support that. 

Thanks for being here. Thanks for speaking up and thanks for caring.

Now I'm coping by buying gifts for people and pushing myself back into a PF routine, so off we go. 

A memorial photo would be appropriate, but as is fitting of my darling pup who always dodged out of frame at the very last second, I don't have a good one but many of her blurry bushy tail. 

Last night, I had to make a decision.

I'm the pragmatist and the animal caretaker in the family so I always knew that it would be on my shoulders to make that call because my family would never have the heart to do it but I also never dreamt that I wouldn't be in the room when it happened.

My puppy, my sixteen year old, last of my childhood pack, was in her end days, crying in pain and in a bad way.  She'd been doing ok up until yesterday, struggling a bit to get around as her hips have always been a touch weak. Old age has been taking, one by one, her knees, her hips, her agility, and yet, she's kept most of that sparkle in her eye and the verve in her "I'm getting away with something" sneaking into the house whenever I'd let her.  At least until my last visit.

For 16 years, she's been the first to scent my homecoming, the first to alert to my footstep, the last to settle down after I've departed.  This last visit, with all the change it portended, also brought with it a heaviness to my heart as I saw the sure signs she wasn't going to be with us much longer. It wasn't just the inevitable frailness that melts away a dog's frame, nor the weakness of gait. It was her resigned turn of head that was not accompanied by the determined push to get up and come to me ... she's never in her life not come to me. 

And last night, I couldn't go to her. But she needed me to make the arrangements from afar, to make the calls to friends who know animals, know animal medicine, and to send her to people who could tell me whether there was anything we could do to help her or whether the only help we could now, should now, render was the last kindness of easing her suffering.

In that moment, in the moment of holding a phone and not her head, or her paw, and making this decision, I felt like a murderer, not her mother. I never imagined that I could do this and even in that moment on the phone, I felt like screaming denial, no, no, no, don't, send her home, I'll come get her. But I could hear her moaning softly in the background, over the phone.  I desperately wanted to be there for her but to say, wait 8 more hours for me to drive down, hang on through your pain, your dehydration, your discomfort and wait for me... I just couldn't do that either.  She deserved far better from us. 


She was a fantastic, incredibly loyal, smart and feisty pup. 

She always knew our oldest dogs resented her and while she respected their alpha status to a certain degree, she loved to tease and push them around. When she got much older, there was a game she'd play with the chihuahua.  Say rather, a game she'd do to the chihuahua.  He would chivvy her off bed, off blanket, off mat, to the cold floor. She'd oblige for hours. Then when he'd turn his back, she'd gather up his pillows and blankets under her front legs, roosting on them like a chicken, half shutting her eyes, and lolling her tongue as she always did Odie-style, wait for him to get angry.  Oh and angry he would get!  He'd stand there and growl, snarl and scold like an angry hen. Peck peck peck at her face, stand up on her shoulder and snip at her ears as she flicked them to and fro. You could hear her giggling.  Outweighing him by a factor of ten and not in the least bit threatened, she loved how worked up he would get.  Her tail wagged like pistons the longer this went on.  Finally, like a child, he'd finally give up and find one of us to tattle to. He'd run over, whine, look in her direction, bark, look at us, whine again, bark at her.  And true to my family's Asian parenting style, my dad would say, "I told you not to pick on her when she was little. Now she's grown up and getting you back."  She'd grin ever wider, stretch her back legs and grip his pillow even tighter.

She was a softy, a little surprising when mixed with a breed you're warned is unpredictable, but she was protective.  The moment someone, people or animals, presented a clear threat to her people, she made it quite clear that was not ok.  I had to warn girls especially, if they were walking with her for the first time, to talk to her. She worried about her new people so if strangers stopped and startled say, my cousin, she was on alert.

When I learned to drive, she figured out that she should sit and wait for me to leave without running after the car; when rabbits dug into the yard she didn't care too much but when they started picking on the chihuahua, well, they learned what other people did about giving my girlfriends wedgies: don't.

When we had another dog come into our home, she didn't pass along the poor welcome that she might have picked up from the grumpier older dogs gone ahead.  She quietly accepted his presence, though for her safety in her age and his immense size and youth we made it clear he was beta and she was alpha. Though she enjoyed stealing his couch cushion occasionally, they were a joy to watch when they did their weird kissy face routines or curled up next to each other, heads on each other's backs and generally enjoying companionship.  She did, however, retain the irritating habit of meticulously shredding paper towels that the chihuahua taught her and picking holes in every dog bed I ever bought her. I still have no idea what that was about. 

R.I.P., puppy dog. You are sorely missed.

I'm kicking myself up the road and back right now. I knew that my Rapid Rewards Award flight was going to expire in January but forgot to check on the exact date back in December so that I could do something about it before the expiration.

Logging in, I find that dratted thing's expired on the second and it'll cost me $50 to reissue. And reissued awards are "subject to capacity controls, meaning seats for travel on reissued Awards will be limited and not available on all flights."


*&@*$&(*$!! 

Quite. Annoyed.

The kicker here is that there was never any need to even log into my account to check on that. I keep a spreadsheet of all my airline awards specifically to track issue and expiration dates against this very scenario. 

*sigh* That's really aggravating to my penny-pinching soul.

In the earliest of days, our thinking ran something like this..

Q1. So when do you want to do this thing?
A1. Uh, I can do whenever. X says we can only have two witnesses at City Hall, though. [Addendum: True in San Francisco County.]

Q2. So what's our budget? [as submitted by my dear WellHeeled, of course]
A2. You're the one with the most event planning experience, you know what venues cost and headcounts and ...stuff.  I want to help but ....
me: *snerk* You're just gonna show up, aren't you?

Q3: Do you want to be a spring bride? A summer bride? Fall? Winter [future SIL]
A3: *blank stare*

Q4: Are we going to combine our finances? [me, of course]
A4: What? 
Yeah, let's sit down and talk about this one. 

Fact 1:  Public Marriage License - $90
Confidential Marriage License -$85
Difference: you don't have to have witnesses for the latter. And save $5!  Woot!

Fact 2: A blood test and health certificate are not required to obtain a marriage license.

Fact 3: You may complete your marriage application online.

Fact 4: After you obtain a marriage license, you have 90 days to get married by someone qualified to perform marriage ceremonies.

Fact 5: If you don't provide your own witness, you can rent one for $18. #nolie.

Fact 6: Civil Ceremonies cost $25.

Fact 7: You can get the person of your choice deputized to perform marriage ceremonies for a day if you pay $75 and if they show up at 11 am on Thursday, by appointment only, to be sworn in. #truestory

Summary:

This is kind of amusing. And I am having the hardest time becoming emotionally invested in anything but a very few items: guests, budget. This is ok.

The list of things I should probably make decisions about, even in the simplest of weddings, is longer than my arm, but I don't find myself caring about them: what to wear, the hair (maybe I should more than just comb it, PiC says ponytail is fine), the scheduling (other than to consider the effect on indoors/outdoors venue options).  I'll decide those things that float to the top as most important soon enough. 

My mom's health... huge turn for the worse.  The downward spiral continues. I still can't accept the disintegration of my family unit as I knew it and still struggle with the fact that this idiot won't grow up. But PiC managed to save the year. 

I combated the depressing months of job-hunting and fruitless interviews with massive decluttering efforts. Then I landed a job and had to move.  Enter all sorts of soul-wracking guilt and abandonment remorse. And more shockingly, a measure of peace and the slow drain of rage from my life. It turns out moving was good for me. So is cohabitation. Which was also a surprise.   

Cooking and cleaning became a more regular and pleasant part of life, and as predicted, work kicked my butt for months.  I was miserable, regretted it, detested it, and ultimately said, there is no way you're going to beat me. Eventually, I prevailed over the worst of the problems, and the rest are just part of the job.

I've been quiet here for lack of energy and brainspace but that's slowly coming back.  


There's been travel, there's been life, there's been love.  There's finally a sense of potential again, and to be perfectly honest, that scares the skivvies offa me.

Looking forward...

There's a lot of work still to be done. My parents need moving, but my dad's become much more proactive in working on these things I've been talking about for years.  While I still don't necessarily agree with some of his decisions about my mom as they're born of stress, short-sighted, and made in a "spare the daughter and spare her money" mode, he's trying his best and I can push them to do what needs doing when it comes to their health. Their dental repairs are nearly complete now. Only two more months of treatment to go. Thank goodness the pain is gone and the worst of the uncomfortable treatments are over.

My dearest dog is slowly fading. She's not got a lot of time left and my dad doesn't really like the idea of my taking her away with me since he can take care of her pretty easily as she whiles her hours away in the sun or lounging nearby.  He's probably right, but my heart aches at the thought of not being with her.  I guess I always thought I could keep her happy and healthy with me by force of will.

We might adopt a dog eventually but not a puppy.  We can't be there for a puppy like we once were as kids.
[But they are so cute.  For the record.]

It's going to be a really busy year in quite a few respects. 

We rang in the new year driving down the highway counting down about ten seconds off the real time.  But never mind that, onward!   

1.  Cell phones - consolidating my parents and PiC and myself onto one family plan

Having skipped November, but knowing how much was spent, roughly, and how much has still gone unreimbursed, I was expecting some devastation on the NW front.  It's not great but it's not terrible either.

Of course when I started crunching the numbers, my mind was definitely in a different place. Now it's in a morass of logistics that haven't even begun to start touching on budget yet so that'll be a different post.

I'm a little bit glad that we haven't combined finances yet.  Apparently I failed to communicate with words to PiC my feelings about not needing or wanting a diamond.  I just formed my opinion so long ago that it seemed like surely I would have mentioned it to him by now.  I just never thought any engagement ring residing on my finger should ever cost more than a hundred dollars, at best.  (I'm pretty sure that number was more generous but the closer I got to writing this, the less money I think is reasonable for a bauble .... it's gorgeous and he spent all kinds of time picking out what he wanted for me and I don't want to be an ingrate but .. I don't think an engagement ring is necessary! Not for me.) That said, it's gorgeous and I can't really, erm, return it to put his money back in savings or anything! 

Yeah that sounds terrible. 

I'm sorry, it's hard to wrap my head around the idea he spent real money on this ring. I love him and I love why he did it and he knew it was entirely unnecessary, just taking me some time to reconcile. 

Also, he was snickering when I mentioned doing my snapshot because the month of November was terrible for my finances and now I know why. *faint*  At least he didn't go in debt.



Investing:  Slow and steady, it's finally adding up a bit. 

Savings:  I'm increasing the cash savings by 3% to compensate for the payroll tax holiday.  I'll have to add another fund type, clearly.

Spending:  It's possible we might have to adjust our grand travel plans after all, I'm not sure about spending $2000-3000 on a big ole trip now that we have a big unknown on the horizon.  Maybe not canceling but adjustments may be necessary. 

That's all my brain has room for right now.  Ta!