Kurt Just Wasn't Busy Enough!

Hi everybody! This is Kurt. Jes has been asking me to write this blog for the last few months. It's kind of long, but tough luck.

So, we make enough money to live pretty comfortably, but not quite enough to pay off all of our debts from school. We were stuck making our monthly payments on the 15 year plan, and it was driving Jes nuts knowing that the debt was there. She prayed, probably from September to January, about getting a job and she looked on the Internet and in the newspaper every few days to try to find something she could do from home (so she wouldn't have to leave the kids) that paid enough to make it worth her while. The debt doesn't really bug me, so I kept telling her that I don't think she needs to work, but she can do whatever she wants. After months of looking and praying, she was frustrated.

The second part of the story is the CPA exam. I used a company called Becker to study for the exam. Becker is a lot like Kaplan or the Princeton Review, but Becker only works with the CPA (certified public accountant) and CFE (certified financial examiner) exams. As an idea of Becker's size, more than half of the people who pass the CPA exam each year used Becker. While I was using Becker, I got a couple of pretty high scores. All you need to pass is a 75 out of 99, so that's what most people aim for. I don't like to just pass, so I aimed for a 99 each time. My first two test scores were 93 and 96 and I know that each state gives awards for high scorers, so I emailed my Becker representative in Minnesota (Amy) to try to find out how high the scores have to be to get an award. I really just wanted to know if I should keep pushing myself to score that high or if I was already out of the running, but she didn't know. However, Amy was impressed with my scores, so we talked for a little while by phone. Well, I found out the day before Thanksgiving that I had passed my last test. That was a GREAT holiday! In January, after I finished the last two tests, I and a few other people who just passed the exam talked to all of the new employees about how to pass the exam and what it was like using Becker. Amy happened to be there, so I met her and she listened to what we all said. I had fun, but didn't really think much about the whole experience; I only talked for about five minutes. But, apparently I made an impression on Amy because she emailed me around the end of January to let me know that they were looking for new instructors and she thought I should apply.

Honestly, I figured that either Jes, my boss, or both would tell me that I couldn't apply for the job. It would take me away from work and from the family, so I thought they would dislike the idea. I talked to my boss first and he said that he thought it was a great idea ("say what!?") because it would expose me to a lot of new graduates that my company might be able to hire and he thinks I'm a good representative of the company to put our name "out there" a little more. I was shocked, but figured Jes would reject the idea. So, I came home and told her about it and to my surprise, she was actually excited about it. What I would make working for Becker is way more (per hour) than Jes could make at any of the jobs she had found, so we agreed that it is just logical for me to work 10 extra hours a week rather than her working 20-30 hours a week to make the same amount. I wasn't a huge fan of being gone from the family for even 1o more hours a week (between seminary and busy season, I was already working 65-75 hours a week), so I started praying about it. I ended up getting the message that it's better for me to be gone all day every day than it is for Jes to spend any time away from the boys and her job as their mother. The other thing I figured out is that Jes has to check with me before she prays for stuff, because apparently Heavenly Father likes to answer her prayers through me and I can't handle some of the stuff she prays for.

After finding out that they were both okay with my applying, I applied for a job as a teacher. The people in charge of hiring (not Amy) said that there were three openings and that I should come to a meeting on a certain morning and be ready to give a 5-minute presentation. They said that there would be other applicants there and it would be a kind of informational session along with a chance for the Becker people to see our speaking skills. I showed up for the meeting figuring that if there were three openings, there would probably be 10 - 15 applicants.... there were only three of us there. Plus, the other two applicants weren't like me. One was in his late 40's and was the CFO of a large corporation. The other was in his early 60's, owned his own company and taught accounting at a local college. It turns out that Becker had kind of hand-picked the three of us as the teachers they wanted. That was pretty cool. I had prepared a presentation aimed at people more our age (it all centered on The Office), so I changed it at the last minute. I was actually pretty happy with my presentation because I did well enough that God could inspire them to hire me if that was the right thing but I also did poor enough that God could inspire them not to hire me if that was the right thing. In the end, they gave me an offer and I took it. I've only taught one class so far and it's not all that fun, but it's worth it for the money. I signed a one-year contract and I can't see myself doing it for more than one or two years, but I'll enjoy it for a while.

So, now I teach seminary each morning and prepare for it most evenings (10-15 hours per week); I have my normal job at LarsonAllen (55-60 hours per week right now); and I teach for Becker (6-10 hours per week). I'm getting pretty tired, but busy season ends May 15 and seminary ends May 23. I just keep telling myself that I can keep going until then. It kind of stinks, but the family is worth it and I'm happy that Jes can spend all of her time with the boys.

It can't be that bad, though, because I still find time to play basketball twice a week. The church league is going right now and the ward we moved into has won the league for the last two years (one of the reasons i wanted to live here), but we started out kind of slow. In this league, they have the top teams play each other and the lower teams play each other, in hopes of having fewer blow-outs. We were 2-2 after our first four games, but the two losses were really close so I didn't feel too bad. Well, two weeks ago, we were playing a really good team and we came out ready to go; but, they didn't. We ended up beating them 107-42 in a 40 minute game. One guy on our team, behind eleven 3-pointers, outscored their entire team. We also have a ringer who wasn't there for the first five games. He came this last week and completely dominated our opponents. It was a lot of fun to watch. Anyway, after a bit of a rocky start, we're now 4-2 and feeling pretty good about our chances for winning a third straight championship.

That's all I have to say for the last six months. I'll talk to you all in another six months.