Knitting WIPs

$3882.90

Nicky11 Comments

…. that’s what I came home to yesterday.   A bill from the NYS Office of Taxation and Finance.

I tried to be good.  I really did.  But when I looked at my return, I lost it!  I filed late (as usual) and was happy to see that I didn’t owe.  As a matter of fact, they owed me $175.00.  But in the typical scare tactic way they operate, they ignored $3421. of the $5700 I paid in taxes, slapped me with a penalty and interest to say that I owed them close to $4000.00.  Then on top of that gave me two weeks to pay the total or incur more charges.  They ignored my total taxes paid on my return and on my filing application.  So now it’s time for me to do the song and dance with them to get them to reverse the charges and pay what they owe me.  That should be interesting.

I’m not going to lie, I wanted to cry.  So badly, I got a headache.  But I was more angry than my need to shed tears.  Especially since I felt singled out for no reason.  A mistake they made turned around to be a tax liability with a fight I don’t need for me.  On top of all the shenanigans I have going on at work already.

I remembered part of Kate’s comment on this week’s selection for Music Monday — “a simple message and hard to follow!”  Yes indeed.  I felt crushed and just all around ticked off.  My first thought really was — where would I get $4000 to pay them in two weeks?  I felt that despite my efforts to maintain a positive attitude it seems like life is determined to keep relentlessly sucker punching me.  Then I was gently reminded of  — Phillipians 4:6 – “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;”   Well okay then … I got told.  😀

So I asked for forgiveness for the not so nice words I said aloud and in my mind, then I sat down to do what I know would calm me down — knit.  Me on the couch, still in my work-clothes, 160 stitches of garter, adding to the rows I already done on the train ride home.

388290

This is the beginning of the Purl Soho Easy Baby blanket I’m doing for my coworker’s son.

I breathe deeply, then felt God telling me that everything is going to be okay.  Because a tax bill of $3882.90 that I don’t owe ain’t nothing for God to handle.  Shoot, even if I did owe it, He’d find a way to help me pay.  So there NYS Office of Taxation and Finance!    Take that, you dirty rat!  😛

Just A Hat …

Nicky12 Comments

So … my week started with my team getting trashed … boo hiss!  Then I realised after the game, that the yoke of my Flax sweater looked small because … doh … I didn’t change to larger needles after doing the neck band!!!  😦    That means starting over and at this point, my timeline to finish it as an OWL  for the HPKCHC competition is not going to be met.  No worries though … although that baby’s on timeout, I’m even more determined to finish it.   Then on top of all that, I go to work yesterday to hear that my job has lost all its major funding contracts, staff is going to have to be let go or mercifully, moved to other agencies.  Adding to that stress, a position in my group (that has moved from 7 to 3 in the space of two and a half years) was slated to be on the chopping block.

I’m typically a positive person but yesterday’s work news took some of the wind out of my sails.   Actually, it took a lot of wind out of my sails.  Blessedly for me, my boss reconsidered how having two people instead of three in my department would affect operations negatively so for now we’re still three.  But this sucks more than I could express and I’m so very tired of it.  I wanted really to  … errr … express myself in a not so nice way  😀  but I know that (1.) that’s not how I’m supposed to behave,  (2.) it really wouldn’t change anything and (3.) that’s really not my style.  So instead,  in my lunch hour, I started this hat for one of my co-workers:

Laurie's Hat

I’m not going to lie — it took a while for the meditative rhythm of knitting to get me to loosen my grip on the needles, to stop gritting my teeth, to lose the urge to cuss uncontrollably and to actually get back to the point of relaxing.  Once I got myself together, I was able to pray, receive heavenly Help which allowed me to start breathing easier.  When I looked down … the hat was almost at the point of decreases!  LOLOL!   Now that’s my kind of therapy!

There’s a lot to be done in the next two weeks and I’m going to have to push myself and my team hard to accomplish these goals. But in the mean time, while my Flax sweater is on time-out, I have to make some serious professional decisions while keeping calm and knitting.  Even if it’s just a hat!