Birthday Books

Look at this giant pile of books!  That makes me incredibly happy. It also makes me want to take the next month off work and just read.

Last week for my birthday, my parents gave me a check.  My daughter is used to getting money for her birthday and then deciding what to buy with it.  I've noticed that once you get older, that birthday money doesn't flow quite as freely as it used to.  Normally I would try to be more sensible with my money but this year I decided to be a kid again and spend the whole amount on fun things for me.

I've been on goodreads.com for a couple years now and I'm always adding books to my "to read" section.  Unfortunately that list just keeps growing because there are always more new books to read.  This year I made it a goal to actually read some of the books that have been on that list way too long. So I took this chance to go to amazon and loaded as many of the books into my cart as I could with the money I had.  Shockingly, not one of them is a cookbook!

Just for something different (I'll eventually need a break from reading) I also ordered a new smoothie powder that I've been wanting to try and a movie.  Really, I mostly only care about the books though!
Here's the books I decided to get:


"I Didn't Do It For You" by Michela Wrong
"Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks"
"More Than This" by Patrick Ness
"Handwritten Recipes" by Michael Popek
"The World Peace Diet" by Will Tuttle
"Aunt Dimity's Death" by Nancy Atherton
"The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap" by Wendy Welch
"Bootstrapper" by Mardi Jo Link
"How We Do Harm" Otis Webb Brawley
"The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
"Whole" by T Colin Campbell

I think my parents will be happy.  My dad will be thrilled that I spent the money on books - that's where my love of reading comes from.  My mom doesn't understand the attraction to books but she will be happy that I got something just for fun.

Off to read, but how do I decide which one?!

                                       My cat was just as thrilled with a new box to sit on!

I'm here!!

I just remembered that I used to post to my blog!!  Actually, last summer I took a short vacation break from studying for my CIA (Certified Internal Auditor) to follow Bill around Wisconsin for his bike races.  I had passed the first two parts before vacation so had only the one part left to go.  It was much more involved and required a lot more studying than the first two parts.  I decided early on that something was going to have to give if I was going to survive.

After thinking about blogging but not having time and then feeling guilty about it, I finally decided to pause the blog until after my exam.  My exam was originally scheduled for mid-November but at the end of October, I felt like I still wasn't ready so I postponed it.  I was already studying almost daily but it was obvious that I still didn't have enough time so I gave up something much more serious that blogging - exercising.  That sounds terrible, I know, and goes against everything we all know.  Exercise should be scheduled into your day just like work and eating because it is so important.  I often had pangs of guilt but unfortunately didn't have much time to think about it.  Plus, right before my daughter's cross country season started, I fell and really messed up my ankle.  It was impossible for me not to run at the meets so once they were over, I decided to let the ankle rest and see if it would heal.  It feels much better now but I should point out, I haven't tried to run on it yet!

So, back to the CIA, I took my exam yesterday and I passed!  I am now officially a CIA.  I was so shocked because even with all my studying, I still didn't feel prepared.  The exam was 100 questions and by #70 I was ready to immediately e-mail the study guide company I was using and tell them how they didn't prepare me at all.  But then I finished, found out I passed (thank goodness we get the results immediately) and seriously almost started crying in the lobby of the testing facility!  I was horrified but so completely relieved and happy to been done with this process.

So basically this is a big excuse about why my life came to a screeching halt last year but a promise that starting today I am going to:

1. Exercise
2. Blog
3. Be nice to my family (seriously, they have been at best ignored and at worst screamed at for a year!)

In addition I'm looking forward to spending my spare time doing just about anything other than studying auditing!!