You're afraid it's all been wasted time...

RIP, Glenn Frey (yeah, I know I'm late, but January's been a bitch). Really, I wasn't thinking so much about Wasted Time as I was Wasting Time.

I tend to fart around on my computer all day, if I've nothing good to do. Sometimes the farting around is essentially productive. Like today, I killed a lot of time putting numbers together in a spreadsheet and my TurboTax software. I bought a

new car

 last year, so I'm having to calculate what percentage of the old one was used per business (we have a few businesses between us), as well as what percentage of the new one has been used per business. The spreadsheet makes the calculations easy, and the tax software is really just plugging those numbers in (I don't have to do the calculations). I did spend all day farting around there, though. Without all the w-2's, 1099's, and whatever other forms we're probably waiting for, I can't finish. I'm looking forward to finishing. We're expecting decent refunds, which is good.

I've also discovered another bit of money magnetism, lately. I got paid twice this week by Warner Bros. Apparently, everyone got a raise in mid-December, and they didn't bother to tell us. They just processed a retroactive pay increase check with the regular check yesterday. Score!

What'll we spend all the money on? Good question. We could just apply it to our credit card debt and get closer to "financial freedom", or we could maybe take up dance lessons for a little bit. That's what I spent my insurance settlement on when Mommy died in 2006, and I don't feel the least bit unhappy with that choice at that time. Not that our latest "windfalls" will go as far as that; but maybe Stephen would enjoy some private instruction, since he did get a little bit of one-on-one with a real instructor when we went dancing two weeks ago. Which reminds me! We're going dancing again tomorrow night! If you're a local reader, wouldn't you like to join us?

Not that I think dancing is necessarily a time-waster (to get myself back on track here). It's great exercise, and is also a great social environment for both generating and releasing energy. TIME-WASTERS tend to suck the life outta us. Farting around on the computer, or on the phone, or the game console, all tend to leave us feeling bad about ourselves, I think, in the long run. It's so easy to lose oneself in a game or in the internets and return feeling less than accomplished. But when Stephen loses himself in a book, or I try to solve a new crochet puzzle, we're both working out our brains instead of just zoning out. Yeah, they can be considered "time-wasters", but they're at least a little bit productive.

I dunno. Do you often feel it's all been wasted time? How do you like to waste your time? Do we need some new time-wasters? Do you have a favorite that hasn't even occurred to me?