1. Even though Dean and I are no longer poor grad students, and thankfully haven't been for a long time now, we've never left behind the urge to save pennies whenever we can, especially while traveling. I drive myself crazy trying to book cheap flights, we rent an economy size car, I comb through the travel sites looking for great hotel deals. There's no way that I can claim that our long weekend in SoCal was a bargain, but we cut corners wherever we could.
For one thing, if you're going to go to a professional sporting event, there is probably no better deal in the country than the Indian Wells tennis tournament (which was our destination). For the price of a general admission ticket, you can sit ten feet away from Roger Federer while he practices his serve on the practice courts. Or Djokovic or Nadal or Andy Murray. You can watch amazing tennis all day long in the smaller stadiums. And if you time it right, you can sit in the general admission section (otherwise known as the nosebleed seats) of the big stadiums and watch the big matches. It was great.
2. Except it was so dang hot. It hit 96 on Saturday. Part of the reason we went was to get some sun and some warmth, but that was a bit much. We sought out shade wherever we could.
3. I've had pretty bad sunburns while using SPF 50 and SPF 70. I read somewhere a couple of years ago that the higher SPF sunscreens use a different type of ingredient than the lower ones. Whatever it is, I guess it doesn't work for me. So I've gone back to using SPF 30, and this past weekend it worked great. No sunburn at all, even in the heat and blazing sun, and I even got a little bit of color.
4. I don't think I've ever told you that I got my braces off. In retrospect, it wasn't so bad, but that last month was pretty miserable. I had to wear them a month longer than originally planned, and I was not happy about it. But now they're off and I don't have to carry wax around in my purse to keep from tearing up the inside of my mouth. *bliss*
5. MadMax's prom is this weekend. He's a junior, so it's not quite as big a thing as it will be next year, but still. We went and rented a tux a couple of weeks ago and picked it up yesterday. He will look amazing. Some of the other moms were complaining about how much tuxes cost, but I'm just relieved we didn't have to buy a dress. PellMel was a good bargain hunter, but a tux is not so bad.
6. This is fun. (and since apparently I'm not smart enough to figure out how to embed a video, I'll tell you that it's a video of a graphic representation of popular girls' names since 1880). I had no idea that Barbara was so popular back in the 40s. They're not done with the one for boys' names yet or I would post that, too.
7. Easy recipe for the week: Dump a yellow cake mix in a bowl and stir in 3/4 cup melted butter, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, half a teaspoon of salt, and 2 1/2 cups oats (not instant). Press half of that into a 13x9 pan. Microwave a 12 oz jar of jam or preserves (flavor of your choice) for about 30 seconds until it is easy to spread. Gently spread the jam over the stuff in the pan. Sprinkle the remaining cake mix over the top. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes. Not fancy but they disappear in a heartbeat.
There were supposed to be a couple of other posts in between the seven-things-on-Friday posts, but oops! I haven't finished them yet. Have a great weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment