So I’d like to go to an unworkshop with my agent at the Highlights Foundation in a couple of months. It’s out of my price range, especially since I’d have to take two flights to get there, but they offer scholarships. I filled out the form months ago and then didn’t have my tax return info easily accessible, so I paused and after a while, I decided I was not worthy of a scholarship and that there were many more deserving people out there, so I didn’t apply. Fast forward to last week and I had finally decided to fill out the form again. So I did. This is a pretty long form, with several essay type questions. It’s not overly long, but we all know how I loathe doing anything twice, so it took some work, but I filled it out again. I did that at the Mustang Library that Saturday I was there. Once more, didn’t have the tax return info.

Called husband and he didn’t think he actually printed it out. Said it should be on my computer.

My computer.

The one that had the terrible hard drive death earlier this year.

So I came home and looked to see if we’d printed a copy, which it appears we haven’t. And I looked on my external backup drives, but the return doesn’t seem to be on any of them either. So I contacted the IRS and ordered a tax return transcript that would have the information I needed. And I waited.

All this time, the application is still on my computer, filled out and ready. It’s webpage-based, so I typed it right on there, but when I go and look, it’s all still on there. All is well.

Last night, I started thinking that I really should copy and paste my long-form answers, so I wouldn’t have to do them again if my browser crashed or something. So I did the responsible thing and copied the first answer and pasted it into a document. And then I went back to the browser and every answer was now blank.

I cried, ya’ll. I was at the dance studio just trying to do my little receptionist job that I trade part of my daughter’s dance tuition for, and I was sitting there crying and hoping nobody came in and asked why I was crying.

Two times I’ve filled out this form. And nothing to show for it. I even deleted the one answer I got, since I was so upset and it was the shortest one anyway. Keeping that one would have been more painful than starting over.

Today, I’m okay. I can fill it out again, and I don’t have to wait months to be ready to do that this time. I’m obviously going to wait until I have the tax return transcript in hand, but that should be this week or next week.

So that’s how things are going, lol.