It's been a while

I haven't updated in a while. Here's the summary -

-Chris had spring. He slept a lot. We had the mantel my parents gave us for Christmas installed (finally).
-I got sick.
-Went to three different McDonald's on St. Patrick's Day and they were ALL out of Shamrock Shakes. Completely disappointing. Yes, I could have gotten the vanilla shake, added green food coloring and peppermint extract myself, and made my own. But that is no fun. Calories saved, frown created.
-I took Wednesday off and we went to the driving range. That was fun.
-I went to Abilene this weekend. Saw a lot of family. Went to a wedding. Carpooled with Fowler.
-Am back at work; Chris is back at school.
-Am still coughing from my sickness and that is getting old after a week.
- Tomorrow I am going to see Les Miserables and am very excited!

Upromise

I have been meaning to write a little post about Upromise for a while but keep forgetting. I have been signed up with Upromise since 2002 but kind of forgot about it. I rediscovered it late in 2006. Since then we have saved more than $500. This money is transferred quarterly to my dear student loan company, Sallie Mae, to help pay down my loans.

The service is free. We have had the Upromise credit card for about a year and half and this is were the bulk of our savings has come from. (The card is in the process of switching from Citibank to Bank of America so I am not entirely sure if you can sign up for it right now.)

For those of you with kids of your own you can put Upromise funds in a 529 plan to save for your own kids college. Or pay your own student loans. Or save for your niece or nephew's college. The money can be transferred to anyone.

Upromise is a program that has been very beneficial for us and since it is free to use I encourage others to try it out for themselves.

Chris is on spring break.

This weekend my father in law came to visit. Unfortunately he was sick a bit but I think he enjoyed himself. On Friday I had to work but he and Chris made a day out of watching basketball. That night we rented and watched "The Changeling". So good.

Saturday we went to the Museum of Natural Science. Chris and I had gone once before but only to see a special exhibit. Saturday we saw 2 of 3 floors of the general exhibit. We also went to the Imax "Into the Deep 3D" show and "Passport to the Universe (narrated by Tom Hanks)" at the planetarium. We had fun but Chris' dad started feeling bad so we skipped the last floor and came back home. The basketball watching resumed.

He left early yesterday morning so we continued our laziness. We watched "Milk" first. This was a good movie. I'm pleased that Sean Penn won the Academy Award for his roll in this movie. Then we watched "Australia". I did like the movie but wish Baz Luhrmann had done a little more with Hugh Jackman's character. And maybe edited out about 30-45 minutes of it. At just under 3 hours it was a little slow. But beautifully shot.

In between the movies we went to see a few properties near us. There are a couple of condo complexes near us that just finished construction and are now for sale. Being our nosy selves we wanted to see what they were like. At the first one we almost immediately walked out and didn't look because the salesmen was hideously condescending. After insulting the way Chris was dressed and telling me I looked like I was 12 another sales person ran him away. After looking at the units we weren't impressed. They were priced too high for the quality of materials in the units. They tried to pass some obvious foundational settling off as hurricane damage. We then went to a second property that we were impressed with. It had great views of downtown and the medical center. Love it.

I think if Chris doesn't have to go to school I shouldn't have to go to work. Boo.

Student loan minor victory!

As you probably know many student loan lenders offer incentives that if you make X number of payments within X period of time they will decrease your interest rate by a certain percentage. Well, since I make at least two or three payments a month I have apparently hit that number on one of my two loans and the interest rate dropped by half a percentage point. This made irrationally happy this morning.

Krista, a college friend, and I have been planning a girls trip for a while. We originally were planning on Costa Rica but since we have both gotten new jobs and need to be more conservative with our vacation time. So now we're thinking long weekend in New York City. I think we'll go in late May or early June. NYC is a location that has taunted me for years. I have had more opportunities to go there than anywhere else in the world but for whatever reason something always comes up and I cannot go. I'm hoping this works out. We're thinking Memorial Day weekend or the first weekend in June. I'm so anxious for a vacation.

Bad at multi-tasking?

As I got ready for work this morning I had the Today show on as I usually do. I caught a segment discussing the multitasking habits of President Obama. Apparently some people are of the idea that he is doing too much and should focus on the economy only since it's going down the pipes so quickly.

Really? We're in the middle of two wars, have one of the most ridiculous health care systems in the world, are constantly ranked as behind other countries in education,and he's supposed to only focus on the economy? Granted the education and health care systems have been horrible for so many years I don't think a few more will kill us, but I found it surprising that anyone would accuse him of doing too much by focusing on more than one task. Unfortunately the economy won't be fixed anytime soon. It took years to dig ourselves into the position we're in and it's going to take time to repair it. We can't just sit back and not participate in world affairs because of it.

Something new every day

Chris and I have been married for over four years and I just learned today that the man didn't know how to pop microwave popcorn. Granted I am the popcorn eater and therefore I usually make it but how is he 25 and never popped popcorn in the microwave!? I'm shocked!

In other news We Cheer is a super fun game. If you have a Wii you should look into it!

It's Friday!

I have had a stressful week at work and am very pleased it is finally Friday.

I got my car out of the shop this morning. The damage wasn't too bad but we were reminded that my water pump is leaking a bit and so in a couple of months we'll put it back in the shop and get that replaced.

Chris has one more week until spring break. Two more tests to go. My father in law arrives Thursday and he'll be here until Sunday I believe. We're probably going to go to the Museum of Natural Science and see the Genghis Khan and Birth of Christianity: A Jewish Story exhibits. Chris has already planned all the restaurants he wants to go to with his dad. Beyond that we have no plans.

I aggravated my shin splints again this weekend so I'm going to go to a running store this weekend to get fitted for shoes. Maybe that will help.

I found a boot camp that meets on Saturdays. Since my normal boot camp was canceled all week (Rice's spring break) I think I'll go to that tomorrow and see how it is. It's a women's only group so that is probably good. That is from 9-10 so I have plenty of time to come back and go to hip hop at 11. Or maybe I'll walk in the stroke 5k. I'll do something tomorrow.

Then tomorrow night I'm going with a group to see Watchmen at the IMAX. I love superhero movies so I'm excited.

Happy weekend!

Updates: the shopping challenge and weight loss effort

As the weather starts to change I find that I am in short supply of professional attire for the summer. In the past I have always been able to get by with tshirts and other less than nice clothing. In the past few weeks I have purchased a few short sleeve shirts, some skirts, and a few dresses that I can wear to work or really any occasion. I actually like some of the clothes out this season so that always helps. Some slightly more classic looks are in fashion instead of this 1980s crap that has been around the past couple of years.

Since the beginning of the year I have been running, doing boot camp, and taking the hip hop class. And I haven't lost a pound. However I have some muscle definition in my stomach that hasn't been there since high school, my arms and legs are tighter and I've lost a couple inches in my hips/waist so I'm pleased. I'm right around 2 miles in running now. I'm trying to work on running outside more but that is a lot harder for me than on the treadmill. We are having really high pollen counts and it keeps triggering my asthma. It drives me crazy. I probably need to schedule a doctor's appointment to see about a different inhaler but I am procrastinating. I haven't been to a doctor in at least 5 years.

My tomato plant is in bloom again so I'm pleased. My oregano has spread like crazy so I need to figure out what to do to keep that under control. I also want to look into some other kinds of veggies I can grow. I may see if I can get broccoli and lettuce. I'll have to make a trip to the nursery this weekend.

The Current State of the Union

The economy clearly is in a mess. Our fearless political leaders have chosen to "stimulate" the economy by handing out billions of dollars of bailout money to banks and organizations that couldn't run themselves properly to begin with. Since they weren't careful with their own money it's perfectly logical to assume that they will be very careful with taxpayer money, right? Yea, I thought so too.

And now info has been released that dear Ron Kirk, Austin College alum, former mayor of Dallas, and Barack Obama's pick for Trade Secretary, is also behind on taxes. Does this make the fourth or fifth potential cabinet pick that couldn't be bothered to pay their taxes? What's going on there? I know it's not fun to write a check to the government but come on!

And today the Senate voted to keep $410 billion of earmarks into their spending bill. Excellent use of money the government does not have. These types of earmarks are sometimes good for the constituency but often are for ridiculous projects that could be paid for with nongovernmental funding. However it's very important at election time to tell your constituency that you brought in $X to the area. What has the opponent done for you? Probably nothing since they are running against you and most likely haven't had a chance to get their hands on government money yet.


I am fine with higher taxes but I'm concerned about exactly how high they will have to be to pay for all this crap.