Ring in the New Year

Umm hi. Happy Thanksgiving! Oh, and Merry Christmas!! And BTW, HAPPY 2009!

Yeah I'm a bit behind. It seems that my last post came in OCTOBER - which is nutty, and inexcusable. But oh well. I had gotten a little over the whole blogging thing - school was a joke, my job was in a HUGE rut and I seemed to be endlessly waiting about nursing school. So I stopped writing! I kinda thought I had nothing to say.

However, 2009 has been very...exciting, to say the least. Three weeks ago, I went to my Microbiology Lab, knowing that my letter from Nursing School was sitting at home. I had to wait three hours before I could go home and open it -> and I got in!!! I was soooo excited that I finally reached that initial goal of just getting in. It is so hard to get in these days...and I could feel a downward spiral coming if I hadn't - work was blah and I was tired of these pre-req classes.

That weekend, I visited Philly (during that ARCTIC BLAST weekend) with my bestie to see another bestie. It was a crazy crazy weekend, and super cold. Umm, and that next Wednesday at work - I was laid off! Talk about craziness. I got a severance package, which rocked...but suddenly I was staring down endless days with nothing to do.

I cleaned the apartment hardcore, I reacquainted myself with the cat. I grocery shopped and cooked and went to the YMCA with all the soccer moms and retirees. I also felt really lame. Yeah I "had a plan" (nursing school in MAY)...but I didn't want to think about that plan because it's new concreteness was scary. And there was still going to be two months between the severance ending and school beginning.

That brought up another point. I had been thinking and talking about Nursing School for a little more than a year now...and always knew that I would probably have to re-enter the service industry in order to work part time while I was at school. But actually doing that...not having a real paycheck and only bringing home tips? Scary. Everything felt big and bad and grown up.

No me gusta.

Well, I'll give you an update on me trying to grow up and that whole service industry thing soon, but not now. I've written enough for today! And, my cat is acting insane. Again.

Toodleloo!
-Dani (yes, yes, yes...it's DANI, not Doris. That name was for the whole "blogging at work" thing that I was doing on the sly...)

=)

Mint.com

So M and I took the plunge...and joined Mint.com - I had been pretty apprehensive about the site's security, but after M and I watched the intro. video and saw all the nifty student loan features, we signed up.

Annnnnnnnd...it's ok. It's nice to see everything in one place - including my $0 IRA - but we couldn't get ANY of our student loans into our Mint page. So that sucked.

NOW I keep getting alerts about how we're over our "budget" on certain categories - oy vey! I know I need to go in there and turn them off for the moment, but I'm lazy!

On another note - I took my nursing school entrance exam on Saturday - tres fun. It was not that bad, but I'm just worked up in general about nursing school and my current job. We are SO not busy here, and I'm terrified I'm going to be let go before I can quit in the spring!

We shall see...

Anyone use Mint.com? What am I missing??

A Couple Thursday Thoughts

1 – This semester, my professor is a hippie. Not that there is anything wrong with a hippie professor…I’m just not used to it! He said that during our Developmental Psychology class we would develop ourselves, watch film clips, listen to music, listen to him play his guitar, experience childhood – and we have the opportunity to be in the “Psychology Class Band” if we want. Wowsers.

2 – My little brother’s 21st birthday was this past weekend!!! Annnnnnd since he was only a week from going back to school AND none of his friends were in town…we had a party at my parent’s house. Yup. Beer pong, champing, both tequila and jello shots…it was tres interesting. We had fun – and I can’t deny that I’m excited to go out with him downtown! My mom was very anti-drinking for most of the day – and then led off the rounds with Jose Cuervo. I heart my mom. =)

How is everyone's Thursday going?? Tomorrow is Friday!!!! YAY!

Ungrateful

I’m feeling pretty ungrateful right now. Ungrateful for my job, my wonderful apartment, my really cute cat, the fact that I have savings and that I have enough money to pay my bills and college loans.

Sigh.

I have no clue what brought this up. I think I am just especially crabby since my mouth STILL hurts from getting my wisdom teeth out last Friday. I mean, I took three Motrin three hours ago and my mouth is still aching. UGH – it’s WEDNESDAY. WHY is my mouth STILL hurting?

And, I have a crazy week/weekend ahead of me. I am SO lucky that my friend offered me one of her THIRD-ROW tickets to Avenue Q…and that’s tomorrow night. Also tomorrow night (but I’m not going) are an alumni mixer and a ballet class I would like to go to. Then comes Friday. My two friends got married earlier this year and have decided to move to China at the end of the month…to teach ex-pat kids. And they are coming in town for one last night of get-together-ness. And, it’s M’s bday this weekend. And my friend’s bday dinner this weekend. And I don’t have a present yet for M.

Sigh again.

And I’m HELLA bored at work. Like looking-on-Craig’s-List-for-NYC-apartments bored. I’m wondering whether I should have gone after a publishing job (like I wanted but was terrified of) after college. It seemed like such bad timing at the time – M had moved back to the East Coast for me (mostly), my mom would have flipped her shit…but I heart books…and I really think the industry is nifty. I know I would probably be disenchanted with entire industry…and that the pay sucks…and that NYC is impossibly expensive… but it’s an adventure. I really don’t want to go back to school…what if I HATE nursing??

On top of everything, I’m kinda freaking out because M got a raise. He is almost making double what I make. OK, not quite double…but a lot more than me. And that makes me feel…insignificant..? I guess. I don’t know. I just have always paid my own way…and helped HIM out with his credit cards and stuff. Now, the tables are kinda turning, and it’s odd. I need to talk to him about how I feel…but I have a feeling he is going to completely dismiss it and say it isn’t a big deal. But it IS a big deal – right?

GROWL.

The IRA Blues

I was not a business major. I didn’t even take a math class in college. And, I know zip about investing. So, when my boss pulled me aside a week ago and informed me that I was (finally) eligible for our company’s retirement plan, I was both excited and immediately filled with anxiety.

My father has always told me that investing was the key to my future security – even though he really never pursued it. Even with his do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do advice, I was still STOKED about investing … when I got older. I didn’t think that my pennies earned by summer jobs would allow me to invest. I wish I would have pushed myself to buy something though! We did a stick market exercise in 9th grade that I kicked ass at – I realize it was play money…but I made a freaking 75% return!!! BUT, it was nerve wracking, even with play money. What if I chose wrongly?

Anyway, all those anxieties came back when the boss mentioned the IRA. It’s a SIMPLE IRA since I work for a small company, and that somewhat changes the game. Most everyone at work uses Vanguard…but my dad uses Fidelity. So, this is one choice – the company to go with. ALSO looming is the giant question of what type of portfolio I want to create. I realize at my age that I should go for a little more risk…but that is scary. I am NOT the gambling kind!

Thankfully my friend J offered to talk to me tonight about what I should do. He was a business major and worked at a fairly large bank, so I feel he has a good feel for this stuff. Much better than me anyway.

Sooooo yeah. I have to decide pretty quickly about everything…so I’ll keep you posted.

On another note – only FOUR more days to take my last TWO anatomy tests. Jeepers Creepers - I need to get on that STAT.

Twiddling my Thumbs

So. It’s Wednesday and I have about an hour and a half of work to do today. I know that seems like a lot to you peeps that get paid salary no questions asked – as it IS summer and it HAS been raining a lot and we DID just come back from a HOLIDAY WEEKEND – but for us peeps that have to bill our hours…BY THE QUARTER HOUR…its kinda torture.

Torture, because I can only browse the Web for so long without my eyes sticking to the tops of their sockets. Torture because I have to sit here with nothing to do while my anatomy chapter on body fluids and electrolyte balance is WAITING for me at home. Torture because I have had my space heater on for TWO hours now and my office is JUST getting warm-ish.

Sigh. This morning my coworker and I were making hot tea (I told you, I’m freezing – and slightly an anglophile), and she told me about her friend who was just laid off. With a two year old…and baby twins. So yes. I know it could be much worse…I am VERY grateful for my job…I just wish I had more to DO here.

LUCKILY I have a four-day week next week. NOT so I can laze at the pool, or even finish school work (my online class ends MONDAY thank God)…it’s so I can have my four impacted wisdom teeth CUT out of my mouth. I am not very happy about this…but it needs to happen. At least I get to spend a weekend drugged and slurping milkshakes on my parents’ couch – right?

Anyways. I am going to scrounge up some work to do…I have to put something on my timesheets, right? Ugh.

Crazy Morning

My cat thought it would be cool to wake up before dawn this morning. Soooo not cool cat…just not cool. In response to hit obnoxious noises, I shut him in the other room – and then proceeded to sleep about 45 minutes past my alarm. Supersweet.

So, now I have wet hair at the office. Which really isn’t that big of a deal since we have a business casual office and no clients will see me today – BUT my office is freezing. And so I am doubly cold. I’m currently sporting a really cool jean jacket – over my long-sleeved sweater and long pants – and drinking a hot cup of tea – on the first day of July.

However, things are still good. I’m halfway through my online class – HA. I find this funny because I have to be DONE in about 2.5 weeks…and it’s taken me about a month to get this far. Mind you, I’ve been completely slacking. But now I have to hunker down and get with it. woot! Also, we had book club last night and we’re reading Lolita for our next book!!! I am very excited, since it was the choice of yours truly.

I wanted to read Lolita as a group since it was soooo good when I read it a couple years ago. It’s uncomfortable and beautiful and downright disturbing. It also has a lot of facets that I didn’t see the first time around…so I’m excited to talk about it as a group. I know - I'm a dork.

Aight. Only three more days of work this week!! Yippie! AND we have plans for the fourth, which is very cool! Too bad we aren't leaving town...BUT the parents are coming in, so that should be interesting...

Registration Day

I really lucked out in college – I had pretty good registration times for all four years, owing to a variety of factors: luck, my mom’s friend in the registrar’s office, being an English major…but mostly a combination of luck and wriggling my way into classes thanks to mom’s connections (she is the administrative assistant for one of the school’s academic departments).

However, tomorrow will be the second time I’ll register for classes out of my college bubble. The community college where I’ve been taking my class just switched over to stepped (?) registration – the more classes you have under your belt, the earlier you get to register. Good for students that are close to finishing a degree and need only a few classes, bad for the part-time student who is just trying to get some pre-requisites out of the way!

Anyway, I really hope I get into an online class…there is a night option, but it meets four days a week, for five-and-a-half hours PER DAY. Yeah. I really like to read and do stuff outside of class. So I think that’s a no. I checked the space in the online class this morning, and it looked promising – but I’m scared to look now! I’m getting up really early tomorrow so I can register at 7:30 a.m. – let’s just hope my professor wrote that letter to the department saying that I was passing! We shall see. I hate leaving things in other people’s hands (type-A, remember?).

Anyway, I’ve gotta run but I’ll do a quick weekend recap – drove to Charleston with A and E, met up with college Roomie and had an AMAZING time. Danced, ate, saw hot boys in flight suits (M already knows allllll about our tiny obsession), saw really hot planes (I heart flames)…and did a lot of shopping with no results. (Which was good for my wallet and bad for morale)

Anyway, I’m home and it’s raining and I’m a little bored. I can’t wait to get home, hunker down with my note cards and get crackin’ on those books!

I'll figure out my summer classes (and how to pay for them) tomorrow. Ha. OOOH that reminds me, I need to ask M about his work reimbursing him for his classes...that bill is due really soon!!

2007 Taxes? Check.

We finally finished our taxes the other night – glorious. We get a little more back than we expected…but had the unexpected expense of having to pay to file. We had borrowed my dad’s tax program, and unlike the free one online, you had to pay for both state and federal taxes. Not cool. Then, if you wanted to pay your filing fee by just subtracting it from your refund (the logical and lazy choice), you had to be $35 extra! That is insane. As M was objecting to the ridiculousness of the entire process, I whipped out my credit card. (This was the FOURTH time I had read out our W-2’s to M while he entered the info, and I was not doing it again…) Oh well. Way to go Turbo Tax…you suckered another one.

I’m really excited about getting a refund, but I am more excited about our “incentive check” that’ll be coming as well. We’ve already decided to put the whole amount toward our outstanding credit card debt…but I have the feeling I’m going to be accosted with requests for “Rock Band” when we have all that cash in the bank. I love Guitar Hero, and Rock Band is soooo much fun – it’s just that the game is $150…and that is a bit nutty to me. Oh well, M is amazing, so I should probably drop the stingy wife routine for a bit, eh?

We had book club last night – next up is Little Children by Tom Perrotta…and we decided to read Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov after that. I’m super excited about both – I’ve read Lolita already, but it’ll be good to be able to discuss that book – it’s a little racy. And by a little I mean very very unsettling. Problem is, I want to buy Little Children! The cover art (NOT the movie tie-in cover, I can’t stand those…I could talk about that all day…) is so great – with little goldfish or tiny cookies and grass… The cover is just innocent-looking, with a slightly-menacing feel. I love it and I want it. Oh well, we’ll see.

In other news, I didn’t win my office’s NCAA pool – oh well, I really wasn’t expecting to…but what HAPPENED to UNC in the Final Four? Talk about losing it…

Anyway, sorry it's been so long since I posted...but things have been crazy with work and school (I have two tests this week)!

Perspective

All things considered, today was a pretty normal Tuesday. I woke up feeling tired, since M and I stayed up watching The Hills last night (I hate hate HATE that show but M wanted to watch it. Don't ask.). I quickly showered and did nothing with my hair, which resulted in a very bad hair day. I couldn't find anything I wanted to wear and I ended up getting to work late. Again.

Work was S-L-O-W and I was bored for most of the day. Thankfully, my coworkers are hilarious and entertained me during lunch...and then some coworkers and I got coffee during the afternoon. So that was fun. However, Tuesdays mean Anatomy class - which usually isn't so bad, but I just wasn't feeling it tonight.

I get to class and we get our last test back - 109 out of 109. This cheers me up significantly, but I'm still feeling grumpy. I tell the girl who sits next to me that I'm tired, and she says, "Oh, I know - I'm going on 48 right now..." I have to clarify...because surely she doesn't mean 48 hours without sleep. Right? Well, it turns out that is exactly what she means. With two jobs, four classes and a two-year-old, she's beyond burning the candle at both ends.

Suddenly I feel sheepish. I've been whining all day (to myself, but still) about getting up, bad hair, going to class, having to study, etc. - and she hasn't SLEPT in two days. Later on in class we're talking about her classes and she asks if I'm only taking this class. When I respond with a "yes," she goes on to say "well it's no wonder you get A's!" Once again, the sheepishness. I've been really proud of my high grades in this class, but it's true - I'm working full-time, but this is my only commitment. I don't have a child or a million things going on in my life. I'm worried about money and class and getting into nursing school - but I'm so LUCKY. I have an amazing husband, a great work environment, a pretty kitty and loving family. I'm healthy and we are on track to get out of debt.

Sometimes, you need perspective to smack you in the face so you can just chill and be grateful.

So that's what I'm doing tonight.

March Madness

Happy Monday everyone!!! That was for K. I personally do not approve of Mondays…but since they keep coming, I guess I should be somewhat nice to them.

I live in ACC country (and attended an ACC school), so am fully vested in the NCAA tournament. I was planning on only filling out a free bracket online with my old roommate’s family, but then I got roped into the office pool. Now, I know $5 is not a lot of money – but it’s a day’s lunch, or a skein of yarn (or two) or a pair of shoes from Rack Room Outlet! I mean…I’m just being practical here. Although I was unwilling to put my $5 in the pot, I must admit it makes work much more interesting when your boss shouts down the hall that she’s in the lead! Soooo I guess it’s ok.

March Madness doesn’t only refer to the crazy and unpredictable action of the NCAA tournament (DAVIDSON?? Seriously peeps, I’m proud of you and everything, but you seriously messed up my bracket.) – it also refers to the fact that M and I are trying really hard to get on track with our budget. We are sooooo close – and as I shared in an earlier post, I obsessively checked online and I think we’ll be OK this month.

However, there are some interesting things that came to light this weekend. M and I were at my parent’s house for the holiday weekend, and somehow I got on the subject of planning a trip to Europe. Don’t roll your eyes! I know we are in debt and have very lofty financial goals…but I thought that if we just put a bit of money aside every month, in a few years we would be able to go abroad. Well, that turned into Mike telling me that he would like to own a house by then (as in, within four years). The whole idea sounds very normal – I mean, he would be over 30 at that point – but it just seems very scary…and very unattainable. I’ve read some other PF blogs about people taking that leap, and it scares me for them!! It’s just a really adult thing to do.

Also, talking about this “Four-Year Plan” brought up another thing. Babies. M and I have talked about kids in the general…as in “oh, that baby is cute! Oh, that baby has giant ears! Ooooooh, that baby is scary!!” We’ve also talked “timetable” – such as…not now. With me leaning towards nursing school…it will definitely be a few more years (we hope) until we hear the little pitter-patter of feet. But, we don’t talk about it so much…and that’s ok. However, I realized with all this time talk that I was thinking about a five-year plan when it came to kids. Holy crap! It seems like we have a LOT of financial planning to do!

So yeah – that was my nutty weekend! I also re-learned how to knit, and started a quilt! I have a ton on my plate right now, but that’s how I like it. AND, my boss just came around with our paychecks! Yippie!!!

How was everyone else’s weekend??