Home Alone

I've been home alone this morning. The GranMa has an appointment at The Allergy Clinic for some allergy testing. Well sort of alone anyway. They BoyChild has been asleep since before I arrived so I'm alone but not really.

I am so rarely home during the day and so very rarely home alone that I don't really know what to do with myself. The house is relatively clean. Laundry is going. I don't know what's on daytime television and am not particularly interested in finding out.

My plan was to work. My problem is I synced my laptop with the server this morning, thereby wiping out the stuff on my laptop I could work upon, and in my rush to get out of the office this morning, I forgot to sync it to put the information back on my laptop. So I have my laptop, and while it works, none of the stuff I need to work on is on it.

I've balanced all our bank accounts. I've paid some bills I had sitting on my desk.

I've been eyeing this thick packet of forms, letters, notices, disclosure statements, power of attorney form, I got from Charles Schwab & Co. I've eyed it but haven't gotten much past that and thinking "oh, gawd!" and looking away quickly.

The Husband and I have decided to move all our retirement stuff there. We have some of it at Merrill Lynch but have become increasingly unhappy the last few years. It's expensive. They aren't very responsive to my requests. I don't have anyone I know there anymore.

Last year we moved one of our accounts to Schwab. They've been very nice. They are very receptive to helping when I call. They aren't charging me money so they can hold my money for me. So we've decided to take the plunge and move it all over there. That requires we read me there get all our account statements out and fill in these little-bitty blanks with a huge amount of information, sign a gazillion different times and places and make sure it all goes back into an envelope and gets returned to them. In the end probably worth it, but daunting to think about.

I've not looked at it closely but I'm not sure whether I have enough copies of all these forms to move everything. I don't know how we've gotten so spread out but we have a lot of stuff at a lot of different places. The Husband has a ROTH which has only Exxon Stock. Which Exxon holds for him. The Husband has a ROTH at ML. The Husband has his 402b, like a 401k but his school is a non-profit, at someplace else entirely. We have an education IRA for the GirlChild held by that entity the state set up and then we have my retirement accounts still at ML.

We also have some common stock which I've not decided whether we are going to move to Schwab. If we move all that, I know we won't have enough copies of these forms. So that just sits there. Waiting to be paid attention to. Me dreading it like the plague.

The Husband and I have been trying to watch Band of Brothers. It's showing on the History Channel. Being relative newcomers to cable, we didn't see it without commercial interruptions on HBO. It comes on at 8:00, which is problematic for us; we don't get the BoyChild down for bed much before 8:30 and the GirlChild usually not before 9:00. I won't let the GirlChild watch it. Even if RangerDoc weren't in a war zone, I doubt I would let her watch it. It's a little too graphic and gory and violent for her, especially right before bedtime. I've liked what I've seen but I've got a terrible problem with Captain Winters. He's an English man who went to Eton playing some guy from Pennsylvania. He will always be the uptight, angry, controlling, manipulative Soames from the Forsyth Saga. I think I might just have to break down and borrow Band of Brothers from Baba on DVD.

The GirlChild loved the Forsyth Saga. She talked about the characters. Why they behaved in a particular way. And she seemed to understand. Young Jolyon acted this way because that was the same way Old Jolyon acted when he was young. She behaved so she could watch it. There wasn't any real sex or violence and it was a nice way to end the weekend.

We went to Baba and GranMa's house for Easter. Before we went to the Easter Egg Hunt at Church. The BoyChild was assisted in his quest for goods by the GirlChild and the BestFriend. The BoyChild examining his loot.

Ah company! I hear someone stirring who thinks I'm the most wonderful person in the world. Gotta go cause he wakes up hungry.

Peace,

M&Co.