Tax Filing Time!

(picture: Josiah, my budding artist! When I was a child, I didn't think I could draw. So I didn't. I wanted that to be different with our kids. So in homeschooling, our kids have drawing time.

None of our kids have ever been told they cannot draw - quite the opposite really. All of them have art tablets (even Julia!). This is Josiah drawing whales and fish(es) Jan '09).

When Rod and I got home from an appointment today, the mail was here! Normally, I'm not THAT excited about the mail.. it was what was in it that I was excited about. Rod's W2 from Verizon. Since we have our other tax stuff, all we were waiting on to file was the one from Verizon.

Do we normally file this early? Uh, no. Normally we file mid February, beat the rush. Last year I think we filed early April. But that is besides the point!

We didn't know if we were really prepared to get it all done and turned in. I spent the afternoon early evening, looking at receipts, figuring out totals and calling out numbers for Rod to fill in to Turbotax.

At about 8:30 we were done & got it filed. It was a Hallelujah moment! I felt like my brain had run a marathon! Now we have to wait the 24 hours or so to see if it's accepted by the IRS.

Every year, when we file, I think of when we got stuck waiting on the IRS & the Social Security Admin to communicate about Jaden's Social Security Number. Hoping it goes quickly this year.

Since Rod got a severence check in the summer, and they took 35% of it for taxes, it looks like we will probably be getting back a significant portion of that 35%. I wish they would have just let us keep it at the time, we really needed it then! (Not that we don't now!)

Other things of the day... Finished the First Class Skagit County homeschool co-op newsletter last night. Rod went in to get it printed today, and there was no one using the machine, but the receptionist wouldn't let us print our 35 copies (the other 100 go out via email/pdf - which saves the co-op TONS of money every year!) Let's just say that that frustrated me.

Something in the newsletter that i'm excited about... The Souths, friends of ours, adopted a brother and sister in December that have been living with them for the past two or three years. We have gotten to know the family and we love the kids. As a *surprise* I put an "adoption announcement" in the newsletter (like I would a baby announcement!) Don't tell Christina, but I sure hope she's surprised!!!

Our home, which has been kept extremely clean for 3 weeks, got bombed today. Mom and Dad were working on taxes... so the kids had a hay day. We'll get 'er done tomorrow though! (The only place that isn't somewhat neat, is, MY desk. I have a terrible time keeping it up!)

Last but not least, I found a place online where I can change my background of my blog. I really like the different backgrounds that they have available www.cutestblogontheblock.com. The only issue that I do have... is that the background doesn't seem to load very quickly. If it continues to irritate me, I'll have to change it. Went to ask in the forum, but of course that part of the site was down (sigh).

Well it's late. Tomorrow the Souths adopt little Joy and we are going to go to the courthouse. It's such an amazing thing to see.. I'll cry for sure.