Tuesday and taxes

I finally stopped procrastinating and completed my taxes over the weekend. You would think that I would have done then a month ago when I got my W-2s since I always get a refund but I have been in such a rut that I kept putting it off. Now that it is done, I don't have the gnawing dread that something horrible is going to happen to my W-2s [fire, giant hairball, etc...] every time I leave the house. {I tend to be a bit paranoid because work has made me believe in the power of the jinx!}

This morning I sent out my photos for the Black and White photo swap. I hope that the photo swaps come around again during the spring and summer when I am more inspired to get outside and take some wacky photos. Right now it's more of a take the quickest shot and get back inside thing.

I bought a DVD by Lucy Neatby and at some point I am going to try to teach myself how to knit socks. {Does it count as teaching myself if I use a DVD?} It seems like a great idea because socks are such a portable project. My only concern is getting the second sock done...of course, I could always just wear mismatched socks and pass it off as a personality quirk instead of admitting that I am just lazy when it comes to finishing a pair of socks. I guess maybe I should learn how to knit socks before I tackle the quandary of the second sock, huh?

Until next time...finish your taxes. You'll feel better, I promise*. [*promise void if you owe on your taxes]

Back to normal-ish

Well, the streets have been plowed [sort of] and my work commute is back to the normal time so Mother Nature has given us a temporary reprieve until the next snow storm hits this weekend. Today I saw the aftermath of what can happen when people drive too fast and too close while the roads are still covered in compacted snow and ice. The accident happened in my blind spot while I was sitting at a red light. I heard a mild crunching sound and I turned around to see in my blind spot and there was a car with a dent in the fender and a car that was flipped onto its side so all you could see was the bottom of the car as it faced into traffic. I called 911 (and evidently so did about 20 other people with cell phones) and the woman that answered was pretty brusque. She sounded very much like it was a huge inconvenience to answer the call...I was hoping for someone who sounded a tad more concerned. Hopefully no one was seriously injured. The accident didn't make the news so I think that bodes well for the parties involved.

I sent out my Photo Scavenger Hunt swap today and it is traveling all the way to the United Arab Emirates. Today I got some lovely pictures from the Beautiful Skies swap, hopefully the next batch will be just as pretty.

I promised you some photos of the snow so here they are:


This one is after the storm and it is the employee entrance at work.This the public entrance after we cleaned off the sidewalk.

Stormy weather

Um...maybe blizzard wasn't an exaggeration. Snowplows stopped plowing except to get emergency vehicles to wherever they needed to go. The drive to work last night that normally takes me 5 to 7 minutes took me an hour. The post office is not able to run all of their routes so mail service is spotty at best. For this area...it is bad! I managed to get my Beautiful Skies swap letters to a mailbox so hopefully it will be a mailbox that gets service today! I have pictures of the snow at work that I will post as soon as I find the data stick that I used to save the pictures. Data sticks are convenient but small and very easy to loose...at least for me.

Back to the grindstone

I went back to work today after being out sick at the end of last week and found two envelopes on my desk from a swap that I participated in at Swap Bot. One envelope came from Ohio and the other came from Amsterdam and both had some nice goodies inside [postcards, bookmarks, stationary, and post-it notes...just the kind of stuff a NerdGirl loves]. It is a lot nicer to come to work when there are gifts waiting. I would encourage everyone to set up some sort of system so that you get nice presents when you go to work; your paycheck does not count. Here is a picture of my swap bounty:


I want to give a big shout out to my friend Kelly. I knew she was a great graphic artist but now she is nationally recognized for her talent...all thanks to a job that she is no longer working at. Her former employers submitted an ad that she designed into a national competition and it took third place. How cool is that?!?! I think her current employer should give her a raise commiserate with her newfound status.