I love the Tax Man

The sentiment isn't well shared though and I accept that. We love him now but my not like him so much later when the five little tax credits aren't claimable. This year, though, he's a welcomed visitor. This year he's going to help me get closer to my farm.

Raising five kids isn't easy. There are times when more than half need new shoes and I cringe looking at the bill. They need fitting shoes. I wouldn't not buy them but it's still a kick to the wallet when it happens all at once. Somehow they all need something at the same time. Shoes, clothes, doctor visits, bikes, car seats. Like Mother Nature tapped a wand on our house and everyone grew out of everything overnight. Believe me, it happens like that a lot.

We work through it though. We manage even if sometimes it's only just.

I'm sure people look at our family and wonder why we'd ever put outselves through the financial strain of raising this brood. I know they do because there are those select few -who apparently have no social filter- that say it to me. I usually say to them "Pick one I should get rid of." They usually shut up.

Money is money. It's a thing. Something to be used to better life and make living easier, freer. I truly feel we lost that when credit came around. Young, eager and naive. Our lives were ruined by it years ago. We're still recovering from our mistakes.

But as I said, it's a thing it can't take first steps or learn to say "mama". But it can buy cozy socks for walking.

This year it's buying parts of a dream. We'll be going out to the land later this month, or at the latest early March, hiring someone with a tractor and bush hog to clear the land, getting a hotel room, and having a shipping container delivered the next day. We'll us the container to hold materials we find. Be a workroom during construction, then transform it into a side of a barn or a studio for my sewing and writing. I'm looking forward to that shipping container.

We'll use some to pay off debt and some for savings. A few car repairs will be thrown in there too. We might get the house plan we're trying to make work. Possibly build a chicken coop for the urban house we have now along with a few fat speckled chicks. If we play it right, we might get a used RV to boot. Sounds like something frivilous but it's a 6 hour round trip drive to the land. We can stay in a hotel to get work done or drive our hotel with us and just walk out the front door to work.

We might never be rich in cash -hell, I don't think we were ever meant to be- but we'll try and do good when we get some.