this article came up on my google reader today and i thought it looked worthwhile, so i'm passing it on...it's about how to have fun in washington for FREE!!! let me know if anyone tries/is interested in trying some of these thing....could make for some good times :)

alcohol=cancer?

i heard about this british study on the radio this morning, and then read about it here. the results show that with each extra alcohoic drink a day, a woman's risk for certain types of cancer increase. just thought it was interesting and worth passing along to my female friends :)

money management

i know i've talked with lots of you about the trials of managing money since entering official adulthood. well, last week i heard about this free web site that help you manage your money by tracking your spending habits, sending email alerts when you are reaching your goal limits in a category, and generally helping you set a reasonable budget.

i haven't set up my account yet because i'd like to do more research before i hand over my account information, but i thought i'd pass it along in case you guys wanted to do some research of your own...let me know what you find!

rhodeside grill closing??

i subscribe to a blog call "what's up arlington" and today i read this post regarding the potential demolition of two restaurants close to our apartment: rhodeside grill and ilradiccio. i haven't tried either of these places, but i feel like we talk about it all the time, so i say we get going and get our fill while we can!

parents' visit

this weekend my parents (and alex of course) made the trip out to DC, and we had such a good time. friday night, we ate out at DC Coast for restaurant week, and i had some delicious crab cakes. saturday, we explored the american and natural history museums (alex and my dad tolerated both the first ladies exhibit and the hope diamond/jewelery collection haha). then, we went out for pizzas at piolas down the street, and played trivial pursuit with chris, katie, maggie, and kayla. the boys beat the girls twice :( but i think everyone would agree they had the easier box of questions...

sunday we relaxed around the apartment in the morning, alex had to leave to head back to the burg, and my parents and i went to target to find some new apartment decor...you should all come over and see, i think you'll be impressed :) i'll post a picture here soon...

hope you all had great weekends, and got a chance to relax!

flower meanings

for those of us that enjoy getting flowers (me included), you might be interested to know that the flowers you give or receive have very specific meanings. i had no idea you could say so much with flowers, but apparently they are a language all their own. also, who knew it was called a "spray" of flower? i didn't, and i think that's weird. anyways, you can read about flowers and their meanings here.

is this true??

for those of you not in the DC area, this probably won't mean anything, but i was checking my google reader today and found this...is this true?? is ray's the steaks really gone from our little strip mall?? i'm in the burg for the weekend so i can't go check, but i'm going to be sad if i didn't take advantage of the convenient location in time!

the most ridiculous woman ever

yesterday at a team lunch, we met a woman that works for our parent company. i learned more intimate (and inappropriate) things about her life than i would ever EVER want to know. the list below is a fact sheet compiled from emails from my coworkers that circulated following this lunch. enjoy :)

1. She is a professional singer and wins karaoke contests.
2. She sings at weddings and funerals and has been singing since she was 3, so obviously she never needed voice lessons (totally would be one of THOSE people on American Idol).
3. She drives a trailblazer.
4. She has a serve case of road rage and in fact carries a gun in her car (yes a real one).
5. She doesn't need to carry a baseball bat to challenge someone for a parking spot because she's a blackbelt in something...but she does carry a gun.
6. She is very competitive and won some kind of Hollywood squares contest and totted it as being "one of the most amazing things that has happened in her life."
7. She and her husband throw great parties.
8. Her husband is in the Army Reserves.
9. They have Rock Band, a pool table, and a movie screen in their basement.
10. Her husband makes the strongest shots ever.
11. If people get too drunk, they have 6 beds that they can sleep in.
12. They also have 7 bathrooms for when people start throwing up.
13. Last time, everyone ended up in the hot tub...naked.
14. She could see how big everyone was.
15. The next morning she told them about how big they are and how she understood where their nicknames came from.
16. Her 4 year old daughter sleeps through it all.
17. She doesn't know what my husband does for a living and doesn't care; she just cares that they get to meet Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and have famous people come over to their house.

and somehow this got her invited to the rest of team lunches. i'm sure there will be more awesome factoids to come...

awesome distraction!

if you're bored and looking for something to do at work (or otherwise), here is any AWESOME site you should check out with all of kinds of "brain training" games...kristy and i have been playing all afternoon. it's incredible. what's your BPI (brain performance index)??

warning labels

last week, a guy in my office came in a picked up the can of compressed air we use to clean the keyboards on our computers. he looked at the warning label and it was so riduclous, he read it aloud. here is what it says: "WARNING: Do not deliberately concentrate and/or inhale this product. You could instantly die, suffer brain damage, or other dangerous and permanent health effects," (emphasis added). who said working in an office wasn't hazardous??

weekend update

sorry for being a blogging slacker this past week! to make up for my delay, here is a general blog about my weekend activities. alex came into town on friday, which was awesome of course. we laid low friday night, ate cal tort, and watched "problem child" with chris, katie, and kayla.

saturday was gorgeous (as i'm sure you noticed), so we took leonidas on a really long walk down to teddy roosevelt island, walked all over the island, saw the kennedy center and lincoln memorial (from a distance), and just enjoyed people watching. the puppy was so tired when we started coming home that we carried him for part of the way, haha.

sunday was also super warm, so we cleaned off the porch and chairs and ate breakfast outside. alex had to write a paper and i was studying for a certification exam during the afternoon/evening, and then after he left (sad face), i washed my car and gave leonidas a much-needed haircut.

that about covers it, i hope you all got to enjoy the lovely weather and spend some time outside!

socially unacceptable

one of these things just happened to me, and i felt obliged to share. people do some things at work that i just never thought would happen in a professional environment. and yet, here are the top three most socially unacceptable things people do at work.

3. change their clothes. in their cube. the other day i walked over to a co-worker's cube to ask a question and he was standing there in an undershirt. awkward.

2. floss in the public restroom. really, if i'm going in to go to the bathroom, i don't want to see you craning your neck to get close to the mirror to pick crap out of your teeth. yuck.

and 1. clip their nails, also in their cube. there's a girl whose cube is near our office and i always hear her nail clippers as they go to town on her fingers AND toes. and everyone knows, you never get them all in the trash can, so that means there are loose nails floating around the office floor. gross.

sorry if these mental images were distrubing, but i felt obliged to share. meaning i did not want to suffer alone in silence any longer.

best compliment ever

so whenever leonidas and i go for walks, he always stops to say hello/sniff the butts of other dogs we meet. dog owners in general take the social cue and make small talk until the dogs get bored with each other or someone needs to move on.

this morning was no different (except for the snow, which was AWESOME!), and as we were walking we stopped to say hi to a golden retriever mix of the some kind. i complimented the owner on his (truly) beautiful dog, and he takes one look at leonidas and goes "he looks exactly like a little ewok!". for those of you unfamiliar with Star Wars (a really inexcusable ignorance), an ewok is a like a living teddy bear (see below), and as a child, i always always always wanted an ewok as a pet! so i accpeted his comment, and took it as the best compliment leonidas has ever received...looks like i've finally found my ewok :) do you agree??

cheap parking

this morning kristy and i parked at a meter spot near the coast guard and for those of you familiar with the $1/hour, 2 hour max meters in arlington, be jealous, because we paid $.50/hour on a 12 hour meter! now that's a steal :)

it's sad the things that get me excited on a monday...