I do solemly swear...

To post more once this statistics class and FYE are over. I have the month of November slotted for many catch up projects like blogging, house cleaning, putting pic CD's together of the wedding, painting, and so on but for now it's just not in the cards.

I do have a few minutes to post so I will update a few things.

Fiscal year end is coming along nicely. There is hope that this audit will get done in less time than expected, which is more than 50% better than the previous two years. I've completely managed the two issues that we got written up for last year AND have had time leftover to focus on every other aspect of the balance sheet and reconcile all my accounts. On a technical level the organization is squeaky clean. All that's left to do is document procedures and prepare for the upcoming audit standards, which are new this year. Even with the vaca time I've taken, the sick time my assistant has had to take and all the other hiccups along the way, we are still right on schedule, even slightly ahead. Life is good and while I learned a lot from Salvation Army experience, more than was ever apparent at the time, I am much much happier manning my own ship again.

Life is going really well at home. Dane and I were up against some minor obstacles that we've talked about and tackled head on and are getting somewhere. It finally dawned on me that if I devoted half as much time to him as I did to work, friends, or engagements (like parades, belly dancing, 3 Day Walks, etc) that we would be an unstoppable force. My apiphone (or however that is spelled) has proven true thus far and while I've had to juggle my time differently and scale back on the amount of time we spend with friends and outside activities, we are making steady progress.

Financially I'm in a better position than I was this time last week. After the wedding we've had one financial blow after the next (cats going to the vet, emergency dental work, vasectomy, IUD, routine health care needs, and all sorts of expenses). We've managed to stay afloat, even if only a little bit with the help of each other, managing money inflow and my wonderful parents. However, last week in an effort to update my personal records to reflect the upcoming payroll change I inadvertantly double entered a paycheck and made real life payments to credit card companies based on that figure. Needless to say this threw me into the negative by almost $2000 and it took all the liquidation and borrowing power I had to recover. But that was after two payments hit my bank and I got assessed fees. Because of my error we lost out on the promotional APR's offered by the credit card that we borrowed all the wedding money, turning a $45 finance charge into a $160 finance charge (a month till the balance is paid - balance being over $12,000) and a $40 fee on top of the $25 fees my bank charged. I called my credit card company crying and pleading my case and was actually able to get the finance charge reversed, the promotional APR's reinstated AND the $40 fee credited back. And my bank reversed some of the $25 fees as they put on a block on my account so I couldn't deposit any money and ended up having to wire money from Dane's acct at a cost of $35. Needless to say I will be terminating my decade long relationship with this CO based credit union and have set up accounts here in WA. I've also taken the steps necessary to auto-pay my accounts the minimum on the day due so this never happens again. In the end I expect to make a full recovery in a month's time, but it was definitely a costly mistake. The fact that I'm an accountant only makes it worse.

My statistics class is very overwhelming but I'm not as invested in it as I was the last class. I was really excited to take law and extremely disappointed with how that whole ordeal turned out. But in the end not all was lost as the last class, conducted by the UOP Chair, was very informational on determining the differences between actual problems and symptoms of the problems. It's helped me with work and with this class, which I could care less about. I'll just be happy to get through it with a C. :-)

In other news, back to work, I have to toot my horn a little more. I'm very proud of myself and the work I've done. To recap I've reconciled all revenue to our donor software (not an easy task as money was miscoded and conveluted because I couldn't determine which donor it came from). Not only was I able to reconcile, I was able to isolate the problems that cause the variance to begin with and fix those. Also, all revenue and expense has been run through unrestricted funds. A little nonprofit Acct 101. All monies are unrestricted, temporarily restricted, or permentantly restricted. An example - endowments are permenantly restricted as their principal balances can never be spent, only their earnings. Without getting too complicated for a blog, all our monies were unrestricted and the financial reports were manipulated each month to come to a (wrong) figure for unrest/temp rest/ perm rest. I had to go in and determin at the income statement level what was what and then journal, then create accounts, then balance on the balance sheet and tie back to the income statement. It was way out of my league until I actually did and realized that I'm smarter than I give myself credit for. Of course I have an amazing accounting support system (thanks RBMBA and HG). Anyway, I've reconciled other stuff that was thought to be one thing but really turned out to be another and I'm down to my last project of unclaimed checks dating back to 2005 (OMG). After that, life is awesome and I can prep for the audit. THEN I'll have to buckle down on the budget for 2008. Jim and I are getting along very nicely now and I can tell he's confident in my capabilities. It's amazing to realize that I'm really starting to mature with this stuff. It feels weird to have a career and be happy and good at it. I still feel like a receptionist or A/P clerk at times.

Well enough of my rambling and building myself up. I'll post more on the wedding soon and the other posts I promised to write on. We just got the wedding DVD and I have to say that I'm very pleasantly surprised with how well it turned out.

More to come, I swear. :-)

The Wedding Part Two

So lets see here - I left off with the bachelor/ette part. I forgot to mention the Mexican wrestling masks...maybe I'll post a pic. Anyway the next day was a recovery day, the Monday before the wedding. We lounged around the pool and ate food and hung out. That evening I stayed out with the guys while the everyone else went to bed. Eventually I got tired and left the men to their own devices. This was after we had spent half the night sliding down the slide and the other parts of the infinity pool. One person even went over the edge commando. Classic. Anyway - I went to bed while the guys stayed out and buried each other in the sand and played around harmlessly. I'm not sure what time it was when Dane got back, but I'm pretty sure it was late. I didn't care - I told him to enjoy his last night of being single and that he did.

The wedding day. So if I remember correctly we had breakfast in our room that morning and then got ready for the Mexican judge to come to the resort. We got dressed in our piratey best for the wedding, even all my guests got decked out! They even wore moustaches - AWESOME! Anyway, the judge thought it was great to marry "pirates" and really enjoyed our sense of humor. My mom made a point to tell the judge that we were taking this marriage seriously and getting married in a "traditional" ceremony later that evening. After the Mexican vows we traipsed through the hotel, pirate flag and all. Good times. Then it was time for the spa. HG, RBMBA, and I all made spa appointments for a massage and sauna. I enjoyed a nice long massage with hot stones then decided to take a dip in the spa. I'm used to the spa in Seattle where you are NOT allowed to wear clothing of any kind. So I stripped down to nothing and took a soak. It wasn't till a lady came out of the steam room and noticed my goodies (with a completely shocked look) that I thought "Hmmm, maybe this isn't a naked spa." I look over to the rules board and sure enough, rule #4 - NO NUDITY AT ANY TIME! So I feel like a heel and get my towel on (I didn't bring a swim suit, I thought it was naked spa!) and go in to the dry sauna. Oh - I forgot, I got a pedicure before the massage. Anyway by the time all the nudity, massages, and foot dressings were done it was time for me to get ready. I took a shower and had the wonderful help of RBMBA and HG to get ready. The helped me get into to my weave and dress my hair, they helped with my shaving nick, helped get me into my dress, helped with the make-up. It was great. Just when I thought everything was okay and told them they should probably get their seats all hell broke loose. Of course it was after they left but before my dad got there. I swear - everything was fine and then in two short minutes it all crumbled. Actually I'm being a little dramatic. All that happened was a bottle of spirit gum crashed to the tile floor and spilled on to my dress, but you really couldn't see it. Of course it had to be spirit gum, which will NEVER come off. :-( Oh, and I realized the bridal shop never included my shall that was supposed to come with the dress. Grr - that place sucks. Then my shaving nick was bleeding through my sable fishnets and ON TO MY DRESS!! Dad walks in just at that moment and I"m freaking out. He makes a tourniquet for my leg and tries not to panic. My dad, normally the definition of "cool as a cucumber" was out of his element. Somewhere, my mom got the scent of her croup in chaos and immediately phoned my room. I answered and screamed the problems in one long breath "theresspiritgumandbloodonmydress!!!" and all my mom says in a calm tone (borderline irrited) "I'm coming up." So mom comes up and saves the day. Dad goes to get some stuff and Amy shows up in time for pics and a beer. :-) Then she has to go find her seat, mom needs to get her seat and dad and I need to prep for the walk down to the beach. We do so and while we are waiting for the green flag, we are conveniently stopped in the lobby bar. Without a word or even glance, the bartender comes over with a shot of top shelf tequilla, salt, and lime. I oblige graciously and give him my empty beer. Just enough alcohol to calm the nerves. Dad and I briefly talked about my sister not being there. Dad didn't have to say much at all for me to realize that he was as displeased as I was. Then it was time to walk. I've never put so much attention to how I was walking. Then we had to walk on a plank, no a bunch of 2 inch planks that were just evenly spaced out enough that I couldn't walk with my head up, I had to walk with my face down making sure I wouldn't trip and fall. Finally we made it to the ceremony area and I have to say that Dane looked better than I've ever seen him in my entire life. I don't know if it was the Mexican sun, the Pacific breeze, his new conditioner, or it was just the simple fact that it was our wedding day. Whatever it was, he looked great. And it was overwhelming in the wonderful way to see the small, but lovely group of people who were there. I can't say enough about how awesome it was to have my closest friends there - they really are my family. I was sad for the few that really wanted to be there but couldn't, but we saved a spot for them and in my mind's eye I knew they were there. And then it was amazing to have Pastor there. This man truly has seen me through the best and worst times in my life. Mostly the absolute worst. It was great to have him there and be a part of one of the better moments. That truly made my wedding the best wedding. I honestly don't remember much of the ceremony other than Dane, Pastor's booming words (he thinks I should have come up with better vows, like Dane did - in fact, I think Pastor used Dane's vows for both of us), and the sun shining on us. It was fun to do the sand into one jar, then the rings, we got down on bended knee and Pastor prayed for us, I thought that was cute, a nice touch. We kissed and then took a toast. Then we feigned walking down the aisle, but instead my dad got down on bended knee and re-proposed to my mom!
*****Dad and I had been planning this all along and have worked hard to get my mom a simply beautiful 2 carat diamond ring for less than $2000. In the end I got the 1 carat diamond from a woman selling on Craigslist and the 1 carat diamond and gold band from a jewelry expo at wholesale cost. It was crazy how everything came together only a week before the wedding*******
Then my parents got up and renewed their vows right then and there while Dane and I sat in their seats and watched. My mom was in tears beside herself and my dad was happier than I've seen him in a long time. Then Dane and I got back up there and we all toasted and walked down the aisle for appetizers and more pictures. My mom couldn't believe that the ring was real no matter how much we convinced her it was. From the appetizers the the end of the night it seemed like only 20 minutes. While the guests listened to a mariachi band, Dane and I took the obligatory pics on the beach. Then we made our way over to the private side of the hotel and ate a lovely dinner. Dane's mom made a scene, but that's neither here nor there. :-) Our friends made wonderful, even tear-jerking toasts and then some toasts were quite funny and even a little awkward (darn young kids). We only got a tiny piece of our wedding cake, it was supposed to be sent up to our room but never made it there (bastards). We danced and laughed and played games for gift cards and prizes. We had a fireworks show that was awesome. And the night ended with a great spiff from Jacob doing "Berries and Cream" and then jumping into the pool fully clothed! It was great! After that we went to the rooms and changed then went down to the bar to drink and have fun but once we all sat down we all realized how exhausted we were and decided to call it a night. When Dane and I went back upstairs our room had a small cake, champagne, a honeymooners banner, and candles and roses all over the room and bed. It was amazing. There was soft music playing and it was the picture of romance. We took some pics then hit the lights and went to bed. Or at least that's all I'm going to write in the blog. ;-)

That's another good stopping point as the Broncos are about to play. More later.

I *heart* My Blog

So I just remembered how much I love my blog. I haven't been writing in it recently but that will change. This weekend, since I'm sick and have nothing to do anyway, I'll be blogging like no tomorrow. Look for these great blogs:

- The Wedding Part Two
- The 3 Day Walk
- School Sucks
- Life at Home
- All in a Day's Work
- Future goals, ideas, and plans: World Domination Redefined

And other fun stuff. I'll get back into the swing of my blog. :-)