suzyness.com

The CPA exam is less than 3 days away, and my brain is already turning to mush. Things are starting to jumble together, questions cease to make sense, and all of the sudden, I feel like I’m in cram mode. It’s completely silly – I’ve put in the time and effort to know this stuff, it’s just my stress mode kicking on that makes me feel this way. I look back at the review notes over the past 2 weeks, and wish everything was just a little fresher in my head.

My mind is wandering most all of the time now. Wandering to everything but studying, that is. I find myself more and more distracted about wedding stuff every day. Last minute details, trying to coordinate everything in my head while I should be paying attention to work/studying/etc. I never imagined I could possess such a level of indecisiveness like I have recently. Deciding who to invite, who should sit at what table, trying not to hurt feelings, and all the while doing the math in my head. It’s adding up fast, people. Faster than I would have ever expected – and adding to my already stressed out brain.

I think it’s tougher to plan these things later in life. You’ve met more people who’ve had a significant impact in your life (than say, just out of high school), and you have to make the tough choice of who makes the cut. Do you include college and high school friends you were once close with? Those you still feel were significant, but have drifted away from? Former co-workers? Current co-workers? Distant relatives? Children of relatives? I know, I should just make a decision and stick with it. But it’s tough when you worry about hurting people’s feelings. When the wedding comes up around a group of people, where only some are invited – it’s an awkward thing.

Weddings are so much of a bigger to-do now than they were 30 years ago. Some of the “necessary” costs of a wedding seem out of control. Photographers start around $1,500 – and those are the reasonable ones. DJs start around $1,500 for 4 or 5 hours of service. Not to mention the reception hall, the ceremony site, the food, the cake, the flowers, the invitations, the favors…

We’ve tried to do a lot of these things ourselves to cut down on costs. But realistically, sometimes you just can’t get around it. If you want quality photos, you pay more. You want a good DJ? You’re going to pay for it. You don’t want to do it yourself? Oh yeah, you’re paying for it big time.

The party-lover in me is really excited about the wedding/party. It’s going to be awesome. We spent money where it counts, and it should (hopefully) show. We really wanted it to be a fun and memorable event; something that was our own style that we would remember for the rest of our lives. It just can’t get here fast enough!

Things have been so so crazy for me lately! My poor website and blog have been long neglected, making room for wedding planning and the cpa exam. Oh yes, I some how decided that planning a wedding this summer wasn’t enough to keep me busy, and endeavored to add the Audit section of the CPA exam to my plate as well. Insane? Why, yes, I am.

I had a dress fitting today, which was sandwiched somewhere between a bad reaction to an antibiotic I’m on (which left me in bed for most of the morning), mailing out the invitations, making dinner and finally coming home to get a few hours of studying in before calling it a night.

At least there’s an end in sight – the CPA exam is scheduled for August 31, and after that I have a slight reprieve until the next section of the exam. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I’ll be getting married and going on an awesome honeymoon with my new husband!!

Ben’s helped alleviate some of my stress by taking over our wedding website creation & maintenance. It’s a sweet site – set up all via wordpress, which has a some pretty dope options for adding additional pages & links. Ben even created an AWESOME RSVP button on the page, which he is quite proud of. The website is http://parmeter.net/wedding. Check it out – it turned out great.