Happy Autumnal Equinox!

Happy Autumnal Equinox, everyone! Saturday was officially the first day of Autumn. Now everyone knows that I am totally a Spring and Summer girl but even I am excited about Autumn this year. Why, might you ask? Let me list the reasons! :)

Football - NFL Football, College Football. What else are fall Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays for?

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Fantasy Football - As you know, a couple of weekends ago I drafted this fantasy football team. Also, I Patti drafted a fantasy football team for my office. I look forward to defending my title and for making a name for myself in my office league.

Fall Fashions - I spent the last two days shopping. There will be a whole blog post on the fashions of fall that I am excited about! Don't you worry!

Road trips - I didn't do that much traveling this summer due to my getting adjusted to my new job. But don't you worry, I am all set to make up for it this fall. With my season tickets to JMU football, I am set for at least 4 more trips to Harrisonburg. Also I have a couple more trips up my sleeve. Stay posted!

Thanksgiving - I love food! I love my family! Enough said.

Cooler temperatures - So remember how I do not have AC in my car? With the onset of cooler temperatures, I don't have to worry about nearly dying during my 40 minute afternoon commute home from work!

What are you looking forward to this fall?

Summer Savings

I hope your week as started out wonderfully!

This past weekend I had my first couponing success. I've never actually watched that Extreme Couponing show that comes on TLC (...I think that's the right channel) but I fully support the idea. I like saving money and I am excellent at hoarding things. And best of all,   I love cutting out coupons. I find it relaxing; it's the best part of getting the Sunday newspaper (I am being an awful journalism major right now).

Back to the shopping trip. I have been coveting this customizable planner from Staples for several months now, hoping it would go on sale. (I hate paying full price for things, call me cheap if you'd like and prepare to be amazed). I also recently became a Staples Rewards member.

Did you know that if you turn in your old ink cartridges to Staples you get $2 back for each of them (not on the spot)?  You can turn in up to 10 a month. So one day after work last month, I turned in 6 ink cartridges. I've been patiently awaiting my $12 back in rewards that finally arrived last week.

I also get emails from Staples and they went me a 20% of any one item coupon. With both of these awesome discounts I decided that it was time.

The planner in the center is the one that I have been conveting. It was $14.99. However, there was a buy any customizable notebook and getting a polycover customizable notebook (valued at $7.99) free, which is how I ended up with the green notebook! I needed a water because I have no AC in my car and I was super dehydrated; it was $1.69.

Blue leather notebook                    14.99

Green polycover notebook               7.99

Buy one, get one deal                     -7.99

Subtotal                                        14.99 

20% off                                          -3.00  

Subtotal                                        11.99

Water                                            1.69

Subtotal                                        13.68

Staples Rewards                            -12.00

Subtotal                                          1.68

Tax                                                 0.07

Grand Total                                               1.75 

Yeah, I totally paid $1.75 for all three of those items. Essentially that's as if I bought the water by itself and got a .01 cent discount on it.

Needless to say, I felt pretty accomplished. So I celebrated my spending way too much money at Target. Ugh, maybe I don't understand this saving money thing after all!

What are your thoughts on couponing? Have you ever attempted it? What's your greatest couponing success?

These Shoes Were Made For Walking?

I wish I had Barbie doll feet. 

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As you know, I recently got a new job! My coworkers are much different than those I was working with when I was substitute teaching. I am working with a group of people that are much closer to my age and very business professional. The girls that I work with dress way cute so I've been trying to keep up with them by doing a lot of shopping. 

It seems as of lately with all my professional shopping I've been doing, I'm starting to become a "shoe girl." I've never really been a "shoe girl," especially not with heels. I have always owned a ton of flip flops and other comfy shoes like my Sperry's and my Converse's. 

I've always been comfortable with my lack of height. In fact, I pretty much cannot wear heels. My mother says I walk like a chicken in them (I know, I know, my family loves me). She got mad at me when I chose to wear flats to my high school graduation.

However, again I am short. So usually my dress pants are very long; therefore, it is necessary that I wear heels. So I'm slowly getting accustomed to buying and wearing heels. I haven't fallen on my face yet...there have been about 3 close calls though.

I accidentally wore my heels for about 17 hours last Friday. Worse idea ever. My feet were hurting for two days straight. I don't know how Barbie does it. It probably helps that her feet are just made for heels. 

These are scary high heels for me. My sister laughs at me...
By the way, $14.99 on clearance at Target!

What are your thoughts on heels with professional wear? Are heels absolutely necessary in the workplace? What color heels are staples to every working girl's wardrobe? How tall is too tall?

Weekend Recap

This past weekend was one of those weekends that started off slow and then went full force leaving me wishing that it wasn't over. And that I had time to recover from it.

On Friday as soon as I got home from work, I took a nap. I hadn't slept that well the night before. All the announcing that I had done for the two days of the Central District Track and Field Championships had turned my cold into a mild case of tonsillitis. When I left the meet on Thursday night, my tonsils were so swollen and I had a fever.

So believe me when I say I did a lot of sleeping and laying around on Friday night and Saturday morning through afternoon. At least on Saturday when I went to my mom's boyfriend's house, I had Parenthood to keep me occupied. I am addicted to that show, by the way.

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On Saturday, the rest of my family headed up to Fredericksburg because my sisters were participating in the Historic Half Marathon there on Sunday. They left me at home with the dog, the cat, and Lynn.

Lynn had been craving sushi for awhile so we made that our plan for dinner on Saturday night. I had never been to Wabi Sabi, which is vaguely surprising since I have friends that used to go all the time. I guess when I was in high school I wasn't an adventurous eater. One time we went to a sushi restaurant in Richmond, I ordered a cheeseburger.

However, this time I ordered sushi. I had the Philadelphia roll and a tempura shrimp roll. Sushi is so filling and so expensive. I ordered one roll of each and had about half to take home in a box. It made for good lunch at work on Monday!

Sushi: really bad cellphone photo

After Wabi Sabi, we weren't quite ready to call it a night. So we headed where all pretty girls head on to on a Saturday night: Martin's. There we bought the craziest assortment of items. The cashier was totally judging us, between our assorted drinks, breakfast foods, two gallons of ice cream (I'm lactose intolerant and require lactose-free ice cream), chips and dip, and ice cream toppings. Lynn remarked that she probably thought we had just broke up with our boyfriends.

To add fuel to the fire (or well, that argument), we stopped by Redbox and picked out the two sappiest love story movies. Our first choice was Breaking Dawn Pt. 1; the second was Like Crazy, a movie I'd seen previews for but had forgotten about.

While eating massive amounts of junk food, we opted to watch Breaking Dawn first and it didn't make me groan nearly as much as I thought it would. Like Crazy, on the other hand, was not good. At all. I didn't realize it was one of those low budget, creative type movies. And the plot line was flat. I went to bed before it was over. Lynn said it didn't get any better.

Sunday, we got up and we were so tired. But we had plans to get things accomplished! First we had a breakfast of bacon, eggs, cinnamon rolls, and cubed potatoes. Then my family returned from Fredericksburg and then half of them left again to head to Blacksburg because my littlest sister is taking a six-week summer class.

Lynn and I headed to Glen Allen to go to my very first wine tasting, which was super cool. We're still upset that we didn't get to keep the glasses. How lame. Then we headed out to do some shopping at Virginia Center Commons. To finish up our day out, we went and got our nails done.

My new nail polish

When we returned back to Colonial Heights, I got back to my watching of Parenthood and then Lynn somehow convinced me to rewrite my resume. The next thing I knew it was 9:15 and I still had to drive 30 minutes home!

What did you do this past weekend? What are you going to do this weekend?

Weekend Recap

This weekend was actually kinda busy for once. It was my little sister, Aspen's last weekend home on her Spring Break from Virginia Tech. Also, that whole losing an hour due to Daylight Savings Time made the weekend go by faster, thus seem busier. 


On Friday, we didn't do much. Two of Aspen's friends from high school came over and one of them attends JMU (my alma mater). So I talked to him for a bit to try and live vicariously through him since my freshman year of college seems so very far away. 


On Saturday, I met up with Jeremy in Colonial Heights and I finally got my fantasy football trophy and banner. That's right! Remember that weekend when I was drafting this team. And remember how I said I was going to come out on top. Well I did! 

My Bdub's Banner!

Doesn't she look like she's saying, "Touchdown!"

We had a steak dinner to celebrate Lynn's birthday, which was the 12th. Then after we all went to the mall, she made red velvet cupcakes. We also had pineapple upside down cake! So much for me trying to cut back on the sweets; I cannot fight my sweet tooth.

I also did a lot of shopping this weekend. On Saturday, I got a new sports bra; talk about motivation for running! On Sunday, I went to Target and bought some awesome new socks! Aspen and I also went by Sweet Frog on her way out of town. I have no pictures of that because I can't stop myself from scarfing that down long enough to take a photo!


What did you do last weekend? What are you doing this weekend?

Running and its Rewards

Back to my weekend in Arlington.

When we woke up on Saturday, Mike decided that he wanted to go running and was doing his best to convince me to go. If you know me, I'm not exactly what I'd call an athlete. Sometimes I'll get in athletic moods; just not often.

However, I don't like being told that I can't do something. Mike offered me four options, one of which was staying home to shower while he went running. That was a good option. Did I take it? No, of course not; let's be honest.

So we take option C, I think, which involves driving to Teddy's Roosevelt's island to run the trails there. Mind you, I was wearing what I wore for pajamas and I was starving! But Mike promised me breakfast if I ran for like twenty minutes. That's doable, right?

It was going...well...if that's what you call it; I'm trying to keep breathing and not fall over and Mike is like, look at the plaque about birds. I stopped briefly to get water and I'm pretty sure that everyone is judging my non-athleticism and my outfit.

Then Mike trips over like a stump on our way down to look at the water and I stop. Apparently stopping when your heart is beating that fast is NOT a good idea. Mike decides he's okay to keep going. I, on the other hand, am about to pass out. Which is soon followed by me feeling nauseous. So here I am squatting on the ground praying that I don't throw up on my Sperry's (did I not mention that Mike convinced me to go running in my Sperry's) and in front of a boy! Definitely one of the top five most unattractive moments of my life.

I finally regain my sense of normalcy and we decide to walk back to the car. Turns out I made it to 16 minutes of running! We walked by the Teddy Roosevelt statue on the way out. But I was still feeling to icky to enjoy the monument part (or any part) of the island.

We headed back to the apartment for much needed showers and then we headed to Metro 29 Diner for my running reward breakfast! By the way, if you're really hungry you should go there for breakfast because they give you a ton of food. It's a little too much if you almost died from running earlier that day but I ate as much as I could!

Then we headed to Pentagon City mall because it was on my list and I bought my fantasy football outfit for the following weekend! I think the rest of the afternoon included naps, getting frozen yogurt at Red Mango, going to Barnes and Noble, watching Bones, and getting ready again!

After lots of begging, I convinced Mike that we should go to Thai at Corner for dinner because I've loved their chicken fried rice since I had it back in December when I visited! (I was milking that "Remember that time this morning when you almost killed me.")

After dinner (which was wayyy yummy as expected!), we explored the nightlife of Arlington and met up with Tyler, Thomas, Dianna, Shane, and Bea, all of whom are some of my favorite JMU people!