Friday, Friday!

Happy Friday Y'all!

{linking up with lauren from my grey desk for high five for friday}

so i've had a pretty awesome week and here are a few reasons why...

1. tuesday was my birthday and it was pretty much the greatest birthday ever...because CPA exam scores were released and i [finally] passed REG so now i'm done...well I just have to find a job. But i really hope that the hard part is over, because man that test is not fun at all!
2. it's college football season [and this deserves a post of it's own] but I'm so excited to be back in Clemson and surrounded by orange. even if it was so hot last Saturday i seriously thought i was going to die. but there is something about watching college gameday on Saturday morning that just makes me feel like everything is right with the world...
3. partly as a reward for passing the CPA and partly because it won't be a distraction from studying now, I'm going to get Netflix...or Hulu Plus. But i'm leaning towards Netflix currently
4. i've mentioned that i have been wanting to get more involved with the youth girls at church. well while i'm working on a plan to successfully make that happen, i was asked if i would be interested in visiting with the youth girls at a children's home that the church works with once or twice a month. this is definitely one of those things that i would have never considered before but i'm leaning towards giving it a try. it's so hard for me to believe that i've transitioned out of the youth group to a young woman of the church. seriously, when did this happen...i know it's been over 6 years since i've been in a youth group, but still...
5. the twins are at a pretty great age. we went to the zoo a few weeks ago and i want to go on more adventures like that. i feel like both of them are understanding more and more and i swear Riggs' and i actually carried on a conversation earlier today.

Accounting

here are a few recent things i've found online that have to do with accounting...& that i found funny. hopefully you can find the humor in some of these items as well...and i promise i don't blog about accounting that frequently :)

**saw this quote on tumblr and it made me feel pretty proud of myself (even if i've only currently passed 3 of the 4 sections...)

World’s Toughest Tests and Final Exams

1. CPA - Through both word of mouth testimonials and scouring the depths of the Internet, the masses agree, the final exam to become a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) is the toughest final exam one can face. In fact, slightly less than 40% of those that take the test actually pass it the first time. It’s a grueling closed book and administered test that truly separates the men from the boys.  (source)

**this link pretty much makes my day every time i reread those jokes...and the video at the end is pretty cute too

 http://theramblingsoflife.tumblr.com/post/17283410492/in-honor-of-my-first-cpa-exam

It's Friday!

yay it's Friday! again i'm linking up with lauren for high five for friday. here are 5 things that happened to me this week


1. i've been really busy this week during the evening. so i've had a reason to actually get dressed cutely...and i wore black & brown together on sunday...who am i?! but in all seriousness, it's been really good to have things to do. VBS planning is in full swing and we all know how much i love creating a good plan. Also Engage was last night and it was awesome! I always leave feeling uplifted but last night was just extra good.

2. so ulta is having a sale on their brand of cosmetics...and this includes the nail polish (which is 2/$4 currently) and i may have gone a little overboard. i also got some eye shadow and eye liner, which were also on sale so it's totally justifiable. 

3. Jackson & Riggs got everywhere chairs (from PBK) for their birthday. and i have really enjoyed this gift so far. it's so cute to see J&R climbing on them but i also enjoy sitting in one occassionally. mainly because i'm not right on the floor so i i have a little protection from fingers constantly being stuck in my mouth and nose...and ears and eyes. so yeah, that's been nice.

4. storage wars is a great show. if you don't watch it, you are really missing out. it's not a typical "staci" show but maybe that shows growth on my part?!?

(via)

5. i'm ending with the best video ever...i think if this was seriously a tv show i would definitely watch it! (and i'm not really sure what that says about me) so you think you can audit so you may only get the humor in this video if your an accountant...but i enjoyed it.

Happy Friday Y'all! Hope you have a great weekend!!

What a year...

today Jackson and Riggs turn one.

and what a crazy year its been.

it's seriously crazy how much i remember about this day one year ago. i know exactly what i was wearing and everything. one year ago today, i took the first part of the cpa exam and began a crazy adventure.

Jackson and Riggs also decided to make an appearance. two random events that have both had such an impact on my life this past year and will forever be tied together in my mind.

if you would have told me a year ago that i wouldn't have a job in accounting yet i probably would have cried and seriously freaked out. and okay i would definitely love an accounting job. and i promise that i'm working on it. but i also wouldn't have believed you when you told me that i would be lucky enough to spend my days with Jackson and Riggs.

i feel like now would be a good time to admit that when i found out that Cindy was pregnant that her kid(s) i was (slightly because i'm not crazy or anything) worried that they would have no idea who i was. and all babies need a cool auntie staci

so i'm continually amazed at how everything has worked out. and i seriously hope the twins know who i am...i mean i do dress them in awesome outfits and let them climb all over me as if i am a human jungle gym.

 so while i'm still on the hunt for a job where i can use my degrees, i'm so thankful that i get to spend my days with the babies until that happens.

i thought about writing each of the twins a letter...full of awesome advice and cool stories but i haven't yet. i still think i'll end up doing it. and i might even post it here...or maybe i'll just include it in their birthday cards...which i'm still in the process of picking out, much less even writing in them. but regardless of if they get the awesome letter today or in 2 years, i think they'll always know that they can always come to me with whatever. and i'm kind of super excited for the first time they say staci...or some variation of my name. 

so happy birthday to my favorite twins...i can't wait to see what happens this next year!

high five for friday!

again i'm linking up with lauren for high five for friday and here are my 5 things from this past week


(1) last saturday i went shopping and bought 5 tops/dresses...all with stripes. i think i might have a problem.


(2) speaking of shopping, i've found some really great things at Ross & Marshall HomeGoods recently. some of my striped shirts came from there as well as some shoes that are not typical Staci shoes but i kind of love them...and orange mini pie dishes...because obviously i needed those. (and i really did) i also found some cute pillows and realized that when i have an apartment to decorate i should really return to HomeGoods.


(3) i took regulation (for the THIRD time...third time is totally the charm right?) on wednesday. hopefully i'll be done with the CPA exam and all i'll need to do is find a job...easier said then done. but the test was not without a little drama beforehand. my car battery died tuesday night. silver lining is that i discovered this tuesday night not wednesday morning. but anyway everything got worked out and i took the CPA exam (seriously hopefully for the last time!)


(4) i am really enjoying the voice right now and it's all thanks to viggle. it's not a show i would have normally watched but i'm glad that viggle encourages me to check-in because it's pretty great!


(5)  yesterday the twins and i went to a play date at church. only one other person showed up but it was still a good morning. evidently some sickness is going around so thankfully those people just stayed home. after playing, we met some other friends for lunch at Panera. it was super nice outside so we ate on the patio near a fountain, which hypotized Riggs for quite a while. after a long lunch, we wondered into a cute store nearby and then headed home..after a stop at sonic naturally. the twins do so well whenever we go out (they are great at the house too but they really like getting out occasionally). i'm looking forward to more play-dates and maybe even a trip to the park or the zoo. we love our crazy adventures (which really are not crazy at all...) oh and i got a gold-star for the day...i was uncharacteristically nice for Staci...which you'll only really get if you know me...but it was proof that i really can be a nice person!


happy weekend y'all! oh and go tigers! baseball season is here and clemson has a series with our big rival this weekend! 

okay so maybe accounting is the perfect job for me...

while i'm not yet employed as an accountant, i just feel like it won't be that much longer. and i'm running out of blog posts that don't center around either being single or taking photos of the twins...so i thought i'd share a few things that i'm super excited to purchase once i'm working in the world of accounting...and by things i mean clothes, office supplies and the like. i know, i know...

sticky weekly calendar from poketo

fun skirts

teal pencil skirt from jcrew, polka dot skirt from banana republic, and a tweed skirt with a slight ruffle from nordstrom

the yummy lunch ideas can be found here and i'm oddly excited about making lunches...especially if they occasionally look like these 

another reason to love mason jars! (pinned here)

and seriously what's not to love about these legal pads?!?! 

it's a new year

i have never really made any resolutions...but i do love a good list and being able to mark things off of said list. so in honor of the new year and all of the resolutions being made, i decided to post a few of the things that appear on my "big life list" for 2012. hopefully i can be marking some of these items off sooner rather than later. other items are not really things that can be marked off but just things i want to be more consistent about in 2012.

• find a job in public accounting---i've had my graduate degree since August and i should probably put it to use sometime soon...however i will be really sad to end my days with the twins
• finish the CPA exam---i only have one section left and i know that i can pass it, i just need to buckle down and focus on it.
• get engaged---okay so i'm kidding (slightly) with this one. i would like for 2012 to be the year that sees some major advancements on this front...but we shall see what happens
• get more organized---so this can truly happen once i have my own place and can finally have all my stuff in one place...as opposed to 3 different places
• be more diligent in with my journal---i know i go through cycles of journaling but i'd really like for this year to be the year that i fill the journal up...even if it's with all kinds of randomness
• be better with sending people random cards and such---i may hate the post office but i love getting unexpected mail so i'm assuming others do as well
• be nicer---as unbelievable as this may sound, i sometimes have a mean side. i think that if i can look at (some) things with a more positive outlook then i will only be happier (but i can't give up the sometimes not-so-nice sarcasm all the time...or else i wouldn't be me)
• be involved---this applies to pretty much all aspects of my life...be more involved in the lives of my parents and with jonathan and nealee...work on being more involved with my friends...and on making new friends...and (once i'm working) involved at work...and at church...and with outreach activities...this goal will definitely be a year-long work in progress

i'll be sure to give updates on the "big life list" as things progress this year. maybe by putting this out there, i'll be better at actually working on some of these things (aka being nicer...and more involved)

just some bullets...

• at dinner tonight there was a mariachi band (?) that walked around the restaurant. my mom made the comment that my brother and his girlfriend should go to dinner somewhere that they can be serenaded at. i voiced my opinion (that it is a lame idea) and my mom commented that if i had a boy who did that i would love it. my dad interjected with an idea that i would think it was even sweeter if he (the boy) grabbed my hand or something during all of this. i, naturally, responded that i don't want to be dating someone who grabs my hand while i'm trying to eat. i mean personal space anyone. of course my brother jumps in at this time to say something to the effect of, you are never going to meet someone with that kind of an attitude. thanks little brother for the wise advice. i don't need you help and i certainly don't want the boy to be all touchy-feely all the time. i'm not a hugger and i really don't like being touched in general. so okay maybe i'll be okay with like an arm around me or something...but i'm pretty sure i'm the last person you'd have to be worried about with too much PDA.
• with everyone blogging about things they are thankful for and it being so close to Thanksgiving and everything, i was reminded of a story from like 5th or 6th grade. and just so you know, it's not a great thanksgiving story and i definitely come across as a bratty little girl (so i think it's safe to say i was in 6th grade when this happened). at church one wednesday night before Thanksgiving our teacher had us get into small groups and make a list of things we were thankful for. i, of course, ended up in a group with Kari and Lacey (2 of the star girls) and that's probably where we went wrong. this particular teacher had a habit of keeping us well past time for class to end and i think our parents were kind of scared of her because they wouldn't come and interrupt class. so by the time this list idea came up, it was well past time for class to be over. this particular teacher also had pretty strong beliefs about harry potter, basically that if you read the book you might end up in hell. (okay that might be an exaggeration) so, at first, we were really serious with our list. when we realized that she wasn't going to let us go after listing 5 things, we moved onto the more sillier items. like being thankful for toilet paper (for some reason it really sticks out to me that we wrote this one down) and then we mentioned that we were thankful for harry potter. okay so i wasn't into harry potter so i definitely was not reading the books. but i'm pretty sure to say this was my idea. our teacher saw red (i think) and started lecturing us in a really loud tone that we were not taking this exercise seriously (which we were not). at this point it's like 20 minutes past the end of class so the 3 of us just get up and walk out, mid-sentence. she starts to come after us so naturally we take off running and hide in an empty classroom under a table until we are sure she is gone. i know, 6th grade was a pretty rough year for me. 
• i realized this afternoon that i didn't bring my journal home with me...and i really wish i had
• this past monday was craft-time with the twins. this event is definitely worthy of its own blog post, so that will be coming soon. i'll be sure to include some cute pictures...and why the artwork of my own children may or may not make it on the fridge one day.
• so i have to take Reg again (third time is the charm right?!?) i have not told anyone this yet but i'm not like super depressed about it or anything. honestly i kind of saw this one coming. i definitely will be watching all of the videos again but i think i'll be able to take it much more seriously this time...so we'll see how that goes
• i have some sewing/crafty projects i need to post soon...i also have made a few recipes from pinterest that i'll also blog about
• speaking of sewing, i ended up at home without all the different feet to my sewing machine. i was so sure that they were in my bag that i didn't even double check. thank goodness that my embroidery foot was on my machine or else i'm pretty sure my brother would have KILLED me...also good that my mom has a sewing machine i can use...and using it makes me appreciate mine even more!
• last saturday night, i caught the last hour or so of the the first twilight movie on f/x. i may or may not now be obsessed with this phenomenon. i've been reading about the books online (so maybe like a cliff notes thing) and i'm thinking i might borrow the books from someone...since pretty much everyone else has already jumped on this bandwagon. i will say that i think a big reason i'm kind of interested in this right now is that the new movie is about their wedding/honeymoon/baby and that is pretty intriguing to me. 
• and fyi, my sewing machine doesn't like to embroider on fleece blankets. i spent a good 45 minutes taking my sewing machine apart and having a mild panic attack that i had broken it...i think i'll just be sticking to appliques in the future.

six months

I feel like it's somewhat fitting for me to do a 6 month retrospective post today. These past 6 months have just flown by and things have changed for me. There are also a lot of things that have turned out quite differently than I might have imagined just 6 months ago. 

I've mentioned my favorite twins before but today they are six months old. But they have not really contributed to the craziness...just to the cuteness. And if I wasn't already obsessed with looking at the baby section every time I shopped, well now I certainly am. I mean I totally have a reason to buy things now. So April 13 was pretty cool because Jackson and Riggs arrived.

April 13 was also pretty important because it was the day that I sat for the first part of the CPA exam (Financial). I would later find out that I PASSED this section. I was (and still am actually) pretty proud of this. Financial was the section that I was terrified of the most and then add on that it was the first part we take, it was crazy stressful. But seeing the passing score made it all worth it. But now I have 18 months from April 13 to pass all 4 sections (I have one left currently...yay!). So it's a semi-convenient date because I have until Jackson and Riggs are exactly 18 months old to pass everything.

Back in April I was certainly expecting to have a job by now. And I don't. I feel oddly at peace with this. Maybe because I know (hope) that something is just around the corner. And that this will be the perfect job for me. Plus I've got to spend the last month with the twins, which was definitely better than any accounting job. I also would have never thought that I was going to almost not graduate. I seriously can't imagine how things would be currently if I had not made that A. But I'm so thankful that I did and graduation happened as planned.

It's so weird to no longer be in Clemson. Even when I'm hanging out in the upstate, it's odd not to be heading to campus for class all the time. But that's just life and I think 5 years was as much college as I was going to get out of my dad. That's totally okay too, it's kind of fun to not be in school.

When I think back to taking Financial, I really think that it was a blessing (for me at least, Cindy would disagree) that she ended up in the hospital the day before. I know I would have been having major panic attacks about Financial but somehow that wasn't important at all because the babies might be coming. And I was pretty excited to meet them. It's just so funny to look back and see how everything worked out. I would have never guessed when I scheduled the exam in February what all would be happening on that day. But now I'll never forget their birthday...or the day I passed Financial and really started this whole crazy CPA business. 

Happy 6 month birthday Jackson and Riggs. Auntie Staci is pretty excited to finish up studying and head back to see you again. Plus, at 6 months, it's definitely time to start learning letters...and maybe colors & numbers too!

the accountant in me

I've mentioned here before that I recently received my Masters in Accounting and am in the process of sitting for all 4 parts of the CPA exam. If you would have told me 3 years ago that I'd be doing this I would be doing this, I would have laughed in your face. But, here I am. I feel like now would be a good time to mention that I'm pretty sure I'm quite different than what you would picture when you think of  CPA. I, naturally, have a pinterest board relating to accounting. I think that I might be the only person to have a board like that but that just makes me special :) Here are a few of my favorite pins from that board and hopefully you'll be able to see I'm really not the typical accountant.

[above images (and more) can be found on this pinboard]