Pondering the deeper questions of life

I have always been an independent person. Many people have their ideas about who I am... some are right, some are wrong, some are probably very subjective. I live in a way that is best for me. Not everyone may see it that way, especially on certain things, but I have to believe that at the end of the day each choice is a choice that I've made based on what is right for me in this path that I'm on in my life. I don't feel a need to justify any of the decisions I've made.

Going back to the first sentence: I'm very independent. I always have been. I remember growing up, I'd always get mad at my parents for trying to help me on my homework because, "Gosh darn it. I can freaking do it myself!!" Or something along those lines. Probably said meaner with the snobby teenage girl voice.

Now that I'm in my mid 20's I feel even more self sufficient. I have a career, I feel like I know who I am so much better than I did even two years ago, I feel like I have surrounded myself by a positive group of people. I am capable of supporting myself. I am self sufficient. I am strong. Earlier today, someone made an interesting comment to me. They said, "One day you will not want to be self sufficient." My initial reaction was confusion. HUH?! But then, I tried to think about this objectively. Could this person really be right? Could I really someday wish that I'm not who I am and crave dependency?

After I thought about it, I really think this comment is one of the more funny comments I've had anyone make to me. It speaks volumes about how little some people know about me and my personality. Maybe my aversion to never NOT wanting to be self sufficient is a generational thing. Maybe it has something to do with my stubbornness. I am perfectly content to be a partner to someone else and to be perfectly self sufficient in my relationships. I believe in 50-50 and I believe in sharing responsibilities. But to ever feel like I don't want to be self sufficient?

That's absolutely ludicrous.

Busy season: The fourth time around

Busy season is officially underway and when I look at my calendar now, I only see the next 15 weeks as nothing but some form of hell. There are and will be many invigorating days where I know I will go to sleep at night thinking that somehow, someway, in my job I am doing something good for someone. But I know that at the end of it all, I am going to be exhausted from trying to remain so focused for such an extensive amount of time. For the next 15 weeks, each and every day on my calendar has a little pink box on it telling me where I'm supposed to be, what client I'm supposed to be working on. There are no blank days. Next month, if someone can get me a blank day, I would probably be willing to give up my left pinky toe in exchange. I mean that is a huge sacrifice- part of my body for a free day!? Well, ok, so I'm not exactly sure yet if that would be a deal. Ask me in a few weeks.

Up until this week, I've been very busy but it hasn't seemed that bad. Granted, I had to stop going to my class and I work on average from 7am to 9pm every day but it was tolerable. Until this weekend. I spent most of yesterday in the office and all day today working at home. And then I opened my calendar. That's when I saw all of the little pink boxes lined up, mocking me.

In busy season, we are trained to be "professional focusers." I don't really know that focusers is a word, much less a job description, but you get the point. Anything unrelated to work basically goes out the window. So far this year, I've still managed to hang out with my friends at least one time a weekend but that will dwindle down as deadlines start to get more prominent over the next few weeks. We will all lose a little bit of touch until around April when we start to feel more like we're on the downslide and we'll look at each other and say, "Damn. It's been a while." And then we'll move on from there as if we didn't just lose two months of our life to work. It's good to have friends who are in public accounting as well because there is a certain level of understanding already there about what we go through this time of year that we have to explain to our friends not in public accounting.

I am getting to be a veteran at this busy season gig. It's my fourth one- I spent two in tax, this is my second in audit. Audit busy seasons are longer- mine went through the end of May last year- but the hours we work are also drawn out over this period of time where tax people cram all these hours into a shorter amount of time. I have to say, I'm down with the audit side of things.

Now that I just sufficiently spent 20 minutes posting about work, I guess it's time to get back to work...

You just have to shake your head sometimes

On my way to work this morning I saw a bumper sticker that read, "I used to be normal... now I'm natural."

Whatever that means, I don't think I want to know. Judging by the look of the person driving the car with said sticker, I would say that, yes, I was definitely scared.

I love my girls.

Jessica, Jaimi, and I
Cracking up at who knows what- Pam, me, Jess

Jess, Jaimi, Pam, and I

The above pictures are of the three girls that I have become rather close to in Arizona. We met through work, although now we probably see each other more outside of work than at work since we all do different things in our firm. Two of us are from Missouri, one of us is from Wisconsin, and one of us if from Oregon. It may seem strange that we all met in Phoenix but it's really not given that probably 70% of the people in Phoenix are not from here. These women are so amazing... we have such a good time together, laughing, talking, supporting each other. They are the kind of friends that I know I will have 50 years from now, regardless of where we are in our respective lives. The pictures above are just a few from our latest outing last Friday night. As always, it was so fun, mostly because I was with them and everything is more fun when we're all together.

Nose piercing

I did this the first week of January. I really like it... I've been wanting to do it for a while. The only scary thing was that I didn't really think about any of the consequences. I did it on a Saturday night and had to give a presentation in front of all of the partners at my job at work on monday. I didn't know if the nose ring would fly given that I'm in a very conservative profession. Needless to say, I appparently had no reason to worry. All of the comments I've gotten on it have been very positive. It's fun for the time being, anyway.