Not a bad day at all...

considering the volume of work I accomplished in a mere twelve hours.  Of course, the pile of papers still looks big, but it's getting done, little by little.  I rearranged the desk a little to make folders and things more accessible.

I am also making headway on getting ready for tax season: shredder out of the closet, three months worth of cat litter on hand for keeping the associates happy...

The client folders are already done.

Bee is checking out my shoe for some reason - and probably the boxes I'm hoping to have ready to ship out on Monday.  I've decided to spend Saturday at the sewing machine - I am pretty sure I'll need a break by then!

My sweet friend, Erin, sent me an ME-a-day calendar.  The mailman brought it to me today - and I got to enjoy the first ten days of the year all at once!  The funny thing is, I sent her one for Christmas, too.  Maybe we should coordinate our gift strategy next year - and save postage.  Aggie suggested that - isn't she smart?

The wise one - although she is not much help with paperwork...

I did manage, over the past couple of evenings, to finish reading the latest Hamish Macbeth mystery from M.C. Beaton.  Death of Kingfisher is typical Hamish - he is always one step ahead of his nemesis, Inspector Blair, from the Strathbane Police Department - much to the inspector's chagrin.  Hamish is such a lovable character - for being a lazy village police constable, with absolutely no ambition to advance.  The fact that he is truly happy where he is confounds his superiors and frustrates the would-be Mrs. Macbeths.  I can't wait for the next one - number twenty-eight!

I think I've done enough work for one day - time to blow out the sugar cookie scented candle that's been brightening up my work area all day.  Isn't it pretty?  The candle was a Christmas gift and it fit perfectly in the candle holder that Ariela gave me for my birthday.  Another happy coincidence!

Just hanging around...

the house on Saturday - me and my furry associates.  Aggie has been sacked out on the floor while I am working my way through this pile of client paperwork; Peter and Bee have checked in with me periodically throughout the day.

Looking for treats, probably.

I finished up some correspondence, paid some bills for one of my clients and packed up two belated Christmas goodie boxes for two of my patient friends.

Managed to get a few thank-you notes written -

and a sentence in my Jane-a-Day journal.

My mail lady brought me a package from my friend, Kathy, in Utah.  She is a candy-maker extraordinare, let me tell you.  She found time to make several different kinds of goodies during the holiday season, after volunteering with the Red Cross in NYC for two weeks after Hurricane Sandy.  She was away from home from November 29 until December 15 - and still managed to work her magic in the kitchen.

She makes divine homemade truffles, excellent fudge and this year there is something labeled chocolate log wrapped in parchment paper.

I can't wait to investigate that!

I collected up some books for my weekly Sunday afternoon on the sofa tomorrow.  I think I'll start with A Deal to Die For - second in the Good Buy Girls series.

Review to follow one day soon...

But first I think I'll sample a truffle!

Another month...

has passed me by - and I am still behind.  It seems like the old saying really is true: "The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get."  I've been working on a project for a client that, I am sad to say, seems more and more like a losing battle.  I've have poured lots of time and energy into it, at the expense of my other clients and their work, my housekeeping and my sanity.  I am at the point of giving up.  When I see him this week, I am afraid I'm going to have to give him an ultimatum: do what you need to do to get your finances in order to get this business loan and stop the financial hemorrhaging your business is suffering from, or find a new bookkeeper.  I just can't deal with the stress any more - especially with tax season looming on the horizon.  And I still have to finish my IRS continuing education before the end of the year.  Yikes!

While I crave perfection, I know that the best I can hope for is progress.  And I have seen no progress at all, on anything work-related, during the month of November.  I know it's my own fault and I'm mad at myself for poor time management and procrastination.  Why aren't there more hours in a day?

If anyone knows the answer to that, please let me know!

An exciting new opportunity...

has come along and I am looking forward to my new adventure.  Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am a die hard card sender and letter writer.  Throughout my formative years, I had it drilled into my head that thank-you notes and writing a proper letter were not only polite - it was the right thing to do.  I'm fifty-four and I'm still doing it.  About ten years ago, I started making my own cards (after having spent a good portion of my life keeping Hallmark in business!) and I not only love indulging my creative side, I am so pleased when the recipients of my little handmade greetings tell me how much it meant to them that I cared enough to send them a personal note.  When I started my own business five years ago (has it been that long?) I decided to make birthday and Christmas cards for all of my clients as a means of keeping in touch throughout the year.  Cards are an excellent marketing tool - and receiving a real, hold-it-in-your-hand card makes people feel good.  But - and there is a but - I will have to admit that the last two years of making over three hundred Christmas cards has really taken its toll on me - both in terms of the work and the drudgery of making so many identical cards.  In fact, I hated the design for the cards I made last year.  Earlier this year, I switched to printing birthday postcards - more cost-effective in terms of time and postage.  After tax season, I was even considering discontinuing my client marketing completely.

Enter my friend Joy and Send Out Cards.  She sent me a lovely card to introduce me to the concept and the business.  Signing up was tempting - but would my clients feel that my keeping in touch with them had lost its personal touch?  I decided to try it for a month on my friends and see what I thought.  Well, it's like this: I love it!  The response I got was overwhelming.  I started to re-think the client marketing thing.

I am not, by nature, a joiner.  A couple of years ago, I joined Melaleuca at the urging of my friend, Richard, who loved the products and thought I would, too.  He was right - I love the products and I continue to use them.  I didn't join the organization with the expectation of making a lot of money; I joined because I liked the products, wanted to use them, and won't recommend anything to anyone that I haven't used and like myself.  If I think something has value, is economical and adds to the quality of my life, I am more than willing to share my experience with people I think will benefit.

The other day Richard came over to put a curtain rod up for me.  That's a long, funny story about oddball rod bracket design and two intelligent people who couldn't see the obvious, but I'll do a post about that when I have some photos of the finished valance to share.  But I digress...  While he was here, we had lunch and he was telling me about the new real estate office where he'd moved his brokers' license.  Hmmm, I thought, a potential application for Send Out Cards as a marketing tool.  I told him a little bit about the company and he seemed receptive; I gave him the DVD that Joy had sent me so that he would watch it, too.  Later that evening, my phone rang.  Richard was totally impressed and was ready to sign up.  Wasn't I going to sign up as a Marketing Distributor so that he could sign up as my downline?  At that point, I hadn't made up my mind yet.  I forwarded him an email that Joy had sent me with a link to another video to watch and suggested that he sign up under Joy's number.

We agreed to talk more about everything later.

Joy is an encourager.  She spoke with Richard and answered his questions - but they both believed, and told me, that this was an opportunity that I should not let pass me by.  I was really on the fence about taking on a new business venture until Joy said something that resonated with me:  "Quite honestly, you are being handed a gift here and it would be smart to take it. It doesn't always happen that way. I asked Richard and I believe he would like for you to be in SOC as a distributor. He is ready and sees the potential with this."  That made up my mind - and boosted my confidence.  I decided to take a leap of faith and signed up.  With all this encouragement, how could I not?  Next I signed up one of my bookkeeping clients for the monthly service, and then Richard signed up as a Marketing Distributor.  So far, so good.  I'm not concentrating on the financial aspect of this new business right now - I'm concentrating on people and sharing a product I know they can benefit from using.  I already know from my bookkeeping and tax business that if you provide people with good service, you will be rewarded accordingly.

I am excited about what Send Out Cards has to offer.  You can check it out yourself by clicking here.  It's a great service, combining technology with an old-fashioned, personal greeting card in that special someone's mailbox.

Or a client - however you choose to use it.

Good Lord, it's hot!

I just got home from my weekly sauna sojourn at the tortilleria.  Thank goodness Ariela had time to pick me and drop me off at home on her way to work this afternoon.  I am not joking when I say that it is cooler outdoors in the ninety-degree summer heat than it is inside the bakery.  And all I'm doing in there is sitting at a table writing payroll checks and organizing the mound of paperwork that accumulates in a week's time.  Can you even imagine how hot it must be back where they are making the tortillas?  No wonder those women are a bit crabby and difficult to deal with.  I usually keep my cool amid all of the confusion and disorganization but I nearly lost it today when the alleged manager girl asked me to analyze how a Money-to-Mexico company arrives at the amount of commission they pay to my client every month.  She gave me this stack of papers (and I use that term loosely) that were going every which way.  This is the first time I've seen this stuff and when I started going through it, I realized that she had not matched up the daily transactions to the daily invoice from this company since implementing their system back in April and was just depositing the amount on the daily bill to the money transfer account.  There was no rhyme or reason to the mess she handed me and when I dared ask her about it, her response to my client - not me - was that the rep from this company hadn't told her to do that.  She refuses to speak English - or learn to, for that matter - and the more I tried to explain the potential problems with her lack of bookkeeping method, the angrier more upset she got.  I finally just stopped talking, crammed all the papers back into the envelope and stuck them in my tote bag to take home with me.  I decided to figure it all out later - I'll have to download the Wells Fargo bank statements for that account anyway.  And then there was the ham.  Or jamon, if you will.  My client had been out to eat somewhere and ordered a croquette that he enjoyed and decided to duplicate for sale at the tortilleria.  He sent two ladies to the store for potatoes, cheap boiled ham and bread crumbs.  About forty-five minutes later they came back, after having been to two Spanish-speaking grocery stores, and announced that there was no boiled ham to be had.  Both he and I found that really hard to believe and he said, "Did you ask for HAM?"  No, they both replied, we asked for jamon.  Their rationale was that they don't eat HAM in their country, so they asked for jamon, which in some places means bacon.  At that point, my client blew his top and I have never heard such yelling, in Spanish or English.  In the meantime, I called the Bravo Supermarket right down the street, which is heavy on the Latin clientele (since these ladies will only go to a Spanish-speaking grocery) and inquired about boiled ham.  "Yes," the lady replied, "in the meat department."  My client sent one of the ladies back out and for some unknown reason she went to Sweetbay and got ham sliced in the deli for $5 a pound.  More yelling ensued.  Not at all what my client had in mind - but at least it allowed them to get to work on the prototype.  I also discovered that you can buy mass quantities of cheap, boiled ham at Sam's Club for less than $3 a pound, but I digress.  I found a recipe for Cuban croquetas online, but the ladies weren't interested because it wasn't in Spanish - besides, they assured my client that they knew how to make croquetas.  I went back to writing payroll checks and for the next hour or so, one or another of the ladies came in to show my client each stage of the new recipe: mashed up potatoes, chopped ham - you get the picture.  A little while later, all four ladies came in with their version of a ham croquette.  I wasn't sure who was minding the store, but I was afraid to ask.  We were asked to sample the prototype while the cooks waited expectantly.  My client spoke first.  "Needs salt."  He took another bite and looked at me.  "What do you think?" he asked.  What I thought was, needs flavor - but I said politely, "Yes, a little salt.  And maybe a little, como se dice en espanol " it came to me: "ajo (garlic)."  I started to suggest cebollas (onions), but I kept my mouth shut.  Then there was some discussion as to the desired shape of the croquettes.  One of the ladies thought they should be served con ensalada - but who wants hot take-out food served on a bed of salad?  I finally suggested making them smaller and flatter like an empanada - which is more conducive to eating with one's hands.  That was apparently what my client had in mind as well and the cooks were dispatched back to the kitchen.  He shook his head.  "See what it's like?  All I get is an argument or a discussion about everything!"  I reminded him that his business is not a democracy and it's perfectly all right for him to be a dictator; he is, after all, the boss.  But that's just not his nature and things will most likely continue just as they are, whether my client is happy about it or not.  You know what they say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  I have a feeling my client will just keep muddling on through...

I'm sure that we will never...

make the Forbes list of best places in the US to work, but Aggie and Peter and I really like working at home.  They're not much help, but they are lots of company.  They are also good listeners.  While Aggie takes her position as Senior Associate and Director of Security very seriously, I am sure people regard her barking as more of a nuisance than a deterrent.  Peter naps works behind the scenes and generally makes an appearance at the desk around quitting time every day.  I am blessed to be able to work at home and spend time with my pets - especially these past few weeks with no means of transportation!  A conventional employer would not have been as understanding as I am.  Not that I am conventional - but you know what I mean.  I've also been blessed this week with lots of additional - and unexpected - work (as well as payments from deadbeats!) that will make Ray's unforeseen car doctor bills a little easier to handle.  And in the big scheme of things, my associates and I don't really need much more than each other and a stack of good books.

And for that, I am really thankful!

Back to Piney Point...

and it's about time, isn't it?  I was doing great, diligently writing a new chapter every day when I started on January first, but then tax season arrived and something had to give.  Unfortunately, it was the new adventures of my amateur detective, her hunky husband and their precocious offspring that got put on hold temporarily while I spent the next several months doing paying meaningful work.  I'm finally all caught up, the spring summer cleaning is done and I am determined to get back on my chapter-a-day schedule.  My goal is a finished mystery by the end of August and with any luck, a free Kindle download for Dead and Dug Up on Amazon by the first of October.  Apparently, digital is the new wave of publishing for emerging writers - no agent necessary.  We'll see how this goes...  If you've been waiting with bated (yes, bated - not baited) breath for a new installment of Dead and Dug Up, check back later this evening on my Piney Point blog for the latest chapter.

Where did June go?

That's the question I've been asking myself all day today - and what did I accomplish this month?  On the surface it doesn't look like I did much, but I am all caught up on the bookkeeping I let slide during tax season, the spring cleaning is done (yes, I know it's summer...) and I finished my photo scanning project.  So I have been working hard, just not working very hard at blogging or writing.

Which I plan to begin again in earnest - tomorrow.

I've also spent my evenings reading.  I discovered M.C. Beaton and her Agatha Raisin mystery series.  And her Hamish MacBeth mystery series.  Very Agatha Christie in style and substance.  I like them both very much - the only problem is that I am waiting on Agatha Raisin book number nine - I found a used copy for cheap - and the postal service keeps disappointing me!  I've read some Hamish MacBeth in the meantime; his adventures can be read out of order without too much disruption to the continuing story line.  I'd download the Kindle version, but it really irritates me off that the digital edition is often more expensive than the paperback.  I've been getting the paperback versions because then I can share with my book buddies.  I know that defeats the purpose of digital books and saving trees and all that, but what can I say?  I'm an avid reader, but I'm also a cheapskate!

It's time to turn off my left brain...

for a little while and do something creative, I think.  Every January, after having looked eagerly forward to it for a month or so, tax season begins and I put the left side of my brain to work full time.  For the six months prior to the beginning of the mad rush, I've enjoyed a contented balance between concrete and abstract thinking.  I do my work, but I also write, create cards, read, sew and take on little nesting projects.  You know, like rearranging stuff and cleaning the bathroom.  I have been moving pretty slowly the last couple of weeks - mainly from the horrific allergy and laryngitis episode which couldn't have come at a worse time - and I realized today that part of my lethargy is due to not taking a little time to indulge my creative side.  Maybe indulge is the wrong word; nurture is more like it.  So this morning, stacking the client tax files ever higher in the middle of my desk, I took an hour or so to putz around the house and do some freshening up.  I dusted the kitchen counter and rearranged the potted plants and some canisters.  I sorted through a couple of boxes of gift wrap supplies and consolidated them into one flat yellow box on my art desk that's easier to get to.  I put a load of laundry in the washer and put a care package together for a friend.  I worked on a word processing project for a friend having some difficulty with Microsoft Word and some pesky 3x5 index cards for a recipe book he's putting together.  All in all, not terribly creative things, but the mundane sort of tasks that require just a little creativity.  The kinds of things that soothe my soul - and that is just what I needed.  Now I can get back to work...

Small victory lap...

Can you tell that I just had to get out of the house today?  Even if it was just to go to the bank and take away the trash.  Almost another month of tax season to go and I am about stir-crazy!  While I was out, Ray and I did a small victory lap around the neighborhood - we are celebrating that he is finally paid for!  Woo hoo!  I thanked him for all of his good service over the past two years and promised to fill him with gas the next time we're out and treat him to a car wash.  Sometimes the small victories in life are the sweetest!

Have you ever just needed to turn your brain off...

for a few minutes?  Well, it's not that I think that knitters are a mindless bunch - on the contrary, I think knitters are very creative.  Although I am not a knitter by any means, I do, however, very much enjoy the mindless calm of knitting.  I haven't done any knitting in years - but the other day I bought a couple of skeins of yarn and decided to just do some simple knitting throughout the day, especially when I am in need of a short break.  I've never made anything complicated, as you can see by the simple whatever-it-is I'm working on, but I was amazed how quickly the rhythm of the needles and yarn came back to me.  As you might imagine, I don't expect to make anything particularly grand - but it's very soothing to just stop thinking for a few minutes and knit a couple of rows.  Especially when I've just spent an hour or so trying to explain the correlation between the amount of income earned and the amount of income tax due on that income - to people who have absolutely no clue what I am trying to tell them.

And it beats poking one of them in the eye with a knitting needle...

The paper avalanche...

has begun!  My gang of disorganized, self-employed male clients has begun to drop off their annual bags of crap.  I have fervently hoped, in vain it would appear, that their organizational skills would improve over time, especially when I return their bags of crap all neatly organized into labeled envelopes and file folders.  But alas, that has not happened.  And, if it did, what would they need me for?  So I plan to spend my weekend, sorting through said bags and trying to make sense of their scribbled notes, wadded up receipts and piles of invoices.  At least they're arriving earlier this year...

Just one sheet...

of paper, every day for a year is almost a ream of paper.  I had never really thought about how much paper that really is until I decided last year to fully embrace Outlook and all of its features.  I've been using it forever - but still keeping information in the old, tried and true format as well.  Now I use it for my email, my calendar, my task list, my contacts - everything I would have traditionally written down somewhere else.  I also started using OneNote for the first time last year and I love it!  This nifty little program has taken the place of my old write-everything-down composition book - a system I've been using for eons.  The switch took a little getting used to, but the electronic notebook format of OneNote is infinitely better - I can still have my page-a-day to do list, but I can also keep my other lists in their own sections of the notebook.  And color code it!  I'm in nerd heaven!  So instead of printing about four sheets of paper a day just dedicated to my various lists, I've retrained myself to use virtual paper instead.  I'm down to printing my one reminder list a day - and by the end of the day I have scribbled notes on it, marked off items, and written down numbers and other important information to be entered in Outlook at the end of the day.  Hopefully in a couple of weeks, I'll even be able to let this wasteful quirk go, too.  Maybe.  You know the Chinese proverb: the palest ink is better than the sharpest memory...

Sorry, but...

I was only trying to eke one more day of peace and quiet out of that last week just before tax season begins.  It didn't work anyway; I had eight people in and out of here today.  Poor Aggie is exhausted from all the guard-dogging and guest-greeting she was required to do on a Monday - a federal canine holiday, no less.  Peter has been in hiding since early this morning.  I did finally get out to do my errands about five o'clock and went to the bank, dropped some mail in the box, took away the trash and yes, I'll admit it, trudge into WalMart for a few necessities.  Fortunately, it wasn't too busy and I got home before it was completely dark outside.  I am not a good nighttime driver - and neither are ninety percent of the snowbirds who appear to have arrived in droves during the past few days.  It would appear that I have actually gotten everything done that I had planned to do around the house before my busy time.  I managed to de-junk the hall closet a bit early this morning and Jonathan took a box of stuff away to Goodwill for me this morning - what a guy!  The only thing I have left to do is vacuum under my desk - but I am about done with work or thinking about another thing for today.  The next installment of life in Piney Point will just have to wait, too.  I am looking forward to a great tomorrow!

An unexpected gift...

from one of my clients made my day today.  I went to see my tortilleria client early this morning to help him prepare some background information he needs for an appointment with an attorney on Monday morning.  It's a long, long story about attempting to buy an enormous quantity of corn flour.  I admire his determination to make his business succeed - and I hope he prevails in this matter.  Which is pretty silly, if you ask me - the man just wants to buy flour at a decent price so he can keep the cost of his consumer product reasonable.  The big, bad flour company only wants to sell him the amount they think can actually use.  What do they care what he does with it, as long as he pays them for their product?  Anyhow, it's a big mess and he wanted to get his information in order and create a sort of timeline for the attorney.  That's where I come in - putting stuff in order.  Anyhow, I had also finished another large project for him and I had a whole pile of things for him to sign.  Looking at the stack of paper I brought with me, he said, "I want to buy you a new printer cartridge.  I'll send one of the ladies to Office Depot to get one.  Let's call and make sure they have the one you need."  I was gobsmacked - it was like something (or Someone) told him I really needed a toner cartridge.  Honestly, I was nursing the old one along, shaking it to get all the toner I could out of it, hoping it would hold out until I'd done the first few tax returns and could afford to order a new one.  Of course, I said he didn't need to do that.  But he insisted.  A little voice in my head said, Just be thankful and when you see that can help someone out, go ahead and do it.  We finished up the timeline, he signed the paperwork and I showed him how to do his weekly Sam's Club order online so he could just pick it up at the store instead of having to waste time shopping.  And then, bless his heart, he paid me a hundred dollars besides.  I am humbled by his kindness and generosity and I see several loaves of banana and pumpkin bread in his future.  I don't know what I have done to deserve such great clients, but I am truly thankful for them and they work they give me to do.

Since I'm not in the holiday mood today...

I've been making my tax season preparation list - and checking it twice.  Last year I happened upon these recycled folders that cost only marginally more than the folders I was buying at Target or WalMart during the after school sales.  I like that these are made from recycled materials and are more substantial than the generic school folders.  And yes, I found them on Amazon, and with free shipping they're only about twenty cents each.  I add a pretty sunflower business card sticker to the front and voila! - personalized client tax folders.  And the colors are cheerful - always a plus!  It doesn't take much to amuse me - or my clients, apparently.  Next project: client information forms and processing checklists.  And no, I don't have a list of lists.  But I've thought about making one.  Once or twice.

Lack of planning...

or measuring, at least - is a recurring theme at my house.  I've been looking for a comfortable client chair for the area in front of my desk and I finally found one - a $50 craigslist bargain in perfect, like new condition.  The guys went and picked it up for me and well, it seems that I am not a very good judge of space.  When you live somewhere for a while, it starts to seem bigger than it really is, I guess - and as you can see, the chair is rather large for the space.

Time for the bakers rack to go - it was a hand-me-down from a friend of my husband's, so I am not that enamored of it anyway - it just made a nice place for my Longaberger May basket collection.  So after staring at the problem for a while and weighing the possible alternatives, I put my baskets in the hall closet and called to ask my friend Jonathan if he wanted the thing.  He came over a couple of hours later and hauled it off to his house.  In the meantime, I decided that floating shelves on the wall would be perfect for my baskets - and free up the space I need for the chair.

Apparently, the new chair has met with Aggie's approval.  I like it, too.  The only bad news, Tom & Al, is that we are going to have to move the desk back about six inches to provide a little more navigation room for the therapy patients clients who are going to sit in that chair.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Profit and loss...

an enormous project is finally finished!  I am sure that while I didn't make much profit on it, I am not taking a loss either.  One of my clients owns a convenience store that is attached to a BP gas station.  Of all things, he is filing a claim against BP for loss of business due to the oil spill.  I haven't figured that one out yet - but it seems that nearly everyone with a business on the Gulf Coast has jumped at the chance to catch a ride on that train.  Anyhow, I have had to reconstruct his monthly income and loss for the past three years - since he is yet another small business owner who is a firm believer in not bothering with any sort of monthly bookkeeping.  I have prepared his tax returns for several years now and just recently convinced him to do his payroll and monthly sales tax reporting electronically.  Anyhow, I am so glad to have this project marked off my list.  And so next I am on to reminding my summer slackers about their 2010 tax returns!