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??)