This is my life, March 11th, 2025, here with me, Jerry Banfield. Laura is at an employment conference in Tampa today, so I am taking the kids to school myself this morning and getting them ready, which was nice. We got them out the door, their lunches packed, fed, and dropped them off at school. Then I am right back home to start filming some crypto videos and my autobiography. I want to start the taxes this morning, but I end up not having time. I don't even get all that I want done on my live stream. I got about three videos filmed, but I want more. I'll do the taxes later.
A meeting, popcorn style
I go to meet my sponsor at my Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and the chairperson runs it as a popcorn, get-called-on meeting. He tells me he's going to call on me first. I like being special and getting a little extra attention, but at the same time it's a little awkward. It's kind of funny. So he calls on me, and the topic is about, it's funny, it's hard to even remember what the topic was about, or exactly what I shared, even though this is less than 24 hours later. But I shared my experience, strength, and hope around staying sober and talked about how much easier life is sober. Oh yeah, the topic was about doing God's will, or good orderly direction. For me, when I was drinking, it was bad, disorderly direction.
What I've learned is that people have answers. People know about things I want to know about. If I just find the people who know what I want to know and ask them to tell me, I get what I want. In Alcoholics Anonymous, I ask people how to stay sober. When I was upset with my wife, I'd ask how to feel better. When I was anxious, I asked what to do about anxiety. I didn't take every suggestion, but I consistently ask people for feedback all the time now, and I get a lot of options because of that. Sometimes I talk a little too much, and sometimes there are problems because of that, but that's okay. We all have our different personality types. There are downsides to being a private person who keeps things to themselves a lot, but there are upsides to that too.
Hot yoga and a $7 burrito
I see my sponsor at the meeting, then I leave a little bit early so I can make the hot yoga class on time. I don't usually do hot yoga, but today I'm really feeling it. So I leave a few minutes early and drive over to the yoga studio. They only have hot noon yoga right now at Body Electric on Tuesdays, so I go over there and do the hot yoga flow. One of the friends from AA, who I've known for years since she's been sober, is there to do hot yoga too, which is great. So I catch up with her, put my mat down next to hers, and have a great class. The hot flow is not too intense, which is nice. I feel like I got just the right amount of sweat and the right amount of workout, but didn't push it too hard, which is great.
So I leave the hot flow, go home, hydrate up, and have a burrito that I bought for $7 from Whole Foods yesterday, a veggie fajita kind of thing. It's really good. I could probably make that at home a lot cheaper, but it's faster, so you've got to balance fast versus cheap. I really enjoyed that burrito for lunch. So good.
Cranking out videos and finally starting the taxes
I record a couple more videos. Thankfully, Laura's sister is going to pick the kids up today, so I don't have to take another hour to go pick them up after taking an hour to drop them off earlier. So I crank out a couple of videos. I didn't finish the music video or the autobiography for yesterday in time, so I record both of those off stream. If I just have a video or two to record, that's no big deal. Usually when I'm on stream I like to film at least three, maybe five or six videos on Twitch, and if I need a quick video or two off stream, it's easy.
Then I finally get into the taxes, which I've been meaning to start for a month. Last year at this time, in February, I had the taxes done. This time I've just been trying to keep up with my videos and deal with hurricane restoration stuff in the house, taking the kids to school, yoga, tennis. So I put a couple of good hours into the taxes today, which is nice. Laura made one of the highest amounts she's ever made, and I haven't even started mine. Mine is the one that takes more time. I need to put together so many different things from all my business expenses and income, which is not that hard this year, but then the crypto stuff adds a lot of complexity. That's the main place I'm going to need to use brainpower on the taxes. Fortunately, at this point it's just putting in W-2s and that kind of thing, which is pretty straightforward.
I'm really impressed. The company I'm doing my taxes with now has partners, and you can just put in your W-2 information and it pulls it automatically. I was a little freaked out at first, like, how do they know all this? But you put in your employer ID number and the amount you got paid and your name, and I guess it just fills the rest in because the employer already uploaded it on the other end. So I work on that.
The kids' spring concert
Tonight we're going to a concert for the kids, the spring concert, instead of doing Jack's hip hop dance and Laura's Pilates class. So we go to the hip hop concert, and it's super cute. There's this kid on stage just getting it, shaking it, moving it, and the people behind me are commenting on everything. "Oh, look at that boy." I'm just laughing. I'm laughing so much. They're cracking me up. I'm grateful I can have so much fun watching a kid's concert. Twenty years ago, that would have been awful and boring, but I guess I'm not in my early 20s anymore. I enjoy different things today, which is great.
I remember when I was at the police department, I was talking a bunch of junk at breakfast, and they said, "Banfield, you are going to change so much." Y'all were right. Not that any of them are watching my autobiography. Not that anyone watches my autobiography, but this is good for me to do, so I do it, and it's nice. I'd love to, 10 years from now, be able to go back and hear what exactly I did on March 11, 2025. I imagine I'll go listen back to all these and it'll be like experiencing someone else's life. I think all of us should do this. In my experience, this is one of the best ways we can use technology like this, to help us remember stuff we learned before. If you're curious what these daily recordings look like, I keep them in my Life playlist.
After the kids' concert, we get home and put the kids to bed. I managed to wash a bunch of dishes, as usual today, and I take the dog for a later walk so I can go to bed earlier. I go visit my mom for about 10 minutes before I go to bed. I leave my mom's house at 11:11, and I'm in bed like five minutes later. I don't usually stay up that late, but I'm getting up at seven the next morning, so I think that'll be enough sleep. Another lovely day. Really enjoyed it.