Big Weekend

This weekend is going to be busy, but so much fun!  One of my very best friends from Grad School is coming to visit tomorrow night and staying until some time on Saturday.  Saturday night, Mom and Dad are coming to spend the night before we go to the airport early Sunday morning.  Around lunchtime on Sunday, we are flying out to Arizona.  I have training for work Monday through Thursday and Mom and Dad are going for the BIG game on Monday plus a little R&R.

I don’t have a ticket for the game, but I’m still hoping that something will turn up.  My backup plan is to go to a restaurant in Scottsdale for a game watching party sponsored by the Phoenix Auburn Club.  That will be fun even if I’m not actually in Glendale inside the stadium.

I had to go to Walmart after working late tonight—I mainly needed some breakfast food for Saturday and Sunday—not everyone likes cereal for breakfast like I do (*hint* Daddy *hint*).  I sat down and ate dinner and now I got on the computer to talk to Emma on the webcam.  She got a haircut today and I needed to see how it turned out!  As a result, I haven’t gotten anything else on my list done tonight.  I’m going to go now so I can get up and get some things accomplished before bedtime!

Hopefully next time I write, Auburn will be home to a beautiful crystal football! :)

New Year's Resolutions?

I've never been big on New Year's Resolutions. I hadn't really thought about any until just now. My biggest problem is I might follow through for a short period, but once I forget the first time, it will be downhill from there. I'm going to do a little brainstorming and make a list of things that would be nice to do to improve my life in 2011.

1. Take my vitamins more regularly (daily)
2. Make my bed daily (as soon as I get out of bed)
3. Hang up my clothes as soon as I take them off and put them away in the closet (my bad habit is hanging them on the closet door)
4. Cook at home more often (this could be really challenging with busy season approaching)
5. Eat breakfast each weekday morning (this will require keeping milk in the house for my cereal...I really hate going to the grocery)
6. Be more creative with lunch options (I don't like prepackaged frozen lunches that much)
7. Complain less to Mom (she has enough on her plate without hearing about things not going my way)

Ok, this is a long enough list. I'm not fooling myself into thinking that I'll actually follow through with even half of this list, but it's something to work towards! :)

Quick Post

I'm working on a catch-up post since I haven't written anything in a month, but the words don't seem to be flowing today. Maybe I'll get over "blogger's block" before long!

I had a nice Christmas with my family and was once again spoiled by my family's generosity. I'm especially looking forward to setting up my new home theater system--I'll finally have powerful enough speakers to drown out the sounds of the girl who lives above me! :)

I'm looking forward to spending some time with my family and decompressing some before busy season starts at work. I'm not going to get to spend much time with my family especially between February and April, so I need to make this time count!

I'll try to get a better update together soon and not wait so long before posting again!

Until then...

Pretty Boring Lately

My life outside of work has been pretty boring lately…should I just say non-existent?  I’ve been getting lots of chargeable hours which I hope equate to a bonus in mid-January, but my life has basically turned into wake up, work, come home, eat, crash, repeat.  It doesn’t help that time changed and it’s dark between 4 and 5 everyday. 

The best thing coming up is going home Wednesday night for Thanksgiving.  I’ll be home Wednesday night (late) through Sunday afternoon.  This will be the longest I’ve been home since August.  I’m not sure how much rest I will get since Thursday will be cooking all morning (hopefully, a good nap in the afternoon), Friday is the big Auburn v. Alabama game, Saturday we’re going to Huntsville to see HP and have a nice meal and then Sunday we’ll go to church and it’ll be time to head back to start another week at work.

It’s really hit me lately how much different being an “adult” is from where I was this summer when I was still a “basically” care-free college student.  I don’t think I fully appreciated a week off at Thanksgiving, nearly a month at Christmas (if your exam schedule cooperated) and a whole week for Spring Break.  I sacrificed summer vacation throughout college between interning at TVA after my freshman and sophomore years and then being in school the next three summers to graduate on-time after changing my major at the end of my fifth semester.  Oh, yeah…I took a class at NWSCC the summer after my freshman year too…forgot about that English lit class.

I’m really looking forward to next January (2012, not 2011) because my PTO (Paid time off)/year goes up to 25 days…right now it’s 20 and I know that sounds like a lot, but it’s really not that much when you factor in that we don’t get sick leave or comp time.  Right now, I get my 20 days (13.33 hours/month) plus 8 paid holidays (NYD, Memorial Day, Labor Day, 2 days for Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and a flex day I can use at my discretion…oh wait, there’s one more…maybe Fourth of July??).

Ok.  Enough complaining.  Well, maybe a teensy bit more…I still have work to do and it’s almost 11PM.  I worked yesterday and then ran errands like a crazy woman, so I didn’t get everything I needed to do for Monday accomplished.  Being the over-achiever I am, I can’t stand to go to work without doing everything I said I would do.  So, as a result, I have at least an hour’s more work to do.  I know, I know…I should have gotten it done earlier in the day…procrastinators unite…tomorrow! :)

Hopefully my next post will be more upbeat and have some cute Thanksgiving pictures…I’ve been sorely without inspiration since Emma has been on an extended vacation since around the middle of October.

A Little Scared

Last week, I worked 52 hours.  Monday morning, I asked my Mentor was that about as bad as it got?  Her response…”a little worse.”

Maybe I should just call it quits now.  I’m so tired from day 9 of consecutive work.  I don’t know how I will function come next Tuesday when THE report is due.  Excedrin and it’s ingredient, caffeine, are going to be my new best friends.  Maybe along with some 5 Hour Energy?

And for those of you who are wondering why I’m complaining when I’m home at 6:41…the documents we requested didn’t come in today, so we didn’t have what we needed to move forward.  Tomorrow night is probably going to be the longest night ever.

Now…time to eat and then sleep.

*Note: I’m not actually considering quitting.  I’m just really not looking forward to January-April.  At least I should get Sundays off.*

Quick Check-In

I’m sitting here trying to psych myself up to take a shower and get ready for work…yes, you heard right, work on Saturday.  My first Saturday of my full-time career.  Good thing I like what I’m doing, right?

I’m hoping to be home in time to watch Auburn take on the Care Bears…Rebel Black Bears…whatever.  I sure hope the team is ready and doesn’t have the big head from all the recent publicity related to the big #1 and Cam’s Heisman hopes.  It’s a game by game thing, but I’m afraid we won’t stop to smell how sweet it is at the top until it’s over.  Knock on wood and all that jazz…I’m becoming so superstitious!! :)

Ok.  It’s now the latest possible time that I told myself I could wait until to start getting ready.  Time to get to work so I can get home!

Busy Week

I’ve survived my first big deadline at work.  This was actually the third big deadline to pass since I started work, but the first one that I had any returns to prepare. 

I had most of my work done between Monday and Tuesday.  I kept getting new returns at the last minute, but that was ok.  They weren’t too complicated and it was nice to have something to do and be useful.  One return on Tuesday only had front pages of source documents and completely skipped some documents we knew we needed.  I requested what we needed and we were told we would have it by Fed.Ex on Thursday morning.  Of course, it was almost lunch before we got it.  The pages I needed were now front and back, but some items were missing.  Luckily, they were items that I could find based upon last year and published government information.

Also, on Thursday, we had lunch brought in.  Apparently, there are several Jim-n-Nicks in Tennessee.  It made my day to have some barbecue chicken, macaroni and cheese, cheese biscuits and of course, chocolate pie!  It’s funny how a little bit of Alabama really made my day.  Of course, after everything I ate, I was just about sick and needed to walk about ten miles to work off all the calories.  It was worth it though! :)

Friday, we had college recruits in the office to interview for internships and full-time positions.  I was assigned, along with two other people, to take two recruits to lunch.  I needed to drive and, of course, I had planned to buy gas on the way home from work.  Instead,  I got to leave work during the day to go get gas and it didn’t require me to take time off! :)  We went to lunch—unfortunately we had a miscommunication and two groups made reservations at the same place and we didn’t get to go where I really wanted to.  Oh, well…

After lunch, a client brought his information in around 2 and it had to be out the door before we left and in time to be postmarked with 10/15.  The return was quite simple, but the phone call after the return was prepared wasn’t quite as simple.  Luckily, I was more of an observer while the manager did most of the taking with the client.  We ended up conferencing in the firm manager (the partner in charge of all the other partners)—he is the signer for this return.  I hadn’t participated in client phone calls except to request information before, so this was a learning experience for me.  I’m grateful for the experience, but I hope not all conversations are that complicated.

After work, I raced home to take Emma out and then went back out to meet some of the girls from the Tax department at Cheekwood.  We went to see the Chihuly exhibit.  It was really pretty—even though we went off-roading nearly the entire time.  We weren’t too concerned with ropes and signs that pointed us in the “correct” direction! :)  I think it would have been nice to get to the exhibit before sunset so you could see the sculptures both in the light and lit up after dark.

All in all, it was a busy week, but good.  I survived a deadline and I feel a little more prepared for what’s to come in the spring.

I’ve got cleaning to do this weekend and I have promised to pay more attention to Emma this weekend since she’s been alone much more than usual this week between horrible traffic this week and my Friday night plans.  I’ll really miss her, but this week confirmed that she needs to vacation in Florence during busy season.  She’s a snow bird, so she’s going south!