Happy April 15th

Yep. Taxes got done. Clicked "submit" on the 13th.

And I say it every year, but next year I'm getting professional help. This year I didn't plan ahead far enough to find someone able to do them in time. Sure. I was planning on filing an extension and letting them handle it but I had to find the W2's and put in a bunch of information to file the extension and 'estimate tax payment' anyway, so once started down the path of inputting stuff.. an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Usually my kids interrupt every 45 seconds, but with my mom here playing interference, I didn't have as many interruptions.. and it got done. 

And it helped that I had a week of sleepless nights getting our business books in order, because I was planning on handing it over to someone with the initials 'cpa' after their name..but even then I had to round up the last 3 bank statements.

Let me tell you.. nothing like moving to make it difficult to find anything. Our file cabinet hasn't been organized since we lived in Mansfield. So that makes.. let me count.. 6 years since things have been routinely filed where they belong. yep. Setting the bar really low on that one. We moved to paperless statements on most things, but the problem I didn't forsee there is... I ran out of computer memory. Last year. So.. I thought.. why download? I'll leave it on their computer and download when I need it.  Here's why you download- because after a year it's archived and you can't get access to it. Particularly in your po-dunk bank in VA who when you call they drawl 'well, you'll just have to come in to our main office to request copies' to which I reply it's a little hard to do that since we now live in California..  and I'll get transferred a dozen times, talk to a girl who tells me to fax a copy of my drivers's license and a letter of what I need to a fax #, find out they gave me the fax to the closet in their most remote office 2 weeks later when I call to see why they haven't faxed what I need... And then I tell myself "I need to close that bank account" but fail to follow through on it. We WERE using it but right now not so much that we've taken the $ from it and it's a few months of inactivity fees away from the red zone. They were pretty insistent I personally appear to close it and I was equally persistent that wasn't going to happen.

So.. in other news.. my parents left 2 days ago and my inlaws arrive in 4 days. Which means I have 4 days to get this house clean enough that Larry isn't embarrassed. Which pretty much will take an old testament miracle to pull off. They never had a kid-filled house they will never understand the piles of kid games, the books on the book shelf or the mountain of laundry and forever non-flushed toilet and and and.. you get the picture..

So.. with encouraging thought.. I'm off again...