Don’t Let Hurricane Irene Stop You: Studying for the CPA Exam if You Lose Power

Tropical Storm Irene (also known as Hurricane Irene until it hit New York), hit my area late Saturday night and into Sunday morning. After the rain stopped, everyone went outside to assess the damage and start to clean up. A few hours later, the winds started to pick up again (the back-end of the storm) and it caused more damage.

We lost power very early Sunday morning but I consider us lucky since there are huge uprooted trees, large branches and fallen power lines in the streets and on houses all around us. A tree fell into the street a house down from us and blocked the street. Luckily no one was hurt and property was not damaged. Our neighbors a little south are trying to bail water out of their homes since the water is knee-deep in their streets.

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I’m Running Out of Time!

It hit me earlier this week that I am running out of time to study. I looked at my calendar and saw that August 20^th is next Saturday! I can’t believe the month of August is almost halfway over!

Sometimes while taking the CPA Exam, you get a similar feeling that you are almost out of time but you are only in the middle of the Exam. They always say (and I have learned through experience) that people run out of time the fastest on FAR and REG. However, this can happen on any part when you don’t properly budget your time.

As you know, I am using the Roger CPA Exam Review Cram Course and Roger explains how to budget your time in this video.

You can do this before you sit for the Exam. I like to memorize the breakdown and jot it down on the scrap paper as soon as I start the Exam. This gives me a guideline I can use to pace myself to avoid running out of time.

For example, with FAR, you are given 4 hours (240 minutes). You have 3 sets of 30 multiple choice questions and 7 part task-based simulation questions. For each set of multiple choice questions, you should budget 45 minutes (or 135 minutes total). This leaves you with 105 minutes to complete the task-based simulation questions or 15 minutes for each task-based simulation question.

The breakdown is as follows with the Exam clock:

                4:00 – start
                3:15 – finish mc 1
                2:30 – finish mc 2
                1:45 – finish mc 3
                0:00 – finish TBS

Do you budget your time on the Exam to stay in control of your progress or do you just answer questions and hope you don’t run out of time?

Friday Night Dinner – Sautéed Glazed Chicken Thighs

On Friday night, we wanted to grill some chicken thighs. This is fine with me since I was exhausted from working and studying all week. I was looking forward to my husband cooking them on the grill while I relaxed inside with a glass of wine.

My husband found this recipe for Cedar-Planked Chicken Thighs with Soy-Ginger Glaze on Weber grill's website. Unfortunately, while preparing the glaze on the stove, we heard thunder and within minutes it was pouring rain outside. I ended up sautéing the chicken thighs and pouring the glaze on top.

This recipe is adapted from the Cedar-Planked Chicken Thighs with Soy-Ginger Glaze on the Weber website.

Sautéed Glazed Chicken Thighs

Ingredients
- 10 skinless boneless chicken thighs
- ¾ cup soy sauce
- ½ cup balsamic vinegar
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1/8 teaspoon ginger powder
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 1/8 cup sesame oil

Preparation
Clean any remaining fat and membrane from the chicken thighs.

In a saucepan, cook the soy sauce, balsamic vinegar and brown sugar until reduced by half (about 20 minutes). Remove the saucepan from heat and add the garlic, ginger powder, pepper and sesame oil.

In a frying pan, brown the chicken thighs on both sides and then let them cook through until the chicken is opaque.

Pour the glaze over the chicken thighs, loosely cover with aluminum foil and turn down the heat to a medium simmer. Simmer for 10 minutes, turn the chicken thighs over and simmer for another 10 minutes.

Serve with stir fry vegetables and/or brown rice.

Before the summer is over, I promise I will post a recipe we grill outdoors. What is your favorite BBQ or outdoor grill recipe?