Montana, Here I Come

Well, in about eight hours I head off to Missoula, Montana. Why am I going to Montana of all places you might ask? Well...nothing that exciting. Just work. Tax returns and more tax returns. Will it ever end? I guess I hope not; it IS what keeps me employed.

Round two of layoffs for the Pacific Northwest area at my firm were on Tuesday. It was a rough week. Luckily none of the Seattle tax folks were "separated", "will be continuing their careers outside of the firm", or were part of the "headcount reduction" as management calls it. Why can't they just call it what it is? Nonetheless, I survived this one. Hopefully, another round won't follow in a few months.

So, me and a team of about six others will be out in Missoula for the next three to four weeks. I will be doing the tax return for a mine. It will be a different experience. Have you ever heard of "reclamation costs"? I hadn't, but I will be very familiar with them after this project. In case your curiosity is going wild wondering what the heck it means, it is the cost associated with filling back in the hole that was so strategically dug. Exciting stuff, huh? I'm probably just speaking Greek.

I also came down with some sort of illness Thursday. Talk about rotten timing. I am likely to infect my entire team out in Montana.

While I am out in "Big Sky Country" maybe I will get a chance to see some of this supposed sky and escape the Seattle rain for a few weeks. So, I checked the weather forecast...snow this weekend. I guess not.

The biggest perk of the whole project is that we get to fly back on the weekends. For me, that means I am going home to Utah a couple of the weekends instead of coming back to Seattle. Nothing against Seattle, but who doesn't enjoy a trip home on the firm?

Farewell Seattle for the month of April. Too bad I have to pay rent for an unoccupied room. See you in May.

Special Delivery

I've had my eye on this picture of the Salt Lake Temple for a while now. I splurged and bought it just a few moments ago. I'm pretty excited and can't wait for it to arrive.

Operation: Sanity

I am such a tight-wad when it comes to spending money (I inherited that from my dad). But, during busy season, a part of that goes out the window, because I am somehow able to justify spending $15/day to park downtown instead of riding the bus.

I tell myself it is for my sanity, but $300 per month hardly seems worth it to be in a cubical that I am spending way to much time in to begin with...

My New BFF, Brandi

Friday night, Stephanie, Lindsay, and I made the drive up to Bellingham to see their favorite artist, Brandi Carlile, in concert. They introduced me to her music about 9 months ago and she is definitely becoming one of my favorites as well.

I knew that tagging along with Steph and Linds meant hanging out for a couple hours after the show in order to get their classic photo with the artist. So, I am the benefactor of their obsession and have this great picture to show for it.



The concert was a lot of fun and I was captivated by listening to her music live. She was fabulous. My favorite song is "Turpentine" and hearing this one live made me so happy. She made it interactive and brought the audience in as her three-part harmony back-up 2/3 of the way into the song. It sounded awesome! I am excited for her new album to be released sometime this year and am looking forward to many more concerts together.

I finally made it!!

Well, it is official. All the years of school and work have finally paid off. I can FINALLY call myself a CPA and here's the proof!!



It always seemed like something that was so far from my grasp and so intangible, but here I am. Now what???