Our Tax Time Party

Probably like many others, Nate and I have been putting off doing our taxes. It's just such a dull, dismal chore, that oftentimes just means having to pay an extra bill. Since we've been planning all week to sit down and do them tonight, I wanted to do something extra special to make the job a little less daunting.

I've been inspired by some other blogs, especially this one, with ideas for decorating, crafting, and adding joy to everyday life. The blogger I mentioned, Melissa, has so many examples of her creativity on her blog, and she has even found a way to make even leftovers exciting for her family, with very little added effort.

Inspired, I decided to incorporate our supper into the project, so we could eat while we worked. Our big meal of the day had been lunch, as we ate Mexican with Nate's Aunt Sharon and Kirk. So, our supper could be lighter than usual. I wanted mostly finger foods, easy for munching and grazing while keeping within the constraints of our new diet. I loaded up the silver tray, introduced in my previous post, with various goodies I happened to have on hand. I actually took pictures of the setup, but I accidentally saved them on my camera (rather than memory card) and can't get them off! I'll just have to describe them now. Hopefully someday I will be able to get them off my camera and can add them to this post.

I started with some pepper jack string cheese and low fat mozzarella string cheese and sliced them into squares. I arranged them on a small plate with toothpicks. I rolled some ham deli meat and placed them on the plate with the cheese. We also had some 1/3 fat strawberry cream cheese to use up. I wouldn't normally serve two (make that three) types of cheeses at the same meal, but I knew we hadn't come close to our dairy quota for the day and could handle it. I sliced an apple and arranged the slices around the small custard cup size bowl of cream cheese. I added a strawberry as garnish for the cream cheese. I wanted to have crackers with the cream cheese as well, but we only had graham crackers. As I feel like graham crackers are more of a dessert cracker than what I was going for, I reached for the container of multi-grain tortilla chips I bought yesterday. I tried one in the cream cheese and was pleasantly surprised. The combination was a hit with Nate, too.

I had decluttered the living room a bit earlier, so Nate and I got our tax folders and settled down around the ottoman in the living room, with the silver tray of goodies between us. With teacup in (my) hand, we got to work. The job flew by. Before we knew it, we had all of the paperwork and forms filled out and the food was completely gone! We're waiting to actually submit the files, but the task itself is finished. Munching on those goodies really made it a stress-free, almost relaxing job. Next year, I might even meal plan specifically for our next tax time party. I imagine shrimp and cocktail sauce, veggies and low-cal dressing, olives, chunks of ham, etc. would have made it even more party-like. All of those foods are diet approved, too, so we wouldn't sacrifice healthy for convenient.

My husband agreed that this little extra something made doing our taxes so much better. It was almost like a date. Almost. (I should hope we haven't already reached the stage in our marriage where those type of dates are the only type we have time for!) I hope the next time we have a dreaded task ahead of us, we can think up a creative way to make it an enjoyable memory!