They are freakin high schoolers who I don't even know, why am I crying???

Gosh, I can't believe I am so invested into this show... next season doesn't look that great but I said that about season 2 after season 1 ended. I loved Season 1 because the cast was more mature but this season was really fun with the dumb people :).

I'm going to miss Kristen :( I'm probably the only person in my circle of friends to like her but say what you want about her, she makes the seasons more interesting.

Can't sleep... stupid me takes hour naps at night, then I wake up and can't get back to sleep...

I've been working OT like crazy this last week - worked 4 hours OT Saturday, and 2 hours each day all this week... the final deadlines for some tax returns (corporations whose fiscal years end 1/31) are coming up 10/15 so the partners/accountants need help doing those returns. They don't expect me to complete the whole return by myself and have everything balance out (I hope) but it's nice when I actually do get everything right with no problems... when I don't though, sometimes I think it might take them more time to figure out my mistakes than to actually do the return themselves but they still keep asking me to do these returns so I guess I'm doing something right.

In other news, CONGRATS to Jennifer and Brian, who were engaged a couple weeks ago! I am soooooo excited to be a bridesmaid! (I gotta start up my diet again!)

forgot to post this on Tuesday -

My weeks are complete again, Amazing Race is back!

It's the Family Edition and that is kinda weird but I love the show so much I'll watch whatever they put on. And I love Phil so much I would watch anything he's on just to see him and listen to his awesome accent.

So far, I love the Linz family cause the brothers are cute and funny... hope they do better than next to last place next episode!! And I feel bad for the Black family... no I'm not being racist but the one black family's last name is actually Black... this is like an episode of the Chappelle Show!

OK, I've figured out how to do this email blogging thing so I can post more entries now... and not have the month gap between posts! I've realized I do need to post more often because when I don't, I lose my grammar skills. I love my job, but cutting checks and doing all this business management stuff all day isn't going to help me with my grammar.

I have a bunch of little projects to finish up right now but I just have to say how awesome the Space Bag is!! I bought a couple from Linens 'N Things and put all my extra bedding in them. I just had to post cause I just saw a Space Bag commercial on TV.

I just went to Best Buy tonight and bought both the DVDs for Lost and Desperate Housewives (you save $10 if you buy both together) and I've been spending money like crazy for all this scrapbook stuff I've bought recently, so no more spending for me for a month! Now that the unemployed loser Dante is completely out of my life (and have been for at least the last 6 months - WHOOHOO!), I am no longer struggling and I can enjoy spending my money on myself... such a nice feeling. I know I have to curb my spending though because I do need to save and the $75 I put away every paycheck isn't going to buy me a house.

So much more to say but it's 1:16am so I better go to bed soon - I have NO excuses to be late to work! I live 5 mins away!

We had a company summer party last night and some of us are still recovering from it... 2 Mai Tais! Thats better than my usual 1 cosmopolitan. Does it still count even if I asked the guy to make the first Mai Tai really light? :) I'm a freakin lightweight.

I took my friend Maria to the party and she had a great time with all my co-workers... the partners loved her because her personality meshes well with all of us. The main partner was even asking her if she needed a job! She is a CPA and very qualified to do what we do so if she ever wants to leave her current job, I'm going to try to convince her to join us.

A couple co-workers spent the night last night and we went to breakfast around noon today so I'm running late to Rhona's bridal shower - SORRY Rhona! After that, there's a fashion show tonight featuring our receptionist's designs so I have to go support her...

I'll tell you guys later about how I thought I tipped the Audi shuttle driver $40 for a 5 minute ride to work this week... Yeah, I'm that stupid I might have done it!

I am so addicted to the show Passport to Europe with Samantha Brown on the Travel Channel... I'm watching the Vienna, Austria episode right now and the place is GORGEOUS!! Samantha Brown also does the show Great Hotels - she's a great host... kinda corny but fun to watch. What an awesome job to have! Her job might be better than my dream job - a producer on The Amazing Race. (Yes, I know I've said my dream job was working for the Lakers front office, but those days have passed!) I need to stop watching these shows because that adds more places to my "Must Visit" List.

Samantha is taking dance lessons with some Austrian dude. "Waltzing is turning..." Was I waltzing during the wedding party dance at Monica's wedding?? :) I really didn't know what I was doing!

I've been looking through my college photos for scrapbooks and stuff lately and I don't have that many! Why didn't they have digital cameras when we were in college? I've been thinking back on my college years a lot and there is so much I wish I did back then. We had a great time in college and I wish I took more pictures. I already have a lot of pictures of us just goofing around but can you imagine how much more I would have if digital cameras were around during that time? I also wish I had done some kind of road trip back in college - these days it's impossible to just get away and do nothing for a couple weeks. I remember some story a couple years ago about 2 college students who spent their summer break driving across the US and visiting every baseball stadium. How cool would that be? It's something you will always remember, even 20 years down the line and it's something you can tell your grandkids about.

Back to meaningless stuff... The only new show I've picked up this summer is Big Brother and I've chosen a favorite guy - Howie. The guy is hilarious and he reminds me of a co-worker who seems a little uptight but when you get to know him, he's the funniest and funnest guy ever.

I went to the premiere of Showtime's Weeds and Barbershop this week... Barbershop is hilarious but Weeds doesn't look that great (it's been getting great reviews supposedly though). At premieres, the celeb seats are marked with a piece of paper with the celeb's name on it and the normal people just sit in any other seat... The highlight of the night was when they introduced Kevin Nealon and Kevin stands up and waves at everyone with that piece of paper taped to his back. It sounds lame right now as I'm reading back what I just wrote but it was hilarious to me at the time. Yeah, it doesn't take much to amuse me.

2 more days until the day I planned to start studying for my next CPA exam... lets see if I actually start. Why am I such a procrastinator?!!?

I've been watching all the Amazing Race repeats on GSN and I am amazed at how much the show has changed... first of all, Phil Keoghan looks soooo much better now than he did back then (the picture is young Phil). I have such a huge crush on him and everyone thinks I'm crazy. He has the sexiest Australian accent too!

I love being able to watch this show every single night. I'm behind right now but I love the TiVo! I catch up a couple episodes at a time. Summer TV sucks so this is the perfect time for them to start showing these repeats.

I've started watching Big Brother again and I love that it's on 3 times a week... I haven't caught on to the other shows that everyone watched - Beauty and the Geek, I Want to be a Hilton, Dancing with the Stars, etc... If I don't set my TiVo on it early on, I have no desire to watch the show. It's hard to get invested in shows like those though - they are not 'quality TV' like the Amazing Race is.

So far, from watching 5 episodes of the first season of Amazing Race, I love the lawyers Rob and Brennan and I hate Team Guido. I'm usually a fan of good racing even if the teams are 'mean' (I liked Colin and Christie (season 5) and I LOVED Rob and Amber (season 7)) but Team Guido just rubs the wrong way... JERKS!

I just took a break from all this studying (test is Saturday) to go to HOOTERS!! I'm taking today and tomorrow off work to study but today is Gary's birthday and Marilu called me about plans for Gary's birthday lunch. You know I love work when I take a day off and all I keep thinking about is what I'm missing at work.

My roommate/co-worker Marilu is engaged to a military guy who works up north. We'll find out in December if she's moving up there but if she is, Charles wants to move into our apartment. We have an agreement that I will stay "Chrissy", Tony will stay "Jack" and Charles will become "Janet". I don't know what we would do if Marilu did move away because she is such a huge part of the company. She's been at the company for over 12 years and our main partner sees her as a daughter. I don't even want to think about it but Marilu says everytime she walks into Charles' office (he has candy in there), he asks her if she can leave her furniture, if she can move out by September because the back to school traffic will be really bad, if she can set up her Tivo before she leaves, etc. I told her to leave me her clients (I want to be promoted)... We love each other so much :).

I met a guy at Monica's wedding! One of the groomsmen (PJ)... The maid of honor (Nicole) and the best man (Glenn) also like each other so it's gonna be hilarious if any of these works out. Monica's wedding will be known as the hookup wedding of the decade. Glenn sent Nicole flowers at work on Tuesday - but Glenn lives in San Diego and Nicole lives in Scottsdale so they have some obstacles to jump over. PJ finally called me yesterday and we're hanging out on Saturday after my test... This means I won't be able to go to the little party we're having for Gary at his house. :( Hopefully they'll forgive me, but I'm sure they understand.

Gosh, I have so much more to say but I gotta get back to studying.

Today is Monica's wedding and I'm so nervous I'm up already at 4am... can't sleep! If I'm this nervous and I'm just a bridesmaid, just imagine how nervous/excited she is. I just don't want to do anything to ruin it for her :) As one of the other bridesmaids said, "I would be ok falling at my own wedding, but I wouldn't want to ruin someone else's". We ordered our bridesmaids dresses back in November when I was skinnier than I am now so I was having issues with my dress being too tight. I just tried it on and it fit perfectly!! Maybe those Claudia Schiffer exercise videos I did yesterday helped! I bought those videos more than 10 years ago and I still think it's the best workout you can do at home, I just haven't done them in years! I don't want to take the dress off because I'm afraid I'm going to expand during the day.

I'm sitting here drinking my water because that's what we're trying to do at work to lose weight. Half the office did Weight Watchers earlier this year (before I decided I wanted to lose weight) and one of the things was to drink 'half your body weight in ounces' of water everyday... you know how much water that is?? :) Our Arrowhead guy always knows when we're trying to lose weight because he'll pick up 12 empty water containers in one week... our regular consumption is 5 containers per week I guess.

I've been good at working out lately too because I've had exercise partners... Liz and I do the stairs every Tuesday after work (I'm up to 3 sets now, trying for 4 next week) and Eva and I jog at the beach every Thursday after work. If it weren't for them, I would flake all the time but we keep each other in check. I have no excuse to flake either - even if I forget my stuff, I only live 5 mins away from work (7 to be exact with all the damn red lights... when I start up my car, it always shows how long I was driving the last time my car was started).

I'm off to do some crunches on that exercise ball I bought a month ago that we've just been using to sit on to watch TV in the living room....

I went to my CPA account this morning and...

REG Advisory Score: 75

WHOOHOO!! I passed that one part of the CPA I took back in April. 75 is passing so you know what that means? My friends and I have coined the expression "Perfect Studying" - you know you studied just enough, not too much, not too little. I was talking to one of the partners today and he said I was probably going to join him in the 300 club - 4 parts, 75 on each part... This is what he told me, "What do you call a C student in med school?" "DOCTOR".

Guess this makes up for me spending so much money last weekend... Who buys a Coach purse on impulse?? I needed a smaller purse and I found this cute shiny pink Guess one for $35 and all of the sudden I see a 25% off Coach display and they had the cutest small pink purse. I rationalized it as "If I'm going to spend $35 for a purse I kinda like, I might as well spend $102 for a purse I really really like." This is right after I was in Charles David and spent $70 on some shoes! I never splurge on myself like that... I only do when I go shopping with my mom because she'd rather have me buy quality stuff over the crap out there.

So, I've finally finished everything on my TiVo and I've watched the All-Star season of Survivor (to get my Rob-Amber fix out of the way)...

I don't know why I haven't been posting. It's not like I'm studying for my next CPA exam (July 9th, better get crackin'). I haven't been depressed or anything like it - maybe depressed that I have nothing to watch on TV for the next few months... I guess I've just been LAZY.

I need to lose some weight before Monica's wedding so I can fit into the bridesmaid dress better. The solution would obviously be to workout more but what have I been doing? Sitting on my ass, making it expand more. A couple people in our office did Weight Watchers earlier this year and it worked for a bunch of them. They gave me some tips I've been trying to follow (drink half your body weight in ounces or water every day, no bread) but drinking that much water everyday is HARD!! I run to the bathroom maybe once every hour.

I did take the next step to losing weight though. I started doing the Santa Monica Stairs with a co-worker this week. The plan is Tuesdays/Thursdays, but knowing us, we'll back out as much as we can. Yesterday was my first day doing those steps and damn, it was tough!! I did 2 sets of the wood stairs back to back and 5 minutes later, I threw up. Yup, I threw up in front of all those cute fit guys. I did walk off to the side before I threw up though :) Liz was on my side - she told the guys I did 12 sets... heehee, she says just add a 1 to however many we do. I did a measly 2 sets and I'm sore as hell. Those stairs are an awesome workout though - it's on 4th and Adelaid in Santa Monica and soooooo many people go there.

The Complete List of the 1,000 Top U.S. Schools - #606!!! WTF! Were we that bad??

I really need to get a life - too much TV watching!!

1 word for yesterday's episode of Amazing Race - FINALLY!!! Her voice was annoying the hell out of me.

The finale for Amazing Race is next week :(. As much as I would love to see who wins (I've heard a couple different spoilers but there are problems with each spoiler), what am I going to do when the show ends?? They won't have the next season of Amazing Race on for MONTHS! My weeks aren't complete without the Amazing Race...

I guess I can wait until June for Big Brother to start but whether I'm hooked on it or not depends on the cast. Last season I LOVED Drew cause he was such a pretty boy.

1 word for American Idol also - FINALLY!!! How the hell did he stay on this long?? Poor guy though - acting a little cocky walking to the sofa.. Boo-yah!

I'm going to a luncheon tomorrow honoring one of our clients and I have no idea what to wear... what to you wear when you're going to an event with a huge bunch of beyond-rich people?? Good thing I live so close to work... I can come home and change real quick before the luncheon if Adriana and Toni are dressier than me. I'm going to bring some other options in my car just in case. The guys have it easy - they need to wear ties... I have to figure out - skirt or pants, button down shirt or nice top? Argh!

PHEW!

Awww f*ck - just the perfect way to cap off the miserable time I've been having lately... Here Comes The Bride: Cameron Diaz To Marry Justin Timberlake This Coming Weekend! ... AND in Nice of all places!! Nice, France has been sorta my adopted foreign city for a while because of this poster I have that I love and because they went there for the Amazing Race last year. My adopted domestic city is Scottsdale, Arizona (Steph knows all about this :)) but Britney Spears ruined that lately cause she and her boy toy have been staying there preparing for the baby.

I'm not a big fan of Constantine because he kinda creeps me out with those faces he makes and his "sexy" looks into the camera but who the hell keeps voting for Scott??

Can't sleep!! Had coffee around 8:30 tonight during my CPA Review class and it was stronger than I thought! I've watched Amazing Race, 24, American Idol, the Real World Road Rules Challenge and part of today's All My Children and I'm still fully awwake!

This Nyquil isn't helping either... I've been sick since last Thursday when I went to a hockey game (one of the partners owns a team) at Healthsouth (where the Lakers and Kings train). It was freezing in there and even though I had a blanket, I wasn't prepared for how cold it was. My cold has gone on for 3 days and this is the first time in a long time I've been sick so I forgot all about Zicam - the best cold medicine ever (I use the nose swab) - until Jennifer mentioned it yesterday. I went and got some and I feel better already.

2 weeks ago, right after tax season ended and after our tax party where I had a great time with my co-workers, I was reading my posts from a year ago at this time and 2 years ago at this time and I just couldn't believe how I made it through that miserable time in my life. I felt so lucky that I finally have things together in my life... I love my job, my friends, my relationship with my family, my apartment and my relationship with my roommates and I love where I was in my life. I was so happy to have Don in my life and most importantly, Dante OUT of my life. I finally got off my ass and I'm on my way to getting my CPA.

Fast forward a couple days later, when I found out that the people in charge of the company now are promoting a girl who started 6 months after I did, a girl with the worst personality ever - know-it-all (even though she DOESN'T!!), talks about herself ALL the time, brags about her connections (who fucking cares, they're nobodies just like you), asks us if we know Quickbooks and brags about how much better that program is than the program we use at this company (yes I know Quickbooks because Stan used it and no it's NOT better because the program has no internal controls and you can change entries sooooo easily which just invites fraud)... AAHHHH!! I'm gonna stop now because I can go on forever about how much I can't stand her big fat kiss-ass and I want to finish this post sometime soon so I can catch up on 24 and Amazing Race. Anyways, they were promoting her 'not-yet-graduated from SANTA MONICA COLLEGE even though she's 30 something' ass over 2 UCLA degrees (me and Tony) because she overheard someone tell someone else that they were leaving and she went into the bosses' office to ask for the job. If it weren't for office gossip, I wouldn't know anything going on at the office because everything is so secretive now... but technically, Tony and I 'didn't know' that the girl was leaving so how could we have gone in to ask for the job?

I wasn't as pissed as I should be because I felt like we all knew Tony would be the next to be promoted and I was after him. He was at the job 2 years longer than I was. Tony pissed me off because he didn't want to go into talk to any of the partners or the consultant. Speak up for yourself dammit!! I told him if he didn't speak up, then I would and I was going to give him a day to do so. I thought I finally convinced him to do it after talking to him for what seemed like hours but then at lunchtime, he says, "I think I'm just going to mention it at the review in July." WTF! BE A MANNNNNNN!!! His office-mate has the heater on constantly in their office and it feels like its 100 degrees in there all day and I KNOW it bothers him but he won't say anything! I get pissed at my niece for not speaking up for herself but she's a 13 year old GIRL and he's a 29 year old MAN.

Enough bitching and moaning though - I've already done it for almost a week straight. I'm over it - I had my talk with the consultant and if things work out, then great, if not, there are a million other jobs out there. I still love the job but this just put some bitterness into it. The consultant doesn't know me at all and at least this gave him a chance to know me and my qualifications. He interviewed Ms. Kiss-Ass so I'm sure she felt comfortable asking him for the job and he felt comfortable giving it to her because if you don't know someone, who cares about them? He started in August I think, 2 months after I did and he was supposed to take time to get to know everyone at the company, but that didn't happen. He was surprised I wanted to be promoted and I just asked him, "Isn't it OBVIOUS??" Apparently not. Forget my UCLA degree, my previous business manager experience and the fact that I'm sitting for the CPA exam (all of which he didn't know about), I want to be an assistant bookkeeper forever.

When I interviewed at the company, Liz told me that they do promote from within but there are a lot of people in line in front of me and I told her I was fine with that. I didn't expect some wonderkid (who proved today in my office she doesn't know how to use a freakin typewriter!) who came in 6 months after me to move ahead of me 'in line'. Typewriter story - she comes into my office to use the typewriter next to Susan's desk and Susan mentions something to her about the margins being screwed up so wonderkid says, "Oh, I know how to fix that." She presses a couple keys and puts her paper in, presses a key and it won't stop typing!! What's the next step?? Say it with me - turn the typewriter off so it'll STOP! But no, wonderkid couldn't figure that out so Susan had to tell her to turn it off so it'll stop typing and Susan is pretty clueless about stuff herself but it's ok for Susan because she's old (I had to go through how to write a letter on Word for her because she's never used it). I was just sitting there doing my work - why should I help her out if she's acts so much better than I am? She gave up after she couldn't figure it out and just left.

This was the toughest week I've gone through since I started this job but its good because it helped me realize that no matter how great you think a company is, in the end, its just a company, just like many others out there. Things have changed a lot since I started at the company and the "family" feeling isn't there anymore. We still have fun sometimes but so many people have left or are leaving that it's just not the same anymore.

Gosh, I'm depressed now... my dream of the perfect company is just shattered. With my luck right now, a press release will come out tomorrow that Justin proposed to Cameron...

Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day!! Tuesday 4/19 (tomorrow) 12pm-8pm... good thing I decided to give up this stupid diet thing my mom wants me to do... involves acupuncture and what amounts to the Atkins diet. Yeah, of course you're gonna lose weight if you don't eat, you don't need those 4 acupuncture sessions to make you do that. Now, I LOVE LOVE LOVE meat, but if I can't even eat veggies for 2 days and fruits for at least a week, I'm not going to stick to it! I hate it when people tell me I can't ___... makes me want to do it more.

Anyways, I decided to quit that diet (after 28 hours) and I'll just exercise instead to get my mom off my back. The way she talks, you'd think I was this guy! She called me fat so many times on Saturday, I just came back to Santa Monica that night - I was planning to be a good daughter and spend the night in OC but I just could NOT take it!!

I love you Tivo WishList!! Rick Fox is guest starring on this Weds' episode of Kevin Hill...