Impulse shopping

I didn't have a lot of plans today except to get all my homework done. After about 2 hours, I needed a break so we took Jackson for a walk to the park. He ate yet another remote this morning. That's number 5. It's gotten to be pretty ridiculous and I don't know what to do to keep him from eating them. No matter what, he finds a way. I think that we might not be giving him enough attention so he's bored. He has nothing better to do than sit and scheme on how he can steal the remote away from us. He is a really smart dog. For the first few months we had him, we played fetch with him outside for at least an hour a day, and we walked him about every day. But since it's gotten colder and snowy, we haven't been playing outside as much. Today was the first nice day in weeks. It was actually in the 60s! So we took advantage of it by taking him to the park.

After I did some more homework, we ran some errands. Paul didn't have anything to do, so he went with us. We have such a small kitchen and there's not enough storage space so we decided to go to the Container Store and see what we can find to give ourselves more space. We got this rack system to hang our spices on. That frees up a whole cabinet that we are now using to put our liquor and wine. We have quite a collection now! Then we went to Lowe's. Daniel and I want to paint the basement and our bedroom over winter break. We weren't going to buy anything today, just see how much it will cost and look at paint colors. We just happened to see a Christmas tree for a really good price and couldn't resist getting it. We were going to wait and get one right after Christmas when they're all on clearance since we won't be actually in our house all that much this December. Paul's family will actually be staying here while we're in Phoenix. But when we saw one that we liked for such a good price, and we had a coupon that expired in a few days, we bought it. Besides, I'm sure Paul's family will appreciate having a festive house for the holidays.

Next we went across the street to Safeway. We got a bunch of coupons in the mail for groceries we actually needed/wanted for a change. I hate those coupons that are like "take 5 cents off 50 packages of toilet paper." And there was $10 off your purchase of $50 or more which is a good deal regardless. Our total went from $70 to eventually down to under $30. I was thrilled! Finally, we went to Costco to pick up a few things. We had a gift card there so I didn't have to spend any actual money. That always makes me happy. We got a package of like 85 ornaments that all match for our new tree.

When we got home, the three of us put together our spice rack and put up our Christmas tree. I know it's a little early, but we wanted to enjoy it while we're here in Denver. And with the snow and everything it really feels like Christmas already. We put on Christmas music and had some wine that was called "electric reindeer." It was so much fun! I absolutely love having a house and decorating it for the holidays. It feels like we're a real family :-)

Besides that, I have been studying for my biology midterm tomorrow. It is pretty pathetic that after 15 years of school, I still don't know how to study. I have pages and pages of notes and diagrams and figures and charts to memorize. How am I supposed to do it? The past few years I have been using flash cards, but I decided that doesn't really work. It is time consuming to make, and it makes me memorize facts instead of really understanding and synthesizing concepts. And I wasn't doing all that well on my exams no matter how well I knew my flashcards. For my last exam, which I got a B on, I felt like I knew everything pretty well just from paying attention in class. There wasn't so much material that I couldn't remember it all. But this time there is so much it is overwhelming. I mean the sheer number of new terms took up a whole page in my notebook. I ended up just kind of reading over my notes and going through the figures again a couple times. That's the only thing I know how to do. I used to have Daniel quiz me, but he can't even pronounce half the words in my notes and he certainly doesn't understand all the figures. I think what would be most effective would be studying with a group that's in the class with me. Unfortunately, I don't really know anyone and they all still live on campus because they're a year younger than me. I should try harder to get to know them and get a study group together.