Life – Page 40

Treat Yourself Tuesday #11

November 18, 2014 by Alicia Leave a Comment

It has been a while since I have linked up with Becky. By the way, have you seen her recent exciting news?!

After spending so much on my car recently, it has been a while since I truly feel like I was able to treat myself. It helped that my boyfriend was visiting, because he always treats me with food, which I will talk about tomorrow, but lets look at some other treats.

Thursday after dinner, Brian and I treated ourselves to some chocolate since we stopped at Whole Foods.

Saturday afternoon, Brian and I went to the mall to get some more walking in and check out a few stores. I had a gift card for Athleta thanks to my Discover rewards so we stopped in there and I found some capris on sale that were super comfy and I threw in a sports bra too because it’s my favorite color green and I need more sports bras anyway. While I was waiting at the register and looking through the too many rewards cards in my wallet, I also found a Visa gift card from over a year ago that still had $10 on it. I wasn’t sure if it would work, but it did and I was happy to get another $10 off my purchase.

We also stopped in American Eagle. I was really just looking for some sort of sweatshirt. I found a good deal there like 3 years ago…but since that was so long ago, I did not find any sweatshirts that I really liked this time. I did however spot the plaid section and Brian seems to like how I look in plaid so I tried some shirts on for him. Sometimes it is fun to try something you wouldn’t normally try on and I think they look pretty cute on me. There was a sign that said Buy 1 get 1 50% off in between the tank top shelve and the plaid shirts. It didn’t specify so we assumed it was for both and then when we got to the register I mentioned it after only seeing the discount on the tank tops and the woman didn’t want to go over and check so she just gave us 50% off the second plaid shirt. Otherwise I would not have purchased the second one, but they are definitely comfy.

I had tons of fun taking these pictures. I plan to use the tank tops for yoga as well with my new capris and sports bra. 🙂

Sunday afternoon I headed to Target for a few items. My list was building up as I have successfully stayed away from Target for 3 weeks LOL. When I saw the peppermint bark chocolate on sale, I just couldn’t resist. I mean I might as well buy them when they are on sale because I know I will want some later. I love peppermint bark!!

I also treated myself to a new color of nail polish. Growing up I did not paint my nails often because my mom didn’t like the smell. Basically I was limited to painting my nails outside which was usually only done in summer. Since moving and gaining this freedom of painting my nails whenever I want, I try to paint my nails more now to hopefully keep me from biting them (one reason I don’t pay to get my nails done). Usually this means I spend the next day chipping away the nail polish from my nails, but that at least keeps me from biting them for a bit.

When I got home, I did some blogging and cooking and also made a fresh batch of iced tea.

It was nice to relax Sunday afternoon and catch up on blogging and tv shows after not having internet for a week. However last week I definitely noticed I had more time to read…hmmm internet distractions…speaking of reading I better get back to reading my Yoga Sutras and looking over my yoga notes from over a week ago.

Hope you have a fantastic Tuesday!!

Back Again and Zoo Weekend: MIMM #19

November 17, 2014 by Alicia 3 Comments

Hello everyone!! I am back! I didn’t post at all last week because my internet was out from Friday Nov 7 until last Thursday. Yeah…that was no fun! Comcast did some sort of update to their cable (and I don’t even have cable!) on the 7th and my internet was out when I got home from yoga. Then I was at yoga all weekend so I didn’t have time to really worry about it. Plus I tried to call 4 Comcast numbers and 2 hung up on me before I could reach a person, 1 was a fax number and 1 was temporarily unavailable…really Comcast?!? It wasn’t until my boyfriend arrived Wednesday night that he noticed our internet was completely disconnected in the basement and the apartment below us was using our slot…so it actually turned out it wasn’t related to Comcast’s update and my boyfriend had to go in person to the Comcast service center on Thursday to get someone to come over and fix it and write down what happened. Now I just have to get through to Comcast to get a credit for a week and guess what…their phone numbers still don’t work but luckily they are opening a new location today (they just happen to be closing the one my boyfriend stopped at last week on Friday…again that is weird) and their hours are until 7pm so I will have to try to make it there one day after work…oh the joys of being an adult…

OK now I will stop talking about that and move onto my marvelous weekend with my boyfriend, Brian. I headed to yoga after work on Friday and then Brian met up with me to grab some dinner. It was so nice just to talk to him in person. I feel like he pays more attention then and we reconnect better. I was honestly so tired when we got home that it wasn’t long before we went to bed.

Saturday morning we slept in and Brian slept in longer while I did some cleaning up around the apartment. Then we headed to brunch and the Philadelphia Zoo. It was 45 degrees and sunny on Saturday so it wasn’t too bad of a day for the zoo. Some of the animals were already inside behind the scenes for the winter, but we were able to see quite a few. I think my favorites were all the big cats like the Snow Leopard and Tiger. The zoo has a 360 walkway around the zoo that the animals can roam around in so the lions were just taking a nap and you could walk right under them. It was really cool and I think it makes the animals happier to have more freedom.

However the polar bear seemed very sad at the zoo. He was trying to dig his way out (that’s what we were all guessing).

We also saw the largest pigeon in the world.

And I tried to get a picture with a peacock roaming around, but that failed. He is blending in, in the picture and wouldn’t turn around.

After covering the zoo in 2 hours, we headed to the mall to shop and grab a snack before grocery shopping and making dinner at home. Then we watched How to Train Your Dragon 2. Brian had already seen it but I hadn’t. I think Brian relates a lot to Hiccup sometimes except that he doesn’t fly a dragon LOL. I seriously cried so much during some parts, but the movie is really good. I always cry watching movies, happy and sad parts.

Then we headed to bed because I had to get up early. I kept thinking the weekend was over after Saturday night, but then I remembered I had a whole other day which was good. I had to wake up early to take the train to the city for 9am yoga. We have 2 teachers for our training and have to take at least 10 classes with each of the teachers as part of our 50 and the one teacher mostly teaches during the day except for Sundays at 9am, so I am going on every off week from training and taking her class. I really enjoyed her class Sunday morning. It is good to try out different teachers as well.

By the time I got home, Brian had left and it was nearly lunch time. I had a snack and then got some more shopping done at Target and another grocery store. I finally bought an EZ Pass for my car, but of course the website to register was down so I will be calling them while at work today. I had to get an EZ Pass before my drive on Thanksgiving. I’m sure my IPASS will work, but I don’t want to get in trouble for having PA plates and an IPASS so mailing that back home to my dad later this week. I also found out that in some states you have to return your old license plates when you move. Turns out in Illinois, you don’t have to, it’s optional, so I can keep my Illinois plates which I think is cool. I don’t know what to do with them yet, but they are my first plates so it’s cool to have them for a memory and maybe if I do ever move back I can use them again? Not sure but that would be cool. I just realized how many times I wrote “cool” which is probably uncool…

Anyway the rest of my afternoon and evening was just preparing food for the week, writing, reading, watching tv online, relaxing. I also rediscovered Pandora.com while reviewing my yoga notes. I used to use it all the time in college. I found piano music was calming for a bit of background noise and some songs that I used to play on the piano came on which definitely made me miss having a piano around to play. My dream for when I have a house is to have a grand piano in the living room or at least a baby grand. The evening was perfect for relaxing and winding down.

As always thank you Katie for hosting!!

A Day Out of the Office

October 22, 2014 by Alicia Leave a Comment

Yesterday I had a great break from the office as I attended a seminar Finance and Accounting for Non Finance people. I majored in math and found myself working in accounting, but really my goal is to do more financial analysis. Well I considered an MBA and even applied to a program last year, but did not get in. However, I was ok with that, because by the time I finished the whole application process, I was not really into it anymore. I find with graduate school, your goals on what you want to do with your life have to be really clear and I did not feel like mine were, so why invest all the money in school.

One thing I did know last year when I was applying was that I needed a different job, something where I had to think more and use my math skills that I learned throughout school. That is why I believed I would be good at being a Financial Analyst, but there is still so much more I need to learn before really landing that role. I can say that one of the best things that has happened to me was being laid off from my last job. I knew it was only a temporary job anyway and it was the right push I needed to move and find a new better fitting role for me in the business world. I am much happier with where I am at right now, knowing all the potential that lies ahead for the future to grow within my company and learn more about accounting and finance.

Well that was a bit longer of an introduction than I planned, but that leads me into yesterday’s seminar that my boss wanted me to go to for some outside training. This seminar is through Fred Pryor seminars and training.

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At first I thought this seminar was going to be too low of a level for me being that I have done accounting work for the last 2 years and I took 2 accounting classes in college. However, I realized that 2 classes of accounting barely scratches the surface when it comes to this topic. It was also nice for the refresher of some accounting terms and to get my debits and credits straight. I feel like as a math person that shouldn’t be too difficult to grasp but sometimes I think we should debit when it is actually a credit and that could cause problems.

Enter #DebitandCreditNinja

That’s what the seminar leader called it (I felt like it was a good hashtag) and I feel like I can understand the debits and credits a bit better now.

The morning went by quickly and then we had an hour break for lunch for which we were on our own. There were some nice girls at the table in front of me and they were heading to Chipotle for lunch. I kind of invited myself along with them. Actually 3 of us (including me) pretty much invited ourselves along with the one girl Laura. Their names were Laura, Kate and Sue (hopefully I got that right, in case they ever discover my blog, HI!). I had brought a salad for lunch in case, but knew it would be more fun to go out and get to know some people. I think I covered my life story of my move to PA during lunch. Always fun to chat with new people. I used to be so shy, but I am getting better at talking to new people and enjoying myself. We talked all through lunch and the time flew by. Lunch was so good. I had not been to Chipotle in months, so it was time to visit. Their mild salsa and steak was a bit spicy for me, but I drank tons of water afterwards and still enjoyed it.

After lunch it was back to learning about financial statements and budgeting. Luckily we got a 7 minute break ever hour. So even though that afternoon tiredness hit me a bit after eating so much at lunch, the afternoon still went by pretty fast. For a while in the morning, I was staring at our workbook and seeing how little we covered in an hour and I thought the class might run late, but he actually ended a bit before 4 which gave us time to fill out our surveys for the seminar and leave before 4. Then we each got certificates for completing the class 🙂

Being in this seminar reminded me of how much I miss school sometimes. I mean I don’t miss the tests and all the homework, but I miss being in a classroom, learning and meeting new people. I am still not sure if I will ever go back to school, but for now, I am fine with getting out of the office for the day and not having to worry about a test at the end of the seminar. I definitely learned some new things and the seminar leader was so enthusiastic, had tons of stories, very knowledgeable and answered questions very well. It makes all the difference in the world to have a presenter like that, especially when you are in a 6 hour training seminar.

Today it’s back to the office and then meeting with a new dentist after work. Hope that goes well, then I have to schedule an actual appointment for a routine cleaning.

Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored, just wanted to share my experience about the seminar.

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