Dancing to the Tune of the Government, An Adventure in Typing

I had a delightful conversation with a Help Agent at the Business Social Security Administration yesterday morning. After establishing that my log-in codes were accurate and functional, she dug a little deeper and found that somehow/some way my account had been "deactivated"! Well. That wasn't (and isn't) really helpful for this year, although I will be sent all of the information and codes I will need to reactivate it. Since I need to have the payroll information to the IRS postmarked by January 31st, however, her time frame wasn't working really well for me. 

Some of you are my general age and will remember the 
long lines at the Post Office on April 15th to drop off and 
have your income tax return postmarked by the deadline. 
That's hardly necessary any more, people file on-line. But 
paper copies are required of a lot of documents, including 
the SSA paperwork I need to submit to the government
by the end of the month. 

So, after re-establishing that it was the postmark, not the receipt, that made the date valid for the IRS, I went onto the website for my local office supply store and purchased a packet of 10 W-2's,  with the corresponding W-3 form. I will be hand-typing these today at the shop, first thing. My major problem with that is darkness. The fluorescent fixture above that area wasn't rewired in our last rewiring efforts, so I'm usually typing in a twilight when I'm making out the weekly checks. 

Part of the reason I'm not seeing well in the dimmer 
light of the back room is my eyes in general. The 
left eye, my worst eye, looks more like the left eye in 
this picture. Ideally, after surgery, it will look more 
like the image on the right - clear and crisp once again. 
But today, I can't see well, so I'm bringing my light 
along to the shop with me. 

Making an error and a correction on a check isn't a major deal. If I really screw up, I can void the check and start a new one. (Yes, I know it's old fashioned to do paper checks, but DH prefers it and I really don't care. For my personal checking it's all debit cards and electronic statements and on-line bill paying). So ... I'm bringing my standing Ott light to the shop with me today so that I have light where I need it. I can't afford mistakes and I don't want to spend the majority of my "day off" typing governmental forms. 

I have a standing Ott light like this (minus the 
casters because I wanted a stable non-mobile 
base instead). I got it for free from JoAnne's 
when I had some credits to apply on their 
website. It's my go-to lamp in my crafting 
area and I love it. It's not super portable, but 
I'm taking it to the shop with me today to 
give me light in the nook where the typewriter 
site. Without good lighting, I'll be making 
errors on the payroll reports for the IRS. 

Eventually I'll get the rest of my day off, and can do my grocery shopping and relax for a bit. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, I have an open schedule after my task is completed. It's rather nice to have a bit of time to just do whatever occurs to me. Have an excellent Friday and I'll be back tomorrow to wrap up the week. Slava Ukraini.