The tax man cometh

Yesterday was that dreaded day when we're all supposed to have filed our taxes. Well, in typical procrastination form, I planned on doing mine right on tax day. The problem is that none of the post offices are open at night anymore, and the nearest one that was open was in Akron. Gas prices being what they are (nearly $3.50 a gallon now), there was no way in the world that I was going to drive that far just to file my taxes on time. I already had plans last night as it was (go work out, then eat dinner, then watch the finale of "The Biggest Loser", then take a shower, then go to bed), so I didn't want to try to squeeze an hour round trip drive to Akron somewhere in there and burn that much gas. So I decided, for the first time in my life, to try to "e-file" my taxes on the IRS web site. They give you about a dozen different web sites where you can go to do this, but with my painfully slow dial-up connection, any one of them was going to take just about forever, and true to form, it did. My computer also didn't like something about the first program I tried and it kept shutting down Internet Explorer. The second one seemed like it would take too long, so I went back to the first one I tried, still getting Explorer errors and Windows shut downs, which meant it took me until nearly midnight to finally finish my e-filing and get it through. And here I thought it'd be a fast process, but you have to wade through about a zillion pages of deductions, none of which I qualify for anyway, before you get on to the meat and potatoes of what you need to file when you are like me - single, no dependents, no housing deductions or anything of the kind. I wish they'd just give you a selection of 1040 forms and let you choose the one you need to speed you through the process. I usually file a 1040EZ form and I can usually get it done fairly quickly. It's the @#$%&* state tax form I hate the most because of the confusing language, but fortunately, on the same page that I used to file my federal form, they ask you if you want to file a state form and I said yes, so they easily transfer all of your necessary federal information over to a state form and get you through that fairly quickly. This whole thing means that I will get my state refund faster, which is great, because I need the money. I didn't owe much in federal taxes this time, fortunately, so that wasn't hard. Still, I am the proverbial Luddite who prefers to file paper forms because they're generally faster anyway, but now that post offices aren't staying open late on tax day, it might just behoove me to e-file from now on, now that I've been through it all and know how it works. Thank goodness they have such a thing available in these days of less customer service from the post office and higher gas prices. I was able to file my taxes from the comfort of my living room, even if it did take an hour and a half to do on line. I suspect that those e-file programs are set up for broadband connections on newer browser systems. Maybe by this time next year, I will have a better computer on a faster connection. Of course, I've been saying that for years now. But I can always hope.

WORKOUT NOTES

Last night I decided that, despite the Achilles tendonitis, I'd go work out at Jason's women's fitness class. The worst part was when he had us do some jumping exercises. That's really tough on the bad ankle, and I suffered my way through it, for what it's worth. But I did notice that the new orthotic in my right shoe did help somewhat. It's still sore this morning, but probably not as much as it would be had I not had the orthotic in my shoe. I've got a new pair of training shoes made by New Balance that have a rollbar in them to deal with my supination problem, but I have yet to break them in, so I won't wear them to workout in until I have done just that. In the meantime, I'll just stick to my trusty K-Swiss tennis shoes, which the orthotic device was built to fit into. Maybe I will switch to the New Balance shoes once the tendonitis is more under control. They're surprisingly light and feel really great, and the best part is that they were able to take the original sole and put it on top of the lift on the left shoe, so I have the same soles on both shoes! That is so rare that they are able to do this. Normally, they just take the original sole, shave it down and slap the lift on top of that and give me a different sole on top of that, so I end up with two shoes with different soles, which can make things really difficult most of the time, but this time, they were able to give me back my original sole! I am delighted that they were able to do this for me and I can't wait to start wearing these shoes!

So most of what we did last night was weight training, which is fine, because I am so utterly weak in the upper body. It was pretty tough and we used the kettle balls to do a lot of working out, and I can honestly say that this morning, I am pretty stiff in places in which I am not used to being stiff. My body is telling me loud and clear that I still have a lot of work to do where getting in shape is concerned, so frankly, I can't see giving up completely on working out while I heal up from this injury. I'll take it easier than I have been in the past and if it means that I have to cut down to once a week workouts, so be it, but I have noticed recently that when I do work out only once a week, I feel the difference in my stamina level during workouts. I tire faster when I go a whole week between workouts. I struggle harder to get through the entire hour and I sweat harder and drink more water. But as Dr. Mineo advised me a few days ago, I can't push my way through this if I expect to get better, so it may just mean a scaling down of the workout regimen and how often I workout. It's a sacrifice I'm going to have to make, and with any soft tissue injury, they typically take longer to heal than broken bones, so I'm going to have to baby this thing for a while until the pain dissipates and it's completely healed. If it takes all summer, so be it, but I sure hope it doesn't take that long! It's only April, so I'm hoping that in 8-12 weeks, I'll start feeling some relief. Next appoitment with the orthopaedist is May 22nd, so I'll know more then about where things stand with this thing. Until then, I'm just going to take it a bit easier and still try to keep in shape despite this thing. Strength training shouldn't take too much of a toll, so I can keep doing that and ease up on the running and jumping thing for the time being.