bow ties, etc.

how does one become a bow tie wearer? i was just in the elevator with a guy who couldn't be much older than me in a bow tie. definitely under 35, and i hesitate to use that as an upper limit because he looks under 30, wearing tasseled loafers, gray suit pants, white shirt ... and a pink bow tie with a gray/black pattern. hmm. for the 50+ age group, it still looks a little odd in daily business, but it's a little bit more understandable - it's just so confusing on a person who's more or less my age. primarily because i'm just not sure how or when that develops - do you graduate from college, buy your first real business suit, and say, "you know what? bow tie," or what?

in other news, saturn is being shut down for good, and i feel oddly triumphant. i feel very unpatriotic saying that, but it's true. i do feel bad for the people who worked at saturn ... but as a brand, oh well.

i finished reading wasted this afternoon - wow, what an intense book. it's hard to believe the author was only 23 at the time she wrote it. at that point, she was 4 years into recovery, and by age 19 had struggled with full-blown anorexia and bulimia, substance abuse, extreme promiscuity, had been hospitalized and institutionalized multiple times, and weighed as little as 52 pounds. sheesh. like i said, intense. she apparently also wrote another memoir about her bipolar disorder, as she was diagnosed with that once the eating disorder stuff subsided. i have it on hold at the library; i feel so voyeuristic. (in the commonly used sense, not in the traditional sexual sense - ick.)

also, i remember today why i do not typically wear dress pants. well, okay, a) because i don't have to. but b) because the ones i own come up way too high on me and dig into my stomach. not a comfy feeling. could be remedied by purchasing low-mid rise dress pants ... or by wearing my comfy jeans to work and yoga/pajama pants at home. stacy and clinton on what not to wear always say that they hate hearing people use the word "comfort" in relation to deciding what to wear, and i get that, really i do, but it's kind of a major player in my wardrobe choices. i try to look decent in my comfort, though - no flannel pants with cartoon characters here.

monday monday

my office closed at 1:15 today in honor of yom kippur - apparently we were supposed to have the whole day off, but the word didn't get out in time. ah well, still a fabulous half-day off! on the drive home, i had grand plans of going for a run, vaccuming, and doing some laundry ... but by the time i got home, that downgraded to reading in bed and making dinner before scott got home. haha. it was quite pleasant.

i'm reading a book called wasted , which is a memoir of the author's life with both bulimia and anorexia. it's fascinating, but super intense. i started reading it over the weekend in winter park, but quickly decided that for a quiet and relaxing weekend in the mountains, an annual re-reading of anne of green gables was more in order.

tonight was the first meeting of the year for whiz kids - tutors only this week, but we start back wtih the kids next monday. i'm looking forward to it, but i really want to be more proactive in deciding what i do with my kid this year. (i'm good with the reading, so-so with the math stuff, and usually just cop out and let him play the allowance game with his buddies during game time.) the pioneer woman has a homeschooling section that suggests some great games and activities to do with kids, so i think i'll take a look.

my weekend in the mountains

wow, so winter park was fun. jordan's parents bought a partial share of a huge house up there with a bunch of the dad's old frat brothers, and let me say it is the nicest timeshare i've ever seen. granite counters, 1.5 stove/oven, two dishwashers, five bedrooms totaling sleeping space for 19 (i think), six bathrooms, two living rooms, four big flat panel tvs, hot tub and gas fireplace on the bottom level deck, and dining area and sitting area on the upper deck ... wow. oh, plus, the house backs up to a wetland area or something so it won't be developed, and beyond that you have an unobstructed view over the ski runs. it was beautiful.

beyond the amazing house, though, we had a lot of fun hanging out with our friends. we went up to trail ridge road in rocky mountain national park and oh my goodness, what a view! from the little snow storm we had last week, a lot of the mountains have a light dusting of snow right now, and it makes them super pretty. also very chilly. goo had to get back to denver to babysit, so we split up and mike and jordan took her back to the house to get her car, along with mak so that she could get a nap, while scott drove the rest of the girls up trail ridge road. other than that, we played some games, i got a stomachache from too much diet mt. dew, and we sat on the patio and chatted. (the girls also did a short hike to a waterfall in grand lake while waiting for the guys to meet up with us - they took a wrong turn on the way from the house and ended up in kremmling!) oh, and kinley offered to let me chew on the ratty corner of her blankie that she always chews on, which was very sweet. haha. all in all, very relaxing. i'm working on getting the pics uploaded on facebook as we speak.

i'm not ready for this summer to be over! being up in the mountains, with all of the aspens turned bright yellow and the snow on the peaks, it's becoming painfully obvious that summer is done, fall is here, and winter is right around the corner. i know i like fall and winter, too, but summer's just so fun - particularly this last summer with all of our fabulous little vacations. fall makes me melancholy.

(and just to clarify from my last post, i'm not pregnant. i think we've established that i enjoy looking at baby-related stuff, and have several good friends who are pregnant, thus i extra enjoy looking at baby-related stuff. so the comment about the maternity yoga pants was merely a mental note, not a veiled hint.)

winter park in the fall

hoorah! we're off for a weekend of fun in winter park. a friend's parents have a timeshare up there that our friends were able to get, so 7 of us are headed up to hang out and relax and hike and have fun. i'm very much looking forward to it. i'm packing jeans because there's a good chance it's chilly up there, and we'll likely leave the house at some point - but other than that, yoga pants, baby. yoga. pants. which i do not use for yoga. (i sadly realized the other day that my favorite old navy yoga pants do not come in a short size in maternity. actually,

two things that make me extra excited: 1) goo is able to go. she wasn't planning on it originally because it can be awkward hanging out with married couples when you're not, but she decided last minute that she'll give us a whirl for a day. 2) the macs are able to go. they'd been planning on it all along, but last weekend, kinley mysteriously started crying, and didn't stop for like four days. they went to the doctor on day 2 to no avail. she's apparently very tired but recovering now, which means her parents are recovering, which means they're coming up.

now i just need to finish packing.

omega

i found this article on omega-3s vs omega-6s, today, and i thought it was super interesting. basically, the premise is that omega-3s are fats that animals tend to consume in the spring that lead to high energy, whereas omega-6s are fats that animals consume in the fall that aid in hibernation. the modern diet is far richer in omega-6s than it is in omega-3s, thus our bodies are storing more fat and slowing down which is causing our obesity epidemic. he even links the food that animals are fed to the problem - cows used to graze on grass, which is high in omega-3s, thus they produced milk, cheese, and meat that's high in omega-3; now they're fed grains, which are higher in omega-6s, so our consumables are high in omega-6. fascinating, no?

tmi

what is up with the american need to have everything in our lives out in the open? i'm on facebook and i blog, clearly, but that doesn't mean i post every detail of our lives - there are certain things i'll talk about with friends and family that will never be published on ye olde www.

mackenzie phillips, on the other hand ... wow. things i have learned about her this morning include: her dad got her into drugs, she had sex with mick jagger at a currently undisclosed age, and she was raped by her father the night before her first wedding, resulting in her having an affair with him for 10 years. EWWWWW. eew eew eew. why did i need to know any of those things, mackenzie phillips? you go to therapy to discuss these things, not try to re-launch your career by writing it all down in a book that will be a bestseller simply because it's too sensational not to. other than shifting some of the blame for her drug problems off of herself and onto her now dead father, i don't think the world knowing the sordid details of your severely screwed up life will solve anything.

fun facts about snow in september

alas, the dusting of snow we got yesterday was indeed not enough to be an "official" snow, but my handy local news station does have some fun facts about fall snow in denver:

- denver's earliest snowfall was sept. 3, 1961
- september averages 2.1 inches of snowfall in denver
- the average date for the first snowfall is oct. 19; last year, the first snow fell on nov. 14

i had no idea we average 2 inches of snow in september! we just washed our cars (by hand, in our very own driveway) on saturday - had i known we might get snow, i think i would have waited. except that wally is pretty and white again, so maybe not. anyway, i am yet again glad that we live in the denver metro rather than the foothills or the tiny towns around (particularly south) the area - they're predicting 6-12" in the foothills and along the palmer divide. we may get an inch or two, but most likely just rain. and thankfully after that, colorado will return to its normal sunny self - i say thankfully because we're heading up to winter park with some friends this weekend, and i would rather have the predicted 55-60* sun than the current 30* snow.

plot generator

i love online generators. i was just reading a review of dan brown's latest book on the slate online, and at the bottom there was a link to an interactive dan brown plot generator. i was intrigued, and i think it's hilarious. you can choose a city and a group - say, chicago and the boy scouts of america, and you get a plot line about an ancient and secret branch of the boy scouts and their plot against their mortal enemy, the vatican, involving lake michigan, the art institute, the clothier of the swiss guard, and davy crockett. it's pretty fabulous.

i think dan brown writes really good fun fiction, but as i was describing angels and demons to scott and started with, "so this researcher in switzerland has discovered antimatter and someone steals it to destroy the vatican," he just started laughing.

i also saw a generator last week for a kanye apology (in light of him stealing the mic from taylor swift during her acceptance speech at the vma's and saying that beyonce's video was way better than taylor's, then giving a really half-aced apology), but it wasn't quite as well constructed, so i won't bother with a link to that. the concept made me laugh, though.

comfy cozy

wow, so denver has now had it's official first snow of the year! official in my terms, at least - ie, i could see flakes of snow falling from the window of my office. weather people probably require accumulation or something, which we didn't get - i think it turned to rain by the time it got to the ground. a friend just south of the metro area posted picture on facebook of a good 1/2 inch of snow on her deck, though. i wore a sweater and close-toed shoes today (which is worth noting as i've work flip flops for everything except hiking since, like, april) but didn't think to bring a jacket to work, so i really hope i don't have to spend much time outside.

even though it was quite lovely out this weekend, i more or less spent all weekend in the same outfit - tshirt i got from target for $8 on friday and am smitten with, tank top because the v-neck is a little low cut for me, and yoga pants. i think i changed into that friday night as soon as i got home from target, wore real clothes to have coffee with a friend on saturday morning, but changed back into my comfy clothes to hang out with mike and maura saturday night, and back into it again after church on sunday. i've officially become "that person". and i'm okay with that. we went to coldstone to use our 2-for-1 coupon around 8pm friday night, both in our comfies, and the teenaged kid working the register was trying to make conversation, like, "oh, how's your night going, anything exciting?" we just kind of looked at each other and said, "mm, not much" - meaning, we reheated leftovers for dinner, were getting ready to watch wolverine from redbox, and using a coupon at coldstone. that's married life, and i like it.

blowin' in the wind

we took flitty back to the airport last night, and it's once again officially just us at home. that may not sound all that unusual, except that scott's parents got into town two weeks ago yesterday, and with the exception of two nights, we've either been with his family at home or elsewhere, or sharing a hotel room with a friend ever since then. i almost don't know what to do with myself ... but then i formulated this lovely plan for this evening: 1) workout, 2) laundry, 3) tivo. doesn't it sound nice? three things that i haven't really gotten to do in the last two weeks - and since shows like glee and biggest loser have now started and are taking up valuable room on my tivo's harddrive, i feel it's only right.

also, last night we were discussing patrick swayze's death, and goo pondered who the other two celebrity deaths would be, since as we all know, celebrities die in threes. this morning, npr informed me that henry gibson and mary of peter, paul and mary are the other two. (p.s., i am a strong proponent of the oxford comma, and it kind of bugs me that peter, paul and mary don't use it in their name.)

my monthly personal responsibility rant

msn had a story this morning about a woman who has decided to spark a revolution against credit card companies - by not paying her bill. i get that she's now unemployed and frustrated that her credit card company has apparently raised her interest rate to 30% despite her working with them to try to lower the rate, and her always paying the minimum payment on time ... but here's the thing:

1. you can't NOT pay your bill. you just can't. when you get a credit card, you sign an agreement that for the privilege of using the cc company's money to buy things that you cannot currently afford, that you will pay them back in a timely manner at the rate that they set. emphasis on "the rate that they set" - not the rate that you think is fair.
2. one of the commenters at the bottom of the article said, "the bank has made its profit on her card use many times over," as a justification for why she should not have to continue to pay. right, because she agreed to let them profit off of her card use! that is the point of credit card companies offering the services they do - visa is not a non-profit company.
3. 30% is an absurd rate, and so is the 12.99% she was paying before, for that matter, which leads me to believe that a) she must be maxing out her card regularly, b) she's not in fact paying on time every month, c) she is an incredibly unwise person for finding such a high rate card, or d) she has a history of credit problems. yes, scott and i have excellent credit, but we were approved for an 8% card in the last six months or so. if you're frustrated with your card company for raising your rates, check out the competition - there are PLENTY of other lenders out there.

one of the other commenters (stlmo), left this note, which i think summarizes my thoughts nicely: "Ann Minch knowingly ran up her credit card bill, spent years making only minimum payments, then decides to protest the interest rate by NOT PAYING AT ALL. And this makes her a hero? I don't think so. If she really wants to protest the ungodly profit, then she should STOP LIVING ON CREDIT CARDS and PAY THE DEBT. PERIOD. If she can't, then she needs to see a debt counselor or see a lawyer about bankruptcy. And if she won't do that, then she's no better than the credit card companies she's protesting."

in her defense, i do think 30% is completely outrageous and unacceptable, particularly as she is unemployed and thus in financial hardship. credit card companies should have policies in place to work with the people they are lending to - i'm sure many card users are currently in states of financial hardship, but a 30% interest rate is not going to help them. personal finance classes will. and, you know, learning to live within their means. if your means don't provide much room for living, i'm pretty sure i pay taxes for a reason and that there are programs in place to help you until you can provide for yourself.

fedex

i love talking to fedex people - probably because they're the most out-of-my-bubble people that i interact with regularly: ie, they're (usually) not the college educated executive types that i primarily work with, and they're (usually) not the college educated christian types that i primarily hang out with.

i asked the new fedex girl - who is really very sweet and conscientious and has a dragon tattoo on the back of her neck, by the way - how her day is going, and she smiled and said, "good! i'm finally over my hangover, so it's great! you should never drink on sunday." LOL

the former fedex guy would tell me stories about the house that he bought and was renovating in a slightly sketchy area of town - like how one of his buddies was driving by one day and called to let him know that there was a car on fire in his driveway. (i think fedex guy kept his apt offsite for a while until the house was habitable.) apparently some druggies stole a car, put it in his driveway, and set it on fire - where it melted the siding on his garage, but thankfully didn't catch the house on fire. or how he and his fedex buddies would go tubing on the weekends, drink lots of beer, and somehow lose their swim trunks in the river. or something like that. oh my.

oddly excited for football season

it's officially september, do you know what that means? college football season! do you know why i put the exclamation mark after that rather than an elipsis (...), signifying excitedness instead of sadness? because football season = football games on tv = we get to have friends over to watch games = i get to cook for other people! duh.

man, my life has changed dramatically in the last few years - mike and maura had us over to watch a game when we first became friends with them four years ago, so i brought a book and sat in the corner. not that i'm super into football yet, but i am at least capable of watching an entire game. usually. don't quote me on this come the bowl games in december/january. or when scott only wants to watch games on saturdays and doesn't have friends over to amuse me.

anyway, foods i'm excited to cook for football games this fall include:
- homemade soft pretzels
- shrimp quesedillas
- buffalo wings
- cheeseburger crescent rolls
- chile con queso
- guacamole
- tomatillo salsa

not all at once, of course. unless we host a superbowl party next spring, in which case all bets are off.

welcome to fall

i have the greatest husband ever. need proof?

last spring, fox showed a 1-hour premiere of glee, which is about a high school glee club and is billed as a "musical comedy". read: very much my type of show, but scott groaned when i described it to him and told him how much i loved the premiere. anyway, just now, scott was setting up new tivo season passes online, asked me when community (nbc's new office-esque sitcom about a community college that looks hilarious) starts, then asked, "do we want to tivo glee?" i responded with a giant smiley and approximately ten exclamation points after my "yes" (we're on im at work), but seriously, isn't that sweet? not only that he remembered four months later that it's a show i'm interested in watching, but then that he proactively offered to set up a tivo for me - aww. it's the little things, i tell you.

we've had a very busy but super fun five days! this weekend was andrew's wedding in wisconsin/mini-college reunion. we flew in on saturday, out on monday, and in the middle had a wonderful time seeing some great old friends and catching up with people that were in our group of friends in college but that we haven't stayed in close touch with. it was really amazing to me how easy it felt to fall back into life with them. natalie and axel were adorable, and it was so fun getting to see two of my closest girlfriends from college as moms. it was crazy, though, because i think saturday night a bunch of us were crowded around a table for dinner, and i realized that no one lives in the same place anymore - we have people in birmingham, boston, chicago, portland, minneapolis, milwaukee, north carolina. i know everyone lives in the city they live in for a reason, but i have to confess i would love it if all of them wanted to pick up and move to denver. (which i say very selfishly, because i don't want to leave denver to move anywhere else - especially if that elsewhere has humidity. eesh. two days of that was enough.) anyway, it was a really great time, and i'll be getting pics up on facebook as soon as the photo uploader starts working again.

on monday, we flew back to denver and drove straight from the airport up to breck to hang out with scott's parents and sisters for a few days - also fun. we went hiking with them the last two days, then would get back to the condo and play yahtzee and spades and watch movies. very relaxing. for me, at least - i thought his sister wendy would have a nervous breakdown from the tension of our spades games!

so evidently the secret to making me want to blog is putting me in a really good mood. if it weren't for the fact that am a) 26 and b) at work, i'd totally be bouncing up and down in my chair right now. for serious. not really sure why i'm in such a good mood - it could have something to do with the fact that i have a 5 day weekend coming up, that i get to see some of my best friends in a mere 2 days back in the midwest, that it's gloriously warm and sunny but not too hot or muggy outside, and that i have a GIANT iced chai with lots of sugar and caffeine in front of me. oh my. i think i was bouncy before the chai, but it's definitely aiding the situation along quite nicely.

my in-laws got into town last night around 7:15 and had yogurt for dinner while we finished up our burrito bowls. (whatever!) flitty flew in this afternoon, which i'm also very excited about as i haven't seen her since last christmas and don't know when i'll get to see her again as we're going to my parents' in illinois this year for the holidays. (which i'm very much looking forward to as well, don't get me wrong.) i'm a huge fan of both of my sisters-in-law, and i don't think that i could choose a favorite between them since they're so different. we'll see all of them tonight, then i believe they're driving up to breck first thing in the morning for vacation, so we won't see them again until we head up there after we get back from wisco on monday.

things i found online

have you ever heard of peopleofwalmart.com? i hadn't either, until cnn had an article about the site this morning. it's basically awesome. these guys were walking around walmart one day, realized how many crazy people shop there, started taking pictures ... and voila! hilarious. if you have a free minute and you enjoy laughing (yes, at other peoples' expense, whatever), you owe yourself a visit.

relatedly, as i was enjoying peopleofwalmart, i saw an ad for a jesse and the rippers t-shirt. jesse and the rippers! if you don't know who jesse katsopolis is, you won't enjoy that at all ... but i think it's pretty awesome. too bad it's $20, otherwise i'd totally be getting myself one.

and, completely unrelatedly, i was perusing msn when i happened across an article about how state revenue workers are using social networking to track down tax evaders and make them pay up. since i'm all about personal responsibility, i thought that was pretty well awesome. if you want the benefits of tax dollars - you know, minor things like policemen, libraries, schools, roads, government - you need to pay your taxes.

guilty pleasure

so i have a confession, and you have to promise not to make fun of me for it. ready? here goes: i love looking at baby gear. it's true. totally not pregnant, but one of my secret guilty little pleasures for like the last two years is baby gear. there's just so much cute stuff out there: car seats, strollers, diaper bags, cribs ... oh my!

this week, i've been investigating the sub-culture of cloth diaper users. "sub-culture?" you ask. oh yes, my friend, sub-culture. they have giant message boards (which are actually really interesting - the faq post at the top of that board references lots of great resources), online distributors and shops, websites answering every question you could have on cloth diapering ranging from cost savings to accessories. there are heated debates on cloth vs. disposable to the point that i'm almost surprised no one's yet come out with tshirts labeled "team cloth" and "team disposable". there are even debates between the best styles or brands of diapers. do you go with the pre-fold, the all-in-one, or the pocket diaper? do you go one-size or fitted? fuzzi bunz or bumgenius? aah!

obviously i am interested in potentially someday using cloth diapers. i think the thought first crossed my mind because our budget will be tighter when we have a kid, and i was curious what the cost breakdown would be on buying a bunch of expensive but re-usable diapers up front versus paying as you go with disposables. turns out you can definitely save money using cloth diapers - how much depends on what type of diapers you go for; you save even more if you're able to use the cloth diapers for more than one kid. not to mention that while you are committing yourself to doing laundry pretty much constantly as long as you have non-potty-trained kids, you are definitely doing the environment a huge favor. i obviously have a while to figure out my strategy for cloth diapers, but there are some really neat programs that let you try out different types of diapers to see what fits best for you and your kid. once you, you know, have a kid and stuff. (they also have recommendations of what to use balancing what's most economical vs easiest.)

fascinating stuff, no? i was explaining my findings to scott last night and he called it interesting but pedestrian. pedestrian?? he said he meant that it was interesting on a purely factual level but that it didn't elicit any sort of emotional response from him. dictionary.com says pedestrian means dull, lacking in imagination and distinction, commonplace. i'm going to assume that a) he didn't know the full definition, and b) that he meant it about the topic rather than me and my interest in it. hmph.

my budgeting woes

so for the past few years, we did the dave ramsey budgeting method with taking cash out for certain budget categories (we just do grocery and entertainment) to keep better control on spending and make you think about what you're actually spending the money on. i really like the idea of it, and i think it's effective, but we've fallen out of the habit in the past year or so. every month, usually within the first few days of the month but sometimes as late as the 15th, i'll download all of the transactions on our account from the past month and reconcile them, add up each category (love excel!), and type in the "actuals" to see how we did with the budget, then set a fresh budget for that month. i'm currently reconciling the transactions from august, and remembering another reason why i like doing cash instead of debit: number of transactions.

looking back at previous months' transactions - back in sept'07, when we were good at doing cash, there were about 55 transactions to categorize. this month, not doing cash - 99. last july, when we were buying a bunch of random house stuff, didn't take out cash, ate out a lot, AND took our big 10 day alaska vacation? 130. really, my attention starts to wane after about 60, and that's with scott having set up my spreadsheet to have a dropdown menu of category options so that i don't even have to type in each label. *sigh. (and yes, we do go to the grocery store way too often for our own good.)

checkity check

we made an enormous to-do list on sunday, full of stuff to get done before scott's family gets here tomorrow. most of it is just general cleaning that needs to happen anyway, but a few things are projects that we've just been putting off. just little things, like shortening the blinds we bought and installed last year, and installing the new towel bars in our bathroom: towel bar installation - checkity check, blinds shortening - half of a check. anyway, we got a lot of the tasks done on sunday, so tonight is mostly just general cleaning - vacuuming, mopping, cleaning the bathroom vanity, etc. hopefully it won't take too terribly long?

in other tremendously exciting news, i picked out a shirt to wear to our friend's wedding this weekend! i got a cute pair of white capris at the outlets a few weeks ago that i'll wear with it, and gold flops. hey, the dress code is "look good, be comfortable, avoid jeans" - so i think i'll be fine.

my life is boring - house cleaning checklists and a new shirt. i haven't blogged in a week, and this is what i come up with? oh! i did find out last week that four people i know are pregnant! FOUR. that's a lot. i'm very excited for all of them (the women i know well, particularly), it's just a little crazy. talk about a baby boom!