Author name: Sandra Tayler

This past week has trompled me flat. Monday and Tuesday were completely absorbed by business stuff. By Tuesday night I realized that I hadn’t really looked at my kids once in 48 hours. Wednesday was completely scheduled from crawling out of bed earlier than usual to falling into bed at night. There were a few gaps in events, but I used them up by collapsing in a heap. Today I was away from the house all morning, spent one hour at home, then turned around to be gone most of the afternoon. I’ve done exactly zero laundry or housework this week and it really shows. I feel all messy and irritable. Of course not being able to squeeze a shower into the schedule might have something to do with that.

Tomorrow I’ve cleared the decks. I have no out of the house events. I’m going to stay home and catch up. At least in theory, there will probably be a nap involved. Maybe Howard and I will have a chance to do more than cross paths as well. I honestly do not know how people who work away from their houses manage.

Last night amidst the chaos which is supposed to be homework time and bedtime, I happened to glance downstairs. I saw Howard on his knees playing ring-around-the-rosy with Gleek and Patches. He was even using the right words instead of amusing-but-gross alternates which he tends to prefer. Gleek and Patches were revelling in the attention. A few minutes later when Howard declared “Daddy Fatigue” Gleek collapsed into tears. I went to go and rescue Howard, but Gleek pushed me away and went running to hug her daddy. That was a real first. Gleek has always been a mommy-for-comfort girl. The whole incident made me so glad for the life Howard and I are currently living. Howard now has time to play with kids and read them stories and do all the little things which add up so importantly in the lives of children.

Life is good.

I sat down and wrote a worst-case scenario for the business deal I was stressed over. It was really close to what our original plan was.

I also got up and walked away for awhile. I paid attention to kids and refocused myself into what really matters to me.

I feel much better now.

I have been head down in business concerns for two days. I’ve spent a lot of time, energy, and effort trying to help a friend hammer out a business/bookkeeping plan. We hammered and worked and then presented it to the people it is supposed to benefit. They panicked. They didn’t understand it. They felt like we were trying to take over. Not what I wanted to have happen. This reaction means somehow we failed to present it correctly.

Things have calmed down now and people are starting to talk politely, but I’m still residually stressed. Can’t I just go back to being a mommy and not being partially responsible for a potentially lucrative financial future for two families?

Last friday Howard took Schlock Mercenary off of the keenspot site. It was a step that we’ve needed to take for a long time. Now we don’t have to care when there is a keenspot internal political/ interpersonal mess. It is very tempting for me to explain in detail all the events which led to this necessity, but I could not do so without saying very unkind things about people whom I’ve never actually met. I’ve done a lot of thinking and I’ve decided that I am not going to say anything that could add to the mass of hard feelings that some of these people have for each other. Rudeness only adds to problems and keeping mum does me no harm at all.

I like the new site that Howard and Chalain have designed. I especially like how fast the archives load. I’m curious to see what the Google ad revenues will be like.

I’m also relived that we’re finally getting to the crisis in Howard’s current storyline. I’ve known that this story was coming for more than a year. I’ve been actively nervous about it since Schlocktoberfest 2004.

This may be silly, but Howard is out of the house for an evening and I’m feeling lonely. I’ve gotten so used to him being here 24/7 that when he’s gone somewhere for more than an hour or two I have to quell impulses to call relatives long distance so that I have someone to talk to. This does not bode well for when he actually goes on a trip and is gone for days. I’ve forgotten how to manage without him around. I’m not complaining. This is a problem I longed for less than a year ago. I’m just babbling into my journal because my Howard is gone for the evening.

Only days ago I was lamenting ear infections. I’m about to treble that lament. Kiki and Patches both have infected ears today. The good news is that I was able to get both of them diagnosed in one visit so I’ll only have one co-pay. The bad news is that when Link came down with his infection last Friday afternoon I had a choice of going to the emergency room (And paying grundles of money) or filling an antibiotic prescription in Kiki’s name and giving it to him. I chose to give him the prescription. Only now that Kiki needs antibiotics, the insurance company won’t pay for them because according to their records she’s already on antibiotics. The solution is simple I called the doctor’s office and requested that they reissue Kiki’s prescription in Link’s name. Whee.

Why do they put the toys and candy right next to the pharmacy? While I was trying to sort out prescription nonsense and waiting for the doctor to call the pharmacy and make things official, I had to field begging from Kiki and Gleek about shiny Polly Pockets and I had to stop Patches from filching candies from the bins. Finally I realized that I did NOT want to spend and indefinite length of time at the store waiting for the doctor to call. I carried screaming Gleek and protesting Patches away from all the shiny plastic packaged happiness they didn’t believe they could do without. Gleek tantrumed all the way home. I’m tired and grumpy and I STILL have to go pick up prescriptions. This is NOT how I wanted to spend my morning.

A couple of days ago we recieved a call from Dillard’s credit collection department about Sandra Tayler’s overdue account of $1100. The only problem is that I’ve never shopped at Dillard’s. Howard bought a suit there once, but the most I’ve ever done is walk through the store on my way into the mall. The collection people had my name, my phone number, but someone else’s address. We told them they’d gotten ahold of the wrong person, end of phone call. But the incident preyed upon my attention. Since identity theft is the popular crime these days, I decided to check my credit report. I surfed to annualcreditreport.com to get my free report. There are other sites which offer this service, but their “free” reports come with strings attached. My credit report was exactly how I expected it to be and there was nothing on it from Dillards. I breathed a sigh of relief and expected that to be the end of it.

Today I got two more phone calls. During the course of the phone calls I determined that the Sandra Tayler they are looking for has a different middle initial, different social security number, and lives in a different town. How they managed to attach my phone number to this other person’s account I’m not sure. I AM sure that there is no way they can legally stick me with that $1100 account payment. This is good news. The bad news is that credit collection agencies are notoriously persistant. They expect people to deny responsibility. They expect to be lied to. I’m afraid that I’m in for nuisance phone calls for quite awhile until they manage to actually track down this other person.

I’ve never been on the recieving end of credit collection before, does anyone know what tactics they may mistakenly attempt to appy to me while trying to collect from this other person?

EDIT: April 10, 2005 — The problem is resolved, they’ve stopped calling. Yay!

Tomorrow being Easter, today was the day for the annual coloring of eggs. Patches had never before participated in this ritual, but he has regularly eaten “Daddy eggs” (soft boiled eggs in the shell) and so he reacted to the sight of a row of eggs with joy. He imeadiately picked one up and smacked it on the table. In theory a cracked egg is no good for coloring, but since I use the food-coloring-in-hot-water method I knew it was completely non-toxic. I let Patches have at it. He happily smashed eggs, partially peeled eggs, colored eggs, ate egg bits, spit out shell bits, and then did it all again. The end result was completely ugly and fairly inedible. Fortunately the point of coloring eggs is not having eggs to eat, that’s just a happy by-product. The other kids all colored eggs without cracking any, so I have plenty of hard boiled eggs for next week.

Tomorrow afternoon will be our annual easter egg hunt in the back yard, but that will feature plastic eggs not real ones. And that is the extent of our secular easter celebrations. We will also attend Easter Services tomorrow morning where we will contemplate resurrection, sacrifice, and eternity. I have many many thoughts on all three concepts, but I can’t seem to craft words correctly to reflect the depth of my feelings. Suffice it to say that I am grateful to be here. I’m grateful for the family that I have. And I am grateful for the hope that existence does not end at death.