Just Say Julie

I made my annual trek to Alabama for Grand Assembly this weekend. For those of you who don't know, I was a member of the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls from the time I was 13 until I reached majority age. I served the Alabama Grand Assembly as Grand Worthy Advisor in 1999-2000 and currently serve as a Grand Executive and Chairman of the Ritual Competition. As always, there was much drama and many interesting moments over the weekend. I departed the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport Thursday morning after an hour and a half delay and still made my connector in Dallas with 10 minutes to spare. I am just happy I didn't encounter the troubles traveling to Alabama that I did last year . Thursday evening was the Informal Opening where the dignitaries from the other Masonic bodies are introduced and asked to speak. This is always a long affair with lots of introductions and boring speeches. I still win the award for the shortest Informal Opening ever coming i...

There are days where I feel like I am stuck in limbo. Where it seems like the world is moving around me and I am simply standing still. About a week ago I found out that J has a girlfriend and I was much more devastated by this news than I ever expected to be. You would think that 4 months later I would be able to let go and move on. Apparently I have moved on as in dating again but the letting go seems to be the hard part. I don't really understand why I still care so much about a man who wants absolutely nothing to do with me. Dena and I have discussed this at great lengths and while my head seems to get it, my heart isn't catching on. One thing that she said to me is that it is really easy to get nostalgic when you are lonely and she is right. I don't think it helps that I have hit a bit of a dry spell in the dating department. It isn't that I can't get dates, it is that I am not really feeling an attraction or a connection to the guys I am meeting. I w...

I woke up this morning with every intention of getting a lot accomplished around the house. I wanted to move the last of the boxes out of the garage into the house, bag up the packing trash in the garage, do laundry, break down boxes and add them to the pile in the garage, and of course unpack and sort my stuff. So I got to work first thing by sorting laundry and starting my first load. Now I haven't done laundry since I moved (yes...I have that many clothes) so I haven't had the opportunity to test the waters so to speak here at the new house. About half way through my second load, I noticed that the dryer had stopped but I didn't hear it go off. After fiddling with it, it wouldn't come back on. A little research determined that the breaker for the dryer had flipped. By this time I had already hung all my underwear around the guest bathroom to dry. However, I still had a load in the machine that would need drying so I determined to try to dry it even if it mean...

I have been saying since I graduated from Judson that I was going to complete the courses needed to sit for the CPA exam. When I started grad school, I opted for the MBA route instead of limiting myself to the MAcc Program. My thought was that I would be more marketable in the future since I would have knowledge in a variety of areas instead of just focusing on accounting. That has been true for me since my employers since then have not only been impressed that I completed my MBA but that I also did it with honors while working full time. So I finally took the necessary steps to complete this goal that has been nearly 10 years in the making. After researching various schools in the Austin area, I discovered that Austin Community College offered a Professional Accountant Certificate for those with bachelor's degrees who want to qualify to sit for the CPA exam. This sounded like it was right up my alley. So with transcripts in hand, I met with my advisor earlier this week to s...

So my plan for the weekend was to hit the boxes hard so I could get closer to being unpacked and organized. Saturday morning I worked on moving boxes from the garage to the house so I could sort through them without sweating my rear end off. After that I headed to the Toyota dealership to have Lo Jack installed in my car. Apparently there was some confusion between the dealership and Lo Jack and they tried to tell me that I didn't have an appointment. As a matter of fact they said, "We don't know why you are here." Frankly I was annoyed and aggravated. Eventually they worked it out so my 20 minute drive wasn't in vain. My friend, Brad, came over after that and helped me with some of the items on my to do list such as hooking up the washer and dryer and ice maker while I worked on unpacking. After picking my car back up, I returned home and hit the boxes again and put together the console table for my living room. This morning I headed to church and then C...

For once I was actually really busy this weekend. It all started with a girls' night to see the Sex and the City movie. I must say that I thought it was really great and ended exactly how I wanted it to. However, there were parts of the movie that really hit home. If I was one to cry at movies, I would have. The best line of the evening came from one of the three guys I saw leaving the theater after being dragged to it by his girlfriend. Walking out of the show he said, "Man, that was the worst Indian Jones I have ever seen!" Classic! I true blogger form I promised to blog that statement and there it is. Saturday I volunteered to work at the Cattle Baron's Ball which is a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. All in all I think the event was a success but I was severely annoyed by the seeming lack of organization. I am still not buying the whole cowboy boots with a dress thing but several ladies were working it last night. It is growing on me a bit b...