For instance,
you start a new project (as I have this week) you need a budget, a start date,
a timeframe…These things -- all numbers. For weeks leading up to this, my builder
and I have been crunching numbers, both of a budgetary nature and of a layout /
design nature. (In the case of my barn, there are dimensions to decide, interior
spaces to mark off… board widths, beam lengths, ratios of roof pitch… Again, all
numbers.)
But these
numbers I love, for they fall into the flow of the creative process. Not only
do they flow with it, I can’t start creating without them. No, these numbers
are my friends.
The numbers that halt me dead in my tracks are tax
numbers, columns of numbers, checkbook numbers. Numbers I’ve been taught how to
balance since I was knee-high to a duck being the daughter of a country banker,
but numbers that just aren’t fun for me, because they are pure accounting
exercises…numbers for the sake of numbers. (i.e. there are no pictures for me
to put with them…no barn drawings, no sketch pads with grid lines, no magazine
clippings). Because these numbers are basically no fun, I save them till the
very last possible minute, which as you might imagine, is heck on my accountant.
(Thank God she is a good and patient woman.)
It’s not that I don’t keep up with numbers. Oh, I respect
them mightily. I keep every receipt; document every tidbit of detail. Keeping track of numbers involves a touch of creativity as it involves writing
on the back of things, and I love writing things down. But the actual “butt to
chair” exercise of tallying rows and rows of numbers (once I plug them into
their little holes and columns, which isn’t rocket science, but it does take
time, and extra for me because I’m numbers-resistant) well, I’ve become all but
phobic about the process of it all, dreading like the plague having to get my
things in order come tax time. (As you might imagine, I’m the queen of tax
extensions, even when I’m due a refund, which makes no sense at all, but that’s
the way it goes when you just don’t like numbers. And while it’s true, farming
doesn’t bring in a lot of numbers on the income side of things, even if it did,
I would still loathe sitting down with numbers...It’s not which column they are
in, or which side of the ledger they’re on, it’s the sheer exercise of putting things into
columns that I deplore.) Bottom line: I’m simply not at home in the left
hemisphere of my head.
But life being what it is, doesn’t give me the luxury of
avoiding said hemisphere. I’ve got to eat, and what’s more, I’ve got 16 kids, 5
dogs, 1 cat and 2 fish depending on me. And while I have the best and most
patient person (actually several) to help get things tabulated, tallied and properly
placed per the forms for Uncle Sam, there comes that dreaded moment where I must
concede: “This is it, Evins. Today you must
face your numbers,” (which also explains why the blog posts have backed up…That
was me…Forcing myself to finish my spinach before indulging myself in the
dessert of blissful, numberless writing. (My blog, I’ve been holding in
abeyance, like some carrot dangling before me, it’s been whispering “Not
till you finish your numbers!”)
It’s kind of odd, actually. For once I hand off said
numbers, having cross checked every Pyrenees pup sold to every goat chow
receipt retained, there is a great (albeit brief) moment of euphoria.
(It happens simultaneous to the moment of raw angst I have just inflicted
upon my CPA.) But completing the numbers, knowing the numbers, facing the
numbers…is actually a healthy feeling. For how can one measure which areas need
help, which areas perhaps need overhauling entirely, if not by comparing last
year’s numbers to this, assessing, “Do we continue with this?” or “Can we afford
to start that?” No, I like what comes after. I like seeing my shoebox of
receipts now paper clipped and post-it'd. It’s simply that one moment
where my creative/right brain must surrender to the left, like Hiccapups going
belly up to TJ in alpha acquiescence. I am aware I do this. I am aware it is not
the most efficient approach to things. I am aware this year, like every year, I
pledge to do it different next year. And I’m also aware that the busier I get
and the more projects I take on, the less apt that is to happen.
The good news (and the point of this tiresome blog on numbers): The
taxes got done! Great joy in the Evins household. We live to eat another day!
(And look. It’s not even October. Perhaps I’m getting better after all.) I can
now get back to setting barn posts and plugging blog posts about such things
as being allergic to numbers.
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