Hockey!

My co-worker gave out free tickets to the NY Rangers vs Calgary Flames game at Madison Square Garden on December 15th. What we didn't know what that our seats were in the Elite Level Suites and directly behind the announcers and penalty box! While I never watched hockey, I quickly became a fan of the game. 

GO RANGERS!

New Tankmates

On December 27th, 2013, I went to dinner with current and former co-workers. One of them brought up a conversation on how he had a salt water aquarium setup. It made me want to set up my own salt water tank but knowing me, I wouldn't be able to maintain the pH, nitrate and all that other good stuff. So I decided to improve my fresh water tank. Three years ago, I started my aquarium with a school of fish consisting of Sunburst Orange, Cosmic Blue and Neon Tetras. After three years have passed, I am left with just one Neon Tetra and one Sunburst Orange. In the past months, I have added snails to the tank to help maintain my algae growth. I am left with just one. I was inspired to  work on my tank after speaking to my friends and watching tons of Youtube videos on setting it up, taking care of specific tropical fish and breeding them. I decided to go with guppies because they are easy to take care of and look so pretty. Another plus is that they are live bearers, so my female guppy may give birth to fish fry.

My freshwater aquarium setup

The more, the merrier

Baby guppy fry (died two days later)

Last snail standing..

Hope we can add to the tank ;-)

New Year, New Savings

Happy 2014! Happy Savings!

While I am not one for New Year's Resolutions, I saw something on my Facebook newsfeed that a friend liked that caught my eye. It was a savings plan for the new year. It requires you put put away money every week that correlated to the week of the year it is. So, the first week of the year you only put aside $1. In the last week of the year, you put away $52. Over the course of the year, if you save every week and follow this consecutive pattern, you will save $1,378! Luckily, this year we have 53 weeks (December 31st  is the extra day!). That means if I follow through, I will save $1,431!

I think I might double this every week because I feel like it will make me more disciplined with my savings. I haven't been putting much money away and tend to splurge when I save a lot of money. In the long run, I hope I can save up for something big such as nicer Christmas presents, relaxing vacation or small budget for new furniture when Brandon and I get a new home.