From the city of transience to the city of rain?

Although by now most people are fully aware of what's going on in my life, for those who are unaware, I am moving to Seattle, WA at the end of this month. May 31 to be exact. As much as I have loved Phoenix, it has never felt permanent especially given the events that have gone down in my personal life, starting pretty immediately following my arrival to this city. Most people don't find roots in Phoenix and mostly everyone you meet along the way is from the Midwest, from the northwest, from Cali... anywhere but from here. And generally people come for a while, or they have vacation homes here, and then they leave. It really is the city of transience.

Seattle, to me, feels more like home. Maybe it's because everything surrounding my decision to move to Seattle has just fallen into place without any additional effort. Or maybe it reminds me of the Midwest- at least in respect to the green surroundings and friendly people who have lived there for more than a year. I'm not sure what exactly it is, but I feel home there. I also met a boy there, upon my return trip from Alaska. As much as I have wanted to discuss this for the past 6 months, I couldn't due to the fact that some other personal issues were not finalized. They are now. To try to describe how I feel about this person would not do my true feelings justice. I'm sure there will be more to come in posts down the road... so I won't gush now. I also love the organic lifestyle of the northwest and the fact that so much of life in the northwest revolves around the outdoors and the natural living, irregardless of the rain. I am kind of over some of the "fakeness" that I see in some certain parts of Phoenix. As a Midwest girl, that has never been my favorite thing about here. And also as a Midwest girl, I have to admit, I am a little sick of the brown.

I am so excited to be moving, to a place I love, to start fresh. Life is a journey- a journey full of choices, choices that not everyone will agree with, nor do they have to. It is a journey that takes you places that you never saw yourself going but once you are there, it makes so much sense that you wonder how you missed seeing it beforehand. As I recently discussed with a dear aunt, it is a journey filled with ups, downs, surprises, joys, sadnesses, beauty, and wonder. Mostly you hope to find beauty and wonder but sometimes you do have a little bit of the yuck in between. That is what makes the steps that you take even that much more meaningful. I can't wait to turn the page and open this next chapter of my life- I know that my friends and my experiences in all of the places I have been-the Midwest, Phoenix-will be the backbone sustaining me in my new life in Seattle and they will be with me all of the way- whether they are physically present or not. It is always an adventure... and I can't wait to see what's in store. I will always treasure Phoenix and my time here.

From the city of sun, the city of transience, the city of hot, warm winters with no rain:

To the city of beautiful nature- full of mountains, water, greenery, mild temperatures and yes, of course, some rain:

Transformations

From blondie.... To a brief stint (IE: one day) as a redhead (the picture is a reminder for the future if I ever think I want to be a redhead again, I will RUN)...

To the end result- life as a brunette!

I've never been a brunette before (at least not this dark) and I've been surprised by how much I like it. It started off as just a temporary change. I get bored and I like to mix it up a little. I've been growing my hair out for what feels like DECADES (even though it's only been a year and a half) so cutting it was out of the question. The first round, it was a nightmare. I was a redhead. But at least now I know what it feels like to be a redhead for a day and can honestly say, I'm never going down that road again. This is so much fun- it brings out my eyes and I've been surprised at how many compliments I've gotten. I assume that one day I'll go back to blonde but this is so fun for now- and with so many life changes going on right now, it seemed like the perfect time to make an image change as well. And really, it takes guts to make such a drastic change so when you're feeling it, you just have to buckle up and go with it!

Overheard...

Just now at the ghetto client's I'm at:

Hick lady with voice of a 60+ year smoker, whose name is Mary Lou, for the love of god and who also hacks and sneezes about 2.5 million times a day... it is absurdly annoying: Happy cinco de Mayo tomorrow!
Younger girl: What?
Hick lady: Happy cinco de mayo tomorrow!!
Younger girl: Tomorrow would be cinco de april.
Hick lady: No, it is cinco de mayo!! I am going to have me some salty marjoreeetahs (seriously how she pronounced margaritas).
Younger girl: No, mayo in spanish means may.
Hick lady: Oh, wow. Well that makes more sense then. Because Kenny Chensney is coming to town on Cinco de Mayo and they kept saying it was a friday and I kept getting confused because tomorrow is thursday.

Umm... seriously. You just have to shake your head sometimes.

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.