Weekend, etc.

The cute Stewart family @ Northpark Mall

We had a fun weekend! Eliza, Byron, and their little girl Avery came for a visit. Byron and Phil played a little golf and Eliza and I checked out the new mall in Cedar Hill. Unfortunately, most of the stores aren't open yet. Eliza and I also got to experience the joy of seeing a 4 foot snake draped across the front entrance. The boys were golfing so I had to ask my neighbor Javier to come over and kill it. I don't think it was a poisonous snake. I didn't get a positive identification, though, because after Javier cut its head off with a shovel, he tossed it down the sewer!! Ewwwwww.

Anyway, we were sad to see the Stewarts leave... hopefully we can make a trip up to Michigan sometime this year! (Preferably in the summer so we can get a little relief from the Texas heat.)

Today was a momentous day for me! I submitted my application for CPA certification. Exam? Check. Ethics course? Check. Notarized oath? Check. Work experience form? Check. Check? Check. Whooo hoo... I'm almost a CPA!

Sweet relief!

I am finished, yes, finally FINISHED with CPA examinations.

Introducing our new niece

Congratulations to my sister and her husband!! They have adopted a 3-month old daughter named Chloe. Here's a sweet picture of Austin and his new little sister.

I'm 79% dixie!

Though born in Illinois, I was raised in Tennessee and then, as they say, got to Texas as fast as I could! So I consider the other 21% of my score to be my parents' fault (Mom especially says stuff like "melk" for that white stuff you drink).

Click here for your own quiz.

my first mavs game!!

I am at my first mavs game! As you can tell I am not so into the game itself but the atmosphere is sure fun! Here's the pic from phil's iphone....

Thanks to my firm for a "suite" time! :)

Baby Steps

We have started a Total Money Makeover with Dave Ramsey and we're already so excited about finally having a real plan for our finances. We have been reading our book every night and planning our budget. (Yes, in almost 5 years of marriage, we have never had a budget.) I highly encourage anyone reading this to check out what Dave has to say. Our outlook on money, wealth, debt, and self-control is forever changed! And we're still on baby step #1!

"A budget is telling your money where to go, instead of wondering where it went." - John Maxwell

"If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time" - Zig Ziglar

Dave is our new hero!

Am I a freak?

There is a Starbucks in my office tower and every now and then I like to get a chai in the morning. Usually I get it iced, except in the winter (which is, like, 2 months a year). My major pet peeve about getting the hot drink is that they give it to me like this:

Maybe I'm a little obsessive but I cannot allow myself to even take a sip until the cup, lid, and sleeve are perfectly aligned, like this. Shouldn't they train the baristas on this?!?!

Alpha Pug

We have finally determined that Dora is the alpha pug in our household. Dog behavior is fascinating. Although Ruby can be quite controlling around the food bowl, Dora really is the top dog. Ruby acts submissive to Dora by rolling on her back and letting Dora lick her, but we have never seen Dora submit to Ruby.

This finally explains our biggest mystery: whenever Phil picks up Ruby in the presence of Dora, a nasty fight always breaks out. It doesn't happen if I pick up Ruby in front of Dora, or if we pick up Dora in front of Ruby. It's so strange. But we finally figured out that Dora gets mad when Ruby is physically lifted above her by Phil (who she probably sees as the "alpha" person) because it throws off their pug hierarchy.

So maybe this is jibberish to most of you reading this but it makes a lot of sense to me. We read that in order to prevent fights between the two of them, we need to respect Dora's alpha position by feeding her first, petting her first, and letting her outside first. This way there will be no confusion between Ruby and Dora about who's alpha.


And thus we've added a new nickname to Dora's already long list of nicknames: Alf.

I think it's over!!!

It has been just over a year since I started taking my CPA exams. I started with FAR, then BEC, then REG, and passed them all on the first try. Audit, on the other hand, was a whole different beast. This is partly because I've never done audit work (and never care to) and partly because I got cocky about passing the first 3 and stopped studying as hard. I first took the audit exam back in August, the day before we left for Hawaii. I guess I was understandably distracted, and no surprise - I didn't pass. Next I took it right after Thanksgiving. I should have studied a lot more, but it was only a few weeks after I had gotten back from my big trip, and, as Brian Regan might say, "I didn't take it serious!" 

Yesterday I took the audit exam for the third, yes, THIRD time. It's actually a little embarrassing to admit this. I'm not used to failing anything. (Although I did fail my driving exam on my 16th birthday because I rolled through a stop sign, but hello, it was in a parking lot and there was no one around!) I really did feel confident about this exam. Most of the questions looked quite familiar this time around! :) I should get results within about 4 weeks!! I hope, hope, hope that I am finally done with all these exams. I really should have gotten this out of the way 3 years ago while I was still in grad school!