Seeing Green

The laundry (dirty and clean) is threatening to take over the house. More toys are visible on the floor than carpet. The coat closet is in the middle of a reorganization project. Our bedroom? Well, it needs work. I could have been working on any and all of these things over the past four hours, but instead...

*cue drumroll*

I FINISHED OUR TAXES.

Oh yes. My house may be a wreck, but someone pat me on the back because I spent four hours working on our taxes and finally finished them. Last week we picked up Turbo Tax Deluxe, and this morning I devoted myself to a file folder full of W2s-1098s-1099s-403(b)s-"thanks for your contribution" letters, and a hundred questions about not buying a hybrid vehicle-living on environmentally protected land-losing all our income to a failed corn crop. I smiled when I took the $250 educator tax credit (just for being teachers, so make sure you take it, my fellow educators), and I laughed when I got the $60 Federal Telephone Tax Refund for having a land line for our long distance service. I don't know whose idea that refund was, but I'm guessing it was someone who wanted to stick it to those cell phone users.

Four hours later, all my effort paid off with a pretty sweet refund (yay for two kids! yay for overpaying mortgage interest! yay for having pity on the high school students tromping around our neighborhood in their band uniforms!) Some of the refund is going into our savings account, but some of it--I negotiated more than half of it--is going towards a little dream I have.

You've read about this dream. I've complained long and loud about not having this dream come true. But now? Well, who needs Disneyland when we've got Uncle Sam to make our dreams come true. It's a little dream a have called "The Backyard."

Can it be? After all these months? The deck, the grass, the manor stones, the bulbs, the barkdust, the woodchips?

It's true.

As I type, Jason is wandering around the backyard tallying up all the materials he'll need. (And in looking up that link, I rediscovered this cute video of Sydney in the backyard.) Perhaps you think he'd be less than thrilled that his weekends are now spoken for, but he doesn't see it that way at all. In his own words: "Hallelujah. Now I don't have to hear you complain about the backyard anymore."

I spent a full 15 minutes dancing around the house, singing about the backyard. Lalalalalala...a backyard for MEEEEEEEEEEE!

*

Okay, well. Uncle Sam isn't going to help me fold the laundry, so I better get on that.

Comments

[Marilyn]

You finished your taxes?! Sheesh. I just got my W-2...TODAY. Good job!

[Becca]

Steph, You amaze me.

[Inkling]

Hurray! A place to play! Hazard and mud free! Yippee!

[Leslie]

That is so so cool! Great news. I'm fully expecting pictures of the finished product.

[violetismycolor]

Ah, now you remind me how much I NEED to clean up my backyard. It's such a mess, it's scary!

[Jess]

Congratulations! That's so exciting! (And I'm also really impressed that you've done your taxes already; I'm not sure that I've even gotten my W-2's yet!)

[ally bean]

Taxes finished?!! I am in awe of you. And a backyard in the planning stage. You are too cool for school! Whatever will you do with your spare time in Feb? Seems like you've accomplished a winter's worth of work already!

[kristen]

Overachiever. Seriously girl, you are motivated...and with a newborn! I'm not sure I've even received all the stuff I would need to do my taxes (which I don't do anymore b/c of the small business...I wouldn't have the first clue of how to do them now). I am a big fan of Turbo Tax though. Yea! for a good return for you -- and for your new backyard! I'll look forward to seeing photos of Jason's hard work.