Two Down, One to Go

I completed the second of my duties today before my "gift to me" starts on July 1. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my husband for his help.

I still have a lot to do but it feels good to have this behind me. I have been the president of our local chapter of the state society of CPAs for the last two years. That doesn't usually entail much - an annual meeting is usually about it for the Chapter and serving on the board of governors for the state society.

Four years ago, though, one of our local investment firms wanted to have a seminar and asked if he could contact our membership to help fill the seats. And our annual CPE day was born. Each year the Chapter has taken a little more ownership of the day and added speakers that fit more into our industry and meets our needs. The investment firm has been the sponsor.

Well, I've always been a "go big or go home" kind of girl so for my swan song I went all out. I filled up 8 hours with speakers and the sponsor still wanted one hour so I put everyone through a very long day with a lot of information. Also, for the accounting and auditing update all the good speakers were busy so I did it myself.

I have no problem, really, with speaking in front of people. "All the World is a Stage". And that is how I look at it. If I can get on stage and act, then I can speak to a crowd.

Learned today that the difference is in the script. Accounting and auditing updates are boring. Its hard to make them interesting. Fraud speaker - very interesting topic, funny speaker. Safeguarding technology - great computer geek. Estate planning - good guy with good slides. Professional liability - good speaker and timely topic.

A&A pronouncements and convergence projects with the International Accounting Standards Board - me. And I only received the materials about a week ago so reading through it was about all I had time to do. For my first time, not too bad but certainly not in the same league with the others. Side note - I was contractually obligated with the AICPA to not alter their materials or presentation. Had I been able to actually put together my own information, things might have been different. Maybe.

All that aside, I have to thank my better half for his help towards a successful day. He picked up and delivered 55 boxed lunches, iced down two coolers of cold drinks - that he went and purchased yesterday, and bought a variety of cookies and treats for the afternoon snack. All of this despite Seizure Dog having a seizure this morning. He rarely leaves Seizure Dog's side when there is a seizure since we never know if there will be a second. And today's seizure was followed by a long period of focal seizures where he was crashing into walls and knocking over furniture. My husband told me about it when he brought all the food to me and told me it was bad. I gave him time to get home and I called to check and see if Seizure Dog was okay. I was told "I'll take care of him you just do what you need to do and we'll be here waiting when you get home".

He gave me the physical help I needed and the mental assist to enable me to lead the class for the last two hours of the day and focus on my obligations. All the while shouldering all the stress of constantly sitting and waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it is stressful, believe me.

I'd have to say he's pretty cool.

I think I'll keep him.

And I'll make sure that he gets a fair share of that time I'm freeing up this summer. It's only fair.