Minor detail to add...

I forgot to mention that I was able to get a round-trip flight to SEA for $190!!!!!!!!!!!! AMAZING :)

Choices

It's been a little while since I've updated. I'm sitting here with 3 full work days till D-day, tax day that is, and of course I am procrastinating getting work done. I had 3 days off of work to recover from a stomach virus and had tons of free time and yet, I'm sitting here with tons of work to do and blogging. Eh.. I'll make it up.

So quite a few things have happened in the past few weeks! I spent nearly 3 full weeks at Daniel's house helping with domestic duties and hit my breaking point after a fit over the color of bed sheets. I hate that I always just loose it like that. It's one those negative qualities about myself that I recognize but can't seem to change! I am fairly tolerant about certain situations, but the build up of little things drives me crazy at some point and I just blow up. I hate that about myself. It could be multiple small things that happen in one day. I had pretty much moved in at Daniel's... clothes in dresser drawers and all. I packed up my shit on Thursday night and decided to take a break. Take a break from what exactly, I still haven't pinpointed that. I felt like a parent, and thats just not something that I am willing to embrace at this point in my life. I realize that Daniel is in a pretty difficult point in his life and I'm willing to help out. BUT I'm not willing to put more effort into his kids than he's putting in. Not that he was taking advantage of me, because I offered to do those things, but I think he just got a little too used to me being there to help. I'm very attached to his girls and it feels good to make such a positive impact on two very emotionally fragile girls. I expect respect though & I haven't been getting it from them.

So needless to say, I took a break last weekend and most of this week. I went out to Republic on Friday to support A-Town Brown's album release party with Sammy C. and got to see some people I haven't seen since for a while, probably since Anna's going away party! So here's my promo for Eric... you can buy his album on amazon for $5.99! http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0020735T4/ref=sr_1_album_16?ie=UTF8&child=B002078CYM&qid=1239600022&sr=1-16

Saturday, I had a great time with Team W. (thanks for the nickname Anna) A night full of crawfish & rockband was a great break! I also got a random call from Angela to ask if I would be willing to let a brother from Seattle stay with me for a few days. What the hell... why not!?! So Brother Matt Allen arrived on Sunday night and ended up staying until Wednesday! Matt managed to make friends with Sammy and survive his wrath! hahaha I showed him around the city & enjoyed every minute of it. I love meeting new brothers! We instantly have the AKPsi connection which makes for interesting conversation, but everyone I meet has such an interesting story! I have my own story to share with people & its nice to not feel like you're a broken record sometimes.. haha. I can only tell my Katrina story so many times before people want to smack me... lol I took Matt to the 9th Ward and as depressing as the sights are, it's an important part of the history of this city! You have to see it in person to truly appreciate everything that New Orleans is. This city might be corrupt & I may hate living here sometimes, but this city is resilient and comprised of some very determined people. You have to appreciate the family that comes back after loosing everything! I don't think I could do it!

Anyways, while Matt was here, I managed to get the stomach virus and had to go home early on Tuesday & took off on Wednesday & Thursday. I hate taking off of work, but I would'nt have gotten ANY work done sitting at my desk feeling sick. Since Matt was here Tuesday, I still managed to do some sight seeing after a nice nap.

This picture makes me laugh! Dinner at Harrahs

This is so Chalmette of me... but man, I actually do kind of miss Chicken Box chicken!

Matt & I on the streetcar en route to Superior Grill for dinner & of course, sangria margaritas!

Needless to say, I'm glad I was able to host Matt & save him some money & be inspired. So inspired that I FINALLY booked my flight to see the Payne Train in June!!!! I'm tired of saying that i'm going to go places, and not doing it! Hell... I work enough overtime to treat myself :) I'm so excited to visit a new part of the country! However, I am extremely disappointed that this stupid western hemisphere law that requires a passport to enter Canada goes into effect on F'N JUNE 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! June 1! Are you kidding me!?!?!!?!?! I fly into Seattle on June 4!!! WTF! FML! As you can tell, this does not make me happy.

I'm also going to Jacksonville this weekend to spend the weekend with Team W. I hesitated at first, but decided that I have some extra cash & it will be a good experience & so spontaneous! It's nice to have coworkers as friends outside of work :) Anyways, I'm sure I will have tons of pics to post since his parents' backyard is sand... literally right on the beach! I can't say that I'm excited to feel obligated to put on a bathing suit, but I am looking forward to R&R! The weirdest part about this trip is that I got an evite from the RD for the Southern Region inviting me to attend the installation for the Jacksonville University chapter the sunday that we will be driving back to Nola. I instantly dismissed it, thinking... there's no way that I'm going to be in Jacksonville that day. And now I am, however I will not be attending the installation ceremony. So ironic though! lol

I have such a busy week ahead but I am looking forward to dinner with HEATHIE on Thursday!

The wheels on the bus go round & round

March 16 post: I am sitting here at 730am waiting with BB, Daniel's youngest daughter, for the bus to pick her up. This is one of those scary semi-parenting moments for me as I sit here typing on my BlackBerry. I didn't think this moment would come not even a year after graduation! Ha But I admire his children for everything that they have overcome in their short little lives! I can recall having those Katrina talks with people that I knew from Chalmette & people that I met. Everyone who has a Katrina story always talks about the material things that they lost but what they talk the least about is the effect that Katrina left on their kids! Bus just came- more to come later today!

March 26 post: Geesh! 10 days later, and I am JUST getting some time to finish up this post. To say the least, I now know what it feels like to be a parent. Take it for what it is. For the past 2 weeks now, I've spent pretty much every night at Daniel's house doing everything from helping with homework to cooking dinner and sweeping the floors. Things have been rather overwhelming. I changed my blog title. It was the wittiest thing that I could think of. I didn't feel like "The L:fe on Auditor" was suitable. However, I am quickly learning how to be evil....haha. It is the strangest feeling when Lucille introduces me to her friends parents as her stepmom. I don't know whether to laugh, cringe, smile, or correct her. Usually, I just make this awkward face. I think she does it just to annoy me.... who knows. I actually bought a dry erase chore chart from Target yesterday because I am sick of picking up clothes & shoes all over the floor. I tell you... practically living with Daniels kids really makes me think about how good my mom had things when my brothers & I were growing up. She had it made to have me around. No wonder she hit the roof when I moved out at 17! She had someone to do dishes, cook dinner, laundry, & clean the floors. Daniel & I cannot even get Elizabeth to pick up her shoes in the living room so that her dying grandfather doesn't trip on them.

Let me also just vent about elementary school teachers. Those hippies are nuts. The volume of homework that they send a 2nd & a 4th grader home with is absolutely absurd. I love reading the parent packets that they send home on a weekly basis. I just chuckle the whole time. It is divided by subject and tells parents what the child will be learning for the week. Then at the end of every subject, it ususually says something like "You should be going over this with your child on a nightly basis" OR "Parents, you should check your childs homework nightly. The students are not reading directions and coming to class with wrong answers" Seriously, shove it lady! Last time I checked, Laplace is not comprised of the most educated people in the state of Louisiana. If you plan on having parents check homework, send home the freaking answers. I have an education & I still had to look up what the circumference of a circle was! hahaha Literally, Elizabeth is 8 and has nearly 2 hours of homework with factoring in time spent studying. Off topic I know... but I just had to vent about it.

So I started working in the tax department this week. My boss called me last week to ask if I would be willing to help out until tax season is over with. I agreed because it just makes me that much harder to replace :) It's been an interesting change of pace from auditing. I enjoy auditing, but I don't enjoy the level of incompetence that I deal with on a daily basis with clients. The Tax manager, who graduated from LU, has been trying to convince me to stay in the tax department. EH.... We'll see how I feel about that in a month.

My feet have almost recovered...

This years birthday was a big improvement on last years bday from hell. Daniel got himself some boyfriend points for last weekend :) We had dinner at Copeland's on Saturday night and then headed to Harrahs to go Masquerade's. Daniels friends Robin & John came out and had dinner with us. Jeannie & Truc met us at Harrah's. And Sammy came out later on. All in all, I had a great night despite some alcoholic tendencies, that will be addressed with said alcoholic at a later date. I danced my happy ass off. My feet had about 4 blisters on them from my shoes!! OUCHY! It was worth it though. I treated myself to crawfish on Friday and then Daniel & I had some on Sunday. MMMMMMmmmmmmm..... I LOVE CRAWFISH!

On Monday, Daniel had a midterm but he got out early and came over to cook me dinner :) Then he gave me my bday present

The necklace is perfect and exactly what I told him I wanted.... something not too gaudy and something I could wear to work so not too expensive if I was going to wear it on a daily basis. :) :) :) :)

Oddly enough, the only thing that I didn't have on my birthday weekend was birthday cake! I'm ok with that... crawfish is much better than cake!

On top of my fabulous bday weekend, I got an email on Monday from our boss saying that we didn't have to work overtime for the time being!!!!! YAY!! So I am sitting at home in my PJs at 2:30pm on a Saturday blogging instead of working and I am loving every minute of it! Working overtime is just too much pressure. Honestly, when we are not on mandatory OT, I usually work 45 hours a week. I'm one of those people that feels that they should put in a few extra hours to make up for the unproductivity throughout the day between personal email checking, facebook checking, bathroom breaks, coffee breaks... all those breaks probably add up to 5 hours a week. So I put in my time! But when I have to work 50 hours, I feel like most of those 10 extra hours are just unproductive time. Most of the staff goes into the office on Saturdays to pull OT, but whenever I do that, I NEVER get any real work done. Anyways... I'm just happy that there will be free weekends for now.

Angela Brandenburg, an alumni AKPsi brother, came to visit this week for a night while she was en route to Texas! She ended up doing a professional event for Pi Chi's chapter. This weeks speaker got stranded in NYC due to inclimate weather so it worked out great! Angela talked about her experiences traveling the country and meeting other brothers, her newest experience in entrepreneurship and what brotherhood meant to her. She is, quite possibly, one of the most enthusiastic brothers I've ever meant. She's a bigger AKPsi dork than I am, and I honestly didn't think that was possible! I love this quote from her: "We have to figure out a way to make AKPsi to business, what NFL is to football"! A few of the brothers came up to her after her speech and gave her some great feedback! I hope she was able to spark the brotherhood fire :)

I looked up a few flights today. My youngest brother, Luke, might be coming to visit on his spring break from Houston. Lets see if my mom pulls through on that one! AND.... I looked up flights to Seattle. They are not as expensive as I expected for the time of year. I have to wait until payday, but it looks like I can get a ticket around A-Trains bday for about $200-250!!! Not too bad. I mentioned the idea to Benny Boo Boo and he seemed excited but I don't know if he will have a long weekend for Easter. We shall see!

What I look forward to on Friday nights....

When its not lent, I anxiously drive home from work, hoping that the newly released episode on abc.com isn't a damn re-run! Not only do I hope that its not a re-run, but that ABC's stupid online player will actually work properly!!! Since I don't have cable or a digital tv, I depend on that stupid thing to work to catch up on my shows. It drives me crazy when I get error messages in the middle of a good scene! ABC needs to either get their act together OR put their episodes on hulu. Hulu always works :)


When its lent, I look forward to enjoying crawfish on Friday nights. I'm not Catholic, or even remotely religious. I look at Fridays during lent as my excuse to get HOT & damn good crawfish since its in such high demand. Even Rouses sells crawfish now, which is by far, some of the best crawfish I've ever eaten from any seafood place in Metairie. Now, Chalmette seafood is a different story. But Rouses will do for now. They even sell these amazing stuffed mushrooms all season long :)


You don't have to remind me that I am lame. I know this and accept it. Its what a full-time job does to you. It makes you lame because by the time Friday night rolls around after a long week, your bed sounds much better than happy hour. I can't even remember the last time I actually went out to a bar on a Friday night. It's been months! But I'm ok with it. Maybe I'll go out tomorrow night since it's my birthday.

During my usual minifeed stalking, someone joined the mike jones memorial group. I noticed it a last week, but when I looked at it again, I noticed a website that his parents created. WOW! Mike was a talented person! I didn't really know Mike and the only things that I remember about him were negative, especially when he told John that he was too good for me! HA! You've got to be kidding me. Putting that aside, I truly feel bad for his loved ones. I can't say that I know what they're going through. Fortunately, I have never lost anyone who was incredibly close to me. Aaron's grandmother was probably the closest person that I've ever lost. She was pretty much my 4th grandmother while we were dating, but she treated me better than all of my grandparents combined!

On a side note... I'm craving crawfish bread like a pregnant woman craves pickles.

Jumping on the wagon...

After reading a friend from Loyola's blog in its entirety tonight... I decided to try this out. Heather is one of the best writers I know so I know my posts won't be as witty as hers but I will attempt.

~~~ Myself, Heather & Anna on a random night~~~

I created my account a few weeks ago, but haven't gotten around to posting anything. I used to post on livejournal religiously, but I can't even remember my username anymore! ha
So I suppose I should start by introducing myself. I'm a recent college graduate living in the metro nola area. I work for a local CPA firm as a staff auditor. I think i'm pretty damn good at my job too! Not to be conceited or anything, just confident in my abilities. I'll try not to bore people with accounting talk, but i'm sure i'll have to vent at some point. After all... thats what blogs are for.

I've been dating someone since June and its been one hell of a rollercoaster... but not in bad way. In one of those life experience kind of ways. I've always been that person who swore that I would never have children, because i'm too selfish for that. But cupid interfered and somehow I fell in love with someone, who has not one but two little girls & an exwife to boot!

I would be lying if I said that its been easy, but when emotions get involved, it gets complicated and hairy. And thats when the martinis need to come out, as my favorite college professor Lynch would say. He would prefer a sazarac on the rocks over a martini though. I've become more attached to the kids than I though my narrow-minded self would allow. To be quite honest, it has amazed me how much i've grown over the past 8 months. I'm proud of myself :)

I just uploaded some pictures on FB from high school so tonight was full of laughs from reading Heathers blog to looking at old pictures and I really needed it! The only thing that could have made the night better is a bottle of wine and Greys Anatomy. After graduation, I had a nice break from stress, but now that busy season is kicking back up and my inbox is flooded with mandatory overtime emails... theres no time for fun! Boo to public accounting.

In lighter news... my birthday is on Monday. I feel like birthdays are overrated. I always feel pressured to make plans and make fun plans. You end up spending more time worrying about how to please the people who actually want to physically hang out with you on your birthday than actually enjoying your birthday itself. I just want boiled crawfish and kingcake for my birthday... thats all I ask because those are two of my favorite things. Some pearls would be nice too... and a plane ticket to Seattle :) Ok.. I'm sure I could think of more things to ask for my birthday but I'll refrain.