YAY!

so, i'm getting back to my old self after tax season {i swear this will be the last time i mention it. i swear.}!!

the timing is looking about right...two weeks in an anti-social cave. right on track with the previous 8 seasons.

monday, i went for my first jog since january. i hurt. everywhere. but man, did it ever feel good. i've still been so busy at work because i'm wrapping up engagements to prepare for my departure on may 15th, so i'm still tired {and spending way too much time with my bff named netflix}...but for the most part, i've been noticing the following...

signs i am 92% normal again:

i'm cooking meals without instructions that include "remove plastic and heat until cheese is melted"

you guys, i groomed my eyebrows. BY myself. WITHOUT ruining them.

that 4 foot by 5 foot mountain of laundry there in the background {that i tried to conveniently blur out of the picture} is GONE. 

oh, hi sush & shmeez. {pretty much what i wake up to every morning. when is breakfast?!}

my outfits coordinate again. 

{and my standard of "business professional" does not include running shoes and day five hair.}

shmizmo's whiskers and paws make me happy.

and...drumroll please.

that pretty much speaks for itself.

life is good.

yay?

busy. season. is. over. 

i should be ecstatic. and i am {somewhere in here}. but there is this weird let down period after all the craziness is over that makes me feel completely drained. like i was hooked up to an iv of adrenaline & caffeine for 4 months straight, and someone just yanked it out of my arm and said "go on living." ...spoken like a true drug addict. excellent.

i don't remember what i used to do for fun. i don't remember what it's like to sleep in, or stay up late. or have girls' night. or stay awake for more than one movie. i have no motivation to go to the grocery store or start on the 1,600 pounds of laundry waiting for me in our bedroom. i just want to crawl into a cave of fleece and jammies and kitties and never come out.

i'll tell you what i do know how to do like a boss:

• record & report a multi-state, multi-property {44 separate residences to be exact} section 1031 tax deferred exchange with a section 754 adjustment on an income tax basis of accounting
• prepare extension estimates for an enggaement involving multi-tier, multi-state real estate family partnerships which all flow into several different individuals {with crap numbers and no time...because why would we want to make that any easier?}
• calculate tax gain on separate interests in the sale of a $60 million dollar commercial building 
• calculate non-resident state composite pass-through withholding
• reconcile open & close of put & call stock option sales for schedule d reporting and miraculously tie to the year end investment summary
• coordinate with the defined benefit plan people for calculation of tax deductible plan contributions based on current year self employment income
• report ordinary and capital basis adjustments for publicly traded partnership investments
• report final distribution of assets in a family wealth structure upon dissolution of the irrevocable trust {ughhh i haate estates. i just don't get them, ya know? they are my tax kryptonite.}
• work on sundays {a new one for me this year...but it needed to happen}
• considering easy 1040s to be an actual treat
• having dreams about allocating exchange basis
• having nightmares about forgetting to allocate qualified nonrecourse partnership debt on k-1s
• defend irs & ftb audits that end in no change {victory}.
• ...and that's just the tip of the iceberg of all the fun i had during the last few months.

and i just enjoyed writing that. how depressing. 

this has been the hardest busy season to date i think. some interesting things happened in our department and that shifted a lot more responsibility my way. also, people made a ton of money in 2013, and then they spent that money, and didn't keep track of what they did with it {and forgot to tell us about any of it, of course}. which means as a common trend, there were a lot of fun {messy} surprises; and i got to tell a ton of people they owed a ton of tax that they weren't expecting. awesome!

hopefully, in a few days, my brain will make its annual transition from tax-queen-robot to oatmeal-brained vegetable. in the meantime, i'll be self-medicating during the process by watching hours of mindless reality television. once my brain chemicals equalize, i'll be back to my old simple-minded, shopping-loving, diamond-gazing, lipstick-wearing, vegetable-chopping self. can't wait. 

randoms.

i have nothing profound. 

just a few moments from the iphone camera roll to remind myself that there is life beyond busy season.

{my rachel.}

{these darling mabel retro bloomers may or may not be in my baby clothes collection already. oops.}

{so boss.}

{so bus.}

{studying is hard, but someone's got to do it.}

have a great day everybody!

tgif.

i mean...

tgi the-tax-accountant's-thursday!

tomorrow we work our first saturday in the office. i made it through last busy season without drinking any coffee. i'm totally over proving that point this year. 

not really sure how we've made it this far into the season without putting in any saturdays yet. things are delayed with the government shut down, which has something to do with it. 

blah blah blah...gross nerdy uninteresting tax talk. 

somehow, knowing it is my last tax season for a year or two makes the overtime a little easier this year. after nine busy seasons, i just won't know what to do with myself next year. will i actually feel joy in march? mind-blowing.

on a side note, over here at davidson enterprises, we have been working on jack's paperwork to finalize his core & externships (next year). 

i took this picture of him for his official headshot. 

isn't he handsome? sorry, i had to share. totally, ridiculously, head-over-heels in love. melt.

sorry (not really), i'm done.

have a great weekend!

Best Day Ever.

in an attempt to piece the shambles of my life together after busy season, i took today off. i enjoyed every second.

maybe this won't seem like the best day ever to most people, but for those of you who have ever been trapped in a windowless cube without seeing the light of day for three months, this is pretty much what i imagine heaven to be like.

8am:

wake up captive in bed with two kitties and a husband holding me hostage under their sleepy groggy morning weight. coziest morning ever. not a cloud in the sky. birds chirping. 

hah, straight out of a cheezy lifetime movie where things look a little tooooo happy. 

8:10am:

make husband breakfast. two eggs & potato pancakes. 

drink tea + green juice. get excited to not catch the bus. 

and to think, just a week ago i wanted to punch every person i saw in the face. amazing the difference a few days and a deadline makes.

9am:

dentist for my 6 month cleaning. chatted with my adorbs hygienist who is 22 weeks preggo. 

stared out the window. 

wore the ugliest sunglasses ever and loved every second of it. 

no cavities. yessss.

11am:

bank stop. chatted with another human {bank teller} and got 4 rolls of quarters so i can make my way through the 15 loads of laundry that wait for me at home.

11:15am:

visit my oakland nail shop. 

stare & drool in massage chair while my poor toes are brought back to life with opi lincoln park after dark. can't forget an eyebrow wax. 

omg i think i'm starting to feel human again.

12:30pm:

arrive at target. i can't even remember what i bought, but $258 later, i feel sort of like i accomplished something. i got some summer shirts for jack to wear under his scrubs, mascara, some cards, a jean jacket, shampoo, & some other random bath items. i was in serious need of a retail therapy sesh. 

mission accomplished.

1:40pm:

receive a phone call from the hubster that his afternoon classes are cancelled. he met me for lunch at panera. i had a tuna sammy. it was the most delish sammy ever. 

it represented freedom on a random wednesday afternoon. with people. and my person.

2:30pm:

drop off some old running shoes at the alameda goodwill.

2:40pm:

make a stop at rosenblum cellars to pick up our spring club shipment. our neighbor jackie was pouring, so naturally i had to stop to chat. i tasted two zinfandels and a syrah with her.

3:00pm:
take our car to the outdoor carwash on shoreline drive.
wait in the glorious sunshine for a half hour.
stare at the sky while the filth of busy season is vacuumed out of the floor mats and the tires are shined.

3:45pm:

arrive home to kitties and my hubby. watched two episodes of real housewives of oc. mostly i just like to stare at eyelashes, clothes, and hair while while i exist aimlessly on the couch. 

i couldn't bear to do laundry, so i just didn't.

5:45pm:

ninety minute massage in alameda. it hurt, but it was necessary. my shoulders were in my ears and my back literally crunched from all the knots. 

apparently i have knots in my neck the "size of marbles." awesome. 

must get back to yoga & pilates, stat.

7:45pm:

made a goat cheese pizza from trader joe's {because i couldn't bear to cook} and enjoyed my night at home with jack and the kitties on the couch. we watched django. it was fabulous.

11pm:

bedtime for all four of us.

It's Here.

I made it. I only had to handle one client emergency this morning, and I'm done. Now, as long as I make it to work with a heartbeat for the next few months, I'm golden.

Actually, I finished my client list on Friday, but didn't want to count my chickens before they hatched. I found out Friday afternoon I didn't have to work on Saturday. It was the first Saturday in three months that I didn't have to get up and go. It was glorious. 

The best part was that Jack was able to take the weekend off, too. 

Saturday:

We ended up wandering aimlessly around the campus of UC Berkeley. We found some squirrels, a wedding, and some gorgeous buildings:

Some of the architecture is so ominous. It reminds me of greek mythology.

clock tower.

botany.

doesn't this old house look like it's haunted? LOVE it. so eerie & enchanting.

Also, we came across all the students that participated in the Holi Festival {photo from the Berkeleyside independent news site}: 

Read about it here. 

The Hindu tradition celebrates the arrival of spring in all of it's colors. There were hundreds of students around campus in head to toe color. It was so fun to watch.

Then we went to find some french macaroons. I had rose and Jack had mango.

Then we went to Urban Outfitters so I could do some shopping for the upcoming BottleRock music festival in Napa in May. 

I decided on these two dresses:

**Update: here is the outfit i put together using this dress!

{photo credit: free people @ bottlerock napa.}

Then we went home so Jack could get some studying in.

Sunday:

After church, we met some friends for brunch. Then we headed over to our winery with our friends Dustin & Courtney to enjoy the day. It was a crazy change being social for once, without a worry in the world. It. was. amazing. 

We tasted at Rosenblum together, then headed to Rock Wall, where Dustin & Court are members.

We sat in the room we call "epcot" and drank champagne, ate different kinds of cheese, salami, crackers, and sweet potato fries and caught up on life. 

I didn't take these pictures, but to give you an idea on what we did, here is the room:

 View of San Francisco off the patio.

It was literally the perfect weekend. 

Although, now that my adrenaline is gone, I'm realizing how tired I am. I will be spending the next two weeks drooling on the couch and trying to put my life back together.

Finally.

This morning, on this fabulous Monday Funday, I am more than pleased to announce that Forever 21 has justified all that is crazy cat lady. While the below isn't exactly my style, I feel better about my borderline obsessive kitty posts lately. I need a life.

Start shopping right meow.

At least I'm not dressed this way on a daily basis, right? 

{pulls cardigan over front of button-down-kitty-printed-chiffon-tunic}.

6 days left until busy season is over and then I will have something more interesting to talk about than: cats, wine, capital accounts, debt allocation, and nonresident shareholder composite withholding reconciliations.

Long. Week.

This pretty much sums up my thank-goodness-it's-friday-but-i'm-a-cpa-so-it's-really-thursday-because-i-work-tomorrow type of day:

Actually, this week in general has been trying for both of us. Jack has had midterms for the last month. I'm in the pit of busy season. It's been a frozen pizza, crackers and string cheese for dinner, coffee at midnight, stare at colors on the tv, work till my brain turns to oatmeal and go to bed to get up and do it all over again, four day hair (thank you Lord for dry shampoo), sort of week. And it's almost over. I work a half day tomorrow, but then Jack is meeting me in the city so we can play. And I have Sunday off to regroup. By regroup, I mean go to Church, the grocery store and do laundry, cook for the week so we have something in the fridge, and attempt to make my house look like a home instead of a FEMA camp. We take this time of year one day at a time. And to celebrate tonight, I've dusted off this bad boy:

Ok, it's still kind of dusty. I'm not good at cleaning...but I can prepare the heck out of a tax return. That counts, right?

Brussels Fries.

This time of year, since it's busy season, I'm L. A. Z. Y. in the kitchen. Which actually means I don't want to do the dishes. I don't mind the cooking part. Insert frozen pizza {here}.

So, can I convince myself to maybe muster up the energy to slice up two bags of Trader Joe's pre-washed  trimmed Brussels Sprouts? Ugh, fine. Three minutes later, they are in the big bowl and I decide that wasn't so bad. Must. Pre. Heat. Oven...my life is SO. HARD. Just kidding, if you can't tell, I'm being a drama queen.

Preheat oven to 400. Generously coat your sprouts with good quality olive oil {because you'll taste it}. Season with sea salt, pepper, and add a fun spice like cumin or paprika...or go out on a limb and be dangerous...add both.

Pour your bowl of seasoned sprouts on a foil lined cookie sheet {did I mention I was not in the mood for dishes?}. Turn all of their little faces up and put into the oven. Ignore & Bake for 45 minutes.

Unlike the frozen pizza I would have been eating, these little nuggets are packed with fiber, more than your daily dose of vitamins K & C, and contain DNA protective benefits. Read the entire nutritional profile here and feel fabulous about yourself while eating.

If you are even lazier than me and refuse to read the above, here is my recipe in short lazy cavewoman form:

Ingredients

2 bags trimmed & washed trader joe's brussels sprouts (or aprx 2 lbs)

olive oil (about 1/4 cup)

sea salt

pepper

optional: other seasonings (cumin, curry powder, paprika, etc)

preheat oven to 400 degrees. cut all sprouts in half and place in a large bowl. liberally pour three or four rounds of olive oil into bowl and stir. add seasonings to taste. stir again. pour onto foil covered cookie sheet. bake for 45 minutes. enjoy.

Sort of too good to be true that these taste exactly like french fries... I promise, they are not.

Mac & Cheese.

Busy season is in full swing. {busy season in tax is February-April 15th} I'm working 10+ hour weekdays and going into the city on Saturdays. I don't know what it is about that schedule that makes me want all that is cheesy and salty, but it's a force that sometimes I cannot fight. It might have something to do with the fact that there isn't a lot of time for a hot meal at regular hours. Usually I'm getting home at 7 or 8 and I just want to stand over the sink and eat cottage cheese and stare at the colors on the tv. Sometimes, you just need a cheat day.

Enter my variation on Nancy Reagan's baked mac & cheese recipe. No, that is not a close-up of what my arteries now look like after eating one serving of this baked cheesy casserole deliciousness. Well, maybe. But I'm still not regretting it. Ok, maybe that's a lie. I might as well share the recipe so I can bring all of you down with me.

Ingredients

1/2 pound of elbow pasta or penne {I used trader joe's penne with 6 g fiber per serving...justification?}

1 tablespoon butter

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon mustard

3 cups shredded cheese of your choice, the sharper the better {i used sharp cheddar}

1 cup milk

1/4 cup fine breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 350. Boil pasta and drain. Mix salt and mustard in 1 tablespoon hot water and add to milk. Return pasta to pan {away from heat} stir in butter and egg. Stir in cheese, leaving enough for sprinkling on the top. Pour pasta mixture into a greased 9x9 baking dish. Pour milk over pasta. Top with bread crumbs, and then the rest of the cheese. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes or until top is golden and bubbly.

Whoa.