Homework

Work.

It’s a dirty word in my house.

This last January, I dove back into public accounting after nearly two years’ reprieve. This time though, I’m back with a purpose. I take online classes through Southern New Hampshire University toward a Master’s of Science in Forensic Accounting, and I work in public accounting for practice and pay. I’ll have my required hours to sit for the CPA exam before I finish the education requirement. With a little bit of luck and planning, when I graduate, I’ll have not three but six letters to tack on to the end of my name. At least one of my professors thinks I ought to continue and pursue my PhD as well. Regardless, I’m a freight train heading for a destination known as alphabet soup.

This comes with quite a lot of work.

During tax season, 50 - 60 hour weeks were the norm for me, and that was just the work I was paid to do. Admittedly, it’s a little bit light - many accountants pull 80 hour weeks for three months out of the year. Several in my office pulled this for a few weeks toward the end. They went home, nibbled on a bit of food, and went to sleep to wake up and do it again the next day.

I went home, ate a cold dinner, and did homework before a short sleep to wake up and do it all again the next day.

January through April this year, there was a lot of me doing work of some form or another. My toddler started protesting.

“Mommy has to go to sleep,” my husband would explain to our night-owl of a child,

“Mommy has to get up and go to work tomorrow,” I said, even on Friday and Saturday night.

“NOOOOOOOOOO!” His protest would start with something recognizable as a word, and quickly devolve into screaming, tears, and spits and raspberries of rage.

Work is a dirty word in my house.

Months later, when I’m home by six and don't go to work on the weekends, that word may still elicit a near-epic breakdown. Especially if we suggested there might not be any cartoons if there wasn’t good behavior.

My toddler is smart. He understands what that means. But he’s not quite mature enough to handle it. Tired of the demands for more “Transformers,” and horrible shows meant to edutain that only hurt my and my husband’s brains, and he hid the TV. He unplugged it and put it in the closet.

It was two nights of bliss.

I’ve been able to sit at the kitchen table and knock out homework, and even put a bit of thought, effort, and research into it to turn out something I consider quality.

What’s even better is that my toddler joins me.

I sit on my little Chromebook and type away and calculate taxes for fake people and prepare fake financial statements and journal entries, and he sits at his place and scribbles on paper, making letter and Earths and BumbleBee and Optimus Prime.

What’s even better is that my husband gets a few minutes of peace to focus on his own work while I split my mind between accounting and our toddler.

And “homework,” apparently, doesn’t have the word “work” anywhere in it.

Words

My writer friends will understand what I mean when I say I haven't found any words in far too long. Though most of my writer friends are far more prolific than I am, they too go for a while without finding words. I could go on for hours about reasons why I can't find words. Tax sea. School. A two year old who refuses to sleep normal hours. A husband who needs and deserves a break, but can't get one because of tax season, school, and a two year old who refuses to sleep.

Unfortunately, my reasons for not finding words are not so glamorous as a difficult emotional scene, a need to research, or wrapping up the final book in a series and thus saying goodbye to a long-loved and life-changing story and process. Nor am I experiencing a bit of writer's block. I find myself surrounded by stories to tell; by characters who want to dance and be heard. It's the reasons above that keep me from finding the words to bring those characters to life. The stare at a screen with hands on keyboard and make a bunch of noise while my fingernails clack out a world that may resemble my own, but is not.

Right now though, I have bus time as a good friend once called it. And I am thankful for bus time, and for the ability to look at story in a whole new light while on my phone. It may be tax season, and I may be a full time student and a mom, but I can still put my thumbs to work.

I'm coming words. Don't leave me now. I'm coming.

The Price of a Burger

I got in to the spirit of New Years a bit last night. I got off work, headed home, picked up the husband and two year old, and headed to a burger joint for dinner. We were all hungry, and the husband and myself had been craving a burger for a couple of days. Sprinkle in a bit of a festive spirit, and you have yourself a bit of a recipe for disaster.

That's right, disaster.

No, my disaster didn't have anything to do with alcohol on New Year's Eve. We were all home, safe and sound, by 730pm, in bed by 9, and I think I was asleep by 10. Early to bed makes it easier to get up early in the morning, and, just like much of the world, I greeted 2014 with a big, fat, whopper of a headache.

Except my headache isn't just a headache. It's a full-blown migraine.

The answer is really quite simple: eat whole foods. No, not the grocery story chain (though I love them for banning all things containing MSG) but simple, real, whole foods. Foods that haven't been adulterated by processing in a factory. Foods that come from a farm and straight to my table.

Foods that I like to eat anyway. It's harder, and takes a bit more planning, but, there's little we go without when we actually try. Including Chocolate Hazelnut Spread. This recipe is great (I don't know just how close I followed it as I'm not so great with the measuring things - I eyeball just about everything, even when baking - but it came out great, and turned me on to coconut sugar). I'm really loving it in just about everything, and can't wait to try another batch with cream. No offense to coconut milk lovers out there, but, my food issues do not disallow cream, and I like the taste of it better. So, next time, ganache with cream, not coconut milk, and don't forget the salt and vanilla extract (maybe vanilla beans?) and a lower ratio of coconut sugar.

I digress. Though my head hurts, I'm excited for the food I have planned out for the day (dhal with yoghurt and jalapenos and coffee for early breakfast, oatmeal with that lovely chocolate hazelnut spread for 2nd breakfast (snack for me, breakfast for the boys), humus and cucumber cupcakes for lunch, and I don't know about dinner just yet.

Meanwhile, I'll be directing the husband to make and do all the things today, as movement magnifies my head by about a billion.

Damn that MSG.