not "tax season"

this is the time of year that i wake up earlier. this is the time of year that i stop even attempting to "do my hair" in the mornings. this is the time of year that i go out to eat for lunch *every* single stinking day. this is the time of year that i fumble for my car keys in the dark. this is the time of year that i don't see my house in daylight. this is the time of year that i disappear.

this time of year is called "busy season".

i got the following email at work a couple of weeks ago:

"As a reminder, effective January 21, 2008, in order to ensure that the hours worked during busy season are evenly spread among all professionals, each professional must work a minimum of 55 hours per week. Based on deadlines of clients and various other client needs, you will sometimes be requested to work during weekends to help get a job done. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated."

that's the firm's polite way of reminding us that (1) they own us, and (2) accountants shouldn't have social lives anyway.

now, the funny thing is that when i tell my friends/acquaintances/cousins/random people i meet at the grocery store about this being my busy season. the standard response is "aaah, taxes" accompanied by sympathetic head-nod and a scriggled face.

but ... i don't do taxes! (which is precisely why i have failed my tax cpa test twice now. yeah. let's hope the third time went better.)

all auditors alike have this same frustration. we talk about it over lunch. maybe "frustration" is too strong a word. i actually think it's a little entertaining: though i have explained in detail to many what exactly i do, it doesn't stick. accountant means taxes. okay.

so ... this is tax busy season. i'll see you all again at the end of march. don't expect too much from me until then :P

another sandwich post

the monte cristo:

at brent's deli, it is described as: "ham, turkey & swiss on thick egg bread deep-fried in batter. served with strawberry preserves and powdered sugar." but i'm telling you, it tastes better than that. just imagine a ham and turkey sandwich made with french toast and deep-fried to perfection.

for those of you who haven't tried this artery-clogging sensation yet ... you are missing out. when i ordered it at lunch yesterday, two of my co-workers had very emotional responses -- one guy seemed ready to have a heart attack himself at just hearing my order, and the other guy was ready to jump up and down in excitement over my order.

and had i known beforehand just what i was getting myself into, i probably would have had both reactions at once.

but i'm tellin' ya. good eats!

of course, i will also tell you that i went running last night, too, y'know to try and make up for my indulgence and i seriously couldn't run to save my life. it's a very good thing that no one was chasing me. really.

but wow, what a sandwich!

a favorite, with a twist

the other night, i was whining about my no-beef resolution again and cute guy just wasn't letting me get away with any of it. he had lots of ideas and suggestions ... and i have to say that i have fallen completely in love with one of them: grilled cheese and tomato sandwich.

oh my goodness. i love grilled cheese sandwiches -- but this is so much better.

see? it starts out as a regular grilled cheese sandwich -- i make mine with dark rye bread and shredded colby jack. mmm. and i always butter the pan, not the bread; that way i don't get butter on my fingers or on the counter.

so, butter the pan, put your first slice of bread in and load on some shredded cheese. but before you put the second piece of bread on, you put a couple slices of fresh, ripe tomato! yeah, huh! it's just so dang good!

when it's ready, flip it over (yes, buttering the pan for the other side).

wow. makes me salivate just thinking about it ... maybe i'll go make me another one ... yeah, that sounds like a good idea.

silver lining - rilo kiley

and i'm not going back into rags or in the hole
and our bruises are coming
but we will never fold

and i was your silver lining
as the story goes
i was your silver lining but now i'm gold

[chorus:]
hooray hooray i'm your silver lining
hooray hooray but now i'm gold.

and i was your silver lining
high up on my toes
well you were running through fields of hitchhikers
as the story goes

[chorus:]
hooray hooray i'm your silver lining
hooray hooray but now i'm gold
hooray hooray i'm your silver lining
hooray hooray but now i'm gold

and the grass it was a ticking
and the sun was on the rise
i never felt so wicked
as when i willed our love to die

and i was your silver lining as the story goes
i was your silver lining but now i'm gold

[chorus:]
hooray hooray i'm your silver lining
hooray hooray but now i'm gold
hooray hooray i'm your silver lining
hooray hooray but now i'm gold

but now i'm gold
but now i'm gold
but now i'm gold

side effects

well, my new years resolution may have more of an impact on my life than i anticipated.

first, an update: after a cruel and enlightening discussion with my brother-in-law, i have made an amendment to the resolution as previously stated. in order to compensate for the one exception stipulated, i will, in turn, refrain from eating red meat on two weekend days to offset the two weekdays that i am allowed to eat red meat before donating platelets. i hope there is some cow mama somewhere who is happy to hear this news.

now, for the discussion of the side effects of my resolution ...

1. i have no desire to eat fast food anymore. some of you may not know this about me, but i am quite sincerely a fast food junkie. my favorite restaurant? mcdonald's. not kidding. what do i get there? a double-cheeseburger and a mcchicken sandwich. every time.

   but ... i'm not allowed to eat beef on weekdays anymore. so ... i actually have *no* desire to stop at any of the 3 mcdonald's that are on the way home from my office anymore. (by the way, my office is 3.65 miles from my house and there are 3 mcdonald's along my route home. cool, huh? guess i picked the right place to live!)

2. lunch is no longer exciting or any sort of highlight to the day. it's actually kinda exhausting to think that in order for me to have lunch now i am going to have to be *way* more creative and adventuresome in my menu selection.

   and dinner isn't all that appealing either. life is so hard.

3. i feel like i have been hungry for a week -- i eat, but i get tired of lifting fork to mouth long before my stomach feels full. when i eat beef, i feel full for *hours* ... now i clean my plate and still feel empty.

hopefully this is all just part of the adjustment. i mean, my stomach is used to having red meat in there ... it's probably just not used to what other food feels like. :S

distress call

brrring ... brrring ... (or maybe it's more like, "bzzz ... bzzz ... " since my phone is on vibrate.)

"hi, becky."

"i'm trapped in your backyard."

"what?"

"i'm trapped in your backyard."

" !! what? !! "

"so i went out to the backyard to pick some oranges, and pat poked her head out the back door to say that she was going over to the neighbor's house for a bit. and as she walked away, she pushed the door a little too much and it closed and locked --"

"you're kidding."

"no. and i checked -- both side gates are locked and they are surprisingly difficult to try to climb over. and you two are very good at making sure none of your windows can be opened from the outside."

"you're kidding."

"no."

"you want me to come home and open the door for you?"

"well, does pat have a cell phone?"

"she does, but she never carries it around with her."

"well, which neighbor did she go to? maybe i could hop the fence into their yard."

"umm, probably the one closer to the school, on the side where the trash cans are ... do you want me to come home and open the door to let you in?"

"would that be okay?"

"yeah, i could be there in 10 minutes. i can have lunch while i am there -- just take an early lunch."

"do you mind ... ?"

"i'll be there in 10 minutes."

"okay. thanks."

"see you in a bit."

ain't made for walkin'

i decided last month that i want to own some snakeskin shoes. well, particularly that i want to own some strappy snakeskin sandals ...

... but it's winter. and i was at target. because, as we all know, i love target. and because we *also* all know that i have no patience for shopping. so what i found are these *fake* snakeskin heels:

they're a fairly attractive shoe, i admit. but i tell ya, these shoes weren't meant to be worn all day.

i wore them to church on sunday. but it was stake conference -- so it was only 2 hours and i was sitting in one chair the whole time -- and then i came home and put my flip flops back on. (can i just ask *why* "professional dress" frowns upon flip flops? really. i mean, today you can find flip flops that would coordinate with anything. i vote that we as a nation re-think "professional dress" and give flip flops a second chance. who's with me?)

so, since the sassy snakeskin shoes gave me no trouble on sunday, i didn't think anything about their newness and the need to "break them in" when i decided they would look fabulous with my striped sweater and dress khakis on tuesday.

and now i have blisters. on both my heels. and even on a couple of my toes. my toes are sad about that.

what happens in vegas

a few months ago, my friend becky won a romantic weekend for two in the exciting sin city of las vegas on the radio. we were originally gonna go back in november, but had to reschedule a couple of times and finally got it set up for january 4-7.

so after taking my cpa test on friday, i came home, did laundry, and packed to be out of the house by 5 so i could pick up becky from the airport at 6 (she was flying in from her Christmas vacation with family back in virginia). well, because of traffic, i didn't get to the airport until about 645 ... argh ... but then we were on our way up to vegas!

the drive was long because of the insane rain storm but it wasn't too bad since we both had vacation stories and other stories to catch up on ... and we finally got to the stratosphere around 2am, checked in, and went to sleep.

the only catch to this romantic weekend for two in the exciting sin city of las vegas was that we had to sit through a "no-pressure" time-share presentation given by the company that sponsored the weekend. which was torturous. seriously. first of all, we thought that the meeting was at 10 on saturday morning. but when we checked into the hotel , they told us that we had to check in with the time-share company in the morning -- they open at 6. so ... at 730 the next morning, i finally wrestled myself out of bed, brushed my hair and groggily made my way to the check-in desk. where i found out that our meeting was at 8 -- not 10 -- at 8. !! so ... i called becky to wake her up and then i ran up to the room to change clothes and run back down to get to the meeting. :S

and despite their reassurances that this meeting was "no-pressure" ... it was seriously the worst saturday morning i have ever spent. ever. even worse than the saturday morning i spent ... hmm ... i was just trying to think of a really bad saturday morning experience that i had one time and i can't think of anything ... so either i've never had a bad saturday morning or i have blocked all of them from my memory ... interesting. but what i can say is that *this* saturday morning was awful. when becky and i told them "no", we don't want to buy into their time-share ... wow ... i don't think i've ever been through a worse breakup. i've seriously never seen a grown man pout so much.

when they finally let us go and took us back to our hotel, becky and i crashed back into our beds for some much-needed napping. the only problem was that i was tormented the whole time by "no-pressure" sales dreams and didn't get much rest at all. :P ugh. seriously.

the rest of saturday was pretty fun. we finally woke up and got ready to be out of the hotel room by 230 and went over to the hilton to meet up with becky's dad at the star trek experience for lunch and some rides. so much fun!! and i met a borg drone named 3 of 6. he seemed a bit taken with me ... though he adamantly refused to help me be assimilated to the collective -- evidently he is now part of a de-assimilation initiative and was posted on the station in order to observe human behavior in an attempt to regain his humanity. (oh! also, the actress that played alexander's mom was there, too. she wouldn't let me take her picture, though, unless i bought something. oh, well.)

and *that*, my friends, is my star trek geekiness. i think that's all i'll subject you to. for now.

after yummy dinner and some star trek adventures with becky's dad, we three went to see menopause the musical. it was an interesting show. funny. but i won't go see it again. and i probably won't recommend it to anyone either. dunno. just not my kind of humor.

after that show, becky and i hightailed it over to the mgm grand to see ká, a fabulous cirque du soleil show about a village named ká and the plight of the young prince and princess who seek to return home after being separated and "must embark on a perilous journey". i *loved* it! really. it was seriously amazing. i'd go see it again any time, anywhere. you wanna go with me?

sunday morning, becky and i went to the gilcrease bird preserve in the neighborhood where becky grew up. we had a great time seeing the birds and visiting the petting zoo, too. this one bird was hilarious: i have never seen a bird enjoy being petted so much in my whole life. can you see the sheer bliss on his face?! i swear he would have crawled right into my lap and died of ecstasy right then had that pesky cage not been in the way. (oh, i don't think we were supposed to pet the birds, though -- so, if anyone asks, you didn't see this picture.)

we then went to visit becky's grandma and had lunch with her. she was very sweet and made yummy homemade chili for us. mmm.

after a couple hours at grandma's, we left to meet up with becky's dad. first we went to the mandalay bay shark reef. i *looved* that. i can't even express how much i love looking at sharks. i don't know why. don't ask. (we tried to take a cool picture, but it didn't quite turn out.)

then we went to the forum shops in caesar's palace. that is an amazing place. it's hard to believe that all that is indoors and that you aren't really walking the streets of ancient rome. i wished that i had brought my toga.

becky's dad treated us to dinner at the palm restaurant. oh, it was fabulous. i ate a 12 oz. new york steak *and* flirted with a very cute waiter. ha. he wasn't even "our waiter" -- but he kept coming out to the patio area to check on us. maybe he was "my waiter". :P yeah, whenever i caught him looking our direction, he gave me a wink or stuck his tongue out or blew me a kiss or even mouthed an "i love you" ... heh. i'd go back there again, too, any time. you wanna go with me there??

that evening we returned to the stratosphere to watch the american superstars impersonators show, which was entertaining. then we went up to the top of the stratosphere to look at all of las vegas from high above it. if it hadn't been so durned cold i would have loved to ride the roller coasters up at the top of that thing.

after we descended back to street level, we met up with becky's dad again to go to fremont street in downtown las vegas. we hung out there for a while, saw some sights, watched some guys make art with spray paint, and enjoyed the light show. it was fun. and freezing. vegas in winter is cold. just for the record.

monday we slept in until we really couldn't sleep in any longer. because we had to check out of the hotel by 11. (i've never stayed at a hotel where check-out is at 11. it's supposed to be at 12. what's up with the 11? must be a typo. must be.) anyway. and then we went over to the venetian grand canal shoppes and wandered around for a while. again, that's an amazing place. and it's hard to believe that you are indoors the whole time. we also went back over to the forum shops to see some more of what was there. as we passed the palm on our way out i spotted my waiter ... he was still very cute.

umm, monday evening we saw stomp out loud at planet hollywood, which was thoroughly entertaining. really. i was interested in seeing it mostly because i am a science nerd to some degree (ha ha -- okay, stop laughing) and i thought it would be cool to see what they could do ... but i was completely taken aback with all the humor in the show. i had no idea i would laugh so much! and that i would be taken aback! really. i love being taken aback! and laughing!

after the show, becky and i went to see the fountains at the bellagio -- beautiful. it was so much fun to stand there on the strip and listen to music, dance, and watch the fountains. i loved it.

we watched the fountains until about 10:15, and then becky and i got on the road to head back to l.a.

shortly after we left las vegas, becky fell asleep. and i called cute guy. he was such a sport and talked to me for the *whole* drive back to l.a. ... which, thankfully, kept me awake ... so we could arrive safely home ... at 3 in the morning.

the weather outside is frightful

13 hours in the car. google says that the drive from l.a. to ogden, ut, should take 11 hours. but google doesn't know that we had a 1½-year-old in the car. so it took longer. but he is a really cute 1½-year-old. see?

who wouldn't want to be stuck in a car for 13 hours with this cute kid? really.

so, eden, clint, and i packed the boy into the car at 7am on december 22. the drive wasn't too bad -- one person drove, one person kept the driver awake, and the third person entertained the boy. and we rotated responsibilities. it worked out great.

we arrived at my parents' house at 7pm. after a long day, all we had energy for was a birthday dinner and then headed off to bed. (my dad gave me a box *full* of dark chocolate -- now, that's love!)

the next morning was church. it was so much fun to go to church with almost my whole family -- it's been a while. we took up two pews! well, the short side pews, but still. haven't done that in a while.

monday was Christmas eve (as you know), so we set out in the mid-morning to finish up some last-minute shopping. and then the afternoon and evening were spent wrapping, making other preparations, and playing games.

oh my goodness, we played so many games during the whole week. it was *fab*-u-lous. i loved it. these are most of the games we played (i think):

mystery of the abbey
shadows over camelot
ticket to ride: märklin
bang! (with dodge city and high noon expansions)
citadels
incan gold
monopoly express
speed scrabble
mario & sonic olympics
raving rabbids 1 and 2
cars
mater-national

after opening presents on Christmas, we played more games. then the next day we played more games. and more games the next day. it was perfect. (which, by the way, if anyone out there wants an opinion on any games, let me know. if i can't answer myself, i know my sister or brother-in-law could certainly help you out. they are game gurus.)

friday i finally broke free from the house and went to see my friend amy in bountiful. i love visiting her! we went to a park up near her apartment and took some pictures in the snow (so that all my so-cal friends can really see what a white Christmas was all about). then we went back to her apartment for hot chocolate and chit-chatting. she is so much fun and i just love seeing her whenever i get to utah.

that night we watched stardust with my whole family. it was so much fun to share that with them! i still am absolutely in love with that movie.

the next morning we got up, packed the car, and headed back to l.a. yes, another 13 hours. we got to l.a. pretty late that evening. overall, it was a fun trip. i'm glad we got to go and that eden & clint could come for Christmas this year.

resolutions, v. 2008

okay, i've never been much of a resolutions-maker. (mostly because i don't want to set myself up for failure, but i like to tell people that it's because if i decide to make changes in my life i can do it right then and not wait for the new year. yeah.)

this year i am gonna try the resolution thing. i'm starting small, though. so, since i found out that my cholesterol is too high, i thought that could be an area for improvement for the coming year. so ... during 2008 (at least until i lower my cholesterol to a satisfactory level) i am going to eat less red meat --

*gasp*!

calm down. take a deep breath.

-- and to do that ... i am going to only allow myself to eat red meat on the weekends. now, i am *fully* aware that even restricting myself to weekends only is not what is recommended for red meat consumption. but keep in mind that we will be going from once or twice a day to once or twice a week.

see? this is a big deal. really.

oh -- one exception: because i have to make sure i have enough iron in my blood in order to donate platelets regularly, i decided that for the 2 days before i donate, i can eat red meat. this is the only time i'll be allowed to eat red meat on days other than weekends.

this is going to be rough. wish me luck ...

jolly swolly

i swallowed a cherry jolly rancher almost whole today.

i am still getting over my cold, and i thought that sucking on something during my cpa test might help to keep the coughing to a minimum. but the thing is that the testing center doesn't allow you to bring anything besides your clothes with you into the testing room. no cell phone, no watch, no purse, no chapstick, no books, no cheat sheets, nothin' ... i'm glad they let me bring my clothes. so included in that list of no's is "no candy wrappers". which i totally understand: it is *so* extremely annoying and distracting to hear someone open a candy wrapper, even when they try to do it discretely.

anyway, so i popped a cherry jolly rancher in my mouth almost immediately upon arriving at the testing center so i could get one started while they checked me in. and then i grabbed a second cherry jolly rancher, unwrapped it, and waited to put it in my mouth as i was entering the testing room. (no, they don't let me take it into the testing room even without the wrapper unless it is *in my mouth*. so i guess that in this place *all* candy, not just m&m's, are safe against possible melt-in-your-hand-ness.)

after checking in, i had to go to the other desk to get my testing materials (scratch paper, pencils, etc.) and as i sat down i could feel a bit of a cough so i reached up to cover my mouth and, as i did, i breathed in and sucked my cherry jolly rancher right down my throat! i'd only been sucking on it for *maybe* 2.64 minutes. it was still freakin' huge! but it flew straight back and slid effortlessly down my throat.

tragedy! sadness! i was so thoroughly enjoying the tangy cherry flavor and relishing in the fact that i knew my tongue was getting redder and redder by the moment! but it was gone. gone in an instant. i was so unprepared. filled with such loss. all that was left to do was to ...

... pop the second one in my mouth, walk into the testing room with my materials, and take my test. hopefully i did better this time than last. i'll find out in about 6 weeks.