no joke

Today is the first day of my new job. No, seriously. How cruel is that?

When I got my offer letter, I didn't really think much about the April 1 start date. But for the past couple months, as this day has been creeping ever closer, I can't help but panic - what if I wake up on the 1st, and ha ha, just kidding - I'm stuck in the old job?

Thankfully, the new job is for real.

For the past 8 years, I've been working for a public accounting firm about 3 miles away from our home. This was my first job out of college, and I have had so many wonderful experiences in this job. I learned more, and faster than I would have in any other job, or with any other firm for that matter. I got to travel the world, working for clients in New York, Phoenix, San Diego, heck, I even lived in Melbourne, Australia for 4 months.

But, for 8 years, my career was my LIFE. And with an impending wedding and a family (hopefully) somewhere off in the not-so-distant future, it began to feel like it was time for a change.

Fortunately, I have a brilliant boss who recognized a need for my talents (but in a different capacity) within our firm. Which means that even so today I start a new job, I am staying with the same firm. I am so thankful, because this firm has really become an extension of my family over the past 8 years.

The old job was go-go-go all the time, serving clients who want what they want, when they want it (which is usually NOW!!! or, 20 minutes ago, even on Saturday afternoons, or Sunday nights...) The old job was competitive - who can bill the most hours? I can work later than you can! Sound awful?

The new job (I think) is none of those things.

Today, I transferred to our National office (um, which just so happens to be in New York...) and I will primarily be working on firm-wide training. For the lay-person, that basically means I am no longer a slave to my clients, and will be spending the majority of my time teaching people how to do what I did for the past 8 years, designing training materials, and improving our firm training programs.

Am I excited? Let's just say, if I was still 10, I'd have made one of those paper-chains to count down the days.

I can't wait for the new job, the new opportunity, and the chance to get more involved in something I feel so passionate about - teaching accounting!

PS - no, we are not moving to New York. I'll be working from home! And, the new job came with a rockin' promotion. I am on top of the world right now.

Pacific half marathon

Yesterday I ran the Pacific half marathon. For a first half, it wasn't so bad. (Um, ok, who am I kidding - as I crossed the finish line I thought to myself "well, I can cross that one off the life list, no need to do THAT again...").

Here we are queing at the start:

I can honestly say, this is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life - harder even than hiking in and out of the Grand Canyon (all 17 miles) in one day. (Which, by the way, I will be doing for the second time this coming Saturday...am I crazy? Yeah, I think so...)

But, in retrospect, it's really kind of all my fault. See, I didn't consider one very important piece of information when I registered for this run:

See that HUGE hill on mile 3? My nemesis. Notice the not-so-gentle upward slope across the whole route? Not a gentle introduction to the world of half marathons.

Although, the view at about mile 4:


Yeah, that part was pretty awesome.

Unfortunately, I didn't snap any pictures at the finish line. I was too busy hugging the sides of the finish arch :) but I did get this cool one from the race photographers:


I'm really proud of myself (yes, it's MY blog, so I get to say that) and although yesterday I was thinking this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, today, with a little retrospect, I'm wondering which race is next? (Flat races only, hilly routes need not apply.)

my favorite day of the year

Today is my birthday!

I'm sure everyone feels this way about their OWN birthday, but March 19th is definately the best day to be born on.

On the agenda for today:
Hike Temescal Canyon
Brunch at Cafe Vida
Shopping on Montana
Pinkberry
Manicure
Pizza night with the whole family

Seriously, does it get any better than this? I don't think so.

Slow Readers book club

I love to read. Hands down, favorite passive indoor activity.

And yet, as much as I love reading, I have a surprising confession to make – I’ve never been in a book club before. Up until a couple weeks ago, I’d never even heard of a blogger book club, until I spotted this on our.city.lights.

I loved (LOVED!) Walls first book, The Glass Castle. I even posted about it here while I was reading it.

So I decided to take the plunge and a couple weeks ago I joined not one, but TWO book clubs. Right. Because with all my free time these days, MORE commitments are exactly what I need. Sure, ok. More about book club #2 to come…

I finished the book in a weekend, and I’ve been procrastinating writing this post since last Sunday because, well, first of all, I’m new at this. And, how exactly does one engage in a book club that is, by definition, pretty much confined to being a rhetorical conversation? (Unless someone comments on the post, I guess…)

I truly had no idea how to write this post.

So I cheated. I googled some book club discussion questions about the book. And finally, I figured out what to write about.

I’m not going to ‘summarize’ the book, because you can click over to Amazon as easy as I can. I’m not going to torture you with lengthy prose about how great the book is, or how nostalgic it made me for my US History classes. And I’m not going to compare and contrast it with The Glass Castle. I’m just going to answer one question:

“Discuss Lily’s husband Jim. How does his personality complement her strong nature?”

Quite simply, Jim is perfect for Lily. He is calm yet creative, non-plussed yet spontaneous. But most of all he is accepting. He accepts who Lily is and he knows better than to try and change her. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he loves everything about her. When I first realized this, I was puzzled. And then, relieved. And THEN, I had my lightbulb moment.

You see, a couple weeks ago, I went to see Valentine’s Day and the moral that I took away from it was that in a truly successful relationship, you have to accept the other person for ALL of who they are, not just the parts that are easy to like.

Which is exactly why Jim is perfect for Lily. She has flaws. We all do. Think about it. (I know, it sounds horrible.) The idealist in me thinks you should love EVERY.SINGLE.THING about your partner. But damned if that isn’t a high hurdle when you turn it around on yourself? I’d venture a guess that most people don’t love everything about themselves – because if we did, we’d never have any ambition to improve.

So, if we can’t love everything about ourselves, how can we expect someone else to? Better yet, how can we expect to love 100% of someone else? If that’s not setting an unrealistically high expectation, I don’t know what is.

What I'm trying to say, is that the moral of the story (for Lily and Jim, in the movie and I guess even in real life) is learning not to let the parts you don’t love bother you, and accepting one another despite (or maybe even because of) those bits that are a little harder to love.

Maybe it’s not the lightbulb moment for you that it was for me, but if you’re looking for some examples of Jim’s calm acceptance of Lily and her peculiarities, maybe you should consider checking out the book.