Quick and Dirty

So I realized today that I just don't know where I spend all my money. I thought I had been doing well with not shopping but a quick check of my finances tells me otherwise. Ack. I started a financial log, of the tips I get and the money I spend. Hopefully seeing what I spend will break that habit for me. And I'll be able to better estimate the kind of budget I need, and what I can afford for health insurance. And perhaps car insurance.

The real world is downright financially terrifying. I'll have to start thinking about what I would be willing/able to do for a second job, especially when I'm not in school (starting this summer, for those keeping track). Or a better paying first job (probably not...my first job is pretty well paying for the hours I work!).

This will end the pity me post.

Study Break...

This weekend is a studying weekend for me--I have two midterms on Monday (Organic Chem and Physiology). I took tomorrow off work so that I would have a full day to study, and I'm feeling pretty confident that I'll do well on the tests. Luckily for my second set of midterms, they're all spaced pretty evenly so I shouldn't have to take off work to study!

Speaking of work, last night was a pretty good night for me in terms of sales--I had the highest sales excluding people who worked a double shift. My tips weren't as high as I would have liked and I know one check really stiffed me. Argh. Ah well. Here's hoping tonight is pretty good too, and I don't have to stay as late!

There's not much else going on around here. The other night I had a pretty long chat with my female roommate about some of the issues she's been feeling around here. It was interesting because I was well on my way to drunkville, but I think I managed to make her realize that a) we don't hate her and b) she's projecting a lot of her feelings of awkwardness and not belonging outward. I hope that we'll be able to mend friendship fences as roommates, because we really all lost that fun "hanging out" aspect with each other (prior to living together, we all used to hang out a lot!).

Here's a lame story: my mom's van which I have on campus is close to license plate sticker renewal time. Which means it needs an e-check. No biggie, I'll find a place down here, I tell my mom. Oh right. Only 7 counties in NE Ohio still do e-check. Ugh. Tomorrow my mom and grandma are driving down to switch cars with me so that the van can be e-checked. I'm happy I get to see my grandma though!

Blase.

Tips at work have taken a tumble the past two nights compared to last week (and the week before). I'm hoping to make up the loss tonight by working until close (more tables!) and that it's a Saturday (just hope the kitchen doesn't get overloaded again...).

I hate that in order to find "good" living arrangements that start in September, we have to start looking NOW. Ugh. I'm going to be living with just boys next year, which is daunting, but I think I can deal (especially if I have my own bathroom). My female roommate this year just isn't going to work out for next year, on either my end or hers. I just hope that I can retain a friendship with her. I've been trying really hard since the new year to be agreeable and whatnot, and it seemed to be on the upswing--she was being more social on the whole. That seemed to fall apart last week due to a spat between herself and another roommate. I hope it resolves itself, and we can go back to cohesive roommates.

We saw Sweeney Todd last week, and I really liked it. I like Johnny Depp in his "dark" characters rather than as a "normal" person. A friend from work described it perfectly: "gory, yet whimsical".

It's a three-day weekend, yet I feel crunched for time. I hope I can study well enough for my exams coming up in the next two weeks, what with work and an alcohol "awareness" class I have to take for work. Blah!

Vacation Part Three

I'll try to finish out the vacay in this post. Then back to the daily grind of my boring life!

Day 5, Wednesday: We spent the whole day in Key West. We got there in the late morning (almost noontime) and broke into various groups. My group made our way down Duval Street (the main shopping/tourist drag) toward the Ernest Hemingway House. We shopped along the way (Ron Jon's Surf Shop, of course!), and ate lunch at a place called Willie T's. It was pretty yummy, my boyfriend and I shared a blackened mahi-mahi wrap and jalapeno poppers (I have a recent obsession with them!). The poppers were served with an orange marmelade-horseradish, which actually was a good compliment! The best part of lunch was feeding the chickens and roosters that hang out in the eating areas of all the outdoor restaurants. They were piggy little things. I made one jump up and down for french fries!

The piggy chicken! She wouldn't stand still long enough for me to touch her, only to feed her.

The Hemingway house was pretty cool, except that I had a bad headache from the sun and heat. I took copious amounts of pictures of the polydactyl cats while the rest of our group learned Hemingway trivia to share with the part of our vacation group that didn't join us. I absolutely loved the kitties and desperately wanted to pick them up and squeeze them, but that wasn't allowed (probably because they're not entirely tame!). In addition to being polydactyl (and descending from one cat--Snowball), many of the cats had calico coloring to them, including the tiger cats, such gorgeous coloring!! The stories of Hemingway and his house were pretty cool too, but I won't tell them just in case you ever want to hear them for yourself!

Note the shape of the paw--those are some extra toes in there!

We were supposed to have a meet up time of 3:00 with the other members of our vacation group, but we had walked a long way to get to Hemingway's house and had to walk a long way back (and on the opposite side of the street--more stores!!!) We met back up with our group late and of course, no one knew what we should do next (aside from those of us who were content with the shopping we missed while rushing back!). We chilled out, did a little shopping, then headed to the pier for the "Sunset Festival". This is Key West's street fair that celebrates the gorgeous sunset every night. There were all sorts of street performers, from the bawdy escapist, to the CatMan (CRAZY MAN). It was a lot of fun, and we followed it with dinner at a Cuban restaurant. I had never had Cuban before, so I was a little leery, but it was pretty good. I definitely want to try it again! A little more shopping and we headed back to the condos. Most everyone passed out at that point!

My boyfriend and I with the sunset!

Day 6, Thursday: We spent the morning lounging around and trying to decide what to do for the day. Eventually it was decided that we would head out on a fishing party boat for the afternoon. Twelve of the eighteen of us went, and it was a lot of fun. Until I was the only one not catching fish. Then I was grumpy, more about the fact that I felt like a failure and I knew people would make fun of me :-(. It was still cool being out on the ocean. In one of the spots we stopped at there was a plethora of jellyfish, and I was able to snap a good picture of a bunch of them! Again, a lot of activity and time in the sun was tiring and we spent the night relaxing. That's what vacation is all about, right?!

Jellyfish!!

Day 7, Friday: We went snorkeling! It was so cool, even though I was scared to death that I was going to drown (I'm not a good swimmer, especially in the middle of the OCEAN). The water was supposed to be calm, until we got to Sombrero Reef, where it picked up to 5 foot swells. SCARY. I wasn't in the water for long (combination of big waves and mouthfuls of saltwater), but the time I spent in there was cool. It was so awesome to get a glimpse of the underwater world! I don't have any pictures from that part of the trip because I didn't want to lose it overboard. Take my word for it though, I wore a wetsuit well! Hehe! After snorkeling, everyone did their own thing--the beach again, some napping (it was tiring in the ocean!), and some video gaming.

Day 8...our very last day...Saturday: We spent more time in Key West. We did a few tourist things (seeing the Southernmost Point), and did shopping for souvenirs (of course, everyone needed something!). The highlights were eating stone crab (the local crab variety) and drag queens. Delicious and hilarious!!

Delicious...
Hilarious! (That's my boyfriend on the left and his 14 year old brother on the right!)

Day 9 (and into Day 10): Time to clean the condos, pack the van, and hit the road. We drove straight through the night to get back to Cincinnati. It was a bit rough, but 22 hours later (exactly), we were able to stretch out our legs :-). The final part of fulfilling our "Livin' the Dream" was stopping to eat at Waffle House at 6:30 in the morning. It was delicious! (I had never been to one before, so it was quite the experience!).


And that concludes our Christmas trip to the Florida Keys. I miss it so much, and I can't wait to go back...I want to make the Keys my vacation destination!

Vacation Part Two

First, it's January 7th, and I'm wearing flip flops in Ohio. WTF?! Also, I would have posted sooner, but I've worked 23 hours over the weekend-y days, and I was too pooped to post.

Day 3, Monday (Christmas Eve): This was one of the boring days! We had breakfast, and I ate goetta for the first time. I've avoided in the past, part to be a pain in the butt to my boyfriend and part because I was scared of how it might taste. It was actually pretty damned good! I still refuse not to call it "peasant food", because IT IS. After breakfast, we spent a goodly amount of time in the pool and by the pool, until we kids decided it was time to explore Marathon. We went to the world's smallest K-Mart (maybe not smallest, but pretty close!), then to a few "tourist" stores like "Goofy Gecko" and "Krazy Larry's Last Store". They had lots of Florida Keys trinkets, but it was all very expensive. I did find a sand dollar ornament (to commemorate the trip) that I went back for later in the week. We then drove further south on the overseas highway and went to the "sister" resort to the one we were staying in. They had actual beach, whereas we had grass then the Gulf, but it was more crowded and more...tourist-y really. They had a bar on the beach, and jet ski rental (at $95 an hour...yikes!), and a mini-golf course, but we all decided that we liked ours better! I collected a small handful of shells before we decided to leave. From there we headed back toward our place, stopping at Walgreen's first for bait (for my boyfriend's cousin) and liquor (yes, the liquor store was part of the Walgreen's).

White sand beaches at the other resort. I'm only jealous of the sunset views they must've had.

Once home, we changed for Christmas Eve mass, and went to mass. The church we went to had a "prayer" garden that was decked out for Christmas with lots of lights, which was very pretty. I wanted to go back later in the week to take pictures, but never got around to it. Dinner was had (again, with 18 people, dinner is always a production!) and we all relaxed for the evening. Until a drunken trip to Walgreen's, which was pure hilarity. I'm surprised they didn't kick us out of Walgreen's!

This is our best Christmas picture! And it's actually taken on Christmas Eve!

Day 4, Christmas!: Instead of lugging the normal piles and piles of presents to Florida, we did a $7 secret Santa instead. It was pretty fun, and I hope that if we do it again, I'll be able to bargain hunt for great gifts better (the aunts were able to go to estate sales and get awesome things for very cheap!). The highlight of the exchange was when my boyfriend's cousin proposed to his girlfriend (of almost 8 years). I was very confused at first, because the ring was packaged and slipped in her stocking (and was the last thing she opened) and I was her secret Santa. I kept thinking...I didn't wrap that! What's that?! It was pretty cool, and I'm happy for the two of them! After lunch, we went to Bahia Honda beach and spent several hours there--in the ocean, collecting shells, building sandcastles, and watching the sunset. A very different Christmas from all others I've had!!
Merry Xmas in the sand. It matched our shirts for the occasion (we all had matching shirts, because we're dorks like that!).

The promised picture of me touching the ocean. I was unaware that he was only taking pictures of my feet!

After Christmas dinner (featuring my heart attack potatoes), we opened up a coconut we had managed to knock down from one of the palms out the back of our condos. It was a lot of fun, but the coconut was disappointing in the end (it didn't have a lot of flavor). I was still impressed with the fact that we managed to open a coconut with nothing but brute force! Other than that...we were all tired out, again. I think I managed to get to bed before midnight (or just after) almost every night we were there. It helped that we usually woke up before 8!

The coconut, as it was when it was knocked out of the tree.

After opening!

Christmas Vacation--In Chunks

Since I'm back to being busy with school and work, I'm going to try and recount my trip in a few posts. Let's start, shall we?

Day 1, Saturday: We awoke very early to pack the van and hit the road. I'm pretty impressed with my boyfriend's family's new van, the Honda Odyssey. Unlike my van, it has a lot of trunk space, and we all fit with all the crap pretty nicely. I can fit in most any vehicle nicely, seeing as I sit like a pretzel, but that's beside the point. We drove and drove, hitting traffic only south of Hot-lanta (Atlanta). We stopped in Ocala (Florida) for the night after driving 15 1/2 hours (with meal breaks, driver switches/potty stops). A good first day of traveling, for sure!

Sadly, it was dark when we reached Florida, so no awesome pictures of us with the sign. Such is life.

Day 2, Sunday: Started out with DENSE fog. Quarter mile visibility, lame! We made it through, and were planning on stopping in Ft. Lauderdale to meet up with my boyfriend's dad at Sam's Club (we needed to stock up on food for 18 people!). Last minute, our plans changed, and we were headed to a Sam's Club in Miami. This is where the trip down turned ugly. Somehow, streets and avenues were transposed, and we found ourselves in Little Havana. I assure you, there is no Sam's Club in Little Havana. It took us a long time to figure out this mistake, but with the help of Walgreen's and my brother at home, we managed to find where we needed to be. It was a crappy few hours, but since that was the worst part of the whole vacation, I'm glad it happened early!Awesome building somewhere in Miami. It was interesting to see Miami and the very apparent different culture.

After stocking up on the supplies, we got on the road. At this point, we had a Tom-Tom navigation system (given to us by my boyfriend's aunt's nephew, co0nfused yet?), and the navigation lady was pretty fierce. We missed a turn, and she starts insisting we "turn around as soon as possible" and "make a u-turn now". We ignored her and ended up where we needed to be anyway. We stayed on roughly the middle key (Marathon Key) at the Indigo Reef Resort. It's a fairly new (less than a year) resort with "timeshare" type condos. We had 3 in a row, and it was very awesome. The first several days we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves...until after Christmas. Everyone showed up to the condos around the same time, and it was a relief to be able to shower and change out of my "road clothes". Dinner was had, wine and beer were drunk, and everyone hit the hay pretty early.

This trip was the first time I saw the ocean, and my one of my boyfriend's brothers was kind enough to have a photoshoot of my first time seeing the ocean. Coming up--the first time I touched the ocean.

Happy New Year's Eve!

Well, we're back from Florida. We left yesterday morning at 10:45 and drove straight through getting home at 8:46 this morning. I'm pretty exhausted, but I don't want to sleep the day away, you know?

The trip was great and once I'm back at school, I'll make a post with the stories and pictures of the trip.


Happy New Year's!

Panic Mode!

So, it's getting down to the wire on my upcoming holiday trip and I'm panicking about packing. We're driving, and with 6 people in a minivan plus luggage, it's imperative that we pack efficiently! I have a small suitcase, but I decided that it wasn't the best, so yesterday I bought a biggish duffle bag (being that it's entirely soft, it'll "fit" better). This is a great plan, except that my suitcase is already packed and waiting for me in Columbus to finish the last minute things I have here at home. Ack. I'm also having difficulty because I have to pack for Florida and a few days at the end of the trip in Cincinnati. Sigh, it's the typical panic. It'll all work out!

I leave for Columbus on Friday morning, and get picked up and taken to Cincy on Friday afternoon. Bright and early Saturday we'll be on the road and in Florida on Sunday. Excitement!

New Shoes...

I've been looking casually for new dress shoes for quite awhile. I had a pair of black ballerina flats that I gave up wearing a long time ago (too tight in the toe box to wear for very long) and have since worn either my black knee high boots (fabulous boots) or a pair of Steve Madden slides (most comfortable dress-ish shoes ever). Neither really cuts the cake as dressy enough, especially when I don't want to wear knee high boots with a skirt. So anytime I was in Famous Footwear (far too often), I'd look and perhaps try on a pair or two without really finding anything that worked.

I decided that my trip to Florida required a pair of dress shoes, both for Christmas Mass and any fancy restaurants we might attend. I began my search online, but didn't really see anything I liked. I looked at Kohl's--same result. Today I spent an absurd amount of time in Famous Footwear and walked away with two pair of shoes (I'm not entirely sure I'll keep both).

First, a pair of Connie peep toe pumps:

I like these because they're classic with a twist. They fit the best of all the shoes I tried on, so they won by default.

And these Bandolino flats:
These are actually similar to my now too small ballarina flats. I'm considering keeping both because these fit decently without any adjustment and are good for being dressy while still being okay for walking long distances (to class, etc).

Of course, to make either pair actually fit I need heel liners (both pair) and gel ball-of-foot insoles to prevent my foot from sliding forward (the pumps). The woes of having very narrow heels! I'm pretty happy I found shoes that might work (and they better work for quite awhile! too much hassle...). I wish my feet were easier to please in the shoe department!

Year In Review....

I was reading through some of my old posts, and I didn't realize that I started blogger last December! It feels like much less time than that.

So what has happened to me this year? I found a great place to live with some seemingly great roommates, only to find out that sometimes living with friends is a bad idea, even when they're good friends. I packed up and moved my belongings without much help from my mommy (I'm a grown-up!). I also realized just how much of my grandmother is instilled in me. I firmly decided on the optometry career path, and thought I'd be done with school by now, but as it turns out, I'll still be taking a class in Spring (though I'll be graduating in March). I've alternately enjoyed school (Women in Film, Psychology) and loathed in (Electronic Properties of Ceramic Materials). I survived my 14th quarter at OSU. I attended graduation for the first time, for my roommate. I embarked on some culinary adventures--some failures, some successes. My family has had to deal with some hard times, both within my small 6-person family unit, and my extended family. My mommy lost her job, and got it "back" in a different capacity. My boyfriend's mom thanked me for being part of her family which was a great moment. I got a job for the first time in years and it only took the better part of a month and a half. More importantly, I enjoy my job, and am very excited to work again once I'm back for school. And to top off the year, I'm going to the Florida Keys with my second family (my almost in-laws, really) and I couldn't ask for a better Christmas gift.

Overall, I think this has been a good year. There have been some hairy times more recently, but overall it was good.

How has your 2007 been?