Derailed by Diet

If you think you can't be derailed by a diet ... think again. I started aggressively changing my diet last Thursday not only to lose weight but to bring my body and health into balance. That's my main focus, so in addition to changing the way I eat, I'm adding various supplements, vitamins and minerals. All that to say ... my body doesn't know what hit it and is more than a little disgruntled.

Fast forward to Monday. I get up, get out the book, set up and get a couple of hours of work in. Against my better judgment I had scheduled a morning appointment with my accountant to do my taxes. What? A half hour to an hour, right? Easy peasy. HAH!

I get down there and 25 minutes after my appointment time I get pushed off onto an assistant who doesn't really understand anything about LLCs. When I called I'd explained that I needed to be very careful and talk to someone with experience in LLCs because I'd set it up last fall very carefully. Semantics means everything in a new company start up. You can completely dismantle your LLC if you submit your taxes incorrectly. No problem, I was told. DOUBLE HAH!

Finally at 11:00 and getting nowhere, the big kahuna is done with her client and comes in to say that I'll have to make another appointment, the person helping me has other appointments. WHAAAATTT??? Why didn't the person in front of me get bumped so I could get in? Well, I might have been a little hungry, which added to the fact that both barrels were loaded in my verbal gun. I let fly. No, I wasn't angry, but I was very firm and let them know how unhappy I was with everything. I left my taxes so the main person could do some research to a questions that I even knew the answer to. I might have been smoking.

The more I thought about it, the madder I got. If they messed up my LLC tax return it could expose my son's special needs trust. I called an attorney. She knew what I was talking about when I told her how I'd set up the LLC. She also knew how important this first tax return was. I picked up my paperwork from the accountant and told her not to bother. ARG! Now I'm starting from scratch with my taxes but am validated by my chat with the attorney ... crisis averted. The day was lost to writing, because by that time I was completely derailed. I work from 6:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. then again in the evening if I need to. If I would have scheduled that appointment in the afternoon I would've been fine, but instead I allowed it to derail my precious work time ... what an idiot!

On Tuesday I dealt with a Visa that had been stolen. Yes, thank you. It was fun. I also dealt with a screwed up writing account bank statement. The bank statement was on the schedule, but typically if I don't balance within an hour of starting, I put it away and save it for the blank spots in the afternoon or evening and go back to work. Instead, I suddenly went on a mission from God to straighten things out. It was absolutely ridiculous. I would have been there after work, it wasn't going anywhere. Honestly!

Both days reminded me of when I first started freelancing years ago. I used to let any and all crises derail my writing so that by the end of the day, I would feel lucky to have written at all. Then I got savvy and set office hours.

If you don't have a schedule and protect it ferociously from those who think freelancer means freeloader you will pay the price. Be prepared for people to be angry with you for not answering the phone, running over to help them immediately or being downright nasty about it. It will happen, I promise you. Protect your work hours.

There! I'm done with my rant. I hope you gained something from it ... or had a good laugh. Either way, I'm shaking my head and wondering what today will bring as I write Monday's blogs on Wednesday. lol. Ah well, be strong, Grasshopper. It will all come out in the end.

God bless your writing today,
Much love and joy,
Karen