It's that happy time of the year!

When Prof. Husband enters our home a random day in March, and casually announced that there’s something for me in his bag, I know those happy times are here. Out of his laptop bag, I fish the big, thick phonebook-like white catalogue, and tear the plastic off. It has arrived! All the way from the US of A. I leaf through it quickly, eyeing the ‘What’s new?’ section, anticipating, and then carefully put it away for that special moment, when the kids are happy, playing upstairs, baby is asleep, and things are quiet enough for me to take a moment.

Today that moment has come – or at least I get to start the process - and I gently open up the book to the first page: a new, crisp Form 1040 smiles back at me. It’s tax return time, and I love it!

You may call me crazy, or a pervert, but filing taxes makes me feel good. It means we have a job, that we are part of a community, and to be honest, I like this kind of stuff (at least once a year): reading the fine print, filling out forms, crunching numbers, going through the instructions, and finally, sending in a perfectly filled out tax return. It probably helps that I’m certain we don’t owe anything extra. If I were to go through all this work and then have to pay thousands of dollars on top of it, I probably wouldn’t enjoy it as much, but I’m pretty sure we’re safe.

Many people complain about how difficult it is, and it’s true; it’s a bit complicated, but for anyone who has ever worked and lived in Belgium, it’s nothing; comparatively in fact, it’s easy. We don’t own anything, which probably helps, but we didn’t in Belgium either, and the paperwork there was still overwhelming. Here it’s just a matter of taking the time to go through everything - which I hope to be able to do during the break. It’s due on April 15, but I need to have it finished by April 7 so that it can be sent through the university.

So, here we go!