Have you ever had to take one of those personality tests which asks you to choose two words in a set of four – the one that describes you most, and the one that describes you least?

I had to complete one for work last week. Those test always make me laugh. The sets they put together seem to just be mostly synonyms, or a set of “bad” characteristics or a set of “good” characteristics.

In each of the two sets below, pick which word (1-4) describes you the most, and which word (1-4) describes you the least.

I made up this example.

I get that the idea is for you to pinpoint which adjective you most identify with, and which you least identify with. Sometimes it’s just hard to choose! But I think the tests are fun to fill out. They always seem to pinpoint me. I had to take one for the first job that I got after college and it had my personality down pat. It was kind of scary.

If you’ve had to take a personality test, did you find the results to be accurate or inaccurate?

Steven brought home a surprise for me today!

Violin Strings!

He even tuned my violin for me! And he has never done that before – he played the cello. He said tuning the violin was a bit more difficult because it’s smaller, but he did it perfectly!

I rewarded him by playing a little tune:

Based on my outfit, did you guess that I am working from home today?

Hmm, maybe you can’t call that a reward? Ha!

I looked for violin sheet music at home, but all we have is cello. Guess I will be asking my dad to search in my old bedroom for my music! Thanks Dad!

Did/do you play a musical instrument? Which one? Do you still play?

I played the violin from fourth to twelfth grade – 9 years, and haven’t played since. I would like to start again. Maybe Steven and I can do a cello/violin duet!

That’s me, looking like the devil, back in 1999!

I’ve wanted to try gardein products at home since they I first heard of them a year ago. I finally got my chance last month when the products went on sale at Target. (So, gardein did NOT send me products to review, but I would be very happy if they did send me some!)

I picked up the crispy chick’n (info here). It came with a mandarin orange packet, but we didn’t use it.

You basically fry these babies up,

And use them however you want. We put them in our sweet and sour “chicken” dish but I tried a few plain too. Yummy! They have the right texture, were nice and crispy, and had a great taste – not to plain, but plain enough to add to a dish and be covered in sauce.

You can barely see it, but the chick’n is just above the two water chestnuts.

Steven and I used to eat a diet heavily based on meat substitutes – Boca, Moringstar Farms, and so on. Dinner most nights was a burger with veggies on the side. Now our protein mostly comes from legumes (and nuts and eggs for him), but every once in awhile we enjoy these fun meat substitutes.

Have you ever tried a meat substitute like Boca, Morningstar Farms, or gardein? What did you think of it?

And I mean in general – not how much you think it tastes like meat.

I used to LOVE the Morningstar Farms black bean burger. They aren’t vegan so I don’t eat them anymore. But the Boca Chik’n patties are! I have told Steven a few times I might not be vegan if I couldn’t have my Boca Chik’n. They taste sooooo good when you make them in the pan. So good.

I’ve wanted to try gardein products at home since they I first heard of them a year ago. I finally got my chance last month when the products went on sale at Target. (So, gardein did NOT send me products to review, but I would be very happy if they did send me some!)

I picked up the crispy chick’n (info here). It came with a mandarin orange packet, but we didn’t use it.

You basically fry these babies up,

And use them however you want. We put them in our sweet and sour “chicken” dish but I tried a few plain too. Yummy! They have the right texture, were nice and crispy, and had a great taste – not to plain, but plain enough to add to a dish and be covered in sauce.

You can barely see it, but the chick’n is just above the two water chestnuts.

Steven and I used to eat a diet heavily based on meat substitutes – Boca, Moringstar Farms, and so on. Dinner most nights was a burger with veggies on the side. Now our protein mostly comes from legumes (and nuts and eggs for him), but every once in awhile we enjoy these fun meat substitutes.

Have you ever tried a meat substitute like Boca, Morningstar Farms, or gardein? What did you think of it?

And I mean in general – not how much you think it tastes like meat.

I used to LOVE the Morningstar Farms black bean burger. They aren’t vegan so I don’t eat them anymore. But the Boca Chik’n patties are! I have told Steven a few times I might not be vegan if I couldn’t have my Boca Chik’n. They taste sooooo good when you make them in the pan. So good.

One more organizational post – while I was doing my clothes purge and organizing inside the house, Steven was organizing the garage. We were on a roll (but we didn’t get everything done)!

Data had to say farewell to an old friend…

He loved to go out in to the garage and play with this model. He liked to chew on the trees. I made one last video of it.

Don’t worry, I still saved all of my favorite models. There they are:

Damn, these things are expensive to build. Steven asked me how much I spent on each one. Maybe $200-$300? And he asked how I could afford it. Student loans and credit card, baby. That is probably why it took me a year and a half out of college to pay off my credit card (but I am credit card debt free now!).

What is/was ridiculoulsy expensive about your education? Books? Models? Beer?

I got on a bit of an organizational kick this weekend (that’s a good thing), and after I purged my closet, I organized our bookshelves, cleaned off my dresser, and started to go through my “sentimental” boxes.

Steven and I each have a few boxes we keep little tokens in – mostly cards/letters, but also brochures, guides, a few photos, and in his case, race bibs and medals. The boxes were completely full, and I needed to make room in them to add a few more things, so… I had to do another purge. A sentimental purge.

The boxes before

I went through each item, one by one, reading them all. I was surprised to find myself getting a bit emotional. There were cards in there with a lot of meaning – cards from people no longer alive, cards with special messages, cards sent to me when I lived in Italy… I felt pretty worked up looking at them all.

It amazed me that just from reading these cards, I could remember the time they were given to me, and the significance of the words in them… and how receiving it made me feel at the time.

In the end, I ended up saving a lot of them – if they had special meaning, or if I just thought they were cute. I only got rid of the ones that didn’t have much in them (for a message from the sender).

The boxes after

The Ferrari bag is full of travel items, and underneath is a stack of letters. If I was really organized, they would be in chronological order. Nope.

A very small sample of some I saved

The cards to get rid of (maybe donate to one of those places that reuses old cards)

I felt really guilty getting rid of cards, but, I can’t hold on to them forever, right?

How long do you keep cards you’ve received? How do you decide which to keep? Which ones have really special meaning to you?

Going through all of these, it became aware to me how much time and thought people put in to these cards. Writing something meaningful in a card is sometimes important, and that is not something I am good at. I would like to work at becoming a better “card writer.”