This sucks

I let my mom use my debit card to pay the cable bill because she doesn't have one and she promised to deposit the money into my account by this morning because she was convinced that it wouldn't post until sometime today, which was not the case. It posted last night, so I was charged $20 for an overdraft fee, and then, while my balance was still below $0, my purchase at Godiva this past Friday finally posted, which incurred another $20 overdraft fee. So, now I'm out $20 (because mom said she'd pay for the one fee), which is awesome considering I don't get paid again until next Friday.

I really need to stop bidding on things on Ebay. That's probably going to be the cause of my financial demise. ;p There are just so many cool things on there that I keep wanting to bid on. The good thing about all the bidding that I've been doing is that I'm making progress on my Christmas shopping list. I'm going to have to put an end to my bidding until I get paid again, tho.

I won!!

I won the auction on my dress for Halloween! It ended up being $10 more than it started at, and I was hoping that it wouldn't increase at all, but at least it was that small of an increase. I'm so excited about it and I can't wait until it gets shipped here! Now all I need to do is find some accessories to go with it!

My new best friend

After my friend was telling me that she was doing a bunch of her Christmas shopping on Ebay, I decided to browse around the site and see what I could find. I rediscovered Ebay and now it's my new best friend. I've been browsing around on the site for the past week and waiting for the auction to end on my *possible* Halloween costume for this year. I just keep looking around and finding things to bid on or buy for Christmas presents. I have a feeling that I'm going to get myself into some financial trouble if I don't take a break soon. ;p

I'm guessing that school and work are going to help me keep myself away from it for a bit...

Awesome...

I found out yesterday in my Anthropology 200N class that the bookstore ordered the wrong edition of our textbook, so we're supposed to try and get the newest edition when it comes in next Wednesday. I really don't want to return the book I have that I was able to get used for a new book that I'll have to pay full price for. This really sucks. The instructor told us that if we wanted to risk not having all of the info for the readings, that we could keep the 10th edition, and if they want too much more for the 11th edition, that's probably what I'll end up doing.

Au08 Day 1

Well, I went to my first class of the quarter yesterday. English 291. US Literature: 1865-Present. The prof is pretty...interesting. She says "Yeah, uhhuh, yeah" after someone says something...and I mean pretty much any time someone says something. The class itself doesn't seem like it will be too difficult, except I'm not very excited about the 2 5-page papers we have to write. But, the final is a take-home, so that shouldn't be too bad.

I'm not looking forward to my night class tonight. I'm praying that we get let out early, but I'm not familiar with the instructor, so I really don't know what the chances are of that happening. It's my second Anthropology course, and I enjoyed the other class, for the most part. It would have been really cool if the instructor for this class was the same 1 from my other class, but it's not. *sad face* It's Anthropology 200N. Intro to Physical Anthropology. I hope it's a fun class, or at least enjoyable.

I placed a bid...

I just placed a bid for a potential Halloween costume on Ebay. The dress is kinda expensive, with the starting bid begin $89.99, but I'm really hoping that nobody else bids on it because it starts out so high and that I get it!




The 1st image is of the front of the dress, and the second is of the back view, obviously. But, the 3rd image is a closeup of the corset/bodice, which was what really made me fall in love with the dress. I really like the whole thing, and it's very versatile, so I can use it for different costumes each year, depending on the accessories I choose to go along with it.

I'm super excited about this! I really hope I get it!

I don't wanna...

Tomorrow begins Autumn quarter 2008, and I'm really not looking forward to going back. I only have 1 class, which is fortunate, but I also have to work, so I'll be on campus from about 10 to 5. Not a horribly long period of time, but it would be nice to just be able to head home after class is over.

This quarter, I only have 1 day where I have 2 classes a day, and that's really nice. The other 3 days of classes, I only have 1 class to go to, but I still work all of those 4 days. It was really nice that I was able to have Fridays off this quarter, so I will hopefully use that extra day off wisely and get my homework done, leaving me the rest of the weekend to enjoy...yeah right!

I might post tomorrow after my class once I figure out what to expect there. It's an English class, so I'm hoping that it'll be an easy class!

Dress shopping, Round 1

Yesterday, I met up with my friend, Amanda, & her maid of honor and another bridesmaid to go dress shopping. We, along with her mom and her friend, piled into her mom's SUV and traveled to the JCPenney outlet store in Columbus. Before we went to the store, we stopped at Olive Garden and ate. I didn't realize how hungry I actually was until we were eating. I ate 2 bowls of salad, 1 bread stick, all but 2 bites of my pasta and my entire piece of Tiramisu. The best part of it all was that I didn't have to pay for it, even tho I had planned on it. Her mom had a gift certificate and she used that and covered the rest of the bill. So, that was a nice surprise.

After we left the restaurant, which had only just been built in April, and it was really fancy-looking, we headed over to the outlet. We didn't have any luck there because they had sold all of their wedding dresses a while ago and didn't carry them anymore. So, after we poked around in the returns/clearance section for about 30 minutes, we left and headed to Easton (which I had never been to). That was an experience in itself.

We, of course, stopped in Hot Topic, I got "yelled" at because I was trying to take a pic of a 'V for Vendetta' mask, and the lady said that they don't allow pics to be taken in the store. That was fine, because the pic I had snapped didn't turn out, anyways. It was just a blur. After we left there, we went to Macy's, which was a mistake because every girl in Columbus was there looking for a Homecoming (I'm guessing) dress, and there really wasn't much of a selection to begin with.

We left Macy's and headed to Nordstrom's, which was a mistake. Not only did they have a shitty selection, but we would have had to pay 3X as much as in a bridal store to buy a dress there. We had been informed that there was a David's Bridal store around the mall, but we weren't exactly sure where. Someone happened to look out of a window and we saw this huge sign that said "David's Bridal" on it, so that's where we went next.

That's where we hit the bridesmaid dress jackpot. We found a couple of styles that Amanda and the rest of us liked, so we tried those on and finally picked a dress. It's not exactly what Amanda had wanted, but the price was right and they're nice dresses. The only problem is that they're black, and it's going to be a summer wedding.



As you can see, it's a tea-length black dress with spaghetti straps and a bow around where it hits the waste. The plan is to get red high-heel shoes and red flowers to accent the dress. Her wedding colors are supposed to be red and black, so that's how we're planning on incorporating the red. I guess you learn to work with what you've got. The best part was that the dress that I tried on fit me really well (except that we couldn't zip it up all the way over my chest, but I'm working on that), and it was on sale for $79.99 and we got an extra $20 off because they were having a bridesmaid special or whatever. So it was like $65 after tax. It was amazing!

Poor Amanda was afraid that we weren't going to be able to pick a dress out that day because the other regular bridesmaid there besides me didn't like any that had been picked out. I think Amanda finally realized that it didn't matter what she thought because it wasn't her wedding, and I'm glad because I like the dress choice that she made. The same bridesmaid also made a comment about how she was going to ruin all of Amanda's wedding pictures because she refuses to smile and be serious in pictures. I was pretty pissed off when she said that, but I didn't say anything. Later, I told Amanda that she should tell her that if she can't behave, then she can be replaced.

I hope everything else works out. Her poor maid of honor didn't realize that it fell on her and the other bridesmaids' shoulders to plan the bachelorette party and the bridal shower. I told not to be afraid to ask me for help because I'm willing to help her out. I'm starting to get excited about this. :)

Autumn '08

I went and got my books for my classes today. I guess it wasn't really too bad this quarter. I only spent $232, and hopefully I don't have to buy some more random "optional" books that the profs decide we need for their class. So, I still have money left over from my loan disbursement, which is good because I'm driving to Marysville on Saturday and I'll need the extra gas money. Plus, if we actually find any dresses, I might have to buy one.

I'm really looking forward to the dress shopping, though. I haven't spent a whole lot of time with my friend, Amanda, and she asked me to be in her wedding, so I figure now's the time to start hanging out more. It's funny how you never realize just how much you miss someone until you talk to them or see them after not having done so for a very long time.

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Since this is the last weekend before school starts, there was a lot that I wanted to do, but I know I can't squeze it all in, and that's disappointing. I found out that the King's Island season lasts until like November 2nd or something like that, so I'm not as stressed about having to use the tickets, but I would still like to go before the weather gets too bad.

This summer just went too fast and it didn't give me enough time to do half the things I had planned on. Next summer is going to be really weird because I'll be done with school and hopefully will have a 'real job' and everything. And I'm sure I won't know how to act next Fall when I don't have to worry about going back to school....I can't believe it's already my last year!

Electronic leash-less

I left my cell phone at home today and I feel incomplete without it. I was at Walmart today and I kept wanting to pull my cell out and check the time. I felt like I'd been in the store for a very long time, so I headed out to my car and realized it was only 12:30, and I didn't have to be back at work until 1:00. This is the 2nd time within the last week that I've not had my phone with me and it just feels so alien to me...better not forget it again tomorrow!

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When I was wandering around Walmart, I looked at all of their Halloween decorations and, since Mom had said that she wanted to decorate the porch, I was getting ideas. Since the Walmart in Lima is set up differently from the 1 in Wapak, it took me a little while to find everything and I know that I didn't see it all because the 1 in Wapak had some cute stuff that I was looking at yesterday and they weren't in the section that I looked at today.

I have a few cute ideas, but I'm not sure if I'll have the money required to pull it off. There are so many other important things to spend my money on and frivolous spending cannot be justified right now, not with all of the expenses coming up in the near-ish future. So, I'll have to be a thrifty shopper and hope that everything doesn't look like it's cheap (even though it is).

Fall frenzy

I was at Walmart over my lunch break and I was looking at all of the Fall decorations, and now I really want to buy a cornucopia and some flowers and stuff and make a Fall centerpiece for the diningroom table. I was looking at everything they had in the craft section and getting a couple of ideas forming in my head, but I'm not very craft-inclined, so I don't know how my attempts will turn out.

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This Saturday, I'm supposed to meet up with my friend, Amanda, and all of her other bridesmaids and go shopping for dresses. We're supposed to head into Columbus, but if they don't have power back by then, then our 'Plan B' is Dayton. I hope C-bus gets their power back!

Pre-Christmas season anxiety...

I was poking around on the Joann's Fabric website, originally looking for yarn, and then I started looking at various other things offered at the store and started to think about Christmas gifts for family and friends. There were so many cute things and I just wanted to get 1 of almost everything, but I was looking at the prices, even though a lot of it was on sale, it still added up to a huge amount.

So, now I'm paranoid that I won't have enough money this year to get good presents for everyone, and it seems like my list keeps growing every year. I know that I always manage to get everyone something every year, but this year it seems like I've got so many people and only a small amount to stretch across for everyone.

This makes me want to start shopping now so that it doesn't all have to come out of the same paycheck. I'm really going to have to do some thrifty shopping this year and try and catch things on sale. I've already picked up my gift for the "White Elephant," so that's covered. I picked up a bottle of "Anti Monkey Butt powder" at the Tractor Supply Company because I saw it and laughed my butt off for about 5 minutes.

So, that's 1 thing crossed off the list, and I only have 4 million other things to go.

So...

We lost power last night for about 2 hours thanks to the lovely strong winds we were having. Most of the time that the power was out, it was still daylight outside, so we didn't really have to light any candles until about that last half hour of the outage. I was really nervous about having to get up for work this morning because, if the power didn't come back on, I wouldn't have an alarm clock and my phone alarm doesn't always go off.

I didn't sleep very well last night. Even though I didn't have to worry about the power because it came back on around 8:30 pm, it still seemed to take a while for me to fall asleep. So, now I feel tired and I'm stuck at work all day...woohoo.

Bored

I've still got a little over 3 hours of work left and I'm extremely bored right now. I want to read my book because it's getting really interesting, but I want to save what little I have left to keep me busy while I'm waiting on Jake and his family to get to Lima for the P & G tour. So, I'm poking around on the Internet, but there really isn't much left to do before I run out of that option. Since I don't have to work tomorrow and Jake has tonight off, maybe he and I can do something fun when we get done with the tour? Maybe there are some good movies we can rent and watch or something, but I doubt it.

Speaking of books, I'm almost finished with Volume 1 of 'The Mallorean' and I have the 2nd volume to read after that, and then I have a handful of other books that I've picked up or have been given that I need to work on, and hopefully I can do that over the span of Autumn quarter, since I only have 3 classes and they only add up to 13 credit hours. I wish that I could have gotten more read this summer, and that I would have been able to do more with my months off from school, but I was denied. Unfortunately, I think that the King's Island tickets that I got for my birthday are expired because I think the season is over now. I wish that I didn't procrastinate so much!

Big weekend

I was busier this weekend than I had expected to be. I can't remember much of what I did on Friday (mostly because I slept for half the day) or Saturday, but yesterday was packed full of stuff. When I woke up, around 11:30, everyone was downstairs because my brother's friend brought over his wood cutter and he was chopping up the wood and everyone else was transporting it down to the coal bin in the basement.

I got dressed after I figured out what was going on and went into the coal bin to start stacking the wood up on the shelves in the room. It didn't take very long to get the left side filled up to the ceiling, but we still had space under the shelf to stack wood. The right side was 2/3s full when we stopped. And that wasn't even half of the wood that we had stacked up outside. I'm pretty sure we'll be doing that again next weekend, and Mom's cousin is bringing us more wood, so we'll probably never finish it!

After we stopped loading wood, the guys headed over to pick up the piano and bring that to our house. After that was successfully placed in the spot we cleared out for it in the entryway, I headed downstairs (again) to take a shower. After I was clean again, I headed over to Jake's to help his mom make apple pies. We got 5 pies done and that didn't even finish off 1 basket of apples...and we have 4 more full baskets to go. They won't all be turned into pies, so I'm looking forward to learning how to make all kinds of apple goodies. :)

So exciting!

Last night, Britt, Jake and I took Jess to Olive Garden for her birthday (which is today), and tonight we get to take her to a bar and buy her drinks. It's kinda unfortunate that she can't get smashed tonight because she has to leave early tomorrow for C-bus. I'm still planning to get her feeling pretty good, tho. :)

A little ticked

Today, I was planning on taking my lunch break from 12:00-1:00 like I normally do, but my boss was back in her bosses office talking to him, so I didn't actually get to leave until 12:40, and I was pretty dang hungry. So, I scarfed down my leftover chicken nachos (from El Azteca last night) in about 5 minutes and proceeded to browse the campus bookstore for the ISBN numbers for my Autumn quarter books.

I also got some reading in my current book done. It's really getting interesting right now and I'm having problems turning away from it to answer the phone (cuz we're allowed to read at work), and that's probably/definately not a good thing. I still have about 15 (or fewer) more chapters left in this book, and then I get to start on the 2nd volume of the series, which only has 2 books in it. Then I will have finished the series, hopefully before the start of the school year.

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I'm pretty excited about Wednesday and Thursday evening this week. Wednesday we're taking Jess out for dinner at Olive Garden to celebrate her 21st birthday. And then on Thursday, once she's actually 21, we're going to take her out to a bar and buy her some drinks. That should be a lot of fun, and it'll be a new experience for me because I haven't been to a bar since my mom and a few of her brothers, their wives, and some of my parents' friends took me the weekend after my birthday.

I'm still not sure what to get her as far as presents go, but I may just buy her a couple of drinks and call it a day. I was able to rearrange my work schedule so that I have Friday off, so I'll be able to enjoy a couple of drinks, myself, so Thursday night should shape up to be a pretty fun evening. :)

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In other news, I priced some of the books that I'll need for Autumn quarter, and it doesn't look like I'd be able to save a great big bunch by ordering online, so I think I'll just buy my books from the bookstore and skip the 'shipping and handling' fee. It'll probably amount to the same amount in the end, anyways.

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In a previous blog, I wrote about how I was a little frantic because of all of the money I'm going to have to spend between now and next summer because of the 3 weddings that will be occuring. Well, I've started saving up money (since I got paid last Friday), and I'm keeping a log of how much I'm putting aside and what my total amounts to after each addition, and I think that it's going to be easier than I had thought. As long as no major emergencies come along, which they have a way of doing lately, I should be able to save up the money, and then some.

I also realized that I'm not going to be required to just drop all of that money on the table all at once. I will be making payments on dresses and such before the summer, so that will lessen the burden a little and I won't have to come up with the whole amount at one time. That helped to calm me down a little. I can handle paying out a little money every paycheck, but if I had to hand over the entire sum at once, I think I'd probably faint.

Even though it's going to be expensive, I'm really excited about these upcoming weddings! Not sure that I'm too thrilled about having to be in all 3 of them, but I guess it's a blessing in disguise, and I know that these people wouldn't have asked me to be a part of their wedding party if they didn't care about me. I just pray that they don't pick out dresses that are really freaking expensive and full of all sorts of fabric and layers, since they'll all be summer weddings. I know that 1 is having full-length gowns, and 1 is not, but I'm not sure about the Florida wedding, and that's the 1 that I'm worried about the most!