Personally, if I were in your position, I would look at the sorts of accounting tasks you enjoy doing and maybe look for a job in a non-accounting company, in their accounting department; try to work my way up to CFO? It might be more "exciting" and certainly would be more work but wouldn't be quite as crazy as February through June is for CPA's doing tax work :-) Like SplitImage's experience!

But working in a business, even if you have to start as just Accounts Receivable/Payable; you'd probably still be able to command more than $12.75 (I always made more than that in those sorts of positions). Too, if you pick your company right, you might be able to start out as CFO (in practice if not in name). But if you took a job and decided later you really didn't like it, I don't think it would hurt your chances for working in an accounting firm later, as you'd have actual "field"/trench experience, which is always valuable.

I worked in accounting in a privately-held company that had no knowledge of computers or accounting so had to do a lot of educating (which wasn't easy because the owner had his own ideas of "accounting" which weren't exactly GAAP-standard :-) and the poor CPA who had to figure stuff out every few months (and work with the owner on his own finances too, what with owning the company, etc.) was more than grateful for the grassroots work I started. Now the company is GAAP-compliant/CPA-auditable and the owner's daughter, who was going to school in accounting all the years I was with the company, and beyond (she was a high schooler when I first started there and had a lot of moves/life issues/marriage, etc. that made her schooling/initial work to get her CPA/advanced degree take like 10 years) is her father's company's CFO. She still prepares everything for the same, previous CPA but I'm sure his work is MUCH easier now, LOL.