Goals

So I'm broke. Though this is nothing new, I've decided to do something about it. I'm tired of wasting my money on stupid things I don't need and then regretting spending my money, while feeling guilty. I'm done. Of course I'd like to have the money to buy things I can't afford, especially when it comes to my wardrobe, but I don't have any money. I'm not only broke, I'm super broke. So to try and keep myself on track and on the straight and narrow, here are my financial goals for the month:

• I will not buy food at school
• I will not go to stores where I know I will feel tempted to buy something (Cougar Craft and Floral, Nordstrom's, Macy's, J Crew, Gap, Banana Republic, Brambles, Patina Market, or the Flower Basket- all boutiques)
• I will not buy any new books this month (there is a book sale coming up at the library in a couple weeks where I'll spend my change)
• I will read AT LEAST one of the books that I currently own to offset the sadness of not buying new books this month
• I will only go to one reg. price movie, 1 matinee movie, and/or 1 dollar movie
• I may break down and buy myself a Valentine's Day accessory- we'll see how depressed I get as the day approaches
• Earplugs for my roommate (but that's a whole different story that I will not share here)
• I will spend the money to get checks- I'm tired of not having them when I go and pay rent
• I have to finish paying for my books on my account on BYU- LAME
  

This new attitude towards money is not only a change of heart, but one of common sense (and the fact that I have to record my purchases for my finance class). However, I think this is a great idea. I don't want to write down all my purchases every time I buy something, so ergo, if I want to buy something I question whether or not I want to take the time to get out my notebook and write down the amount I've just spent- finally laziness becomes productive! Hopefully I can make it- we'll see though.

Sea Change

Sea Change by Aimee Friedman was an okay read. I had this book checked out from the library for roughly a month and a half before I started getting angry overdue email notices that told me I needed to return it, posthaste. It's sad to say that until last week, this book sat in my locker at work for a month and a half waiting for me to crack it open. I wanted to read this book solely for it's cover, yes I'm shallow, but how could you not? It screams of teen cheesiness and of a whirlwind, passionate romance- could it get any better than that? Frankly, yes it can. Although I did like the book on the whole, there were a couple things that I didn't really like about it which shall be addressed later in the post.

For recap, this is a story that could be classified as many things: summer romance, mermen (yum!), coming of age, befriending the popular kids, and more. The main storyline is this: Miranda is a high schooler in New York who plans on doing an internship at the National History Museum but gets spirited away by her mom to Selkie Island, an island off of the coast of Georgia so that they can get their dead grandmother's house ready to sell. Miranda isn't too happy that she has to delay her internship, but goes along because she's a "good" girl. Upon arrival she sees that there are many signs that boast of the danger of the island, and especially the interesting nature of the gorgeous boy "next door" who seems to be falling for her.

I enjoyed this book, though I didn't really like the whole way the "mystery" of the island was approached--it felt to fictional. I couldn't really connect with the main character, even though I did feel her plight, and her mother's descent into Southern Belle socialite bothered me. Other than those hard to overcome flaws, this was a pretty good book--at least one that was enjoyable to read on the whole.