Life Comes At You Fast

My brain, yet again, is on total overload. The contents therein just spinning around like a top. And then a girl with no background, experience, or education in my field felt the need to correct me on something because (and I quote), "My dad worked in that factory for years..." Oh, so you understand the inner workings of social media marketing because your dad (who it must be mentioned is deceased) worked in a factory? Right, gotcha.

Okay, that sounded totally rude. Sorry.

I'm trying to write marketing campaigns to reach MILLIONS of people, using some of the highest profile tools currently available, and I'm getting corrected by a girl who probably can't even properly spell social media marketing, let alone define it??? Where do these people come from??

But I digress.

My busy little brain.

I've packed a few things. Not much, but some. Anything that used to hang on my walls now resides in packaging materials. If it is an electronic gadget (and I have a few) that I don't require the use of for the next 8 days, it isn't yet packed, but it has relocated to my living room floor. And tonight, I add all other gadgetry to the pile. I'm sure while I am out at dinner with my cousins my cat will pack it all for me.

Because, oh yes, here in the middle of my most insane week ever, I have to stop and make a pilgrimage down to Provo to visit relatives. I'm not complaining. I'm happy to see them. I want to see them in fact. I may even blog on it tomorrow just for fun. But it wasn't in my original schedule of insanity to drive 1 hr each way for dinner. But you know me, I'm multi-tasking it. I'm also dropping off a gift to Baby Amelia on the way, and going to my new landlord's offices to sign my lease.

Is that weird to anyone else? I don't move in for another week, but they want my rent, deposit, and lease signed now? And they are giving me the keys (which in a random turn of events, I already have) today as well? And then it is just my good word that I don't move in till next week?? I'm guessing I have rented over 20 places in the last 18 years of living on my own. And I have never done this before. I find it very peculiar. I've turned in a deposit early in order to hold a place. But I have never paid rent and picked up my keys until the day I moved in.

Whatever. Utah County is its own special world at times. Like asking me to go pick up the keys in advance and taking them to the landlord's office with me.

I had another parenting class last night. One of these days I will talk about it. So far the classes are trying to focus on what you really can expect, while pointing out the extreme cases. So many people only dwell on the extreme cases. It's annoying.

But what is really bugging me is that no one can answer what seems to me to be an easy question. When you take in foster children you get a stipend for their care. $15 a day. That ain't much. No one is going to get rich taking in foster kids. And the money probably won't really cover their expenses, and the foster parents will be paying out of pocket for them. So my question is about taxes. Do you get to claim them as a dependant on your taxes?? Or not?

I asked this question in class last night. My class had a lot of extra people doing make up classes last night, and 3 of them were complete know-it-alls, and very irritating. (One was a recent graduate, no more than 24 years old, with a degree in child development. She even stood up in class at one point and totally tried to teach. I wanted to smack her. A lot.) All three know-it-alls had very different answers. One person said, yes, you can claim them. One said no. The other said you have to prove that you spend at least as much as the stipend (in other words I pay 50% of the child's upkeep) in order to claim them. And the teacher, a former foster parent herself, but only a substitute for our class, had no idea. She said "my husband did our taxes. I have no idea."

I'm just saying that if I can claim a child as a dependant there is that much more money that I can spend on the child. It isn't money for me. But for the child.

You'd think this would be easier to figure out.

And thus, my brain spins.