Good-bye, volatility; hello, stability

Today is our four-month wedding anniversary, and my four-months-out impressions of marriage are positive. I love being married.

I suspected--and was correct--that marriage would make life easier, more comfortable, and happier. However, I didn't anticipate the increased stability, especially of the financial variety. But it makes sense--I feel more stable, so I am better equipped to plan for the future.

And plan for the future, we are doing. We've got short-term and long-term goals, along with savings accounts for each and the requisite "emergency fund" (which, sadly, B has said is not supposed to be used for fashion emergencies, no matter how good the sale is).

The great part about all of these goals is that I feel confident that we will stick to them. Single life is so volatile that it's hard to stick to any savings plans--unexpected events, like the annual first-last-security money juggle and moving and other unexpected costs always come up. However, we've made it through several major life events, such as buying our first home and getting married, and we don't anticipate any additional major life events in the near future.

Now that we have real savings accounts that we are really going to use, I've accomplished a mental hurdle that many say has been holding me back, and it's about taxes. I used to think that paying more taxes and getting a bigger refund was the way to go. And in many ways, I was right--if you don't have a savings account, saving in any way (even if it's Uncle Sam's interest-free special) is a good idea. However, I have seen the light--I now count myself as a dependent and pay fewer taxes, with the idea that the extra cash will go into my savings account and earn interest. If we do end up owing money to Uncle Sam, at least we'll have had the opportunity to make a little extra money on it before we pony it up.

And in other ground-breaking financial-planning news--starting this weekend, we are interviewing financial advisors. We are meeting with two people to talk about our plans and goals and to figure out what we need to do to get there. It's humbling to admit that you're not sure of the best course of action, but I think in most situations, admitting that you don't know and getting help is the best course of action. I'm a firm believer in the specialization of labor, and financial advisors are far more qualified than technical writers to advise on financial matters.

So connected

A couple of months ago, B discovered the networking site Linked In, and it quickly became an obsession. Linked In is a professional networking website that allows you to create links to coworkers, classmates, and friends. When you're linked to someone, you can view all of the people to whom they are linked as well as all of the people to whom they are linked. As you build your own network, your extended network grows, and the number of people that you can view grows exponentially.

I resisted joining at first. Most of my friends are on myspace or Facebook (or both), but I've seen enough internet-predator shows to be wary of posting anything personal online. When a departing coworker told me that she was on the site, I decided to give it a shot--it seemed like a good way to be able to stay in touch with colleagues from past jobs.

When I first signed up, I was not impressed with the website. It is difficult to navigate and find the information that I am looking for. But eventually I was able to enter some of my job history and find people from my last company--that was very cool.

And then over the next few weeks, I started receiving invitations from other people--friends and coworkers--to join their networks. My network was starting to grow! I had built all of these connections without having to post any messages on people's profiles and without having to send long-winded "here's what's been going on in my life since we last talked" emails. It was easy but also rewarding to see my network growing.

I'm up to 21 connections (and counting!), but I have people in my network with (literally) hundreds of connections. I guess I have a long way to go before I am the most popular girl on Linked In.

A sartorial tipping point

This weekend, B and I went to a wedding, and I experienced none of the pre-wedding, "What am I going to wear?!" panic. I think I've reached a new milestone in my life.

In the past, the lead-up to formal events, including weddings and company parties, was stressful and difficult. I'd look for weeks, sometimes months, for an acceptable outfit. The search was taxing, but I always ended up with the right outfit.

There were missteps along the way, certainly--the episode of the pink dress comes to mind. A few years back, LS and I were shopping for dresses to wear to our company holiday party. She picked up an appropriate black dress with gold tones. I left the store with a frothy pink confection that would have made any eight-year-old wannabe-princess jealous. Luckily, I came to my senses before the party, and the dress never saw the light of day (and it is still in my closet, waiting for the right Halloween occasion to make its debut).

I've also taken advantage of sales and have bought dressy outfits even when I don't have an occasion in mind at which to wear them. An occasion always arises, and then I don't have to worry about what to wear. In fact, I've acquired so many semi-formal costumes that are appropriate for weddings and other special events that I've reached the all-important sartorial tipping point. When I receive an invitation to a wedding or dressy party or gala (ok, that last one isn't likely, but you never know), I don't have to run to the mall in a panic--I just reach into my closet and choose the outfit that I like best.

Speaking of the wedding--when you board the post-wedding bus and the grandmother of the bride says, "Oh, the dancers are here!" should you wonder if your dancing interpretation of "Hot in Herre" was perhaps too enthusiastic? I guess we'll never know.

Overstated opulence vs. spartan scantness

Yesterday, I reserved hotels for part of our vacation next year. And once again, some of them will be paid for with B's Starwood points.

I suspect that our Italian hotels will be dramatically different from our French hotels. Our hotels in Paris and Nice, while in excellent locations for tourists, were geared toward business travel. I expect our Starwood hotels in Italy to offer modern conveniences, such as hot showers (which can be hard to come by in that country), but their decor will be centuries old. Eighteenth-century opulence isn't B's and my preferred decorating style, but I think that feeling like we are staying in museums will make for a better Italian experience.

The photos that I've seen of our hotels in Venice and Florence are promising. Our hotel in Venice is right on the Grand Canal and minutes away from the Piazza San Marco. The hotel is affiliated with another hotel--just a boat ride away, of course, because everything is a boat ride away--that has a beach and even (don't tell B) golf. Our Florence hotel is a former palace. Perhaps we will be upgraded to a better room if I tell them that I am Queen of America.

Sandwiched between this lavishness is our as-yet-undetermined hotel in Cinque Terre. Because the Starwood chain doesn't have any hotels in the area, we will have to find the hotel on our own. Rick says that some hotels are reluctant to book too far in advance, so I have not yet begun an official hotel search. However, I have a few expectations. The room will be teeny and sparsely furnished. There might be a view of the ocean, but a terrace is unlikely. We might not have a drop of hot water the entire 4 nights that we are there. And we will have to pay for the entire stay ourselves--bummer.

The Cinque Terre hotel will prepare us for our windowless cave of a room on the cruise ship, another venture for which we are paying ourselves. Noticing a trend here? We choose the overstated opulence route when it's free but opt for spartan scantness when our own euros are on the line--except when it comes to shopping while on vacation, of course. You can't cut corners everywhere.

12 days of Christmas

I always knew that B is a creative guy, but this Christmas, he outdid himself and really impressed me with his thoughtfulness and creativity. On December 13 (aka the first day of Christmas), he gave me a single book with the Twas the Night Before Christmas poem--with a cat twist. The next day, he gave me 2 hair clips. On the third day, he gave me 3 travel-size lotions.

On the fourth day (4 flower pins/hair ties), I realized what was going on. It was so exciting to have a new gift to open every day, and I never knew what the gift was going to be or when it was going to appear. Other gifts included 5 pairs of socks, 6 votive candles, 7 letter-sealing stickers, 8 nail polishes, 9 personalized note cards, 10 toe separators (well, 2 toe separators, one for each foot--for all 10 toes), 11 golf balls, and 12 colored gel pens.

The twelve days of Christmas ended on Christmas Eve, but B gave even more gifts on Christmas Day! A sweater, a coat, a new bathrobe and pajamas, and lots of fun stocking stickers (Italy stickers, a little cat figurine, and other fun goodies).

It was a great Christmas.

Simplify simplify simplify

Every month or two, I realize that our home is disorganized and full of clutter, and then B and I spend many hours trying to whip it into shape. This realization usually comes right before we have people over. It's ok to live among the clutter if it's just the two of you hanging out in your pajamas and watching an I Love New York marathon on VH1 and eating Ben and Jerry's straight out of the container. But you don't want your friends and family coming over and mentally comparing your home to the monkey pit at the zoo.

Maybe my priorities are messed up--maybe I should try to clean a little every day and stay on top of the clutter situation--nip it in the bud. But I'm the kind of girl who occasionally realizes--while I'm brushing my teeth before bedtime--that I've gone the entire day without brushing my hair. Is it reasonable to expect that I should be proactive about cleaning the house when I can't even remember to detangle my own hair?

(I just realized that I haven't brushed my hair today. However--and if you've never had thick hair, you will think I'm crazy, and if you do have thick hair, you will be nodding in agreement at my next statement--I can't actually brush my hair right now. Well, I can try, and I can brush my way through most of it, but my hair is so thick that I cannot entirely remove all of the tangles. Even if, by some miracle, I am able to get my brush through all of my hair, the tangles form almost immediately. I have made a hair appointment for next week to have my hair thinned, but until then, it's bun season.)

Anyway. Back to cleaning.

Part of our problem comes from traveling clutter. Traveling clutter is stuff that does not belong anywhere, so you continue to move it to different places in your home with the hope that someone else will either throw it away or hide it so you don't have to think about it anymore. Examples of traveling clutter in our home include:

• Pieces of granite that we rescued from the leftover bin while on a trip to Vermont. We took their trash, transported it many miles to our own home, and now have no idea what to do with it. B has a strange sentimental attachment to the rock chunks so I can't throw them out, but I don't think that they make the nicest decorational items for a bedside table in our guest room, either.
• Organizational shelving from The Container Store. Everything from that store costs twice what you think it should, so once you buy it, you can never bring yourself to throw it out, even if you don't need it anymore. I bought something like 4 of these double-drawer shelving units for our pantry, but now we have Ikea shelving that does a way better job. What to do with the TCS shelving? No idea.
• Magazines. Oh, the magazines. When your frequent flier miles are about to expire, the airline sends you a message saying, "Don't let your miles go to waste! Get free magazine subscriptions!" You convince yourself that you will read 8 magazines a month for an entire year. And then they arrive in the mail and you don't open a single one, and you stack them on whatever flat surface area you can find until your blanket chest is covered in magazines, and the idea of opening it to add or remove an item is so daunting that you would rather go cold than figure out what to do with the magazines.

I've decided to take back control. I'm not going to clean my house every day, and I have come to accept having books strewn about in every room. But I'm throwing away those magazines! The Puritan voice in my head says, "But you haven't even taken them out of their plastic wrappers! You haven't opened any of them!" But I don't care! You have to draw the line somewhere, and in my life, there isn't room for Domino, Lucky, Jane (Jane! Unloved, cancelled magazine, how can I throw you out unread?! Surely I will be punished for this blasphemous decision but I suspect the former editors would applaud my "A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do" attitude), and even Martha Stewart. Farewell, literary flotsam! Hello, simplification!

Food snobbery

I am an unlikely candidate for a food snob. I spent my childhood avoiding all foods of the vegetable variety. It took me over an hour to eat dinner every night because I was so distracted by everything going on around me and couldn't sit still. Food was more like fuel than anything else.

As I got older, I became more adventurous and started trying foods that I had never heard of or that I had been scared to try, and I discovered that I enjoyed them. Travel, especially international travel, provides excellent opportunities to broaden your food horizons because you're already in an adventurous mindset. When I traveled, I found myself trying foods that I wouldn't have touched with a ten-foot pole when I was younger, and I brought the adventurous spirit home with me and continued to embrace new and different foods.

As my food horizons broadened, my cooking knowledge improved. When you're feeling adventurous, a recipe that involves ginger isn't as daunting as it used to be. I found myself making dishes that I never would have had the guts to order in a restaurant, and then I found myself ordering similar dishes when I was out. Then I realized that I could cook food that tasted better than the food I could get at a restaurant, and I started wanting to eat only at restaurants that offered meals that I couldn't or wouldn't make on my own. And I started not wanting to go to restaurants that served food that wasn't as good as my own.

That's when I realized that I am a food snob.

I sniff at restaurants that serve frozen food or that feel the need to coat every dish on their menu with a thick slab of cheese or so much salt that I am thirsty for days afterward. If I am faced with the option of eating home-cooked food or restaurant food, I would choose home-cooked food 9 times out of 10, unless I was looking for the convenience of being served a meal--or if the restaurant offered a wonderful meal.

Unfortunately, there is always a problem with the restaurants that offer wonderful meals. B and I were at a four-star steakhouse in a nearby town a few weeks ago, and I kept saying throughout the meal, "I don't know why we don't come here more often! This food is so good! This restaurant is great!" Then we got the check. And we remembered why we don't go there often.