This is why I love mint.com

You have no idea how happy seeing all the red makes me. I've put more than half of my money into savings/investments since October 1! So, yes, I do spend a chunk each month, but I'm trying really, really hard to save, too. And this proves it to me every time I log in. Also, seeing my available cash to debt ratio is quite reassuring, and since Mint.com can't show me my brokerage account, the money I have there isn't even part of my available cash. I feel like laughing like an evil dictator.

Free!

I finally finished my graduate assistant work on the neverending bibliography of doom. I only say that because I had to use Chicago/Turabian style, which is not something I am familiar with, nor did I ever realize how complicated such a thing could be. I'm an MLA girl myself, and have used APA in grad school, but ugh to Kate Turabian.

So, I'm free! For like two more weeks, until it's back to classes and craziness. At least I have a smattering of days off around the holidays, and will be able to do some of my favorite things: sleep in, eat, watch movies, read, see family, and hang out with S.

Merry Jesus' birthday and other various holidays!

A familiar face

Lately, as I've been driving around town doing Christmas shopping and running other errands, I've gotten a lot of weird 'looks' from random people. I asked S the other day, "Am I just horribly ugly? Why are people looking at me?"

S laughed, of course. Then he said something I'd never thought about. "You work at the public library, people probably recognize you but can't figure out if they know you."

Then I realized that I also worked at Barnes & Noble for a year and a half, so probably a good 1/3 of everyone in this mid-sized city has seen me at some point. Holy cats! This kind of blows my mind. I am famous without anyone knowing my real name. Hehe.

Kind of hurting my ovaries

It's probably going to be a long while before this happens, but looking at the following children just makes my heart happy!

Stephanie and Phil's Lucas and Abigail.

Heather and Jon's Leta.

Wood and Jim's Juniper.

Larissa and her husband's Baz (Sebastian).

And... Melissa and Chappy's Monty (forgive me, I couldn't resist).

Maybe I read too many 'mommy' blogs for a graduate student?

A very merry birthday to you, S!

We had a lovely time last night celebrating S's 26th birthday with a group of our friends/my coworkers. Dear Manda had us over to her place and we got meet her new dog, Nigel.

Say hello to Nigel! (He followed Manda around the kitchen hoping for her to drop something.)


Manda made delicious brie and cranberry thing in her oven, which caused the smoke detector to go off, so she made her sister Lisa wave at it with an oven mitt for a while. Nice!


We had yummy dessert wine with chocolate on the rims of the little cups. Cute and tasty!


S and Lisa have classes together in the education department (it's all my fault she's becoming a teacher... but that's another story altogether) so they talked shop for a while.


Jessie and Joe hung out, being awesome as usual.


Manda's apartment with her boyfriend was so cute, I'm thinking I want my own. I just may get my wish for Christmas. After hanging out at the apartment for a while, we headed downtown to see some live music at the Tavern on Germain. Good times were had; one of our former coworkers also showed up, John Larson, and he also happened to go to school with S, so it was serendipity that we went out. I hope you had a very happy birthday, S! I love you!

P.S. Don't I work with such beautiful ladies? I know you think so, too. Now the world knows why our public library is the place to be. Hehe.

I'm lovin' it?

It's the happiest season

I have had the cold from hell the past few days. I came down with it on Sunday, managed to complete most of my Christmas shopping/wrapping of presents despite sneezing a lot, and then later on Sunday felt just terrible. Today is the second sick day I've taken, though I feel significantly better than yesterday, I am still quite drippy and tired.

I am getting things done around the house, like cleaning up my room, reading a bit for pleasure now that class is done for the semester, and working for my professor. I have 2/3 of the chapters checked for citations, so now it's just the last few chapters, putting them in the correct order, and making it look like a real bibliography. If I'm very nose-to-the-grindstone about it, I could probably be done by next weekend. I have Thursday/Friday off, but I want to use one of those days to make up some of my missed hours for being sick.

We have finally gotten snow, and S asked me on a ski date for Friday night. Yay for the first skiing of the year!

If you like the dressing at the sushi places, try this...

I have had a salad with nearly every dinner this week, and it's all because of this Creamy Asian-Style Salad Dressing recipe. I change the batch size to 1.75 cups, make a few modifications, and so it becomes the following:






Japanese Sushi Restaurant Style Salad Dressing

1.5 cups mayonnaise
1/4 cup soy sauce (can add more to taste)
2 tablespoons sugar
1/8 tsp. pepper
2 tablespoons sesame oil
3 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted (fry pan on medium for a few minutes, stir until brown)

It's pretty much a one-day ticket to Yumtown! I eat it on spring mix with cucumbers, but it's also great for dipping baby carrots, or for any salad you like. So tasty, so easy.