So Happy Together

I have to admit an unhealthy, nay, awesome obsession of mine: chips and salsa. Come to my house anytime of the year and you are guaranteed to find a bag of chips and a jar of salsa. After a quick pantry check, I can officially say that I have two bags and 4 jars (two opened, one unopened, and one that has been sealed with super glue, never to be opened by human hands). Take me out to a restaurant with the bottomless chips and salsa and you'll find the waiter giving me an uncomfortable look as he brings out our fifth serving.

This obsession with chips and salsa came about my senior year at Penn. My roommate and I became unofficial salsa testers in our third floor living room while watching Bones reruns and weeping during PS I Love You. We attempted to branch out and find our favorite salsa. Sadly, the year ended before we could make any official statements to the press on our top picks. The verdict is still out and I’m still testing salsa brands when I’m feeling adventurous. At the moment, my go to brand has been Pace Medium Thick ‘n Chunky, but that could change next week.

From my current salsa preference, you can guess that I prefer the medium spice level. Mild provides no excitement for me. You’re eating the salsa for the flavor and fun, not just to shove boring vegetables atop a crunchy chip down your throat. Anything hotter than medium means I can only eat a few chips without feeling like my mouth is on fire, which hinders my need to eat as many chips as possible in one sitting. That hindrance is unacceptable, so I choose to go with medium to satisfy my tongue and fill my belly.

In case you’re worried that I’m not getting all the nutrients a growing girl needs, I do enjoy branching out to other dip options. Guacamole is delicious, especially when it’s homemade. I also have found that melting down some Velveeta and mixing it together with salsa makes for quick and easy queso. If you’re wondering why I haven’t mentioned potato chips and their accompanying dips it is because I just don’t like them. Potato chips are a bit too greasy and the dips have never appealed to me. To put it simply:

Give me tortilla chips and salsa or give me death!

School Supplies + Mo = True Love

My husband and I stopped into Walmart today on our way to the Post Office. There were 2 things on my shopping list: Skirt hangers & a specific shade of OPI nail polish. Sadly, Walmart does not sell OPI and my quest for the shade "Got a Date To-Knight" is still on. I did find myself a bunch of new hangers which will aid in my never-ending quest to perfectly organize my closet.

Why am I telling you about my mundane, uneventful journey to Walmart? BACK TO SCHOOL SHOPPING. It slaps you in the face as you walk into Walmart, Target, or any major store and makes me wish I could be back in school.

I have always loved back to school shopping. Not the kind of love I have for hangers or chips and salsa, but the kind of love that makes you giddy as a school girl, that makes it impossible to sleep at night, that makes your hands shake as the day Mom has designated as back to school shopping day draws near. This isn't back to school clothes shopping that I'm referring to, however. No, that shopping was left to kids who went to public school and had the option of jeans and fun t-shirts every day. I'm talking supplies. Folders, notebooks, pens, pencils, erasers, colored pencils, pencil cases, everything.

I used to immediately scan my list of necessary items for each class with sheer bliss. What color 1-in binder for Social Studies will I get this year? What color book covers should I get for my textbooks? Do I want to write in blue or black ink? Should I get gel pens to decorate my covers or a stash of Yikes! pencils? Do I get a Lisa Frank folder or a Trapper Keeper? (Yes, I went to middle school in 90s. Jealous, much?)

The options were endless! As I grew older and went to high school, I was forced to fit in and buy less exciting folders and binders. This didn't squelch my excitement for back to school shopping, though. I still heavily weighed the benefits of a green binder for Biology and a red binder for Math. Even in college I spent far too long in the school supplies section of the book store debating whether I wanted a yellow folder or a red folder to carry my notes in.

Now that I'm graduated, I won't get the excitement of back to school shopping until I have children of my own. I hope that at least one of them gets as excited as I do. Then again, if they don't want to pick out their supplies I'll have to color coordinate their Earth Science notebooks for them! For now, I must satisfy my craving for office supplies by stocking up my home office with colorful pens, Moleskine notebooks of various sizes, and post-it notes galore.

Where's Lisa Frank now? The woman knew her target market so well.

After my first blog failed to inspire me, but won at instilling doubt in my grasp of the English language (how ironic), I am creating this new blog. Here, I will post my musings, rantings, laudings, etc.

I'll ease myself into it with what I've been pondering for the last 20 minutes. To buy a magazine subscription or to not. I always enjoy reading magazines (or simply skimming through their pages), but I have yet to buy an actual subscription. I have wasted more money on grabbing random magazines while standing in line pondering whether I really should be buying that fourth bag of chips this week. (More on that love affair at a later date.)



Most magazines now are just ad books. Pages 1-25 are Ralph Lauren, DKNY, Burberry shoving their product down my throat as I anxiously flip past for the scholarly "10 New Sex Positions" expose. These are usually the same old tales tossed back at you with different titles and color schemes.

I think, however, that I have found a magazine I can settle myself into subscribing to: Self. A good friend recently brought it along with her on her trip to see me. It is not only a beauty & fashion magazine, but a health & fitness magazine. It didn't have the hard-hitting articles that grace the middle 3 pages of many magazines nowadays, but it made me happy. No overtly sexual articles about pleasing your man or getting the bedroom booty every girl dreams of. It's geared toward women to simply make them happy. I like that.

And, with that, I have inspired myself to click "Subscribe".