Hello, dear readers. In eight days, my husband and I will embark on our first vacation in three years.
It is sorely needed and we will need to get ready for it before we leave and recover from the drive the weekend after we return. Therefore, I will be away from the blog until June 8.
Until then, happy trails!
I, like most other folks, have a smartphone—specifically, an iPhone 13 mini.
I can use a virtual calendar on it to write tasks and reminders. The phone can remind me of when my cousin Bob’s birthday is, what I need to do this Tuesday, and at what time my doctor’s appointment Monday is.
I have noticed that many people also use calendars in their email systems, such as Google or Outlook.
Me? I don’t use any of those features—either on my phone or my computer.
I use a paper planner. It is spiral bound and has a faux-leather black cover on which the year is stenciled in silver. It is a weekly planner, with each day of each week having its own space with lines on which to write. This is where I write each work-related task that I plan to do on which day. I also keep track of appointments and social events in it.
“Good grief, Suzelle! You are such a luddite!” you say?
Maybe, in this way, I am. However, I am not the only person I know who uses a paper planner for a calendar while using a computer or phone for everything else. For example, some 25 years ago when everybody started getting PDAs (Blackberry and such), my boyfriend at the time used a paper planner. Every time he made an appointment, he would take it out and jokingly say, “Let me check my Palm Pilot.”
(These days, the names Blackberry and Palm Pilot are a blast from the past.)
I use a paper planner because there is just something special about putting pen to paper, at least when writing out my plans for the week or month. I think those of us who love to write enjoy doing that. I also love holding something tangible. I know that phones and computers are tangible items, too, but a paper planner feels even more tangible for some reason.
Do you prefer paper or computerized calendars and planners?
If you have your own office at work, or even just your own cubicle, chances are it is decorated.
Why not? Unless doing so is against office policy (and I would hate to work in an office that has that policy), decorating your office space is a way of expressing yourself at work. This applies even if you work at home, like I do.
About 25 years ago, I visited a friend who worked for what was then a well-known internet service provider. My friend took me into the cubicle farm where she worked and showed me her workspace. It was covered in decorations. From her space, I could see the cubicles of some of her coworkers, and some of them were even more wildly decorated. Although that day was a Saturday and no one was at work, I could tell that this was a happy workplace.
My home office consists of a large corner of our spare bedroom, and I have decorated it to suit my own personality. At first glance, you can tell that I am a Garfield fanatic. I have two stuffed Garfields, two small Garfield models, and a COVID-era Garfield mask on display. I also have three beautiful Garfield cards, which were made by a good friend, tucked away between two of my reference books on my bookcase; I want to pin them to the wall but I don’t want to make excess holes in the wall, so I am torn.
There are also a 1998 Beanie Baby lion and a 2000 Maryland quarter bear on the shelf, as well as a 2014 Kool-Aid Days mug from my visit to Hastings, Nebraska to see my cousin and his family. (If you are from Hastings, you know what Kool-Aid Days are.) On the bulletin board above my desk are several Scripture verses I wrote out and cute postcards sent to me by friends; these make their home among the editing certificates and reference lists I have there.
In April 2025, six friends from a church ladies’ group I’m in made a generous donation to the Dementia Society of America in my father’s honor; he had passed away the previous month. I learned of this from a letter sent to me by the DSA’s vice president. That letter is also affixed to my bulletin board, so that I never forget how special these ladies are to me.
What decorates your office, if anything?
Okay. This is some scary stuff.
A news article which appeared in the May 1, 2025 issue of Nature and which was written by Dan Garisto says that the National Science Foundation (NSF) was told on April 30 to stop awarding all funding “until further notice.” This command was sent to NSF staff members in an email.
The email did not provide a reason for stopping the funding.
The NSF is one of the world’s largest supporters of basic science research. It now cannot award new research grants or supply funds for existing grants.
For years I worked in academic research labs. Grant funding is their livelihood. These labs are not businesses; they do not exist to make money. They do not sell anything. If there are no grants, they cannot buy supplies or pay their staff.
In 2007, I was laid off from a research assistant position in a lab in which I had worked for four years because my principal investigator’s grant funding ended. Thankfully, I knew months ahead of time that this was going to happen, so I was able to start looking for a new job months before my last day. Alas, I could not secure a position before my last day, and so I was unemployed for a month before I found one.
This is going to affect the lives of tons of scientists, lab technicians, animal caretakers, and other support staff. Whole scientific departments at universities may have to shut down. Science just isn’t going to get done except for profit.
This sickens me to no end. We are talking about scientists who won’t be able to feed their families, who no longer have health insurance and cannot afford to get sick, who may not have “transferable skills” required to go into another field, who may face age discrimination in the worst way.
Does this administration care?
Basic cell phones were all the rage in the 2000s, as we all know. Back in 2002, who didn’t have a black Nokia 5180 (also known as the “Nokia brick”)? Even those folks who did not have one were familiar with the then-ubiquitous “Nokia tune.”
In the middle part of that decade, the basic phone known as the flip phone became popular. People had something more compact that fit nicely in their pockets and purses. The screens had bright, beautiful colors instead of the creamed-spinach-like monochrome. Their ringtones sounded much nicer, too—no more annoying musical beeps when the phone signaled an incoming call.
Then the iPhone exploded onto the telecommunications scene in 2007, followed by Android smartphones. People could text easily with a virtual keyboard, go on the internet (lowercased “i” according to CMOS 18), read their email, and download apps and music. Whee! As I recall, by 2011, the vast majority of Americans had some kind of smartphone.
Do you ever see anybody with a basic phone anymore?
I do…every once in a blue moon.
I believe the last time I saw somebody with a basic phone was in the waiting room of the ER where my father was hospitalized with pneumonia last February. The person with the basic phone was an older man, probably in his 60s or maybe even his 70s.
“Why would anyone still want a basic phone?” you might ask.
There are reasons, believe it or not.
First, smartphones are too complicated for some people, particularly the elderly. (I’m not putting down the elderly; this is just something I have observed.) Smartphones take a lot of getting used to, and some folks get discouraged, irritated, or overwhelmed with them.
Second—and this is probably more important—basic phones are hacker-proof. Fans of the TV drama NCIS may remember the episode where the phones of all the good guys got hacked, except for that of Gibbs, who had a basic phone. “Hacker-proof!” he shouted gleefully at his team. (I never got into that show, so I am recounting based on what a friend told me.)
Do you have a basic phone? What do you love about it?
Running an editing business requires paperwork. (I use the term “paperwork” loosely, because much of it is filled out online.) I live in Maryland, and besides start-up forms when you first launch your business and tax forms to the IRS and the state, you must fill out and submit DAT forms every year by April 15.
“What are DAT forms?” you ask.
DAT stands for Department of Assessments and Taxation. It wants to know how much money your business made each calendar year. It also wants to know about the personal property your business has and how much it is all worth.
For Fiedler Editorial LLC, I used to have to fill out two forms. One is the Annual Report, which I still complete, and the other is the Personal Property Report, from which I am now exempt. Since I am a single-member entity, the Annual Report is pretty painless. All I have to do is list my department number (you find this out the very first time you fill out such a form), answer several questions about my business by checking boxes, and list my gross earnings for the year. The questions are fairly straightforward, and if you do not understand something, there is a phone number for DAT on its website. The only caveat is that you have to remember to list your gross earnings for the year, not your net profit. Thankfully, I read instructions well, so I have never made this mistake.
The first few times I filled out DAT forms, I had to complete the Personal Property Report, which was an absolute pain. I basically went about giving the required information by listing every single item of property my business owned on a piece of scrap paper (this included the carpeting and window blinds in my home office). Then next to each item, I wrote how much I paid for it and calculated its final value using a given depreciation formula. Finally, I placed each value into a column based on categories (one column for computer hardware, one for furniture, et cetera) and added up each column. It is recommended to make multiple copies of the Personal Property Report and do at least one rough draft.
Thankfully, after a few years, the rule became that a Personal Property Report was required only if the value of the business property was a certain amount of money or greater. The value of my business property was lower than this amount, so I did not have to bother with that form any longer.
What required forms in your state are a headache for you?
Editor’s note: My father, Paul Roland Amyot, passed away on March 12, 2025 and this is why I have not posted in a long time. I wish to thank you all, dear readers, for your patience with me during this difficult time. I am ready to resume posting weekly and would like to start with the eulogy that I read at my father’s funeral. Perhaps this is not the most professional post in the world, but my father was very dear to me.
I would like to start by saying “thank you” to you all for coming to honor my dad today. It means a lot to my family and I know it would mean a great deal to him.
Paul Roland Amyot was born a New Englander and, although he lived in many locations throughout his 94 years on Earth, was a true example of the saying, “You can take the New Englander out of New England, but you can’t take New England out of the New Englander.” He loved his Red Sox and seafood, and being of Canadian descent, loved vacationing in Quebecois places like the Laurentians and the Eastern Townships. I have fond memories of spending summers in those regions with him and my mother.
But more importantly, my dad was a wonderful, honorable man who could best be described in three words: Dedicated, Hardworking, and Generous.
My dad was dedicated to the people he loved. He served as Godfather to several younger family members and role model to his younger siblings. He loved his family. When he was 19 and his father suddenly passed on, he became part of the glue that held his family together emotionally and spiritually.
He was dedicated to my mother. She was the love of his life, and from the beginning of their relationship, he did his best to bring her joy and happiness. He was dedicated to me, his only child. He and my mother fought for my rights and wellbeing when I was a special needs child—and it takes special parents to raise one! He and my mother attended my wedding in Jamaica even though the hot Caribbean wasn’t their first choice for a vacation, and made sure that my wedding reception in Maryland was perfect.
My dad was a hardworking man. He worked as a program analyst for the federal government for several decades, and volunteered in many capacities at his various parishes. But most importantly, he worked hard as a husband and father, helping around the house, fixing things when they broke, taking care of my mother when she was ill in her later years, and taking time out to play with me when I was a child and help me balance my checkbook when I became a young adult.
My dad was a generous man. He was frugal, but was always ready to help out those in need. He was also generous with his time. He always made time to visit and talk on the phone with his brothers and sisters. He cared genuinely about people, and supported several charitable causes.
Papa, you were so dedicated, hardworking, generous, and so many more great adjectives that I cannot list them all. We all miss you very much and will always miss you. We all love you very much.
Dear readers,
I apologize for my unannounced absence last weekend. I am currently dealing with a family emergency which is paralyzing this blog for the time being. I will most definitely return; I just don’t know when. Please be patient with me during this difficult time. Thank you all.
As a business owner constantly trying to obtain clients, I am active on LinkedIn.
I read many, many posts about editing and about science. I also read many about running one’s own business and about freelancing.
However, in recent weeks, I have seen a new kind of post often showing up in my feed, often near the top when I log in.
These posts are made by people who have been unemployed for a long time and are desperately looking for work because they are down to their last few dollars. Many have families to feed. They are educated people. They are IT folks and engineers and scientists. Many of them describe how hard they have been trying to get a job. They have been pounding the pavement, tailoring their resume for each application, carefully writing their cover letters, and using whatever connections they have. They either hear crickets or hear that they are one of the top five candidates and then are not chosen.
Lately, I have seen such unfortunate souls post links to their GoFundMe pages. This is how desperate they are, and this is how horrible the job market is.
I know how they feel, and I feel their pain.
I was once unemployed for eleven years.
That’s right—YEARS.
I had been a lab technician working for years at a major research university when my principal investigator’s grant funding ended, so I was let go. I knew this was going to happen months before it did, and so I began job hunting early on. I landed a job as a research technologist at a different research university a month after I had been let go from the previous one. I took a HUGE pay cut in the process.
When my three-month probationary period ended, I was informed that the university would not be keeping me around. This was for incredibly ableist reasons (I have mild cerebral palsy), and I was thrown to the wolves.
I went through the process over and over again—the grueling applications, the unsuccessful interviews, the rejection letters—for eleven years before starting Fiedler Editorial. Were it not for my marriage and my husband’s income, I would have become homeless.
Now I have an income again, and I am very grateful for it.
If you come across a post by a desperate job seeker, please, for the love of Pete, repost it. And if you are able, please donate to their GoFundMe page. Nothing in life is guaranteed, and if it’s not you, it could be you someday.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Next weekend will be incredibly packed for me, and so I will not be posting next weekend. I will see you again, dear reader, on March 2.
We are well into tax season, so let’s talk about the dreaded subject.
Nobody likes to pay taxes, of course, but what makes it worse is how complicated it is. Back when I was single and had a staff job, I would receive one W-2 form and that would be what I had to work with. I would get Form 1040EZ from the local library (we didn’t yet have computers to which to download it), fill it out manually, send it off, and get my nice refund a few weeks later. I would do the same with Form 503, the short form from the State of Maryland (sometimes the state would give me a refund and sometimes I had to pay them).
Those easy days are over and have been for a long time.
My husband and I have to fill out not only Form 1040, but also Schedule A (our itemized deductions), Schedule C (to report Fiedler Editorial’s profits), Schedule SE (the self-employment tax for me), and Heaven knows what other forms which I cannot remember. Doing so is nerve-racking and very difficult, especially for someone like me, who doesn’t like math and has never considered herself good at it.
The one time I did our taxes all by myself, I made so many errors that the IRS ended up sending us a check months later for an overpayment. It was definitely nice of them to do so, but it was embarrassing at the same time. (Not to mention that our last name was misspelled on the check, so we were initially unable to cash it and encountered countless headaches trying to fix this error on the IRS’s part.)
Nowadays, my husband and I use a professional tax preparation service. We are very satisfied with them. We do not use software like Intuit Turbo Tax because we prefer dealing with an actual human being.
How do you prefer to do your taxes? Yourself? A tax preparer? An accountant? Software?
Fiedler Editorial LLC 