Planned my work and worked my plan

 363rd day sober.  I can say honestly that I  planned my work and worked my plan. I used to shudder thinking of that saying, as it was a favorite of Dr. Allison, the asshole veterinarian I worked for at the Blue Cross Animal Hospital, but it really is a good way to think about things and useful to me. 

The plan had been to do my taxes over the weekend but between worrying about it, and holding myself to getting some other things done first, like putting listed things away and re-organizing a bunch of stuff, the taxes got pushed into Monday. Monday's the day they were due. Then they got pushed into Monday night, and I figured I'll do an all-nighter, get 'em done, and get 'em into the mail Tuesday morning. 

This plan was monkeyed with (another Dr. Allison expression) by Ken coming by with a bunch of stuff. I settled down to sorting the stuff out, putting it away, and working on some of it, taking 20 of these little fans out of the assemblies they're in and taking some circuit boards and de-soldering the high voltage capacitors off of them, and putting the junk out for the scavengers. 

Early in the morning, around 3AM or so, it started raining. I was gambling that the rain would pass through and it would dry up enough by 9AM or so to be able to get out and ride to the post office. 

After some curry, and lots of coffee, and everything else being done,  I got the tax papers downloaded and had a browser process open for each of the instruction sheets. Last year I'd messed up, so I wasn't going to copy from whatever I did last year. I knew I needed the 1040 and schedules C and SE. They referred to schedules 1 and 2, so I used those also. 

I also knew from past experience that one I did the C and SE all the real work is done, so I did those first, then 1 and 2, then the 1040. I copied everything over to a 2nd set to keep for my records, as this is tons easier than taking everything to Kinko's to copy it. And in the end, I figured I owe a bit over $2900, this is in line with what I thought I'd owe. Only about $400 of this is actual income tax, the rest being socially responsible things like Medicare and Social Security. 

I had *one* check so I made that out and this weird little V-form that has to go with a check, and I packaged it all up into an envelope to mail, and into one for my records, and that was that. 

I had 14 small items all ready to pack, so I packed those and they all fit in one Whole Foods bag so that was easy and since they were in plastic bubble mailers, it wouldn't matter if I got sprinkled on. But I didn't; there were beautiful clouds all over the place but no actual rain. 

I'd left at 9AM so lunch trucks were going to be around, and I took a route that went by Tom's place and there was a lunch truck just about across the street. I got two chicken skewers for $5 and ate those in front of Tom's. I think he's out on vacation or something, or probably had to go to Alaska where his dad lives, because his dad isn't doing well. 

I rode up to the post office, dropped everything off, and headed for home, looking for more lunch trucks. I ended up riding out to Old Bayshore, where I found another truck and got some chicken wings for another $5 and took those back here to eat. 

Now it was 10AM (I'd only been out an hour) and I went right to bed. I had some trouble getting to sleep but for me that means maybe 10 minutes to go to sleep instead of 2. 

I woke up at about 7:30 in the evening after having a dream about hanging out with a lot of bikers - it was all pretty friendly as I really don't have bad dreams. I had to think a bit to remember the chicken.

It's a nice feeling knowing I have my taxes done, and as soon as I can get over to the bank and get a few more checks printed for me, I can pay the bill for the $1600-odd too. No waiting until June for me. 

That's a $4500 "hit" on my finances overall but that's why I save like crazy, when I'm not buying flutes and trumpets and things. I'll still have a couple grand in the bank plus I'd really like to see if I can make, busking, what I did last year which is a couple grand.