Another year *almost* down.

I can't believe today is December 28th. In just 3 more days the year will be over. Crazy. I always get a little weird in the head this time of year, just nostalgic and strange. The passage of time freaks me out a little bit and never is it more evident than at the end of a year (or decade, as it were).

We had a nice christmas. Two of them, actually. One with my family, one with his. My christmas decorations are almost completely taken down, only the tree to go and it doesn't have any ornaments on it presently. I got all the knicknacks and stockings and candles and front porch trees and stuffed things that sing and wreaths and christmas tree shaped plates and dish towels with snowmen on them and mistletoe and window clings and crocheted snowflakes and snowglobes and ornaments taken down yesterday. Then I ran out of steam. So the tree is still there, with icles and lights and a star on top and one lonely little red ball that i missed when taking the rest of the ornaments off. And it is still beautiful, even though it's essentially naked. We should all look so good naked. Tonight, I might haul all the containers and boxes and bags down stairs and then disassemble the beautiful tree and put the furniture back where it belongs and head into the New Year with a clean house.

I found out the week before christmas that I did not pass the 3rd part of the exam. I was more than a little bummed about it. But I'm still studying for the next part, to be taken January 11 and then I'll be studying for yet another part that I'm taking January 28th. But then, oh sweet January 29th - there will be NO studying. Actually, there will be no studying until February 15th at the earliest. That's when I'll find out my scores and it's possible that studying will be over forever. But either way, no point in studying until I find out if i passed, right? So January 29th will be a wonderful day - tax season or not.

oops...

I've been away a month and in that time I failed to mention that I PASSED my SECOND part of the CPA exam!!!!!! I'm anxiously awaiting the results for my 3rd part...any day now! And I'm studying to take the 4th part (which is a re-take) on January 11th. That's my birthday too, so I'm hoping that'll bring me some luck - who knows!

Other than that, nothing too exciting happening. We hosted Thanksgiving this year and had my parents, His parents, and my sister, her husband and their daughter over. We also invited Husband's grandfather, but 92 year olds are sometimes hard to get along with and he couldn't be bothered to come over. At least he knew he was welcome, that's all we can do.

I also had a visit with my new doctor, I think I finally found one here that I like. Since we moved up here, I had been going to a guy in the town where we live, but there was just something about him that I didn't love, so I switched to one close to where I work instead, which is much more convenient. I've never been to a female ob/gyn before, but i really like this woman. Oddly enough, the GP that I found up here is also female and believe me, sexist little ol' me does not prefer female doctors, but I like them both, so I'm going to stick with them (until they give me a reason not to, anyway).

On a sad note, we lost one of our guineas on the 9th. It has been very cold here (in the teens at night) and there was one (his name was Roy) that the others have picked on their entire lives and as a result, he was much smaller than the rest and just generally puny. I used to give him his own food when they came out in the yard and stuff, but they're outside animals and there is only so much you can do short of bringing him in the house to raise. So we think the bullying and the cold just took their toll on him. Poor thing. However, we have winterized their house (and did before he passed away), and the rest of them are all fat and happy. Their feathers are smooth and they look thick and we finally found a waterer that doesn't freeze which is pretty sweet.

Well, better get to work!

Holy shit, Batman!

Pretty sure this is my first blogpost from home. Getting on the internet at home isn't convenient anymore. First of all - I should be studying (as is the case right now) and then you have find a computer, turn it on (wait), then find a comfortable place to sit with it where it can be plugged in (unless it's just a quick surfing trip), then you can finally open your window and do your internet business. Of course, now that I write that out, I'm not really sure what the problem is. Maybe it's just because there is always something else to do at home now (like studying!) and by the time we finish doing stuff and settle in at night, we're too lazy to go thru those steps. Oh well.

ANYWAY, I'm completely off track here. The reason I'm neglecting the studying that I'm way behind on is to drop in and let you know that I FINALLY passed my first part of the CPA exam!!!!!! Ok, yeah, I'm pretty sure 100% of the 3 people who read this blog already know that, but if there is one person left in the world that i haven't told and there is the vaguest possibility that he/she will stop by here - then I have to share!! I want EVERYONE to know!!!! (I'm gonna feel pretty dumb 18 months from now when I haven't passed the other 3 parts and I'm about to lose this part, huh?) Oh well, cross that bridge when I get to it.

Other than that, not much going on around here. Husband has been out of town on business all week but will hopefully return tomorrow (yay!!). Turns out our house is creepy as fuck after dark when you're alone ::shiver:: and I don't like it. I'm not sure what I think is going to happen, especially considering there is an 84 year old woman who lives in front of us who has lived there alone for 7 years and nothing has ever happened to her, but she's a lot closer to the road (at least that's what my paranoia keeps whispering in my ear). So basically what I'm saying is that the main things that drew me to this house in the first place (no neighbors, seclusion, privacy, for real darkness at night) are the very things that are unnerving me completely this week. Hmm...lesson learned. Regardless, I'm pretty sure I have an ulcer now from sitting out in the living room freaking out all evening for 3 nights in a row.

Right now, I'm in bed (getting ready to study some more!) with all the doors in the house locked, the bedroom door is locked and I have 3 dogs, a shotgun and a 357 in here with me and I'm scared. Nothing on earth is more dangerous than a scared woman with a loaded gun (with no safety). I warned Husband not to come home unannounced unless he wanted to get his ass shot off.

Ok, I gotta get back to ignoring the 30 million sounds I hear every minute and get some more studying done.

Finally Friday (or...How a 4 Day Week Can Stretch into Eternity)

So today is Friday. That's cool. I've been at work for an hour and haven't accomplished a single thing...not cool. But, I figured since I haven't done anything yet, might as well publish a blog post and then get started...no sense rushing things.

This weekend, we painted our living room/kitchen. Our house pretty much has an open floor plan so the living room runs into the kitchen and painting them one at a time really wasn't an option. We started some time ago painting the places we could reach because, you see, we have vaulted ceilings that are at least 12' high at the peaks. Naturally though, that wasn't the problem. The problem is when you look at our house, there are dormers on the front, but no attic, instead, the windows are 2 stories up in the wall, one in the kitchen, one in the living room. Then, when they put those in, they cut a place back into the ceiling and painted it wall colored (I know that doesn't make any sense, but I don't know how to describe it any better than that...I'll post a pic of it one day). So the real problem is that one of those is directly over the stairs going down to the basement, which technically, makes it 3 stories off the ground. Fun! Even better? The scaffolding won't fit in the stairs. So what I ended up doing was getting up into the dormer on the 10' scaffolding, then reaching across the stairwell with a "brush-on-a-stick" (patent pending) and painting it like that. The "brush-on-a-stick" is simply a paint brush duct taped to the end of an extension pole. Good stuff.

We started on Friday when I got home, then discovered we'd need an extension ladder (a.k.a. Rickety Fuck)l, so my in-laws brought us a couple and we continued working. We worked until about 11pm that night, then started bright and early Saturday and worked until about 9pm then went out to dinner to celebrate the living room being done. Sunday we did the kitchen and finished the woodwork and got done about 5pm. We worked on putting everything back together Sunday and Monday, but we still have a ways to go there. We are waiting for the paint to cure good before hanging a lot of stuff back up and we need to get my china cabinet moved back in the living room so I can get all my glass put back in it. It was a long process and we both felt like dealth on Saturday and Sunday (and possibly on Monday too), but we're so glad it's finally done and we don't have to stare at that nasty green paint anymore. It looked like Swamp Thing came in and took a shit on our walls.

In the kitchen, there is a chair rail in the "breakfast nook" (area where the table sits) and we painted blue below that. The rest of the room is just cream colored because we wanted it very neutral as we never intend to paint it again, but that gives a little pop of color and we can change it whenever cause it's a small, easy to get to area.

We purchased tile for our half bath and we're going to repaint it the same blue as we used in the kitchen, but it probably isn't going to happen until the weekend after Thanksgiving. We wanted to do it sooner, but I have to study for this next part of the exam and I only have 3 weekends (counting this one) before the test, so I don't have any free time to devote to the bathroom. But that's ok, I'd rather do it when we can be all leisurely about it anyway. After that (or maybe before) Husband is going to start working on finishing the room in the basement so he can move all of his stuff down there. I guess we'll turn the room he's using upstairs into an actual guest room - even though we have no guests. But that way we could have our friends come up and visit and they'd have a place to sleep since we live about 3 hours from them now.

Well, this has turned into a book so I better get back to work. I have so much sinus pressure in my left cheek I'm pretty sure it's about to explode - not pleasant. Not to mention, this time change and darkness and season changing is being pretty rough on me this week, so I'll be glad when this day is over and maybe I can find some cheerful this weekend. Later dudes.

Ever notice...

How the bloggers you really love never seem to post enough and the ones that really grate on your nerves (and yet, you can't stop reading) can't seem to STFU??

Or is that just me? heh

We started some home improvement projects this weekend, decided to put a big one (hardwood floors) off for a little while because of the $$ and added another quick one to the list (re-tiling the floor in the half bath), so that's pretty sweet. Tonight we'll finish painting the guest bathroom and it'll finally be usable again, after a long time of being out of commission while we tried to figure out what color to paint it (finally settled on a mocha-like color called "Wool Coat"). After that, we'll carry on with painting the living room, an on-going project. At some point, we will have painted everything we can reach and we'll be down to renting scaffolding. Fun.

After we re-tile the half bath, it will most likely need a new coat of paint as well, but it's a tiny room and the toilet and sink will be out of it at that point so that'll be super-duper easy.

I'm not sure what's next on the list. Probably finishing the small room in the basement so Husband can move all his stuff down there. That'll clean out one of the spare bedrooms upstairs, I guess we'll turn it into a real live guest room at that point, although I'm not really sure why. No one ever stays the night with us because they all live close enough to just drive home. I need to get all my stuff organized and get my room painted at some point too I'm not sure when that'll happen though because I am still studying so I don't exactly have unlimited amounts of free time just hanging around. Anyway, that particular task seems overwhelming, so for now, I'm just ignoring it.

Well, better get back to work, there is some time off in my future, so I need to try to get things caught up around here.

I have a story, let me tell you it.

Picture this: 3:54AM, I am sleeping soundly, snuggled in my bed, a chihuahua against my lower back, 75lb. Aussie between my feet and 39lb. French Brittany snuggled in a ball against my stomach. Life is good. Suddenly, the Brittany (Vikki) flies off the bed and runs to the door, then runs back and stares at me, then back to the door, to the window, to me, on the bed, off the bed...needless to say, life has taken a turn for the worst at this moment.

Said dog has a urinary tract infection (confirmed by the vet on Monday and being treated), so I think, "The poor baby, she probably feels like she really needs to pee, I'll get up." So I get up, let her out. Briefly I wonder to myself if the "yard intruders" that she tracts every morning might still be inside the yard, but my foggy 4AM brain can't really comprehend the thought until it's too late. I open the door, she bolts, there is clearly more than one animal running through the yard, I start yelling for her to stop (would never happen, not in a million years), then I hear something hit the chainlink fence and I think "Maybe it escaped, jesus I hope she doesn't go OVER the fence in pursuit!!" (cause she totally could is properly motivated), but I still hear her running in the yard. Then, I hear a quick scream and silence. I yell for her and get no response, so I bolt into the house and put on shoes and grab a flashlight and head back out into the unknown.

Some details you should be aware of to really enjoy this story...it's 38 degrees outside, it's pitch black (sure, the porch light was on, but it only lights the porch and about 1 foot out into the yard, Vikki was at least 50 feet away from the house), I'm wearing little slip on shoes and a t-shirt and that's all, I don't have my contacts in or my glasses on - which means I'm legally blind (I can't see the big "E" on the eye chart).

Ok, so here I go, out into the yard to find out WTF, the first thing I do is step in dog shit because, well, why wouldn't I?? I see Vikki, in the corner of the fence, hunkered over, she has clearly caught something.

Also, keep in mind that we have NO IDEA what kind of animal has been coming into the yard because we haven't been able to trap it. Possibilities include: skunk (have smelled him), opposum (have seen one in the front yard), rabbit (they're everywhere), fox (they live in the woods right behind the house), squirrel, raccoon, deer (no idea why they would come inside the fence, but they can), bobcat (apparently some live in our area), coyote (still not sure if they could get in the fence, but probably), stray cat, mice, snakes...and probably something I've forgotten.

At this point in my mind I've ruled out the larger animals and the dog or cat-like choices because I don't hear a fight going on and I know the thing that screamed wasn't Vikki. So I get closer to her, not sure really what I'll do once I get there and with NO CLUE what she has, then she BOLTS past me. We're talking about an extremely fit 4 year old bird dog here, a bird dog who's vet once felt her back legs up for 10 minutes because he was so amazed as the muscles contained therein. Yeah, so maybe "BOLT" is not a strong enough word for what she did. Right as she passes my finger tips, I remember I left the door to the house open. Fuck!

So I run after her screaming, "VIKKI, NO!!!!!!" And she disappears into the house, when I'm still only halfway across the yard. I instantly picture her in our bed, with my sleeping husband, with something that's not dead (which would be infinately worse than just a carcass). That's when I see it. She dropped her kill right at the edge of the porch, perhaps sensing her own demise if she went into the house with it. It was a rabbit. A cute one too and I felt awful for it, although I am comforted to know that it's suffering was minimal because it only made a single sound and a very quick one at that and then it was all over. My precious Vikki - Cold Blooded Killer.

Since we've moved, she's racked up 3 ducks and now a rabbit. What's really funny about it all, she is the most timid, loving dog in the world...unless, of course, you're small enough that she can break your neck.

keeping the mystery alive

Because I'm loving this idea of B.W.O. (blogging without obligation), I'm not going to tell you where I've been. HA. :-)

I've decided that there are some bloggers out there that I really dislike. Of course, I don't know these people in real life, they may be perfectly wonderful people, but something about the images and descriptions of their lives, the way they make it all see like butter in their asses and lollipops in their mouths* makes me puke. You know the ones. They post a picture of something "random" and every single thing in the picture is places *just so*, it's all spotless, wonderful, like a fairy tale, or a Stanley Kubrik movie. Bullshit. If I post a pic, you can bet your sweet ass there will be dog hair on the floor, or crap piled on the tables, or a giant weed-patch growing in the background that I will swear is a garden (look back to the post about the tractor). Holy crap - I'm pretty sure with the baby guineas I even posted a pic with actual shit in it.

Geez - I'm hateful today, huh? My bad, I just saw a picture on a blog a few minutes ago that ruffled my feathers. I'm over it now.

So October 15th is fast approaching - no more extensions for the individual returns - which translates to "I'm totally fucked because there is no way I'll get all this shit done in time". So I'm working late tonight, that's my point. Why am I on here posting and wasting time, you ask? Because my brain is fried and I needed a break, that's why.

Oh, also, took the 3rd part of the exam on October 2nd (or something like that), will not find out my grade until sometime in November, maybe the end of November even. I'm re-taking the first part I ever took on October 20th, so after the 15th passes, I'm taking off the 16th (Friday) and the 19th (Monday) to study. Been trying to study since I took the last one but I've been busy as fuck and working overtime and just haven't been able to properly motivate myself. I'm working on that.

Ok, gotta get back to work.

Baby, its cold outside.

Fall has officially fallen and I couldn't be more ready for it. This summer, while fun and productive, was exhausting. I'm ready to snuggle in, to read (for pleasure!!), to wrap myself and the chihuahua in a blanket and watch crappy TV and eat yummy comfort food until March. Maybe April. :-) I have 3 exams scheduled between now and Thanksgiving, the first of which being this Friday. I feel as positive as I can about it in light of having failed the first 2 I took. I'm studying, reviewing, really trying to be hopeful. Then the next one is October 20th - just 17 days to study 20 chapters. But I've studied for and taken this one before and scored 2 points below passing, so it seems possible. Then the next is the Monday before Thanksgiving. That one is new, I'm not sure how it'll go.

After that, I'm going to try to take off Tuesday and Wednesday to cook and clean because we're hosting Thanksgiving. Hosting used to be difficult for me, I stressed out about every little detail and would inevitably work myself like a dog until the wee hours of the morning the night before. Nothing seemed right - it wasn't clean enough, tasty enough, something enough. But somewhere along the way, I've given up on all that silliness. My house is what it is, if I think it's clean and, more importantly really, if Husband thinks its clean enough, then it is. everyone else can,effectively, suck it. I know I cook decently well and if people don't like my food they are more than welcome to stop at McDonald's on their way home. And I'm not trying to be a bitch here - I want people to enjoy our home and my cooking and to have a good time when they come to our house, but I don't worry about it like I used to, which probably makes it all run smoother, actually. I make our home they way Husband wants it and the way I want it and that is good enough. We're having my parents, my sister, her husband, our neice and hopefully my in-laws for dinner. A big crowd for me since we have such a tiny family.

Right now though, I have a nasty case of poison ivy. It started on my left wrist, I thought it was a bug bite and I scratched it. The next morning, it was all over the inside of my wrist. The next day, it has jumped to the other arm and now it is all on the side of my left boob and all over my stomach. It is slowly creeping around my sides too, I'm hoping it'll stop spreading before it gets all the way around! My arms are fine but my stomach itches like a mother!!

I gotta get back to work right now, but to end this on a happy note, I weighed in at -5 pounds this morning!! Yeeeah, biaotches!!

Happy - then crappy.

So this morning I hopped on the scale and found myself at -2 pounds. Boo-yah!!

Then I sat thru 2 1/2 hours of team meeting at work - my back hurts, my ass is numb and I'm almost asleep.

Then I logged on and saw that my exam score was finally posted. And I failed it. Miserably.

Fuck.

Tuesday.

Hey! I still exist! What do you know about that. Crazy, huh? So I've made it - thru tax season, thru 5 of my co-workers being fired and 2 managers quitting, thru the Sept. 15th deadline and now we're heading into the October 15th deadline then it will be smooth sailing (HA!) until tax season starts again in about 3 months. Joy.

Since I last posted, work has just been insane and there hasn't been time to turn around much less turn around, sit down, log into blogger and post something. I've been reading and keeping up (for the most part) with my blogroll, but that's been the extent of my accomplishments. I've even been relatively quiet on twitter - and how hard is it to spit out less than 140 characters a couple times a day??

Right now, I'm studying for my 3rd part of the ever-present CPA exam and anxiously awaiting my results on the 2nd part (and getting more than mildly annoyed at how long those results are taking to materialize). I feel certain I didn't pass it, but I want to know, dammit!!

Nothing else is new really. I don't have time for anything but studying at this point, and won't until the Monday before Thanksgiving. Then I'll get a few merciful days off and it will be awesome. But until then, I'm just trying to make time for studying, still trying to cook for my Man *most* nights, trying to keep the house at least liveable, taking care of the guineas, the dogs, the Man, AND being available to help with home improvement projects, etc. Unfortunately, the whole working out thing has fallen by the wayside. And I hate that, but I'm just overwhelmed right now, to say the least.

We have, however, been on a diet for a few weeks now. Well, "diet" isn't really the right word. We're just making better decisions, not eating out, limiting desserts and sweets and fixing healthy stuff for lunches and dinners. So far, I've lost about 9 pounds. And trust me, we've still been out and there has been ice cream consumed (very little, but still). I have a weight that I call the "magic number". Once I got above that number (no, I won't say how much it is), I've never gotten below it. (At the worst point, I was 20 pounds ABOVE that number, about 6 years ago.) I mean, I have been below it, but only by a pound or two and only very briefly. Our diets have always been derailed right about the time I get back down to that number. Perhaps you have that number too. It's so ingrained at this point that I think of my weight in terms of that number.

Let's say the number is 100 pounds (HA-HA-HA), if I get on the scale and weigh 112, I don't think, "I weight 112 pounds", I think "I'm 12 pounds over." And by the same token, if I weigh 98 pounds, I think, "Ooo, I'm down 2 pounds!!" So this morning, I weigh 0. And I'm stoked!! Our diet is going along swimmingly, I don't see any reason it will derail on me and right now I'm at 0, so the only place to go from here is into negative numbers!!

Hopefully one day I'll have a new "magic number". I can imagine in my head what I'd like the next one to be, and the one after that, but I'm not sure what I'd like my Long-Term Magic Number to be. I guess I'll know when (IF) I get there. I feel motivated to exercise now, to speed up my progression toward my new number. Hopefully I'll be able to start working that into the schedule again.

Ok, right now, lunch is over and it's time for me to get back to work.

We put the "labor" in Labor Day

I have to be honest - I'm not really sure what Labor Day is, I'm not sure what we're celebrating. But it's a day when you can take off work and no one minds, so I'm down with it. This year, as usual, we spent our long weekend working way too hard.

My sister and her husband had a get-together on Saturday afternoon. I had big plans to paint something or clean something or something-something before that, but I had a headache Friday night and woke up with it Saturday and accomplished dick on Saturday morning. We went to their house but I had to come home after the food smells permeated the house. Ugh. So the day was a wash.

Still, over the rest of the weekend, we managed to buy ourselves a new kitchen sink (yes, we are slowly rebuilding our entire house) and installed that (I'm a plumber!! And my crack doesn't even hang out!!), then we finished painting the back doors and the hallway. I clipped the chihuahua's nails and we did a ton of laundry (there is still a ton more to do). I also managed to keep up with my studying schedule. The studying seems to be going a lot better for this section of the exam than it did for the other two. I'm not sure if it's the use of the audio cd's - I can listen to them in my car on the way to and from work, which gives me an extra 1 1/2 hrs a day with the material - or if it's just that this stuff is easier than the other stuff. My progress so far is that I failed the first section I took (Business Environment & Concepts, or BEC) and I'm awaiting my scores on the second section (Financial Accounting & Reporting or FAR).

Here's my schedule now:
AUD (Auditing): Friday, October 2nd
BEC (Business Environment & Concepts): Tuesday, October 20th
REG (Regulation): Monday, November 23rd

If I didn't pass FAR (likely) I probably won't be able to retake it until January because December is a dark month (no testing). I can't even begin to express how glad I'll be when this is over.

About the sink replacement - our old sink was stainless steel, nothing wrong with that, but it was only about 6 inches deep. Something majorly wrong with that. You can hardly wash dishes in a sink that shallow and when you rinse them off, the water flies everywhere. But the deal-breaker was when the plumbing under the sink fell apart and I had to use a thing of a dog shampoo and a bottle of Goo-B-Gone to hold the p-trap in place. At that point, we were going to have to re-plumb the thing anyway, right? So we bought this shiny black cast iron (yes, it weighs a billion pounds) Kohler sink - it is a thing of beauty. Every time I walk through the kitchen I stroke it and say, "Hello, Lover"...pretty sure Husband is getting jealous. :-) We debated over faucets and decided to stick with the kind with the separate sprayer, not the attached sprayer. Our faucet is beautiful too - brushed nickle to match the cabinet handles. And it's deep, like 8 or 9 inches (I can't remember) and that part is the most wonderful of all!! I'm so tickled with this sink, I'll have to post pics of it soon.

Same as it ever was

As it turns out, I have not perished or disappeared from the face of the earth although, admittedly, there has been very little evidence to the contrary lately.

When we got back from vacation, everyone at work was in a mass panic because of the 09/15 deadline that is swiftly approaching and the new giant client. You know, the one the entire tax staff has been working on, pretty much exclusively, since last Wednesday. So we've been working OT and then I go home (sometimes after Husband gets there) and I have to figure out how to cook dinner, attempt to keep the house livable, keep the dogs in food and water, take care of the guineas and still find time to study. This is not easy, let me tell you. As you can probably imagine, the working out has fallen by the wayside recently. I did really good until we left for vacation and I've been a loser since then. But I really want to get back to it and I really plan to - I'm just thinking this isn't the week.

However, we have gone on a diet. Not a starve-yourself-and-be-miserable diet, just an eat-right-and-make-better-choices diet. So far, I've lost 5 pounds. I'm pretty stoked about that. I mean, right now 5 pounds is like pissing in the ocean, but I'm still pleased. So I figure the weight loss will increase, at least for a little while, once I get back to working out and that's an exciting prospect. But I can't let the studying slide, I just can't.

This super nice girl that i work with recently passed the exam and she gave me her audio cd's of the part I'm currently studying for and access to the online feature too (it has quizzes and simulations, etc) and that is really helping. I can listen to the lectures on the way to and from work, which gives me an extra hour and a half of time with the material each day. And also, once I've heard the lecture, I'm more familiar with the material once I start reading and so that part goes faster now too, so that's pretty sweet. If I didn't pass this last part I took (won't get the scores until at least Sept. 15), then I think I'm going to buy the cd's for it to study with next time.

One nice thing that has happened is that I've met a group of women in my local area - well, I've only talked to one online so far, but I'm going to meet them all on Sept. 12. We met via a website for "farmgirls" that has local groups setup all around the country. The woman who setup up this group lives about 20 minutes from me. So they're having a meeting on the 12th and I'm gonna go meet everyone. Regardless of what they're like, it will be nice to at least know some people in the area, so I'm looking forward to that.

Oh, and, very exciting, the guineas are putting themselves to bed!! About 8:30pm they all pile back in their house and them scream for me to come down and lock the door - it is too cute. Last night they ventured out into the front yard (outside the dog fence). We have no idea how long they were up there, but they stayed close to the house and when I went down to put food in their coop for their bedtime snack, they all came running down the hill, so they still knew where their house was. So our little fowl are growing up!! It's so precious.

Ok, I really have to get back to work.

Boo Hiss

Work has been very "Boo Hiss" since I got back from vacation (aka yesterday and today). I came back right in the midst of a deadline crunch and not just any deadline crunch, but one that involves a brand new, HUGE client (and by huge I mean it has 26 trial balances, 26 different entities all rolled into one, not to mention 5 or 6 other related companies that are actually separate...and this is not all we do, this is just ONE client). So, yeah, it has sucked. But tomorrow is Friday and that rocks.

Vacation was fun, it was a decent mix of 'together with the family' and 'alone with the Husband' time, so that's good.

We came home on Monday night and my in-laws brought one of our dogs back home (they keep the 12 year old chihuahua, the big, young girls go to the kennel) and while they were there, we decided to let the guineas out of their coop for the first time! It took about 30 minutes for all of them to figure out how to get out (after I physically crawled inside the coop and brought one out to show the others that escape was possible). They had a lot of fun walking in grass for the first time ever and eating real bugs (instead of man-made food) and flying. Apparently the flying is made of awesome. They all celebrate everytime any one of them flies - it is very, very exciting. So Monday night we had to pick them all up and put them back in their coop. Then Tuesday evening we let them out for a couple more hours and had to pick them up and put them back in there again. Last night, however, they actually walked up the stairs into the coop on their own!! We did have to encourage them, but didn't have to touch them. So we're hoping that they'll catch on and just start putting themselves to bed at night and I'll just have to go down there and lock the door to their coop. That would be sweet.

Oh, that part of the exam that I took last week was fucking horrible. And that's putting it lightly. If I passed that, it will seriously be the biggest shock of my life. Ever. Dude, it was awful. And believe me, it is getting tougher and tougher to stay motivated to study for this damn thing. Ugh.

Pseudo-Friday

Today is my last work day for this week and that is made of awesome. Tomorrow I'm taking my 2nd part of the CPA exam and my level of freaking out in increasing by the hour, which is not cool. Ever since my last attempt at college (you know, the time when I actually graduated) I've been a horrible test-taker. I panic. I forget things that I really should know. I get nervous and start zoning out. Before I know it, minutes have passed by and I'm just staring at the test thinking about a zillion other things. It's a problem. I once got a 38% (did you even know that was possible??) on an accounting final because I completely lost my shit and was just putting down wrong answers and stupid things and I knew I was putting wrong answers but I just had to put something on the paper and get the fuck out of there. Fortunately for me, I had good enough grades in the class up to that point that I still managed to get a B, even with a 38% on a weighted final. But still.

So here's the problem - on the 1st part of the exam, I kept it together really well, I viewed it as a learning experience and I wasn't nervous about it at all (really, I wasn't). I was thinking clearly, I read the questions, took my time, it was all good. And what happened? I fucking failed it, that's what!! So now what? Now this time, it doesn't feel like a practice run - it feels very important and I don't think anyone is going to be understanding if I don't pass this one (least of all - me!) and I'm very, very, very nervous about it. And that scares me because I don't know how to control it (you'd think after 75 years in school I would have learned...but no) and if I go in there and wig-out and forget every single thing I've studied (things I don't feel like I really know in the first place) then I'm fucked. And not in a good way, my friends.

Yeah, so, that's where I am right now. Fun, huh?

Then, today I got a big tax return dumped on me and it has to be finished by the end of the day and the guy who owns the company has about eleventy billion kids and grandkids and all of their returns are supposed to be done (by yours truly) by the end of August. Oh, and did I mention that I'm going to be out tomorrow and then we're going on vacation and I won't be back until Wednesday?? No stress there, none at all. Way to make me panic right before the exam AND ruin my vacation. Thanks a lot. Frankly, I have a lot more things to say about work right now, but I've learned from the experience of other bloggers that isn't a good plan, so we'll just leave it at: Grrrrr....

Here's the plan: (I'm hoping a plan will help me chillax - HAHAHA I LOVE that word, it's so delightfully dumb!!)
Tonight:

• 4:00pm - leave work, promptly, assuming the aforementioned tax return is complete.
• 4:45pm - get home (barring natural disaster and assholes who can't drive)
• 4:45pm - 5:45pm - continue studying, hopefully finish up the last few chapters worth of multiple choice questions.
• 5:45-6:30pm - make and eat dinner, feed the guineas
• 6:30-8:00pm - go over some more multiple choice questions, look-up a couple formulas that I don't know, brush up on a few things that I didn't do well on the multiple choices for.
• 8:00pm - STOP STUDYING, give my poor brain a chance to chill before it is taxes beyond measure tomorrow. I might work on putting a top coat on the hallway that Husband primered last night, maybe just the woodwork or something, anything brainless that I don't have to think about. I also need to sew a button on a pair of his shorts and finish hemming some work pants for him, maybe I'll do that.
• 10:00pm - go to bed, so I have plenty of sleepy time before tomorrow.

The plan for tomorrow:

• 6:00am- get up, let the dogs out, shower, etc...the usual
• 7:00am - leave the house, head to the testing place. It only takes a little over an hour to get there usually, but there is construction around UofL's campus, so I want to leave PLENTY of time.
• No later than 9:00am - get signed in at the testing site - chill the fuck out - DON'T FAIL

Time flies...

...when you're not paying attention!! Sorry I've let so much time go by between posts...when things are crazy at work (as they are now and will be until 10/15) I don't have much time to post.

I'll catch you up on what's new, then I gotta get back to work:

• I've done decent keeping at the working out, although I don't feel like I'm making any real progress yet. I've done pilates a few times and I incorporated a biceps/triceps workout that really made my arms sore the next day. The next thing we'll be purchasing is dumbells so I can keep up with the arm work.
• I got my grade on the 1st part of the CPA exam I took back on July 1st. I got a 73. You need a 75 to pass. So for 2 fucking points, I'll be paying another $200 and taking the damn thing again. Fun. While I'm glad I got a halfway respectable score, I'm still quite unhappy about it - just disappointed in myself I guess, and pissed at all that studying time that now feels wasted.
• I have my 2nd part of the exam this Thursday at 9am. It is taking everything I have at this point to stay committed to my study schedule and to keep putting all the effort I can into it, even though I really fear that, once again, my best won't be good enough. If I fail two sections in a row, I'll be devastated, which is making me a lot more nervous for this one than I was the first one.
• The new test taking schedule looks like this: Financial August 20, Auditing October 2, Business Environment & Concepts (the section I failed) October 19, and Regulations November 23. So I will have taken all 4 parts (and one part twice) by the end of the year.
• We're going on vacation this weekend with my family for my Dad's 70th birthday. We'll be gone Friday-Monday to Gatlinburg, TN, then we're taking Tuesday off work to spend with the dogs and whatnot. Then I'll starting studying again on Wednesday.

Ok, gotta get back to work.

Monday pilates

I did the Pilates thing again last night (on a thick, folded blanket and it felt much better - still I will be investing in a mat asap...I promise). I don't think I was 'holding my powerhouse' as effectively this time. My legs are a sore but my abs are not, so I think I was letting my legs do a lot of the work instead of controlling things wiht my powerhouse (can you tell house much I enjoy that term??) I mean, I can tell I did something, but they're not sore like they were. I went 2 more exercises into the routine this time, but probably was only able to do that because I wasn't doing it as well. I still got the pounding headache, but I took little rests and it wasn't nearly as bad this time. Hopefully I'll be able to get that under control. It mostly happens when I sit up from the moves done on my stomach. Of course, I've always (like, my entire life) gotten a pounding headache (even if only briefly) when I get up off the floor from laying on my stomach. The moves did seem harder this time, it was harder to stay flexed and keep my naval pulled in, probably because my abs are still tired from last time - but they have to suck it up!!

This morning, I browsed through today's programming on the fitness channel (not sure what it's really called) and recorded several shows that look interesting. A cardio show, one for biceps and triceps, and a belly dancing routine that sounds like fun. I'm going to try to work those in during the week as well. I'll just have to find one that is suited to my level and that I enjoy. I may not have found it yet, if not, I'll keep looking. So tonight I'll probably try to do one of those shows instead of the heavy bag, but we'll see - it will definately be one or other.

Oh, last night, I officially heard the guineas break out their adult voices for the first time!! We heard them the other night too, but didn't know what we were hearing, this time, there was no doubt. It was lightening and thundering outside, so of course we went out to watch and heard this racket. Turns out, they don't like storms particularly! The were down there screaming their heads off, in their full adult voices...no longer limited to just chirping and clucking like baby birds. It was crazy. I talked to them from the porch (it was pouring rain at that point) and it seemed to calm them down a little. Guess they're used to listening to my mouth by now.

This morning, on the way out of the driveway, I saw a mama and 2 baby deer and Sunday night we saw the mama and her triplets. So we've determined that we have one mother with 3 babies, one with 2 babies and one other one that has 1 baby and we also have 3 young bucks living near by that we spotted in the front yard one evening. Quite the deer population!

Here's what I've learned...

You can't start running with a weak powerhouse. Oh, and the woman on the Pilates video is a she-devil, in the most evil sense of the word.

Any attempts at running and/or fast walking, have been thwarted by back pain, brought on by weak abs, etc. So I thought to myself, "Self, let's do some pilates with our heavy bag routines and build up those core muscles (the "powerhouse"), THEN we'll worry about running." Besides, more muscle = more fat burning. Friday night we did some pilates. The bitch...er...lady on the DVD said that I should start with 5 or 6 (out of 18) of the exercises and then work up to doing the entire routine. So that's what I (attempted to do) did. Keep in mind - I have no mat and I'm working on a HARDwood floor. I had to skip one move because "roll like a ball" doesn't happen on a HARDwood floor with no mat. Not when my tailbone is involved. No way, no how.

Anyway, I did 5 or 6 of her moves...after a while, when the blood was gone from my brain and my tailbone was screaming in pain and the dog was licking my face while I attempted unnatural acts on the living room floor (with my pelvis in "neutral position" and my spine in alignment)...I lost count. I actually didn't stop because of my muscles, I stopped because after one move that was done on my stomach, when I sat up to do the next move, my head started pounding in a way that I was certain...certain...would be the end of me and I had to stop. All the while, that smiling, blonde harbinger of death was on my television screen bending and flexing and stretching and smiling. God, I hate that woman.

In the end, I thought, Well, maybe pilates isn't for me. I guess I can't do enough of that to help because of the inexplicable pounding in my head. But...turns out I was wrong. Turns out it really is the quality of your movements and not the quantity. And I guess I really was holding everything in and flexing and whatever I was supposed to be doing because my powerhouse killed all day Saturday. It hurt yesterday too but not nearly as bad and today I can only tell anything happened when I suck it all in and flex those muscles. So I guess I was doing something right. The only thing I'm wondering now is if I should have done it again yesterday, since the pain was fading or if I should have waited until today when the pain is almost all gone. I'm definately doing more tonight - it was awesome! And to finally do something so quick and simple that left me with such soreness that it MUST have done something - that's awesome too. Now I just need a mat, before my tailbone stages a revolt.

In other news, I'm still studying, my next part of the exam is next Thursday (August 20th) and Husband worked until midnight Friday night, then went in at 8:30am Saturday and got home about 6pm, so I got caught up on my studying and I put a coat of primer on the hallway. We finished the woodwork yesterday and put a topcoat on the walls, so just one more coat on the walls and that'll be another area of the house painted...sweet.

Update

Sorry for the lapse in posts, I'm not losing my enthusiasm, just my free time (at work). Things are beginning to pick up and that'll probably continue all the way through the 10/15 deadline (I hope). Still, even with work to do, sometimes it hard to find the motivation to actually do it - I'm working on that. Honest, I am.

So here's what happened to my weekend (aka Why I didn't work out like I was supposed to). Friday night, Husband got home and asked if I'd like to go visit his parents and play some pinochle. So that's what we did. Until like 11pm, then we came home and passed out in bed. Saturday morning, He went to get his hair cut and pick up his dad's truck so we could buy some lumber (why we didn't take said truck home with us the night before, I'll never know). I studied the entire time he was gone (except for when I went down and fed the guineas). I thought I got caught up, but when I looked at my study schedule on the calendar last night, I discovered that I'm still one chapter behind. Crap.

Anyway, when he got back, we went and bought some lumber so he could build himself a workbench in the garage. He started on that and I started cleaning the house. (We returned the truck at some point, but I can't remember when) I started in the "east wing" and vacuumed the hallway and both spare bedrooms (even got up next to the base boards with the attachment!) and cleaned that bathroom (that no one had used in months). Then I vacuumed the steps to the basement and the rug by the front door. After that, I moved on to the "west wing" and cleaned the half bath and the master bath, our bedroom (dust was 10 inches deep), changed the bed, all that good stuff. All the while I was creating a waste-deep pile in the laundry room!! I dusted the living room and we went to the grocery about 10pm Saturday.

Sunday, we started again, this time Husband worked on cleaning up the garage (after I helped him cut the plywood for the top of the workbench) and I finished up with running the dishwasher (3 times!!) and doing laundry (the pile is now about knee deep) and swept and mopped the living room/kitchen/hallway. We went and got something for lunch, then we rested a while, I did more laundry, emptied the dishwasher, refilled it, hand washed some leftover cookie sheets and whatnot, and eventually it was time to fix dinner. Oh, I colored in my new coloring book for a while too. Anyway, after dinner, we started on the lawn. I mowed for about an hour and Husband mowed for about 2 hours, I fed the guineas (a constant chore...they are little feathered piglets!!) and it was pretty much time to go to bed.

I'm finding that Husband was right, it is very difficult to fit working out into my schedule right now. I'm still motivated though, and still trying to figure out how to work it in so it can happen regularly. So, in case anyone can make any suggestions how to do this, here is tonight's timeline:

4:45pm - get home from work, let the dogs out, change my clothes
5:00pm - study
5:45pm - Husband gets home, fix dinner
6:30pm - hopefully be finished eating by then (we're just heating up leftovers), hang up the stuff in the dryer, put another load in the washer, start mowing grass
9:00pm - should be finished mowing by then (hopefully!), take a shower cause I'll be gross
9:30pm - out of the shower, study for another hour
10:30pm - go to bed

Keep in mind that the 2 hours of study time I have alotted will barely keep me caught up and will not allow for getting ahead and I'm already a chapter behind. (Yes, that is depressing, thank you for noticing). Of course, there are not the 2 1/2 hours of yard work every night, but it amazes me how the almost 6 hours between getting home and going to bed just disappear. Any suggestions for better time management??

Pooie Day

Yeah, that's right, I said it's a "Pooie Day"...wanna make something of it? Oh, sorry ~ perhaps I'm feeling a bit confrontational right now.

Last night I was struck down with a headache and the realization that I only have 1 handwrap, the other must have disappeared during our move. Shit. So I studied and fixed dinner and watched old episodes of ANTM and just generally felt sorry for myself. Finally I went downstairs to feed the guineas and before coming back up and pounded on the old heavy bag for a little while - barefoot and bare fisted until my knuckles were bright red and screaming. I just broke a sweat, nothing major, but still more than I thought I'd do with the massive headache. Of course, hitting the bag did nothing for the head, but I was just frustrated at that point and didn't care.

I still have said headache, but it feels like an excuse and I refuse to fail this time, dammit. I found a Pilates For Beginners DVD on our rack (No idea where that came from, btw) so I'm either going to give that a shot when I get home (I've never done any Pilates...at all...ever...none) or I'll do an honest heavy bag routine. Either way, I gotta get moving. Oh, I did do some dips this morning before work. I'm somewhat obsessed with the disgusting state of my upper arms, so I'm trying to work in tricep exercises any free moment I have. If you know of any that really work, please share!!

Ok, I'm off to pick up Husband for lunch in a few minutes. I get to go out in the rain - yay!!

Quickie

Don't have much time here cause I only have an hour left in this day and it is essential that I accomplish...something. But, I wanted to give you and update.

Got home last night (35 minutes LATE because of a stupid traffic jam!!) and threw a couple chicken breasts in the oven. Then I studied for about 20 minutes. Then I did the strength training routine! I actually did it. I know that's not impressive really, but before I can accomplish (fail at) anything, I have to start it. So step one: starting - check! I was only able to do the minimum recommended reps of each movement, which was 8 (except the tourture-crunches...the kind where you lay on your back, put your knees in the air and straighten and lower one leg as your crunch...yeah, I did 4 on each side and prayed for death). Oh, and the calf thingies - raising up on one foot, hold, lower slowly, I did 10 of those and then 10 more on both feet. Guess my calves are pretty strong after packing all this ass around for so long. When I got finished, I was hot and tired and semi-sweaty and achy feeling. This morning, my legs were a bit sore, but not much and it's gone now. So I'm thinking I didn't really push myself hard enough. I'm not accustomed to pushing myself physically (except when doing yard work, in which case I always over-do it and hurt myself) so I have to figure out how to dig deep and make myself do more than I think I'm capable of.

Afterward, I continued to study until Husband got home, then we fixed homemade chicken burritos (YUM) and took a walk around the yard after dinner. Got 4 more tomatoes, a handful of green beans and a cucumber from the garden. 4 canteloupes are very close to ripe too - exciting!

So tonight is the heavy bag routine. I plan to try to figure out what a good time limit is, so I can say I start with ____ minutes and work up from there. I try to stay light (HA) on my feet and move around a lot to get some extra cardio out of it. First - I have to figure out how to wrap my hands!!

Plans are made to be broken...

The problem with being flexible (and I mean in an 'available for someone one their schedule' way, not a 'flexie-bendie' way) is that you have to be so...flexible.

This weekend, we finally got a space cleared out in the basement...wait...I say that like our basement is full of crap and that could not be farther from the truth. Here's the deal, when we had ducks (before the tragedy), they spent their nights in the room in the basement (it's a typical big-open-space-unfinished basement, except for this little room off to one side) and we had put cedar chips on the floor for them to keep down the smell and give them something nicer than concrete to sleep on. My heavy bag was also in that room (separated from the ducks) and not hung up and all the internet stuff (router, whatever) was right under my heavy bag stand, which didn't lend itself to bouncing around in there. So this weekend, I got all the cedar chips out of there and we cleaned up the aquarium where the guineas stayed when they were in the basement and we moved the heavy bag stand out into the main room and hung up the bag. The plan was to start with a heavy bag routine last night. Didn't happen.

Because there is rain in the forecast today (and the rest of the week, and all weekend AND all of next week), Husband needed my help getting the lawn mowed last night, so it wouldn't end up half mowed for a week while it rained. When I got home, I studied for the hour until he got home, then we fixed dinner and ate and got started mowing. We mowed for 2 1/2 hours, so until 9:30pm, then I had to go down and feed the guineas (they were a little less than pleased with the slow service) and by then it was nearly 10pm. I'm not what you'd call a "good sleeper" and I've read that working out late at night can be bad for sleeping, so it seemed like a bad plan to do it after my usual bedtime. But I did ride the mower around for 2 1/2 hours and my arms are quite sore as a result, so my muscles must have done some moving. They already feel better now than they did this morning, so I plan to do the strength training stuff tonight, before Husband gets home, then I'll study later. That's my plan, we'll see how I do.

I can't stand...

*bloggers who think they are the shit and who won't hesitate to spend an entire post telling you how wonderful they are. Gag.

*when people say "See ya" or "Later" instead of goodbye on the phone. This applies especially when it is someone they don't know and who they will most likely never see and/or talk to again. Just dumb.

*not being able to shake that groggy feeling. My eyes are rolling up in my head and I can barely stay awake. I was this way ALL day yesterday. Suck.

*traffic jams. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to get to work this morning, when it usually takes 40 minutes. Aaarrrggghhh. I was very angry. I don't know how many times I've forbidden people to have accidents, close roads, etc, etc, etc where I'm trying to drive.

*when my office mate decides he wants to have a conversation with me. Granted, this hardly ever happens. But today, when I'm super groggy and trying to study (at work ~ with permission ~ because I have no actual work to do ~ SWEET) he decides he wants to discuss refinancing and mortgage rates and all that shit. Please, for the love of god, just shut the fuck up.

Ok ~ now that I have all that off my chest (and I feel a lot better thankyouverymuch), I can tell you what's up with the running/working out stuff. I talked to Husband about it and he's on board (yay!), so we're going to clean out the basement (hopefully very soon) and put his stuff down there from his room and we're going to bring the heavy bag upstairs and put it in the spare bedroom. Then we found a workout bench thingy - kind of like a bowflex but WAY less expensive. We're going to buy that and put that in there too. That will be the workout room, which is a step in the right direction for me to have a space dedicated to that. The only time in my life I've worked out regularly was when I had a space, just for that, in our old house.

This week there is a fair in Husband's hometown and next week is the fair in the town where we live, so we'll be going to those a few nights and I still have to keep up with my studying (having this time to study at work is invaluable this week!!) AND I need to clean the house, take care of the guineas, clean their house, and get the laundry and stuff caught up. But, somewhere in there, I hope to find time to get everything situated and start the new routine on Monday. That's the current goal, we'll see how we do.

I love it when...

*People post pictures on their blogs, especially of something inside their house. I often find myself looking, not at the subject of the picture, but at the stuff in the background. Magazines on tables, flowers on a windowsill, the blanket on the couch. Is there dust on/under their furniture like there is on mine?? What's playing on that TV in the background?? As you can see, I often miss what the picture was even supposed to be of.

*Monday passes quickly and suddenly I look at the clock and there is less than an hour and a half before I go home. And I know what I'm fixing for dinner and I know I need to study and finish hemming Husband's pants and the whole evening is laid out before me.

*A project I've been dreading at work turns out to be MUCH easier than I expected it to be and I finish it and don't have to dread it any longer.

*The momma deer who lives near us brings her triplets out where we can see them. She brings them out every Saturday morning between 9:30am and 10:30am and they are PRECIOUS!! Yesterday before leaving the house, we saw one of the babies, sprinting across the front yard and no one else in the family. Then we saw a grown deer down the road who had an unfortunate encounter with a vehicle, so we were very afraid for the little family. But she kindly brought them out again after we got home, just so we'd know they are all safe and together, I'm sure.

*My guineas act like they're maybe not completely terrified of me. We're still not best friends, and they're still quite wild, but from time to time, they'll come quite near me and act like I don't have the plague, and that's nice.

*We have a weekend together where we basically accomplish nothing. Sure, I feel a little guilty about letting 2 whole days pass and doing: a TINY bit of laundry, sort of cleaning the kitchen up (a pathetic attempt, really), grocery shopping, taking care of the guineas, going to see a play, and watching movies and NOTHING else. It's awesome. And it's even better when we veg because we want to and not because anyone is sick or anything.

*We go and do something and neither of us is sure how it's going to be and then we both have a great time. We went to our little community theatre Saturday night to see their production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. We've both seen Shakespear before, done the way you expect to see it done, and Husband read in the paper the other day, that this one was set in the 1980's. That scared us both a little because there was that movie version of Romeo and Juliet set in the 90's or something and we both loathed it. But we went with *partially* open minds. IT WAS GREAT. They were all dressed in 80's clothes and there was lots of 80's rock infused in the play. There were a couple actors of questionable talent, but for a tiny community theatre, it had a GREAT cast. The guys that played Puck, Flute and Bottom were beyond awesome and one of them was only a junior in high school. The play was hilarious, the cast worked very hard and we had a wonderful time.

Duh

I found myself driving to into the sun this morning, squinting, with my sunglasses on my head.

So...

I've noticed that I use the word "so" WAY too much. Not just when I'm talking but also in my blog posts and emails. I often delete it from Tweets in order to get under the 140 character limit. I also say, "Hm...interesting" about 50 million times a day. Hey, there's lots of interesting shit in the world!! And it doesn't work if you pronouce interesting with 3 syllables, it has to be just one.

Anyway...I need to make some modifications to my speech patterns. I'm getting on my own damn nerves.

Need suggestions here

As you might have guessed, I'm not expert when it comes to fitness (if you knew me in RL, you would know just how much of an understatement that really is). So, I have a tentative plan for starting out here and I need suggestions from those of you who know what you're talking about (and any level of "knowing" will trump me...so chime in!)

Here's what I'm thinking for the first couple weeks:

Monday - strength training
Tuesday - heavy bag (time yet to be determined - I want to push myself, but not kill myself and I'm honestly not sure where that line is yet)
Wednesday - off or a light walk/run to keep up the momentum
Thursday - strength training
Friday - heavy bag
Saturday - strength training
Sunday - same as Wednesday

So...my questions are, so I need to do the strength training more frequently for it to make improvements? Should I combine it and the heavy bag on the same night? Or should I do the heavy bag first rather than the strength stuff (by strength training, I'm meaning dips and push ups and things like that). Do I need those "off" nights or will that hurt more than help?

It's clearly going to be a learning process for me - to see what I am capable of and what my body will stage a revolt against. I intend to start off kind of light, but enough to push myself so I make progress. I will be finding the line between "making progress" and "hurting myself" and no one can really tell me where that line is except my own body. (I'm sure it won't hesitate to let me know!!)

For this weekend, the steps I'll be taking in the right direction are to clean out the room in the basement where my heavy bag goes and to get it set up. The ducks were in there when they stayed in the house so it looks pretty much like what you're picturing right now. So I'll be cleaning out the cedar chips and the duck poop and bleaching the concrete and then scrubbing off the nasty bleach smell with some kind of pleasant smelling cleaner. Then I'll get my heavy bag put up (with help from K, of course) and all that.

Monday will start my new life, so I need to get ready!!

Here it is.

So I say to Husband last night, "So, you wanna run a marathon?" to which He replies, "Um, not right now." Gotta love him. Then I told him about my plan and he says, "How are you going to do that with studying and everything?" I didn't really expect resistance from that angle, but that just made me more determined because it's not impossible to do this, but it does kind of seem impossible.

The new master plan for the blog (and for my life, really) is to run a marathon. I haven't set a date and said, "I'm going to run X marathon on X date" which is probably what I should do, but that seems huge. So I'm going to run a 5k first...gotta start small. I know that I need to start that small because I found a 5 week training program for a 5k race and there's no way I can do that yet. I'm so out of shape it isn't even funny. So my current goal is to work my way up to starting the 5k training. I figure it'll take about a month. I'm going to start with the heavy bag tonight - basically working on stamina (with hopeful upper arm improvements!).

I'm going to try for a 5week pre-training training program. There will be heavy bag workouts and run/walks and I found a general strength training program that seems like a good idea. I need to get a reasonable schedule worked out - both to keep this realistic (it's not like the CPA exam just disappeared or anything) and because I just function better with a schedule (hence, the studying schedule). Once I get a schedule worked out, I'll post it here and we'll go from there.

I will have beginning numbers (weight, measurements, etc) but the overwhelming shame will not allow me to post those here - not just yet. Once I'm far enough away from those numbers, I'll tell you what they were, but not until they're a thing of the past. Besides, losing weight or being thin or whatever isn't my goal here. My goal is to pick something I want to do, something I could totally accomplish if I put my mind to it and am committed to it, and DO THAT THING. If I drop a bunch of weight and become a total hottie in the process - BONUS.

A plan

I finally have a plan for this blog. Sort of. More than just random ramblings about nothing in particular. Don't get me wrong - those will still be here - but there will also be a more grand purpose to the thing. We'll be going somewhere with this, you see. I'm going to do something. And I'm going to document it.

Earth shattering, right? You're glad you waited all this time for me to come up with that (completely original) idea...right?

And here's the best part...I don't know what it's going to be yet. I don't know what I'll be documenting. I haven't been inspired. I can't decide if I want to start small...so something every day for a week, let's say. Or maybe for a month and see how that goes. Can I keep it up? Can I blog about it? Will it mean anything? Or should I just start out with a whole year. That seems huge.

I know I don't have many readers on here yet so I'm not going to bother with setting up a poll cause I feel certain I wouldn't get many responses. But I'm going to throw some ideas I have out here and let them bounce around and see if anyone has anything to say about them. Maybe it'll just help me decide all on my own.

Ideas for a week (to potentially be extended to a month or longer):
~Eat an apple before each meal.
~Do a cleansing/detox type diet
~Do something creative every day (and actually post pics of the results)
~Have sex every day (I've also thought of this one as 365 times in a year/31 times in a month but not necessarily every single day....make sense?)

One idea I had for a longer goal-type thing was to run a mini-marathon next summer. I mean, it would be awesome to run in the New York City marathon in 2010, but being able to run 26 miles in a little over a year when I can't even run down my driveway right now, might be a touch unreasonable. Of course, unreasonable does NOT equal undoable or impossible. So, we'll see. And I've always wanted to be a runner.

Hmmm...

What do I think of people who don't censor themselves regardless of their audience? Am I envious? Or do I think they must lead boring lives if they don't mind for every single person they know to potentially know every single detail of their lives. Still - am I envious of that kind of simplicity? Or am I envious of a life filled with those kinds of relationships? Can you imagine being surrounded ONLY by people who would not judge you (or disown you) for anything you could think to say? Sure, I have a couple of those people in my life, but they are most certainly not ALL like that.

Not to mention - these people who claim to be uncensored - how do we know that they really are? I mean, when you're reading a blog, or twitter posts, or whatever, you have no idea what's really going on outside the monitor. Sure, they might claim they're sharing their entire life, or that they don't hold back on their opinions, but you really have no way of knowing. (Next time you're reading someone's blog - especially someone you don't really know - just imagine all the things they could be doing while typing that very post!!)And whenever someone's blog is open to family members, I'm always skeptical. But maybe that's just me. Perhaps I compartmentalize.

I'd have to be 'out there' looking 'in here' to really say, but maybe if you read this blog, then read my tweets, then read my other blog - you might not even think all 3 were written by the same person. Surely this can't all be the same life - can it? Three completely different views on a single reality? Or is it even a single reality?

Sorry - I didn't intend to be all philosophical and cryptic, it just came out that way.

Lost in translation

On the way to work this morning, I saw a bumper sticker someone had stuck to the back of a street sign. It said, "Abortion is Murder". But, my little 7:20am eyes read it as "Adoption is Murder" and I thought, Geez, if it is, you're doing it wrong!

TGIF

It's finally Friday. I say "finally" because I'm certain this week has been 8 or 10 days long. I'm caught up on my studying (I have a schedule) so I'm going to study some at lunch today to try to review and maybe get ahead a little, then any studying I do this weekend is just bonus, so that's beyond awesome. I do, however, have a to-do list as long as my arm. Wanna see??

• do laundry
• clean the house (bathrooms, bedrooms and all!!)
• weed the front flower beds
• stake the tomatoes
• weed the garden (this is much worse than it sounds!!)
• clean Casa de Guinea
• clean up the basement from where we had foul fowl living in there
• change the bed
• wash my car/clean out the inside
• plant my poor rose bush before it croaks
• do something FUN!!

That's a lot to ask of 2 days, right? I guess I should get started tonight. I could probably clean our bedroom and bathroom before Husband gets home, and maybe even get the bed changed and everything. I could throw in a load of laundry while I'm doing all that. Then when he gets home he's going to weedeat and I could easily weed the front flower beds while he's doing that. Cleaning the basement will be a good project for the middle of the day tomorrow when it's far too hot to do anything outside (anything work-like anyway).

I better get to work - and since it's 8:32, it's time to start crossing my fingers that my office-mate has called in sick today!!

Hump Day

You know, having to work sucks sometimes and being independently wealthy would win out over working for a living any day. Guess I should start playing the lottery if I ever expect to live out my lifelong dreams of sloth and gluttony.

I announced to Husband the other night that once I pass my CPA and we get some money saved up, I'm going to go back to school to become a nurse. I believe he thinks I've lost my mind completely this time. But I've had these nurse fantasies (not like that!!) for a long time now, so I think I'll go for it. It's never too late to have dreams, I suppose. Of course...does it make sense to aspire to a career with worse hours and lower pay than the career I have now? I suppose not. Maybe I'll just become a candy striper after I retire. ;-)

I'm having trouble staying (getting) motivated today. Lord knows I have enough work to do, they keep piling it on ad nauseum, but I just don't feel like doing it. I want to go home and...oh, I don't know....chillax?? :-) Actually, I'd like to be studying right now - that would at least feel like I was accomplishing something. I never thought I'd get into the whole CPA exam thing, but I'm totally obessessed with it. I don't want to do anything except study. At all. Until I'm finished. Husband complains about how much I study and wants to know why I didn't take a break between tests, or why I have to study EVERY NIGHT FOR SIX WEEKS. Because I want to be done with this test, you know? I don't want to take it 15 times, I don't want to half-ass it and drag it out forever. I want to study hard now, learn this shit and be done. I want to pass all 4 parts on the first try. Who knows if I will (or if I have) but I want to, and not studying will not facillitate that. It's hard to explain this kind of obessession to someone who is not experiencing it, and even harder to ask them to be understanding about it.

Tests, animals, life.

I'm back. Took some time off and had a lot of catching up to do at work yesterday, so no time for blogging. Wednesday was my first part of the CPA exam...BEC...Business Environment and Concepts. Lots of crap about partnerships, s-corps, c-corps, stocks, bonds, present value of money, information technology, international markets, etc, etc, etc. It's kind of the random-crap section of the exam. I sincerely hope I passed it, not just because I have a fear of failure, but also because if I have to study that boring ass shit again, I'll probably have to hurt someone. Then Thursday, Friday and Saturday we took a little trip to celebrate our anniversary. Saturday we came home, gathered the dogs, then grilled out some veggies for dinner and set off fireworks in the front yard. It was fun and I look forward to buying even more explosives next year!! Oddly enough, it is legal to buy the big fireworks in our state, but illegal to actually set them off. Needless to say, we ignored that last part of the law.

Saturday was our anniversary. We've been married 11 years. I keep saying that and it keeps blowing my mind. It is amazing how young we were when we got together and when we got married and how we've managed to stay together. So much shit has gone down since we got married, not just with us, but with all the people in our wedding. Let's look at my bride's maids. One of them had a baby, got married and had another baby (in that order), another one came out of the closet and lives happily with her girlfriend, another one got married and divored twice, got married again and had a baby, and the fourth one had a baby and got divorced. Then there's the groomsmen. The best man had a baby, got divorced, then married a woman who already has 4 kids. Another one had triplets, one had 2 kids and the fourth got divorced and is now a musician. That's a whole lot of crap happening, lots of marriages and divorces and babies for 8 people!! And what have we done? Well, no divorces or babies here. We did move to another city, finish college, got real jobs, moved again...out of state that time. And then of course, there were all manner of interesting developments and things changing...as I think you'd expect when two people essentially grow up together. I mean, I was only 18 and a month out of high school when we started dating. And now I'm 31 years old. Geez.

At work, my office mate is back. Yuck. I got used to having my own office (he was gone for a month...he's an auditor and they spend a lot of time in the field). As it turns out, I really took to talking to myself while he was gone too, so I've had to get that in check. And I got used to listening to my iPod too, but I can't do that with him in here either. But the good news is that he's here this week then gone again next week. Sweet.

At home, all is well. I'm studying again for the 2nd part of the exam which is scheduled for August 20th. This one is FAR - Financial Accounting and Reporting. I'm trying to get the house cleaned too, I accomplished the kitchen this weekend, that's been about it. Maybe tonight I'll knock out a bathroom or something. However, after the duck tragedies and the baby deer and all that sadness, my faith in the Disney cartoon status of our property has been restored. Sunday I went in the laundry room to hang something up and I looked out the window and there was a deer and 3 babies!! Triplets are very, very rare for deer so it was amazing. I yelled for Husband to come look and we stood at the window watching them. There is a patch in the middle of our front yard that contains our burn pile. We haven't had an opportunity to burn it and the grass/weeds have grown up around it. The fawns used it like a race track and chased each other in circles around it. It was hilarious!! The mother just stood watching them and eating grass, very calm. They moved over near the woods and we went on the back porch and watched them a while longer (they were kind of beside the house at that point). Finally they went into the woods. I took some pictures and will share them as soon as I can sweet-talk Husband into uploading them from the camera. Then this morning, I stepped out on the front porch and 5 deer ran across the driveway. They must have been grazing in the front yard and I startled them and they scampered off into the long grass in the field next to us. Not to sound like a big dork, but it was pretty magical. I mean, they're such beautiful creatures and for them to feel safe enough to just graze and hang out and bring their babies out so close to our house is pretty cool. So this morning's count was 5 deer, 1 indigo bunting and 1 baby bunny (we're overrun with bunnies...want some??)

So what's the deal here anyway?

It is truly a joy to write things, real things about your life, or from your imagination, when the people who are going to read them are either complete strangers or are those rare, special, wonderful, kindred spirits who will not judge you and will continue to really want you in their lives no matter what might jump off your fingertips and onto the keyboard. When you get done writing something for an audience like that, your soul feels lighter, you feel happy. So this thought leads me to wonder why I have this blog. Sure, I can ramble on about farm/tractor/guinea/duck/dog stuff for days and you can't say anything because I warned you that's what this was going to be like. But does that stuff really weigh on me and want to be dumped here? Not really. It's just life stuff, just sharing experiences. Which is cool too, but have never really been the thing that has compelled me to write. There are a couple of you here that know understand what I'm getting at here.

Also, I think I've attracted some new readers to this blog and when I look back at it with fresh eyes, I realize you know nothing about me really. And how interesting can guinea fowl tales be from a person you know nothing about?? So for this post, a mini-bio. I'm going to keep this semi-annoymous, but you'll get the basics.

I grew up on a 200 acre farm. We had lots of animals - cows, horses, a donkey, guinea fowl, ducks, geese, hamsters, dogs, cats, etc. We grew corn, tobacco, and bell peppers. We lived there until I was 12 years old. Then we moved "into town" which was 6 acreas about 5 miles from town. My parents lived there until about 5 years ago, I think. I met Husband the day before I graduated from high school. Our first date was July 4, 1996 and we got married July 4, 1998. 11 years ago this coming Saturday. I was 20 years old when we got married. So how I'm only 29 now, after being married 11 years is a bit of a mystery, I'll admit. We bought a house a couple months before we got married and lived there for 3 years. In 2001 Husband lost his job and we ended up moving away - to the "big city" - where he found a new job. I was not happy about leaving my home town, but now I think it was the best thing we could have done. We lived in a neighborhood in a mid-sized town (a little over 200,000 people I think). We both went to school during that time (while working full-time) and got our degrees. After Husband graduated, we decided to move out into the country - 2 1/2 hours from where we lived. So we fixed up our house, sold it in October 2008, quit our jobs, left all of our friends, co-workers and favorite restaurants behind, bought a new house and moved to where we live now. We own a little over 4 acres and sit in the middle of 16 acres all owned by the same people - we hope to buy it all someday.

Here's a few random tidbits, then I gotta get back to work. The first grade was by far the worst year of my life. I had the chicken pox twice that year, even though that "isn't possible." I burned my hand on an iron bad enough that I was off school a couple days and the pain was still so bad when I went back (with my hand a giant ball of gauze) that it made me dizzy. My paternal grandmother died in October of that year. On February 1 (my parents' anniversary) my dad, sister & I were in a car accident. My dad still suffers from his injuries. I ate the radio knob and knocked out my only adult tooth. Then my paternal grandfather died on February 7th (I think). I have been put to sleep 6 times in my life. Once to have that tooth put back in and braces sewn into my gums, then to have the braces taken out, then to have the tooth itself taken out (3 or 4 years later), then to have my gallbladder taken out in 2003 and twice for oral surgery in 2003 & 2004 (I think). I once went to a psychiatrist named Clovis Augustus (first & middle names), and one who told me that I could never tell anyone I'd ever seen a shrink as it would make people think less of me (I was about 14 at that time). I've been medicated for everything from depression to bipolar disorder to severe anxiety. I haven't taken any of that stuff in over 7 years and I don't intend to ever again. I feel like Husband and our marriage are the great miracles of my life - it is what I am most proud of.

Monday - or, Thursday, as it were

So it's another Monday and yet, I don't entirely hate this one because I only have to work 2 days this week. We were supposed to go out to lunch today with a girl who used to work here but moved away - she's back in town today. But I'm not going, instead I'm going to stay here and study. It's what I should do, so I'm doing it.

The weekend went fairly ok, just not long enough as usual. Friday night we went to the in-laws' and worked on the guinea coop, then we ate dinner and played some pinochle. We were there into the wee hours of the morning (ok, it was midnight, but it felt really late!) Saturday we got up and Husband went to help them load up the guinea coop parts to bring to our house for final assembly. I stayed home and cleaned the house, did some laundry and studied. When they got there, I went down and helped with assembly. It was 500,000 degrees (95) outside, so we worked until about 2:30pm, then stopped cause it was blisteringly hot. The in-laws went home and we took showers and went out to dinner and stopped at Wal-Mart for some essentials (gas can for diesel for the tractor, windshield wiper blades, car washing soap, paint for the guinea house & cheap brush (since its going to be red and will likely ruin the brush cause of the rough wood), and various other goodies). Then I studied for a bit and around 6pm, when that side of the house was in the shade, we got back to work on the coop. It is 8' x 4' and has plywood sides and back, a metal roof and a wire front and bottom. We covered the inside of the bottom with vinyl stuff and a couple piecs of paneling that we'll leave there at least until they can get up on the roost (which is a wooden 8ft. closet rod). There are also a couple pieces of paneling in the front to protect them (they sleep with their faces up against that wire and a racoon will reach in and kill them just for fun) and to keep some heat in. Anyway, we got it done Saturday night and it was supposed to storm, so we left them in the basement and moved them out there Sunday. They move around a little and are eating and everything, but they are clearly still freaked out about being outside (where they can hear dogs barking and who knows what else). They can't get up on their perch yet, or they haven't figured out that they can, so they're still huddling on the floor and sitting on their feeder. Of course, it dropped down into the 50's last night, which is the coldest night we've had in a month or two so when I went down to feed them this morning, they mostly gave me dirty looks. I put a cardboard box in there on its side so for them, they can get in that and snuggle together to get warmer if they want (once they stop being afraid of it). Also, they might use it as a step up onto their perch. Hopefully after a full day of sunshine and no dogs or people looking in on them every 5 minutes, they'll relax and explore their new house some more.

So I have to work today and tomorrow, then Wednesday is my big test. I took some practice tests over the weekend and I'm pretty sure I will not pass this section. But at least I'll get a feel for the experience and I'll know better how to study for future sections. It's a very expensive learning experience, but a learning experience none the less. And who knows, maybe I'll get lucky. Stranger things have happened. Even though it is so close, I will still spend tonight and tomorrow night doing practice questions and trying to drill that last tiny bit of information into my brain that might be the difference between passing and failing. Then, on Thursday, we will drop the chihuahua with my in-laws, take the big girls to the kennel and head off on our little anniversary get-away. Our 11th wedding anniversary is this coming Saturday (yes, we got married on the 4th of July), so we're staying at a cabin for 2 nights in a little town about 2 hours away. Not a big deal, just a little break from the ordinary.

Not much else happening. I have a tomato from the garden ripening on the window sill and several more getting near ripe on the vine. Maybel has several berries in the works, but 2 that will be eaten before we leave Thursday. Our squash plants have ceased producing anything edible - not sure what the problem is. I just keep pulling off the rotten or woody fruits and hoping for something delicious soon. We have 5 watermelons coming on our single plant - our entire family will be eating watermelons soon!! We're also expecting a bumper crop of cantelopes - I hope everyone we know loves them!! I think I'm going to have a bunch of lima beans too, which means I need to look up when to pick them and how to store them - I've only ever had them out of a can!

Here we go again...

Got a big fat slap with the old reality fish last night. Didn't really need it - not at the end of this week, believe me. It's been a hard week. They happen. But I got home to find all 3 of our ducks had perished. Well, I don't know for sure if they had perished when I got home, or if it happened between me letting the dogs out and letting them back in. I'm thinking the latter though. And that's tough, because the dogs have been left out there much longer than they were last night, unattended and nothing has happened. We've observed them with the ducks and they've been alone with the ducks and its always been fine. Not this time. This time, I have no more ducks and I feel horribly guilty about that. I should have known: Dogs will be dogs. I should have remembered that the dogs aren't human and they have a nature much different from our own. They don't understand that the ducks were our pets, they don't even understand that the ducks are dead now. Vikki keeps trying to go down there, looking for them. She clearly doesn't get it. She's a dog. And I'm the human - the one who should have protected the ducks. I failed.

Husband really liked the ducks too, so we might get some more. We'll just have to be a lot more careful this time and remember that the dogs are dogs. Its very tough right now not to be totally pissed at the dogs - they couldn't help it, we never really taught them any different so they didn't know any different. But I refused to pet them last night and I didn't pet them this morning either. It's mean though, if you think about it, because they don't understand WHY I'm not petting them (or talking to them, or even looking at them much), they just think I'm a big old bitch who doesn't love them anymore and they don't understand why. Jazzy (the Australian Shepherd) is really the most heart broken. She is a serious velcro dog and this cold shoulder thing is killing her. So I'm all guilty about that too - I hate being mean to the dogs, I hate thinking that they think I don't love them, but I just can't bring myself to love on them. This sucks out loud.

In other news, we're going to get the guinea house tonight (too little, too late for the ducks) and we'll put it together this weekend. I'll try to help, but my first part of the CPA exam is Wednesday, so I'll have to study too. The guineas will go out there for a couple weeks, while we get the area fenced in more securely so the dogs (and other predators) can't get in there, then they'll have a little grassy area to go into during the day. They will still get locked up at night though, because no fence (that we can afford) is racoon proof. So we're having dinner with the in-laws tonight since the guinea house is at their house. I don't really feel like being social, but whatever.

At least the weekend starts in an hour and 55 minutes and next week is a short week, so that's good.

On the way to work this morning, it was raining a little and cloudy and I literally saw a cloud with a silver lining. Now, I just need to find the figurative silver linings.