Conspiracy?

If I didn't know better I would say the forces are conspiring against me. Unfortunately for the forces I have developed this annoying knack of seeing the bright side of things, but for NOW, indulge me as I tell you a little about the last week!

Monday was set aside for my tax return. I spent some of the weekend finding some of the paperwork that I need. I STILL haven't found all the receipts but I know they are in a brown envelope. Just need to find that envelope! ANYWAY, as I was checking that my adwords accounts were accurate I thought - Hey, let me dig out the paperwork I need to log on to the inland revenue website to submit my return.

an hour or two later and I have the user id but not the password. I use my "remember" trick but only find the tax forms themselves ( which is handy!) but not the password to the website. At this point I am struggling to see the positive side to say the least so I decide to give in and request a password reset. THIS tells me it will take 7 days to process. So I find out a week early what I will be doing on the 31st of January. I didn't want to request the password as I KNEW I had the paperwork in house as I never throw anything from the tax man away.

I have made progress so I leave it and go to bed.

TUESDAY

I found the old password for the inland revenue website. This is now invalid. In distress and because I have to get up at 5am in the morning to take the train to London for a 9am meeting, I go to bed.

WEDNESDAY

5am comes and goes. 6am I wake up and realise I only have about 45 minutes to get to the train station. I decide to drive there, and knowing that the car park costs money I bring £4.50 in change JUST in case.

I arrive and park in the car park at 6:37 to find that the parking fee is £2.70 for rail passengers. Cool. I park, and go to get a parking ticket for my car. £4.70.

ahem. I need to get a £2 REFUND from the train ticket booth to get my £2.70 parking. 20p short I have to go up to the trainstaion and ask for help from the man in the ticket booth.

"Ah, you can get your parking ticket here, no problem."

With my credit card £45 closer to it's overdraft limit I run-shuffle back to my car and as I close the door and turn back I hear the announcment:

"London Waterloo now departing platform 3 - ALL ABOARD"

So I arrived 20 minutes late for a customer meeting. Very nice train ride though.

In the evening I found some more tax papers, and established that my affiliate income was indeed accurate and that I appeared to have made a mint. God knows where that mint went, but it was worth over 10 per cent of my job salary.

But as Thursday ALSO had to start at 5am, I stopped early and relaxed, confident that Thursday could not cause me the same hassle. THIS time I was driving to Staines for a 9am meeting and THAT was easy from where I live.

THURSDAY
I got up on time. I got in the car on time. I got on the motorway on time. I got to Sunbury 50 minutes EARLY.

hangon.

wait a minute. I'm in Sunbury. what am I doing in Sunbury?
I should be in Staines!

But hey, Staines is only 25 minutes away.
except.

I didn't know where the offices were in Staines! I had read Staines but heard Sunbury all along!

I popped in on a receptionist and asked for directions. He was kind enough to write them down for me in detail.

And I got lost. Severely. I had 45 minutes to get there. It took me an HOUR and 45 minutes.

So I was an HOUR late for a day long meeting.

So how do you leave Staines in the afternoon? Same way you came. But what if you have NO IDEA which way you came?!?

Finished the meeting at 5:30. Staines is right next to the M25. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to find it though! I drove PAST the motorway and ALONG it twice! I followed the signs to the right airport and STILL got lost. At one point a sign welcomed me to Windsor!

So at 9pm I was home. I pondered a bit on life and taxes over a hot chocolate and went to bed.

FRIDAY
Work was excellent. I get a very warm thank you from a couple of my colleagues as I manage to crack things open for them in a couple of accounts. I have a really good meeting with my new manager. My pay cut is reversed and my bonus plan now has nothing but UPside to it. This looks set to be a GREAT year and I plan to tell all of my readers that.

Southern Electric has other plans.

after the 3rd "blimp" in our electricity supply in an hour I give up and post a short message to this board. I give up trying to fix my machine from looping and shut it down. I finish off the last few admin bits for my company and shut down my wife's computer.

I bring my calendar and my black notebook downstairs and write some bullet pints for my Friday progress. I come up with even more ideas for my money book. I write them down and decide to publish the book & the audio in the current format to at least move it from "Ain't done" to "Done"

at 10pm I step on the bathroom scales and weigh in at a staggering 117, 117.5 and 120 kg in the bathroom, landing and office respectively ( there is a gravity anomaly in my house - see http://newbiealert.blogspot.com for more details! )

I decide to let you know how much I weigh!

And that - in essence - was my week!

I still made money from google. I enjoyed my time at work this week, which is REAL progress & this morning the new password for the Inland Revenue website arrived!

All I need to do for the following week is:
Finish the tax return.
Book an MOT & get my new tax disk.
Work on the money product.
Set out my money making strategy for the year.

and that's it.

Cheers,
Jon