Getting my life back

At midnight tonight I will officially get my life back for the next approximately ten weeks.  Today is the deadline for filing tax returns if you requested an extension.  Normally it would be October 15, but since that day falls on the weekend, the deadline is extended until today.

I have one return I'm working on and will finish in probably an hour (waiting for the client to fax me one last document), one return that I got the data last Thursday and the client has responded to neither email nor phone request for additional information -- but he's getting a fat refund either way so if he files after the deadline there are no penalties involved.  Then there's a client who has been out of town for two weeks that usually ends up owing who told me she'll call me today.  I just hope she doesn't wait till 5:00 to call because her return is a little complex.

And then . . . I will go to bed and wake up tomorrow without tax returns hanging over my head.  Okay, so there's ONE corporate return who files with a March 31 fiscal year end that isn't due until December 15 but that won't take more than an hour or two in November to finish up.

So . . . what do I do when I actually get my life back for two months?

First I will fly to Oregon in two days and drive back with a friend and a horse of mine who has been up there for the past year.  So first I will get a "road trip!" with a good friend.  We should be back here by Saturday, and Monday we have concert tickets to see Celtic Thunder in Mesa.  My friend will stay here for a week or two before driving back, and the State Fair is running so we'll probably go there for a day.

I'm about to close escrow on a rental property in the valley so I'll probably spend part of the next two months getting it ready to rent out.

I've got piles of branches to take to the brush pit -- after the gardener finishes cutting down a dead tree (lightning strike about two years ago) now that I finally got the chainsaw fixed.

I need to fix a wall and re-insulate the pipe that burst last winter so it doesn't burst again (although I have since found the water shut-off to the garage and will probably just turn off the water completely this winter -- someone remind me to winterize the garage toilet and sink).

And I need to clean out the garage and put my tools away.

At least I don't have any barn or corral repairs waiting for me.

And all those long winter evenings will be spent working on manuscripts.  I plan to publish my other two completed books and work on the sequel to "Tails" of a Suburban Cowgirl.

Well, that's the plan, anyway.  Reality is I'll be lucky to even get the branches to the brush pit.  I've been planning to spend long winter nights writing ever since I moved here nearly seven years ago and it hasn't happened yet.  But one of them is one final read from being submitted to Kindle so at least I'm making progress.

January 1 will be here before I know it, and then it will start again -- first come the 1099's and W-2's I have to issue for my business clients, and by mid-January the easiest returns will start to trickle in.  I'll do a draft of my own tax return, but by the time I get all the "Important Tax Documents" in the mail to check my figures against -- I'll be buried with everyone else's tax returns.  I've had to file an extension for my own return for the last three years.

And that's the circle of MY life at the Ranch.