Accounting for the Accounting

The other day my son Googled me. I think the results blew his mind. I feel like Nicky has a lot of respect for me, which is a trait in him that I find so endearing, but he still has limited vision as to who I am as a person - being his mom and all! As he combed through the search results, he said things like:

- Mom! There’s an article written about you on the internet! It has our family picture! It’s not really you, though, right?

- Are you like a motivational speaker or something? No, that can’t be you!

- Wait! Did you study accounting? Why on earth would you study accounting? That’s not you, is it?

This all made me laugh as I explained to him that yes, there was once an article written about me online, I’ve given talks and presentations in lots of places, and yes! I did study accounting! 

Nicky knows I have a blog, but he doesn’t read it. Someday he probably will (but I’m glad to know he didn’t find it by Googling me). In case he ever ends up here and hasn’t figured out why I studied accounting, here is the story…

When I was a senior in high school, I really struggled with figuring out what to do after graduation. I narrowed my college choices down to two: Westminster College or LDS Business College - two very different schools. 

Westminster was my first choice, but the tuition was atrocious! I had a scholarship there, but it only covered a small fraction of the cost. I ended up switching to LDS Business College where my scholarship covered full tuition and books and even gave me the perk of being able to buy a few pencils from the book store. 

Of course, what ultimately helped me decide where to go to school was prayer, but I have to say, I had a hard time discerning the answer because my best friend was also going to LDSBC, and I wasn’t sure if I was being led to go to school there or if I was just doing what was easy. 

LDSBC was a quirky but exciting school. It has since been relocated and renamed, but when I went there, the college was in the historic Enos Wall Mansion in downtown Salt Lake City. 

You guys! I went to school in a mansion! And it was so cool! It had elegant staircases, servant passageways, an old elevator, fireplaces, a carriage house, and a ballroom (in addition to a bunch of boring areas that looked like traditional classrooms). 

(Side note: my grandma also went to LDSBC).

When I started at LDSBC, I had a few college credits already. My intention was to just get my associate’s in general studies and then decide what to do next. I was rather directionless. After my first semester, I had a feeling I should look into getting an accounting certificate. It made no sense to me as I had zero interest in accounting. In fact, it sounded so boring and so awful that only a legit nudge from the Lord could get me to even consider such a thing! The prompting was not subtle. I could not push it from my mind, so I had to act on it. 

I met with my academic advisor and found out that if I swapped a couple of elective credits for accounting classes, I could easily earn my certificate alongside my associate’s degree. So I did!

I ended up actually liking accounting. Surprisingly, it made sense to me! I thought accounting was math, but it was more like a form of organization. I did really well in my accounting classes and even excelled in my business law class!

Business law!!!

Me!!!

(Now, I don’t remember anything I learned in accounting or business law! It’s gone! All of it! The only thing I recall from business law was that my instructor one day said, “You can’t take sour Winder milk and mix it with fresh Winder milk and expect to still have fresh Winder milk!” I happened to work for Winder Dairy at the time, so I knew what was meant by "Winder milk," but to the majority of the students (90% of whom were from outside of Utah, many from other countries) “Winder milk” made no sense. They kept asking “What is a Winder?” Because to them, you had cow’s milk and goat’s milk, so apparently a Winder was something from which you could extract milk. Well, the teacher just kept ignoring their questions about Winder milk and saying, “It doesn’t matter! Just remember that you can’t get fresh Winder milk that way!” And I have no idea what that had to do with anything, so thank you, Higher Education). 

After I graduated from LDSBC, I didn't transfer to another school. I prayed about it and felt like I should wait (you can read more about how that turned out here).

A few years later, I was hired out of 26 applicants for a job in my local school district. One of the reasons I was selected was because I had an accounting certificate. I had to oversee the budgets for six different special education programs (among various other responsibilities that my education at LDSBC prepared me for). 

I didn't work at that job for very long, but while I was there, I put all the money I made in the bank (in response to another prompting). While all of this was happening, I was trying to have a baby and couldn't, so I thought I might be saving money for IVF or adoption. Instead, after a couple of years, we were blessed with Nicky, and the money I had put away was what allowed me to stay home and raise him. 

I'm now able to say, "Ah ha! That's why the Lord pushed me in that direction!" (I like when I get to see those things sooner rather than later, but there are plenty of life's whys that I'm still waiting to unfold). 

So for my son who asked, "Why accounting?" I didn't know it, but it was for you.