Reasons I probably need a roommate.

Wanted (potentially, possibly, maybe, no sooner than next October): a roommate. 

Must not be afraid of graphic shit on TV, and/or ambivalent toward sharing roomie marathons. For example, having read the books, I kind of think I want to watch “Game of Thrones,” but I’m such a chickenshit that I can’t do it alone. I need someone to squeal to when things get graphic and nasty. Similarly, having someone there to tell me when the horror movie commercials on TV end was a luxury I never appreciated to its full extent. I try to ballpark it and inevitably end up opening my eyes and uncovering my ears right at the peak of the scariness, and then my overactive imagination takes over and of course the creepy guy with no face is under my bed…the bed that I sleep in alone, making me extra-vulnerable to all things scary. Just waiting to get me. Because, you know, I’m 26 going on 6 and all.  

Must enjoy wine. Wine goes bad if I open a bottle to have a glass, myself, after a long day at work or to savor a particularly good evening. I know I can't finish the bottle on my own in the time before it inevitably spoils, but I love to buy and drink good wine and wasting it seems so terrible. Maybe I just need to befriend my neighbors or something. 

Should be committed to equitable division of household chores, ideally permitting me to handle all surfaces except the floors. I hate the floors, especially thanks to my beloved (but sheddy) polar bear rug. Bonus roommate points for bringing a powerful vacuum to the equation to vacuum up said polar bear-shed (and next year's inevitable holiday glitter explosion). 

Ideally, would not be fazed by occasional sartorial assistance. Potential roommate must be willing to offer fashion advice and feedback at any time, including but not limited to before weddings (dressy), work (professional) and/or dates (duh). I will respect and admire the kind of future roommate who is unafraid to tell me that I own too many striped shirts, and to offer suggestions for alternatives that I will, potentially, someday love just as much. Getting zippers on the backs of dresses past that hard-to-reach middle-of-the-back spot is always a 30-second ordeal in the mornings now. Such a small thing, but it never fails to make me irritated and huffy, and a roommate who is unafraid to offer assistance in the event that I start frustratedly whimpering will have my heart forever. 

Definitely must be confident in all things bug-related. I kill my own spiders now. To be fair, it’s never without a lot of out-loud pep-talking myself through it. It’s not even usually well-executed. I just grab the closest flat thing and start whacking in the general vicinity hoping for the best. Sometimes it’s a practical thing like a shoe or a spatula (which, duh, gets washed afterward). A few months ago it was my hair straightener. Which was heated up and everything. Not the neatest, but definitely effective. Roommate must either be willing to equitably divide bug-killing duties, or at least be there to offer moral support and a giant wad of paper towels to clean up. 

Preferably a fan of brunch. Mostly so I can select the location of future shared apartment based on brunch places in the immediate, walkable vicinity. Further consideration will be given if prospective roommate is willing to go halfsies at a moment's notice when I invariably fail to commit to one menu item and end up in an existential crisis between the waffles and the eggs Benedict.

Future applicants should bookmark this post and bother me about locales next summer. 

(This is mostly facetious. I love living alone, I have been incredibly privileged to afford to do it, and these last fifteen months have been soul-restoring in the most visceral way. That said, I am already starting to think ahead to what happens when it's time for Willow Street and I to part ways...and this is just a thought I've been kicking around.) 

101 in 1001 #35, #36: Credit Reports, Credit Cards, and a Budget!

One of my personal goals for the next year (not a resolution, just a general goal!) is to manage my money more actively and effectively. I’ll be the first to confess, I’ve never really worried about things like my credit score or spending, primarily because I’m fortunate enough to have been debt-free and financially independent since I started working in 2011. I have healthy savings, and have always been able to spend comfortably on entertainment (um, hi, brunch). 

As I’m watching my friends make major life changes…buying real estate, for example…I’m starting to think more about things, though, and decided to make 2016 a year of active financial management for myself. I've been doing a lot of research, making and sticking to budgets, and cutting out some of the extraneous frills in favor of more careful spending and saving, and I'm really proud of myself! 

I started that off by applying for my credit score and a credit card. Believe it or not, I’ve actually never had a credit card before…I’m averse to the thought of carrying debt, and knew I could build good credit by regularly paying things like my car lease. I was completely out of my depth, therefore, when I started getting ten credit card offers a day at my apartment. Um, thanks but no thanks. Instead, I met with a Wells Fargo banker, where I currently bank, who decided that with my current financial position and infant credit, I’d be suited to their 0%-APR CashBack Rewards card. I don’t plan to use the card for anything but to pay utilities and my car payment on a monthly basis, and just transferred the auto-pays on each of those accounts over.

Along with opening a credit card, I used CreditKarma to check my credit score for the first time ever. (Again, judge away, I’ve genuinely never thought about things like this before, and I know that’s incredibly lame on my part.) CreditKarma performs “soft” inquiries to get the score, which don’t negatively affect credit, and I was pleased both to find it incredibly user-friendly and to find out that my score is, as predicted, really good. The only thing hurting it, in fact, is that (as I mentioned) my “credit age” is low. Basically, I haven’t had the luxury of time to build excellent credit for years, so the longer I maintain regular payments and manage my credit well, the more that aspect of my score will improve.

Having totally nerded out and with my fresh new plastic hanging out in my wallet, I decided to take things a step further and finally start leveraging Mint.com to create a 2016 budget! I started a Mint account a few years ago to track spending, but haven’t really used the budget tool super effectively or consistently. To maximize my use of Mint, I created different, customized budget categories for everything from rent/utilities to shopping, subscriptions, and even brunch...of course! 

My favorite feature is to be able to see where exactly my money goes every month. The image above isn't my personal budget breakdown, but shows what I see every month when I go check out how my spending is allocated. For example, looking back over 2015, the "coffee" wedge was absurdly too large...which spurred my resolution to give up "designer" coffee in 2016! Seeing things like where I've splurged too much and saved particularly effectively make me feel much more in control of the big picture when it comes to my money. 

A lot of this seems incredibly intuitive, but as I said above, I really haven't ever paid too much attention to the nitty-gritty of how I spend and budget. These small steps have been a great way to start 2016 off in a fiscally responsible way...which makes me feel even better about some of the fun spending I have coming up on travel, weddings, and entertainment! 

Interested in what else I've been up to? Head over to my 101 in 1001! 

Rambling babbly noteworthy items, 1.19.16

Apparently yesterday was "Blue Monday," the supposed most depressing day of the year. I have to admit, apart from the usual below-zero trudge into the office in the dark, I didn't find it so at all. That said...it's supposedly the day when most people book travel or getaways in the winter, and I've been very guilty of doing that lately! 

In addition to our family trip coming up this June, I've tacked an extra weekend on to a work trip to London and went a little wild planning a fabulous little weekend getaway for myself. I made reservations at a few favorite restaurants, and I treated myself to tickets to both The English National Opera's "The Magic Flute" and The National Theatre's "As You Like It." I can't wait to spend a few days kicking around in my favorite city in the world! 

I'm also trying to badger my friends into going to Blue-Gold with me this year. My Phoenix trip (giant blog post upcoming) proved that I have gone far too long without real live Notre Dame football in my life, and although spring football can't hold a candle to a real game, it will tide me over until this fall. Go Irish! 

Also helping to keep the Monday blues away, however, was the absolutely lovely episode of "Downton Abbey" that I watched last night. No spoilers here, but I actually shrieked at the part two minutes before the end. Sheer unadulterated delight, friends. 

Further, I'm seeing "Pericles" at the Guthrie tonight!...for the second time in three days! My mom took me on Sunday, since my dear Papa Bear isn't a Shakespeare fan at all!, and the Notre Dame Club of Minnesota has a block of tickets tonight. Whether I love or hate a production (hi, "Mr. Burns"), just being at the Guthrie is enough to give me warm fuzzies for weeks. To get to be there twice in such a short span is nothing short of serendipity. 

Happy Not-So-Blue Tuesday, friends :)

Technology that made me smile.

1. Ask Siri to beatbox for you. Bootz'n'catz'n'bootz'n'catz. It's delightful. 

2. Actually, asking Siri anything is pretty funny. 

3. If you Google the word "askew," the page tilts slightly. 

4. Continuing in the Googly vein of things, the Charles Perrault Google Doodles were the prettiest I've seen in a long time. I vividly remember reading all these stories en francais in college, and seeing them illustrated brought all the warm fuzzies to the forefront. 

5. I had no idea you could "shake to undo" things on the iPhone, and knowing that made my day...especially given I tend to delete things accidentally like...at least once a week! 

Fridays in France: Thanks, Champagne!

Hey, remember once upon a time when I went to Paris?! Remember how I said I wanted to blog all about it and finally finish and wrap it up? Hey, me too!

I feel like such a schlump not officially committing the amazingness that was our Paris trip to record here, so I’m really going to focus on and try to do that. That said, I went to Paris in May and plenty has happened since then that’s also worth writing about, so in favor of not totally flooding my blog with posts, I’m going to have “Fridays in France” every week from now until I’m all Paris’d out. I previously covered two of our three day trips, to Versailles (and its gorgeous gardens) and Giverny, home of Monet’s famous gardens, as well as useful tips and notes on where we shopped and ate while there.

To wrap up our trip with a bang (or a bubble? Ha!), we took a full-day tasting trip to Champagne, about an hour and a half outside of Paris, and I cannot recommend the experience highly enough. This was easily the highlight of our trip, and was something we debated doing for several weeks before we bit the bullet and booked it. It was one of our most expensive tours/activities, but it was honestly worth every euro and then some.

We booked our tour with O Chateau through Viator, and were picked up right from our apartment by beautiful Pierre, a former winemaker with a degree in vinology from UC-San Diego. We quickly rounded up another five passengers to complete our small-group tour, and set off for Reims, the heart of the Champagne region.

A quick note before we proceed: all the outstandingly good photos are by Emily, and all the blurry/unfocused/poorly-composed/tipsy-looking ones are mine!! 

Reims is not only the birthplace of champagne, but also a major player in French history as the traditional site of coronations since Clovis in 496. Joan of Arc famously crowned Charles VII in the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Reims in 1429, and the city was the site of German surrender to Allied forces on May 7, 1945.

We arrived early enough to visit the beautiful Cathedral  and explore for a bit before heading out to champagne houses. I loved the juxtaposition of the soaring gothic cathedral with the more modern Chagall stained glass.

From the Cathedral, we took a short trip to Taittinger, the first of the three champagne houses we’d be visiting. Taittinger is one of the biggest champagne producers in the region, and also one of the oldest! The Taittinger property was a great first stop, since it was a super-comprehensive tour offering a peek into the traditional production method for champagne. We started by heading through these fancy doors...and down over 300 feet underground to the Taittinger champagne caves! 

Champagne was accidentally invented by French monks in the 1500s, and production methods have remained largely unchanged since that time. The monks bottled their wine before fermentation ended, resulting in sparkles. The methode champenoise evolved about a hundred years later (thanks Dom Perignon!), where  a "secondary fermentation" in the bottle with the addition of sugar created the carbonation. There are incredibly technical aspects to the production of champagne, including the temperature at which wine is stored during the fermentation process. The tunnels under the monks' abbey at Reims proved perfect: the chalk walls dating back to Gallo-Roman times create the ideal amount of moisture and maintain a consistent temperature of  around 53 degrees. 

Once bottled, champagne has to secondary-ferment for a minimum of 1.5 years, often much longer, and further undergo the process of remouage, or "riddling." The A-frame racks seen above and below are designed to be placed at an adjustable angle, which grows wider over time as the champagne ferments. During remouage, a vintner rotates every bottle a precise quarter-turn one way and eighth-turn the other, giving them a small shake to loosen sediment and guide it to the neck of the bottle. After fermentation, the sediment is removed and the extra space is refilled with yeast and a little sugar prior to corkage, giving champagne the crystal-clarity it's known for. 

Once riddled and corked, champagne rests in the caves until it's perfectly aged and ready for shipment. While it was impressive enough to see a stack like this...

...the true scale of the production quickly became evident when we were told that each production cave held over 3,000 finished bottles. Um, HI. And there were SO many caves! 

Having frolicked with the monks in the caves and tunnels for about an hour, we ascended back to the tasting salon for our first (of many) glasses of champagne for the day! Seeing dozens of glasses lined up and waiting for us made my boozy little heart skip a beat. 

We sampled the "Brut Vintage" from 2010, a single-year bottling. Most champagnes are a blend of several years' grapes and wines to create a consistent and balanced profile...it's only in an exceptional crop or growing year that a single year is kept separate. The champagne was great, although after our next six tastings in hindsight it seemed sweet. 

Santé, Mom and Mem! 

From Taittinger, we headed deeper into the heart of Champagne to Verzy, home of our second stop! Pierre, our guide, was incredibly informative and filled us in on the history of the region as he drove, even making a pit stop so we could experience a terroir (champagne plot) for ourselves. The day couldn't have been lovelier...

Each terroir is approximately the size of my freshman dorm room (i.e. TINY), and the entire region is patchworked together due to the laws of inheritance for plots. Champagne plots are passed down through families, and as such, most have been split multiple times to go to multiple children, etcetera. The result is that many families don't have contiguous plots anymore...instead, they're scattered all over the place. The plot we stopped at was owned by Maison Penet, our second destination, and was marked out by their distinctive scrolled French cross: 

Little baby grapes (Clearly I took this photo, ignore the awful focus)!! Pierre told us that champagne grapes are typically a combination of chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier, and the grapes are harvested 100 days after the vines first flower. For Maison Penet, that job requires 800 workers going for over three weeks. There are only three vines per plant for champagne grapes, and the vines stay super tiny (all the vines in these pictures are mature vines). 

After getting our education in the fields, we headed to the Penet champagne house, which also happens to be the Penet family's beautiful 250-year-old home! 

While the crux of the tour was similar in content to Taittinger, Maison Penet is a boutique champagne producer, putting out an infinitesimal number of bottles compared to Taittinger. They also pride themselves on producing only brut and extra-brut champagne, which means little to no sugar is added. This allows the blend of each vintage to truly shine, according to the Penets! 

After our tour, we were treated to an absolutely gorgeous three-course lunch in the Penet family's home, hosted by Martine Penet. She and her husband Alexandre both grew up in champagne-producing families, and are raising their 12- and 10-year old daughters to take over the 300-year old Penet champagne house! She told me their 12-year old can already taste and discuss vintages--I'm so jealous. 

We were served a wide variety of food...a carrot salad, various crackers and breads, pâté and assorted crudités, and a delicious pork. We chased it all with insanely good French cheese...saboir and Chaource, a pungent one Martine's husband had just brought home from the Swiss Alps. I was lucky enough to be seated next to her, and throughout the lunch, we conversed entirely in French...what a pleasure and thrill to be able to do so! She told me all about her daughters, the family's recent roof replacement, and of course plenty about life in a champagne family. I was enchanted. 

We tasted three champagnes...their Grand Cru Extra Brut (above), the Penet Chardonnet, a delightful floral/very light champagne, and their Blanc de Blancs, a vintage that's so good that every bottle is numbered and labeled with an engraved pewter plate. Martine consistently emphasized that champagne shouldn't be a special-occasion beverage only, and pairs marvelously with almost everything. After our lunch, I was completely sold...and Mom bought a case of Penet champagne to have shipped home!! 

At this point, with a healthy buzz and full stomachs, we were perfectly primed for our third stop at Maison Lelarge Pugeot, an all-organic "campagne biologique." Smaller even than Maison Penet, Lelarge Pugeot uses all bio-friendly, pesticide-free farming techniques and is among the scant 2% of French wine producers to claim that. The operation was lovely, as was our walk through beautiful Vrigny to reach their fields and bottling facility. 

Clearly at this point we were amused by plenty...including discovering a wine barrel full of first-fermentation champagne that we could literally have stuck Mom in! 

I also enjoyed seeing the sediment we had learned about at Taittinger up close. 

Lelarge Pugeot differed from Taittinger and Penet in that all production was done with heavy reliance on technology, rather than hand-riddling and bottling. Further, champagne was aged in barrels rather than bottles for a smoother, rounder flavor. I found the difference in approaches interesting. 

How picturesque is Vrigny? It put me in mind of the first scene in "Beauty and the Beast," a true "little town, it's a quiet village" type scenario. So charmant! 

It also didn't hurt that we had an utterly adorable little tagalong companion, the Lelarge vineyard dog! She was such a sweetie pie and stuck close through the entire tour. 

It was so incredible to see acres upon acres of beautiful grapevines, knowing the history and prestige behind each plot of land. Similar to the Penets, the Lelarge family has been in the champagne business for ages. According to their website, the 8th generation just started working for the family business! Sign me up, please. 

After three more delicious tastings at Lelarge, we piled back into our van with beautiful Pierre and tucked in for the 1.5 hour drive back to Paris. It felt like my insides had turned to champagne...we must have pounded through over a bottle and a half apiece in the course of the day's tastings! I learned so much, and I'm afraid it's turned me into a total champagne snob.

We've been drinking our Penet champagnes all fall, and are saving our two engraved bottles of Blanc de Blancs for Jonathan's graduation...tres bien, n'est-ce pas??

Until next Friday, my loves!