My least favorite time of the year

It's been a tough week.... Taxes always Tax me. Just the process of doing them is like putting your brain in a blender and pushing pulse. Every couple of minutes are just excruciating. Only twice in the thirty some years I have been doing my taxes did I get professional help. I know you think I need professional help, but this is the CPA type of professional help not the PhD. Both times I found errors and had to re do them, so what the heck, I might as well save money and do them myself. Well, decades later, here I am still taking on that household task. I do ours along with the kids and my sister, who calls around April 10th to see what I am doing? About a handful of times, the IRS has sent me letters telling me I made a mistake and sometimes I benefit from their correction, and sometimes I don't. They haven’t sent me to jail yet so I’m good. I had to write a check this year, since all my little deductions have left the nest. I could almost get my income down to zero when all the kids lived under our roof. :) Giving birth always felt so rewarding on April 15th! And like so many, every year I vowed to get them done on February 1st of the following year, but like so many, I drive up to the post office on 4/15 to deposit my return in the mailbox. Then I have “post tax syndrome” for a couple of days as I vent my frustrations on whom ever will listen. Always trying to find a better mouse trap for taxes and the process, but never quite come up with anything that will solve all the issues so I pack up all my receipts, documents and copies of the returns in a neat little box and with my sharpie write the year on it and tuck it away and declare another year done! Then I can live the next 50 weeks before it starts all over again. A ritual I would rather not have to take part in, but as Benny Franklin said, the only certain thing is death and taxes, so until my time is up, I will be putting my brain in the blender for the week of April 15th and hope for the best! Today, I am going to hang a Tea Bag on my rear view mirror, I think I may have had enough.