Friday, February 29, 2008 

tonight

we're off to somewhere warmer. Yay!

Posted by Rachel at 5:50 PM |

Monday, February 25, 2008 

Every time I make goulash for dinner (usually only for myself, since no one really likes goulash) I make a couple slices of garlic toast too (toast with butter and garlic powder - gives you garlic breath like no other, but it's delicious). Now, I usually try to pace myself, so that I don't run out of garlic toast before I run out of goulash. However, I almost always get full and run out of goulash, but still have nearly a full slice of garlic toast left over.

Maybe I should just make one slice instead of two.

Does anyone else like goulash?


Five days stand between me and Spring Break, and 32 hours driving time between me and Phoenix. I can't wait. We were originally going to take a detour in Texas, until we were informed that the area we intended to go to was about 1,000 miles worth of detour (turns out Texas is a lot bigger than it looks drawn on a map). So instead we're going through St. Louis straight to Arizona then up through Colorado on the way back. Tentatively.

The great thing about this trip is that we haven't actually committed to anything, so it really could change any time. Of course, this also means we could end up sleeping in the car for lack of hotel reservations. That's the fun of it! I say, as long as I get a shower once every day or two, I'm satisfied.

But between now and then, I have two papers to write, which is what I am going to do now.

Posted by Rachel at 8:27 PM |

Thursday, February 21, 2008 


I'm debating chopping my hair off again.

Thoughts?

Posted by Rachel at 7:54 PM |

Wednesday, February 20, 2008 

The low temp tonight is going to be -3. And that's not even counting the wind chill.

Disgusting.

In other news, Jake and I leave a week from Saturday for somewhere warmer: St. Louis (to see the arch - it's basically on the way), Texas/Gulf of Mexico (for some beach/ocean exposure), and finally Arizona (to see the Grand Canyon and my brother).

Do you think it's too soon to start packing?

Posted by Rachel at 11:28 PM |

Monday, February 18, 2008 


All right, I can't deny it anymore. I am addicted to shopping.

Yeah, most of you already knew that. Shush. I was doing really well so far this month; I just paid my rent and my bills and didn't buy anything frivolous. Until Friday. I took my car in for its much-needed wheel alignment, and while I was waiting for that I walked over to Staples. And JoAnn Fabrics. And Target. Then I drove myself to Best Buy. I didn't buy a single item of clothing (which I feel is a step in the right direction), but I got a few other things:

~a new 1 GB SD card. Because it was on sale ($13) and you can always use more memory.
~some more CD-Rs. These I actually did need, and I only paid $3 for 12 disks.
~a pack of printer paper. Also needed.
~a new flash drive. 4 GB for $27 (I had a coupon) - that's a good price. Plus I haven't seen my other one in at least 4 months, so I consider it permanently MIA.
~Super glue. For gluing things.
~Packaging tape, for taping things.
~A box of Turtles. Because I wanted some chocolate.

So not too bad, right? It all came in under $60 total, and I used real money to buy it.

Then I bought a new digital camera. Mind you, they were having a President's Day sale (Two Days Only! Online only!) so I paid about $45 less than the price listed there. But I didn't need it.

Granted, it's far more advanced than my old digital camera, and it cost me about $50 less. Not to mention the fact that it has many of the features of a digital SLR...

Actually, I'm really excited about that fact. I have a new camera, WEE!

Posted by Rachel at 7:39 PM |

Friday, February 15, 2008 

I'm taking a break from doing my homework (yes, I'm doing homework on a Friday night) because my body is tired of sitting motionlessly reading from the computer screen. I just tried out some of the Bath and Body Works stuff Jake got me for Valentine's Day (Sensual Amber) and it actually smells pretty good when it's on - I wasn't too sure about it when I smelled the bottle at the store. They're coming out with a new line called Enchanted Orchid in a couple weeks and I can't wait; I bought the little samples and I love it. Plus I have a B&B Works gift card left over from Christmas...

Not that I need even one single additional bottle of body wash or lotion. There are multiple shelves in our linen closet (is it still called a linen closet if it doesn't primarily house linens?) that have bottles I've bought and bottles other people have given me. On any particular day, I could smell like raspberries, orchids, cherry blossoms (white or pink!) jasmine, a "moonlit path," lavender, green tea/mint, eucalyptus, or a variety of citrus things (plus I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting).

Moving on, my Valentine's Day was decent as far as V-Days go. I worked 9 til 6; it was a relatively easy day. Jake worked until 8 then came over and we exchanged V-Day presents (his to me was much more elaborate than mine to him, because I'm still not sure how I feel about such a "holiday" and frankly I wasn't expecting much) and he took me to dinner at Olive Garden, which was delicious. I like the spending-time-together thing more than the give-each-other-presents thing anyway.

Oh, and Jake is madly in love with Rachel!

Posted by Rachel at 10:12 PM |

Saturday, February 09, 2008 

I did my taxes the other day (pretty amazing for someone with a track record like mine for procrastinating) and was pleased to discover that I'm actually getting a decent return back from federal this year. I still owe the state of MI, thanks in part to the middle school - I worked there from January til June and they didn't take a penny out of me for state OR federal. Which I guess isn't that big of a deal; I'm still coming out way ahead. Last year I got like $41 back from federal and owed the state $63.

I feel like I should comment on all the snow we've gotten. Mainly because it's made me aware of just how badly I need to get the front end aligned on my car (not to mention new front tires). I'd say there's probably a good 12-18 inches on the ground here. I had a 10am class on Wednesday morning, at which point it was already snowing profusely; by 11am they'd closed the school for the rest of the day, which meant I got to miss my 6-hour block of evening classes. This was particularly rewarding because I hadn't even started the homework for one of them... Thursday morning I still had to go to work though. I was 49 minutes late because I had to dig my car out (Jake helped) and take the long way in order to stay on roads that were (relatively) clear. I don't think they actually plowed most of the township until Thursday night sometime. But I have yet to drive into any snowdrifts this year and so I'd say me and my little Grand Am are doing pretty good.

Posted by Rachel at 10:25 AM |