Life, lately.

Or life after CPA. Or life after being promoted to audit manager.

Wait, what?!!

Apparently things professionally couldn't be better at the moment. Passed the CPA exam and effective July 1 (coincidentally tomorrow), I'm a manager at my firm. Holy. shit. It's so weird when things start to just fall into place. I know it's been a lot of work to get to where I am right now but it's just like one day all of a sudden everything makes sense and it just all clicks together. It's very refreshing. I'm very excited for the prospect of this next year in my new roles.

Tim also just passed his national medic test on the first try Saturday, which was very exciting. It's quite the accomplishment. The test is not given very frequently (once per year) and it's kind of the practical equivalent of my CPA exam. If he wouldn't have passed it he would have had to fly to California to retake it and if he didn't pass then, well, he would have basically been screwed till next year. My understanding, anyway. I'm very humble in how little I know about his profession. Most often when he talks about any of it, I'm standing there with my mouth open, like, "You. have. got. to. be. kidding. me." I don't think I really need to explain how nuts saving lives must be but to really hear all of the intricate details involved in it-including even the petty politics that exist in his field just like any other- but to deal with that coupled with everything else usually just leaves me shaking my head in astonishment.

This was one half of the ending of his year of medic school and finale of his degree in para medicine. The only thing left is one trauma team lead on a call (meaning he has to have a trauma patient and he has to completely lead the call, make all of the game time decisions, etc) and a written exam. Then he's done.

To celebrate all of our accomplishments in our professions as of late, we spent the weekend in the sun. Wait, did I just say in the sun? When referring to Seattle? I know, it surprised me too. So much so that I want to run around like a two year old on Christmas and tell everyone- "hey, guess what, it's 80 degrees outside. And sunny! And I've been wearing a bikini for the past three days! Aren't you excited?!" While they look at me like I'm on some sort of drug and that if I'm that happy, maybe I should share.

It has been ABOVE 80 degrees here for the past 4 days and shows no sign of any worse weather in the next week. I. am. so. freaking. excited. I really thought we were skipping summer this year. I'm TOLD that every June it takes a while to warm up and "that's just how it is here" but in my reality June is summer and I don't care how it is here. Finally summer cooperated. Anyway, Saturday while Tim was gone all day, I was at the beach. When he got back that evening, it was so hot we went BACK to the lake. Sunday we coupled beach time with running up a mountain. I do have to say that even though we practically ran up 2.5 miles in 90 degree weather at about a 10% incline, it was SO much more tame compared to the beasts of mountains we've done the prior two weeks. No comparison and probably the one and only reason we were even remotely able to run up the thing on Sunday.

Two weeks ago we started with Mt. Si then last week we did mailbox peak. I will write more about mailbox in another post once I have my pictures downloaded and have not already written so much. It was by far one of the most intense hikes I have ever been on. Suffice it to say for now, we were hiking in snow (in June), we were ABOVE all other peaks around us, we were asked by people if the top if we were either a) training for Rainer or b) just trying to kick our own asses (the latter), we were hiking for approximately 6+ hours, the trail was just made by some mountain men (so it was not clearly marked in the slightest...actually that was very cool) and the day after we did it, I stayed home from work. I spent the majority of the day working from home wondering if sliding down the stairs on a cookie sheet would work to get me from point a (upstairs) to point b (downstairs). My only issue was trying to figure out a way to propel myself back UP the stairs after using the cookie sheet down. More on all of that later.

Until then... I'm off to sleep with the windows open and the 75 degree breeze blowing in. In Seattle. I'm in warm weather heaven.

I PASSED.

Do I really need to say anything else???

I passed the CPA exam. I passed. I PASSED. I FREAKING PASSED. FINALLY, I'M DONE!!!!!!!!!!!

I just wonder when I'm going to stop repeating that in my head and feeling so freaking excited and about ready to jump out of my skin.

Major celebration in order.

Or maybe the major celebration is Hawaii in October but definitely a celebration is in order... and STAT.

(And by the way, I almost peed my pants when I found out this morning... I didn't stop shaking for about 30 minutes. And is it ironic at all to anyone else that literally a year ago to this exact day I started my job up here?)

Holy. god.

I PASSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The front page of the Seattle Times today: Colder than Siberia.

Literally.

From the Seattle Times: "While Seattle hasn't seen a 70-degree day in more than two weeks, Fairbanks, Alaska, has had six of them in the past 10 days. Even the Siberian city of Tomsk, Russia, hit the 70s last weekend."

Are. you. f-ing. kidding. me.

It has been pouring for 5 days straight and I would be surprised to find that we have topped 50 on some of those days. And not to mention the wind storm that we had a couple of nights ago that knocked out our power for about 4 hours.

For the love of God... it is June 11!! I keep crossing my fingers that somehow we are going to make the switch from December to June one of these days. It certainly is not the 120 degree June that I have been used to the past few years. Ahhh, I would take sun and heat now... even the 120 degree kind.

Head Injuries and such

The past couple of weeks have been all about my head. First, using my head to attempt to pass the last section of the CPA exam and second using my head as a tool to hit against things as I move to our new townhouse.

I do not quite know how the CPA exam went. I never walk out feeling awesome but in at least three cases, this has been ok. It’s yet to be determined if I am FINALLY done or not. I can’t say either way. I don’t want to be too positive or too negative so I’ll just be neutral and wait and see.

We got the keys to our new townhouse on May 26. I took the CPA exam on the 28th so we really didn’t start to gradually move things over until that day. On that day, I decided that in the process of moving, I would hit my head on the kitchen floor. Not on purpose, of course. I had gotten the whole kitchen moved in by myself since Tim was still in Ellensburg at school finishing up his finals and last week of classes. On Saturday the 31st, I was attempting to get as much packed and moved as possible by myself since Tim was on shift. It all went ok until I decided that I was superwoman and could move and take apart the mammoth table by myself. I got it all turned over ok but couldn’t figure out how to get the dumb legs off (turns out I didn’t have the right tools). When I stood up out of frustration, I forgot that there was still a leg attached and wham! Crap, head again. Ow.

The third head incident happened on Monday after we were all moved in. It was our first morning there and we were getting ready to take a shower. Well, the shower just happens to be extremely clear glass so as I reached in, or thought I reached in, BAM! And again, the head. I felt like a dumb bird that flies into a window. It was pretty classy. We were both laughing pretty hard at that one.

Anyway, the new place is great. It’s only a couple of miles away from where we were. It’s about 1600 square feet and is three stories. The bottom is the two car garage, the second level is the living room, dining room, kitchen and half bath. There is also a really cool fireplace that divides the living room and dining room. The upstairs is the laundry room, the master bedroom, guest bedroom and two baths. It’s very cute. I’m really excited to be there!! We finally just got everything big in on Wednesday when we got our couch. Now we just have to hang pictures and we will be set! I’m thinking housewarming/Tim’s graduation/YAY it’s FINALLY summer in Seattle party ASAP.

No removal this time

Today I went in for my 6 month visit to the dermatologist for a skin check. For the first time in the past couple of years I had NO moles removed. In fact, she actually said, "Your skin looks excellent." Imagine that!

And here's my plug for all of you sun/fake-bakers out there, from a former fake-baker. DON'T TAN (and wear sun screen)!!! My skin looks so much healthier now that I have not been tanning for two years. I am definitely white but I have gotten so many compliments on how good my skin looks and it was compounded even more with my recent dermatologist visit. I am a converted believer in sunscreen. Where I used to lather on baby oil, I now am lathering up with SPF 60. I look younger now that my skin is not so dark and I just generally feel better now that I am not tanning like I used to. Granted, a few weeks ago, regardless of the sun screen that Tim and I slammed on, we both had a couple of missed spots that we got a little bit pink. And in Hawaii, even though we will be applying suncreen, I'm sure we will still get some rays. That, I think, is ok. It's just the excessive tanning that I used to do, and I know many people still do, is not ok... at least in my opinion.

Everyone knows and has heard the dangers and risk of sun exposure and how it can lead to skin cancer. I know from my experience after having about 10 moles removed and being an excessive tanner for several years of my life that it's just not worth it. Hopefully I never get diagnosed with skin cancer. You never know, but I'll do whatever I can now to prevent it, regardless of my ignorance and stupidity before. I did have a conversation with a lady in the dermatologist's office a year or two ago and she said, "If you don't take care of your skin now, no matter how dark you are, it's not a matter of if you get skin cancer, it's when." Yikes.

I don't need to preach here. I'm just excited that my skin looks so good and feels so good, that I heard such great news from the derm, and that all of it is a result of being totally natural and taking care of my body. It just feels so much better than being tan ever felt.

Dr Mr. Weatherman,

I have a serious problem with you. When I flew back from Arizona on Monday morning, I almost cried at the thought of leaving the warmth, the sun, the ninety degree days. But you gave me hope and let me sleep easy that cold, rainy first night back in Seattle from the Arizona sun. You comforted me by telling me that for FOUR days this week it would be sunny and over 75, starting with today. I cherished you for this and vowed that if it really happened, I'd love and trust you (and all weathermen/women) forever.

Well unfortunately, Mr. Weatherman, with all due respect, YOU LIE.

Our relationship as we knew it was once over. You can no longer be trusted as it is currently 50 degrees out, cloudy and looks equivalent to a November day in Kansas City NOT the sunny November Phoenix day that you PROMISED. And seriously, why does anything have to be equivalent to November when it is MAY?!?!

I am sorry that it has to end this way but it just does. You either need to start telling the truth or just start telling me that every day here is going to suck so that I never get my hopes up and then when it actually is sunny, I don't have to be mad at you.

Sincerely,
Freezing Arizona turned Seattle girl

UPDATE: Mr. Weatherman, you are forgiven. The day started off rocky but it turned into a perfect, sunny 75. Now let's hope tomorrow we really do hit 90. But seriously, is it necessary to have "excessive heat watches" and tell everyone to drink plenty of water? 90 in Phoenix is cool. Let's not overreact here.

Turning another year older.

On April 29, I officially hit the other side of the 20s. I guess it's not really that old but I'm starting to feel old. I mean, I graduated high school 8 years ago. How fast does that go by? Quite a few of my friends are mostly married, many have started having kids. I have a handful of friends who have gotten divorced, some who have had abortions, and some who have decided that being single/alone/childless/against the "norm" (if there is such a thing) is best for them. Actually, now that I think about it, these people are the strongest people I know. It's kind of a time in my life where I feel like I really have to think about where I'm at and make sure that what I am doing is in my best interest. Do I really love my career? Am I really happy? Am I doing everything I can to make the world, or at least a part of the world, a better place?

I'm not really sure that I have all of the answers, or that I really ever will. I guess as birthdays and years come and go, sometimes you just ponder the questions. I'm doing the best I can and while there are some areas of my life that might need some slight renovations, I think, generally, I'm doing well for where I'm at.

My birthday weekend was a lot of fun. I took off a couple of days so that Tim and I could have a four day weekend together. We went on hikes, went to the ocean and rode horses on the beach!, made awesome dinners, and ate a lot of cake. Couldn't have asked for a better time. I worked on my actual birthday but got to do happy hour with friends and dinner/cake/presents with Tim that night. He got me so much stuff. I'm not going to brag about how awesome it is on here but I will say one thing... watch out for me in the kitchen. I seriously have the best set of knives ever now. Shun knives? Anyone ever heard of them? They are amazing. Now I just need to take a cooking class.

I'll post pictures from the birthday weekend soon (once they are uploaded). I've been pretty busy with work and now I'm starting to study again for another test (hopefully the last) at the end of this month. Last weekend, I had a long weekend in Phoenix which was a belated birthday present for myself and it was much needed... both for friends and sun time. I miss it there.

Birthdays are always a good time to reflect, a good excuse to take trips to catch up with friends and to be selfish for a brief second of time... just a little bit. Even if it's eating half of a rather large cake by yourself. And not feeling guilty about it in the slightest.

A follower and a catcher complemented by the cuddler.

This is Tyson. Or Tyson the Bison. Or Ty. He loves to play catch. He's like a dog, literally. Emerson played catch but not with the gusto that Tyson does. It is probably the most adorable thing I've ever seen. He also appears to guests to be the more antisocial of the two cats but he just absolutely loves Tim and I. He follows us around everywhere and he cries (IE: screams) when he can't find us. Wherever we are, he's lying right beside us. He also plays so hard chasing stuff around that he gets out of breath and can barely stand up straight. It is hilarious. He is definitely the more athletic brother.

This is Calvin. Or Calvin the Kitty. Or Cal. He is the sweetheart. He just loves to be around anybody and loves cuddles. He loves to get licked by the dogs and to put his face in yours to get as close as possible. It is very cute! He doesn't play as hard as Tyson does but he likes to chase around obnoxious things (IE: things that jingle loudly). He explores a lot and generally just seems to be happy go lucky... especially if he has someone to cuddle with.

These boys just turned 1 on March 17 (which was also Berkeley's 6th birthday- unbelievable that I've had her for 6 years!!) It is so funny to me how each animal has their own distinct personality and quirks. I love them all so much!

How I know.

It is the end of the 5th day of a battle with the flu. The second battle of the year and the one thought that might reign over me. Tim and I both have missed days of productivity because we have been crippled with fevers over 101 degrees and aches that make us feel like we are 101 years old.

Today we were feeling slightly better. Sleeping an average of 15 hours a day for the past 5 days coupled with a slight addition to pain/fever reducers (aka Tylenol) has kind of boosted our bodies back into semi-functioning. We have actually regained our appetites and tonight we decided to actually make food. We were also starting to get slightly bored... another sign that maybe we see the light at the end of the tunnel. We thought about going outside but wait. Oh, we can't. Why? It's SNOWING. ARE.YOU.KIDDING.ME?! Last Saturday it was 82 degrees and now it is snowing. I think, just maybe, I could possibly be back in the midwest without knowing it.

Anyway, we decided to make burgers tonight and it was a royal disaster. We were going to make sweet potato fries to go with the burgers but those turned into a sloppy orange mush. It didn't really matter because we probably still weren't hungry enough to eat them anyway. The burgers were done long before we decided to chuck the fries and as we were putting mayonnaise on their rubbery goodness (as a result of getting overdone), I look up from what I was doing to see Tim bellowing over me with mayonnaise on a knife over my head. Uh oh. I grab the jar as my defense.

And then I have a smear on my nose. Damn. Score one Tim. I then chase him with the jar and get some on his face. Yes. Nicely done!! We are then running around the island in the kitchen full on in our mayonnaise war when it happens. I am held down by Tim with the knife of mayonnaise coming straight for my hair and screaming about how I have bad mayonnaise/hair related memories.

Flashback: when I was about 12 years old, my mom read some health article about how mayonnaise and the egg whites in mayonnaise is good for your hair. Well, my mom only used to buy miracle whip. Um, has anyone ever SMELLED miracle whip? In my 12 year old innocence, on a HOT summer day I allowed my mom to put miracle whip all over my hair. Though, I'll have to ask her why she thought that her 12 year old daughter's hair was in such bad shape to need this mayonnaise treatment... I know she had good intentions but the outcome? Horrible. I smelled like miracle whip for WEEKS. And not just smelled. Reeked. I do have to say though, my hair was incredibly soft.

To the present.... I am currently getting globbed by big knife fulls of mayonnaise. In my hair. On my face. On my clothes. I then, intelligent person that I am, decide to jump so that I can get mayonnaise in his hair. He was already in the process of washing it off his face though so in the meantime, he is protecting himself by the spray sink water. I got drenched.

I'm not exactly sure who won this impromptu war although by the end we were both dying laughing and hacking so much that it would have been amusing for anyone to watch. And here is how the story ends. At the end of a horrible sick week, on the verge of a disaster dinner, with mayonnaise in my hair, my shirt soaking wet, hacking up both my lungs, and looking at the snow falling outside on April 18, I am happy and content. Laughing.

Tim's version: Hi blogger land?!?!?! So apparently I'm talking to who knows who?? But anyway, I was about to spread some mayonnaise and decided to smell it myself when I got a tiny dab on my nose, but Jenny didn't see that, so I got the BRIGHT idea, but NO. I'm way too nice, so I tell her what I was going to do.. Then I proceed to tell her that it really DOES smell bad.. SHE BELIEVES ME?!?! Why? Must be her good faithful heart in her fiance. So naturally I put a HUGE smear on her nose! :) And thus the war started..

Hawaii

I think that the title of the post should be more appropriately titled...


HAWAII!!!!!!!


That is about how excited I am. I can barely contain it.


Tim and I are taking a 2 week hiatus over there at the end of October... leaving on October 15 (the day pension auditing season is over) and coming back on October 30 (we have a red eye flight on the 29th). Um.... I cannot wait. We will be spending a week on Maui and a week on Kauai.


The tickets were bought last night. I got a smokin' deal. Now is the hard part... waiting for six months!! Sigh. I will try not to talk about it too, too much in the next six months.

Spring Day in Seattle.

Today it was 65 degrees and sunny here in Seattle. I'm kind of laughing at myself right now because a day like today in Phoenix was a relatively "cold" day... not warm, by any means. It was a day that was used as an excuse to wear a sweater just because it was cold enough to. Today? Today at 65 degrees in Seattle? I skipped happy hour to go run. In a tank top and short pants. It was amazing. It was the first day since spring hit in March that I've actually felt like it's spring and legitimately going to be summer soon.

I also didn't have to go to my least favorite clients today. I'll go back out next week... which is fine because it wasn't today. Next week I'll just complain about it and it will suck even more because the deadline will be that much closer. Oh well.

I was feeling so springy and cheery today that I decided to paint my toenails pink in honor of spring. [Right now Tim is on a 48 hour shift but if for some reason he reads this before he sees me and my cute little toes, I know he is silently high five-ing some god of toes.] My toes have basically been neglected since the holiday parties back in December. Gulp. I know. Bad, bad, bad. But what's the point when you wear socks and shoes and have no reason to bare your toes?

Tomorrow is the last Saturday we have to work in busy season. Our busy season as auditors technically won't end until May but we are lucky in this firm to still be consistent with tax... at least in our work schedule. We'll still be busy but hopefully (fingers crossed) there will be no more Saturdays after tomorrow and there will be no nights at the office past 9pm. And at the end of this month? I get two days, repeat, TWO days off work for a long birthday weekend. I cannot wait.

I can't even tell you how happy I am today... I finally see light at the end of the tunnel. Summer is right around the corner and these mad work hours are this close to being over.

Happy birthday month to ME!

Rock Chalk Jayhawks!!!

I am and will probably always be a Kansas Jayhawk basketball fan at heart. It probably started because my dad is such a die-hard fan even though I didn't go to school at KU. Anyway, every year I follow them and faithfully pick them as winners in my brackets and usually just lose money. Not only did Kansas WIN the 2008 NCAA tournament last night, it was probably one of the best games I have seen in a long time. ROCK CHALK JAYHAWKS, baby! Ah, how sweet it is.

Random...

I am eating about 400 organic disney animal crackers. From the pile of crap that can be found around the office this time of year. Now, this is what I don't understand. WHY, WHY, WHY during this time of year, do we have to keep so much food around and fully stocked when all any of us do is just sit at our desks for 12+ hours a day? It seems very contradictive. I would think that even though we are working hard, this is the time of year when we should be eating less because, seriously? Who has time to work out?

So I have since gained 7 of the typical 10 pounds I gain during January to April of each year. Although in December I lost 5 for some reason so I guess now I'm only 2 over normal. It's probably not a healthy cycle to be in though. Gain 10 pounds in 4 months, hit June, lose it all in a month... simply due to being able to actually move again. It's a bad sign when now just going on a walk can make me sore. I TRIED to get up everyday and do yoga. It worked for about a month. That ended, um, about a month ago.

I have to do my tax return completely over. It's been done since the end of February but because March 2008 SUCKED I totally forgot to file until yesterday I realized it was oh, April 1, and I am actually one of those many millions of people who do have to file my return by April 15... two weeks away. Oops. Good thing I didn't realize that April 16. It's pretty stupid too because I'm getting a decent enough refund. You'd think I'd be jumping at the bit to file. Nope, I'm retarded. Anyway, so I used turbo tax online because I know how to do my own taxes (thanks to starting off as a tax person... and, um, HATING it). So I had already figured out how much I was getting back before I even entered the stuff into turbo tax mainly because I'm a nerd and as I was collecting my various W-2s and 1099s I was figuring it out. So putting it into turbo tax took all of two seconds. Then I forgot about it until yesterday.

Yesterday I go to e-file and problem 1. I have to have my 2006 return #'s if I don't want to sign a paper form. Ugh fine. Call Arizona and check. Problem #2: I owe turbo tax $90 dollars to file my return. UM, HUH?! Apparently even though I clicked the FREE turbo tax box, I somehow got "upgraded" to the $60 "deluxe" edition. ($30 I expected to pay to e-file AZ taxes). Well that's retarded. So I call turbo tax and they tell me to delete my whole return and start over. So NOW it's going to take me longer because I have to get all of the information again and re-input it and hopefully not forget about it for a month. I was so annoyed. I should have just used the tax software at the office. Now that would have been smart.

Last week I lost my last contact. Because I haven't been to the eye doctor since 2005 in Arizona (and thus, my prescription had expired so I couldn't order more of the same contacts), I had to wear my glasses that I got my junior year of college. Do the math... it was about 6-7 years ago. And every year my eyes seem to get worse. The prescription was just a little bit outdated. So I have spent the better part of the last 5 days squinting and walking around feeling like a little old blind lady. Yesterday I FINALLY had an eye exam. Everything went fine... he told me he couldn't believe I was walking (much less driving) with that prescription. Well, duh, I'm the one who knows how blind I've been! My eyes, again, have gotten worse. THEN he freaking dilated my eyes. I don't even remember the last time my eyes were dilated. Well, it kind of sucked because my appointment was over lunch. And apparently when your eyes are dilated you really can't see anything. I probably wasn't supposed to be driving. I got back to the office and realized that I couldn't see ANYTHING. So for four hours yesterday I was basically out of commission. On the plus side though, this morning on the way to work, I was absolutely amazed at how well I can see now. Oh, and I'm going blind. Apparently I have a thin cornea. Maybe I'll get a seeing eye dog named Sophie. Hopefully she will be an english mastiff and be Simon's girlfriend.

I am done eating animal crackers. I'll stop rambling now.

Quote of the Day

"I see many people who depend so much on information they have lost their sense of direction- and the basic understanding and perspective of living. I find that our culture is in an epidemic state of misdirection as well. In some very fundamental ways, never have we had so much information and knowledge, yet been so lost. Information is good. But wisdom is even better. And life is best when you don't divorce living life from that which most gives life. Use information and knowledge but don't ever let information dissect and diminish your living and cause you to lose your way."
-Dr Mark

Hmm. Food for thought first thing in the morning.

Several months worth of pictures, as promised. And not an April Fools Day joke!

On Christmas, our favorite 3 year old, Savannah.


Jordan, our favorite 5 year old with her new recorder. We might have received a phone call a few days later regarding the revenge that we are owed for buying such a Christmas present.

Our favorite baby, Mackenna. I think maybe we just woke up.

Going back to Christmas, I got literally 4 coats (one of which is the black and white one behind me-Thanks mom!), hats, sweaters, gloves, etc. Washington is a LOT colder than Phoenix in the winters. Apparently I was quite vocal about how unprepared I was.

Happy new flat screen TV! Funny that all of the men are surrounding it...

When I went back to Kansas City just after Christmas, I was able to make it to an old family friends wedding reception. His sister, Katie (above) was my very best friend through elementary school and middle school and we have remained friends since. We were fast friends the day she moved to Kansas City from Pennsylvaina and sat next to me in Mrs. Parish's 4th grade class. It was so good to see her! Plus, I found out that SHE is getting married this summer!

Happy 2008!!

A rainy day in Seattle in January... but clear enough to see the mountains when crossing Lake Washington. It was pretty.

Please show me some other state where people wash cars WHEN IT'S RAINING. (Hence, the lovely hard hat). I cannot even tell how hard I was cracking up that day (and still even when I look at this picture).

The truck was also washed on this rainy day. It might have been its last car wash. Sad.

SIMON (the English mastiff dog... he weighs more than me!) and Meg. He might be my favorite dog ever.

Kaylene, Meg and I at the "Don't wear black" party. The theme came as a result of Simon (who kinda drools). And the party was thrown in honor of the first working Saturday of busy season at the end of January.

Girls valentines night out. Love it.

Anchorage, Alaska. Beautiful city. February 2008.

There were dog races going on up in Anchorage when we were there for the Fur Rondy festival. It was pretty cool.

More of Anchorage.

More Anchorage mountains. They are HUGE.

Beautiful sunset in Seattle, February 2008.

Sunset in Seattle over Lake Washington, February 2008.

New FJ. His name is Duncan, February 2008.

Different view of Duncan, February 2008.


I think that's all of the pictures that I have...and done. Told you I would get them up sometime. Happy April!

The conversation went something like this...

Controller at client to auditors: "My babies are doing good."
Us (auditors): "Oh really, that's good to hear"
Controller: "Yeah I just got them in the mail last week."
Us: (confused stares all around the table, someone glances at controller with a questioning look)
Controller: "Yep, I have 10,000 worms on my worm farm I keep in my living room. Just got em in the mail last week. They like to eat coffee grounds."
Us: (Trying not to absolutely crack up) "Interesting."
Controller: (In all seriousness. Literally.) "You all are invited to the baby shower. Only if you promise to bring in a piece of rotten fruit. I'm collecting it for them now."

...Um. Blink. Blink. Could it get much weirder? I guess maybe I should have prefaced this story with all of the other weird stories that have happened in the past two weeks. This particular story happened about 10 minutes before the controller darted up (in the middle of a conversation with us) for an "emergency." Two seconds later after he ran out for the "emergency" he informed us he was going to Starbucks. An hour later, he returns with two taco del mar bags, two sodas. One for then (10am) and one for later (which he ate-cold- at 3:30pm). Last week on one of the days he was only there for a grand total of an hour. He said he would return at 1pm that day and didn't actually return until about 1pm... the next day.

It's been a trip.

I am horrible at posting pictures.

I've been delaying blogging because a) I've been 1% alive and 99% dead for the past three weeks b) on top of being almost dead I have been on probably one of the (if not the) biggest audit my company has for the past two weeks... which, did I mention I am running? Because of the manager that took an indefinite leave of absence January 31? I love him right now. and c) I promised I wouldn't post until I posted the pictures I promised in my last post. Well b has affected c in that I haven't had the chance to actually put the pictures on my computer. It is on my to-do list this weekend. Along with updating the world about March 2008.... a month that I seriously cannot WAIT to be over. It is right up there with one of the worst months of my entire life and I say that with every bit of positiveness I can muster. Which isn't much after having lived through this month. But on the plus side, in 5 days my birthday month begins and I plan on throwing a huge party to celebrate March 2008 being far, far behind me.

Seriously. It's March?

I do not know where the first two months of this year went. And we even had an extra day in February. Speaking of leap year, I always thought a birthday on that day would suck. A gal I work with was this close to having her baby on leap day this year. I think her baby girl was born at 1am on March 1.

It's been a busy couple of weeks. I feel like my life is in high speed and I can't get two seconds to slow it down to even do the mundane stuff. I've basically just been working like I mentioned a couple of posts back. Nothing has really changed significantly. This week I am in the office for three out of the 5 week days and then of course on the weekend. It's nice break and since I only have two new clients this week theoretically I should be able to play catch up.

The past couple of weeks have involved-
1) Buying a new car for Tim. We got him a 2008 Toyota FJ. It's black and with all of the off roading options (don't ask me what they are... all I know is that they are on there). Those cars are actually pretty cool. I was skeptical at first but when we went to look at them and I drove one, I really liked it. It will be such a fun car to take up into the mountains... I have pictures which I will post soon. I promise. The only bad thing about the whole experience was the idiot warranty guy. We were able to negotiate about $5K off of the selling price which we were happy with. But the warranty guy? Ugh. We were at the dealer from 11am to 7pm. About 4 of those hours involved talking with the warranty guy. A complete hick I might add. He was from Oklahoma. I bet our conversation was hilarious. Tim and I were just getting pissed and we hit a point where we didn't care how rude we were being because the guy wouldn't. listen. or understand. no. On our way out he called us stupid for refusing the warranty at his "low" price. Seriously, warranties are lame and if Toyotas really need warranties that badly, then we don't want to buy one. Anyway, the car is cool and of course Tim has all of these ideas for what he wants to do to it to make it more custom but I think that will wait... at least until both of us catch two seconds to breathe.

2) I was in Alaska. I mentioned that in the last post. I also have pictures of this. Which I will post soon. It was actually a nice break from being in the office at nights and on the weekend. And I only concentrated on one client. Not having to juggle was awesome and we finished the audit in a week.

3) Girls nights and friday night happy hours. Love it.

4) Frustrations with office politics. That's about all I can say here.

5) Saturday I was so frustrated and stressed, I left the office at 4pm to go get a facial. I don't get regular facials, I'm more of a "when it feels like it sounds good" type of girl. So it sounded good saturday. I go into the salon where I get my hair done (which is obviously also a spa). I'm on the table and the girl is looking at my face and she says, "You have really thin skin." And I'm all confused, like "so?" She then goes on to say, "well that basically sucks. You are prone to premature wrinkling and sagging." So basically you are telling me that by like my 30 or 40th birthday I'm screwed? And THEN she started picking at my face at zits that didn't even exist. My face was CLEAR when I walked in and I walked out looking like I got into a fight with barbed wire. And I'm paying you for this? It was such BS. I was looking for a relaxing, pampering facial experience not THAT. In hindsight it was actually pretty funny. I've had some good laughs about it.

6) I have been eating so. freaking. much. This started with the chocolate craze a couple of weeks ago. The chocolate continued and the yoga didn't. I'm about half way to the typical gain of 10 busy season pounds. This week I decided that I need to work out more during the week and not just on the weekend. So I have been getting up at 4:30 every morning to do yoga and various other exercises. I've felt pretty good this week so I hope I can keep it up. Usually weekends are my cardio workouts so if I keep doing this every morning and cardio on the weekends I should come out of busy season not completely out of shape (which is what typically happens).

7) On a rare day off a week or so ago, Tim and I took a drive in the new FJ about an hour and a half north to Bellingham after we got it. It was really pretty up there. We stopped by the ocean just outside of Bellingham and kinda hiked around these little areas by the water. I saw crabs and purple and orange starfish! It was crazy!! Western Washington University is up there and that campus is very pretty (I still like the Univ of Washington here in Seattle better though). Bellingham actually had the feel of a small midwest town, but with mountains and water. I've heard it's a lot more rainy up there though. We were so close to Canada. I have always wanted to go to Canada and I'm so close now! Maybe I should get my passport renewed....

8) I am thinking about a post busy season trip. I do not know where yet.

9) I really need to get back to work. I am seriously procrastinating.

10) Today is our niece's 5th birthday. She is getting so big. On Sunday afternoon, she had a party and we gave her cute little pink capri pants, a little red dress, some pink jewelery and a headband to match the pants, and a shimmery purple purse (that I'm pretty sure she slept with that night and didn't stop carrying around the whole day... it was adorable). She put her little wallet and calendar in her purse and proceeded to show me her calendar with dates where "her baby was born and when her baby got flu shots." I almost died from how freaking cute she is. I think a lot of people got her little learning games but Tim and I decided that it was more enjoyable to get her fun stuff every once in a while. Plus, I am better picking out clothes and purses than "how to count" books. I just have no idea about kids and what stage of their development they should be in and at what age. I'll figure all that out if and when I have kids of my own.

I think that's all. Pictures to come soon.

75% done...

I just found out on Friday morning that I passed the financial part of the CPA exam. Now I only have one more section left, which I will take after busy season is over. I'm aiming for May. We'll see. I am super excited that I am so close to being done with this stupid test!!

I just got back from a week in Alaska late last night. It actually wasn't too cold up there- in the 30s and 40s all week. And I saw a MOOSE! At the airport when we first got in, it was just walking around like people in Anchorage say they do. It was pretty wild. The hotel we stayed in was also haunted.

I'll write more later.

Last week I was craving yoga, this week I am craving chocolate.

This is highly indicative of my stress level.

I think I have eaten more chocolate today than in the past year.

I have worked for um, 19 days in a row.

Nineteen.

And not just short days. Long days. Well, Sundays have been shorter. But still. It doesn't make up for the 15 hour days I have been working during the week. Something is wrong with me. I have never worked this hard in my life. I'm pretty sure I'm not a huge fan of getting to the office at 6 every morning and not leaving till 10 at night. And then, repeat is on for the next 5 days.

I mean, I am actually working too. Well, not right now. Today has not been a productive day. I have been eating chocolate, drinking tea, checking email/blogs, writing on my blog (obviously), and I even took a long lunch with a group of friends... co-workers and non co-workers. I think I am burned out.

Tonight is girls night out in Seattle. We are getting dressed up although the prospect of keeping heels on isn't exactly exciting at the moment. As long as there is more chocolate involved, with a prospect of yoga sometime in the next couple of days, I think I'll be just fine and ready to be back at work tomorrow. At 7. Seriously. I have a meeting. If you're thinking "lame" times that by about 100 and that is how I feel.

Monday I head to Alaska for the next 6 days. Last week it was -26 up there. Sunday it is going to be 60 here. Unfair.

I do really like what I do but it's really busy right now. It is just the time of year and like I've said before, if I absolutely hated it, I wouldn't be in this profession. I know that at the end of it all, lies an awesome summer in front of me. Lots of water time, perfect weather, short work days, and long weekends. Ahhhhhhh... can't wait!

Still a little obsessed with the snow thing...

Mainly because that's all there is on the news and, of course, because it became all too personal a week or so ago. Apparently snoqualmie pass has gotten 12 feet of snow in the past few days? Crazy. Hearing the word avalanche tossed around like its an every day, normal thing just seems weird to me.

From the WSDOT this morning: Compact snow and ice on roadway. Drivers should be prepared for travel in extreme winter weather conditions. If the severe weather continues as forecast, WSDOT will perform intermittent avalanche-control as needed. Advance notification will be provided for planned avalanche control work. // Snowing, blowing snow and poor visibility

Yikes.

A week later... and still fairly nasty. Or maybe the title should be, is it summer yet?!

FROM THE WSDOT website: Pass is open. If the severe weather comes as forecast, WSDOT will perform intermittent avalanche-control as needed. Advance notification will be provided for planned avalanche control work. // Snowing

Above is the Snoqualmie pass (the main pass Tim usually takes back to school). It looks ok today but I guess there is another winter storm warning in effect that is supposed to dump another few feet of snow or so.



Above- Stevens pass (aka, the last place poor truck was seen not eaten alive by Semis). Looks ok today. Certainly not like it did last wednesday.

The thing I hate about snow.

I guess I should change one word in the title... from hate to despise. I wonder which is stronger. That's the one I want to use.

I haven't been able to write for a week. My mind has been trying to grasp, ponder, internalize, come to peace with a certain event that happened last week. The only thing that I can ever really come away with is that everything does happen for a reason and that deep within everything is a lesson somewhere.

Here is a quote that I found somewhat touching after the events of last week: "Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time- when pursued like a bandit- will behave like one; always remaining one country or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you... taunting you. At some point you have to stop because it won't. You have to admit that you can't catch it. That you're not supposed to catch it. At some point, you gotta let go and sit still and allow contentment to come to you. This is the message I'm getting. Sit quietly for now and cease your relentless participation. Watch what happens."

This will make more sense in a minute. I promise.

Last Wednesday, Snoqualmie pass (the main pass on a major interstate from here to CWU- where Tim goes to school- was closed). It had been closed for over a day and half due to massive amounts of snowfall... like literally 6 feet in hours. [As a side note, the pass was closed for the better part of a week which has not happened since 1995 and got more snow than it's gotten since 1974]. Also, on Wednesday a natural avalanche occured on this freeway. That has only occurred a couple of times in history. I only say this because I feel it's relevant to note that it was massive snowy. Bad.

So, Tim has class on Wednesday mornings. He was still over here in Seattle and going to drive back to CWU that morning. Not a big deal normally because it's only 1 1/2 hours, he has a 4 wheel drive truck and it goes smoothly.

That morning he got up, pass was closed. Ok. Called teacher and told him he would not be coming. Two hours later... pass is still closed and teacher calls Tim and tells him to "get his ass over her otherwise you will fail." His teacher tells him to take the northern route over the mountains which, although it's open, is known to be way more dangerous (as it is not a major freeway and is a smaller road) and it goes over two passes.

So Tim runs out the door in a panic. Who wouldn't? I mean you start thinking, shit, I'll be fine. I don't want to fail. I'm working my ass off and just to get screwed because my teacher thinks that I can't make it over the mountains? (Also note, another of his classmates was stuck in Seattle and was told the same thing and subsequently also went over the two-pass, more dangerous route).

Two hours after running out the door, Tim's truck is totaled on the back side of the first pass, destructed by three semi's who had taken this northern route since the main freeway pass was closed. He was like a pin ball between two semi's, who spun him around and then he was hit on his drivers side by a third.

I almost threw up when I saw the pictures.

He is ok, miraculously. All morning long, even before I knew what happened, I was sick. I didn't know why I was so worried but somehow the intuitive side of me kicked in and I just knew something was wrong. So many variables went wrong that day but also so many went right. There were so many, "If this had happened..." "If he had been driving a different car..." The outcome could, scarily, have been much different. To say he was very lucky is an understatement.

After processing all of this since last wednesday and coming to terms with the scariness of it all, I really believe that the lesson here is that people just need to slow down. Listen. Observe. Live. Let your intuition guide you. And if yours isn't strong enough, use the people you love for guidance as well. It is hard not to get wrapped up in the heat of the moment... the job, the test, material items, the plans for the future. But really what matters is that you do all of that while taking the time that you need to care for yourself and to let the people close to you know that you love them. And most importantly, do everything in your power to not jeopordize anything permanent for something that is just temporary.

So, to end like I began, the thing I hate about snow, have always hated about snow... is driving in it.

Happy birthday mom!

Today is my fabulous mom's birthday. I hope that she had a great day! I heard it was sunny and 70 in KC which sounds pretty amazing to me. I love you Mom!

Scratching. Like. A. F-ing. Dog. Or worse.

I am scratching every piece of skin off of my body. Literally.

I need someone to come tie my hands together. And then please just rip every little bit of skin off my body so it STOPS ITCHING. Trust me, it won't hurt. It is numb to hurting after being red and inflamed from being scratched so much.

I have perpetually dry skin. Always have had it. Which I somehow neglected to forget about in between Iowa and Washington. You would have expected that I would have had dry skin in Phoenix but nope, in Phoenix I thought it would be fun to spend my time trying to give myself skin cancer (aka tanning non stop... probably not funny if I ever do get skin cancer...) so for whatever reason my skin was somewhat moisturized there.

Here I have no freckles after 3 years of freckles and am so white that sometimes I scare myself especially when I wake up and it's dark and my skin is glowing. It's that white.

And my skin is. so. DRY! It's not even flaky dry. Just dry as in it freaking itches.

It just started 3 days ago but please look back at my last post (aka... I have no life but work). I haven't had much time to even go to the grocery store. How would I make it to buy specialty lotion!? So for three days I have been itching my skin off, then taking scalding showers (which actually do hurt) to try to make. the. madness. stop. It would all be solved if I just took the time to go even just to Walgreens and buy just a bottle of like Jergen's or something with the title of "For super, super, super, super dry skin. Even works on reptiles." I know there is something I used to buy like that. But that was also in Iowa and things are generally a little bit off in Iowa.

The worst part about it is the itching in public. I mean, I have SO. MUCH. of my yummy smelling lotion on. But do I really want to go through a whole bottle of not exactly cheap lotion in oh, a day? Not really. I almost did today (which is how I know how much I used). But even with all of that lotion, about halfway through the day, I. am. dying. I am sitting there talking with my client and for anyone who has ever dealt with a perpetual itch or dry skin issue, do you even KNOW how hard it is to not itch? But you can't just DO that. Come on! You run to the bathroom, itch the hell out of your leg, arm, whatever, and then glob about 2 gallons more of lotion on. Only to repeat the process in an hour.

I think tomorrow this has to end. My skin is no longer white but red. And I am driving myself insane. Either I'm going to Walgreens or I am hiring someone to tie my hands together. But then, since apparently I need to work, I guess the Walgreens route is probably more efficient... I don't know how my client would feel about me arriving in handcuffs or tied up tomorrow, either. Actually they would probably get a kick out of that. An auditor all tied up? I'm sure that most clients may have had vivid dreams at some point about tying down the auditors... especially for the week out of the year where we make their life a not so pleasant experience.

Tis the season... the busy season.

Was up at 4 this morning. Have been at the office at 6am for the past three days. Have worked late at night for the past two nights. Just found out today that another manager in my department at work is taking an indefinite leave of absence in oh, um, a week and a half. I don't really need to touch on anything that involves the words bad and timing. I feel awful for him but it will serve to make all of us much, much busier... as if we aren't all busy already.

I do like the beginning of the season... I don't mind the long hours and the tough work... especially on the fun clients. It's a few weeks to a month in when you're sick of long hours, tough work, work on Saturdays, dreaming of work, emails at midnight, getting confused on which client is which because you have about 20 open that you're trying to juggle. That's when it gets to be somewhat of a drag. It generally isn't too bad... even though I know I complain. But if it was absolutely the worst thing in the world, I guess I wouldn't have stayed in this profession for this many years. It is hard, though.

I think in some ways it's harder on the people closest to you... family, friends, kids if you have them (not me!) It's also hard to juggle the everyday life stuff... it's the time of year where you have slight amnesia about everything NOT involving work. Paying bills, reconciling checkbooks, buying groceries, going to the cleaners, cleaning house, doing laundry. It all kind of becomes a last minute thought and gets a bit neglected. I've already sort of started to do this during the course of this week. It only gets really annoying when you wake up one morning a month or so in and realize that you have absolutely zero clothes to wear... nor do you have any toilet paper... nor do you have any pet food... nor have you eaten a meal at home or not on the run in oh, about a month.

Cheers to the next three months... breathe in and GO!

Stupid, stupid cars.

I had to take Winston in to the mechanic Tuesday. I was overdue for an oil change and he has been making a rather obnoxious noise when I shift into first gear. My friend up here has an audi S4 and knows a mechanic who specializes in European cars. He is so in love with his car that I really trust the person he takes it to. So I called this mechanic and took my car in on Tim's day off. It was rather a long haul because the mechanic is all the way up in North Seattle... and slightly in the ghetto, I might add.

Anyway, the dude was really cool. But I get "the" call the next day. Winston got his oil changed. Sweet. He also might have a couple of leaks. Groan. Ok. And he needs a new clutch. GRRROOAAN. How much is that? I'm told that it takes TWELVE hours to put a new clutch into mini coopers (and we called the dealer to verify) so twelve hours at $100 an hour PLUS the parts. Do the math. It's freaking stupid.

I opted not to do the clutch. Stupid, maybe but when we called the dealer to verify the hours, we also got a quote and it was quoted only a few hundred dollars more... for someone who works on minis everyday (not every single European car). So we considered just taking it to the dealer.

Well, we go to pick up Winston with just having had the oil change done and we find out that a) they aren't even sure that he's leaking from those two leaks that we "had to replace" according to them. They tell us when we get there that it's actually pretty hard to tell. There is "just dirt collected on some of the parts that could indicate a potential leak. But at best a slow leak." HUH?! Um, ok. Cool I guess. And we find out that b) The clutch does not have to be replaced at all right now. [Awesome to know after I almost died of a heart attack when I got quoted the entire price and literally looked into whether or not putting $3k into my car right now was even worth it...] Apparently the clutch is not even slipping and they don't even freaking know if the noise is the clutch or not. The only way they would find out is to just spend twelve hours to get in there and at that point they might as well just replace the clutch. But there is nothing to indicate that the clutch is bad or even remotely close to being bad at this point in time. Makes sense, right?

I mean, it was good for me but COME. ON.

THEN, THEN!! This is the part where I really get pissed off and I don't even know why it pisses me off so much. The day after I pick my car up, I'm at the clients getting my computer bag out of my trunk. I notice that instead of my chrome license plate frame, instead I have a f-ing black. license. plate. frame. with the name and number of the stupid ass auto shop I just took Winston to! They. didn't. even. f-ing. ask. But NOW! Now, my car is a freaking driving advertisement to these dumb asses who just slapped it on without even asking me!

I THOUGHT they just put their stupid frame on the back of my car but nope! Tim and I were out to dinner last night and he pointed out that I also have a lovely (aka f-ing piece of shit) stupid dealer advertisement surrounding my front license plate (which happens to be the BMW dealer plate). And I have no clue where my chrome frames went. They just jacked them and put these stupid plastic retarded ones on.

I mean, someone please tell me who f-ing does that!? Without ASKING!? I mean, seriously people, next time don't change how my car looks. Just fix it! Or if you really want me to consider advertising for you, just give me a sticker or something. And not a sticker that you replace my GU alumni sticker with. A sticker that I can take myself and just throw away. Similar to what I would have done if I had been given these stupid frames.

They are so ugly and make Winston look so ghetto that I am worried I am going to get pulled over. Which is not great considering that my tags expire from Arizona in 13 days. And to get the title transferred to WA takes 2 weeks. I'm basically screwed with that whole thing. Not sure why I put that off till the last minute. And no, I am not interested in thinking about how much time I had up here to take care of that because the truth is that I didn't.

Needless to say, first thing on the to-do list is to find a freaking screwdriver, get new frames and take these stupid ugly frames off Winston. And stat. And then I really need to call the Arizona DMV.

And funny thing about the noise he was making that I initially took him in for? He hasn't made it in two days. Cars are just a pain in my ass.

Random quote of the day...

As promised. You know who you are.

"In love there is always madness but within madness there is always reason."

The art of bodywork

Tim's mom is a massage therapist/Bowen practitioner. She has routinely done bodywork on me... She always tells me how much she loves to do it and of course, I happily oblige to let her practice on me.

Mostly she has done Bowen on me which is a form of energy work. I actually really, really love Bowen. I like the whole mind-body connection thing though so it always works really well for me. I don't know that it would always affect people this same way. Not meaning that it wouldn't be effective, but I think that the more intuitive you are, the better it works. It's kind of a more holistic approach to healing the body with the thought that the body is capable of healing itself, especially when it's given movements that redirect energy to allow it to align in the way that it wants to and is supposed to. It's not like massage or acupuncture or any sort of body work that uses pressure or manipulation. It's just gentle, subtle moves that affect your body surprisingly more than any massage I've ever gotten. It's pretty astounding.

The other night instead of Bowen, Liz opted to give me a massage. I will say right now that I like Bowen better but the massage was amazing. I would not say something if I didn't mean it and hands down, it was the best massage I've ever gotten. Along with the massage and Bowen nights always come really good, candid conversations. This night was no different. After finishing a pretty phenomenal dinner (stuffed peppers) I got the benefits of bodywork, Liz got to practice on me for an hour and a half and we had great conversations.

I would highly recommend that anyone having problems with their body- whether it's physical pain or something deeper or even nothing at all- take the time to get some bodywork done. I am truly a believer in taking care of your body from what goes in (nutrition), what is exerted (exercise, yoga), and how you take care of it (bodywork, staying away from artificial things that can harm it, etc). I think that getting a massage, acupuncture, and especially Bowen can really benefit everyone.

A productive Saturday

It's one of my two last free Saturdays before busy season- possibly the last one, given I have an audit starting next week- and I had it all to myself. It has been so much fun... well, at least fun in terms of feeling very productive.

-Woke up.
-Watched CNN for a half an hour just to get my fill of the latest election info as well as economy info since the past two weeks I've been MIA. In between study sessions I barely managed to see the results of the Iowa and New Hampshire caucuses.
-Showered.
-Checked email, responded to emails. Finally.
-Stopped at Starbucks
-Shopping. Had to buy things that I had run out of over the course of the past two weeks but had not had time to run and do. This included groceries, makeup, etc. Kind of essential stuff. I also made a stop to get treats for the kittens. I bought organic treats. Apparently they don't like organic. It was kind of funny but I felt bad.
-Came home and cleaned my whole place. I mean like deep cleaning. It needed it. I love a clean house more than anything.
-Did laundry.
-Organized my whole closet. I have a rather large bag of clothes for goodwill. This took like 3 hours.
-Watched the Seahawks lose to the Packers in between organizing and cleaning.
-Posted on my blog.

And it's now it's 5pm... Time to enjoy the night. Hope everyone had a happy Saturday!

Ah....

I had a very vivid dream last night that I was lying on some beach (Hawaii, maybe? Cali?), in a bikini, soaking up the sun, walking around in flip flops. It was one of those dreams that just kind of sticks with you throughout the next day.

I don't think this was a sign that I need a vacation or anything... the thing that was most prevalent in the dream was how warm and nice the sun felt. I think it needs to be about 80 and sunny here today... I wonder how likely that is.... So far, no sun. And about 50. Probably not going to happen.

Maybe tomorrow? Or maybe I'll just have to keep dreaming... until about July. Unless I make a trip back to Phoenix before then. Hmmm...

Not always wanting to talk about the serious stuff... but here we go.

Yesterday night I found out that one of our friends in college was in a very bad car accident on the way to work, so bad that the last I heard was serious or critical condition. I wasn’t extremely close to this person but the way that things work when you go to a small school or live in a small town is that everyone and everything is relatively close. Graceland is such a tight knit community that you find yourself making connections with people just solely because you experienced Graceland at one point or another, not necessarily because you knew someone while you were AT Graceland. I have already decided after being out of Lamoni for 4 years that I will probably experience this “Graceland connection” thing with people I have never met for the rest of my life. That’s how prevalent it’s been even in just the past 4 years when I’ve lived in places no where even close to Iowa. And while you are at Graceland, you basically know everything about everyone and vice versa. It’s just the nature of a small, closely knit campus and community. It’s actually pretty cool. I could not and would not ever choose to live in a small town again but I am glad for the college experience I had in one.

In these types of communities, news spreads. People are aware. When stuff was going on in my personal life, I was irritated and annoyed by the fact that everyone seemed to KNOW. I got several phone calls of “I heard this…,” “Is it true?” And I would sit there baffled… how does someone in Texas, New York, Iowa, wherever know about very personal details about my life in Arizona?? But, like I said, it’s just the nature.

Needless to say, I did hear relatively quickly about the news of this friend yesterday. I don’t need to go into graphic details here or to say how horrible it is because 1) I don’t think it’s the forum to discuss intricate details and 2) saying how horrible it is would be just redundant and obvious.

I can say that when stuff like this happens… to anyone, in any form… it really makes you think about what’s important in life. That sounds sappy but it is true. I mean how crazy is it to think that one second you’re driving along to work and the next second you are about this close to not ever going to work again? You don’t ever think that anything like this will happen to you or to anyone you know but when it does hit close to home, it’s kind of like someone takes you by the shoulders, shakes you hard and yells in your face, “WAKE UP! LIVE! Life is short! Be aware!” It kind of makes you evaluate or re-evaluate your life just to make sure that every moment you’re living now is the moment that you want it to be and that every person in your life now knows how much they mean to you. It also makes you kind of let go or just realize that some of the small things you sometimes dwell on (ahem, CPA exam) are not really that important in the grand scheme.

In the past two years my life has gone through some significant transformations. I have never really discussed my feelings about anything on this website mainly because the feelings were too raw and too personal to share in a format like this. It just didn’t seem right. Plus, there have been many, many people that have disagreed with my actions and the path that I decided to take. To talk about why I made some of the choices I made here seemed to be just an extended form of an argument with all of these people who either didn’t agree with me, didn’t support me, or flat out thought I was wrong, rude, ignorant, whatever the descriptive words were… and I know there were plenty floating around. Needless to say these people aren’t really in my life anymore. I guess I could use the same descriptions on them but it isn’t really worth my time. It has always amused me, though, that these people, the least supportive and the ones no longer in my life, were also the least invovled and unaware of the situation. They just judged. The people who did support me got me through it and as much as other people don’t want to believe it, it was hard for me and to just say it that simply is the only way I can say it because I can never fully explain to anyone what form of hell it was like in much of the process… for the past two years up through changing my life so drastically to move to Seattle.

There were days I wanted to turn the clock back so far it felt like I would have to go back to second grade to get things right again. At the time, two years ago, I felt like I was fighting for the greater good, without anyone supporting me or understanding that I wasn’t just crazy. I tried to do everything with some form of grace but I know that I failed miserably in that respect. It just doesn’t happen like that. I cannot look back and say that I was always proud of who I was at the time, only that I tried to do everything in a way that was both respectful and graceful. Some people do not understand and to these people I can only say how very sorry I am. I never set out to hurt anyone in the way that I did. I am hopeful that someday it all makes sense and people do not see me for the hurt that I caused but instead that I really was doing what was best for me and what I thought was the best for everyone involved.

The point of all this is that horrible events like what happened to this guy I knew in college do make you evaluate your life. I am a living testament to the fact that if something isn’t working in your life, if something doesn’t feel right or if you are not ultimately happy, you can and you have to do something about it. It is hard. It is still hard for me… two years later. You do live with the decisions you make. But if you make the right ones and learn from the missteps, it’s worth it. Today I live in Seattle. Today I know that making the tough decisions got me here, to a better place, to a place where I feel independent, strong, loved, and most importantly happy. It is not always easy but when you encounter the fact that life really is so short you must make the decisions to get your life to the point that it should be… and now.

There is no excuse to stay in a situation just because that’s what everyone else thinks you should do or it makes sense in a variety of ways except the one most important to you… the one where you feel right about it. Life is too short to just sit around hoping things will happen to you or that things will get better and you’ll just magically start to feel happy. You have to just get out there and make what you want out of your life to enjoy it to its fullest. I did. And I walk around now knowing that it is possible to feel happy, to feel confident in choices, to not feel like there has to be any defense of the decisions made and in that respect, to not really care so much about what other people think because you know deep down you did the best you could, with the choices you made in the circumstances you had. At the end of the day you feel peace about your life and that you are where you are supposed to be. And that’s really what it’s all about.

In the meantime, just say a little prayer, do meditation, chant a mantra, throw some good thoughts out to the universe- whatever you do- to my friend from Graceland across the country. I sincerely hope he will be ok.

I have so much to write about...once I can think again.

I spent the better part of my day today taking the financial accounting part of the CPA exam and the better part of the last two weeks studying for it. Two seconds ago I almost forgot how to spell financial accounting because my brain is so over trying to function at a high capacity. It was so over it that I basically crashed... hard... after the exam today.

Last night at around 11pm when I was getting ready to go to bed after studying for about 15 hours Saturday and at least 8 Sunday and yesterday, it occurred to me that 1)I might try to find a new profession if I don't pass this part of the exam solely because I do not think that I want to give up any more effort and large time periods of my life studying for stuff like debt securities, that honestly, I could care less about. I am an accountant but knowing stuff like that (times about 200 in 400 different subjects) is not. my. job. Why don't the people at the cpa exam get this?! Oh course I will finish (mom). I just hope to god I pass. 2) It also occurred to me that I might be slightly jealous of computers. I mean if I could just download all of this stuff into my brain in about 2 minutes it would be much more time efficient. And I'd never forget it. Hmmm...

I'll write more later.

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone had a safe and happy last day of 2007 and first day of 2008...

Quote of the day today, explaining my first day of 2008: "What? I only drove head on into traffic for a little bit."

Happy holidays! (And Happy Birthday, Dad)!

This entry is wishing everyone a very merry christmas and a happy new year... and a happy birthday to my dad (today!)

Here, there and everywhere.

I spent last week in Anchorage, Alaska. It's kind of bizarre that I was up there this week because it was the exact same week I was up there last year. But this year I was up for an entirely different reason than last year. I live in a different place, I work for a different company, I know different people. I think last year if I had known what the future year from that point held, I might not have ever wanted to leave Alaska and just hibernated there for a while. But, then again, maybe I am lying because if I would have hid out in Alaska, although I would have missed the bad, I would have completely missed the good and there was so much good in this past year.

My time in Alaska this year was rather uneventful and mostly involved me working rather hard, freezing my freaking butt off in almost zero degree temps (walking outside looking at projects for 6 hours does not help the freezing factor), seeing old friends, and becoming closer to new friends that were working with me up there. I remained amazed at the purity that Alaska has to offer. Every time I have visited, I feel some sort of serenity. It is so pure and beautiful and has some sort of pristine grace that is hard to find in many other places...even in the winter when it is only light out for 5 hours a day.

The night I flew in from Alaska, I had a bottle of my favorite pinot noir, fresh salmon and basil pasta, and fresh green beans waiting for me at home. Who can really complain about that? Granted it was 10:30 at night when I walked in the door but it was amazing, nonetheless, and exactly what I needed after a long week of work.

Saturday morning, we were off and running again back to the airport to catch a flight to Reno, NV. Reno is not pristine or pure or beautiful. Sorry if that offends anyone but I just don't really love that city. I do love Tahoe though and it did not disappoint this time, either. We stayed in a cabin in the north lake and drove to south lake for dinner and a concert the first night. I ended up dancing on stage at the concert. Basically, we were in the front row and the crowd was so energetic that I was getting pushed all over. So I got to go up onstage and dance. It was so much fun... and definitely not something I can say I've ever done before especially with anyone remotely famous.

Sunday morning, we, er, Tim, ended up saving some kids life. It's so funny how timing works out. People always say that you end up in the right place at the right time and I have to believe this happens more often than not. That morning we took our time getting moving and decided to go out for breakfast sometime around mid morning. Driving down from the cabin, we saw the lake in all its glory and decided abruptly to alter our plans to go take pictures. When we arrived at the shore we saw two people on the ground. We weren't sure what was going on and realized that one of them was having a seizure. To make a long story short, this 18 year old kid from Brazil fell and hit his head on ice, hard enough to have seizures for 3 minutes, to lose consciousness, to become unresponsive, etc. Tim had to open up his airway and stabilize him while I sprinted to call 911 to get medics with drugs/tools on the scene. It is just so astounding to think that we were there because the guys' friend did not have a cell phone on him and there was absolutely no one else around. Things like this make me believe that every action happens in the exact right moment, in the way that it's supposed to. If we had been there either 30 seconds before or after we were (or not at all) the outcome could have been very different. We, er, I was pretty shaken up for the rest of the day Sunday as I don't really have to deal with that kind of stuff very often... well, ever.

The rest of the weekend in Tahoe was spent exploring, shopping a bit, playing in the snow, eating, drinking, warming up in front of the fire and just enjoying each other's company in the woods... finally having a few days to relax, recoop, and reenergize.

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The guy on the left is named "Roadkill." Literally. I kid you not. I checked his ID. He was absolutely hilarious. I work with the guy on my right. He's ok too.

My alaskan friend and I... DJ James! We met a year ago when I was in Alaska. He's a very cool guy.

After dancing on stage at the concert. Hopefully the guy doesn't remember me for either how sweaty I was in this picture or for my dancing. Although Tim says I was awesome. I'm not sure I believe him.

Timmy and I at the beautiful lake... on the southwest side at Emerald Bay.

Freezing. And windy. But so snowy and pretty.

Are there any words?

And again. Picturesque.

Santa, baby! We stopped at a fire station in south lake tahoe that was hosting a santa booth thing. We actually stopped because a) they had a fire engine completely decked out in Christmas lights and we wanted a picture and b) we needed advice on where to eat. Turns out we got to sit on Santa's lap as an added bonus.

Cute little wooded cabin.

SNOW!

50% done.

Just found out I passed the second section of the CPA exam that I took up here in Washington. So far, two for two up here. Ah, how sweet it is... I'm finally starting to see the finish line. It's definitely nice to put in the time studying and to just pass the first time around. I don't know why I didn't get around to really doing this before... like four years ago. Anyway, now I'm just waiting on one score, and I take the final section January 8.

I have lots to update on... I just got back from 5 days in Alaska followed by 4 days in Tahoe, Cali. Will write more later...