Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Monday, February 3, 2025

Good morning, everyone!

The word of the day for me is “efficiency”.

Here’s my challenge I need to figure out: when I move from room to room (or, even more ambitiously, upstairs or downstairs), I really need to gather everything I’ll need in one go. You’d think I’d have mastered this by now, but nope. Yesterday, it was my water bottle. Sure, staying hydrated is great, but the multiple retrieval missions? Not so much. I should put on the hydration pack that I use to wear for my long runs…that would solve the water issue, but it won’t fix all the other things that I leave behind. Need to keep working on this.

On to work news—tax season is officially underway! We’ve built a loyal following over the years, and once clients find us, they tend to stick around. Our retention rate hovers around 75%, which means plenty of familiar faces. That’s the upside. The downside? Those familiar faces come with the inevitable small talk.

As I hobbled around the conference room, one of our regulars noticed my cane and slightly challenged gait. She asked, in a way that suggested she thought this was a temporary situation, “What happened?” This is the fork in the road for me—do I keep it vague or drop the ALS bomb? I went with the truth. After a brief pause, I told her, “I have ALS.” That’s always a conversation stopper. Predictably, she replied, “I’m sorry,” followed by an awkward silence. So I filled it with, “Yeah, it’s a pretty shitty diagnosis, but I’m working through it.” And that was that. Something tells me I’ll be having this interaction a lot in the coming months.

Yesterday wasn’t crazy busy, and we had plenty of tax preparers, so after a few hours, I was ready to call it. I was close to 2,000 steps—quite the feat for someone whose daily average is 1,500. My legs definitely noticed. Cindy, who was just there for scheduling, wasn’t needed anymore so we packed up and headed home. It’s nice to have her along so she can do all the heavy lifting for me.

First order of business once home: straight to bed for a couple of hours of rest. Two days into tax season, and both days have wiped me out. The problem? My brain still thinks I can do it all, but my legs didn’t get the memo. The silver lining? I didn’t fall. Small victories, I guess.

The rest of the day was quiet, with minimal movement—exactly what my legs needed.

Today’s plan? More of the same. So far, so good—only 84 steps since I got up at 4:00 AM. Let’s see if I can keep that number low and save my limited resources for something enjoyable.

Have a great day, everyone.

Love you guys!❤️