By January 22nd I had scanned almost every home improvement receipt my parents kept since 1978 to help the CPA, my old boss, adjust the basis of their house to calculate capital gains. I scanned over 625 receipts!
There is more work to be done, more information to be gathered, for my parents’ income taxes. I’ve also started the easier tasks for our own income taxes.
I enjoy managing money, working with numbers and spreadsheets. Always been a math geek. Enjoy the patterns, the stories, that the numbers tell.
Warning: Here, I Boast
In my youth, I was more a lover of math concepts than numbers. No longer do I get to use my beloved unit circle or calculus. My one regret is not continuing math past honors calculus – a class I loved. I love to boast (yes, I’m still proud of this achievement) that I, at 18, got 100% on the math placement exam at UCLA.
Today, at 53, I’m far from that sharp as a tack, hypomanic young woman. Wiser, perhaps, but time (and neglect) has taken a toll on my mind and my body.
Time to Care for Myself
Yesterday I saw my internist. In the last year and a half, I’ve gained twenty pounds and my triglycerides are high. Haven’t been eating well, especially for my needs, as I have SIBO – small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Trust me, you don’t want the details. Many people with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) have SIBO. To control my symptoms, I must keep to a restrictive low FODMAP diet (fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols), which involves not eating many healthy foods, like onions, garlic, pit fruit (who doesn’t love peaches?).
Time to get moving, too, for I haven’t been exercising. Both exercise and diet are important for mental and physical health. My mother and my maternal grandmother both had strokes, which puts me at risk. Exhaustion keeps me from exercising, which reinforces the feeling of exhaustion.
My focus has been on caring for others – my parents and my son.
Time to care for myself.
Good News – NAMI Provider Education
Last month I enjoyed teaching NAMI’s Provider Education course along with four other great panelists. This time I presented as an individual with mental illness. Last year I presented as a licensed mental health professional (no longer in practice) with lived experience of mental illness. Scheduled to do so again in mid-February.
Yay!
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