My sister and I started the process of sorting through my Dad’s finances with his advisor and I am overwhelmed. First off, the meeting was long. Very long. And very complicated. On the drive home, my sister compared listening to the financial advisor to listening to the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show; at times it was like listening to a foreign language, although eventually I caught on. There’s so much to do – so many decisions to make, so many taxes to pay, just so much. And I am overwhelmed by it. There isn’t a TON of money, my Dad wasn’t a millionaire by any means, but there’s enough to make it difficult and complicated and to involve a lot of decisions about what to do with it that we both have to make – some decisions are joint, some are on our own. Some will impact her husband financially, some would impact Rob if we got married or entered into a domestic partnership (I think – that I still have to research). So. Much. To. Do.
I have a lot on my plate right now. A huge on-going project at work which is the complete overhaul and redesign of an existing system that is broken which, if it goes well will make me look AWESOME – and if it goes badly will basically sink me professionally. I have on-going work with impending dead-lines, a huge upcoming meeting to coordinate and facilitated and prepare for. Many days, if I take lunch, it’s just to go out to a drive-through and come back and do more work. At home, I forgot about ordering my daughter’s ‘super hero’ pictures which we may have missed out on at this point, which would really suck (and man do I feel guilty about that…how many times will you get professional pictures of your adorable 3 year old posing in a cape??). Yesterday I forgot I had already put her lunch together and scrambled frantically to make her a new lunch, all the while her originallunch sat on the shelf – thankfully because that meant today, I didn’t have to scramble. My brother-in-law may have thyroid cancer which, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t THAT bad because it’s early stage and they’ll just take out his thyroid but still. That will hit my sister hard, especially in the realms of stress and time. He won’t be able to work for up to 8 weeks, maybe longer depending upon his recovery, so she’ll need to take care of everything and she doesn’t get paid for days off either so financially this isn’t good for them. And then there’s the issue of my parents’ house which is still filled to the brim with stuff that we need to sort out. We’ve decided that we’ll probably get a table at a flea market to try to get rid of some stuff but all that means is more work – organizing things, packing them up, reserving the table, going to the bank for change, etc. Rob and I have to decide if our daughter is playing soccer in the Fall or if she’s doing gymnastics or maybe she’ll do both – who knows. And then it’s the money. My Dad’s money. There’s just so many decisions to make. And taxes that my sister and I will have to pay. I am praying we can stretch this money out over a number of years to minimize our taxes every year because if we can’t, I may have to start working a pole at a local gentleman’s club and really, does anyone want that?? I’m cute but I’m over 40 and I’ve had a baby. You do the math on that one.
Feeling overwhelmed is not a feeling I enjoy at all. I feel totally out of control of just about everything because I can’t keep on top of all of it. I guess I should start a to do list for my life and my job – I already have a makeshift one for my job (thank God for my huge white board), but I need one for my life so I can check things off and see that I’m actually doing more than just spinning my proverbial wheels. Between the house, the kid, the school – we have to start the application process for new schools soon (shoot me), life, I am feeling lost today and I need to take some time out to find my way back, figure out priorities and just start chipping away at stuff one at a time. I hope I can do it and not go nuts; that would be almost as much fun as working that pole at the club.
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