Tidying up Inspires Weekend Projects

My jewelry on display

This weekend I plan to complete a few fun projects. My nephew is turning 2 on Friday, and I can hardly wait for his birthday party on Saturday. Sunday is going to be for a few fun projects. I've been organizing my room. I'd say re-organizing, but the truth is that it's been in a state of disarray and so I'm basically just organizing! I laid all my jewelry out on top of my dresser. Might be the most organized my jewelry has ever been, but obviously I need a system! This is the inspiration for a few weekend project ideas.

Project 1: Jewelry Holder

I'm thinking something like this wire and picture frame deal, but it's going to need room for more earrings than this one can hold. Surely I have an old frame and some wire sitting around that could be used for this. Next on the list will be something to deal with all the necklaces. Anyone have old wooden silverware trays? I need them!

Project 2: Beaded Wrap Bracelet

Hello cuteness! I'll have to search through my beads at home to see what I have and then supplement with beads from Von's. I have a few beads that might actually serve as the elephant, but a little metal animal or elephant would be so cute. We'll see what Von's has! This will add a cheerful touch when I'm in a jeans and gray t-shirt mood! I'm pretty much always in a jeans and gray t-shirt mood. 

Loving Grad School

Ninja over at PunchDebtInTheFace had a posted while back about grad school being over-rated. I rolled my eyes, laughed, and was inspired to write a post. After reading his post, I'm inclined to say he might have a narrow view of grad school. I guess I was happy to see that so many of his readers agreed with me. Anyway, the post made me really think about my education story, so I thought I'd share it with you.

I started school on my 6th birthday. That was probably not a good sign. Of course my mom had treats ready for the class. We made candy necklaces out of licorice laces and fruit loops! Who's the cool girl?!?!?! (Turns out, not me!)

First grade just plane sucked from day 1. I thought I could handle it, but as it turns out I only lasted about 45 minutes. We had chapel on the first day of school. I think my actual birth was announced during chapel on the first day of school when my sister was in 3rd grade. Anyway, after chapel I left crying. Mom took me for a milk shake at Stallard's Drug Store on Main Street (sadly, not there anymore). By the time I got back everyone was doing dumb worksheets and practicing writing their name or something dumb like that. My sister taught me to write my name forwards, backwards, and in cursive by then. I could tell school was not going to be good at all. Plus, Miss Garwood made me give up most of my crayons. She would only allow 24 crayons in your pencil box, so I had to pick my favorite 24 out of a likely color coded box of 64 new Crayola crayons. Dumb.

Second grade...well, that's the only year in my entire life that I got perfect attendance. I liked it that Mrs. Deitle let us color while she read to us after recess. We also learned hymns like Go Tell it On the Mountain and I still know all the words to this day. With Mrs. Deitel I mostly remember singing, learning about Jesus, being read to, and Brian Gravitt loved doing word searches. He also had the biggest feet I had ever seen in my entire life.

Third grade was the beginning of the end. I had a fantastic teacher, Mrs. Maurer. She taught me times tables. I've forgotten most of them, but at least I can still do the 9's on my hands. I'm pretty sure I was one of the last kids to finish memorizing the times tables. She taught us long division too. I think I'm better at long division than times tables. Where would I be without the calculator on my phone? We wrote haiku poems and learned the books of the Bible. I can still have to sing if I'm going to figure out the order of the New Testament. We got to play a spelling computer game called Word Chomper or something like that. We also got to play Oregon Trail. Mrs. Maurer read to us every day, but we were not allowed to color. We could read along, but it was much nicer to just listen. I think my favorite book was Mr. Popper's Penguins, but I also liked The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and of course Charlotte's Web. Socially, 3rd grade sucked. That's right about when the girls got mean. I cried a lot. Luckily, I started ballet around then and had friends at ballet. Ballet was my happy place.

Oh, fourth grade. I don't remember that much about 4th grade except that I went to overnight camp for the first time the summer before 4th grade and got a glow in the dark t-shirt. I probably cried for a week before school started because I didn't want to go. The alternative was homeschooling and that just wasn't going to happen. I think science started getting cool in 4th grade. We learned about the parts of a plant. I really don't remember much else about 4th grade. I thought Mrs. May was a good teacher. She was fair. I just don't remember what we learned.

Fifth through 8th grade were pretty much horrendous on a social level. If I hadn't been in ballet I would have switched schools. I had a science teacher who I did not get along with at all. Trust me, my love for science is not because of her. I have no idea why she didn't like me, but she didn't. I sure didn't like her and I was probably a bit of a smart mouth. She made me sit in the hall all the time. I probably learned just about as much in the hall as I would have in her class. I remember learning some Algebra in 8th grade. Mrs. Richeson taught us to write starting in 6th grade. Thank goodness! This blog is by no means a testimony to what she taught me about writing! I can actually write really well when I put my mind to it. She also taught handwriting which I loved. I think she may have the prettiest handwriting of anyone I know.

High school got much better. I finally had friends at school! Yay! Plus I had a great science teacher. He was a great teacher in a funny kind of way. Good ol' Mr. Taylor. Mostly, he just made us think. "Noose Your Yoodle," was writtin on the chalkboard quite a bit. I took earth space science my freshman year plus 2 years of chemistry with him. He may not have taught us all the book stuff we needed to know for college, but by the end of those years I wasn't intimidated by lab equipment, I could balance chemical equations, and I had curiosity! What more does a kid need?

College was rough a first. Not socially. Socially I was happy as a clam! I had fantastic friends and I was dancing my heart out. Literally. It was academics that weren't going so hot. I really just wasn't a fan of the pharmacy program. Some classes were cool, but I didn't have much desire to study the material so I didn't. And my scores reflected that lack of studying. By the end of my 2nd year I had to make some big decisions.

Decision 1: stop dancing. Sad. My body couldn't really take that level of dancing anymore. I was ruining myself day by day. No matter how much I loved it, the truth was I was so skinny my body couldn't function quite right. The real kicker was when my heart started going haywire. Heart meds got me through my last performance. I loved dancing so much that I had to quit cold turkey. I didn't have the discipline to only dance a few days a week. I only knew how to dance like crazy. A few days a week was just not going to be possible, so sad as it was I quit. It still breaks my heart, but I love getting to watch performances. A lot of little girls who I used to teach when they were 4 are now graduating from high school. Sandra Peticolas is an artistic genius. Without her, who knows what my life would have been like. Ballet was my escape for so long. I decided I needed to quit dancing in order to focus on my studies.

Decision 2: Transfer to the dietetics program. I didn't even really know what dietetics really was! Once I got into it, I was sold! I went from your average student to nearly strait A's. Not because the classes were any easier. I just LOVED what I was studying. Dietetics is a career I wish more high school students knew about. There are a million opportunities and it's a great career.

All of a sudden I was a dietitian working in a rural hospital. Talk about an adventure! I had so much fun there. I wanted more though. I knew that if I wanted a career in public health nutrition, I needed a Masters degree. Turns out one of my professors knew of the perfect program. I got accepted to a program in Ireland. Yup! That program included a stipend too, and of course I didn't have to pay tuition because of the scholarship. The program required for me to study outside of Ireland, so I spent 6 weeks in Portugal and 3 weeks in Germany. I also traveled all over Europe for fun since I was already over there. Initially I had no intention to get a PhD. Then one day I got a call from the program director suggesting I get a PhD. The rest is history. Now I'm back getting my PhD and loving it. It's like I'm making up for all the years that I didn't really like school in the past. I suppose I complain on occasion, but the reality is I like grad school way more than most. I like my project, my adviser, and my department. I've had opportunities to travel domestically and internationally. It may be super nerdy, but I'm excited about a career in academia. I hope I can give back by instilling confidence and passion in my students, while making a more global difference through research. Very exciting!

So there you have it. In my opinion grad school is far from over-rated. It may not be for everyone. Many folks can have seriously successful careers without going to grad school at all. So long as you do what you love and strive to be the best you can be, that's all that really matters.

Does under budget justify splurges?

I've never really watched Suze Orman's show on CNBC before. I've heard she's a dynamic speaker, and I know lots of people are fans. So here I am, sitting in front of the TV and Suze is dishing out her opinion. It's more interesting than I expected! My favorite is when people call in to ask if they can afford something. Today's ridiculous scenarios included a 9 yr old who wanted to buy a $950 crystal bird, a mom with lots of debt of every kind who wants to send her 2 yr old to private pre-school at the tune of 25K per year, and a lady with basically zero savings who wanted to buy a $2,000 doll. Obviously she told all of them no. My favorite was the $25K pre-school. Really? For $25K they better be able to pass the SAT at the end of the year! Nuts. Just nuts. I guess it's a good reminder that a) what you spend money on isn't really my business and b) maybe I should re-evaluate what I think I want! I wonder what she would tell me if I told her I'd like to buy a $50 purse and showed her my money stats.

This month I splurged on some clothes. Partly because of a wedding I wasn't prepared for. Partly because that Patagonia dress was on sale. I knew it was ok though because I was coming predictably way under budget. Some might say I should have just put that extra money into savings considering I have a set financial goal that hasn't been met yet. I guess I'm more of the opinion that if there's no consumer debt, you've met your savings goal of the month to stay on the projected game plan, and the cash is still there...It's your call how you want to handle the extra cash.

So basically at the end of the month, I spent my last $5 on an amazing mocha at Grey House! Then, I went back to the impromptu garage sale that's becoming an annual event for me, Annie, and Sarah. We seriously pulled together an enormous garage sale in 2 days. We've got to be the most relaxed garage salers ever. Clothes were 50 cents and most everything else was $1. When we were too hot and tired to sell anymore, we posted a free sale on Craig's List. The best part might have been when some folks drove up and took everything that was left. Making money was good too of course. I ended up with close to $65!

Here's my weekly money check up hosted by MyPrettyPennies

Weekly Money Check Up

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on a window air conditioning unit. I can't sleep in this heat another night!

2. Today I am thankful the yard sale that lead to me cleaning and re-organizing my closet!

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was get a new hutch, dining table, and 6 chairs! Thanks to a professor who was upgrading. My next nest is one step closer to furnished.

4. I will consider this week a success if I maintain some semblance of sanity.

5. I dream about having my own apartment a lot lately. I can hardly wait to get my own place and decorate it just the way I want!

Baxter gets a bath

I ended up taking Baxter to Buckle's Feed Supple for his bath. They have a self service dog wash. For $8, you get to use their dog tub, shampoo/conditioner, towel, hair drier, and brushes included! Usually Baxter's preferred method of drying off is to go strait from the bath tub to my bed. There, he rolls around pressing out all the water into my bed which is just gross. I say it was worth every penny to have zero water on my bathroom floor and zero water on my bed! For those in the area, Buckle's is officially the cheapest place in town!

For whatever reason, I only got 6 hits yesterday and I had exciting news! Go back and read it if you want to know why I was so excited Thursday morning!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Grad students stick together for a budget win!

This is our 2010-2011 Purdue Graduate Student Government

I was actually lacking inspiration for any kind of post today until I opened my email and got my billing statement from the Bursar. My student fees went down by $28 per month. This is a big deal for a lot of reasons. It all started about 3 years ago or so when the Purdue Graduate Student Government decided enough was enough on the fee situation. For whatever reason, when we get funding, that funding can cover our tuition and stipend, but not our student fees. Student fees help pay for things like computer labs (which most of us never use), the gym (which you can tell by looking most of us never use), and I don't know what else. The one thing a lot of us use is the City Bus. Our City Bus system is free to all Purdue Students. Pretty awesome right?!?! Well, back to complaining about fees. As it turns out, Purdue was one of the only universities that had this grad student fee business. What made it worse was that these fees were something like $800 and due at the beginning of September. Most grad students who start at the end of August get their first pay check at the end of September. And, that pay check is often only about $1400. Knowing that the fees were over half of most students paychecks and that they didn't even get a pay check until after the payment was due, Purdue worked out a payment plan. To participate in this payment plan, you had to go to the Bursar Office, wait in line forever, talked to a grumpy lady, and fill out a paper form. All of that AND you had to pay interest! It was such a scam.

Move forward to the PGSG. The student government stuck together and got the fees on a reduction plan PLUS an automated payment plan! Starting in 2009, all grad students were automatically enrolled in a monthly payment plan and the fees were reduced by a decent chunk. Everyone was happy about this. I have a feeling that even the grumpy lady in the Bursar Office is not so grumpy anymore! What I didn't expect was for our fees to be reduced again! Maybe I was told that they would be reduced again and I forgot. Seriously good chance. But I'm still very excited to update my budget with $90 a month going to Purdue instead of $118! So not only did I get a raise this year, but I also have reduced fees! Do you think Congress is reading this? Income and less spending equals money in the bank! Wink Wink!

How will I use that $28 a month. I'm not sure where it will go. I was talking with friends yesterday and the hardest area of our budgets is the eating out category. The other category that's tough to stick with for me is gas. I already pumped up the gas budget since I got the raise. I think I'll bump up the dining out budget by $8 which is about one lunch out a month. The other $20 will go towards the emergency/moving fund. More on that another day.

My travel mishaps

Me on one of the 2 days I was in Taiwan.

I travel quite a bit. There are folks that travel a ton more than me, but compared to the average Joe, I'm in airplanes more often than most. Considering my carbon footprint, I should probably consider an electric car! Generally I fly about twice a month. You might think that I have the system down pat, but the reality is I don't. Occasionally, I still forget to take my shoes off at security. All this traveling just puts me at a higher risk of something going wrong!

The worst thing that happened was when I missed a flight to DC. I was sitting in the gate! Granted I was probably in my own little world, I was still there. I never heard my name called and the plane ended up leaving a little early! The desk attendants were super nice and re-booked me for the following morning and it all worked out just fine.

My first ever day skiing, and I was skiing in the alps.

I hate packing. I forget something almost every time I travel. My domestic travels are the worst, but my international travels aren't immune to bad packing. I mostly blame my ballet friends. When I was a kid and we had spontaneous sleep overs, they had everything I needed. I didn't have to pack pajamas or anything. At least I don't remember packing anything. So now I forget stuff all the time! Usually it's a hair brush, something cosmetically related, or most recently I forgot my running shoes. I've compensated to some degree by leaving extras of all my toiletries at a certain someone's place so that I don't have to worry about forgetting that stuff. On my most recent trip I bought a $25 pair of decent running shoes at T.J. Maxx. Now that problem is solved too!

Knock on wood, but I've never actually lost my luggage. That's a blessing I try to remember to be thankful for often! Just so you know, if you buy your plane ticket with a credit card, or buy the $13 extra travel insurance you usually get something like $100 to buy new clothes to get you through till your luggage arrives. That extra insurance is always worth it for international travel! I seriously doubt that your current insurance covered much of anything internationally. I know someone who had a medical emergency that caused a plane to land in London. Not only did that $13 cover all her medical expenses for the brain tumor that was discovered, it covered expenses for her husband who was with her. Then, they flew them home first class. That insurance might actually be $40, but trust me you want it.

JFK Memorial in Dallas.

My other travel woes seem to happen in the parking lot. Ive never lost my car, because I always take a picture of the sign marker closest to my car with my phone camera. One time I left my window down the whole time I was gone. Another time I completely lost my parking ticket thing. Luckily if you show your boarding passes, they'll only charge you for those days. Whew! So my most recent travel mis-hap stems from trying to get to the airport by 5 am. That's why my alarm was still set for 3am yesterday. Arg. Anyway, a few weeks ago, I got to my car in the airport parking lot only to find I had a dead battery. Turns out I left the dome lights on. Oops! Lucky for me, the airport provides a free jump-start service. Obviously I'm not the first one to need a jump. The guy told me they jump about 10 cars per day. Sadly, I didn't have any cash for a tip. I did have a Starbucks gift card that was empty, but registered. I gave him the card and told him I'd add money to it from my phone. Which I did. Weird thing is that because the card is registered, I can see the account balance on the card. The guy hasn't used it yet. He seemed excited at the time, but maybe he's just not the Starbucks type. Maybe he lost it. Maybe he's saving it for a present. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how long it takes before using it!

What are your crazy travel mishaps? Did everything work out ok?

Letting other people do the talking

I've had a rough morning. Evidently, alarm A was still set for 3:30am and it was on. Not cool. It was so hot I had trouble falling asleep. Alarm A rudely interrupted what precious little sleep I was getting! Arg! That made it really hard to wake up to Alarm B at 7am. Not a good way to start the day. It's coming up on the end of the month, so I figure I'll just let other people do the talking. In the next couple of days, you should do the following...

1. Check your monthly statements! Kevin just posted about this yesterday.

2. Review your budget. If you don't have one, make one! Molly over at Molly on Money actually has some good step by step reading for you. J. Money over at Budgets are Sexy has a nice list of free budget templates you can use.

3. Think of all the things you're thankful for. I saw a good quote yesterday, but forgot to save it. I think it said something to the effect of, "What you already have was probably once on a list of things you didn't have, but wanted." For the month of August, I'm going to try to be appreciate the stuff I already have! It's my birthday month though, so I'll probably have a little "happy birthday to me" spending in there too!

Today I'm thankful for

• My air conditioned office
• Splashtop on my iPad so I can work from home when I need to even though I'm not today (see above)
• A really good journal paper that an intern found
• that my friends Rebecca and John finally got their brand spankin' new Prius!!!!!
• That I had clean clothes to wear
• That it's still summer, because let's face it...summer is awesome!

What it's like to have a unique name

Credit

I've been a little off-track with the weekly money check-ups hosted by MyPrettyPennies. I'm so excited that she revealed herself to her readers last week! Not in a flasher kind of way. She told us her name. She is Ginna!

Bloggers often have quite the dilemma when considering whether to blog publicly or anonymously. Some reveal very intimate details about their lives in anonymous writing. I think there must be something very therapeutic about that! Others, chose to put it all out there. They blog under their real name AND reveal intimate details. I fall in another category; I write under my real name, but censor my writing to some degree. I chose to do this for several reasons. The main reason is because my name is so unusual. If some future employer decided to do some serious spy work, I feel like there would be some risk of them figuring out that an anonymous blog belonged to me anyway. It's not like an anonymous blog would link back to a Sarah, or Katie, or Emily. It would link back to TusaRebecca. so, here's my take on my name.

My name is who I am. My name represents family history. My name means I never had a personalized lunch box or back pack, because those embroidery companies only allowed 10 letters. My name means I have to explain myself every time I'm introduced. Of course, that's a good thing, because then people almost always remember my name.

Here's the story. My great great grandmother was a Native American named Tusa. At that time in US history, Native Americans we not treated with any respect, so she was sent away to England. When she came back, she didn't claim her Native American heritage. The first part of my name helps keep her story alive. Rebecca was my grandmother's very close cousin. They grew up more like sisters than cousins. I always imagine them playing together during the summers and having loads of tea parties and picking wild flowers. This may not be what they did, but I'll keep that idea in my head!

To answer all the usual questions:
No, you may not call me just "Tusa" or just "Rebecca."

You may not call me "TR." Only a select few people can call me TR without getting a scowl. In fact, I think there are only 3 people who I let get away with it. I can only think of one of those people who may be reading this. She can still call me TR.

I have a nick name, but you have to be grandfathered in. If you already know my nick name because we were friends in college, feel free to keep calling me that. Otherwise, you may only call me by my name.

TusaRebecca is my first name. Rebecca is not my middle name. My middle name is Eleanor.

So far as I know, I am still the only TusaRebecca. Google my name and you will only find stuff about me. It's kind of scary to have a name so unique that a last name is not even needed, but it's pretty super cool at e same time! It's almost standard that employers at least do a Google search of your name. At least most of you have the benefit that multiple people will come up in that search and might throw the employer for a loop. On the other hand, could be bad if your name is Sarah P. Jones and another Sarah P. Jones from your same town has a serious police record! Do a Google search of my name and you will find a few manuscripts for which I am an author, a few news articles, my blog, etc. It's all me and it's all relevant!

Well, back to the weekly, money check-up.

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on a new Patagonia Margot dress.




2. Today I am thankful the rain we had this weekend!

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was "real science" with my nephews.



4. I will consider this week a success if I pack my lunch every day, put away all my clean clothes, get at least 2 workouts in.

5.A good friend is someone who likes you just the way you are, but will encourage you to be better every day.

A few things I'm loving right now.

Here are a few things I'm hooked on right now.Things other than school, that is. I'm on a roll at school for sure. I've written about 20 pages in the last week or so. Might not sound like much, but trust me...it is! Every word has to be chosen carefully. I have to spend time reading articles that will help me develop my expertise in the area I'm working in, etc. It all takes more time than the term papers I used to whip up in undergrad, that's for sure!

StumbleUpon

Thanks to Paula over at afford-anything.com, I discovered StumbleUpon. She was (maybe still is) hosting a book giveaway. To earn an entry, one option was to post one of her blog posts to StumbleUpon. Now I'm a wee bit hooked on the site! Ack! Basically, you key in a few interests on your account, click "Stumble" and random web sites come up! I've found tons of great recipes I want to try, so decorating ideas for some day when I actually have my own apartment, and some cool blogs I might end up following for a long time!

Pinterest

Thanks to StumbleUpon, I discovered Pinterest. Pinterest is this cool site that allows you to catalog ideas you find online. You could make a page of craft ideas, or recipes, or gift ideas. You name it! I requested an invite and I'm seriously hoping I get my invite soon! I already have ideas of the pages I want to make. 1) DIY projects 2) hand made gifts 3) Party ideas 4) recipes which will probably be divided by category 5) Store bought gift ideas 6) ok that's all I can think of!

Sundresses

It's been over 100 F all week and I can't imagine wearing anything other than sundresses. I have a Patagonia Margot dress that I love, and I've been wanting to order another. Lucky for me, they are on sale right now!   

Gardening

It's hotter than hot, so our garden isn't producing too much this week. Everything is just trying to survive the heat. I love ol' X6 though! It's so peaceful out there! Yesterday I took my nephews to see the garden. You may be tired of reading about them, but I don't really care! They are my favorite little boys in the whole world and I could pretty much write an entire blog about all the funny things they do and say! Here they are helping me out in the garden!

Confession of a girl who LIVES to be an Auntie!

 Well...I confess that I didn't get to the office at a reasonable hour today. I just thought making strawberry pancakes with my nephew was way more important than an hour of work. In my not so humble opinion being an Auntie pretty much rocks! My nephew wakes up with more energy than 10 spider monkeys or 100 ninjas. Today he woke up as soon as he heard my alarm and was very patient with me when I hit snooze and wanted to go back to sleep for a few minutes. Pancakes just seemed like the right thing to do this morning. He did a great job stirring the batter! Couldn't have been a better breakfast! I mean really...how do you resist a little guy with underoos hanging out his pants? Look at that face! It begs for strawberry pancakes!

County Fair 2011

I love the county fair. Brings back so many happy memories. Don't get me wrong. During my 11 years of 4-H, there were plenty of unhappy memories too! One year the judge told my mom that I didn't get one of the top prizes for modeling a skirt I sewed because I insisted on carrying my doll with me. She was wearing a matching outfit. It was completely adorable! Everyone EXCEPT the judge thought so! The happiest memories are of the heat, the lemon shake-ups, climbing on the tractors, visiting the animals and wish I had my own horse, and generally the rest of the fair food! Yesterday I'm glad I got to share those happy memories with my sister and nephews and some friends! Last year the animals were a big hit. This year John Deere won the kids' hearts!

New Friends

Giant yellow digger thing wins every time!

When you get big, you can come mow my lawn any time you want!

Way too cute!

Please don't figure out how to put this thing in gear!

Ready to farm!

On a money saving note, we all had our own drinks for lunch. Buying sodas would have seriously doubled the price of lunch. Do they really need to charge $2.50 for a soda? That's just nonsense! It was actually too hot for sodas anyway. The air temp was 97 F and heat index of 110F. Way way way too hot! Lemon shake-ups and water was all anyone really wanted!

Disjointed News!

Baxter loves the garden!

I can't believe I didn't post Monday morning. Actually, I can. I don't know many people who had a fantastic Monday today. So that's my excuse. Monday was just kind of a bummer of a day. Anyway...here are a few disjointed thoughts that will suffice for Monday and Tuesday. All pictures are just for fun.

As it turns out, I have a lot of lotion. Special lotion I got for gifts, lotion from hotels, big bottles of lotion I bought because I thought I needed "good" lotion. In fact I'm pretty sure I won't have to buy any for a very long time. I also have several bars of pretty soap that are still their original packaging. My guess is I'm not the only one. Pretty sure other people do the same thing with pretty candles too. Why don't we just use this stuff? Why is ingrained that pretty things have to be saved and not used? It's one of my new goals to use up all that lotion. I'm not a daily lotion user, so it could take a while. I suppose if I become a daily lotion user my skin will look much nicer! Maybe I'll think to post about it again when all the lotion is all used up!



Never thought I'd get 3 dogs to sit long enough to get a picture!

In other news, I got a raise! The best part about Monday. Very exciting as pretty much no one in the our academic world is getting a raise right now. My raise ends up being about 2% which isn't too shabby for anyone. If I were making "real" money, that could be a decent chunk of change. Two percent of a little bit isn't actually very much. We all know every penny counts, and for me this raise basically means I don't have to worry about things like fluctuating prices of gas, the headlight that's out on my car right now, and I can still meet my savings goals. Yay!



Just so you know it wasn't a fluke! Same dos sitting at the same time on a different day! Amazing!

Show Me App Review and update

So I downloaded a free app called Show Me. It's basically a white board. You can draw with your finger or with one of those fancy iPad pens if your have one and talk while you draw. The app records what you're saying as you draw. It's pretty, fun to play with so long as you don't freak out at the sound of your own voice! I think it would be great for communicating concepts long distance. So far it looks like most people are using it for academic stuff. I can see how this would be useful for some academic concepts, but I decided to use it to tell you about my recent hair transformation! I've dropped a serious chunk of change in this transformation, but the end result is the most ridiculously low maintenance situation ever! Watch it here



In other news, I have done some serious writing for school. In my field, writing journal articles and having them published is super important. Publication is your bread and butter! No publications, no job. Seriously...some day when I'm a professor, my career will somewhat depend on getting my research published. I won't get paid for each publication, but I will pretty much lose my job if I don't publish my work. Eek! Good thing I'm getting in a lot of practice now! Besides, everything I'm writing is a part of my dissertation. Yay for being one step closer to graduation!




Tonight I took a few minutes to clean out my coupon file. The bigger pile is getting thrown away. The smaller pile is all I have left. With all the recent traveling, I've pretty much fallen off the coupon bandwagon. It's good to purge them every once in a while anyway. Tonight I got sulfate free shampoo (part of the hair cash dump!) on sale and I had $6.50 in CVS extra care bucks. Made it pretty close to free! Maybe this Sunday I'll see what I can get for close to free at CVS. Fun times. That's all for now. Should have a good garden post soon!

Too many USB sticks

So the other day I was looking for a USB stick with a specific file on it. I found all of these in my desk only to realize that the one I needed wasn't in my desk! I think if you have more than 7 USB sticks you probably have too many. Just sayin...

Weekly Money Check-up

Image Credit

This weekend was a fantastic tour of Americana. Cubs beat the White Sox, and I was right behind home plate! I had amazing food all weekend! Generally a wonderful couple of days.
Might as well get back on track with the weekly money check-ups provided by Pretty Pennies!


1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on my hair. I'm in the middle of a transformation!
2. Today I am thankful that I got a good night's rest.
3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was hang out up at the river.
4. I will consider this week a success if I make my own coffee every day.
5. My favorite 4th of July tradition is fireworks!

My blog isn't dead.

My blog isn't dead. I'm just super tired and can't get everything done right now. I'll get back to it next week for sure. In the mean time, you can enjoy this awesome collage of a pup that my nieces Anja (age 3 and a half) and Greta (age 2) made for me. That's some serious gluing going on! I love it! I need to find a special place to display it. Probably my desk is a good idea. Kudos to Annie for being able to cut out the dog. I mean pup. That's not a stencil folks! She's just that good!

Exploding Garden!

So the garden totally exploded while I was gone! I think we're all a little mesmerized that everything is growing. I know I am!



Tonight was our first big harvest. Check out all the beans! We're estimating 2 pounds!



We even got a good job sign from the Garden Fairies! Right in front of the lettuce we picked tonight.




Baxter was excited to visit for the first time. Don't worry...he didn't water any gardens. Did some preventative toileting to make sure it wouldn't be a problem.


And the best is that our corn is taller than knee high and it's not even July!

Mucking Good Time

I'd like to say that I'm stronger than jet lag, but I'm not! I traveled over 40 hours to get home on Friday. It was a miserable trip. Our first flight was at 7am, so we were up at 4am. Our second flight was delayed an hour. After the 15 hour flight to LA, our flight to Chicago was cancelled. We were transferred to a flight that connected in Dallas. The flight out of Dallas didn't have a crew, so it was delayed a little over an hour. Oddly, I was wide awake at midnight when we got to Chicago and drove the 3 hours home. Got home at 5:30am, took a nap and then got up for the Mudathelon! We had a mucking good time! Now it's 1:39am on Sunday and I'm wide awake. Thanks jet lag!

I've lost track of the days.

All our plans have changed. Stupid volcano in Chile sent it's ash cloud over here and flights are being cancelled right and left. We aren't too upset to be stuck in Sydney today and tomorrow, but it could get tricky after that. Kinda need to get back for our Friday flight.

We've done soooooo much. I can think of 2 museums we have NOT been to. It's super handy that I'm a student and mom is over 65. We get in most places for a fraction of the admission price. Anyway, it's a good thing I've been taking pictures or I might forget all the stuff we've been!

This morning we got a backstage tour of the Sydney Opera House. Super cool. I momentarily dreamt of being in the Australian Ballet Company and dancing on the Opera Theatre stage.



Mom and I both pretended to conduct a symphony in the concert hall.







Then we wandered through the Royal Botanical Gardens where squawking cockatoos surrounded us!



We ended up by the Museum of Sydney which was pretty cool. Did you know that the Australians put all the Germans living in Australia into concentration camps during WWI? They were NOTHING like the concentration camps that the Germans put Jews in, but they weren't exactly lovely either. Interesting exhibit. After lunch we walked all the way back to the Australia Museum which is just plane awesome. There was an exhibit about the history of indigenous people in Australia. Sad to learn about how their culture was nearly ripped away by the white people. The history is similar to the treatment of Native Americans. Sad.

Now we're just wondering how tomorrow will pan out. Pretty much all flights in Sydney and Melbourne have been cancelled for tomorrow. We seriously don't know if we'll be able to get home as planned. Trying to see it as an adventure, but the reality is I'm kind of frazzeled!

Sydney Tour Day 1

Oh my goodness. We had the best day! We're staying on Darling Harbor and can easily take a ferry to Circular Queue. It's basically a water bus. Holds a few hundred people and only costs $2.50 per trip. Great way to view the city!



Here's mom knitting on the Ferry this morning, and me wearing the infamous red sweater that I knit.






We took the ferry to Toronga Zoo. I loved it! It's about the size of Brookfield Zoo. There are 3 baby elephants. Two were born this spring. One was born last fall. All were seriously cute!





I know it's not a great picture, but I was nearly attacked by this peacock at lunch! Ok...not really attacked, but it snuck up on me and I may have made some noise when I turned around.



I think I like the little wallabies even better than the big kangaroos. They were in a walk-about enclosure. One hopped right in front of me! You could get pretty close to them and they didn't seem to mind much.





I'm most proud of my koala pictures. They were in a really well designed space with a ramp around their trees. We were pretty close, but I admit my camera was zoomed in a bit!







One of the best parts about the zoo was the view of the city. Sweet, right?




I think the kamodo dragon likes me.



I love giraffes! Their enclosure had the best view of the city, but I didn't get a great picture.


After the zoo, we hopped on a free shuttle having no idea where it s going! Just did it for the adventure. Turns out it dropped us off at Hyde Park which happens to be across from St. Mary's Cathedral. We sat through evening prayers and then mass. The Bishop said mass which was pretty special. Mom and I went up for a blessing during communion and ended up in the Bishop's line! Totally made our day! After mass we found a great Irish pub with live music and good food. All in all a fantastic day!