Oh, Happy Day!

I tackled the BIGGEE from my Plagues and Nuisances list!

What was it?

Taxes!!!

With my business growing about a zillion percent over the previous year, I was dreading trying to figure out all the tax information this year. Unlike many organized business people, I do not have Quickbooks or any other wonderful system for keeping track of all of my money. Instead, I have email files, and a large pile of receipts and printouts to sift through. It took me most of yesterday, and probably an hour and a half tonite, but now I am DONE! FREE! Oh glory, glory! I am so glad to have that behind me.

Now we will be able to get all of that turned into the accountant later this week, and hopefully then spend the next 3 weeks or so looking forward to a fat refund. (I hope, at least)

(Yes. Did you catch that? All of my hours and hours of misery and dread were only to get the numbers ready to go to the accountant. I wasn't even actually doing the tax paperwork myself. Lovely, eh?)

Next up on the P&N list:

-Hire a bookkeeper ASAP so that I don't have to go through this next year.

-Come up with a better plan for shopping and meals. I've totally fallen off the edge of the earth and things are not functioning very well in this area recently.

-Improve the current chore system here. A lot of stuff is falling through the cracks around here, and with six able-bodied children in the family, it really shouldn't be that way. The three older kids have regular jobs, but the three younger ones were never really assigned jobs, and they should have some. They do help, and have learned how to do a lot of things. I just haven't taken the time to really teach them how to do regular jobs, or enforce any of it. My hope is to get it all planned out in time for June when they will be out of school.

Current Pats on the Back that I'm giving myself:

-Despite my fears, I have really been enjoying homeschooling this year, and I am not stinking at it. We have had some challenges, but overall I am seeing many good things and feel like I've been able to make some really positive progress toward getting back to some of the things that I really wanted to be able to do with and for my children but wasn't able to for awhile. I am looking forward to our continuing adventures in homeschooling. :)

-Business is good and growing, and this is exciting.

That's all for tonite. I'm wiped. And morning will be comin' 'round an hour early... ugh.