The Mail...

Oh my...I've only been away from home for a week and the pile of mail was overwhelming.

There are a few things that are contributing to the enormous influx of mail coming through our little mailbox. The first is the wedding, every wedding vendor on the planet is vying for our little wedding budget. What they don't know is that we have selected out vendors and are mostly ready. I can't think of anything else that we're going to drop $$ on - except for the wedding favors and we've selected our items already.

The second major topic is "unemployment". There's all the 401k information, MegaBank pension plan information, Cobra info, the stimulus Cobra offset program (be careful with that one! Yes, you can take at 65% discount now on your monthly cobra rates but if you won't be able to write off the remaining amount on your year end taxes, and if your income is over $98k you'll have to pay it back. The sneaky letter from the cobra people didn't mention that.)

I also signed up for a business checking account for my little company and HOLY MOUNDS OF PAPER BATMAN! I got a check register the size of a small elephant, not one but THREE packages of deposit slips and envelopes, stamps, ATM cards and a badly written "thanks for joining the bank". I ended up devoting an entire filing cabinet drawer just for the checkbook and deposit slips. Likely in the next 9 months I will deposit 9 checks total. I told the bank dude I didn't need an entire kit -but I think it comes automagically.

Lastly, I finally changed my address with the post office and now we're getting all sorts of "welcome to the neighborhood" mail. I'm not complaining about that, the 10% and $25 off coupons to stores we already frequent are great!

Speaking of moving, tonight is the night that we're moving everything out of the condo. I'm hopeful to be done in a few hours as there isn't that much stuff over there anymore - but it's the pain in the behind stuff that is left. The dining room table, the bed... I rented a truck and we have enlisted cousin Anton again. It is so great to have 25 year old fireman in training in my life now. They are HANDY HANDY HANDY. I hope to be done early enough to enjoy "survivor night" with our friends. I've missed the last few weeks and want to get back in the groove.

All in all, mounds of mail aside, it is good to be home!