What Style are You?

How cool is this? I saw this on Squirrel Chatter and had to take the test to see what I was.

Take your style test.
They got it right. I love these three styles -- now is my house in these styles? You tell me! Click below to see photos.

Our House

Valentine’s Day

It was great that Valentine’s Day fell on a Saturday this year. Who has time to cook a fabulous dinner after work? I think one year I took the day off, so I could make Matt this feast of Mexican foods courtesy of his favorite chef Rick Bayless.

This year, I didn’t have to do any cooking – and no, no restaurant was involved. In fact, no restaurant could have held a match to the evening. We had Valentine’s Day with our good friends Jason & Amy, and it was a surprise. The boys sent us off to get manicures and pedicures (I haven’t had a pedicure in three years!) while they cooked us a 5-course meal.

The good – very good and new – china was brought out for the occasion and they set the table with flowers and had everything just perfect.

We couldn’t have loved it more. Thank you and Happy Valentine’s Day!

View all photos here.

1st course – Asparagus and goat cheese omelet on a whole wheat cracker --Champagne

2nd course – Leafy greens served over thinly sliced prosciutto, sun dried tomatoes and a lemon vinaigrette -- Sauvignon Blanc

3rd course – A perfectly seared scallop over grapefruit infused fennel risotto -- Stag’s Leap Karia (excellent)

4th course – Filet mignon over a potato cake and onion marmalade, served with green beans --It was a red wine that was delish (can’t remember the name)

5th course – an assortment of cheese and sweets -- A sweet wine – again, very good but what kind?

Camera Catastrophe

After getting the Digital SLR last October (the Nikon D60), I've been taking some great photos and I absolutely love it. So for Christmas, my mom got me a photography class at our local community college that does Continuing Education classes. Two classes in and I have learned so much, the class has already paid for itself. Yes, the User's manual basically had all the same information, but now I can actually read it and understand it as opposed to falling asleep.

So imagine how I felt the day before my 3rd class when I was going around the house taking pictures for my homework and the strap gets caught and the camera flies from my hand, crashing onto the hard wood floor and breaking into 2 pieces (well the lens cracked off the base, that's what happened).

Crying and screaming, I was no use. But Cool-Hand-Matt was on the job and he found a black piece on the floor that was keeping the lens from fully attaching to the base, and off I went to class #3 sans camera and sans hope.

But lucky for me, the piece that cracked off was from the lens which is much easier to replace than the base (i.e. buy a new camera). My teacher recommended that I upgrade my lens now that I have to buy another. But I just want to go back to normal, and not spend $400 on an upgraded lens when my old one is only $150.

The one that broke was the standard lens that come with the camera - 18-55mm, 3.5 F-stop. My teacher recommended a 2.8 F-stop upgrade.

Is this worth $400?

2009 Goals: January Review

I made my goals at the beginning of the year ... how are they doing?

1. Run a 5K race
The race is in June. For the last 4 weeks, I have been trying to run what I can on the treadmill and I've seen an improvement. Things are looking good. My minute per mile bettered from 13.84 to 13.22. (One small leap for me, one large leap....)

2. Read 30 books
So far, 3 books down, 27 more to go. I signed up on Goodreads, and this has been a fun way to track my reading, write reviews, and see what my friends are reading.

3. Try out for a local orchestra
This might not happen this year, but I started the ball rolling. I just found a viola teacher and I have my first lesson tomorrow.

4. Lose 10 lbs
So far I am 2 lbs down ... by Tuesday, I have to have lost 2.5 or else...

5. Save $10,000
In January, I "saved" about $2000. $560 of that went into investments (401k, IRA, Mutual Funds) that I promptly lost. The value of my investments went down so much that it appears my "savings" is -$600. This is hard to quantify because of the investments. So maybe I should just stick to my traditional savings accounts? I dunno.