Taxes and.... Phyco Me!

Since the year has started Gary and I have started helping his dad out with his Liberty Tax offices. Gary volunteers his time from 9:00 to 11:00 to run the store that he works at. When there are no customers Gary carries on about his normal day, running his buissness in the back of the office.

I was asked to go to the other office to learn how to process the tax returns. It's been an interesting experience so far. I've learned how to process (double check or audit returns and assemble them) and have that part of the job pretty much mastered. Preparing the taxes is another story. I can do it, but first of all I don't want to and second of all... I don't know as much about taxes as the other preparers so I ask them to take the returns when possible. I have so far, done 1 return myself and started 2 past year returns. So far I've found that I really dislike taxes with a passion. When people come in and say "Yeah I just don't want to deal with taxes so I bring them to someone else" I have to hold back from saying "Oh me too! I don't do my own taxes". Ha ha ha. Sad huh? I can do taxes just fine, I just really don't enjoy it.

I'm happy I can help family though! I sign out when I don't have a task to save Kent money which helps cut costs. I luckly have been able to leave at 3:00 too which has kept my sanity. I need my free time or I go phyco. I found that out last week. Wow, I had a break down! With the holidays and a new schedual and being told what to do left and right I seriously lost it! I thought I was going to have to be put in a padded room! Gary is pretty amazing though and really calmed me down. He's the sweetest husband. It's amazing how he knows whats going on with me so much better than I do! I'm thankful for that. Anyway, I realized I need more time in a day. A life consisting of "working", getting home at 5:45-6:00, cooking, cleaning, getting a little sleep and starting over again was really not ok with me. The house was not clean and that alone makes me upset. Add lack of sleep to that and I'm really ticked. Then! Top it off with no alone time and apparently I go crazy. But hey, at least we figured that out!

Now we either get home at 4:00 or I go shopping and run errands before I get Gary at 5:00.Then I go home cook, Gary helps clean because he's the greatest and we relax for a couple hours and get a full nine hours of sleep. That equation equals happy me. And there you have, my life.

New Year!

Wow! Want to know what we did to celibrate the new year?! Nothing! We sat at home, alone, and watched the ball drop. It was nice. In the past it's always been a big deal... party at home or somewhere else... a dance... This year, nothing. It was fun though and really, my favorite part is watching the ball drop so it was perfect.

I do have some resalutions though. This is kind of  a new thing for me. I don't really make resalutions but I had some goals in mind. Here they are:

1. Drink 72 oz of water a day! (so far, I have not met that goal but it's a goal... I'm working on it)
2. Get down to 135 lbs. and stay there. Not a hard goal, but an important one.
3. Get back into school!

There you have my New Year resolutions! They are realistic and should be easy to concor!

Happy New Year!

Christmas!

We had a great Christmas season. We enjoyed time spent with Gary's parents and siblings. I was excited for Rachelle and Ryan to come home from Idaho!!

On Christmas Eve we went to Gary's parents to drive around town to look for Christmas lights, It's pretty much their only tradition to to that while listening to the nativity story on tape. Sadly, all 4 of the kids really strongly dislike this tradition... I thought it was fun.

On Christmas Gary and I woke up and had a yummy breakfast. I cooked eggs with sausage and bell peppers and onion. Gary LOVES this breakfast because he can pile on the salsa! After breakfast we headed over to his parents. When we got their they were just sitting down to their own breakfast! Once they were finished we took the Color Code test to see what color Rachelle was. Mother was sure she was blue and Gary and I thought for sure she was Yellow. Turns out she is Yellow!

Since all the "kids" are older (youngest is 16) opening gifts was not the top priority. Since we just wanted to spend time together we went to the movie theater in our PJ's with the thought that it would be pretty empty on Christmas. WRONG! I've never ever seen so many people at the movie theater. Honestly! The parkinglot was packed, the lines were long. We had to sit in the front of the theater since most of the seats were taken. It was crazy! We watched Avitar in 3D which was amazing. I'm glad we went.

Next we went home and cooked dinner. While it was cooking we opened some gifts. I was supprised at how many gifts I got! I knew I was getting a nice camera but I expected that to be it since it's a pricy gift. I was thrilled to also recieve a nice pot set, cookbooks... candy!It was fun to spend the day with the family and just really enjoy time together. It was a wonderful, white Christmas!