July 22 – U

363/365 – people to thank who have had an impact on me.  Wow, only 3 more gratitude posts left including this one!!  When I started this journey a year ago, I was a little nervous as to if I would have 365 people to thank.  I didn’t want it to come down to posts such as thanking my mailman for the flyers he delivers in that they were the ones that led me on to some awesome deal!! ; )  Early on in these posts, I started hearing from friends that so and so had made “the list”.  I didn’t understand what that was until I was told that it was my “gratitude list”.  That put some pressure on me to say the least as there was now a “list”.  I didn’t want it to be a list and I didn’t want it to be some type of contest.  Then I heard that some people mentioned they were in the 80s and others were in the 200s!  I do have to make it clear that I haven’t had an order as to who I thank and thus whatever number gratitude post it was has no relation to ranking.  Most posts are the night before or a couple of days before.  Yes, I saved my dad for his birthday as I did with my children for theirs, my mom was first because well she is my mom but save for them and the final two gratitude posts, no one had a day or a number.  The list by the end of Sunday is far from complete.  I could thank another 365 people who got me to where I am today and this is what today’s gratitude post is about – to all of the people I didn’t name and there are hundreds of you that have impacted me!  So many former students, co-workers past and present, family members, inlaws, bosses, professors, fellow students, random strangers, neighbours past and present, friends, backhanded gratitudees (bullies and the like), service providers, celebrities etc, etc – just so many people who have made me who I am and to all of you un-named in this past year, you are part of this gratitude journey just because you were not personally mentioned here doesn’t mean you weren’t recognized by me.  To all the new people that will come in to my life, thanking you in advance as some of you will change and influence me in new ways.  Thank you to all of you who came along with me on this 365 day journey as well.  Your encouragement and support has gotten me to this end point.

March 20 – the taxman cometh

239/365 – people to thank who have had an impact on me.  It’s that time of the year – oh how I wish I could say it was Christmas but no, it’s tax season.  I’ve spent the bulk of today gathering all the statements, slips, calculations and scanning them for my accountant.  Yes, my accountant.  People think that because I have a Business degree, I should be able to do my own taxes.  They also assume since I am a Business teacher, taxes should come second nature.  Well people, I majored in Marketing J  I took all of my electives in the “ologies” whereas my Commerce/Business compatriots took courses like History of Tax Law.  If I had done that, I could do not only my own taxes but also yours.  However, that is not the case so I go to my guy Dennis.  Because of a Facebook query, I discovered him about three or four years ago when I really needed to figure out how to claim my son’s sports, my daughter’s tuition and book credits, transfer income to my wife, deduct losses from a revenue generating rental – oh man, I’m already getting confused.  Yes, I have spent about 6 hours organizing things today but I’m sure I would spend 5 times that time figuring out all the deductions and calculations in order to arrive at how much each of us owes or is owed.  I’m so thankful to have Dennis do this for me because that’s his expertise and he has taken me on as a client just through a friend’s recommendation.  I also like the fact that I can communicate with him through email/text/pdf and get everything done with minimal effort on my part.  As I was told by my own Accounting teacher back in high school, death, a car accident and taxes are inevitable, it’s how big each of them will be.  Thank you Dennis for making the tax part a little less exhaustive and hopefully not so big  🙂