Yesterday ended up being a yard day for me and my husband. The last time we’d mowed, it was 95 degrees with a heat index of around 98. Needless to say, we did good to get the front yard mowed. The whole back part of our yard was left tall. We were just too tired to try to do all of it. To add insult to heat stroke, my weed eater died. Just… died. Mid-edging of the sidewalk.

We were treated yesterday to a high of only about 92 with practically no heat index. So we started our day with a trip to the store for a new weed eater. (This of course after we discovered the warranty on our last one that we bought LAST YEAR went out a month before. Guess I should have popped for the extra year of warranty after all.) After talking with a store associate, we chose a new (way better!) trimmer with a three year warranty and I bought the two years extended warranty past that. None of this new weed eater in a year crap again!

After putting my new toy together for me (because for some reason I totally get a kick out of edging) my husband started mowing and I started trimming. It was hot, but we worked at a much more steady pace than the last time. Near the end of our project, my husband and I traded jobs so he could try out the new weed eater. We both agreed it was way better than the last one, and it didn’t wear you our nearly as bad. (The old one would leave my arms shaking for hours afterwards. Ever try to put eyeliner on with a hand that can’t stay still?? This one, however, didn’t phase me.)  I successfully stalled out the mower a few times on the super thick grass in the back where we didn’t mow last time. But still… the job got done.

It felt good to get up this morning, look outside, and admire our well manicured lawn. We haven’t looked this good since we moved in, I don’t think!!

Oh I have several bug bites from our task. One on my left wrist. Another on the back of my right hand. Which is making typing interesting, since all I want to do is scratch! But, hey, no good task really ever ends without some sort of injury, right?

I enjoy yard work. I don’t do it as often as I should. My flower beds are usually very pathetic. And how my flowers on the porch are still alive is beyond my comprehension. However, when I do get out to mow or weed or just enjoy my porch swing (which is when the flowers usually get watered), I enjoy it so much. Its satisfying. You can step back and see your hard work’s product and success. It gives you time to think and reflect. For me and my husband, it reflects good team work. It makes us sit back and go, “Go us!”

Right now its touring season, and my husband is on the road more than he’s at home. A fact we are both extremely thankful for, and a fact I strive to work around as much as possible. On his few days at home, I want to be able to move my projects around to step away from the computer and sit on the front step with him watching fireflies, listening to the high school band in the distance.

I like to sleep later than usual, when he’s at home. My rush to get up and start the day disappears for a few days. I’d rather snuggle down and stay where he is for another hour… or two. If he has a meeting to be at, I like to tag along… even if I just sit in the car and people watch, waiting for him to come out.

In the same breath, even when he’s tired from the road and wants to go to bed “early,” he’ll push forward awhile so we can go to bed at the same time. If I have a meeting of my own, he too tags along. He’s always game to any hair-brained idea I may have for us to go do, “Just to get out of the house for awhile.”

We strive hard to coordinate our schedules when we are both at home, knowing the hours together are precious before I’m dropping him back off at the bus to head to another show in another state.

Sometimes… sometimes we aren’t too successful. Take tonight, as I write this. I am trying to keep my schedule a bit “off” for upcoming nights working downtown in a bar. My husband, however, has a session bright and early in the morning. So in an odd move, he went to bed hours ago while I sit doing some work on the computer. In the morning, he’ll get up and head into town, while I snuggle back down under the covers for a few more hours of sleep.

As always, we are thankful for the work. Oh, once in a blue moon, I get a little grumbly, wanting more time together than working, but it never lasts too long. I quickly remember that work is what we prayed to get, and work is what we are thankful to have. We make the most of our time together, and I aim to continue to be able to do that. I don’t want to be ships passing in the night, if I can at all help it.

We hope.

Every year, we find new ways to make the process smoother, just as the government finds ways to complicate things. You can claim that this year, but not next year. You can itemize this but not that. You get this credit but only if you stand on your head and drink water while saying the alphabet backwards.

You think I’m kidding? I swear that one is in the tax code somewhere. If it isn’t, it should be. If for no other reason that to give tax preparers something to laugh about as they wade through the idiosyncrasies of the tax code.

What makes the job so stressful is the fact that you’re dealing with people’s financial outlook. Mistakes can cost your client thousands of dollars and can even land a huge fine (or worse!) on the tax preparer. We strive to do the job RIGHT. No law bending or “personal interpretation” being done here!

So, within that, I present to you my tax season pet peeves for 2011 (in no particular order):

• Please don’t wait until the last minute to bring in your tax work and discover you have items missing… then STILL expect the return done by deadline. Let me introduce you to Mr. Extension. He will be taking care of you this trip, and we’ll attack your lack of information sometime AFTER deadline.
• We aren’t mind readers. We don’t sit with a crystal ball to consult on every return. Did you have a child this year? Did you get married? Divorced? Move? Go self-employed? Buy stocks? Did your nephew come to live with you for the year? These are all things we NEED to know to properly do your return. Just because your baby’s birth announcement ran in the newspaper back in July of last year doesn’t mean we saw it. Help us out here. (And when we DO ask, don’t get snippy with us. Just give us the information… please?)
• The old idea of throwing your receipts in a shoe box for your preparer to wade through is just not happening these days. Either wade through them yourself and put them in some sort of order or be prepared to be charged extra for the extra work/stress you’ve brought to our office. Or, you know, meet Mr. Extension.
• Bigger and better refunds than the competition! Bull corn. If you’re going to get a refund its based on tax codes and how everything falls together on your return. If you owe, it doesn’t mean WE (the preparer) screwed up. It just means you owe money. When a software or tax company promises you bigger refunds than the competition, it doesn’t mean they have this magic dust they sprinkle on the paper to make it appear. It just means its a gimmick to get you in the door.
• Please don’t try to get us to lower our fees. I had a whole blog post on this earlier this year. See it for more on THAT whole rant of mine.
• If we take a message instead of patch you through to the preparer you wish to speak with, its not because we don’t love you anymore. Its because they are doing a return and need to focus to do the job right. You get mad if we make a mistake (and we’re human, so it happens), but you have to understand that often mistakes occur due to constant interruption while the work is being done. We might not take you call because we DO love you. See?
• If you feel like I might be treating you like a 5th grader, its because I’ve found its just a good rule of thumb. It never fails that when I assume someone already knows where to sign, etc… they don’t. So its just easier to assume you DON’T know and risk offending you than it is to assume you DO know and then get us ALL in a heap of trouble.
• We have over 400 clients. Yes, over half of you have been coming to us for 5 – 10 years (or longer). Still… help me out with your name when you come in to pick up your return or if you want to see someone. It’s not that I don’t love you, its that sometimes I just haven’t had enough coffee to put a name to a face. Some days, there just isn’t enough coffee in the world. Feel free, in that moment, to treat ME like a fifth grader. I won’t mind. I promise.
• If I give you that deer in the headlight look its because you just asked me something I can’t answer. I figure you know that, but, hey, sometimes people reword the question thinking maybe I’ll know the answer if they do that. Nope. I still don’t know the answer, and now you’ve made me feel dumb twice. Give me a moment to find someone who CAN answer the question. Thanks.
• Please don’t ask us to bend the rules. We won’t. And when we refuse, don’t get angry. We’re telling you no for your own good. Kinda like the time your Mom said you couldn’t have that candy bar before supper, because she knew if you ate it you wouldn’t want that yummy pizza she was making. Remember? Yeah, kinda like that. Only we are saying you can’t fudge the rules because we don’t want anyone to go to jail, nor anyone pay a huge fine and yucky stuff like that. We’re licensed professionals. We do things by the book.
• Finally, please don’t ask me to discuss politics. Not only do I just not want to go there, but with the work we’re doing, it just isn’t appropriate. I’m so glad you’re so passionate about it, but please don’t ask me to jump on your bandwagon for the sake of making you happy. Lets do the work at hand and move on from there.

Oh I’m sure I have plenty more little things that either made me cover my face or beat my head on the desk over the last few months, but I figure these suffice.

Ah. We did it. Another season in the books. A lot of extensions to do in the coming weeks/months, but we’re always grateful for that as well. Thankful for another successful season, and thankful for the loyalty of our clients. Without them, we’d be nowhere. So even as I have my little pet peeves, at the end of the day… I don’t really mind. It keeps things interesting at least.

Then, one day, in church we were challenged to really sit and think about those prayers. What were we really saying as we said our prayers at night, and did we mean them?

So I did just that. I sat down that night and really thought about the prayers I was praying… I couldn’t get past the first line. I was stuck. If I didn’t say them in the same rhythm and speed as I always said them, I couldn’t remember them. I couldn’t do it! I couldn’t think about it. I had to just do it.

Yesterday, I was brought back to that moment as I wrote up the steps to do one of the jobs I do at work. I’m going back to Nashville for the next week, and I wanted to make sure that anyone who sat down to do this one task could do it right. So I sat down to type up directions.

And I promptly got stuck. It’s so automatic for me today that I don’t think too hard about what I am doing. I just do it. I wasn’t sure if I should find it funny or alarming! Its often in doing things without thinking that mistakes are made.

So, I did the task one step at a time, stopping after each move to type up in detail what I did.

It was nerve wracking! As I’d finish typing up the last step, I’d go back to the task and go, “Okay, now what do I do?”  What’s the next step???

I got through it. A normal 15 minute job took me closer to an hour, but I’m quite proud of my little 12-step process now taped to the side of my desktop computer. I even peppered it with humor like, “Just do it right the first time, because I don’t feel like typing up the steps of how to fix it if things go wrong.” and my second to last step is, “Throw your hands in the air and yell, ‘DONE!’”

No reason to not find humor in my challenge of typing up the directions, right?

But, this isn’t a bad idea to do of any number of things, simply because it makes me stop and think about what I am doing. Heck, I might find I’ve been doing something wrong all along! Or I might find a BETTER way to do things, simply by taking the time to think about it more.

So, is there any tasks YOU would find it beneficial to write out the steps to?  Laundry? Dishes? How to give your cat a bath?

Right now, it was my turn to “go on the road for work” and I said good-bye to my husband for a few weeks.

Confession: I still get sad saying good-bye, even if I’m “used to it.”

I woke up in a funk this morning of good-bye. I kept telling myself to not ruin our last few hours by moping, but it was HARD. My logical side said it had to be, but my emotional side wanted to make him stay with me a few more days. (He drove me to Texas for work, and he was leaving to go back home to Nashville while I stayed behind.)  Cancel gigs. Ignore the winter weather warnings. Stay!

But, no, he had to go. So I hugged and kissed him and waved as he drove away.

We’ll both get in an old rhythm that we get into when we’re apart. Phone calls. Chat session on AIM. Etc. We’re good at this, and at the end of the day it’s not REALLY that big of a deal. It’s our life and “how we roll.” We will both be so busy during this time that the days will fly by for us. It’s all good.

I’m fine now. Miss him like crazy, of course, but I’m doing fine.  But… I do still get sad to say good-bye.

Then, I recently got introduced to the title “Virtual Assistant” and I went, “AH HA! THAT’S what I do!” My problem is two-fold: I don’t have enough jobs and what jobs I do have tend to end up being for free. This is head meeting keyboard, over and over again. I love what I do. I can easily make a living doing what I want to do. People do it all the time! My problem for awhile now has been having a hard time explaining what I do, and within that conveying that I should get paid to do it.

So here I am to explain what I do, and within that say, “I am at your service!”

First off, I have my degree in Journalism. I have a serious love for writing, photography and page design. All of these were easily wrapped up in my journo degree, and I am proud to say I found a knack for it! I actually held an award-winning column when I worked at a newspaper, and this blog has become my continuation of that column. My readership is definitely up, and I hope people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.

I am a blogger.

I aim to be starting on a book proposal within the next couple of weeks to pitch. I have an interest in fiction writing, but I have a non-fiction book hanging out over my shoulder poking me with its sharp edge going, “Write me! Write me NOW!”

GOAL: Pitch my book to agents and preferably have one secured by the end of the year. There is absolutely NO reason why this is not an attainable goal.

I design flyers, business cards, and any other various items. I’ve designed laminates, postcards, programs and invitations as well. A few samples of my work:

See more in this Facebook photo album. I guess its pretty obvious, I’m proud of my work. Note that I use my own photos on a majority of my work.

I’ve also designed and handled various web-sites. I don’t do anything super fancy, though. Not to downplay my work! I am proud of what I have done! I’ve even successfully converted one site into a WordPress Blog that’s increased its traffic and usefulness. However, I don’t do anything with Flash, etc. I’m still fairly basic in my web-page design work, but I also think that sometimes basic is all you need. I also have done MySpace pages. I feel those are on their way out of favor, but I am still very comfortable working in that venue.

Some of my sites:

My husband’s MySpace Page || Fiddle & Steel Guitar Bar MySpace Page

Trim Polish || From the Ground Up (BRAND NEW… VERY rough site. WIP)

Middle Tennessee Texas A&M Club || Schoppe’s Bookkeeping & Tax Service, Inc

I write and edit letters and email. This can be personal or business.  I’ve taken technical writing courses, and I do have the knowledge for how to put together business letters. I have recently handled multiple cease and desist letters, cover letters, and other correspondence between an agency and their clients.

Everything is guaranteed to be completely confidential.

I also offer the ability to send out Electronic Blasts, which are basically full-color flyers and announcements sent via email using your own mailing list.

I also offer any number of typical office-assistant services. Excel spreadsheets, word documents, fax cover sheets, etc. are something I can handle.

I already offer many of these services to various people, but up until now its been on a more casual level. I plan to soon have a full web-site with all of this information available, along with price lists. If you are interested in any of these services, though, please drop me an email!! With email, fax, Paypal, etc. I work with anyone any where. Most of my current clients are still based out of Texas!

Feels good to put together “on paper,” finally, “This is what I do.” Its the first step on making this truly take off!

They were able to do this, because they were (and still are!) self-employed. Running their own business allowed them the flexibility to adjust their schedule as necessary to attend things with me. (Well, things that didn’t land between January and April 15th, aka “tax season.” More on this later.) They didn’t have to ask a boss for time off, nor did they have to negotiate with a co-worker to “trade shifts” with them. No, they simply had to make up the time spent away from work at another time.

I think it was this flexibility that I witnessed with my parents is a big part of my determination to create the same lifestyle for myself. I want to be there for my kids when we have them, especially with the far-from-normal work schedule my husband has. I don’t want to pay for daycare. I don’t want to answer to “the man.” I want to to rely strictly on myself to make my living.

It’s a little scary, though! There is no guaranteed paycheck at the end of the week or two weeks. There is no guaranteed work ahead of me the next day. There is only the work I pursue and that I make happen for myself. If I fail, I can blame no one but myself. If I succeed, I can take credit for it myself and thank those around me for having patience with me and for cheering me on this path.

Within that, though, there are a couple of concepts that I think can be hard for others to understand sometimes. The biggest of those, that I want to talk about tonight, is the discipline necessary to work from home.

It’s very easy to get wrapped up in housework or other personal projects, leaving the paying work to wait for another day. However, leaving that work for another day means you’re even further from being paid and you’re closer to losing a client.

I’ve discovered that for me, personally, I need a solid game plan for each day that I work. A list of goals to accomplish along with a set amount of time I must focus on work. If I got over that time frame, great! But I can’t not put in x-number of hours in the day. Otherwise, its too easy to suddenly put the job completely on the back burner.

Along with getting wrapped up in housework is this: “Well you work from home. You have time to do that.” or, “Well, you can go do that. Its not like you have to ask off from a boss.”

Remember what I said about my parent’s being there for me through the years? The latter claim is true. You don’t have to ask off from a boss. You are your own boss, and within that you have to weigh your own ability to take time off. You have to ask yourself for time off, in a way!

Tax Season, for my parents, is the time of year that as their own boss they tell themselves, “You can’t take that time off.” April 15th is a solid, hard deadline that they must make if they want to keep their clients happy, and, within that, stay in business.

I often tell my husband that I have personal deadlines set each day/week/month that I must accomplish. When we have a lot of things we want to go and do in a week, I have to figure out how to juggle those deadlines and determine if I can afford to take the time off to go out. Oftentimes, its not a problem to make adjustments and go. Especially since I am such a night owl and can easily work through the night. However, there are times when I have to say, “No, I can’t go do that.”

Tonight is one of those nights. There is an event going on downtown that I’ve looked forward to for almost a month. But I’m sitting here tonight, looking at the list of projects on my desk (especially looking at the ones I’ve had to keep putting at the bottom of the list for months!) wondering if I can truly afford to go. Not only is the cost of going a factor, but the lost hours as well.

So here is where the hardest part of being self employed comes in: keeping the discipline to get the job done versus following the urge to go play instead. I choose to follow my discipline and get the job done; there will be more nights to go play ahead whereas there is only one deadline to make.

However, today, my parents headed home to Texas. Last I talked to my mom, they were over half-way home. I’m always sad to see them leave, and I know they aren’t ever in a hurry to go either. But that’s a good thing! I’d hate it if they couldn’t wait to leave! That would be a serious bummer and would throw off all kinds of alarm bells.

No, it is just time to get back to work. They have their business to run, and I have my own to continue to build. While they were here, we did nail down a lot of projects I’ve had lined up to tackle. When I finish this post, I plan to pull out a spiral notebook and really outline my various projects. Outline my goals. Outline a game plan.

I am a HUGE fan of to do lists these days. It’s too easy to let things slide without a list, or its too easy to let little projects come ahead of big projects because you don’t realize the massiveness of those projects.

Like I said, I am always sad to say good bye to my parents. I have this incredible relationship with them that I cherish deeply. It was fun to take an impromptu vacation at home, and it was good for me to let my hair down and put my worries and stresses aside.Now I feel more prepared to move forward with a clearer head and clearer mission. I had said that I was letting August be like a new start for me, and it really has been! I’m running with that, and keeping a positive focus on everything.

I’ve dealt with many Entitled people. Some of them I actually find funny. Others leave me with my blood boiling.

One such Entitled came up to me one night while working at the hot dog stand. This gentleman came up, ordered a hot dog with mustard, and then proceeded to go sit down at a booth across the bar and wait. Now, see, a hot dog with mustard will take me a maximum of about 30 seconds to put together. So this mans ability to move that fast was impressive and absurd. I stared. In disbelief.

However, I take him his hot dog, tell him how much it is, and he proceeded to request salt, relish and extra napkins. Uhm. See. The idea of a hot dog stand is you make your order, you get it there, and then you go to your seat. Occasionally when its an order that will take longer, I’ll happily deliver to your table. Its not delivery that I minded. It was the attitude of the man, and the idea that he felt I was supposed to wait on him the entire time he was there. Never mind that I had other orders.

Ultimately, I brought him what he asked for, but refused to leave until I got my only salt shaker back, and was left with… absolutely no tip and annoyance. The Entitled had struck.

Another such Entitled was probably  not so much as Entitled as just not thinking. But I still group them as an Entitled.

While working at my parent’s tax office last year, I was helping a woman with her tax information. I had to get something from my desk which is behind the counter we have at the door to log people in, etc. So I go behind the counter and my desk, grab what I need, and turn only to find the women right behind me. Behind my desk. Behind the counter. Uhh… what?

People are amazed that we actually had to put a small swinging door and large sign up stating the area behind the counter is “employees only.” In most cases, people know not to go into a personal working area. But to those that are Entitled, it does not matter. They will go wherever they please, any time they please.

Similarly, we’ve had to put up other doors to attempt to keep clients from other private areas. Attempt being the operative word. It doesn’t always work. Because those that are Entitled, see nothing wrong with walking into private offices at any time. Because, after all, THEY have arrived. Everything needs to stop for them. They take the idea of “the customer is always right” to the next level.

Well, I’m here to say… keeping the customer happy is job one. But the customer? They aren’t always right. Especially Even if they are as Entitled.

As the years passed, the living room office turned into a separate building, and the full-time job for both Mom and Dad became the family business. By the time I was in high school, I was used to having them able to attend countless events due to the flexibility of self-employment. However, in the same breath, I coined myself the term “Tax Season Orphan” as through tax season, I was used to their putting in long hours at work.

I would help out at the office regularly. Sometimes filing. Sometimes shredding papers. Sometimes data input. Sometimes just running errands. I could really truthfully say I’ve worked at the office since high school, its just been a bit sporadic.

I swore I wouldn’t do anything dealing with math, and my love for writing sent me to a Journalism degree. I worked at a newspaper for a year and a half, and, of course, I’ve married and moved to Nashville. Nonetheless, I have continued to help out using my degree for advertising, designing the web-site, etc.

Last year, I spent most of tax season in Texas working at the family business. My husband and I joked that it was my turn to be on the road for work, like he usually is doing his job. I would spend three weeks in Texas, one week in Nashville, and then do it all over again. All the way through tax season.

It worked out nicely! My parents didn’t have to hire and train a new employee, and I was happy to have the work. So, it was pretty much a no-brainer to do it again this year.

Today was my first day in the office for this tax season.

My husband and I drove down to Texas last week, as he has a show in Houston anyway. I was able to come see him at work for the show, and we got to spend a few extra days together going into the season.

He left back for Nashville yesterday, and I teased him that he was a Tax Season Widower.

It is what it is, and we’re good at the long-distance thing. For the next three months, I’m the Musician’s Widow married to the Tax Season Widower. We’re a pair, aren’t we? I think the time apart makes us appreciate our time together all the more… and that makes me grateful.

So here we go! Most of my time in Texas, with trips to Nashville in between. Let the “Tax Season Shuffle” begin!