I 100% agree with Jeff, having worked with many people that have been MS certified some people can take that knowledge and use it properly, some just learned enough to pass an exam.

I don't write blogs etc as mainly I don't have time at work and family life is more important. But the team I work in including myself regularly run internal sessions with other DBA's \ DB Engineers \ BI Developers presenting various parts of the SQL product suite to help people get a better understanding of how things work.

I'm fortunate enough to work with some very bright people so whilst I'm a senior member of the team there is always something new to learn.

It sounds to me like you don't necessarily work that in depth with SQL server given your time scale for the first exam. All you can do is study, practice with every activity in the training kits and try and come up with problems that you can solve using what your learning.