The post was both refreshing and kind of saddening. I took the Schwab Financial Fitness Test, and like Michele, my score is definitely lower than I would have though or hoped it would be. I scored a 68.

It was definitely awesome to see all the things I’m doing correctly: have health insurance, contribute at least 12% of my income to my retirement account, etc. But seeing the things I don’t do well made me sad. Do I have enough money to cover me if I become unemployed for several months? Nope. I haven’t quite rebounded from my “I finished grad school but still can’t find a job and have to start paying back loans” blow to my savings account. I mean can I get partial credit for knowing that I should have something like that?? lol

But seriously, it’s never too early or too late to get started on managing your finances. These are some easy tips I can recommend:

• Make a budget and stick to it. I was introduced to mint.com a while back and I LOVE it. It tracks your spending for you, reminds you of upcoming bill payments, and makes charts and graphs of your spending trends. And it lets you know instantly if you’ve overspent in any of your budget categories.
• A book I really enjoy is Get a Financial Life by Beth Kobliner. My first boss gave me this as a graduation gift when I finished undergrad. It was truly eye-opening, especially since I was literally scraping by on the salary I was making at that job.
• Contribute to your retirement account starting the day you get your first job. Even if you can only afford $100 a month, the amount that you’ll make off that is better than nothing!! And if your employer matches contributions, take full advantage of that. Seriously – it’s FREE MONEY. And it has your name on it. Take it!
• Don’t carry a balance on your credit card. NEVER. You’re giving away money, and right now interest rates on those things are abysmal.

And that’s all. Thanks Michele for the awesome financial quiz!

I had the distinct pleasure of watching the Mexico-France game LIVE online courtesy of espn.com. I didn’t think my computer could handle it, but I decided to give it a shot. While it wasn’t 52″ HD quality, it worked.

And Mexico WON!!

I’m really pretty happy about this. And France lost, which is an added bonus! It was also the first 2010 game I’ve been able to watch that involved a penalty kick. As a former goalie, these are particularly fascinating. Guessing which way to dive was NEVER a strong point of mine, and I love seeing how many times keepers are actually able to do it correctly.

Anyway, it was a lively game and a good one to watch, if you’re still interested. Either way, I highly recommend watching games live online. There’s an option to have it subtitled too!

Happy world cup-ing!

Now before I lay this all on him, I need to take some of the credit. I had been working to get in shape, drop a few pounds, and tone up a bit before Rhianna’s and Jessica’s weddings. Did I succeed? No. Not really. And this was my own damn fault, because I skimped on the gym about 1/3 times that I should have gone, I ate a TON of chocolate (please refer to the title of this blog – that’s my life motto, which unfortunately allows me to eat any and all things chocolate), and with stress comes less than stellar willpower to snack on salads and fruits and veggies instead of chips and cookies.

But while I’m not overjoyed with where I ended up, I’m OK with it. Because I did lose a few pounds, I am in way better shape (yay being able to run for longer than 2 minutes at a time!), and I see the slightest bit of definition in my muscles. Score.

So why this angry blog you ask?

Because I had reached a happy equilibrium where I was eating the foods that I wanted to in moderation (aka no deprivation!) and working out somewhat regularly, and not gaining or losing weight. A nice happy balance between food, exercise, and my clothes fitting nicely. Again, score!

And then my boss ruined things. With bagels.

The man eats two bagels every morning. Two. Gigantic. Bagels. Toasted, with cream cheese. We share tight quarters – if I were to stick my arm all the way out to my right, I could probably touch him. So yeah, I smell them, and boy do they smell delicious!

So I’ve started indulging in bagels. It started as once every week or two, then once a week, and now I’m eating one – in addition to breakfast and lunch – every morning at work. The bagels in the cafeteria are gigantic so of course they require 2 little packets of delicious cream cheese. So if I were to start tracking POINTS! with Weight Watchers again, I would be fucked. Because this bagel + 2 cream cheese is at least 10 points, and I only get 19 per day.

My clothes are getting tight. As previously noted, I can’t afford to buy a whole new wardrobe. Back to the gym I go. And for the love of god, if you see me eating a bagel slap it out of my hand!

I went to the coffee cart today. Ordered an average-tasting mocha from the barista, then moved to the cash register to pay. Asked for a bagel and cream cheese to go with my drink. OK the bagels are very clearly on TOP of the pastry case. This guy goes into the pastry case and fishes around, then pulls out a croissant. “This? It’s our last one.”

No dude. I asked for a bagel. Here let me grab one for you. Cream cheese please? He grabs me a bag. Just a bag. WTF am I supposed to do with that? I guess it’s white – the same color as what I was asking for? Anyway whatever. I somehow conveyed my need for cheese of the creamed variety. Total: $5.41.

I have a lot of change and I certainly don’t want more. I hand the guy a $20, then pull out 2 quarters and a penny. Paying $20.51 should give me $15.10 in change.

This guy was not understanding. I handed him my money and he told me I needed to give him “9 more cents. No wait 10.” Why would I give you ten MORE cents? He grabbed 10 cents from the “take a penny” jar. Then handed me an even $15 in change.

I was going to start explaining to him that he needs to check his math, or better yet, enter the amount I gave him into the register rather than trying to calculate this all in his head, but my coworker was waiting on me so I let it go.

Seriously, maybe you’re hard of hearing and have trouble with an order. Fine. But not being able to make change? Don’t work at the fucking cash register dude.

This kind of incompetence seriously bothers me.

/end rant

I’m all about alternative transportation but let’s get one thing straight: I hate bicyclists. They think they own the road, the travel soooooo slowly, and they’re bound to accidentally veer off their path and drift into your lane.

Since today seems to be their holiday, there’s what seems like millions of them on the road. It was almost more than I could handle this morning. I was exhausted and cranky, and being attacked from all directions by bikers. Then I saw it.

Superman was riding a bike. Or rather, some DS on a bicycle was dressed as Superman. Maybe he was crazy. But he made me laugh.

Cheers to you, Superman on a Bicycle. When disaster strikes, you can’t fly, but you can pedal your heart out.

I just found the (insanely expensive) parking receipt from the hospital from the day my great uncle died. Now I’m sad.

As much as it blows my mind that I paid $24 to park for like 6 hours, $24 to be with him when he died seems like a bargain.

I think I’ll keep this in my wallet. Hopefully next time I see it I’ll smile rather than tear up. I <3 him

/end whining

1. I woke up and wasn’t groggy. I actually kind of felt rested. Weird, but OK!

2. I rolled into work and was ridiculously productive. I never knew I could do that much work in that short of an amount of time!

3. I got a call from the cable guy at like 11:30. He wanted to come to my house right then to fix my DVR. Um…my appointment is from 1-3. I’m at work sir, you need to come later. He told me he’d show up at 1. I got home at like 1:05 and the dude was there. SCORE! He gave me a new DVR box, but it was taking a long ass time to set up. Impatient, he changed it out for another box. This one started working after a while. He mentioned maybe 2 or 3 times that I had a nice telephone voice. Um creepy! And strange too, cuz I was kind of pissy when he called at 11:30. For lack of anything else to say, I just said thank you. As he was leaving, he asked if there was anything else he could do. I told him the customer service person had told me to talk to him about getting a credit on my bill. After all, my TV was essentially useless for like 5 days. He told me to call customer service. Lame, but oh well. Dude left.

About 5 minutes later I got a call from this dude. He wanted to see if the DVR box was picking up the schedule yet. I looked and shockingly enough, it was actually working. The guy then told me he gave me a credit on my bill – for the entire cost of TV for a month!! Here I was hoping to get like $10 off, but I got a whole month of TV for free. That’s what I’m talking about!!

4. I stopped at the market on my way back to work and picked up a sandwich from the deli. They have some thing where when you key in your club card and buy like 10 sandwiches, your next one is free. I had a free coupon that I kept meaning to use, but never had on me. I used the coupon, and then paid for a drink. Keyed in my card number, and wouldn’t you know it – I got another free sandwich!! And my lunch (sando, drink, chips) only cost $1.60. Sweet!

5. I got back to work and cranked out even more work. Amazingly productive. I’m working with a couple of people on a total of 4 grant proposals. Yes, four. For those of you who don’t write grants, this is pretty insane to be doing at once. I got 2 completely finished, and one almost completely finished. Again, shocking. I was exhausted, as though I had run a marathon. As I was shutting off my computer, I got an email from one of the people I was helping:

Caro-

Has anyone ever told you that you are really awesome? Cuz you are!

-A

Seriously, I work 2 thankless jobs. While this isn’t one of those, it still feels amazing when someone tells you that you are appreciated. I worked my ass off for this guy yesterday, and it’s awesome to get recognized. After this email, combined with all the other things that went well yesterday, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

Everyone needs days like this once in a while, and I hope everyone who reads this has a fantastic one today!

“It” being oversleep this morning….By almost an hour and a half!!

It’s been a while since I’ve taken these little magical happy sleepy pills, but after a few weeks of  increased sleeplessness, I decided it was worth a try to dabble into my prescription once again. I passed out hard. I woke up, a little dazed, knowing immediately something was wrong.

Yep, 8:29am. Checked the alarm just to make sure I had actually set it last night (I’ve been known to do stupid things like not turn it on, or choose PM over AM). Sure enough, it was set to 7:12am, ON.

Ah how I had forgotten the power of the Ambien. Alarm went off and I didn’t even flinch.

2 cups of coffee later, kinda awake. I see why I stopped taking these things. Don’t think I’ll try one again for quite some time!

Pretty basic stuff there. Piled on a bed of lettuce, a bunch of spinach, a sprinkle of cheese. I’m about halfway through the line at this point, and for some reason someone put the croutons here, in the middle of the assembly line. Oh well, I can have croutons in the middle of my salad instead of on top.

So I grab the spoon, the very flat spoon I might add, and fill it with mini croutons. As I’m bringing it to my plate, many of them fall off.

An older gentleman approaches from the wrong side of the line. He was looking for the croutons, since they weren’t at the end. (“Can’t forget the croutons!!”) He sees my crouton fail and says, “Well here look you’re spilling them all over the place!” Sorry sir! So after I put about half a spoonful onto my plate I hand him the spoon. He looks at me and he’s like, “That’s not enough croutons. You need more than that!”

Seeing as how croutons contain yeast, I’m not supposed to have ANY croutons so I politely declined. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He scooped up a bunch of mini croutons and put them on my plate. “Here you go. Now that’s much better. Everyone needs croutons!”

Thank you?