I have access to copies of my sister's and my in-laws' wills. My own, however, was last updated before the birth of my 8 year old. The big reason we haven't updated it is who to give custody of the kids to if we both died is a huge dilemma. We have lots of loving family members, but none of them are ideally positioned to raise our kids, you know? My mother is only 65 but married to an 82 year old whose health is going downhill; his parents are both 75; my sister (39) is single and very responsible but not a children kind of person; his sister (48) is divorced with 2 teenaged kids but lives in rural Ohio where they would have a very limited peer group and worldview; my brother (36 going on 29) and his fiance (27) are lovely but have no kids and live in Manhattan. We'd better not both die, is what I am saying.

I was the executor for my dad's estate (Mom predeceased him). It was pretty straight forward. He added my name to his bank accounts while he was still living, so I had money for the immediate bills. He'd prepaid and designed his funeral, so I pretty much just had to show up for that. He'd made a will and gathered all his insurance things together, which made things easier. Dad was in the middle of a Vioxx class action lawsuit, so there was another tax filing for a last round of checks from that. But otherwise it was just keeping track of money coming in and money going out, and then cutting my sister a check for half of the remainder. I sent her an itemized list of all account activities for her records, which wasn't a requirement, and she would never have asked for it, but seemed like the right thing to do.

The most time consuming thing was shredding all the bills and things that had info that I thought identity thieves could have used. Not that that would have hurt him, but screw those guys, you know? Anyway, Dad had kept basically everything for ever, so I spend a long time with my 3-sheets-at-once-max shredder while watching a lot of HGTV.

My brother and I were in our late 20s when the parents updated their will. We still refer to each other as 'subsequent children' because we were not yet born in the previous will. I refuse to talk about mine because my neglect in this area is epic.

Wow. I just got a call from a place where I'd sent in a job application. It was the perkiest rejection ever! "I just wanted to call and personally thank you for applying! Keep an eye out here for other opportunities!" Really? I just wanted to personally spit in your face, random HR person! Keep an eye out for contagion vectors!

Do HR people really think that sounding like not hiring me makes this the best day ever is helpful? It's not helpful.

They just want to avoid having you come after them with weaponry. Perkiness is probably not the route to take, in that case.

Calli--speaking as an HR person, we don't ask people to keep an eye out for opening at out company unless they were impressive and we are actually interested.

You all know my drama with estates after Rob's death. I had a will that was good in MD, but now that I'm in PA, I have to redo it. I should get on that....

Omg why do I have to be at work!

Why do I have to take a training class in Human Trafficking? I did this a year ago and was not yet over the trauma. For once my employer designed a training well enough to engage you and it's the really, truly upsetting one.

Being executor sucks but that's because I find so much of it is beyond my skill set. Like taking care of corporate taxes? Not something I'm good at. Oh well.