Friday, October 31, 2008

the tax man cometh...

I found out a couple days ago that our property taxes this year are going to be approximately $15,000. Divided on a monthly basis our property tax payment would nearly mirror our house payment. I am at a loss. How is it I have to pay the government so much money to live in my own house? Our house will be paid off in six years, but the taxes will never be paid off.

I love my house, and even more I love our property. I could rebuild the house on another piece of property, but it wouldn't be the same. It isn't the house I would miss...it's the lakefront lots. But, is it worth it? I'm in an in-between place...hating the price of living here, but not wanting to leave; not wanting to disrupt my life anymore than it's already been disrupted the last few years, and not wanting to add anymore stress to an already over-loaded life.

I told the hubby that maybe it's time to go buy a 40-acre chunk of land, put in a garden, buy a cow and some chickens, and live off the land. He said the taxes would probably be too high.

Friday, October 17, 2008

work, work, work

Looking at the calendar I guess it's been three weeks since I last posted on here. We were gone for almost a week on vacation, most of which was spent sleeping since I was 1.exhausted and 2.sick.

We got home and I spent the next week working every day and then took off again for three days to Portland, OR for the Women of Faith Conference. It was excellent, as usual, but again, I came home exhausted. I'm noticing a recurring pattern here.

The last week has been spent working, working, working. Our hard work has begun to pay off, though. Slowly I've been able to make some improvements at our laundromat, including some new equipment, hiring a new employee, seeing some long-awaited improvements done on our building, and streamlining some procedures in order to make us more efficient and better-managed.

Business has been picking up and income is improving. It's a good thing. At least it was. I won't even get into what happened today. I will say that working with family is sometimes difficult.