Run, Eat, Date, Sleep

I saw Heather do this, so I thought I’d join in.

A. Age: 29. I’m surprisingly not too scared to turn 30. I’m actually looking forward to being a true “adult”.

B. Bed size: Queen. When I get the new house, I plan on buying a king-size bed.

C. Chore you hate:  Unloading the dishwasher. Although it takes a grand total of 4 minutes, I hate it.

D. Dogs: I’ve never had a dog, and I really want to adopt one!

E. Essential start to your day: Coffee and meds.. lol!

F. Favorite color: I actually don’t have a favorite color. I like certain colors used in particular ways, like I love orange walls and pink hoodies. But neither one of those colors are a favorite.

G. Gold or silver: Silver

H. Height: 5’6”.

I. Instruments you play: I used to play the clarinet in middle school. Ok, I take that back. I sat there pretending to play. I don’t think the teacher ever figured that out.

J. Job title: Licensed Mortgage Loan Officer and Senior Loan Processor.

K. Kids: Chances are I can’t have children, and I’ll probably never get married, so I’m looking in to adoption. I don’t plan to adopt until I’m 35 or 36, but it’s good to do the research.

L. Live: About 20 minutes from the beach in Delaware

M. Mom’s name: Mom.. I gotta protect her identity, mkay?

N. Nicknames: My brother calls me Dreenie. My co-workers at Disney called me “Bucket”. One day I was complaining to my manager about having to serve huge teams of people, and I felt more comfortable waiting on tables of families, so he told me I needed to expand my preferences to different “buckets” of guests, and it took off from there.

O. Overnight hospital stays: Just when I was born.

P. Pet peeve: People who hang all over the treadmill while walking or running. NO HANDS ON THE TREADMILL!

Q. Quote from a movie: From G.I. Jane “I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A bird will fall frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself." D.H. Lawrence

R. Right or left handed: Right.

S. Siblings: My brother is four years older than me. We’re extremely close. He’s married with a 10-year old son.

T. Time you wake up: 7:00 on weekdays. Whenever I’m woken up by my daily phone call on the weekends.

U. Underwear: Victoria’s Secret hiphugger briefs

V. Vegetables you dislike: Lima beans.

W. What makes you run late: I’m late for work every single day. But I think that’s because my hours are flexible because I work for my family. But I’m always on time for my part-time job. I get stuck reading blogs on my iPhone in the morning, so I imagine that doesn’t help me get to work on time.

X. X-Rays you’ve had: Teeth, ankle, feet, wrist, middle toe. I broke my left wrist while rollerskating when I was 8, and I broke my left middle toe when I was a senior in high school by jamming it against a chair in the kitchen. I may or may not have been dancing in the kitchen when this happened.

Y. Yummy food you make:  My family loves when I make my chicken roll.

Z. Zoo- favorite animal: Elephants!

Pick a letter and share with me!

And if you did the blogging abc game, share the link!

{one} do you always wear your seatbelt in the car?

Yes, all the time

{two} do you crack your knuckles?

Nope. I usually stretch my fingers instead of cracking them.

{three} what is your favorite flavor of gum?

Watermelon

{four} what is your favorite piece of jewelry that you own?

A pearl and diamond necklace

{five} who is your best friend?

Besides my parents and brother? I have a few- Ellen, Brandy, and Ashley

Ellen and I met when we were 10 years old and on the country club’s swim team.

Brandy lives in Florida, so I rarely see her, but that doesn’t mean I don’t consider her one of my very best friends. In fact, we’ve dubbed each other “non-sexual soulmates”.

Ashley and I have been close friends since we moved in together for the Walt Disney World College Program in the summer of 2003. From that day, we’ve told each other everything, and we still chat daily on gChat.

{six} what is your favorite smell?

Pumpkin candles

{seven} what is your favorite lunch meat?

Boar’s Head Turkey.

{eight} do you still have your tonsils?

Yes.

{nine} do you untie your shoes before you take them off?

Not unless they are new running shoes.

{ten} what color is your car?

Black

Since I know most of us (if not all of us) are trying to live a bit more frugal these days, I thought I’d share my tips on how to save money.

• Turn off all lights, computers, TVs, etc. when not in use
• Turn down the heat/AC when we’re not home
• Join a coupon train. You receive coupons in the mail from someone on the train, take out the ones you want, add the ones from your newspaper, then send on. I have found them on Yahoo Groups and DisBoards.
• Buy the Sunday paper for coupons and grocery store circulars
• Cash in a change jar at the end of every month. Last month’s jar was around $15.
• Sell things on eBay
• Get a part-time job, and even better, get a job where you can use the discount. For example, I’m going to be working at the gym, and my membership will be free! That’s an extra $53 in my pocket every month!
• Buy store brand cereals, paper products, and any other grocery items that come in a store brand
• Go through your budget and cut out unnecessary expenses. I recently signed up for Hulu.com for $9/month just to catch up on Grey’s Anatomy, and I cut it as soon I was done catching up.
• Call you creditors to see if they can drop the interest rate.
• Call your utility companies to ask for savings. I called Comcast recently and told them I had to cancel because I couldn’t afford the $150/month bill anymore. They dropped it to $90/month to save me as a customer. And that $90 is for my cable and internet. I tried giving up cable completely, and I lasted a month or two, but I love it too much. My gas company also helped me by spreading out my bills over the year. The bill can be $400/month in the winter and barely anything in the summer, so by spreading it over the year, the average bill is $100. No more surprises in the winter!
• Set up a budget for groceries and going out to eat. Try to drink water or tea instead of alcoholic beverages when eating out.
• Cook big dinners and then freeze the rest for another time.
• Eat more vegetables instead of high-priced snacks like chips.
• Only run the dishwasher and washing machine with full loads
• Pay bills online to save stamps and checks
• Ask convenience stores how much they charge for water out of the fountain soda machine. Wawa (a regional store around here) doesn’t charge, so I pick up a water whenever I go in.
• When you get a gift card for birthday or Christmas, don’t use it right away. Wait until you absolutely need something to use it. For example, I’m running low on “extra” money to go out with friends to dinner, so I’m going to use a $50 gift certificate I got for Christmas to a local, “fine dining” restaurant. That way, I still feel like I’m treating myself to something nice while my bank account is running low. I’m also saving a gift card I got to a salon for a pedicure to use right before “open toe” shoe weather comes back. If you get a gift card to a clothing store, for example, wait until you need that perfect interview outfit for a new job or the perfect dress for a wedding you’ve been invited to. Don’t just go spend it just because.
• Sign up for Swagbucks. You can earn points for searching for websites on their search engine. You can also earn points for completing quizzes and such. For just a few minutes a day, you can earn enough points to redeem them for $5 Amazon gift cards and other prizes. I’m usually not one to promote something like this, but it worked for me. I got a $5 Amazon gift card after spending just 2 minutes a day on the site for 2 weeks. It’s worth it to me!
• Ask your doctor for samples of your prescriptions. Mine gives me a pack of BCP every time I go, so that saves me $60!
• Use Mint.com for your finances! You can add all of your bank accounts and credit card accounts to your Mint.com account, and it will send you a weekly summary of your finances. Luckily, the only reason I knew I was late on a credit card recently was because of Mint.com and their courtesy email. I thought I had paid it, but I hadn’t. A 30-day late payment could have cost me a dent in my credit score and possibly the approval on my new house!
• Sell your books
• Instead of buying new books, swap!
• Instead of subscribing to a bunch of magazines, find out from your friends which ones they subscribe to and swap with them when you’re done!
• Buy your clothes at thrift stores or Plato’s Closet. Better yet, sell your clothes to Plato’s Closet. They only take brand names and “newer” styles though.

Ok, I must get to the gym! What are your tips to save money?

Happy Valentine’s Day from my little Valentine!

Ella loves you all!

Since I am the Queen of “Getting Ahead of Yourself”, I’ve started collecting some ideas for the rooms in my (hopefully) soon-to-be home.

I know I’ve kept you all in the dark with which one I picked. This is it!

The sellers have agreed to my offer, and now it’s on to their bank for their short sale approval. Their lien is with a local bank, so this could be a short process, but who knows. The average timeframe is 3-6 months for a short sale approval.

So, on to the topic of the post.. decorating!

I plan on turning the master bedroom, which now looks like this…

into this…

with dark grey paint, light blue quilt, my current Pottery Barn flowery sham for a pop of color, and silver accents.

And the office that currently looks like this…

into this…

with a SATC movie-esque paint color, small white desk, and the Pottery Barn organization system. And I say small desk because I really don’t want to move my real work home. It needs to stay there so I don’t stress about it. So my home office will be for paying bills and possibly scrapbooking.

That’s it for now. I have more ideas in my head for a guest room, yoga room, library, and living room! The house is big, so I better start putting money away for furniture!!!

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Have you checked out my new blogroll page? If you’re not on there and would love to be, just give me the link to your blog, and I’ll put you on there!

As you might already know, I went house hunting on Saturday. As much as I want to tell you all which one I’ve picked, I can’t tell you just yet. I saw four houses, and I narrowed it down to one. Now, I just need to get the commitment letter from the lender before making the offer.

On Sunday, Ellen and I had big plans!

We started off at the gym to run. She’s on week 3 of Couch to 5k, and I’m on week 2. I finished 2.32 miles in 29:30, a pace of 12:42. I didn’t drop below a 10 minute mile while running. Woohoo! Week 2 is 90 seconds of running with 2 minute walking intervals. The program calls for 20 minutes, but I did 30 minutes with a 5 minute warm-up and 5 minute cool-down.

After running, Ellen taught me her 20-minute full-body weight lifting routine. It was awesome, and I’m feeling that “good sore” today.

We made our way to Starbucks for lunch where I got a tall iced raspberry no-fat latte and a roasted vegetable panini. Mmmmm!

We made it to the theater just in time for Black Swan!

Psychological thriller? They weren’t kidding! Natalie Portman did an amazing job, and she will certainly earn that Oscar! I was surprised to see Winona Ryder in the movie. I just didn’t picture her as the washed-up ballerina type. And I knew there would be some sort of lesbian scene, but I wasn’t expecting THAT!

After dinner, we had happy hour at Stingray, our all-time favorite sushi place. We started off with steamed edamame.

The Happy Hour special is buy one, get one free on select sushi rolls, so I got 2 rolls of Hairy Mexican, which is fried shrimp, avocado and spicy sauce inside topped with crab stick and eel sauce. Delicious! I added a third roll of Philly just to have leftovers.

Everything was delicious, and the service was outstanding as usual!

I didn’t have any desire to watch the Superbowl, so I caught up with Young and the Restless and Criminal Minds on the DVR. But I did read all about how people thought Christina and the Black Eyed Peas sucked. In regards to Christina botching up the lyrics, the girl is HUMAN! No one can be perfect all the time. I am certain she knows the words by heart, and the pressure got to her. I caught the clip of it this morning on The Today Show, and I really didn’t notice her mistake. I really have no opinion on the half-time show because I didn’t catch any of it.

(Sorry for the poor picture quality. I only had my iPhone.)

If you saw Black Swan, what were your thoughts?