Better Late Than Never

For those of you who know me, you'll know that I tend to like to be fashionably late. Sometimes, I'm really really fashionable. This started early in life for me. I will have to ask Melody, my mom's cousin who was 14 years old at my birth, to confirm my facts because she likes to remind me of them, but I was born nearly two weeks past my due date. Melody knows because she stayed with my parents for a week or so near the anticipated time of my birth, and she was so disappointed that I decided not to be born until after she had already gone back home. I must have hit the womb-snooze button just a few too many times. It gets me every time!

Little chubby "Jen Jen," as my Grandma used to call me, at three months old.

Well, as most of you who read my blog anticipate April 15th as tax day, for the last couple of years, I've opted to file an extension, allowing me to work down to the wire and submit our taxes by October 15th.  Well, part of this reason is that for some godforsaken reason, we got hit hard last year on our taxes and currently still owe $800 to the IRS (we're on the lovely payment plan). Well, I wasn't in a big hurry to find out how things would go this year, so I lived in the Land of Denial for a few extra months.

This morning, my husband and I were greeted with an early morning e-mail from our accountant. Good news, our taxes are finally filed. Bad news, we now owe just over $3,000 more in taxes between the State and Federal governments. And frankly, I'm not even sure how that happened as my colleagues and I took a 10 percent paycut with mandatory furloughs last year. Talk about adding insult to injury!

This fiscal fiasco caused my husband and me to reminisce about the days, pre-children, when we lived in my grandparents' old house on V Street in Sacramento just after we were married. My dad was the landlord and we only paid $500/month in rent for a cute little 2 bedroom, one bath home. We both worked in media, and had 2:30 - 11:30 p.m. shifts. (He was a media analyst at a news monitoring service and I was a videotape editor for the 5:00, 6:00 and 11:00 p.m. newscasts at the CBS affiliate.)

Jen and Christian in the "good 'ol days" honeymooning in Hawaii

My husband and I agree that this shift was the best we've ever had. We'd wake up at 10:00 a.m.. Go out to lunch. (Our favorite lunch hotspot was Original Pete's on J Street, where we would order the lunch special that included a side salad and personal pizza, for which we would always order a side of Ranch dressing to dip it in.) We would then go to work, get home at around midnight, and watch David Letterman and Conan O'Brien before heading to bed at around 2:00 a.m. Then we'd start all over again the next day.

In those days, we could carry on a conversation at the dinner table without being interrupted. We could go to the movies at a moment's notice. I had the metabolism to support my pizza and Ranch dressing addiction. And we always got a tax refund.

Of course, it goes without saying that we wouldn't give up our two beautiful children, hectic lifestyle that comes with being working parents, and toy-strewn hardwood floors that so desperately need refinishing for the life we led back then.

But, I wouldn't mind getting that metabolism back.

However, I will say, that today (and featured in the picture below) I wore the very same skirt that I purchased to wear to my bridal shower more than 14 years ago. It's a size 6.

Take that, Internal Revenue Service! I'm now 3.5 pounds away from my 40-pound weight loss goal.

And yes, I'm going to miss my new 40-pound weight loss deadline of October 15th. But as Melody can attest, I will get there....eventually!

Until Next Time,
Jen