Spring has sprung!

Ahhh, it's officially spring! Too bad it's only 50 degrees out there-not spring weather! I want my 70s thank you very much. At least it's sunny outside, then I can be inside and pretending it's really warm outside!

I haven't really been doing all that much blog-worthy for awhile, just the same old same old. Reading, homework, studying, wedding prep, the usual. I did submit my federal and state taxes, so I should be getting some refund money pretty soon :-D Well, I guess "pretty soon" means sometime before summer hits; however, Keegan got his federal refund 8 days after he submitted his taxes, but he did his earlier than me. I'm sure as April 15 approaches the speed of refunds will slow down significantly as more people turn in their info.

I talked to my grandmother yesterday and she told me that my cousin's wife needs to have a C section, so I will have a new baby cousin the second week of April. Yay babies! Of course this cousin and his wife already have one daughter who is about 4.5 years old, and I never ever see her, so I might not see so much of baby #2 either. But at least I get to see my other cousin, his wife, and their 1.5 year old daughter much more frequently! Apparently they're trying to bypass monosyllabic words and saying things like "cupcake" and "butterfly" to try to get her to talk more. My first "big word" was broccoli, and I still love it!

I've been slacking off a bit on my exercise goals, but I do do 150+ sit ups every day, I drink plenty of water, and I've been doing better about snacking after dinner. I haven't been to run 5x per week, but I generally go 3x; I think once it's nicer outside I'll be more motivated to run a lot. That's always how I was; last year this time/later spring I ran at least 3 miles per day, sometimes up to 5 or 6. Of course, I was in a fitness walking class, so it was easier for me to make time for the gym since I was in there for class anyway. It's hard to justify not going to the gym when I already have to be there for class.

Tonight we're having dinner at Keegan's family's house for his mom's birthday (which is today), so maybe I'll be able to sneak up and use their super-fancy scale to do a weigh in. I'm also going to call the bridal boutique where I bought my dress to set up a first date for alterations; then I'll definitely have a more finite goal for the work out regime. Apparently I have to go there like 3 times for alterations; I mean really, my dress isn't that big or extravagant. But I guess I'd rather have more fittings to make sure it fits perfectly for June 20 (which coincidentally is only THREE MONTHS from today!!)

I was involved with Girl Scouts for my entire childhood and tomorrow morning I'm going to a planning meeting to organize the reunion my middle and high school troop is organizing for the summer. We're planning to camp one night, spend the next day doing trail clean up and then have a nicer dinner that involves the former girl scouts and their families. This is a pretty big deal for our troop because it was huge. It was two troops, a Cadette troop and Senior troop, that all met together to do joint campouts, volunteer work, etc, and girls could join in seventh grade, which is when I joined. So I was in the troop from fall 1998 to spring 2004 when I graduated; the troops were around from 1987 to 2008 though, which is a supremely long time for these dedicated women to organize the troop and I'm so glad they did! They started the troop when their girls were high school age, and by the time I joined, none of the leaders had children in the troop! Anyway, the reunion is the weekend before our wedding, so I don't know how involved I want to be in the things that will beat me up/get me sunburned/covered in bug bites. I'm usually not a wuss about any of those things, but I don't want a scary farmer's tan/disgusting peeling skin to plague our wedding pictures for the rest of our lives. Those of you who know me well know that I burn walking from my car to my house (seriously).

Well I guess I'm going to study a bit; I've got the final for my physiology class on Wednesday and there's a lot to learn. Homeostasis, acid/base balance, and the digestive, respiratory, and renal systems. Sounds like a greaaat weekend ahead of me :-)

Sping break updates

Random updates:

(1). I started reading the Twilight series on Wednesday. I finished the series on Saturday.
(2). Went to visit my dress on Saturday with Sara- it still fits, whew! (although just barely)
(3). Bought Keegan's wedding ring! And he bought one for me, too!
(4). It's spring break! I'm just reading a lot, but I also cleaned the townhouse and I've been doing small wedding things. In a few minutes I'm leaving to meet with the florist.
(5). Registered for the conference in Chicago this summer- just one more thing to look forward to!
(6). Bought/started reading a book called Smart Women Finish Rich by David Bach, and it's pretty helpful. I called Vanguard yesterday and I'll be setting up my Roth IRA tonight, yahoo! Planning for the future is certainly fun...
(7). Keegan and I have started watching NCIS an abnormal number of times per day.
(8). I think I'll be going to see my grandparents this week!
(9). I only have 3 more physiology classes, then my last midterm, then I'll be finished with that particular class! But I think my drug delivery class is going to really step up when break is over; we have a huge project that hasn't even been mentioned in class that's probably due in early to mid April. Looks like the end of the semester is going to get really hectic very quickly.
(10). This Friday is our 34th "monthaversary", which means next Friday is the 3 month countdown to the wedding! I feel like March and June should be more than 3 months apart...
(11). Sunday I weighed in at 131.0 lbs; I think my first fitting will be the end of April, so it looks like I've got about 6 weeks to get to my optimum wedding weight- I think I'm pretty well on track :-)

Snow days and taxes

What a great day- having no classes enables me to get more work done from home, including doing my taxes. This is the first year I've been happy to do them because I knew I would be getting a refund. This is the third year I've filed taxes, and the previous two years my mom and John claimed me as a dependent, which was good for them but sucked for me because it meant I always owed taxes.

This year, however, my combined refund and rebate is almost equal to another month's paycheck!!! AHHH! Now I'll have some money to spend on our honeymoon, as well as more to put towards the Roth IRA I'm going to open. I've been on a bit of a finance kick lately; I think Keegan's rubbing off on me, which is a good thing when it comes to saving for retirement because I'm actually thinking about how I can do something with the money I save. Right now all I have is a money market account, which doesn't really do that much for me, although it does earn interest and I can write checks from it. I'm trying to set up an automatic bill pay with my checking account to move some set amount at the beginning of every month to my money market so that I won't be tempted to spend money I really don't need to be spending. If I'm always starting out the month with $300 less than my paycheck, I won't be missing it. That's the theory anyway... but if anyone could recommend some books to read on the subject, that would be appreciated :-)

I've really become a multi-tasker (as far as reading goes) this semester. For example, right now I'm simultaneously reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (I know, I'm a loser), Stay Mad for Life by Jim Cramer (it's about investing), the November issue of National Geographic (I'm really behind on my NG readings), and a textbook of collected articles about self-healing polymers, along with other papers I find helpful for my review. The review paper is definitely the most important, but there's only so much scientific reading a person can stand before they need to switch to something a little less mind-intensive.