The Purge

I've been organizing my life in preparation to start nursing school. So much junk has been thrown away. Bags have been packed and taken to Goodwill. My desk has been cleared and dusted. Years worth of paperwork that I have been neglecting has been sorted and filed. I realized that I have been running short on room in my filing cabinet. There was one folder that was packed particularly densely. The tax folder. I pulled it out, and discovered that my records go back to 2002. I googled: How long do I need to keep my tax returns? And, straight from the IRS website, I got the answer three years (there are reasons to keep them longer, but I don't have any of those reasons). Why have I been holding onto all this junk?

My family encountered some financial drama when I was a kid. Even though I am an adult, and I'm perfectly aware of how much money I have in my account, I still get a nervous feeling whenever I swipe my card at the grocery store. I just know it's going to decline my card. I know I'm going to have to leave all my groceries melting in their bags, and walk out embarrassed. I know the IRS is going to audit me one of these days. Even though I have only filed simple tax returns for almost my whole life. There's nothing I do that should raise a red flag, but I still have saved every single tax document of my entire adult married life. Since 2002. This morning I have done something huge. I just took every tax document from 2002 to 2010, and threw it in a burn pile. Okay, so I haven't actually burned anything yet. I might publish this and then run and rescue everything, and put it all back neatly in the filing cabinet. But, I think I'm ready to say goodbye to all that rubbish. I think I'm going to be okay.    

I am going to get control of my life. I am not going to be perpetually surrounded by chaos. I might be surrounded by whimpering Labradors, and mountains of laundry, and sixth grade math homework, and VA nonsense, but I am going to stop giving into irrational fears, and throw away garbage if that is what it is. And, I'll hide underneath my headphones to block out the sound of the Labradors. 

Mathematics and Labradors and Books, Oh My!

Two days from now I'll be at orientation for nursing school. Tonight, I am entrenched in a mathematics battlefield with my eleven year-old son. He is in tears. And yelling at me. A lot. I can feel my blood pressure in my eyeballs. So, it's high, right? I guess I'll find out soon enough. My husband is being incredibly patient and helpful, and is somehow able to make 6th grade math make sense for my son when I feel like my eyeballs are about to burst out of my head. And, he doesn't seem to think I'm being a bad mom. God bless him.

Earlier today I bought my packet of books for the semester to the tune of $773.25. I honestly thought it would be more books. I feel like I've seen my friends' stacks of books when they started nursing school, and it looked like the Tower of Babel. Just reaching on into Heaven. I'm not fooling myself into thinking this is going to be easy, but my stack just isn't that intimidating. Here's Pepper (one of the four labradors I live with (does anybody want to buy a labrador?)) making a cameo with all my books:       

                                                                               

The sink is full of dishes, but helping the sixth-grader really took it out of me. I'm boycotting the rest of my responsibilities. So, we put the math away for the night, and as my son was climbing into bed he announced that one of the dogs had puked in his room. Of course it did.