Fragmented Friday

I have a lot of thoughts that I don’t want to make into individual posts so here are some fragments I want to share.

• My sweetheart of a mother gave me a card and some cash to celebrate my new job. She said the money could only be used for shoes or an outfit for work, not bills. I bought a pair of cute tennis shoes since I’ll be on my feet Friday evening and Saturday working the Safe Kids Fair. I also got a cute new purse that’s simple, yet big enough to fit my iPad in.

• I want to do a little nephew bragging because isn't this the cutest picture.

• Comcast sends a lot of junk mail, and good thing they do, because it reminded us that we never got the $144 they owe us from back in February.  Those bastards. They said we should be seeing the money soon. This time I set a reminder in my calendar to follow up next week if I don’t get it.

• My husband finally has health insurance for probably the first time. I’m so grateful for this job and the amazing benefits they offer. 

I hope you have an excellent weekend! 

New Phones

Our phone contract is up in March so we've been planning on getting new phones. When the iPhone 5 came out we really thought we wanted it, but as the time got closer we started exploring all of the options. We stopped by the mall to check out phones and to get an idea of how much we were going to spend. Of course the salesman told us we were actually eligible for the upgrade at 20 months rather than 24 months. We liked the HTC DNA, but after reading more about it the battery life sucks and it doesn’t let you add extra memory.

This is strange but after we looked at phones we noticed that our current phones started messing up more and more. Everything would force close and they were going really slow. Facebook just kept shutting down, and it had never done that before. What if it’s some kind of conspiracy that when you’re due for an upgrade your provide fucks with you OR it could’ve been all in our heads because we wanted the new phones so bad. I suggested we wait until March like we planned so we could finish saving up. Once Jose sees something he wants he CANNOT wait, every day I would hear about some new feature on some new phone. I think it got to me because I caved and we went to buy phones.

We decided on the Samsung Galaxy Note II. It’s huge when you first hold it, but now I don’t think I could go back to a baby screen. The large screen was appealing to me because I like to read on my phone. Jose watches a lot of video on his so it’s perfect for that. It comes with a stylus which is fun. You can draw and it converts your handwriting into text. It’s fast with its quad-core processor. It has cool motion and gesture features that let you make calls just by rotating it or screen shots by swiping your hand across it. I love the 22 hours use battery life. There are probably so many more features that I’m not taking advantage of yet, but I have two years to discover all it can do. 

Old Thunderbolt next to our new phones

Ms. Chauffeur

My husband finally returned from his 19 day getaway. I spent 5 of those days with him so the time didn't seem so long. It felt funny going to visit my own husband, kind of like dating where you don't get to see each other every day and you have to communicate by telephone, making the reunion sweet. Dating seems like it was long ago so it was a fun feeling. 

To keep that fun feeling I decided to role play and pick him up from the airport dressed as a chauffeur. I've always wanted someone to pick me up holding a sign with my name on it so I thought why not trying being on the other end of my fantasy. Not sure I really captured the look of chauffeur, but it was fun nonetheless. He had the biggest(maybe embarrassed) smile on his face and we just laughed. 

I also wanted the chance to wear these new boots I found at Kohl's for $16. 

Have I mentioned in my next life I want to be a cowgirl, a tough, rugged one?  

Holiday Happenings

It's December 3rd and almost all of my Christmas shopping is done. I'm pretty happy about that, but I've realized that the sooner I get it done the more time I have to find other things that I think would make perfect additions to the gifts I already bought. I CAN'T do that! If I'm done, I need to be done. There are only 4 more people on the list, one is a white elephant so that should be easy, two are gifts Jose needs to get for the family names he drew, and the last one is for a co-worker, but I don't know who yet because we haven't drawn names. 

Now for some fun!

1. What is your favorite Holiday season tradition?
A tradition that lasted a few years while my brother and I were still living at home was after breakfast and opening gifts we would go to the movie theater.

2. Do you have a certain Holiday movie you watch more than others? If so what is it?
During the holidays my favorite movie is 8 Crazy Nights. It's an animated film about Hanukkah by Adam Sandler, so it's slightly inappropriate, but hilarious. I remember when it came out in 2002 I saw it in the theater twice and it made me cry. 

3. Show us your favorite decoration on your tree this year:
The most I've done this year with my tree  is put it up, and I only did that because the cat loves it. I didn't feel like putting any ornaments, but I thought of a fun idea/theme that I will blog about when it's finished.

4. Favorite Holiday song?
My favorite song is Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. Here are my favorite lines. 

Let your heart be light
From now on,
our troubles will be out of sight

Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.

Through the years
We all will be together,
If the Fates allow

5. Favorite Holiday dessert?
Pie!

6. What is on your wish list this year?
I'd really like a watch box. 

My 100th Post

Today was the day for our quarterly bonuses at work. My last one wasn't exceptionally great, so I wasn't expecting anything different this quarter, especially because there was talk that it was going to be even less due to some fraudulent activity that occurred. I really think the rumor was more of a scare tactic, but who knows. Anyway, we all got emails this morning linking us to our online pay statement. I logged on, but quickly exited without checking the statement. I am the type of person who likes to be surprised. I was the child that didn't want to peeked at my Christmas present. 

To make the day special we got to wear jeans and meet in the conference room for donuts, fruit and our checks. My boss was prepared with sincere appreciation and stats for how well our department performed this quarter. Little things like that make me admire the man. 

Things have been different with our finances since Jose got laid off for the winter. We expected an unemployment check, but come to find out he isn't eligible until January. We'll make it on my income and rental income, but this time of year we tend to spend more durning the holidays. I've continued to set aside tuition money, travel money for Thanksgiving in Cali, money for tires, and money for Jose's birthday so that doesn't leave much for our first world luxuries which mostly include lunch and theater popcorn + movie tickets. 

I opened that check and felt blessed and relieved. I know I shouldn't worry about money so much, I'm glad Jose helps me understand that. Now I'm ready for a little Christmas shopping. Both sides of my family decided to draw names this year. I can't wait to see who I get and of course I don't want to know who gets me because I look forward to the surprise. 

Thanks for reading my 100th post.

Staying Organized With Google Calendar

I love Google Calendar, it’s something I use daily. The number one thing I use it for is to keep track of bills. I've set it up by color so I know which bill needs to be paid with which paycheck. I also use it for daily cleaning, meal planning, birthdays, school, and appointments. I like that it syncs to my phone so I get my reminders even if I don’t log onto a computer. Today my reminder was that I bought my niece and nephew Halloween shirts that went on sale after the holiday last year. 

His & Hers

Jose and I are having so much fun this summer cruising around on our bikes. I bought mine from my mom's friend for a steal of deal. It's a perfect bike to learn on and I love the color. Jose is a KSL pro and bought his from a guy in Kaysville. I say pro because he found me a helmet and boots for a great price. I just don't have the patience to look and barter with people.

After Jose got his Harley I realized I won't be on this little Honda for long. His is so loud and ballsy, I'm bound to upgrade next summer.

I ride my motorcycle to work several days a week and love that I've been forced to practice minimalism. I have two small saddle bags and can't take all of the junk I would usually take if I had my car. I usually only take my lunch, gym clothes, water bottle, phone, work access key, license, and some money when I ride to work. NO PURSE and it's been great. I shouldn't be surprised I really don't need all of the stuff I throw in my purse.

My next favorite thing about riding is all of the looks we get. So many people are thrilled seeing motorcycles. We rode down Washington Boulevard the other night and I saw some of the biggest smiles from people driving beside us. Their smiles made me smile.

Third, I like the social aspect and camaraderie. Along with smiles from drivers I love, LOVE when I receive a greeting from another biker. I know it sounds lame, but it really makes me happy and giddy.

Last, I enjoy that's it's just the two of us having a fun summer with minimal responsibilities--working hard and playing hard.  

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Born to Shop, No Thank You.

As you may have learned from a previous post about the grocery store, I'm not that into shopping, but lately I've been on a spending spree. It's so easy to spend money so I had to lock myself up last weekend, at least until Monday came because I had a coupon for Express to get $25 off of $75. I've been needing more business casual pants for work because some days are just too cold for a dress. My friend recommended Express because of the quality and thickness of the pants. Thick is right, thick in price. One pair for $80. OK so I wanted to be smart and get more bang for my buck. I went to the clearance racks. I found 4 items, none of them pants. I just have a thing for dresses. I feel like they are very professional and sexy. Plus, pants are a pain for me because I'm too short and always have to hem them.

Continuing on, I got up to the counter and the boy said I couldn't use the coupon on clearance items. He said he would have done it for me anyway, but he just got in trouble for doing it. I liked the dresses so much I didn't care. They were on clearance so that made me feel better.

New dresses meant I may need new shoes and definitely a sweater because unfortunately a lot of dresses are made without sleeves. I found two pair of shoes and got distracted and bought a new shower curtain, bathroom rugs and new curtains for my living room. The surprise was I found a gift card from when we got married over a year ago to Bed Bath and Beyond, it had $50.00 on it.

I pictured wearing this dress with a salmon colored sweater, but I had no luck finding one. 

These may be scary, kinda high. They were only $12 though. 

It was time for a new one. The one we had was like 4 years old.

These memory foam rugs feel so good on the feet. I recommend them.