Well, I’ve modeled site designs off of various incarnations of this place, always wanted to try it, and finally signed up yesterday. No better time than now, I suppose. Keeping an eagle eye on my finances just became crucial (but don’t worry, I’m not broke). And it’s free and pretty; important things.

So, it’s pretty cool, if you’ve done the mental legwork with paper/calculator already and figured out your income and expenses, as you can set caps for important budget categories in a repeating (and colorful) monthly bar chart/graph. After you set the same categories on your imported banking transactions, it is a good eye-opener. I opted to import my credit card, but keep it hidden. I like budgeting in what I can pay on it each month, not the individual transactions themselves. Starts getting too confusing.

I put in a request for two missing categories: “public transportation” and “savings account”. I fudged it a little and am using “auto payment” and “charity and gifts” (hey, a monthly gift to myself!) as substitutes. I would also like to see “credit card” as an option. Hopefully this will be a helpful tool in the upcoming future…

“…the road to Ruby Falls has reached the end…”

Guster - Ruby Falls

Beach House - Gila

“…hailing from Baltimore, Beach House’s second album “Devotion” is more like sleeping in a haunted, jeweled music box — all ghostly singing, lushly sparkling pop instrumentation and sensually dreamy melodies…”

“…falls into a personal category of music I call ‘David Lynch movie music’…”

I’ve had this one tucked away for awhile…this song keeps popping up everywhere for me. Radio, compilations, Pitchfork videos, etc. I finally downloaded the album, and if you like this song, well, the entire album is in pretty much the same eerie, generally lovely vein. Je t’aime tres beaucoup. Nice and gauzy, obscure melodies, and general shoe-gazing. Plus strong organ playing, which is rare these days. I actually thought the lead singer was male for the longest time! Whoops. Good music for hurricane-induced rainy DC days, watching your windows leak.

Here’s to “hoping for the lashing to arrive…”

Too cute! I don’t care about the talking part, I just like the main picture with the combined/deconstructed colors…can I wear them all at once? I *heart* the 5th one the most, I think. (ps - umm, look around, fredflare rocks! The colorblock flats are making me drool, omg a cardigan bff, and check out the fredflare boombox…what an adorable flash player! hint: chaunte is a good dj)