Tax Time Again!

And as usual I don’t have a clue what I am doing, I just follow the page on Turbo Tax. This year is even more taxing as both Alan and Elisabeth worked in the last year but are still dependent on us. I am scared stiff I have gotten it all wrong and we are going to be owing thousands in back tax. What makes it even more difficult is that we still get expat gratuities for some reason or another but the amount on the W2 always seems way more than we actually receive. Gordon tried to explain it to me once but it went way over my head, large numbers and money just scare the hell out of me. Which makes it strange that I am the one who in charge of finances in our family because I am hopeless in that way. Gordon is the one with the degree in Mathematical Physics but I am the one doing maths, go figure that one out!

Well, Emily apparently is not well today so she is at home. I decided a while back that once the kids got to about 14 (probably older with Elisabeth because I was always tougher on her), they could make the decision whether they are fit enough to attend class. She might well be under the weather but in more likelihood she wanted a day off school. Yesterday was one of those sinking feeling kind of days. As I was on the PC the phone rang and it was Alan’s now ex friend’s mother, wondering if Alan had heard from her in the last couple of days. Alan hadn’t heard from her as he has decided enough was enough but it appears she is, at the moment in time, sitting in jail with her current boyfriend. In was heart rending in many ways to hear her Mother crying on the phone because only a short while ago, Alan was going in the same direction but fortunately he made the decision to turn his life around. Its kind of ironic that this particular friend has turned out this way because she was the one at the beginning of our journey over here, would phone up EARLY on a Sunday morning, wondering if Alan was going to church that day. I hope this the wake up call she needs to get her life back on track. It worked for Alan.