I did it!

I knew the day would come. It was a given. It rolls around every year at this time, so it was inevitable. I had been waiting for it and really dreading its arrival. It came on Saturday. It was The Day. It was . . . income tax calculating day.

That in itself brings great trembling to me. In years past, there was much yelling and cursing. It was horrible. I usually found some other place to be. The kids and I would flee in terror. Recently, there has not been such wrath. I think part of it was when George worked at H&R Bloc*. Now we buy the software, and things seem to go well.

The real terror of the day was the fact that I had to clean off the computer desk. That room that was affectionately called "the study" had become "the catch all." Of course we have satellite "catch all" rooms. I simply don't have the energy to put things where they should be. I'll get one room straight, but all the junk from that room has to go someplace.

I know I should put myself on a schedule, and I have one worked out in my brain. But I am still too immature to stick to that schedule. I have watched the OCD people, and I could become one of them if I didn't watch it. They don't have any fun. They are constantly alphabetizing their pantry and medicine cabinets.

When the kids were little, I knew that they would someday be gone. I wanted to make memories with them. I wanted to go places and do things with them. I knew no one would come in and clean up. It would be here when we returned. I never said we couldn't go and do because I had to clean house. My house was clean enough to be healthy. It may have clutter, but it was basically clean.

I had a house keeper come in once a week for a while. She really tried to do things to please us. I hated for her to do the laundry because somehow she managed to wrinkle permanent press. When you would go to the closet for a clean blouse, it looked like it had been slept in - by an elephant. I can't imagine how she thought that would pass.

She also began cooking for us. She made some delicious Mexican food. It was heavenly. I learned a lot from her. But the cooking took time from the cleaning. Cooking I don't mind - cleaning was what I hated and was paying her to do. So the housework was still there. We let her go - telling her that Krissi was going to do the work for an allowance.

But back to the monster that was looming in the study. I finally slunk in there. After moving all the things George had piled in my desk chair, I sat and looked at the mountain of stuff. I made a plan. I started at the far end. I went through piece by piece. I found things I had completely forgotten about. I found tax things that I had not put in the file cabinet. Wow.

All the while, I was waiting for the computer in there to load. It had not been on in months. It always takes forever to load. I hoped it still worked. So it is sitting there, just spinning its hard drive along, loading away. I sat there going through stuff. I made piles of things. I had things to go upstairs to the craft room, things to go into the file for taxes, and a lot of junk.

After just a few minutes I was done. I asked George if he wanted me to load the software. He was a little non-commital so I knew. The answer was yes. As the computer inched its way along the loading process, I became impatient. I started hitting keys to try to hurry the process along. I ended up in a continuous loop. I had frozen the computer. So I left it alone after restarting to have lunch. After several minutes - like a couple of hours, the program was loaded and updated.

During that time, I returned to that room and picked up the rest of the junk that had accumulated in the room. One could actually get to the book case! Movement could happen. There was more than one little pathway.

I tackled the printer then. I finally got a document to load from "My Documents." I hit the print command. For a minute, the printer just sat there. Humm. Finally it spit out a sheet - with nothing on it. My cartridges were empty.

They were the ones that I had Walgr**ns fill. What. A. Mistake. Never again. They never worked properly. I then remembered why I had not printed anything in a long time. I put in new cartridges and it worked like a dream.

Later George went in. In a couple of hours he came out. I waited breathlessly for the result. He said he wasn't in a hurry to file. I knew what that meant. So I asked the pressing question: how much do we owe? It is a pittance, so that was a great relief.

It was a successful day. I cleaned the study and the den. Have two bags of paper to go out for recycling. Shredded enough papers to fill two bins. And the taxes got done. We did good! And there was no yelling if you discount me yelling at the computer for being so balky.

Peace.