say hello to your friends

It's been quiet here at scuttlebuttering, and I apologize for that.  Life has gotten away from me, what can I tell you.  Today's post isn't groundbreaking, but its hopefully a start of more blogging to come.

Today I was cleaning up the foreign language books in the kid's room when I came upon this French Baby-Sitter's Club book:

Some thoughts:

1.)What, what, what are they wearing?

2.) When did Stonybrook become a slum?

3.) What is the title of this book?  My limited french leads me to think it's Mary Anne and the Sadness?  I don't think that's right.  But it does look pretty depressing judging from this cover.

I so wish there were more.

standard in all hotel rooms...

One of the many fine amenities we are provided with.

"Choose way and flee for your life decidedly."

send rescue

Our flight was canceled today. We've got two more days to spend in Beijing.

I don't think we'll ever get home. If I I've to see any more duck on my dinner table, I'm going to get upset.

happy birthday to me

I sometimes get a bit of a hard time because I take my birthday very seriously.  I like to have a party and get all my favorites to celebrate.  And the fact that they're celebrating me isn't such a bad thing :)

However, one of my co-workers has taken celebrating one's birthday to a new level.  She's been talking about her birthday for about a week now, and apparently yesterday sent out an email to a few of our co-workers (I was not on the email - this was a smart move on her part) with a list of things she would like from them for her birthday.  Number 2 on list?  Cash.  I would give everything to see this email as I bet I would laugh until I hurt.

Today, she brought in a few things to celebrate her birthday, including flowers...

...as well as cake and a card for everyone to sign.  For herself.

These are excellent ways to get people to care about your birthday whether they want to or not, and believe me I am taking notes for next year.

Newsy News

Hey Gang!

Nothing terribly exciting has been going on in my life lately, so the blog has been quiet.  I did recently have another run in with super long fingernail man and my boss wore his jumpsuit again, but I feel like these are going to be regular occurrences.

I guess the only change is that I'm going to be making a small job change.  I am soon going to be the childrens librarian at my branch, not the young adult librarian!  I am hopeful that this change will be less stressful and just more fun.  I can do more crafts and things that I like and will hopefully get more interest in those things!

My mother thinks it's important that I wear costumes as a children's librarian because she says that's what my children's librarian did when I was growing up.  I don't quite remember that, but I'm always happy to wear a costume!  My mother has already supplied this beauty:

Gorg.

So I think I'm off to a good start.

Ughewwwwwwwwwww

I can't post a good visual for this one because I might throw up.

I was just helping a patron with super super super super gross gross gross long fingernails on the computer and one of his talons touched my hand.

I almost wept.

i can't even handle

Guys, it's a Monday morning.  I was a little grumpy until I saw my boss a moment ago.  'Cause his outfit today gave me a serious case of the giggles.  And I can't even find a good photo representation for you to share in the ridiculousness.

At first glance, it was fairly inocuous.  Blue pants and shirt under a tan blazer.  But what's that you say?  Those aren't blue pants and shirt?  That's a polyester jumpsuit?

Yep.  It sure is.

I die.

great start

Thanks for all the congrats about the new addition to our family!  I can't wait to meet my niece or nephew.

I had some excitement at work this morning not too long after I got here, which I hope doesn't portend bad things for the rest of the day.  There's been a dude coming in and causing some trouble here for the past two weeks or so.  He seems a bit off, and everyone on the staff has had some interactions with him.  Yesterday the janitor told me that this guy comes to the library at about 8am (when we open at 10) and continuously asks if the library is open and isn't it 10 already.  So that's how he starts the day.

At the library, we have one computer with unfiltered access to the internet, and then 11 computers with filtered access in the adult room.  The filtered computers really don't filter out all the much - I have certainly never been blocked from any website.  Patrons are allowed to use the computer for an hour, and if they are all in use, they can sign up for a reservation and wait until one is free.  For the filtered computers, the wait is usually only 5-10 minutes.  But for the unfiltered computer, it can be an hour or two, depending on how many people sign up to use it.  This dude only wants to use the unfiltered computer, and even though he comes right when the library opens, he sometimes ends up sitting and waiting for HOURS until he can get on it.  And I found out why at our staff meeting yesterday - he likes to watch porn at the library.

Super awesome.

He has also spent some time hanging out in the children's room as well as at the children's storytime - both of which or huge no's if you don't have a child in the room or at the program.

And this morning, when of course I was in charge, he sat down at a table across from a young woman on her laptop and stared at her.  Just stared, unblinking.  For a long time.  She, of course, got creeped out and moved to a different part of the library.  He continued to sit for awhile, and then of course, followed her.  Not good.  I had been observing, waiting until he crossed the line and I could ask him to leave and this was definitely it.  I told him he had to leave for the day because there had been complaints about his behavior (which was true, the young lady told the library assistant that she was really freaked out) and he denied doing anything and said they were lies.  I continued to say he had to leave or I would have to call the police, and at first he said that I should call them because they would send me to jail for lying.  OK.  I was still willing to call them and he finally got up and moseyed over to the door.

So hopefully that will be all the excitement we have here today and really hopefully this guy will stop coming here because he makes us nervous.

Fun Thursday!

new addition

It was an exciting weekend for all of us here at Scuttlebuttering.  I'm excited to finally be able to share it as I am not very good at sitting on good news for long.  But Saturday morning I found out that my brother's wife is pregnant!  However, my parent's were planning on having dinner with M&S for Father's Day last night, along with S's parents, so that's when they were going to hear the news.  Which meant I had to be very good at not giving it away.  I am proud to say that I passed the test with flying colors and now it's official - the Berts are going to be Aunt and Uncle! 

The Happy Parents

The baby is due on Christmas Day, and we are all just over the moon with happiness.  I may be biased, but this is one lucky kid.  And I would just like the next 6 months to go a little faster, please.

My only gripe about the situation - I spent most of the Saturday and Sunday tramping around the city looking for something that had a mention of "World's Greatest Aunt" or "Best Uncle in the World" or anything along those lines.  I was willing to drop some money to get our gear in order quickly so we can start embarrassing the little tyke ASAP.  And there is nothing out there to be had.  I think this is an untapped industry.  Sure, I could have purchased things for the Mom-to-Be or New Grandmother, but what about me?  I like swag as much as the next person, and MORE than most people.  I'll have to turn to the internet, but until then, I whipped something up myself.

This will do until to announce things to the world until I can find something more suitable.

Congratulations again and again to my bro and sister-in-law.  Bert and I could not be even a little bit more happy for you guys.

i know what's next...

on my to-read list.

they do exist!

Today someone came into the library and asked for help getting her documents off of her floppy disk!  I haven't seen one of those in 10 years.  And what was more amazing - the computer she signed on to use had a floppy disk drive!

One more thing we'll have to explain to our children

classic

The sidewalk is my pillow.

paper moon

I would like to send a hearty scuttlebuttering wish to my husband for a very happy 1st anniversary.  It is incredible to believe that it has already been a year since we got married.  It simultaneously feels like no time at all has passed and that we've been married for a very long time.  Bert and I celebrated by spending the weekend at Ogunquit, Maine at a Bed and Breakfast there which was lovely and I will have a longer trip report shortly.  But I just wanted to say that I feel very lucky to have such a great fella and I look forward to very many more fun years with him.

Thanks for the great photos, North Island Photography!

economy boost

I'm glad to see the hair pick industry is still thriving these days.

 My grandmother would be so proud.

Number or hair picks in use in the YA room at this moment: 3.

And there are only 6 people in here.

so they're not alive?

There's a woman who works here part-time and I have trouble figuring out what exactly her job is, other than trying to do other people's jobs.  She got into a huge argument with a temporary librarian my first week here and made the biggest deal of it and was smack talking this librarian to the other people working here.  Highly professional.  I do not care very much for this woman, because, again, I don't think she actually does her job and she keeps trying to interfere with mine.  She has roped kids into doing her work for her, she yells at the teens when I don't think they're doing anything wrong, and she's just kind of a busybody.

But, man, is she fascinated and confused by zombies.  Each month I have been setting up a display based on a theme for that month.  April is National Poetry Month, so I set up a display of poetry books in the YA section.  And this month, I was having trouble finding a good theme, until I read somewhere that May is Zombie Awareness Month.  I thought that was pretty awesome and something the kids might dig, so I collected a bunch of books and movies about zombies and set up my display.

Apparently, this woman has never heard of zombies before so every time she comes in she asks me more questions about them.  She doesn't understand that they are undead, confuses them with vampires, and asks me if this is something that kids like.  The questions have been going on for a month, and it's like talking to a 4 year old, I really don't know how to answer them anymore.  She keeps bringing me books and asks if they're about zombies.  Today she told me she did some research on them and found out that they come back from the dead and was so proud of herself for knowing that factoid.

It's just been a bit bizarre and she won't let it go, so I'm rather looking forward to May being over.  I hope my next display isn't as confusing.

What is a zombie?

bootylicious

I was just yelled at by an extremely agitated older male patron because two of the pictures of Beyonce that he had printed off of the internet did not print out as he wanted. 

I had a difficult time understanding what he wanted me to do.  It seemed that he wanted reimbursement for how the pictures came out, but as I was pretty sure they came out incorrectly due to user error and not through any fault of our equipment, I was not going to do that.  However, he was quick to inform me that he's got a $40,000 car out in the parking lot, he doesn't care about getting $1 back.  He was yelling at me and he wasn't happy when I said he needed to calm down or I would have to ask him to leave.  I said I would be happy to re-print his pictures, but when I went to do so, being guided by the website address printed on the bottom of the pages he had given me, he accused me of watching what he was doing on-line.

They weren't even naked pictures of Beyonce.  What was this dude getting so worked up over?  He must be crazy in love with her.

All right, I do understand why he was so worked up. Damn you, Beyonce, for putting us mere mortals to shame.

phrase origin

So I'm watching some 'Glee' last night, and at one point Kurt said the phrase "eat your heart out."  And this morning I woke up thinking about how disturbing a thing this is to say.  Seriously.  Think about it for a second.  I'll wait.

Gross.

I wanted to know the origin of this phrase, so I turned to the interwebs for help.  I'll tell ya, I wasn't thrilled with some of the answers.  A lot of people seem to think it has to do with eating a whole lot, but that sounds even grosser and I don't believe that's true at all.

The best definition came from Scorpio Tales - "The ancients believed that sorrow or envy were bad for the heart, and would eat away at it, each sigh draining blood from the organ. This idea made its way to England and became well established - Shakespeare often refers to it, as in, 'Might liquid tears, of heart-offending groans, / Or blood-consuming sighs recall his life, / I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans, / Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs' (Henry VI, part 2, III.ii). We still describe someone as broken-hearted by grief. By the beginning of the 20th century, to eat your heart out was well-established as a term for pining; but more recently, it has also been used as a cry of triumph when someone else has cause to envy the speaker."

Not great, but hopefully it's enough to get my mind off the disturbing nature of it.

I'm having a difficult time choosing which picture to use for this post.  I don't want to look for pictures of people eating hearts.  Instead, as often happens when thinking hard about a particular word or phrase, it lost all meaning for me.  Which led me to this gem:

Glorious

fact #3

My family has been spending the February school vacation in Puerto Rico since I was a wee young thing.  We have had many a run-in with celebrities down there including Billy Baldwin and Chynna Phillips, George Hamilton, Paul Schaffer and Regis.  While we did do a great deal of the bonding with Billy and Chynna, my best encounter was with Kurt Vonnegut.

Judging by my horrific haircut in pictures from this trip, I was in 5th grade on this particular trip.  And I was at an age where I was good at making vacation friends, which is how I met Kurt's daughter, Lily.  We hung out at the pool and the game room, the usual.  And then one afternoon she asked if I wanted to play a game with her and her dad.  What game?  Oh, you know, just some Battleship.  No big whoop.  But I bet not many people can say that not only did they play Battleship against Kurt Vonnegut, but beat him at Battleship. 

I can't believe he didn't write a story about this event, it must have been a big day for him.

Sorry I sunk your Battleship, Mr. Vonnegut

kids these days...

...can't get enough of their Civil War comic books.

entrepreneur?

So, my cousin has been selling Mary Kay for a long time.  And as I'm always interested in ways to make a few extra dollars, I have been considering joining for a long time.  But I never did because I didn't think I would actually sell anything.  And I don't want to harass the people in my life to buy things for me.  But, I recently decided to give it a shot.  We'll see what happens, I am not expecting it to make me a millionaire, but when I talked it out with some people, there were basically zero reasons why I shouldn't give it a shot.  I'm, like, a little bit embarrassed by this whole thing, but I know I like product, and I like all the Mary Kay stuff I have used in the past, so hopefully I'll get over that.

If you'd like to check out my snazzy website, you should go here - http://www.marykay.com/mwithers-tong.

Someday, I hope to be able to cruise around in one of these:

Baller!

fact #2

This is a true story.

One weekend when I was working at Disney after college, some family friends came to visit the parks and I met up with them for the day at MGM - er, Disney's Hollywood Studios.  It happened to be Soap Opera Weekend at the park, so there was an abundance of all of our favorite soap stars.  They were actually a bit aggressive in trying to hand out pictures of these actors that I could later get autographed or something.  I'm actually not quite sure what goes on for Soap Opera Weekend.

Anyhoodle, my two friends and I go on the Rock 'N' Roller Coaster where Steven Tyler begs his manager to get us a super-stretch limo and backstage tickets to see their show.  Joe Perry came so close to forgetting his black Les Paul which would have been awful.  We blaze through the ride and arrive at the unloading area as well as the point of this story - as we are disembarking from our vehicles we notice a horse standing there.

We all take a glance at it and continue on our way.  As we're exiting the building I go, 'so, wait, was that a horse at the end there?'  The three of us agree that it sure looked like a horse.  We think about it some more and then begin asking our questions as to why there would be a horse in that building.  This discussion has continued on and off for the last 5 and 1/2 years.  Our various theories cover a wide range, from it being a seeing-eye pony, or perhaps some Soap Opera star had it in her contract to appear at the park that she would only travel around via horse.  Perhaps we had a group hallucination.  Or maybe it was just a crazy big dog.  Afterward, we were kicking ourselves that we didn't just ask someone why there was a horse at the unloading part of the ride.  And I know it is a question that has haunted me for years.

I looked for a long time - there are no pictures of horses on rollercoasters

unexpectedly awesome

I admit it, I jumped to a conclusion the other day when a group of girls who often give me a hard time asked if they could watch a movie in one of the study rooms.  I was prepared to have to look over the movie and make sure it wasn't something that I could get in trouble for showing.

Boy, was my face red when I they gave me the DVD case and I saw that it was season 1 of The Golden Girls. 

Perhaps I'm not as out of my element here as I thought.

Gangster

weirdness for a saturday

I was just signing a dude up to use the computer when he saw my cellphone on my desk.  He pointed at it and asked if I could do text messages with my phone.  When I said yes, he asked if he could be my text friend.

I went with no thanks.

I'm all set with text friends

blues

Yesterday, I was here. Today, I'm at work with the nutters. It's not going to be an easy afternoon.  On the plus (?) side, I believe my library husband will be coming in for a meeting this afternoon, so that's sure to be an interesting encounter!

super creepy

This dude will haunt my dreams.

success

You know it's been a good day of vacation when this is how it's ending. Can't wait for more magic tomorrow!

beet's beat

We haven't even been here a whole day and my boy's already tuckered. We've got to build up his Disney stamina.

the color of cheese

I had two questions for my loyal readers while I was driving into work this morning, but now I can only remember one.  I hope for your sake I remember the other.

I've been a big cheese eater my whole life, and my lunch of choice as a kid used to be American cheese sandwiches.  Sometimes on the weekend, my dad would fancy it up and grill them.  I know, we really broke new ground there.  When I was very young, I remember the slices of American cheese were always yellow and then at some point my dad started coming home with white American cheese.  He always ordered the cheese from the same deli, and I remember being uncertain by this new color of the cheese and I didn't eat it for awhile. 

However, nowadays, all you can get is white American cheese.  Sure, they sell yellow Kraft singles, but I always thought those were highly weird and I'm not convinced that's real cheese.  My question is, why did the cheese change color?  Was it an anti-chemical thing?  Can you in fact still buy 1/2 pound of yellow American cheese?  Maybe I just haven't been paying attention at the deli counter.

I hate when it's wrapped in plastic

full moon?

I have been at work for less than an hour this morning and have already had 3 fun encounters:

1.) Older gentleman, who I know is in his 50's because he told me, came to ask me if we have true crime books because he loves to read about real murders and has since he was 14.  I refrained from asking if he was getting ideas from them.  He goes on to show me the book he is reading and shows me the pictures in it of the murder victims and their families as well as the accused.  He was carrying a small cooler with him - I think there may have been a head in it.

2.) Another gentleman needs help figuring out how to use the webcam on his new laptop so he can take pictures of albums he wants to sell on ebay.  I figure out the process and he proceeds to take a picture of me in front of the computer.  I hurriedly figure out how to delete that picture.  I then spend quite a long time sitting next to him while he tries to remember his log-on information for ebay.  He does not remember, but rather than register again, he decides that learning how to take the pictures was enough for one day.

3.) A third gentleman is waiting to talk to me to reserve a room for a meeting he will be having here at the end of the month.  I know that I have talked to him before but could not tell you what about.  While we are working out the details of his meeting, he says that he refers to me as his 'library wife.'  Awkward laugh.  After we've made the arrangements he says that he's got to thank me for all my work and he'll take me out to dinner.  He says he knows I'm married, he's just being a nice guy.  Or he asks, do I like sports like basketball or baseball?  He gets tickets and we could go sometime.  Or sometimes he likes to organize trips to New Hampshire to go horseback riding or rafting, and he pays for it all.  "It would be cool, I know you're married."  I'm supposed to look at my schedule and get back to him with my availability when he gets back from some work trips next week.  I'll be getting right on that.  Or using my panic button for the first time the next time I see him.

fun morning

crochet skillz

Last week my dear friend Cap came over and taught me how to make this bracelet.

 
Basically, you crochet with wire and weave beads along the strands as you go.  Then, when you have five or six strands, you braid them together, twist the ends and tie on a clasp!  It was pretty quick work and I made the whole thing in less than an hour.  It was tricky to figure out where to place the beads on each strand so that they weren't all clumped together, and that's something I will have to work on more for the next time.  And working with the wire hurt my fingers after a while, but at least it was quick work!

And speaking of my Capitano, she got engaged this weekend!  Beet and I are so thrilled for her and her fiance and I can't wait for many afternoon's of wedding related crafts!  But these are two of my absolute favorite people and I am so happy they are so happy.  We did a lot of celebrating this weekend with brunch, champagne toasts, candlepin bowling and Justin Bieber balloons.  I'm excited for many more fun times with them.

Good weekend!

not an idiot

So, the teens here most of the time think I'm pretty dumb and that I can't see through glass or if they squat down under a table I can't see what they're doing.  Mostly this involves eating or drinking, which they're not supposed to do in the library.  But yesterday morning when the library was pretty empty, a girl asked if she could use my desk phone.  I told her that phone calls are supposed to be made at the circulation desk and that someone up front could help her out.  She wasn't too happy with that answer, but she wandered over in the direction. 

About 20 minutes later she came back and asked if she could use my phone now.  I asked her if she had used the one at the front desk and she said that they wouldn't let her.  When I asked why, she just shrugged and acted like she had no idea.  So I asked her who she had to call, and a half second after she said "my friends" I continued my sentence that you can only use the phones to call parents.  She immediately said "yeah, I'm calling my parents."  When I said that I heard her just say that she was going to call her friends, she denied that she ever said that.  She continued denying until I told her that our standard practice was for the librarian to speak to the parents and ask that they come pick the teen up or whatever else the request was going to be.  She decided she didn't need to make that phone call then, but did ask to use my cell phone.  Surprisingly, that didn't fly either.

Woohoo

Some days, I get a lot of laughs.

good things

So, there are definitely a lot of great things that this library provides to the community, and it is really amazing to see how much the area uses this space.  But it really reinforces how important places like this are when I see people constantly coming in to use the computers to write their resumes or apply for jobs or take out books on studying for the GED.  Computer's don't seem to be ubiquitous in this area, which is something I know I just take for granted in my own life.  I can count the amount of laptops I've seen in this library on one hand even though we do offer free wi-fi.  The teen's are maybe not using the computer's here for things as important as job hunting and exam studying, but it's good for me to remember that they may not have a computer at home to check facebook or play silly games like I do.

To sum up, this place is still hard and challenging, but it's good for me to keep things in perspective.

resumes are hard to explain

an update

So, the blog has been quite quiet lately as I've been settling into my new job.  It has been a pretty crazy 2.5 weeks, and I've really just been insanely tired and whelmed.  The job is....good?  I guess?  It's ridiculously different from anything I've experienced and could have prepared for.  I'm not used to working with so few co-workers and I am certainly not used to being the one in charge when the manager is out, which has been quite a few times already. 

And the kids are tough.  They have been without a YA librarian for a few months, so we're all getting used to one another and I have hopes that once that get familiar with me being here it will be better.  But already I've had to call the police on a girl who took someone else's headphones, refused to give them back, and then refused to leave when I told her to.  And yesterday, we banned a girl for six months after she screamed in my face for not allowing her on the computer after I warned her 4 times that if she didn't stop shouting at her friends I would kick her off said computer.  Additionally, I heard some girls refer to me as a cowgirl, which sounded vaguely insulting the way they said it.  But I'm not quite sure what it meant.

It's really incredible to see how much they use this library.  They come here in droves after school and stay right up until we close.  They come in pretty early on Saturday, as well, and again stay all day.  I will be super interested to see if this continues once the weather gets warmer and when school lets out.  I have never experienced this in a library before, and it's great that they are using the space and that there is somewhere for them to go, but it just adds to the challenge.

So, that's the update!  I plan to be more consistent now that I'm getting into a routine here, so check back to read about the shenanigans that go down here.

So...this is insulting?

yes, please

I'll take it for my birthday

'stache necklace

the end again

Today's my last day at MIT (again) and I am pretty darn happy about it.  While I am nervous about the new job because it's unknown and I feel like I finally know what I'm doing at my current position, it's just really time to get out of here.  But, as all things should end with cake, they are throwing a little going away party for me today.  I have normally tried to avoid a lot of social interaction here in the office, so I think this will be nice and awkward.  But.  There's cake!  So it can't be too bad.

If the event is as awkward as I am foreseeing, expect some updates later.  Maybe I should just liveblog my last day here to keep record for posterity.  We'll see what happens.

Yum

warm fuzzy

It's always nice to know that something you put a lot of work into has been very much appreciated:

Quilt with Love

Speaking of warm fuzzies, did any of you ever make these as a kid?

Fuzzies!

I think we made them in our 5th grade Human Relations class.  These look cuter than the ones we made.

about time

So last week, Raybert and I were celebrating...

...the fact that I got a new job!  I will shortly be leaving MIT to take a new position as a Young Adult Librarian at one of the branches of the Boston Public Library.  I am very excited to finally get started in my chosen career, but more than a little nervous at the start of this new adventure.  My hope is that one day they will make a librarian action figure of me!

One day!

scenic

relaxed beet.

fancy pants

My dad becomes quite the dandy on vacation after winning big in the casino.

meal with a view

Getting ready for some delicious fresh guacamole. Not a bad way to spend an evening.

Good News

The Beets did some celebrating tonight...

Tell you why when we get back from our mini-break!

Friday Book Review

Since my last review I have finished 3 books and am currently reading 2 more:

The Necklace: Thirteen Women and The Experiment That Transformed Their Lives

I read this book for the book club I will be attending in Puerto Rico with my mom and one of her friends, so it is not necessarily a book I would have chosen to read on my own.  But it was a quick read and I enjoyed it.  It is a non-fiction story of 13 women in California who chipped in to buy this crazy expensive diamond necklace together.  The woman were loosely acquainted at the beginning, and the story talks about how sharing the necklace affected each of their lives.  Mostly it discussed how important it is to have girlfriends, especially as you get older and have families and a million things that take up your time.  And that is something I believe to be true at any age.

One Day

One of Entertainment Weekly's picks for the best books of 2010.  It was an interesting set-up in the it followed two people's lives and relationships with one another through writing about their days on one particular date, the date they met in the mid 80's, over the course of 15 or so years.  It was easy to track the ups and downs they'd encountered over all the previous days in the year and to see how their relationship changed.  I thought it was a good, quick read and alternated between sad and humorous, but I did foresee the ending.

 

The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke

I have always been kind of really into saving money and preparing for the future.  I started discussing my nest egg when I was 13 or so.  But it's something I needed to learn more about as I start planning for my future with my husband.  I knew the goals I wanted to reach and the things I wanted to do, but I wasn't sure where to start.  So I'm really enjoying this book, which I didn't think I was going to.  It's specifically written for my age group and offers clear advice on how to tackle money issues from getting out of credit card debt, to paying off student loans, to saving for a house and starting to think about a retirement fund.  I know that doesn't sound crazy fun, but it's been a really useful tool so far and is helping me put a plan in place.  Just today I increased my contributions to my 401(k) and opened an IRA account!  Woo, responsibility!

Escape

Sorry for the radio silence, kids.  Ray and I were dealing with quite the illness last week that just knocked us on our asses.  And now I'm dealing with a neck situation that is beyond uncomfortable and I'm starting to think that since turning 27.5 this past Sunday I am old and falling apart.  I'd say we deserve a break, and hey!, it looks like we're going to get one.  Ray and I are heading out tomorrow to Puerto Rico to meet up with my family and I could not be more excited.  You may not have heard, but this winter has been a beast.  I'm pretty tired of being cold and looking at snow all the time, so I am jazzed that tomorrow my view will be something like this:

San Juan Intercontinental Hotel

Should be glorious.