Tax Day

I usually wait to meet with the tax preparer in April.  I try to be in denial until then.  What I have learned about myself is that on Jan. 2 I can feel it out there...much like you know something is watching you through the trees when you're outside at night.  When Feb. rolls around...I start fretting, ever so slightly.  By March  I am in full swing, getting orgainized in my head only.  Then April comes and I start needing my inhaler.  But it usually is the day before I have my meeting that I actually start pulling things out.  Inevitably I forget something and I am calling Greg from my meeting asking him questions.  Then I say, "I'll look for that and get back to you" and the preparer rolls her eyes lovingly and set up a second appointment.

This year is different...well, a little different in someways and really different in others.  Because of an exciting impending wedding I have decided it is best to do our taxes earlier...we always...I mean, always have to pay.  Some years less than others but it is always painful.  I just wanted it out of the way...I didn't want to be fretting about money and I didn't want my emotional issue with tax time to be anywhere near the time of the wedding.  I always drop the taxes in the mail April 14th but that is only 3 weeks before the wedding!  No way, I needed it to be weeks before...

So, today is my meeting with the tax preparer.  The difference in the last few years is that I have a drawer where I dump everything all year long that has to do with taxes, then when I have to get orgainized at least it is all in one spot...not like the year Greg had to get a new copy of his W2 the week before because I couldn't find it!  Secondly, I have the same person do it every year.  For years it was the grandfather of one of Connor's classmates...then he retired!  He passed me onto the woman who bought his business...and she has been doing our taxes for over 10 years!  They totally got me...they never blinked twice when I show up with all the papers in a Victoria Secret bag or stuffed into a tupperware container....but today whaaaaaaaaa...I see a new person.  Someone who doesn't know me from squat because my 'ol tax preparer is sick!  It sounds like a bad kind of sick...she was old but I swear I could have started an IV on her while she did my taxes!!!!  She has known us for so long that she would ask how my kids were?...am I still quilting?...what I ate for breakfast this morning?  I knew her so well from our conversations that I could ask about her sister...her grandkids...but today I meet someone new!

Today I meet someone that I have to charm and hope she gets me when I show up with a pile of loose papers, that I am a smart competent professional, who loves to quilt...who's favorite restuarant is El Cap, who is madly in love with her husband...who thinks her children walk on water...I hope she get me...or Huston...we have a problem!