Happy Tax Day!

I think I'm just about well. After not having an appetite for days, I woke up hungry this morning. There's still minor coughing, but it seems to be getting better rather than worse, which is a relief. Sometimes, my colds turn into bronchitis and the cough just keeps getting worse. Today I have to leave the house because I have to make a tax day trip to the post office, an emergency Target run (I ran out of so many things), and then there's children's choir and choir. I don't know how much singing will happen, but I need to be at rehearsal just to find out what's going on.

The taxes are done and just need to be printed. The forms you download online now allow you to put the numbers into the form, so instead of doing a draft and then a "real" version, I could do the draft version, check it, and print it. Strangely, only the main 1040 form doesn't work this way. The spaces pop up for inputting information, but the information doesn't stay there, so I will have to print and then fill out that final form. And then I will have to write some large checks because last year was very good for me, and that means my estimated payments for this year will be a lot higher. Let's just hope the income keeps up with that.

But based on all this, I've decided that it would be wise to put off the house hunting until later in the year. Last year was better than I realized, but the year before that, while not bad, wasn't as good as I remembered, and as far as I've heard, they base mortgage decisions on the past two years of tax returns (I'm not sure if the fact that I've already got a mortgage that I've been managing just fine during more than a decade of self employment makes a difference). Since the idea of this exercise is to end up with my (within reason) dream house, it makes sense to wait and see how this summer's book does and what effect all of it has on the way everything else sells, see if I get another contract, and meanwhile save more money for a bigger down payment (to get more house with less mortgage). It would be a shame to get what I can afford now and then soon afterward have a windfall that might have allowed me to get what I really wanted. And it would be a disaster to get what I can afford now and then have the bottom fall out.

In the meantime, my current house is better from the repairs I've made that were spurred by the house selling decision, and I was very grateful for the dishwasher while I was sick. When I ran out of mugs from all the hot tea, hot lemonade, etc., I was drinking, it was such a relief to stick them in the dishwasher and push a button rather than having to wash them all by hand. I've managed to keep my bedroom neat after the total decluttering, and it's so much more enjoyable. Now I just need to stay on track and continue the process in the rest of the house, so when I'm ready to pull the trigger, I can just go instead of getting frantic.

This all gives me added incentive to get back to writing and stay on top of the promoting.