Because My Photographer Quit Without Even A Two Week Notice...

In November the Murph got a new job and we packed up two homes and three cats and moved down to the Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida area to begin our new lives. I was very excited and love it down here and everything so don't get me wrong.  I guess I didn't realize that with his new job keeping him busy, the Murph wouldn't have time to do his old job anymore.

 Old job = being my Chief Fashion Photographer/Athletic Supporter/Nutrition Consultant.

With no photographer, I am having trouble doing my Fashion Friday blog posts or any other fashion related blog posts that may require a picture of me in some fashionable or not so fashionable outfit. I've made some sad but serious attempts at selfies, but the photos turned out like this....

and these... not much better photos....

How can a person who generally has trouble with picture taking be coordinated enough to take selfies?

The Murph did agree to take this photo, but I never managed to do a fashion post on it.  It was a cute dress though. I wore this one to see Wynton Marsalis in Sarasota play a fun Christmas jazz concert.

Please excuse the photo bombing cat! He is seriously attached to me in a weird way. I always believed he was taken from his mom at too early an age. Bless his heart!

Dress: Mark & James by Badgley Mischka;

Shoes: Nine West

These days most of my pictures are of the cats so if you love cats you're in luck! If you love fashion, well, I'm sorry but until I can come up with a better plan, there just might be a bunch of cat pictures on my blog again.

Also, with no Athletic Supporter, my triathlon endeavors are nonexistent, but I have hopes for the spring and summer. If I can still swim and ride a bike without training wheels that is.

With no Nutrition Consultant, I've been sneaking to McDonalds to get sausage biscuits and hash browns several mornings and I'm lucky to get in one green smoothie per week. Not good for the detoxing, but I do get an occasional salad passed on from the Murph when he doesn't want to eat his lunches.

I'm still thinking I should become a vegan, but I've tried that before. It was the toughest 2 hours of my life!

Don't worry about me though. I'm tough! I'll figure it all out and be back to normal in no time. Hopefully, I will be better than normal because my normal could use some improvement. (or so I've been told)

In the meantime, here's some cute kitty pictures and some random home interior pictures because those I can manage to take all by myself.

Enjoy....

Stop taking pictures and give us the food!

Phantom 

Ed- The Good Kitty

Reminds me of Cadence and Phantom only they wouldn't be rubbing on each other like this.

Deluded Disillusioned sperm painting.

Cool Jazz Paintings.

Cadence showing his flexibility.

Also, I have job openings available for fashion photographer, athletic supporter (aka cheer leader) and nutrition consultant (aka food nazi).  Please apply here if interested.

Fashion Friday - One Day Late Cause I Was Dealing With the IRS

I know it is Saturday and I've already missed my chance at doing a "Fashion Friday" post, but I'm going to do one anyway and just pretend it's still Friday. That way we get an extra weekend day. Wouldn't that be great?

Since it's a day late and I've had the dress and the shoes for a while, I'm not going to include links. I've found that to be a useless way to monetize my blog anyway and it is extremely time consuming. Also there's not a lot of new fashion for me these days with a son in college and a cat on chemo. The dress is BeBe, the bracelets are Free People (on the right) and unknown (on the left) and the shoes are Zigi Soho.

I also don't have that much time to blog lately because I'm down to the last two months before my big race - the half ironman.

Last week was a good training week with lots of biking and a couple of really good swims along with the usual running. This week my training dropped off because I spent some marathon training times on hold with the IRS trying to get them to send me a copy of my 2012 Income tax return transcript so I could give it to the Boy's college financial aid office. Those IRS people are the most paranoid people ever! Trying to convince them that I am who I say I am and that I'm am indeed standing next to a fax machine for hours because that's the only way they will send it to me, was a challenge.

After signing up for faxburner.com and getting a fax number that I could pull up by email, I stayed on the phone 40 minutes only to be told they couldn't send it this way because of hackers. I had a back up fax number to the fax machine at our condo's real estate office not far away. I told them no problem, send it to that fax and my husband would run down and get it. They said, "NO", I have to be standing by the fax machine since I'm the one who called so I would have to call back. There was no way I could run over to the real estate office without losing cell phone signal in the elevator and would therefore have to call back and start over anyway.

I ended up going over to the real estate office, waiting on hold for an hour, getting a very paranoid IRS worker on the line who wanted to make sure I was next to a fax machine and where exactly was this fax machine and then proceeded to ask me questions about the last three years of my life to prove that I was who I said I was. I am really surprised she didn't ask for a picture of me standing next to the fax machine for proof as well as blood samples and finger prints. It took 30 minutes on the phone with her before she finally sent the transcript!

In a few days I will be getting another transcript in the mail from when I was on hold for 45 minutes on Wednesday. I wasn't near a fax machine that day. Unfortunately, it won't get here in time to help the Boy. That's why I spent over an hour and a half yesterday getting friendly with a fax machine.

It would have been so much better if the retrieval tool had worked and then I could do it all online with a few clicks and about 5 minutes. Not my luck!

It was down to the last minute this week because the final balance in the Boy's account has to be paid or all his classes will be dropped. The financial aid office will not process his financial aid until I gave them this "transcript". This is the Boy's third year at that college - same financial aid, same process (I assumed) only this year they are asking for this transcript thing that I have never had to send in before. Last year I didn't file income tax because I had no income. This year, since the Murph and I got married in Oct. 2012, we filed jointly.

I guess this is why they want the transcript now. Who knows!  I sent them a copy of our return and thought that was it because I never heard from them. Only the Boy was getting emails from them. When I found out about these emails, I thought they must not have received the return I originally sent so I resent it.

Wrong!

That was when they FINALLY told me that what I sent wasn't what they needed. They just assumed I knew what they were talking about. Big mistake! After 21 years raising a child on the spectrum and having to deal with an ex who's an ass, I'm practically brain dead. As a matter of fact, after three days and approximately 4 hours of being on hold with the IRS and a dozen emails and phone calls going back and forth to the college, I'm numb.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon staring blankly into space. The Murph asked me what I was thinking about. Thinking? Nothing. Blank! I was zoned out! It's a coping mechanism I adopted to keep me from going completely insane.

Pomegranate martinis help the zoning out process!

Imported Beer is the Murph's zone out drink of choice. He was hanging in right there beside me as we made our way to the IRS office only to be told we had to wait 2 hours just to get a number Wednesday. That's when I decided being on hold on the phone may be the best poison of choice. The fax machine became the issue at that point. We don't have one.

Barbecue shrimp with grits helps too because as the Murpy says - I'm an eater.

We should get stickers or t shirts that say "I Survived the IRS".

Only now we have to deal with the school. I have a feeling the financial aid is not going to be processed fast enough and somebody is going to get classes dropped again. I've already called the accounting office to get them to flag his account and not drop classes but they said he would have to come down there yesterday by 5 pm. Of course he was at work until 5 pm and he called and they, of course couldn't do anything unless he came to the office in person. Of course. Why make things easy? Nobody has to work or go to school or have a life. Everybody can just drop everything to come by an office at anytime or stay on hold for hours. (sarcasm here)

Now I remember why I never had a real job while I was raising the Boy. Only the part time, part pay flexible ones, that weren't always flexible enough.

It seems this is just what is going to happen every single Fall semester while the Boy's in college.

Sigh.

Fashion Friday - Swimsuits Edition 1

For fashion friday I'm wearing two of the swimsuits I am loving this summer. One was purchased this year and one was purchased last year for me by my husband. I love the new pink that Victoria's Secret has available this year called "date night pink" or date night red".  LOVE!! I also love the gold toggles on the first swimsuit. I have another swimsuit like it, but in leopard print that I will feature next week.

Swimsuit - Victoria's Secret Date Night Pink Here;  Sandals - Giuseppe Zanotti (old); Sunglasses - Louis Vuitton Here; Earrings - Erica Lyons; Hat - Cappelli (old but similar Here in turquoise

Swimsuit - Victoria's Secret (old, but similar style Here in Paisley ); On toes - China Glaze in Pink Voltage; Sandals - Giuseppe Zanotti (old)