A Single Year

Today, in a vain attempt to sell me something (which I almost spelled vein... I wonder what a vein attempt to sell something would entail... oh yeah. I'm blogging right now), Gammel Photography sent me an email reminding me that exactly 1 year ago, I graduated from college.

Oh, and I could also buy portraits of my graduation, for a very special, discounted price! Because I'm special! And they're having a sale! Yay!

The email was titled, "Can you believe it's been 1 year, Savannah."

My first thought was, "Something is wrong with that sentence."

My second thought was, "Yes. Yes, I can."

My third thought was, "That dang sentence is missing its question mark!!!"

But, as the second thought is the most interesting of the lot, I'm going to focus this blog post on that one... even though the first and third do kinda play into my thoughts on the second.

Okay, can I believe it's been a whole year?

Yes.

Yes, I can.

Why?

Well... quite frankly, it feels like graduation was about 3 years ago.

1 year ago, I was Savannah Woods, a girl living with 5 roommates in Apartment 21 of Stadium Terrace, struggling to finish a ridiculous statistics class in time while working in a call center and attending writing conventions so I could sit in the audience and soak up as much information as possible.

Now?

Now, I am Savannah Armstrong, living with my husband in a basement apartment, classes long behind me, working as an executive assistant while I prepare a presentation to give at a writing convention.

What have I done in this year?

I graduated.


I got a new job.

I moved. Thrice.


I, uh... kinda got married.

I got heavily involved in a start up publishing company.

I started teaching primary at church (okay, this one's super new).

I got involved in a whole new, game-based community with a huge learning curve.

I have (so far) successfully implemented a change in my punctuation that involves using one space after a period, instead of two. Relearning how to type bites.

I have gone from listening at conventions to presenting at them. This, in and of itself, is a huge status change that I did not expect to happen so quickly.

In short, in addition to regular living, in the last year, my life has rocketed through some pretty massive changes.

So, thus ends the longest 12 months of my life. In fact, I'd venture to guess this 12 months is even longer than the 12 months that spread between my 4th birthday and my 5th... which was HORRIBLY long. It's been a good year, and I'm glad for every last change. I definitely feel like my life shot into a freight train of forward progression.

Congratulations, Gammel Photography, for asking the question. My answer is, "Yes, it's been a year, but it feels like three, and I'm too tired to feel nostalgic, so maybe you should try hawking mugs and mouse pads with my face on them a little closer to my 10 year reunion."

I messed up my taxes.

Taxes are dumb anyways. I have a lovely rant in store about the justice of taxes, the percentage we already pay, why I suddenly have to pay more taxes (never a problem in the past - I always got money back), and how the government is growing more and more irresponsible with money. But, I'll spare you the rant. Just know it's there.

Anyway, there was good news. Apparently, even though I didn't take any classes in 2012, the year I graduated, I did finish an independent study class, so - for tax purposes - the tuition for that counted for 2012.

The bad news is that I just assumed that since I hadn't gone to school in 2012, I wouldn't have any tuition to deduct, and didn't even look at my 1098-T when I was filing. In short, I paid taxes I didn't have to pay.

The better news is that there's a form to fix that.

Hopefully I'll get back the money I paid.

We'll have to see. It's not much, but the IRS is notoriously stingy.

Update: The fee for changing my tax return would be twice as much as I would have gotten back. 

The IRS sucks.

Spiritual Thought for Easter

As I dug the knife into the whole pie, cutting out a slice for myself and my husband, I had an interesting thought.

Here I was, preparing to eat a slice of pie.  I had absolutely no room in my stomach for this pie.  In fact, this was going to be taking me from "uncomfortably full" to "why do I do this to myself?" agony.  This was after pineapple-glazed ham, Hawaiian sweet rolls with butter, herb red potatoes, Caesar salad, and apple-passion-mango juice.

But... I couldn't not eat the pie.  I mean... it's Easter!  How can you pass up dessert?  You're not celebrating right.

So, I ate the pie.

I now regret it.

As I was eating, it occurred to me I did the same thing at Christmas.  This is what most people do.  Eat a feast to celebrate the holiday.  It's tradition!

The two holidays we have devoted to Christ - Christmas and Easter - have a long standing tradition of being celebrated with gluttony... one of the seven deadly sins.

We Christians are a funny lot. 

Buying Flowers for a Man

Alberto's dad died.

I was really impressed by how upbeat he's been all day.  He talked to the distributors with enthusiasm, and still laughed with the office jokes.  I don't know if he was close to his dad, but either way, death of immediate family warrants flowers.

And, of course, as the assistant, getting flowers was my job.

Have you ever bought flowers for a guy before?  It's a little... weird.  I chose Target's miniscule floral department because I also needed to get a card for everyone to sign, and it was a nice one-stop.  I was presented with a vast variety of choices.  I could get him pink tulips, pink daisies, pink orchids, a varied bouquet of pink roses, pink daisies and pink hydrangeas, or the loudest yellow/orange gerber daisy bouquet I had ever seen.

I looked over my options, chewed my lip for a second, then shrugged and muttered, "He's from Mexico.  He'll like yellow and orange."

After that bout of politically correct stereotyping, I skipped off to the greeting card session to find a sympathy card that wasn't nauseatingly cheesy, running sandpaper over open wounds of the heart, or pink.  I settled on a green card that said something to the effect of, "We're with you during this time," and went to get a vase. 

The vase I ended up selecting was a plain, clear glass cylinder.  Really... it was between the $3 cylinder or the $15 blown glass with the ocean waving across it.  And... well... flowers for a guy, remember?  I couldn't really picture Alberto cherishing the ocean vase enough to justify 5x the cost.

The card made it quietly around the office as everyone gave him their sympathy and well wishes.  Then it came to the part that wasn't my job as assistant: presenting the gesture. 

We couldn't find his manager to give it to him.  Well... technically his manager, Dan, just got back from a 4 day conference in Atlanta, Orlando and Jacksonville, and was home sleeping.  We don't begrudge him the afternoon off.

So, we got the other Dan (who is not his manager, but is named Dan and therefore the best we could do) to present the card and flowers.

I sat across the cubicle wall from Alberto and listened to the interaction.

"Hey," Other Dan said, in a tender, sympathy laden voice. 

I smiled.  Yep.  Other Dan was definitely a good choice to give him the flowers.

I heard the vase clink as Other Dan presented the flowers, and then his voice spoke again.  "These are not for a social advancement."

**facepalm**

And that is how sympathy works here.

Proof I Work With Guys

I'm the assistant.

That means I occasionally get a break from filing expense reports, editing convention presentations, and setting up conference calls to take a trip to the store.  I keep the candy jar stocked and make sure there's always water for the team I work with.

Once upon a time, my boss decided he'd had too much candy.

He called me in his office.

"Hey, Savannah, do you think you could go to Costco and get something with less sugar in it?  You know, granola bars, nuts, that kind of thing.  Ooh, and Jelly Bellies.  I want some Jelly Bellies for my desk."

I agreed, and happily skipped off to the store, glad for the break from paperwork.  Once in Costco, I browsed the snack aisles.  There were pallets upon pallets of everything from sugar free breath mints to Skittles to trail mix.  I settled on a huge bag of trail mix, some dried fruit, a jar of nuts, a box of mountain something or other granola bars, and some peanut Fiber Plus bars.

Oh, and a tub of Jelly Bellies, of course.

I brought them back to the office, turned them in, and that was that.

Until this week.

Apparently there was a little issue with the Fiber Plus bars.

Here is the customer review the guys at work are all citing as a description of their experience with these bars:
"Fiber Plus bars are yummy and chocolaty.  Fiber Plus bars are also snacks that are forged in the depths of hell by Satan himself."

Apparently these bars have earned the nickname "Fart Bars."

Now, my boss discovered this when he ate multiple bars right before going to play basketball with the guys here.  According to the tales they told upon their return, he actually had fire shooting out of his back end, giving his layups jet propulsion.

Now, my boss didn't tell anyone quite what had caused his extra boost.  Instead, he locked his office door and huddled behind his desk long enough to let out a maniacal chuckle as his tapped his fingers together.  Then he stood up straight, picked up the box of Fiber Plus bars, and walked out to the guys on his team.

"Hey guys, try out these bars.  They taste AMAZING!  Here, have two.  You'll love them."

Yesterday in Team Meeting, with an unsuspecting guy from the web team?  "Hey Blake, try out these bars.  You'll love them.  Here, take two."

Even Jill got suckered into trying the Fart Bars, but lucky for her, she has what my boss dubbed a "colon of steel."

It's been a few days.

And I have now learned FAR more about my team's digestive tracts than I EVER wanted to know.

Note to self: In the future... stick to fruit snacks.

You know you're a writer when...

You spend 25 minutes writing a single paragraph, 5 of which were spent actually writing, and 20 of which are spent googling different types of hammers because there's this one kind of hammer in your head that you don't know the name of, but want to use in a metaphor... while writing a piece of world building info that will never make it into even the rough draft of the actual manuscript.

But really.  It was a great metaphor.

Maybe I can still find a way to use it, even though I'm pretty sure rhinoceroses don't exist in this universe.