My life, marching on… Tax goof and piano learning

Yeah that was a pun. It’s March. No, I’m not planning on doing standup.

So, my life. Let’s talk about taxes. Haha.

I am an idiot. I sent my taxes to the wrong bank account. I did that direct deposit thing for my return. Typed in double six instead of double five. I felt horrible when I clicked the IRS website and realized that they had sent my return to me on Feb 10 when it was Feb 20, my bank account still empty. I even paid to do that Turbotax thing.

Luckily, I called my bank and they fixed the situation. My smart friend who does banking explained to me about…. no, I’ll just post it in her own words:

Automatic Clearing House. It's an electronic network in which financial transactions are processed. What probably happened is that the system routed it to a non-existent but valid account number at your bank. Since the account number failed, it most likely went into an exceptions account that the bank could pull it from. The ACH system was smart enough not to return to the IRS. Yay!

Banking is so cool.

That it is. Cool. I bank with Catholic and Community Credit Union. God, I love credit unions. Anyone who wants a community run, wonderful alternative to greedy too-big banks should switch to a credit union. There are so many advantages to it, truly. When I lived in Seattle, I was with BECU, which was also great.

So, that’s all I’ll talk about banking. The other part of my life has to do with learning piano.

There’s a keyboard at my house, and I’ve been playing it when I need a mental break. It’s very relaxing, and I think I’m improving! I can play the Game of Thrones theme! It’s fun!

I used to play guitar and bass in a few bands, but I got to a point where I was satisfied with my skill level. I never wanted to be any better than I am now at guitar, so I think I lost interest. I didn’t have any goals to work toward. I was good enough. Piano is new and fun. I can feel myself getting better every day. I want to learn how to play a bunch of songs that I can bust out at parties randomly, lol.

I got to jam with some of my old bandmates recently, and it felt good. Makes me want to play music again. My voice is rusty, to be honest.

Anyway, that’s been my life this past month. I hope your life is going well! If you want to know about the writing stuff I’ve been doing, mosey on over to my Writing Blog.

This is January. This is Sparta (morelike madness, truly).

So, I do two separate blogs at the moment that talk about my month. This one you’re on is about my personal life. If you care more about my writing life, head right over here.

It’s hard to talk about my month without talking about the writing aspect, but I’m going to try.

January was a bad month, but I don’t think February will be. I don’t know why, but all month I’ve been in a funk. I nearly died at the beginning of it, and I mean that literally. I was in a car-sliding-race-to-the-death during the icestorm, traveling home from DC. It was awful and traumatic. I think that started me off wrong.

I’ve been doing nothing but reading for the past week. I’m working on the Song of Ice and Fire series, AKA Game of Thrones. It’s awesome, but I’ve hardly wanted to do anything else. I went out for coffee with a horror photographer, who was way cool but I just don’t feel like I’m in the mood to date anyone right now.

I’ve been teaching myself piano. No, really. I’m getting better! I think I like it because of the challenge. I stopped playing guitar much because I felt like I hit the level of talent I wanted. I didn’t have a care to learn how to be better at it, so the fun of growing in talent left me. Piano is new and I have to learn from the ground up, so it’s fun. I hope to come out knowing a few fun tunes to bust out at parties.

What else? Man, I’m just looking forward to the future.

I’ve decided to go back and get my masters in the fall. I want to work the summer job with Clayton again, and then get back in school. I hope to work an assistanceship, go to grad classes, and then work at the AMC up there by night. That should keep me plenty busy, anyway! I want to move onto campus if possible. Depends on the costs and availability.

I am probably getting a car soon, so hopefully that should make me more mobile. At the moment, I think I’m feeling a little trapped by my situation. But, I have a plan to get myself out of it all! I also need to lose weight… ehhh… Lots to focus on, but I’m serious about the weight thing. Lots of fat people like me say that they want to change, but won’t. I don’t want to be that person.

Anyway, that’s all for January. Good riddance! I plan on having a better year from here on out, though! I hope you have a good year, too.