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.

>

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...

OH.MAN.

Sometimes I am so retarded. I'm going to share this story because I am still laughing about it.

I've said it before and I will say it again- being an accountant is dangerous. So, the other day I was at my clients. We are in a conference room with tile floors, wood chairs, and it's all encased in glass. So it's pretty much like we're in a fish bowl.

Well, being the smooth person I am, on this particular day, I decided to reach over to my left side to get something out of my purse. This proved to be a very bad decision. Instead of achieving success in getting whatever it was I was trying to get, I basically managed to put on a show for the whole office. It went something like this:

Girl auditor reaches over in her chair. It's too MUCH of a stretch and wood chair on tile doesn't stay stable. Wood chair flies out from underneath girl auditor, girl goes flying in the opposite direction of the chair. Not only that but girl and chair manage to pull down everything on the table on top of girl. Including laptops, notebooks, papers, calculators. [Luckily no drinks fell. That would have been TOTALLY disastrous.] Being that there were multiple large items falling there was quite a bit of noise so people came to look at the ruckus and the girl auditor splayed out in the fishbowl with a barrage of laptops and paper on top of her. People laughed. Hard.

The worst was the first guy who was so red from trying NOT to laugh I thought that he could give himself a hernia. I mean, for. the. love. of. god. I just made a total ass out of myself. Don't pretend like I'm not a total dumbass. Just laugh with me.

Busier and busier...

This week started off with my three hour flight back to Seattle after almost a week in Kansas City for Thanksgiving. My week in Kansas City was splendid (I actually don't think I've ever used that word before... but it's fitting, nonetheless). I was happy to be home and to see my parents, brother, and family who were in from other parts of the country. I also got to see a few old friends, too, which is always a huge bonus.

It was the first trip in a long time where I didn't feel like I was rushed and was in and out of there, seemingly without blinking. We ate and ate and ate... and then ate some more. We did the same in terms of shopping. I'm having trouble getting started on my Christmas shopping because I am tired of shopping after last week. I never thought I'd say that. Like ever.

I was also able to go out with my brother and his friends to Westport in KC- a place that I haven't been on a Saturday night in oh, um, years? We had a tasty dinner at the Jerusalem cafe (an old fave) and then spent the rest of the night hanging at Harry's. I do have to say that I am surprised that people can smoke in bars in KC. I guess I'm just spoiled by the northwest. It was a good time though and so fun to hang with such cool people for a night.

I restricted myself from taking my computer to Kansas City so that I would be completely free from studying or working. If my computer was there, I just would have felt guilty but I didn't WANT to study or work so this was a much better alternative. I'm glad that I took several days away from working/studying because on Monday I hit the ground running at work. I was at a client all week and then in the office at night a couple of nights this week. Apparently busy season here starts, um, November 26?! For the next three weeks, I'm busy out at clients doing year end planning/interim work. One of the weeks involves a trip to Alaska for one of our clients. It's actually the same exact week I was up there last year which is weird. But I'm glad to be going back... it's beautiful up there.

When I get back from that late on a Friday night, I turn right around and head off to Tahoe for a long weekend with Tim the next day (which is subsequently both his birthday and the day that I met him a year ago). We are taking the short trip to have a few days off together to a)celebrate birthdays/anniversaries b) spend time quality time together which we don't seem to get much of anymore with the craziness of both of our lives and c)relax for one last time before I lose my life officially in January. Literally. I do not exaggerate. I am not taking any time off for Christmas basically because I can't.

And then, somehow it's 2008. How did that happen? It's so cliche but I swear to god, I don't know how every year goes by so much faster.

Reflections

This whole weekend was spent cramming for the next section of the CPA exam- the business section- that I take, um, yep, tomorrow at 11am. Tim was working all weekend saving people's lives or something important like that and when he came home he asked me how my weekend was and I looked at him all like, I have no clue how to understand anything right now that doesn't involve the 500 pages of business shit I've been attempting to cram into my brain. Oh, and as a side note, it's like freaking all four years of college crammed into 500 pages. College that happened, oh, 5 years ago. And since then I've been doing public ACCOUNTING. Nothing related to this crap. I feel like I should have my MBA after this torture.

Enough complaining. It will be over tomorrow at this time.

Whoever wants to be critical right now and say that I should be studying can just take a seat. I do not think studying anymore would be effective. Enough hours are into it... Including about 30 over the course of the last few days. If I don't know it by now, I won't learn it in the next hour.

I think the difference this year is that I actually want this now. Last year I didn't know what I wanted but putting all of about 10 hours into studying for this exam leads me to believe that I probably didn't really care a whole lot. I guess that kind of happens when your life is all disheveled, though. Everything else kind of loses its importance until the pieces get put back into place.

I have to say, I've learned so much in this past year... not the least of which include finally finding a place where my life really is in order. The choices and decisions I made getting here were not always easy but sometimes the right thing to do is the hardest. Through it all I've finally found a place where life just seems to work. I know who my true friends are and I am so grateful for them. I've learned that it is possible to have best friends as a people you've been to hell and back with and that to keep those friendships speaks volumes about the character of the person as well as the relationship to begin with. I've also learned that there are some people who are shallow and fake and only see the reality they want to see. I've seen the strength and love of my family in action. I've met some new wonderful people that fulfill me and teach me things that make me want to be a better person. Most importantly, I found someone who shows me what this world is all about. He gives me hope for the future, strength in the present, and love to know that regardless of anything else in life, that will remain.

Funny how a little business and CPA exam can put so much into perspective and cause so many reflections about life. If only I was tested on that and not business crap... but I guess life really is just one huge test... And if you come out knowing you did the best you can, you pass.

That time of year

Today the holiday season officially started for me. I was surprised last weekend when I went to the mall and saw red and green all over the place. I was shocked when I was out running on November 1 and saw a Christmas tree in the window of someone's house. But I kind of chalked it up to overzealous marketers and crazy people who are just trying to force the holidays to come earlier and earlier every year. I mean, seriously, I still can't get my head around the fact that Halloween has already passed, it can't be almost the holiday season! I don't know where time goes...

But today, marks the beginning of the holiday season for me. When I went to Starbucks, the drink of the day was a peppermint mocha. The store was decorated in red and green with candy cane cups. There was Christmas music playing. And most importantly, the cups were the red holiday cheer cups and they put red sprinkles on my drink.

I don't know why but those red cups just do it for me. They make me happy and all warm inside... and apparently they jolt me back to reality and tell me that the holiday season IS right around the corner.

I'm not going to start to listen to the music just yet or put up a tree. I'm just going to let myself be a little bit excited about red cups and sprinkles and peppermint mochas and knowing that the holidays really ARE that close.

Restricted from ranting

Although I just spent an hour or so at happy hour with a bunch of my co-workers ranting about my day today, I still wish I could rant more. And I wish I could in this forum. Unfortunately I can't.

I can say that I freaking hate stupid people, in particular stupid clients. I also hate office politics.

On the plus side, the senior manager I've been working with directly and I are probably a lot closer after today as our days were basically identical. And because I failed the parallel parking part of my drivers test. I was headed to happy hour and noticed this manager of mine holding a spot on the street for me to park, but after attempting to parallel park Winston, he had to do it for me...thus stopping traffic and acting like gumby getting into little Winston. My senior manager is like 6'6" or something crazy like that and I don't think he moved the seat back to move my car. People were staring. And laughing. I was dying. That humorous end to a crazy day coupled with happy hour with a great group of people made the events of the day much more tolerable.

Interesting day at the office

So I'm at work and right now one of my co-workers is trying to pull out my other co-workers hair. I think he is annoyed. She is just, um, maybe slightly immature? I mean I did that in 2nd grade. I'm not really sure what the point of it is because as far as I can tell nothing is wrong with his hair. They are both fairly new staff people and he is more new than she is so maybe it's some weird form of new staff initiation.

Almost Famous

I spent the weekend away from Seattle and on my way back to Seattle this morning I was approached by a reporter at the airport who asked if I had a few minutes. I said, sure and the next thing I knew there was massive lights and camera action. She started asking me all about my travel plans and spent about 5 minutes talking to me about various items regarding my trip.

Apparently tomorrow I'm going to be on TV.

I've never been on TV before. 25 has been an exciting year.

It's just too bad it was 6am and I was practically incoherent from lack of sleep (about three hours to be exact). But at least I had gotten up and taken a shower thanks to the fact that I was headed straight to work after getting off the plane. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure the camera lady would have avoided me.

October 15...

I have never been more happy to have October 15 behind me as I am this year. It marks the end of our pension auditing season and for whatever reason, this year it seemed as if every.single. client was just trying to be as difficult as possible which in turn made last week challenging, at best.

I had to cancel three dentists appointments as a result in the past three weeks and finally was able to make it in today. Can't really say that I'm glad I finally made it. I freaking hate the dentist. I had to get a crown for the root canal I had about a month ago. I thought that the root canal was supposed to make the root die. Well, to anyone that knows anything about dentistry, I would love to know why the crown freaking. HURT?!

Seattle is due for a huge wind/rain storm today equivalent to the one on December 14 last year (the day before I flew into town from Anchorage and met Tim). That one knocked out power for two weeks for some people and it was NASTY around here (I can testify to that...) Today the remnants of some tropical cyclone are headed over... and it is not looking pretty out there right now. I kind of wouldn't complain if all of the power was knocked out here and everyone just had to go home.

Although maybe it doesn't really matter. Basically I have no life for the next couple of weeks. I pretty much have to study my ass off since I take the tax/law part of the CPA exam in, uh, 13 days and just started studying about 2 days ago...

Commute times

One of the best parts of living where I do now is that my commute to work is all of about 8 minutes. I do get on the freeway but I don't have to. It's a crazy concept for me given that I just spent the past 2 years of my life in Phoenix and probably 6 months of that two years can be written off to sitting in traffic while commuting an hour (sometimes more) each way. I almost don't really know what to do with myself with the extra 2-3 hours a day that I now have. Luckily, I've figured out that now I actually have time to exercise! And to eat dinner NOT at 9pm! And maybe even to actually COOK dinner! And to go to happy hour! And to do errands! And to do whatever else I freaking want to do because I have so much time... I can't even tell you how nice it is. I had this same sort of convenience going for me in Iowa too, and surprisingly justified the commute enough in Phoenix to not really miss the short drives to work. Now that I have been reminded of what it is like to have somewhat of a life, I don't think I'll ever revert back to Phoenix commute times.

Some days I drive to work from Ellensburg when I stay with Tim over there at night. It's about a 1-1.5 hour drive into work only because I'm going up and over the mountains... which could get scary in oh, about 2 weeks when it starts to get snowy and icy over this particular pass. Right now I don't mind this drive because I only do it once a week-at most- and it's the prettiest drive in the world right now. Most of the peaks have snow on them, the leaves are all different colors and it's just so divine looking at the times I am driving through the mountains. I miss the music/car/me time I had in my Phoenix commute sometimes so this allows me some free time to enjoy the mountain beauty, to catch up on phone calls, to listen to music, and after enjoying all of that, it essentially reminds me that at the end of it all, I am glad that I get to enjoy this now but don't have to do it 5 days out of every. single. week. anymore.

Ah... more boring accounting talk...

When I moved up to Washington the last thing I really wanted to start thinking about was the whole CPA exam thing. It is such a process to meet the requirements (that vary by state), get billions of official transcripts and send them all over the freaking country, apply to the state board, figure out what you're missing from the application, resubmit, etc, etc. And then after that you wait to hear from the state board if you can sit for the exam, and then you wait to hear from the AICPA. The whole application process in itself takes several months. It's a drag.

Anyway, I don't really know why I wrote about how much I hate the application process given that I sucked it up and applied anyway. I just found it particularly annoying this time because I just went through it all in Arizona. I felt like it should transfer. But whatever. I'm done ranting about that. Until it annoys me again. Then there might be another post solely devoted to the annoyances of nothing being consistent when it. should. be.

So, I applied. I got my notice to schedule from the AICPA. I scheduled the test for August 23, 2 weeks before I was supposed to take it (most people would say this is not a very good idea... and yeah, it really wasn't). Then I crammed for 4 days before the test. Then I took the test for 4.5 hours on August 23rd and walked out feeling like I really just needed a glass of wine. People ask how you think you do on stuff like that and it's like simultaneously hitting your head against a wall while trying to shoot a fly with a rubber band. Damn near impossible. I had no clue how I did on that test. Some questions were ok, some were not. Overall I was just happy to be done. Anyone who has taken this test before will tell you that they either 1) walk out crying or 2) feel like it could go either way because it's just too hard to tell if you did good or bad. I was not the exception in this case.

Last Friday I got my results back from the August 23rd test. Yes, please do the math... that's ALMOST 2 months to get the score back from a computerized test. LAME. Anyway, it was well worth the wait- I passed! With an 84. Which means I studied TOO much (you only have to have a 75).

But I was excited... I really wasn't wanting to change my career but I kinda made a little promise to myself that if I didn't pass this section after using so much time off to study for it then I was going to look into another profession. I'm not a very patient person and wasting my time taking the same test over and over again just doesn't really fit what I have in mind for my life. Granted I should probably give it more than one try but I wasn't willing to. But now I don't have to worry about that. I'm scheduled to take another section on October 31, then another on November 20 and then the final one sometime at the beginning of January.

I'm scheduled to have about 7 days off in the course of the next two months for the two upcoming tests... I hope that studying proves to be worth it again! But I won't know until, like, next June. Wish me luck!

Accounting is a dangerous profession

Somedays I have to take my laptop home from work so that I can work at night. Last night, I decided that this was necessary. So as I was leaving, I was putting my laptop away into my computer bag and then I was unplugging my power cord. The next thing I know?

BAM!!! BZZZZZZZ. BZZ. BZZ.

I electrocuted myself.

Oops.

I never stuck my finger in a socket as a kid so I guess this makes up for that. It was very bizzare. The shock ran all the way up my arm and into my back. Probably not supposed to do that on a regular basis.

It's not the first time I've managed to injure myself on the job. A year or so ago, I fell down about 20 steps at a clients and landed in divebomb position on the floor... and the floor was marble so I skidded on my stomach about ten feet across it.

Now, that? THAT was classic.

Rainy weekend recap

Weekend was long, rainy, and overall excellent. Tim came back to Seattle on Thursday night to spend the weekend since he doesn't have classes on Fridays and he won't be starting his hospital time until November (which will then occupy all of his weekends as he will be working 48 hour shifts trying to meet various goals for the year- like 30 innubations/tubes, 500 trauma/cardiac patients, 100 IV starts, etc. I don't really understand what all of this means either, but I am learning...and hearing disgusting stories that remind me why I am an accountant in the meantime).

Friday I left work early and went with Tim across the water to Seattle to run errands... pick up transcripts, try on uniforms, etc. It wasn't such a bad deal for me because I got to spend time with him, I love going into Seattle, regardless of what I am going for, and the day ended with a trip to Cactus- a restaurant that has the best margaritas and mojitos I've ever had. Strange, considering I lived in Phoenix for 3 years, where there are as many mexican restaurants there as there are starbucks up here.

Saturday was cold and rainy. We were going to go to a Washington U huskies tailgating/game day but opted out once we got up and saw the weather. Instead, we spent a lot of the day working and studying, which seems lame but it was the perfect day for that. We worked, drank tea, and sat under blankets. It was actually really nice. We got the newly released season 5 of family guy so we spent an hour or so watching that after we finished studying and working. Saturday night we went to Pen Thai... probably the best Thai food I've had. I crave Thai food on a weekly (and sometimes multiple times weekly) basis.

Yesterday was also rainy and cold. We hung out with Tim's three neices (ages 4, 2, and 4months), made breakfast, and then ran a couple of errands before he had to leave.

Overall, it was a really low key weekend but it was so relaxing. It was a nice change of pace from what both of us keep up with in our weekly lives.

Drunk on coffee

Note to self: As tired as I feel on Monday mornings and as easy as it is to get caught up in the Seattle coffee-holic syndrome, I will cease consuming starbucks peppermint mochas, as much as I love them... especially without eating first.

I am actually buzzing right now.