12 Boxes of Cereal

I don't know what got into Jimmy when we went shopping a few days ago, but I'm not going to complain. In college and when I lived alone, I would keep multiple boxes of cereal around that house. I lived on the stuff. Jimmy on the other hand thought I was crazy. I don't think he ever bought more than one box of cereal at a time. Until last week. We were both hungry and ended up picking up groceries before we ate-always a bad idea. Jimmy picked out ONE box of cereal so I picked one up for me. I thought we were done. Jimmy started to walk away and stopped. He picked up a second box of cereal (it was on sale). Then he picked up another and another and another. And it wasn't even healthy, organic junk that I can't eat. It was the good stuff.

At first, I was so excited, but that quickly turned to disappointment. There was no way this was happening. Jimmy was being his mean old self (love you honey), and was going to put all the boxes back. He was just playing with me. I counted and we had 10 boxes of cereal in the cart. Plus we had two boxes at home. 12 Boxes? No way. Especially after a discussion that morning about how little cupboard space we had. But he didn't put them back-it really did happen. We ended up with 12 boxes of delicious, mouth watering cereal-and I can't stop eating.

Home Ownership

I was discussing rent a few months ago with some friends and did a quick calculation in my head. I almost died when I realized that in just one year Jimmy and I had spent almost $20,000. What a waste. Jimmy had already been talking about buying a house, so we started looking. It was a horrendous process. It seems like everything in the DC area is either brand new renovated and crazy expensive or run down, moldy, back of the house literally falling off and only slightly crazy expensive. Those rare gems that we did find disappeared overnight. There is a major economic crisis going on, and yet people are getting into bidding wars. We put an offer on one and finally gave up the fight after increasing our budget over thirty thousand.

But it finally did happen. A house went on the market on a Thursday. We went and looked Friday and had an offer in right away. I really think if we hadn't moved on it so quick, we would have lost it.

The house is great. It had been flipped, so we don't really have much to do to it. Everything is brand new on the inside. 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bath. Perfect. The yard needs some work, but its a decent sized yard and Jimmy and I will enjoy working it.

Cake

I'll never understand Jimmy and his love to shop, and I know I'll never understand why Target is his favorite place to shop. But what gets me the most, is how Jimmy shops. When Jimmy shops, he shops clearance. I know-this doesn't sound like a bad thing, especially from someone like me-but when Jimmy shops clearance, he buys it because its on clearance, not because he needs it. It doesn't matter what it is or if you really even want it... if its on clearance, Jimmy has to have it. (We still have a round picture frame that he bought 2 YEARS AGO. It is still in its packaging-but it was on clearance for like 90% off)

Anyway, as interesting as Jimmy's shopping habits are, I know most of my family would much rather hear about Cake. Jimmy and I attended a Cake Decorating Demonstration a few months back and I bought some equipment to start learning how to decorate cakes. I haven't touched it since, but finally pulled everything out this weekend and made Jimmy a cake. I ended up making a Target shopping bag with a "clearance" item coming out. It wasn't anything great, but it was a lot of fun.

Work

Well I haven't done much the last month except work. Last week we had a huge event, Strategic & Economic Dialogue. Its a major event between the Chinese and US that even President Obama came to. It was pretty amazing to help coordinate an event that the President and Secretary of State Clinton attended. I was literally a few feet away from both of them. It was a lot of work, but the event went great.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/27/us.china/index.html?iref=newssearch