I’ve already emailed a bunch of you…

I am working on Christmas cards. If you’d like to get one from me, then please email me your snail mail address! (ashley {@} twentysixcats {dot} com)

Life has been busy. A bullet list, for your reading pleasure.

• It’s tough going from working not at all, to working full-time. The good news is almost immediately I started sleeping again. However, I’ve been very exhausted at the end of the day – moreso than I normally am when I’m working full-time.
• My boss strongly hinted that he’d like me to come back regularly. After much thought, I decided to offer part-time – 3 days a week – on a regular basis, instead of full-time every so often. My boss was really excited and said that we’d work something out. So we’ll see what my schedule looks like after Christmas. :-)
• My evenings this week have been consumed with Christmas parties and choir practice. We have 4 Christmas parties this week! I had to miss the one today, but we’ll definitely make the ones tomorrow night and Saturday night. We also have a Christmas party at some point next week.
• This weekend is our Christmas concert at church, and it’s also a worship weekend. LOTS of singing! We’ve already had practice two evenings this week, and on Saturday and Sunday we will be at the church for a total of over *13* hours singing. Wow. My throat is tired just thinking about it!
• I am exhausted by these three things – work, parties, and singing.
• We *STILL* don’t know if Paul has any time off for Christmas yet. His boss has said several things to him like, how flexible are your vacation plans, and would it be okay if you didn’t get off as much time as you asked for, and can you work the 23rd and 24th. SOOO….
• After talking about it, we decided that I would fly to Orlando, and Paul would drive down with the cats later when he gets off work. There were several reasons for this, but mostly I’m glad I don’t have to drive on Christmas Day! It will be nice to spend some quality time with my family. I miss them. I booked my ticket tonight – I leave on the 21st.
• We also took advantage of an incredible deal on AirTran and got tickets to visit someone. I can’t wait to talk about it here, but I have to wait until we actually inform the person we’re visiting them. In case they read my blog, and I don’t want them to find out from here. But I’m excited and y’all will have to wait. And if you saw me mention it in my Facebook status, then don’t spoil anything here.
• So with all this buying-plane-tickets madness, I happened to check my bank account. The one that is our second bank account, that we use as a savings account, that we rarely check except for making big purchases like plane tickets. Well… lesson learned… I should have checked it regularly. We found three very large transactions that neither of us made that totalled $2,000.
• Paul, the aspiring detective, and I have been deducting what we think happened. Here’s our theory:

Nov. 6th we mailed a check to the IRS to pay for taxes. (I know it was late. I have no idea why I didn’t pay them when I filed my return in April – I’m still confused about that one.) We put it in the mail slot at our apartment complex, and then forgot about it. That check has never been cashed. (Something we discovered tonight.)

Three checks were written for increasingly larger amounts at Targets and Walmarts, starting really close to us on Nov. 12th, and getting farther away (but still near Atlanta) with a space of two weeks between each.

The checks had numbers that succeeded the check number of the check to the IRS. Too coincidental. Someone (neighbor, someone who worked at our complex, or the mailman) saw a letter addressed to the IRS in November and assumed a check would be inside. They stole the letter/check, made replicas, and are now trying to clean out my bank account.

If Criminal Minds and Numb3rs have taught me anything, then we can expect another attempt next week. Paul even has the town he expects them to hit picked out!

• I have to call the bank tomorrow. And the IRS. Because now, our taxes are even LATER. And that means we owe even MORE interest. Anything I can do to help the government continue to throw money at people who make stupid decisions. I’m an American, after all.
• I am slightly worried about the plane tickets we bought, that dealing with this will cause our ticket order to be cancelled. Need to figure out how to prevent that from happening.
• I really, really hate having to deal with this. Sigh. I’m anticipating the worst.
• So a day of highs and lows. Hopefully tomorrow is better. If I go to sleep now and wake up on Monday, then I will be happy.