The Complexities of Life

I cannot believe how quickly this month has flown by. Especially compared to October, which I considered the month that did not want to end. Thanksgiving is almost upon us, which means that another special day is not far away.

That's right. My birthday is coming on December fourth.

Frequent readers of my blog will probably remember I'm not very good with birthdays. In fact, there are birthdays I would very much like to forget, like my sixteenth and my thirtieth. The expectations that surround such milestone ages are very stressful to me, and I did not enter them gracefully. There is also the fact that my birthday is three weeks before Christmas, so I'm smack in the middle of holiday stress. I'm not even sure if I will have my Christmas card done this year since I haven't started it yet. I don't have a printer, so if I make the cards I will have to hand address them. I love doing cards, I see it as a way to think about friends and family, especially those who I lose touch with each year because of my busy life. I just don't know if I'm up to the challenge of writing out 60+ addresses on top of writing the cards. I wonder how many people would be happy with an ecard for this year?

If I seemed scattered the past two weeks, it is because aside from putting together my quarterlies, I had to gather up everything necessary to get Marina a passport and working papers. Not only has Marina has been given an opportunity to go on a trip to Italy with a group from a Catholic girls' school, she was also offered a part-time job as a library page.

Working papers are so easy if you are in school. You go to the office, get an application, fill it out and return it. Not so if you are a homeschooler. Hubby picked up the form at the local high school and I took it to the pediatrician's office to get her signature. Of course, this couldn't be done on the spot, so I had to return for it in two days. Meanwhile, hubby called the school district to get a letter proving we have district approval to homeschool (not difficult, but another level of bureaucracy). Marina filled out the passport application, and I took her to have her passport photo taken. I also needed to figure out when both my husband and I could meet at the post office to tell them she could have one. This is necessary when the child is under 16.

Well, I finally had everything prepared for the passport, and since we were still waiting for the doctor's signature on the working papers form, I figured we could at least start work on the passport. Fortunately, the post office has an annex near my husband's office, so we met him there. We started handing in the necessary proofs of identity while Marina filled out the newer application (I had mistakenly given her an old one). We were so close, the checks were made out and...

...We realized they need to send in the birth certificate. The birth certificate we will need to show the school in order to get the working papers. AAARGH! Save me from red tape! Next week we'll try again and hopefully everything will be done before Thanksgiving. We shall see.

All this is why I will be taking a comics break after Thanksgiving. And if I can postpone my 40th birthday until next year, that would help too. I can do that, can't I?