58/365: Have you seen my matryoshka tattoo?

 I love tattoos that represent parts of my past. I studied Russian in undergrad, and I'm still in love with Russian culture. One symbol of the culture that I cannot get enough of is the nesting doll, or matryoshka doll. I even have owl matryoshka dolls on my tv mantle. In 2011, I decided to start my Russian quarter sleeve with one giant matryoshka doll.  Two session, six hours, and $600 later, I have my beautiful beginning.

If you look close, it's three different dolls in one, instead of three separate dolls. It provides so much graphic detail and gives me more arm room for future imagery. The red hair and green eyes were done to match my hair and eyes at the time.

I haven't done any work to it since, but I've started actively planning the next stage of the half sleeve. I can't wait to add to it!

57/365: Oh no, the sickness caught up with me

At least I get this adorable view every time I reach for the tissues. Runny nose, headache, sore throat...this is miserable.

56/365: Finally taking a breath

Courtesy of my CEO, a picture from the bridal shower we threw for our investor relations manager today during lunch. It was nice to relax a little.

This weekend has been a whirlwind. Johnny got extremely sick, water had to be boiled to do almost anything, and there was the concert to balance with an intense weekend of reading and paper writing. This was a nice break.

55/365: Household upgrade

I've been complaining for a while now that our current bookshelf doesn't hold my obscene amount of books AND all of my books from school anymore, so I finally went out a bought a second bookshelf on Sunday for what I have deemed "MBA Corner". I love it so much! It fits perfectly in this random corner we have. Somehow, the living room was just pulled together with this shelf. I'm also excited to better show off my school stuff, because that's just the kind of nerd I am.

54/365: Muse on a Saturday night

I bought tickets to Muse for my brother's birthday, and the show finally happened on Saturday. Absolutely amazing! Hopefully I can get a video that Johnny took to upload here, since my phone failed both on picture taking and recording aspects at the show.

Look at that face behind us...

53/365: Boil water advisories spoil the weekend

Do you need a laugh?

A squirrel, or some related rodent, chewed through a main power line for the biggest water plant in Tampa, and the backup line failed. That meant a water outage and a subsequent boil water notice starting Friday afternoon. That's cool. It also meant happy hour beer served in plastic cups. I was excited at first because I technically live outside of Tampa city limits, which lead to this Facebook status:

Then I checked out a water service map. It turns out that I still live within the water service zone, so the notice affected me as well. Damn.

52/365: Throwback Thursday

I completely forgot my camera. Luckily throwback goes well with Thursday. This is from early 2012 at the World of Beer five year anniversary block party. I took 10 beer shots in a row. Nothing special, but it produced this hilarious picture of me all sweaty with no makeup.

51/365: I like getting mail

Or, newspaper in this case. My WSJ subscription is finally live, which means I get a real newspaper to read every morning. My inner nerd is so excited! I love a good newspaper and cup of coffee in the morning.

50/365: Hello Sunshine

The sunshine feels nice.

49/365: 10 Thoughts on a Quiet Monday

1. Johnny bought me new TOMS for Valentine's Day. My old pair had a hole in the toe. It's so nice to finally have a new pair. It's also perfect timing with how much the temperature dropped this weekend.

2. Florida kids are such wimps with the cold. I mean, 31 degrees this morning was cold, but all it takes is a jacket and a scarf until you can get back indoors. I love the few days a year where I get to wear hoodies and thick scarves without overheating. It doesn't happen very often, but it happened this weekend. I love it.

3. I think if it stayed 31 degrees any longer I would die though. It's almost 10:30 and it's warmed up to 55 already. I do have Florida kid syndrome sometimes.

4. Federal holidays are amazing. I've set up shop at Starbucks and I'm working through some finance review while laughing at everyone in work clothes. There is no guilt either, because I didn't take a sick day to do this.

5. The kid across from me is reading Relativity by Einstein. I really hope he has to do that for class, otherwise he may be a bigger nerd than the girl doing finance review for fun. He's taking notes, so I'm thinking it's for class. But this begs the question...what crazy professor would make someone read that?

6. My tax return is hitting my bank account this week. Of the $3100, $2800 has already been earmarked for one summer class and student loan interest. Being a responsible adult sucks sometimes. But I do have $300 for some fun. I've already decided that the majority of it will go towards some new work clothes (for example, pants. I wear black jeans that are two sizes too big to work). I might use a little upgrade my PS Elements. I'm running version 8, and I've heard great things about version 11. Does anyone have a review on V11?

7. Doing my finance reviews have reminded me that I did really enjoy the subject. I had a terrible professor who ruined the class for me, which drove me away from the track. Finance was my highest grade during the semester where I did all of my quantitative classes at one time. It makes more sense mathematically for me than accounting did. I was a math major during my first year of undergrad, and I still gravitate towards the quantitative sides of business. I think finance will be a good decision for my MS minor.

8. I want to check out the new Wawa by campus today, but I don't want to drive that far for lunch when I have pizza waiting for me back at home.

9. I'm so glad Adam was finally in an episode of Girls again. The Ray-Adam scenes were amazing, especially after how strange this season has been thus far.

10. I wish today didn't have to end. I love studying and being out and having strange hours. I'm destined for a career in academia, I swear.

11. I'm sitting in a Starbucks blogging on my Macbook. Sometimes I hate myself.

48/365: Good beer, good friends, good food

It was poutine night this weekend at the Independent! I love poutine so much. Salty gravy and cheese on fries? It's a fat kid's dream. I'm so happy that the bi-weekly Independent outing just happened to be on the one night poutine was the cafe special. It made up for the fact that we were sitting outside in 40 degree weather with wind. This isn't your typical Canadian-style poutine. It was made with oxtail gravy and manchego cheese sauce.

Good beer, good friends, good food. What else could a girl ask for?

47/365: Miscellaneous from the week

I got access to a new picture editor this week, and I finally tested it out. I love that I can do some of the more vintage effects now that have been giving me trouble in Photoshop Elements. I'm too cheap to get the real version right now. I'm going to eventually, though, even just to have access to Totally Rad Actions.

At some point this week we were at Starbucks studying. I love going out to study, but I hate it when we end up at this table. It's in a sectioned-off area that is easily 20 degrees colder than the rest of the store. I  need a parka to study in there! As usual, I had stopped reading at this point and was just taking pictures. Terrible student, I know.

The USF library has some really old books if you go digging enough. How am I supposed to learn finance with these old books, USF?

46/365: We finally get our time

Johnny and I finally had our Valentine's Day yesterday. Thanks to an old gift card I had laying around, we were able to go out to Bonefish Grill for dinner. In typical style, I forgot my camera, but my phone managed to get a halfway decent picture of the food. I had grilled mahi mahi with chimchurri sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, and garbanzo beans with turkey sausage and spinach. Johnny had spicy shrimp pasta and a bowl of crab and corn chowder.

45/365: Today is Happy Couple Day, so why does it suck so much?

PhD students: Smart, but not smart enough to use correct grammar.

It took me 75 minutes to travel the 13 miles between work and school today. It usually takes longer in the rain, but not that long. I was in a bad mood by the time I got to class, but I managed to be on time because the professor wanted to Skype in while he is away for a conference in California. After 15 minutes, class was cancelled because IT couldn't get Skype up and running.

Class was cancelled after I drove all the way up to campus, and Johnny still has class tonight. On top of that, I ran into more traffic on the way home, and 6 miles took me 40 minutes to travel. That's it. I'm done. I'm just going to enjoy my wine and pinning of wedding decor for a wedding that may never happen, all alone on Valentine's Day. Am I sure I'm not single again?

44/365: Smarty Cat

Johnny put his glasses on his cat, Tigger. Tigger wasn't a happy cat afterwards.

43/365: My building has food trucks!

The building I work in has been renovating the cafe we had, so instead of leaving the tenants high and dry they have been bringing out food trucks for the last two weeks. I finally decided to get close enough to check one out, but a 40 minute wait for a cheesesteak wasn't in the cards today.

42/365: Johnny's Wanderlust

Johnny spent a month in Europe in 2010, and it's one of his most cherished memories. So, for his birthday last year I got canvas prints done of the three places he visited: Paris, Barcelona, and Rome. These hang above our couch in the living room. I love looking at them and thinking about when I finally get to travel abroad.

41/365: I'm terrible at studying

Johnny and I tried studying today in our favorite graduate business lounge. I lasted about 20 minutes before spending the next three hours on pinterest. In my defense, I'm nearly four weeks ahead for class, so I can afford a slacker weekend right now. This is me outlining a chapter on long-term brand management.

40/365: Ten thoughts on a quiet Saturday

1. I love this new mug. The bird almost match the birds tattooed on my arm.

2. I was in Starbucks this morning listening to someone about to graduate and a PricewaterhouseCooper recruiter discuss career opportunities. It got me thinking about what I want to use my four electives to minor it. I think I'll go for finance over entrepreneurship. A handful of finance classes won't hurt, right?

3. I need to organize my design inspirations board on Pinterest. It's getting out of hand.

4. It's really weird to have a Saturday morning at home to myself. Johnny is working overtime again and my class is over. I'm not used to this.

5. I haven't bought a new item of clothing since December. At least I'm keeping with one 2013 goal.

6. Sometimes I wish life was more like a Gilmore Girls episode.

7. Finance sounds extremely boring. How to I reconcile my need for fun against what is better for a career?

8. I need to get on that working from home thing soon. Then maybe I can worry more about fun.

9. I'm kind of happy to not be living in the north right now. It's 70, sunny, and not a snow-pocalypse right now.

10. Writing down ten coherent thoughts was so much harder than I expected. My thoughts don't make much sense usually.

39/365: This made my day at work

I get random requests for information at work relatively frequently, but the requests tend to come from inappropriate email addresses with horrendous grammar. This was my first postcard request. If you notice, descriptive is misspelled. This made up for a long and exhausting week, and it is now in a picture frame on my desk. Best. Request. Ever.

I'm easily amused.

38/365: Apparently these are my favorite colors

Someone told me today that I always wear blue hues and yellow. So, I guess these supersede purple as my favorite

I finally thought about downloading the blogger app on my iPad. This was a pretty painless way to post. Maybe now I can keep a regular schedule.

37/365: I'm a studying machine

Johnny took my camera during our study session and took pictures of Serious Sarah. Brand management starts tomorrow!

Speaking of Serious Sarah, now that I'm settling into a less busy life, I've decided that I need to have a good blog schedule going on. I really like doing this, and I want to make it more than just a 365 picture blog. I want to really make this my space, so watch out for some features and design changes to come later this month and early next month.

36/365: Boyfriend has a cute nephew

Johnny has a cute nephew, when he isn't crying because the tall guy (Johnny) is trying to pick him up.

35/365: The Superbowl hangover

Superbowl spread! I didn't really care about the teams playing, but I did care about the commercials and the food. And I cared when the lights when out, because that was funny.

34/365: Some much needed pampering

Johnny pampered me today and did my nails for me. I feel so lucky to have a guy who is willing to paint my nails, especially considering how terrible I am at the DIY manicure. This is my favorite color, a mint shade from Sephora. This day has been amazing so far: lattes, sweatpants, pinterest, and the puppy bowl, of course. We're heading out to a superbowl party soon, but until then I'm going to enjoy vegging out for the first time in four weeks. I'll start on my brand management reading tomorrow. I don't even start that class until Thursday.

33/365: It's time to celebrate!

Last night was a celebration. I finished my four week class, which means I got to be social! The boys like to talk about stocks and finance, and Jenny and I like to talk about what happened on New Girl. It's always fun.

32/365: Another road trip for work

I had a luncheon in Dade City, which involved driving an hour out into the boonies and finding a master-planned community. Ah, Florida development at its finest.

I live in the city, so being this far out on the interstate is really weird the few times I go north.

31/365: Sunshine and downtown

Ugh, Tampa traffic. At least the downtown skyline is kind of pretty.