A Slow Day and Why I'm Writing

Today is a slow day.  I've been stuck inside.  The weather has ranged from sunny one minute to pouring rain the next, and then on to blizzard conditions.  And then it starts over again.  And then again.  It's cold and gusty, and the ground is too muddy to go out walking.  It has been so long since it rained that the dog seemed to have forgotten that the ground could get wet.  When he first went out, he sniffed it with surprise and kept lifting up his feet and looking at them like, "What the hell is this?"

This is where it's hard to imagine the cognitive processes of a blind dog.  Does he connect the sound of rain on the tin roof with water falling through the air onto his coat, the scent of the wet ground, and the sensation of wetness on his feet?  There does seem to be some connection that he made:  usually when I set my computer down in the morning after reading the news and checking my e-mail, he leaps off the couch to go for our morning walk.  Actually, usually all I have to do is shift in my chair prior to putting the computer down.  But this morning, he didn't budge.  He'd already been out briefly to pee, and it had rained but wasn't raining at that time.  I don't know if he stayed on the couch because he knew the ground would be wet or because he heard the rain on the roof and imagined that it was raining.

M. photographing in the storm

 Update on the velvet ant wasps:  during a morning walk after the rain stopped, we saw only two of them, both with their rear-ends in the air and the rest of themselves burrowed into the ground.  One emerged while we watched, and proceeded to wander around with no clear intent.  I imagine they don't like the cold and wet conditions either. 

We had a flock of Evening Grosbeaks show up at the feeder this morning.  I sat for awhile and tried to catch a good picture of them, but they were remarkably shy of my presence.  I had to settle for the usual House Finches, Dark Eyed Juncos, and Scrub Jays.  Not that I'm complaining.  Well, I guess I am.  My fingers got cold while I sat on the porch, camera in hand, waiting for the Grosbeaks to settle at the feeder for more than a second or two.  The pictures came out grainy.  We had to cancel our trip to Taos because of the weather and wet road conditions.   I was hoping to get some top soil to add to the new beds in front of the house, where I plan to plant flowers and herbs.

I worked on my taxes.  What a nightmare.  I lived in two states and earned my income in a third.  I earned income and received salary continuation while I was on medical leave.  I searched for ages trying to figure out if employer-paid Family and Medical Leave benefits are taxable by the feds and states.  From what I can tell, they are.  The story seems to be different if the benefits come from the state itself.  I also got divorced this year, but still have mortgages (thus, I paid mortgage interest and property taxes, which are deductible) with my husband on a house back in Maryland.  And that property is rented, which means income that's taxable.  And I had a small business that's really a hobby for tax purposes, and it had income and expenses that I had to calculate.  And I was a board member in a family owned corporation in yet another state--a corporation owned by my husband's family--so given the divorce, I was only a  board member for part of the year.  I spent several hours on the forms, in addition to the hours I'd already spent, and I'm still not quite done, since I need to get additional forms about the corporation to submit.

In the process of all this, I noticed that I'm still paying parking fees to my university even though I haven't parked my car on campus since April of last year and I'm now living on the other side of the country.  Oops.  I try to be very careful about authorizing expenses for services that automatically deduct monthly, but I missed that one since it was buried in the itemized deductions taken from my salary, rather than my bank account. 

As part of being broke after my marital separation and simplifying my life, I cut all non-essential services.  That was a useful process for determining what kinds of services I actually want in a serious way.  Of all the services I cut, the monthly music download service was the only one I really missed so I re-subscribed to that.

The sun is back out now and I'm going to try to get a short walk in before the next bout of rain or snow.  

P.S. I'm back from my walk and re-reading this, and debating whether I should delete the personal parts about the taxes and cutting my expenses.  This blog writing process often seems very self-indulgent.  It sometimes seems to me that writing this blog assumes that I think the details of my life are interesting to others.  I do think it's self-indulgent, in part, but not because I assume that anyone cares about my life's minutiae.  It's self-indulgent because it provides me with a means and a motivation to reflect about my experiences as I have them, and again when I try to compose my thoughts sufficiently to write about them.  I could just keep these writings to myself but I wouldn't be as strongly motivated to write if I were to do that.

And I don't assume that anyone really cares.  I do think that what I write might be of interest to an occasional person.  I stumble across people's blogs on the web all the time and I enjoy reading about their lives.  Many people have written things in their blogs that have helped to shape my thoughts, particularly over the last two years as my blog reading ramped up and I went through some major life changes; these people will never know this.  In particular, I've benefited from reading about people's efforts to cope with chronic illness, to radically simplify their lives, create personal budgets and reduce their debt, apply for disability, and create modern homesteads and live more sustainably.  So, maybe my blog will serve a similar role for someone somewhere.  Right now very few people read my blog and I'm happy with that. I've thought about trying to promote readership and decided that I don't want to at this time.  Eventually, I think this blog will be useful in helping me to connect with others with similar interests and concerns, but right now, I'm happy writing mostly to myself.  It helps me to develop the skill of blog writing and, as I mentioned, makes me more reflective.  It's also helping me think through how to live this new life of mine and to cope with the changes. I also worry that if I did have a larger audience, I'd begin to write in part for different purposes: to meet the needs and cater to the interests of that audience.    And that's not where I want to be right now. 

Now it's raining again.