All's Well That Ends Well

Relief. This week has been wild, but most of all it has been good. I have been so encouraged about God's grace and goodness to us......

First of all, when I was in the depths of studying and feeling a little overwhelmed, two things happened.

1) My aunt offered to let us stay in her un-occupied house this winter. A nice option if we can't find a decent apartment when we first get back to Burlington. Praise!

2) I got a phone call from this sweet accounting firm in Burlington. I sent them my resume a few weeks ago and now they want to interview me! Best of all, the timing is perfect since we'll be in Burlington next week! So I have an interview at 9 am on Monday. Prayers are appreciated!

I would be thrilled if I got this job. But most of all, it was just encouraging to see God working in our lives.....I feel like the road is being paved for life after traveling.

On Wednesday we celebrated my wonderful husband's birthday! It wasn't quite like the celebration below, but it certainly was fun. We had salmon, red potatoes, and aspargus, with his favorite strawberry shortcake for dessert!

Celebrate Good Times Come On!

Thursday finally came and I actually felt pretty prepared. It was weird because I never feel prepared for tests...the perfectionist in me always knows I don't know it all. However, I was oddly calm for this test. I don't know if I passed, and won't find out for a few weeks, but I was at least encouraged that it wasn't overwhelming and that I feel like the CPA is totally accomplishable. Yes, I made up that word because it fit what I was trying to say. I'm going to be a CPA, not a writer/editor.

When I got home from the exam, I was greeted by an exuberant husband (always fun) and a bottle of bubbly!!! So we lounged around drinking this nectar of the gods and delighting in our freedom, since he just finished his super rough OB-GYN rotation. Hurray! We made it through!

Thank you, Shane for this wonderful present!

As if this great week wasn't enough, we are going to LBI for the weekend to celebrate Duke & LD's birthdays!

Good Looking family

Blurry, but I hope our future children are this adorable!

 
Our weekend is going to be full of eating good food, drinking good drinks, hot-tubbing, relaxing, and celebrating life...and counting our blessings because there are many. 

Happy Friday!

Getting Wired

Duke is convinced that productivity is directly related to the amount of caffeine you consume. So, since I am in crunch mode, I am living by his advice and drinking as much coffee as possible. I love coffee and drink a cup every morning, but this process is making me a little sick of it. So I've been mixing it up. Instead of getting regular coffee, I've indulged in a few specialty drinks. But I can't drink those non-stop so I've been at a little bit of a loss. Today I started crossed over to become an official caffeine abuser and, after drinking a small cup of coffee at home, followed by a grande mocha light, I bought myself a double shot of espresso. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW I immediately had to chug a bottle of water because this espresso was unbelievably strong. Wow. That is an entirely different world of coffee and I felt a little bit like a drug addict, chugging the shot in the car before I went into the library. Yikes, I didn't realize it would get to this point!

But I have to say, the caffeine really does help keep me motivated. And I have just two weeks until my exam so I will continue this bad habit until then. The day after my test I will probably have the world's worst caffeine headache!

Tick Tock

Whew! Time is flying by!! I can't believe that our time in Bangor (crazy Bangor) is more than halfway over. Just two more weeks here! It's exciting because Maine isn't our favorite place, but bittersweet because it means that the first six weeks of our marriage have almost passed, and a little scary because I am closer to taking the first CPA exam, and a little sad because my wonderful husband and I will be spending most of our time apart while we're in CT. It's also a little exciting because we're six weeks closer to living in West Palm Beach, FL! (Vacation, anyone??)

Oh, you want me to go back to the second-to-last sentence? Yes, Duke and I are going to be living mostly apart in CT. Affordable, furnished, short-term, secure housing proved to be impossible to come by in Danbury. Although this is not ideal, it actually is going to work out just fine because my sister's in-laws live about 45 minutes away from the hospital that Duke's going to be working at. So I'm going to stay there while my student-physician husband stays at the hospital housing during his extremely long OB-GYN days. He needs to be as close to the hospital as possible because he'll be working 12-16 hour days and has to be in between 5 and 6 am. So wasting an hour and a half driving every day would be a recipe for disaster in his shoes. (I think it may actually be a blessing to our marriage, too, because neither Duke nor I function well on little sleep---can you say "monster"?---so we will be able to spare ourselves from ourselves.) God has really blessed us with this chance to save money and Duke's mental health. Hopefully we will have great weekend breaks together that are re-energizing and full of quality time.

Speaking of Duke, I am so proud of how hard he works for us, building a good future for us to share together. I really appreciate the time and effort he has put in to his training. I am so thankful for his good attitude, efficiency, and ability to separate work and home life. He always makes me laugh and is my best friend. I love my husband!

Music to Our Ears

Have you ever seen anything like this?




I have, in musical form. Come to the Duncan household on a random weeknight, and you'll encounter what I'm talking about....techno. Duke got super into techno while studying for the Step 1 last year. I used to think it was a little weird (I mean, we're not in Europe, and we're not trying to get wild at 7:30 on a Tuesday) but he is convinced that it is the best study music--no words, no distractions, just straight energy-inducing beats. I have to say that I now like it. There's a lot of studying going on at this house, so we listen to a lot of techno these days.


But if you're not into getting your heart rate up while studying, I have an alternative -- the original sounds of Christopher Taylor Duncan, my own private musician.




He is such a good guitar player, and his songs are always hilarious!!! He has a great stage presence, too. :) He always brings a smile to my face!!!