The Doggy Diaries... gone to the dogs!

Happy 2006

Wishing you all a very happy new year! May 2006 bring you more happiness and prosperity than you can imagine.

I'm hoping to get back to "regular" blogging but am not sure exactly when that will happen. Until then, blogging will continue at the current infrequent, unscheduled pace.

In any event, please accept my wishes to you and yours for a happy, healthy and prosperous new year!

My New Second Job

Friday marked my first training session at H & R Block for the 2006 tax season. HRB always starts gearing up their seasonal tax preparers in November and December -- well in advance of the tax season rush. That means that for the next 2.5 weeks, I'll be in training every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for three hours each evening.

I'm hoping to use the experience, education and training that I'm gaining from H & R Block to start my own tax preparation and bookkeeping business. If you recall, darlin' hubby and I are trying to find a way out of California. As it stands, there isn't much work available in Montana for electrical engineers (both DH and I are electrical engineers). Moreover, I don't even want to continue working as an electrical engineer. I never wanted to be an EE. I never studied to be an EE. I don't know what I'm doing as an EE. It just happened to be a job that I was fortunate enough to land right out of college when the rest of the job market was depressed in January 2002.

So in addition to there not being much work for EEs in Montana, I wouldn't take another job as an EE unless DH and I were starving. That means I need to find another "career track" for myself in Montana. Gosh, I really hate that term. I've never been a hard-nosed, go-getter career woman. I always looked up to my grandmother and hoped I could be like her (especially the way she makes a mean apple pie!); my biggest goal in life was to be a good, supportive wife to my husband. I realize that what I just said has been a very unpopular thing to say since the Women's Liberation movement of the 70s, but I don't care. I can't change who I am just because a few women got their panties in a wad when I was a wee infant and wanted to prove that women could be just as masculine as men. Why in the world should they be allowed to create a social stigma on women who don't care to become career woman? Being a career woman, to me, means having two full time jobs -- working a full time job every Monday through Friday and then coming home to start a second full time job taking care of the house, laundry, cooking, shopping, banking, errands, gardening, etc. What sane woman in her right mind would want two full time jobs? Not me.

But enough of that; I'm digressing too much. Since I'm not one of the lucky women in the world who have the means to be a stay at home mom/wife, maybe I can at least be a work at home wife. I can easily see myself running a tax prep and bookkeeping service out of a spare bedroom. As an added plus, I'm an incredibly detail-oriented person, and I love playing with numbers. Keeping a checkbook balanced and tracking various income and expense accounts to the penny is my cup of tea. You should see the extensive spreadsheets I've created that allow me to see fairly accurately what our tax returns will look like based on each month's paychecks and deductible expenses. It's quite impressive, if I do say so myself.

Until I've got a large enough client base to provide adequate income doing taxes, I'm going to keep taking on a wider variety of work. I guess you might say that I'm becoming an all-around girl Friday! I'm still building websites for others. In addition, I'm also going to start a rather ambitious web project that DH set for us yesterday. If it works out, it could provide a nice source of passive income! And boy, wouldn't that be the life?!?

Anyway, before taking my leave here, I'd like to be sure to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Yes, you heard me right. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I'm not going to wish you "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons Greetings" simply because someone who doesn't celebrate Christmas might happen on to my blog and be offended at the thought of me wishing y'all a Merry Christmas. Heck, this is my blog, and I'll say what I want! If someone is offended by the fact that I celebrate Christmas, they can just stick it up their sock. I'm not offended by people who celebrate Chanukah, Kwanzaa, or opt not to celebrate anything. So why should they be offended by me?

MERRY CHRISTMAS! MERRY CHRISTMAS! MERRY CHRISTMAS!