Saturday

"My Not So Boring Life"


September is always somewhat special for me. Not only it's the start of school and the youth soccer league for our household, but it's my husband, Albert and myself wedding anniversary.

School Started Late
The school season started few weeks late for British Columbian (k-12 grades) kids due to a long BC Teachers' strike which started in June, ending the school 2013-2014 term early than the regular scheduled date.

Though my 15 year old son has some other extra-curricular activities besides school, such as his SFU Soccer AcademyCliff Avenue Soccer and doing self-taught computer programming, but like other school kids, he's just happy to be back at school and so am I.

Our Wedding Anniversary
Time flies. It's seems like September 1990 was fast-forwarded for us so fast that we just celebrated our 24th! I guess, having three children, ages: 22, 21 and 15 years old, we considered ourselves as one of those young parents in the 40s and early 50s. As to the celebration, we didn't do much on our 24th anniversary, just spending time with each other. It was fun.

After being with his last job for almost 13 years, this year, my husband Albert accepted a new employment. He likes his new employment at ICOM Canada. I won't call it so much as a new line of work, since it was related to his previous employments (amateur radios) which started at least 30 years ago. It started more like a hobby for him at 15 years of age, took related training, apprenticeships and became his employment before and after we got married in 1990.

Lately at ICOM Canada, his love for amateur 'ham' radio has been given extra credit and recognized by his colleagues and giving him opportunity to go to some of ICOM Canada's trade shows. Of course, my love of photography and spending time with Albert on the weekend always a 'treat' for the two us. I don't know what Albert does at work, but I got invited a couple times already! Not complaining of course, my curiosity and love of photography always tempted me to say 'yes' and tagged along. Just hoping with all these trade shows that Albert and I attended, we made a difference to promote Albert's work, ICOM Canada and even globally. ICOM is celebrating its 50 years anniversary this year, which originally started in Japan.

Twitter and Paperli Curation
Twitter and Paperli have been part of my life in the last 6 years and 5 years respectively. I am not making money out of it, if you are wondering. If Albert has his amateur 'ham' radio as a hobby, Twitter and Paperli are my two hobbies that I can't live without these days. It brings that enjoyment of social networking and it feeds my brain every day, knowing what's happening out there, locally and globally is priceless. Love it!

Soccer Drills
Laugh if you will, but since I injured my right leg last year, I skipped 2014 for any running races. Since 2004, I have participated at least 56 running related races, including 6 triathlons and 15 marathons. I decided to be nice and a little 'softie' to my body this year. You can call it 'laziness' or 'rehabbing' or 'gaining some extra pounds', but I'm happy with my current 'fitness program'. Going with Albert and our 15 year old son, spending time with them during their Cliff Avenue soccer practices and games are so motivating, defying all 'comments' of very traditional people of having a woman in her 40s doing soccer drills instead of running or walking around the soccer field.

Albert and my son don't care! They are both just happy to see me doing something for myself, fitness wise. I guess, I have trained my husband and my son to think that way, since I have been doing soccer drills on the sideline on and off since 2006! For the record, I received my BC youth soccer certifications and coached younger kids, including my son's U9 and U10 team as a head coach. I have 3 kids who played soccer since 2006, and when I am not coaching, just watching, taking soccer photos, and promoting soccer sport online, I enjoyed doing soccer drills on the sideline. My advance apology for the 'very traditional'. Having seen amateur soccer men past 50s participating during annual Nations Cup at nearby town (one of my favorite events, by the way), I can't see why women should stopped doing soccer drills, stay fit and having a fitness program that has the title 'FUN' in it!

US CPA Exam Review Continues
Besides on the above things that I do, when I find a spare time, I am still in pursuit of my forever US CPA designation. I guess it's not so much of how much money I could make out of it at this time, but it's becoming a challenge of finishing a long journey which started in my home country Philippines at least close to 30 years ago. I received my Bachelor of Science in Commerce diploma in October of 1985 at University of San Agustin (USA), and received my Diploma in Accounting at University of British Columbia (UBC) in May of 2002. It's  all fun for me, except when I get a 'fail' mark in my FAR!

Until next writing...

Earla Riopel
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Earla RiopelBSCom(USA), DipAcc(UBC)
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