18 March 2008

Drat you, Uncle Sam....


Yes, I've been conspicuously "absent" in my blogging efforts these past 10 days. Getting old will do that for you (51st b'day on the 12th - yea, me....) but I have been engaged in that Solemn Right of Spring called "gathering tax records". And believe you me, with blessings come responsibility. I'm (almost frantically) trying to locate the original closing papers from when we bought our condo back in Aug. 2000 - that we sold in March 2007. Trying to find receipts we need for deductions. Trying to find specific slips of paper in, I KID YOU NOT, a closet FULL of papers that I have jammed in there, helter-skelter for the past 2 years! I, the "Organization Queen", lauded by my peers for the past 3 decades, have a dirty little secret - ever since we moved back to the US in Dec. 2005, I have had a terrific aversion to anything remotely resembling office organization.

Now, my office itself would make great print in one of the decorating magazines.
Thoughtfully arranged, lovely new desk to fit the smaller space I now have (since we have "his and hers" studies in this house - lah, tee, tah and I'm puttin' on the airs!), carefully selected artwork displayed in the LATEST fashion of "propped up" on my computer armoire - all that jazz (see above and click to see photos) - but try to FIND a receipt for any of this stuff - well, it's like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. As the little shrimp in "Finding Nemo" announced when caught cleaning the aquarium, "I am so ashamed" (think French accent here).

So I've gone through three huge boxes of receipts, utility bills, insurance policies, mortgage receipts (yes, they are all paid - otherwise I'd be blogging from another "big house") and still have more to go. I have a huge pile of receipts destined for the shredder (I should make it a party) and have three piles of other papers - "Income Tax 07", "To File" and, last but certainly NOT least, "Put Into Quicken". Then I should follow Jennifer's lead and head to Ikea and get some shelves to put in said closet of doom to keep this from happening again (famous last words). I'm afraid to look in the closet worried that, like coat hangers, the remaining boxes of paper to sort through have mysteriously multiplied and the level not decreased at all. I'm convinced we have not added to the landfills at all because it's ALL IN MY HOUSE! Sigh...

Somehow, going to visit the children and grandchildren is just WAY more enjoyable than doing something so mundane as to keep one's life in paper organized. But I guess I'll have to work it in somehow. I can't handle going through this again. Denial has given way to reality.

Have mercy.

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