Valentine's Day

This year Adam took over the Valentine's Day planning. He told me I couldn't come home until he was ready. I went to the library after work and waiting for the signal. When I arrived, I was met with this scene:



and this food:



Mmm... chicken parmesan. One of my favorite foods ever. It was excellent. Definitely a success in my mind.

Well, that's kind of weird...

Yesterday I started kicking around an idea for a summer party: I'm thinking a "build-your-own taco bar" sounds like a lot of fun. So many different possibilities, none of which that are too expensive or too labor intensive. The thought was still kind of percolating in my brain when I saw the most recent recipe posted on Tasty Kitchen. Homemade Refried Beans. Seriously? Maybe this is a sign...

Nothing's guaranteed but...

As the overachieving accountant type that I am (and the impatient, get it done right now type that Adam is) we filed our federal and state tax returns last weekend. We found ourselves in an eerily similar situation to last year. In fact, our state refund is $1 less than it was last year. Weird. We had to pay in a couple hundred dollars for federal again, but that’s ok. Our effective tax rate was pretty much the same as well – just below the 9% mark. That’s what we get for being DINKs. Oh well. The state filing process is awful (Adam actually did it this year because I just couldn’t bring myself to face the stupid website after the past couple years) but it’s free (take that, TurboTax) and ridiculously fast. Our refund is due to direct deposit on the 15th. Crazy.

American duty - check.

A Momentous Occasion...

So 30, huh?

Like many years in the past, I’ll be working a normal day today. Such is the life of an accountant. We’ll be going out to dinner tonight and my dad and Cheryl are coming up for dinner on Saturday. I don’t anticipate a lot of hoopla. I specifically rejected the singing gorilla and with my birthday so close to Valentine’s day, flowers are always prohibitively expensive. So it goes. I’m happy with simple things. It’s no surprise that I’m not an attention whore. Although sometimes I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. At some moments it seems like I should demand the attention I deserve but I tend to let it pass. Stupid introverted personality (I’m an ISTJ. Who’s shocked?)

29 was not an easy year. Many upheavals both professionally and personally. I’m hoping 30 will be a more balanced, zen year. You may have noticed that things got a little quiet here in blog land. I sort of lost my inspiration/motivation. I’m also hoping to improve on that and post more here, even if it’s just stupid cat pictures or movie reviews.

Perfectly Coordinated

I finally found the perfect shower curtain. I've been searching for just the right one for a long time. I had managed to swap everything else out to the purple/white color scheme except for the awful green shower curtain. I just could not find the right purple.

Then, yesterday at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, on a shelf of clearance items, angels sang, the stars aligned, and I caught sight of this:



Perfect! Purple, shiny, and sparkly. And only $10!

My interior designer (that would be JC there) agrees it's an excellent choice.