Things I'd like to buy with my tax return

When I got my first real job I was in high school.  I didn't pay rent, I didn't pay for groceries, I didn't have a car payment and I lived with my parents.  I started making money and I didn't know what to do with it so I spent it.  As a kid I always saved my money most likely because I couldn't hop in my car and go to the mall but once I had a car and a job saving money was a thing of the past.

Then I started college and I had wrecked my car so I got a new one and suddenly I had a car payment.  My first two years of college I still lived with my parents so I didn't know what paying for rent or groceries was but I still had to start saving some of my paycheck so I could make my car payment and pay for gas so I could get to school.  Saving money was back in the picture but it was still easy because I had a pretty decent job and I didn't have to save that much.

My next step in life was to move to State College and live with my boyfriend.  This is where I learned that I should have been saving money all along because paying for rent and utilities and groceries and laundry and my car payment every month just kills your bank account.  I'm lucky because I do have a college fund so there's money when I need it but I also save money from my paycheck just so I have room for mistakes.

Now we can talk about the topic of today's post, my tax return.  I received it about a week ago and somehow I haven't spent it yet.  It's the most impressive one I've ever received thanks to my cushy job at PennDOT last summer.  It was actually pretty terrible but the pay was good. Anyhow here are some things I want but will wait forever to buy because I need money in my bank account to justify going home and most likely not working for a month and a half this summer.

Merrell Life Zest Glove

I think these shoes are way cute and they're supposed to be very comfortable and "good for your feet" which I need because recently I've been having some issues with the one I broke 2 years ago.  However they have a large price tag which isn't great for my wallet.

Merrell Women's Oleander

I also think these are just adorable.  I'm a shoe fanatic if you've ever seen one.  They're also by Merrell so they should be a good quality shoe as well.  But a good quality shoe comes with another hefty price tag that my wallet just shudders at.

Longchamp "Le Pliage"

I would also kill to have any one of these bags well maybe not kill but I'd really like one.  Of course they're expensive too and my wallet can only take so much before it has a heart attack.  I might actually end up with a knock-off version from this site.  They're cheaper and you get to have it monogrammed.  So fun.

I'll probably end up with at least one of these three things by the end of the summer.  A girl has to treat herself sometimes right?

Happy Tuesday!

Military Monday

My newest idea for a series is, you guessed it, "Military Monday".  I've decided to start this particular series because my boyfriend recently decided to fill out an application for the Navy.  I'm very proud of him and I plan on supporting him in all of his future endeavors.  This decision though is a pretty big one that not only effects him but also me and his family.

I'll start by giving you a little background information on Kyle and I.  We met in 2009 in our first semester of college.  We were both in a theater group.  We started out as friends and by the end of our second semester and the play we were dating.  It's been three years now that we've been together and for two of those years we've lived together.  It's pretty serious.  I'm also pretty sure that we're going to be together for the long term, at least I hope so.

So here we are in 2013 and we're both a year away from graduating.  About a month ago we were both in the same boat.  Neither of us had a "real" direction for what we were doing after graduation next May, then a week later Kyle found his direction, the Navy.

At first it was for a teaching position in Charleston, SC.  It would have kept him there and there would have been no deployment, no active duty.  I liked that.  Plus we would live in South Carolina which seems like a pretty nice place.  He talked to a recruiter about this position and everything was hunky-dory, for like a day. He later found out that his GPA wasn't high enough for the teaching position but there were plenty of other careers in the Navy he could look at, the only "down side" being that they are all active duty positions and there will be deployments.  This news was upsetting but there was still the opportunity for me to go with him when I could.  I'll let you in on a little secret up until that point I didn't realize that to get the benefits of your significant other being in the military you have to be married.  That was lesson number one for me.  Marriage is a big deal and I never want to rush into it but now with that little nugget of information I think following him when possible will be tougher to do without being married.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to force him to marry me just so I can tag along and reap the benefits through his military career.  I'm a big girl, an adult in fact and I can take care of myself.  I do want to get married someday though.

I don't come from a military family and neither does Kyle so all of this is very new to me.  Kyle deciding to join the Navy was quite the surprise and I'm still unsure of how to deal with it.  Right now everything is still far away (kind of) and he's not officially in.  I'm still scared though.  From everything I've read so far military life isn't necessarily easy for the enlisted or their families but it is rewarding.  I know I have a lot to learn and I probably won't learn a lot of it until it actually happens but you can never be too prepared. Right?

So this has been the first "Military Monday".  I don't think all of them will read like this but I thought you all should know why I decided to start this series.  In a nutshell it's because I'm scared and I'm looking for advice but I also want to give advice to those who are looking for it.  For future "Military Mondays"  I'll probably include something new that I've learned about military life and occasionally updates on where Kyle is at in his prospective military career.

Hope you enjoyed the first installment. Happy Monday!

My College Experience

As finals week of my Senior year approaches I feel compelled to look back on my past four years.  I  haven't necessarily "done" college how I wanted to and I definitely haven't "done" college in a way anyone has portrayed in a movie or on TV.

I will clarify though that next weekend I will not be graduating and I have now joined the ranks of the crowd that calls themselves, Super Seniors.  However, I do know a lot of people graduating and I want to reflect on the times I spent with them and how I wish we would have spent more time together.

When I was a freshman I started at a branch campus because honestly I was afraid of moving 3 hours away and not having any friends going where I was going.  Penn State Fayette was my way of slowly transitioning into college life.  I can honestly say that my first two years there were probably the better part of my college career.  I did well in my classes, I made friends and I got involved on campus.  I was in a theater group there called the Lion Players and I loved every minute of it.  I also met Kyle at my branch campus through joining the Lion Players.

Sophomore year was also spent at Fayette and it was just as good as Freshman year.

After two years at Fayette I had to move up to Penn State's main campus in State College.  Kyle and I both moved up and we started living together in an apartment that we still call home.

My junior year didn't really start off well.  When we moved up I had a broken foot and was on crutches for my first 4 weeks of classes.  It was dreadful.  I wasn't really able to get involved with any clubs at school because joining a club usually meant needing full mobility which I didn't have.  So my first semester at the main campus wasn't great.  It got a little better once I lost the crutches but at that point I didn't feel like joining any clubs because the semester was half way over, I had a lot of school work and I was feeling kind of crappy because my classes weren't going so well.  I did meet some friends though and we "partied" at each other's apartments and that was pretty fun.

My second semester at Penn State was better.  I still didn't involve myself with any clubs because on top of classes I had to get a job so I was busy.  Partying was a weekly occurrence and in February of that semester I turned 21.  I will say that I was totally happy with how my 21st birthday went.  I couldn't have done it any better.  After the first 2 months of the semester though my new friends turned into jerks and Kyle and I didn't really hang out with them anymore.  After that I got depressed, not because of the friends thing, and life went down hill for a little while.

Senior year has been okay.  I've had a job the whole time and that has kind of sucked.  It doesn't leave room for making new friends, or joining clubs, or hanging out with old friends.  I'd say the Fall semester was much better than this Spring semester.  Lately I've been feeling a lot of regret for not get involved and staying in close contact with friends.  There are times when I would like to just punch myself for not hanging out with people that are graduating this semester.  This all comes up because Kyle went on a bar tour yesterday and I'll admit that I'm a little jealous.  I did get to go out with friends from work (and have a great time) but still.

Super Senior year has the potential to be better and I would like to try and be involved with at least one club.  I would also like to be closer to the few people that are here and aren't graduating in a week.  I'd also like to make at least one or two new friends.  Those are my goals for next year.  I guess we'll see what happens.

My advice to all you collegians out there, stay in touch with friends, get involved and try to meet new people as you go along.  Do everything you can so that when you're a Senior you have nothing to regret.

Happy Sunday! And if you're taking finals this week or anytime soon Good Luck!

Caturday

This will probably be my one and only "Caturday" post unless while I'm home for the summer I feel inspired to post about my sister's cat. But we'll see, all in good time folks, all in good time.

Caturday is exactly what you think it is.  Talking about cats on Saturday.  This Saturday is all about one specific cat, Link.

There he is being inconvenient.

We brought Link home after Christmas break due to my excessive nagging about my dire need for a cat.  It was also very convenient that Kyle's parents had just took in two stray kittens and their mother.  I found this to be the perfect opportunity to bring our very own little kitty back to State College.

Now we're not supposed to have pets in our apartment but we'd already broken the rules with a hamster so what could happen if we brought home a cat?  Absolutely nothing is the answer.  At first we were worried about the maintenance people seeing him so we kept him in a closet, a very large one mind you, when we weren't around.  The clever little guy however figured out how to open the door so eventually that became out of the question.  Our worrying was however in vain.  One evening when our sink decided to overflow and make a royal mess the maintenance man came and saw our darling little Link.  He remarked that our cat was cute and that was the end of it. Phew!  

Here's the genius bird/squirrel watching.

So he was allowed out of his closet during the day but we kept him in at night.  That was fine until he started getting out again and now he has free roam 24/7.  He's the king of the castle.  Link chooses night to be his most annoying hour.  We're trying to sleep and he's usually trying to play.  

He sleeps all day just so he 

can torture us while we sleep.

All in all he's a really cute little guy and we love him.  Sometimes he thinks he's a dog, he love love loves to play fetch with his ball that he enjoys hiding in the apartment.  He's also a drooler which I've never had a cat do.  It's pretty gross.  I'd say his favorite thing to do is lay on our computers and/or climb all over us when we're doing something important.  His most recent hobby is trying to escape when we leave the apartment.  Yeah we're in trouble.

He's too cute.

I think I've covered everything I possibly can about the cute little ball of fur.  Happy Caturday!

Blue-Eyed Baker

I've decided that Fridays will be baking posts and I'm going to call them Blue-Eyed Baker.  It's true, I have blue eyes and I'm a self-titled baker.  I kind of stole this idea from a lovely lady that has amazing recipes, she calls herself the Brown-Eyed Baker and you can find her here.  I have found a ton of recipes on her site and they always turn out fabulously.

However, today we won't be using a recipe from the Brown-Eyed Baker.  A week or so ago I said these words to Kyle, "I really want to bake some cookies".  At the time he was talking about a tail-gate he was going to for Penn State's Blue and White game and then I said, "Maybe I could bake something for your tail-gate!".  He said yes but it never happened because work got in the way and I was tired and I needed ingredients.  I was also upset because it was when the whole prospective going to the Navy thing started (we'll talk about that on Monday).

Anywho, I'm finally going to bake my cookies today.  As I type I'm waiting for my butter to come to room temp.  Usually I microwave it but I decided to do it right today and wait it out since I have literally nothing else to do.  All of my classes were cancelled today, I couldn't be happier.

The recipe of the day comes from Simply Recipes.  I've never used a recipe from here but I'm sure it will turn out just fine.  Kyle requested peanut butter chocolate chip cookies so that's what I'm making.  The recipe is just for PB cookies but I'm going to be daring and add some chocolate chunks.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Yield: About 2 dozen

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 egg
• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1.2 of an 11.5 oz. bag of Nestle Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunks

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit*.
2. Using a stand or hand-mixer cream the butter (appx. 2 minutes), add both sugars and combine (appx. 2 minutes).  Add Peanut Butter and Egg.
3. In a separate bowl mix the dry ingredients.  
4. Stir the dry mixture into the butter, sugar, egg, and peanut butter mixture.   Gently fold in the chocolate.
5. Make approximately 1 in. balls of dough and place them on an ungreased baking sheet about 3 in. apart.
6. Bake for 9-10 minutes.  Let cool on sheets for about a minute and then transfer to a cooling rack until cooled completely.

*If you prefer a chewier cookie bake at 300 degrees for 15 minutes.

They turned out really well.  I ended up baking them for 13 minutes but I'm pretty cautionary with cookies.  I've had a few issues with them being under baked in the past.

That's all for today folks and I hope you enjoy! Happy Baking!

Exam Day

Today will be a shorter post because I have my first of four written final exams this evening.  I make the distinction of a written exam because I had a German oral exam yesterday.  It went really well.

I suppose starting a blog during the last week of classes probably isn't the most intelligent idea I've ever had but I really felt inspired to do so yesterday and when I'm inspired to do something I usually do it unless it requires a lot of physical activity and or money that I don't have.

I've kind of decided that I'd like to make specific topic days with this blog.  Some days will still be me randomly rambling. Ah, look at that alliteration! But other days will have a purpose.  Today is obviously NOT one of those days.  Tomorrow though will probably be the start of "I bake on Fridays".  That's a working title.  And no I won't be baking every Friday, I'll bake whenever I please but I want to make posts about things I have baked and or will bake on Fridays.  I like to add a little stability to my otherwise hectic life when and where I can.

I'm also debating on Caturday, which will happen on Saturdays.  I love cats and posting about them would be just so fun.  I could even start posting about cats by featuring my adorable little monster Link.  I don't want to look like a crazy cat lady though so maybe we won't post about cats every Saturday.  Stay tuned though because I'm sure that soon enough, Caturday or no Caturday, there will be a post all about Link.

That's enough of my rambling, Happy Thursday All!

Day 1

Today I decided to start a blog.

The End.

Just kidding.  I like to be a little humorous now and again.  For real though, today I decided to start a blog so I could let the internet follow my life.  Why anyone ever wants that I'm not sure but today I'm joining every other blogger out there.

I'll start with a little about myself.  I'm a student at Penn State getting ready to end her Senior year and start her Super Senior year.  I've been here for 4 years now and I'm ready to get out but I guess we'll just have to wait until next May.

I live here in State College, PA with the love of my life Kyle Salitrik and without him I don't think I would have been able to make it here so far away from my family.  Kyle will graduate next May too and then he wants to go to the Navy.  I'm terrified about this new change in our lives but more on that later.

Let's talk about my family.  It's huge.  I'm the oldest of seven in a very blended family.  When I'm home in Coal Center, PA I live with my mom and stepdad AND my 3 brothers and 3 sisters.  We're not all biologically related and sometimes I get really annoyed with them but I do love all of them.  I'm sure I'll talk about them plenty more.

What are my dreams and aspirations?  Well I love, love, love to bake.  I'll bake cookies, cupcakes, cakes, pies, whatever.  I hope to one day open my own bakery and sell all of the delicious treats I so love to create.  However,  my dreams are probably going to be put on the back burner for a little while because Kyle's military aspirations are going to come first.  Today I'm okay with that but tomorrow might be another story.

So what brings me to blogging?  I just thought maybe my life was interesting enough for the rest of the internet world to read about.  I could be wrong.  I hope to keep this up for as long as possible so that I can chronicle my final year at Dear Old State, the trials and tribulations of the love of my life joining the Navy, my second love, baking, and finally everything else that comes along with being Hannah Marie Bodnar.

Thanks for taking a look.  Ta-ta for now!