On My iPod

I know I'm long overdue for a legit update... but in the meantime, this will have to suffice.

Every year for the last few years I've been making a playlist for the year on my iPod. I only place my most favorite songs from the year (either released that year, or ones I've just been listening to lately), and by the end of each year wind up with between 55 and 60 songs.

Anyway, here are a few selections from the infant 2011 playlist... enjoy.


"Young Blood" - the Naked and Famous



"Rolling in the Deep" - Adele




"My Body" - Young the Giant



"Animal" - Neon Trees

Because I Know You're All Dying to Know...

The first chip in my Shellac manicure has finally occured... just 2 days shy of the three-week mark!

So sad! But in all, I'd say a worthwhile experiment. You can see in the photo that it's also a little grown out, which is getting on my nerves a bit. Especially since I cut down and filed the nail to hide the chip, and it now is even more pronounced! Next time, I probably won't go with such a dark color. The gel really kept my nails strong and allowed them to grow super long -- but not strong. One of my nails broke under the Shellac, and I had to peel it out (I'm just not good with long nails!), and then cut down the gel and file it. 

It is starting to look scrotty though... I just don't have the energy right now to get it off. 

This might be the only downside to the Shellac -- you have to soak it in acetone to get it off. Which I do own (acetone is not as bad for you as people think), but it's more of a time issue right now. I still have two midterms to go... it's full power ahead until tomorrow at 9 p.m.! 

Obsessed.

Lately my life has been stuck in this constant school/study/sleep loop (with a little party/dance it out/sleep in mixed in on the weekends) with very little excitement. 

Ho hum. 

That was until one Saturday, in the midst of studying and mowing down my ever-growing to-do list, an e-mail from Wells Fargo popped up informing me that 7,500 or so of my credit card points would expire. I normally delete these e-mails, which gives you an idea of just how badly I was procrastinating this particular day. But there they were, my hard earned miles, about to expire. So I did what any sane person would do. I dropped everything and headed over to the Rewards website to see what I could redeem them for.

There's 4 hours of my life I'm never going to get back! Seriously. And the nerdy business student in me actually made an Excel spreadsheet, weighted the items, and then used "what-if" analysis to determine the best mix for a given point value.

I'm telling you people, I have procrastination down to an art. A fine art. 

At the end of those 4 hours, I did the right thing. I walked away. I slept on it. I dreamed of HDTVs, acrylic watches, diamond earrings, knife sets and gift certificates. In the morning, I woke up and went to the gym.

As a reward for working out, I went online and redeemed 1/3 of my credit card points for one of these little beauties:

And. I. Am. Obsessed!

So here are my feelings. I love books. I love to read. I do not, however, like storing books or having lots of "stuff" in general (remember how I moved 19 boxes across the country!). I purged a lot of books when I moved out of my apartment, and sold about 2 of them at my parents' garage sale. The only ones that I've kept either have special meaning to me, or are nice hardbacks that I'd one day display in a nice book case. 

I also am anti-iPad. Now hear me out on this one. They are cool and all... but they are expensive, easily breakable and basically remind me of an over-sized iPhone. And I figure that there ain't much that the iPad can do that my iPhone can't do. Plus, it's hard to read my phone in the bright sunlight, and that would get really old when reading books.

So I have my Kindle, and I've already burned through two books on it, both of which I highly recommend: "A Discovery of Witches" by Deborah Harkness and "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen. Love love love. Currently reading: "The Hangman's Daughter" by Oliver Potzsch, which is turning out to be quite good as well. It also pulled in all of my audiobooks purchased on Audible automatically, which was an unexpected bonus. 

So I'm a happy camper. I'd be even happier if my reading for school involved novels and NOT Harvard Business School cases. Le sigh.