Knicks!

A late night at the office took a turn for the better when I overheard a co-worker talking about free tickets to the NY Knicks vs Denver Nuggets that night. I asked both the boo and little brother if they were interested. Winner was the lil bro. Steven met me at Madison Square Garden, where I discovered our seats were in the Madison Suite! I also discovered that when you get to games early, the gift shop tends to have promotional deals too good to pass up on. I got myself an Amar'e Stoudemire jersey for $28! I used to get my stuff after the game.. The Knicks played really well and beat the Nuggets 117-90. The game went surprisingly fast and was an enjoyable experience.

Our tickets (really big tickets)

Our seats/view

Enjoying the game

Guppies Fry Batch #1

My pregnant guppy had fish fry! It was about time... she was pregnant for over a month! I started feeding them crushed fish flakes and instant brine shrimp. I counted over 28 fry and hope many of them survive into adulthood. Will be looking to re-home some of these when they are ready to leave the nest.

Day 1: Discovered that the pregnant guppy was not-so-pregnant after all. I was in denial of her supposed "miscarriage" and inspected the tank. I notices tiny small dots (eyes) staring back at me at the bottom of the tank. The poor babies were hiding in between the gravel and underneath my structures (maze cube and treasure chest). I don't know how many were eaten by the mother fish or the other ones in the tank. I spent two hours scooping up all of the guppy fry and placed them in a mesh breeder. I counted so many of them and they swim so fast.

Day 2: I noticed every time I fed the fry, I would find one more free swimming fry in the community tank. I was worried that they would not get the food they need to grow or worst, get eaten by other hungry fish. So I moved all the fry to a separate 1 gallon tank to raise them until they are old (big) enough to join the other fish in the community tank. They're still so tiny but growing everyday!

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. 

Bone Marrow, Exercise and Executive Board- OH MY!

It's been a while...


My co-worker reminded me that I haven't posted on here in over a month. I'm sorry. Things got really busy and I just didn't have time to sit and write about what's going on in my life. Here is the short abbreviated version:



On Friday, November 22nd, I received a FedEx package containing some important forms from DKMS. I had registered to be a bone marrow donor in October of 2007 and was a potential match for a patient who is in need of a bone marrow transplant. After sleeping on the butterflies in my stomach, I asked my parents and Daddy-2-bee what they thought. Luckily, they said they would support any decision I make. If I wasn't already all-in, after speaking to my donation coordinator, I found out that the patient was a 60 years old woman who suffered from Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. That's what Grandpa JM had. Luckily for him, he was able to fight off the cancerous cells with just chemotherapy. At that point, I've made up my mind. I was going to do this. I looked up numerous donor and patient success stories of bone marrow transplants and was enlightened by the fact that so many people gave away a piece of their body for a stranger. A few people have come to me shocked that I was going to go through with this and asked "Do you know that it is really painful?!" YES! I do know that the process of the bone marrow extraction is quite unpleasant (to put it nicely) but you can potentially save a life, and give them more time with their loved ones. If my father was on the list of patients looking for a match, I would hope someone could return the favor. Sort of like pay-it-forward. 

Potential Match Letter

 If you are considering being a potential bone marrow donor, please contact DKMS




In the efforts of trying to get more fit and healthy, I decided to start P90X. My goal is to complete the program but after 4 days in, I feel completely exhausted, hungry all the time and aching everywhere. We'll see how many days I last!

I also was invited to join the Young Executive Board for my old crew team. I think it would be something new to get involved in. I wished I had more time over the years to give back to the organization, Row New York, but things always get in the way. I feel like by sitting on this board, I would be able to give my input and be part of the behind-the-scenes team.


Let's see what 2014 brings!

Autumn Breeze

I can't believe it has been a month since I last wrote a post. Things kinda picked up with the season and I only recently begun to settle down and resist the natural flow of things. So many things have happened in the last month and it's about time that I catch you up on them.

First off, I turned 25 years old. I feel so much older being a quarter of a century years old. How many times have you gone to the store and your total was eight dollars and some cents? Don't have any change? Some people were nice enough, "Don't worry about it!" they say. Well, when you owe eight dollars and twenty-five cents, they're waiting for you to break your extra dollar and give them their cents. Once you reach a quarter, it's significant and no one says "Just keep the quarter." I was pleasantly surprised in the morning as I walked half asleep to the bathroom and saw a myriad of colorful balloons fill the apartment. I still can't figure out how Daddy-2-bees got all the balloons inflated (he claims without a helium tank) and to float. He also gave me a birthday card with a $250 gift card to Dylan's Candy Bar! Later that night, we had dinner at my favorite restaurant, Trattoria D'ell Arte in the city. I love their pasta! The night started off with me being slightly ticked off because I got to the restaurant over an hour and a half early and was waiting for Daddy to get their. He didn't leave work until much later, after I got kicked out of a outdoor seating area in front of a corporate building. He also didn't tell the host that we had reservations which I believe is why we got seated in such a noisy area. We got off of the wrong foot but the delicious food changed my mood. When we got home, Grandma called to come over for cake. Except Mommy and Uncle Steven decided that we were going to cut the cake on Saturday. Nonetheless, messages were crossed and she never got the memo. She also had called everyone to come over for cake and they were already there- so we had to have cake. We go to get Uncle Steven to come up and blow out the candles and find him fast asleep, passed out from a very good night of drinking. This led to me cutting the cake without him for the 2nd time in my life. Just as I thought the day was over, Daddy surprised me with a brand new Macbook Pro laptop! I was speechless!

School picked up. Sorority life picked up. Work picked up and before I knew it, it was October! I went to Uncle Kevonte and Aunt Jessica's wedding celebration. Pictures are coming, to be posted. Surprisingly, the h'orderves were really good. The next day I attended Ken and Andie's baby shower for their baby boy Kal. It was superhero themed (they're Batman fans). I didn't bring my camera but this is a pic I took on my phone of the newlyweds.