About two months ago I sent off my application to the Tennessee state board of CPA Examination, requesting that I be able to take the CPA Exam. It said to allow 8 weeks. I figured they were just saying that, and that I’d hear back from them in 4 or 5 weeks tops.

So about 3 or 4 weeks ago I began checking my mailbox daily, eagerly waiting to see if I got my approval letter. After a couple weeks of this I began to lose heart. I began to wonder if perhaps I was missing some hours, or some requirement that I never knew existed. I didn’t have to worry if they’d not gotten the application though…no sir. They’d deposited my check for the absurdly large registration fee less than 7 days after I mailed it.

So this internal emotional rollercoaster has gone on for about a month now. Of course since I have no emotions, my internal emotional rollercoaster is a pretty laid back ride. But still. Not fun.

This morning all of that came to an end in the most anti-climatic way possible…at 4:07 this morning I received an email from the Tennessee Board of Accountancy telling me I’m qualified, approved, and ready to go take the test.

Yes. An Email.

Where is the satisfaction in that? I want to run in from the mailbox and excitedly open the envelope! I don’t want to spend the first 2 minutes wondering if what I’m looking at is actually a spam message telling me there’s a dead person in Europe who left me 10 million dollars.

Anyway…I’m in.

So now I have to schedule the tests. I’m going to try to take two of them before Christmas, though that’s a much bigger undertaking now then it was two months ago when I initially dreamed up doing it. 

Goodbye social life. Goodbye football on my TV. Goodbye Xbox. It was nice to spend time with all of you. I’ll see you again in about 8 months, I hope.

Today I found the list of Starbucks stores that are going to be closing nationwide. Since the announcement a couple weeks ago, I’ve been on pins and needles in fear that my local Starbucks was going to be one of them. For those of you who haven’t been to my house (yet)…I have a Starbucks about 300 yards from my house. It’s pretty awesome. When we moved here I hadn’t yet discovered the wonder of drinking coffee (another post for another day), so I didn’t care as much.

In the last few months as I’ve begun drinking coffee, I’ve come to love my Starbucks. First, it’s a nice place to meet people that I don’t want to let in my house. Second…it enjoy all the different beans that I can buy to make my own coffee. It’s a bit overwhelming, but two of the three times that I’ve stood there staring at the assortment of coffee beans, a barista has come out from behind the counter and walked me through the selection, giving me their explanations and recommendations. Excellent customer service at my Starbucks.

Which…besides resale value…is a large reason I didn’t want it to go out of business. When I heard about the 600 closing I said to myself, “nah…that’s like what…less than a 1 in 10 chance? I’ll be fine.”

But then they announced that 1 in 5 stores opened since January 1 of 2006 would be closing. That’s when I quitely freaked out. After all, I live in a developing area of town. There aren’t a lot of people here yet, which probably makes our numbers for the last year or so a bit lower than they will be in the future when stuff finishes being built. It’s obvious when you drive around the area, but not as obvious when you look at numbers on paper at a corporate office on the other side of the country.

But then today I saw the list here. You can download the list of all the stores. There were a few in Birmingham, and a couple in Murfreesboro where I go to school…but that was it. No store closing for me! There weren’t even any in the Nashville area.

I will sleep better tonight for sure. Well…maybe not. Because I just had a big ole’ cup of coffee to get me through class tonight and I’m a little bit jittery still.