suzyness.com

I got to end of the day (10:41pm to be precise) and realized that I hadn’t blogged… breaking the trend I’ve had going for the past week or so. I guess it’s because there’s not much to say today… that, and I was swamped at work today.

So, the update… I’m still going to the gym daily, running (on eliptical) about 2.5 miles a day. Of course, it’s only building muscle right now, so the effects of my exercise will have little visible effect for the first few months. I have a goal to fit (nicely) into my bridesmaid dress for Tina’s wedding in September. I tried it on the other day, and although it fit, it took both Tina & I to zip it up :)

I went to lunch with a few coworkers, and we discussed a new program the company is planning on putting on everyone’s machines. It’s basically a VNC program that will allow IT and other users to access your desktop remotely, as well as allowing users to access their desktop from other computers. It also means supervisors would have access to view your desktop. My current computer situation is as follows: My manager’s door is directly across from my cube, and a full view of my 17″ monitor. So installing a “big brother” type of program on my system really makes little difference. I guess we’ll see the effects on the rest of the company soon enough.

Everything else is going really well at the new job. It’s been 3 months since I left public accounting, but I feel like the stresses of that job are far, far in the past. In retrospect, (actually, I had a fairly good insight to this at the time) the job just really wasn’t for me. I wanted to make it work for as long as possible, but when the bar is constantly out of reach, as it always seemed to be in public accounting, someone like me can’t exist happily. It’s definitely a good move out of college, just for the experience. I learned SO much about the industry, accounting, and myself during the 2.25 years I was at PwC. I was able to learn about being a team leader (ie, manager), how to multi-task, dealing with office politics, the list goes on and on. It also helped me learn what I value most in life…. and realize that my job wasn’t at the top of the list.

As for my new job, I really feel like the learning curve period is over, and I’m able to apply my understanding to every day problems. It’s awesome to feel like you have credible knowledge about the information you’re working with… it really makes the task at hand much more rewarding.

Alright, it’s nearing 11pm now, so I’m heading off to bed.

One more thing, I’ve uploaded pictures from Ben’s Bday & from our weekend in San Luis Obispo on my gallery http://web.parmeter.net:8086/~suzyness/gallery/

So I realized this morning that traffic in Sacramento is seemingly worse than it was in San Jose or San Francisco. It may be that I took better routes when I lived in the Bay Area, or that there were just more routes available, but either way, driving to work here, I’m at a standstill a considerable amount more than I ever have been before.

It seems odd that the state’s capital would have such awful infrastructure for traffic. This is basically a city comprised of many little cities, and all traffic is directed around a central ‘hub’ in the downtown area. It’s awful planning, and forces anyone who is commuting to a local workplace to intermingle with all of the bay area commuters.

The other part of the frustration is the inconsistency of the roads. Some mornings it takes me 15 minutes to make it to work, others, a good 45 minutes. And for no apparent reason. This morning, for example… I left the house at 7:55am, expecting to have my normal (average) 25 minute commute to work. I figured I might even have time to stop by Starbucks before work and make it in by 8:30. Alas, as soon as I started out on the freeway, I found myself stuck in gridlock. Hoping it would clear up within a reasonable distance, I stuck it out… putt, putt, putt along… still going 20mph… putt, putt, putt, brake, putt… yup, that was pretty much my whole commute this morning. My plans of arriving early, getting Starbucks, all shot. I made it in around 8:40am. Nearly an hour after leaving the house.

Now, I realize that others have a far worse commute… driving anywhere in the downtown area is awful, and others go a much farther distance. But my argument is more the fact that I have a 12 mile commute… and it took me 45 minutes this morning!!!

I doubt the problems of our traffic-ing system will be fixed anytime soon, so for now, I’ll just blast some tunes on my ipod, whine about other drivers, and deal with it.

So my blog was a bit out of sorts for a few days… I kept getting error messages after attempting to post my “summer” blog, and the posts didn’t show up until I was far, far away from an internet connection. So I had 3 or 4 of the same posts sitting on my site. I managed to fix it this morning, although blogger gave me error messages this time when trying to delete posts. The blog still rocks, though.

Ben and I got back late last night from our weekend in San Luis Obispo. It was an awesome weekend… just enough time to relax and get away. Ben finished up his workshop around 3 on Friday, and we headed down to San Luis from there. We arrived at Del’s around 8:30pm, and Jen & Jayson met us there for dinner. YUM. Then we pretty much just crashed when we got back to Jayson’s. We were all really tired, and had a full day planned for Saturday. Guess that’s what being an adult does to you.

Saturday morning, we started off the day with a hearty breakfast from Margie’s. It’s this truck stop type place, with HUGE portions and reasonable prices. It’s fairly comparable to Gold Miner Cafe in Folsom. The food was good, although the bathrooms left much to be desired (per Ben). Thoroughly stuffed, we rolled ourselves out of the restaurant and over to downtown SLO. We walked around for a bit and subjected Ben to some girly shopping.

From there, we headed out to San Simeon to see the Elephant Seals, with a final destination of Hearst Castle. Our tour wasn’t until 3:20pm, and we were leaving San Luis Obispo around 1pm, so we had plenty of time to stop off at San Simeon beach and look at the elephant seals. We got some great pictures, video & sound clips of the area.

Hearst Castle was next. We left our new elephant seal friends and drove back to Hearst Castle. We’d expected to have time to view the 45 min movie prior to our tour, and finish up around 5pm. Unfortunately, we missed the beginning of the video by a few minutes, and the movie “bouncer” wasn’t having the late entry. We were precisely 13 minutes late to the film, and had missed a crucial portion of the video. SOOOOooo, we sat and waited for our tour to begin.

Hearst Castle is always an interesting experience. Having been there several times, it’s great to get a new tour guide, go on a new tour, or learn something different about the place. I’m not one for retaining historical facts, so hearing the story of Hearst is always fairly interesting to me (since I can never remember it). It’s amazing that some of the pieces of art at his home are thousands of years old. Yes, thousands. Amazing.

I’d already slotted Moe’s as our dining choice for the night, as I knew it would be a big hit with Ben. Pulled pork sandwiches w/ coleslaw & yummy bbq sauce. We all had smoked potatoes to share, too. I think Ben’s a new fan :)

From there, we went to Frog & Peach, a local pub that’s more of a laid back type of scene. Not much for dancing & a big fan of beer (that’s all they serve), Jen, Ben & I all enjoyed the surroundings.

Sunday morning came early for us all… we’d stayed at the Vagabond Inn on Madonna Road in San Luis Obispo Saturday night, to allow us to take a cab home and avoid the dirty business of designating a driver for the evening. We had big plans Sunday morning to head to Breakfast Buzz for some breakfast burritos, followed by a rigorous hike to the top of Bishop’s Peak. In retrospect, the breakfast burritos… not such a good idea before hiking. Regardless, we made it up to the top in 45 minutes! It was actually a great day for the hike. Overcast and cool, the weather was our friend as we trudged up the side of the mountain. When we reached the top, we looked around, only to see fog. We’d climbed into the fog bank, and were completely surrounded by it. It was actually rather awing. I have pictures, but, of course, have been lazy about downloading them… later this week for sure. My Cal Poly resolution beat (3 years late), we proceeded back down the mountain.

Earlier this week, Jen discovered a new Boba place on Foothill, so we decided to head over there to relax after our 1.5 hours of hiking. It was an awesome way to end the weekend. As we sat, enjoying our boba beverages, the clouds that had been accumulating above us finally broke into a light mist. We’d timed our hike perfectly… and made it down just before the rain to set in.

Ben & I started our drive back to Sacramento around 3, leaving just enough time for us to have dinner at Harris Ranch in Coalinga. It’s a popular place for pilots to fly into (since they have their own airport) and Ben had talked of wanting to go there. We had a yummy rib-eye dinner, a great jaunt around the gift shop, and a nice break in the drive overall.

The weekend was fantastic. It’s awesome that we’re just a 4.5 hour drive from my best friend, my alma mater, amazing hills for hiking, beautiful scenic views, delicious pork sandwiches & a fun place to hang out. Definitely have to go again soon.

and it’s time for me to start working out and get back into shape. My first attempt to get back into the routine were the 2 bike rides this past weekend. Still a little sore from the rides on Wednesday, I was determined to jump back on the horse and go to the gym. I ran approx 2.85 miles in 36 minutes (with 5 minutes in there used for cool down) on Wednesday night. This morning, I woke up bright and early and fully awake at 6:30!! I’m attributing the extra energy to my running :)

Since I got to work early this morning, I took my lunch hour and went BACK to the gym, ran 3 miles this time, and improved my time!! (still 36 min, but 0.15 miles more!!)

Anyway, Ben & I are heading down to SLO this weekend, and plan to hike Bishop’s Peak with Jen, so I want to be at least somewhat prepped for the adventure :) Besides, this weekend will only continue my work-out kick! (ok, so the food this weekend won’t really help w/ the whole “being healthy” thing, but I figure the exercise will make up for it this time)

So I finally finished my taxes last night. After months of procrastinating, I started them about 2

weeks ago, and have part-way complete versions of my taxes sitting out on various websites

(TurboTax, TaxSlayer, etc). They’re all IRS approved (got the link from the IRS.gov webpage) so I’m

guessing my info is fairly safe there.

My first attempt, TurboTax, only led me to dissapointment. Their “free” advertisement really meant $30?? No clue. Decided not to fight it and just move on to the next. TaxSlayer advertised free filing of state and federal for anyone under 25. Guess what folks… i’m only 24!!! So I proceed…

Most of my information was already in there, I just had a few last adjustments to make (entering in the correct amount for DMV registration, adjusting medical expenses only to find that I came NO WHERE NEAR the limit where it starts to become a benefit, prior year state taxes… ummm, no clue!!?! Apparently I didn’t print them out last year either.. damn), and had a fairly nice return coming back to me. Moving towards the end of the process, I start to realize there’s no where to enter my routing # and bank acct # for my direct deposit. D’oah! Yes, this service was free on the front end, but the costly 8 weeks that the government takes to cut checks just wasn’t worth it to me.

So back to irs.gov to search for another seemingly free tax service. I choose FreeTaxUSA.com, and to my surprise, this is actually what I used to file my taxes last year!! Woohoo!! That means they already have my state information stored, and can use it in my itemized deductions! That ONE adjustment bumped my federal refund up another $100! I also realized that FreeTaxUSA is a slightly more accurate system to use, as they automatically calculate those pesky adjustments from federal to state tax returns (you have to shift some things out of / in to agi when filing a state return), and TaxSlayer made you calculate all of this yourself (meaning… i didn’t adjust ANYTHING!!). Although TaxSlayer’s State return for me was a more robust refund, it was clearly flawed, and possible red flag for an audit (ok, not really, but I’m a cautious tax payer :)).

Getting to the end of the return, I entered my bank acct & routing #, selected YES for direct deposit, and off through the crazy world of the internet it went. I should find out if my return was accepted in about 3 days, and have my direct deposit in about a week!! All of this for a meger $13.95. Totally worth it.

If you haven’t filed yet, FreeTaxUSA.com is the way to go.

This weekend was awesome. It was majorly influenced by the great weather, busy tasks & feeling quite accomplished by the end of the weekend. We got so much done yesterday. Ben had to work for part of the day, so he went in early, did a few things, came back, and we headed off to The Home Depot, where Ben bought a shopvac for $20!! It was half off regular price. Totally awesome.

After Home Depot, we went back to his house, made some breakfast burrito’s using the leftovers from dinner at my parents house on Saturday night & some scrambled eggs. YUM.

Ben had to go back to work at this point, which meant, along with working on his birthday, he was also missing his soccer game :(

I went home to make a cake for Ben.. which ended up taking the whole afternoon. I was attempting to make a mixed berry filling from scratch, but after about 4 tries, I gave into the store bought stuff, and ended up blending the berry mixture with vanilla frosting from a can. It tasted yummy, but wasn’t exactly what I was going for. Ok, so the cake’s done at this point, presents wrapped (well, they were in gift bags w/ tissue.. so technically not “wrapped”), I headed back over to Ben’s. It was about 4pm by now. I gave him his presents, which were comprised of a bunch of tools for his house and an awesome tool box to store them in.

After the present unwrapping was finished, we took off for a bike ride. We rode to Long’s Drugs so I could get some nail polish (i was planning on wearing sandals to dinner initially… changed my mind when I realized how chilly it was outside) and look for a bike helmet. Overall it was about a 2 mile ride. I’m a teensy bit sore today, but not bad at all. Definitely need to start doing that more often.

I can’t wait until it starts staying light later. I feel like you get so much more out of the day when it’s light out! I definitely plan on going on more bike rides in the evenings once the daylight allows for it :)

To end off the day, we celebrated Ben’s birthday with friends at BJ’s in Folsom. Ben & I grabbed a pager from the place when we were there on our bike ride (around 5:45pm) in order to get a table at 7:30pm. That place is so crazy busy. It’s insanity… and it’s like that for ALL of the BJ’s it seems. The ones in the bay area were the same way. Easily an hour wait for dinner. Ben & I came back to the restaurant around 6:45 and had a few drinks while waiting for our table. It ended up being 13 of us (ben’s lucky #… strange coincidence). We ate our dinners, had some drinks, got a free pazookie and finally headed out to Dave & Sharaun’s for cake & ice cream. It was a lot of fun.

Definitely need more weekends like this :)

So Ben & I discovered last night (well, Ben discovered) that google blogger is actually word press.. or a mighty close facsimile. Which is probably why this blog is so damn awesome :)

I’m still trying to figure out if there’s a way I can leave myself signed into google blogger permanently (or for a reasonably lengthy amount of time) so I won’t have to re-sign in every time I want to blog something. It just takes away from the immediate gratification.

We had dinner with my aunt & uncle last night in Folsom and Mimi’s. It was nice to go somewhere close to home (for Aunt & Uncle as well as Ben) because it meant we had more time to relax and chat, without an impending drive home to think about. We ended up sitting there for about 2 hours, discussing my Uncle’s computer problems with Ben, plans for Ben’s house, my Uncle’s accounting system, my Aunt’s preschool, etc. I think we covered everyone’s jobs in a solitary evening. It actually came down to Ben & my Uncle offering to trade labor (home improvement/fixing for computer improvement/fixing), which is completely sweet deal! Ben is awesomeness when it comes to computers, but he (and I) are still struggling with the home improvement side of things. It’ll be nice to have a resource around who we can call on when things are above our heads.

Ben’s house closes on April 1st, and he actually gets it on April 6th. We’re so excited. The house doesn’t really *need* work persay, but there are a ton of things that we want to do to it. First thing is ripping out the kid-influenced wall paper from the second bedroom. Ughh.. that’s going to be a project. We have grand plans of getting everything prepped (wallpaper down, walls trimmed w/ paint) before Saturday, and having people over on April 9th for a painting party. Hopefully it all works out.

It’s happened! I’ve moved away from livejournal and am now using Google’s blogging tool! Eventually I WILL make it to word press, but I have a feeling that won’t be happening any time soon.

I’ll slowly migrate my older journal entries over. For now, if you want to see any of them, you’ll have to use the livejournal interface and go to the old suzyness blog here.

As google allows blogging with a click of a button (the “B” button on the toolbar), updating will be infinitely easier, and far more tempting! Now, every time I open up a web browser, the “B” will be taunting me to post.

For those of you with a newsreader, the address is http://suzyness.blogspot.com/atom.xml

I’ve added some new photos to my site… they’re all under the ‘My Pics’ link.

You can also get to it from here: Suzyness Gallery (via Ben’s site)

Enjoy!

*Sigh* I miss my laptop.

Sitting here, eating dinner, watching tv & lounging on the couch. Erin’s laptop is unattended, and immediately my thoughts turn to blogging :)

I realized how taxing a commute can be on my drive home today. It’s only a short 30 minutes, but it feels like an eternity. The traffic, lights, and general bad drivers are enough to turn me into “road rage suzy.” Ok, not really, but i feel right on the edge!

I’ve been working a lot lately. It’s a lot of hours, but an enjoyable job. I feel appreciated, and I like my co-workers. We’re hiring more accounting staff, and hopefully my hours will decrease. I’ve met with my manager, and we’ve discussed how to allocate my workload to decrease my hours.

Ben’s birthday is this weekend, and, unfortunately, he has to work. We still have a few plans in the evenings. My parents are making dinner on Saturday night in Stockton and then we’re meeting for drinks on Sunday evening to celebrate.

Alas, this is all I have in me for this entry. Have a good night all.