secret fishies and more secret fishies

Last week, due to a clerical adjustment, Sarah and I found we had $75 of surprise money that we'd hadn't allocated to any need or want. It was technically Sarah's money, but it had been placed in my account, and she gave me the go-ahead to spend it as I chose, mentioning that buying a "secret fish" (our apartment discourages pets) would be one possibility.

So off to the pet store I went! I picked up a very small tank and a trio of red platyfish. I'll have to post a picture sometime. They're pretty cool, and we decided to name them after Gravity Falls characters.

Cut to last night. We're on our way back from the Provo Temple when Sarah spots what looks like a fish tank on the side of the road. We go around the block and come back. Turns out it's giant (very heavy) fish tank with rocks, grass, a castle, and three fish, plus a metal stand, a pump, fish food, and cleaning supplies. The sign said free, so we struggled the tank into Sarah's car and drove home with three new friends. (Definitely a blessing from going to the temple, haha.)

We haven't cleaned it out or merged our fish or anything yet (that'll be tonight), but we now have six secret fish in our apartment. Here's to hoping we don't kill them.

P.S. It's probably a very minor accomplishment in the grand scheme of things, but I've been working through Codecademy's HTML tutorials this last week (one of my five educational goals), and I composed this entry using the HTML setting instead of the rich text one. That's how I did this postscript. Step one toward success!

Guru's

One thing I'd like to start doing is documenting fun food experiences. There's more to this than just blogging about food/bragging about food. Sarah and I have a goal to eat at every restaurant on Center Street and on University Avenue in Provo (plus a few outlying places that look awesome). We love food and love trying new things, and Provo's actually pretty multicultural, surprisingly so, so this seems like a worthwhile goal. It'll keep our date nights varied and ensure than we have some cool experiences along the way.

To kick it off, we went to Guru's last night (how ethnic!) with Lisa & Laura (a belated birthday treat, which was super nice of them). Collectively, we had pita & hummus (quite good), artichoke pizza (delicious), a philly cheesesteak wrap (unexpected kick to it), a turkey BLT (classic), and a southwestern quesadilla (very good, especially with sour cream). Oh, and then we split chocolate cake and an éclair.

Overall, we had a great time with great food, and I'd definitely go there again.

new goals

With the coming of August, Sarah and I have decided to set some new goals to keep us moving forward. We're both pretty dedicated and determined people. Sure, we love lounging with ice cream and popcorn and novels and TV shows. We love lazy Saturdays and naps and goofing off. But we're also pretty goal-oriented and passionate when it comes to things we're interested in, and we're both endlessly curious about the world around us.

We've already got a pretty good system set up for goal-setting (we both make plenty of to-do lists and such), but we wanted to push ourselves a little further, so we sat down and came up with five categories apiece whereupon we want to focus our educational efforts over the next six months. (I think this is particularly important right now, given that we're both taking a break from school for a bit.) Sarah decided upon kanji (and general Japanese proficiency), news & current events, music history & theory, fitness & health, and indexing & family history; I went with linguistics, languages, news & current events & history, music history & theory, and coding.

I'll likely be detailing our adventures with these goals in the coming weeks and months. I just wanted to get a post out about it before we really start getting into it. Today's my first day working on these goals, and so far it's going pretty well: I've studied some Welsh vocab, read a few articles from my RSS feeds about politics and current events, started the first basic HTML course on Codecademy, and am currently listening to the first episode of The Lyrichord Early and Classical Music Podcast, which is fascinating thus far. Wish us luck!

top albums

I had a little spare time today and was going through a list I made a while back. It was supposed to be my top 100 albums, but it had hit 140 or so before I was done. I decided to go through and whittle it down to 100, just for fun. It shot up to the 180s before I managed to cut it back down to an even 100. It's probably skewed a little bit toward what I've listened to more recently, and I'm sure it'll continue to change over time, but it was a fun exercise.

First, here are my top 10 albums—my absolute favorites.

1. Anberlin Cities
2. The Corrs In Blue
3. Jimmy Eat World Futures
4. Lights The Listening
5. The Morning Of The Way I Fell In
6. The Naked & Famous In Rolling Waves
7. Nightwish Imaginaerum
8. Olivia Broadfield This Beautiful War
9. Straylight Run Straylight Run
10. Yellowcard Ocean Avenue

And here's the full list of 100. Thoughts?

1. Acceptance Phantoms
2. Al Lewis Battles
3. Al Lewis Band Heulwen o Hiraeth 
4. Allred Parades 
5. Amaranthe The Nexus 
6. Anberlin Cities 
7. Anberlin New Surrender 
8. Angels & Airwaves Love Part One 
9. Annalisa Mentre Tutto Cambia 
10. Annalisa Non So Ballare
11. Ashley Tisdale Guilty Pleasure 
12. Bastille Bad Blood 
13. blink-182 Untitled 
14. Bon Iver Bon Iver, Bon Iver
15. Boys Like Girls Boys Like Girls 
16. Brand New Your Favorite Weapon 
17. Brand New The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me
18. Capital Lights This Is An Outrage! 
19. Carly Rae Jepsen Kiss 
20. Ceredwen Ô'r Mabinogi 
21. Ceredwen The Golden Land 
22. Chvrches The Bones of What You Believe 
23. Clique Girlz Incredible 
24. The Corrs In Blue 
25. The Corrs Borrowed Heaven 
26. The Corrs Live in Dublin 
27. Fall Out Boy Take This To Your Grave 
28. Fall Out Boy From Under the Cork Tree 
29. Fall Out Boy Save Rock & Roll
30. A Fine Frenzy One Cell in the Sea 
31. Florence + The Machine How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
32. The Forecast In the Shadow of Two Gunmen 
33. Frank Turner England Keep My Bones 
34. Funeral For a Friend Tales Don’t Tell Themselves 
35. The Gaslight Anthem The ’59 Sound
36. Go Radio Close The Distance 
37. The Goo Goo Dolls Magnetic 
38. Green Day American Idiot 
39. Haim Days Are Gone
40. He Is We My Forever 
41. Houston Calls A Collection of Short Stories 
42. Jacks Mannequin Everything In Transit 
43. JamisonParker Sleepwalker
44. Jimmy Eat World Bleed American 
45. Jimmy Eat World Futures 
46. Jimmy Eat World Chase This Light 
47. Jimmy Eat World Invented 
48. Jimmy Eat World Damages 
49. Kenotia You’ve Dug Your Grave, Now Lie In It 
50. Lights The Listening 
51. Lights Little Machines
52. Lights & Motion Reanimation 
53. Lindsey Stirling Lindsey Stirling 
54. Loreena McKennitt The Mask and Mirror
55. Loreena McKennitt The Wind That Shakes the Barley
56. Loreena McKennitt The Book of Secrets
57. Mae The Everglow
58. Mary Jane Lamond Storas
59. The Material Everything I Want to Say 
60. The Material What We Are 
61. Mayday Parade A Lesson In Romantics 
62. Mêlée Devils & Angels 
63. Mercy Mercedes Believe It 
64. The Morning Of The Way I Fell In 
65. The Naked and Famous In Rolling Waves 
66. The Naked and Famous Passive Me, Aggressive You 
67. Nightwish Dark Passion Play 
68. Nightwish Imaginaerum 
69. Nightwish Endless Forms Most Beautiful 
70. Of Monsters and Men My Head Is An Animal 
71. Olivia Broadfield Eyes Wide Open 
72. Olivia Broadfield This Beautiful War 
73. Olivia Broadfield Paper Dolls
74. Olivia Broadfield Jumberlack
75. Owl City Maybe I’m Dreaming
76. Paramore Riot! 
77. Postiljonen Skyer 
78. PVRIS White Noise
79. Quietdrive When All That’s Left Is You
80. Rookie of the Year The Goodnight Moon
81. Rookie of the Year Sweet Attention
82. Rookie of the Year The Most Beautiful
83. Serenity Death & Legacy 
84. Sherwood A Different Light 
85. Shiny Toy Guns III 
86. Silverstein A Shipwreck in the Sand
87. Silverstein This Is How The Wind Shifts
88. Simple Plan Get Your Heart On!
89. The Starting Line Say It Like You Mean It 
90. Straylight Run Straylight Run
91. The Summer Obsession This Is Where You Belong
92. Tonight Alive What Are You So Scared Of? 
93. Two Door Cinema Club Tourist History
94. We Are The In Crowd Best Intentions
95. Wild Ones Keep It Safe
96. Xandria Sacrificium
97. The Years Gone By Forever Comes Too Soon 
98. Yellowcard Ocean Avenue
99. Yellowcard Paper Walls 
100. Yellowcard Southern Air