Friday Favorites!

1) Adjustor - A week after my accident, we finally found out for sure that the Taurus was totaled. We got a fair amount for the car considering its age and we were able to get the check quickly.

2) LaHonda - Last Monday, exactly a week after my accident, we bought our new car. We decided on a '12 Civic. I'll post more about the car shopping experience along with pictures sometime this weekend. It was fun but stressful at the same time since we were on such a short time frame. We love the car so far and we're getting great gas mileage! On our trip to Raleigh this past weekend, we got 40 mpg on the way down and 42 mpg on the way back home. That's a HUGE improvement from the 25 mpg we were getting with the Taurus. 

On the way to Raleigh!

3) Raleigh - We went to Raleigh for Brittany's bachelorette party last weekend. Well, I did. Josh hung out with other friends. We had great time at the party! We started out with Sushi and gifts, then ended the night by going to Glenwood South...SO much has changed since I've been in the area! Saturday, we had a pool party at Chris' house, so we got to catch up with even more friends! Bailey got to play with Carter all day too. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of them together this time.

 The whole group at 606

 Anna and I at the pool party (she has a better picture of us)

Bailey on the ride home. She was not as amused with this as I was.

4) Short Day - Since I needed to be in Raleigh Friday evening, we took a half day on Friday. Half day Fridays are SO awesome! My day usually goes by pretty quickly in the mornings, then it seems to just stop after lunch. I didn't have that issue last Friday since I left at lunch!

5) Loans - We paid off our 3 (out of 6) highest loans this past week! After considering all our options for purchasing a car, we decided to use the money we got for the Taurus to pay some of the loans off. We were able to finance the car for .9% and the loans we paid off were between 5 and 6%. We still have quite a way to go, but at least we're paying much less in interest now. Of course, we've added a car payment to our budget, which was NOT the plan at all, but we're both happy and we'll still be out of debt by the beginning of next year (minus the car and house of course) if things go according to plan. 

6) Brewing - We left Raleigh early Sunday so we could get home in time to brew. There's a homebrew competition we're entering in August, and we wanted to make sure we could enter a couple beers. We're entering our Punkin Ale and Honey Pale Ale. In past years, more unique flavors have won the competition, so I'm not sure what our chances are, but it will be fun anyway! The winner's beer will be served on tap in a couple bars in Baltimore and during an event that takes place in October. Since the event takes place in October, I'm sure there will be many pumpkin beers entered, so hopefully ours will stand out. As far as the Pale Ale, we tried something new with the hops this time, and the beer isn't even hoppy enough for me (if you know me, I'm not a big hops fan), that's not really good for a Pale Ale. If we still enter this one, it will have to be entered as something else. We brewed 2 beers at a time. As far as timing goes, it was much more efficient. It usually takes us about 4 hours or so to brew a batch from start to finish. We brewed these 2 batches in probably 5 1/2 hours. Not bad at all! It was extremely tiring though! It's a lot more involved and we definitely have some kinks to work out in the process if we continue to go this route, like buying a little extra equipment so we don't have to keep cleaning and sanitizing certain items. This was the first time we used our new brew kettle and we love it! 

 I LOVE that we can just drain directly from the kettle. It's an extra piece of tubing to was, but it's totally worth it! This makes our old kettle look tiny, but it's really big too!

7) Free Os Tickets - We had some office supplies sales guys come in to talk to us at work this week. At first, I was a little annoyed (I deal with WAY too many annoying sales people), but they ended up being really nice. I handle most of the ordering at work, but the previous receptionist and I both met with them. They ended up giving us some goodies, best of all being skybox tickets to the Orioles v. Yankees game on September 9! I'm not really big into baseball, but I'm still super excited. Going to an Os game is on my bucket list for up here. We had the opportunity to buy tickets through work for a fundraiser for the Saturday game, but it was going to be $100 a couple. YAY for free tickets! 

8) Mad Men - Josh and I used to watch How I Met Your Mother on Netflix all the time. We finished all of what was on there (now we just have to watch the most recent season). Some of the guys at work recommended Mad Men. We started watching it a week or so ago. I wasn't crazy about it at first, but we're both getting into it now. It's weird, because I don't really like any of the characters, but I still like the show. I do kind of like 1, but it's only out of pity. Haha. Either way, it's a good show. Yay for finding something new to waste time on, like I needed that. ;-)