Day 27 - My office

The other day I was filing my taxes, and I ran into something that made me smile.

For a little background - I have two jobs - one is for a typical company, and my official title is "Research Assistant". For the other one - I am an Independent Contractor for a company that contracts to the military. That makes me a subcontractor, and as a result, because of the length and type of the assignments, self-employed. One of my goals in life is to be self-employed, and by the grace of God, I was offered this opportunity because the contractor saw some of my previous work, remembered me once saying that I was moving to another country and that I probably would be out of work, and reached out to me. Now, 6 months later, I am officially self-employed and have a full-time client. I can check off one of my goals. (Now..I have other goals associated with it that will come to fruition later in life, but thats another story entirely).

Now onto what made me smile when doing my taxes. Being self-employed, you can try to get deductions for different things - supplies, rent, and office space in your home, for example. My first thought was...ok, we live in a 2 bedroom apartment, I could say one of them is my office. My second thought was..I'd never work in there, there are too many sand flies that attack in that room. Third thought was ..ok, I use the kitchen table for work some days, but can I say the kitchen is an office..no.. or maybe the living room, I sit there some days..no..

AND in the end, I smiled about something that can sometimes be very very very frustrating for me, that I have no work space, no office area, no one place to situate myself and say "ok, you are at work, and you need to work now.." Nowhere to keep my notes, books, office supplies, pens.. I basically sit somewhere in the apartment that seems comfortable at the moment with my laptop and my pile of supplies, then move around throughout the day, or I camp out in one of the classrooms on campus.

I like that it gives me options, and flexibility, but I'm still pretty sure that I would LOVE to have a home office. Or maybe I can just start out with a desk, I'd be happy with a desk.