So for almost a year, I’ve been using a streaming music player called Grooveshark. It’s handy for making playlists, and with your account, you can listen to your playlists on any computer. I’ve got a ton of stuff on my accounts, but I’ve noticed if I make a playlist on iTunes (to listen on my iPod), there is no way of adding that playlist to Grooveshark without tediously adding each track yourself.

And with Grooveshark, some of the tracks aren’t titled correctly, so you constantly get a remix of “Club Can’t Handle Me” by Flo Rida, instead of the original majesty of the song.

Someone introduced me to Spotify a few weeks ago. I was slightly bitter that I had to download a program for it, but I thought I would give it a try anyway. It’s SUPER.

With Grooveshark, it was really up to you to make your playlists, so it didn’t necessarily expose you to new tracks. It is also impossible to listen to albums because of its lacking categorizing and titling. But Spotify has a GIANT list of new albums, so I’ve been able to hear Amos Lee, Ellie Goulding, and a bunch of other people I wouldn’t have even thought to look up.

Also, Spotify gets its spindly fingers all over your iTunes if you let it, so I can now have access to my iTunes library on my laptop. Score!

I heard that people wanted to see more pictures from my wedding. So here’s a picture of flowers. Ha, ha!

They're from IKEA!

Do you know a Butler University student? HUG THEM.

Pharmacy kids just got done with clusters, and I’m sure the rest of Butler is knee-deep in midterms, projects, and papers. It’s always a rough time after Fall Break (mid-October, two weeks ago), because there’s this enormously long stretch before Thanksgiving break.

Here at Butler we get a 10-day break, which is heavenly, then we sprint for the rest of the semester with 2 weeks of class and 1 week of finals. The long break is totally worth it.

Me, personally? Well I got less than four hours of sleep Tuesday night, so Wednesday night I went to bed after Modern Family at 9:30, and woke up at 10 AM this morning. Hot dog!

I unwound from this week by also watching Pirate Radio, which is an adorable movie. With British people. And Ken Branagh is so evil in it!!

I’ve got a long day tomorrow, but winter the weekend is coming. I can taste it. Actually I’m pretty sure winter is coming. SOON!

Does anyone watch Game of Thrones? I hope so.

My phone finally surrendered the wonderful picture of the Bell Tower that I took almost three weeks ago. It was sunny with temperatures in the low 80s. Leaves were falling from the trees–and in some cases, acorns were falling, too. And, goodness, the trees were still mostly green!

It looks like I was using a filter or something on my phone’s camera. I can assure you it’s just a weird film that develops over the lens from being shoved in pockets and purses.

So, you may ask, what is the weather like now in Indianapolis? Let me tell you.

IT’S AWFUL. Absolutely awful. The sun has already started going down extremely early (around 7 and completely by 7:30!), and it is currently 42 and “cloudy,” but I’m sure what the Weather Channel means is cold, wet, and miserable.

I don’t mind rain, really, but I do mind when the rain is about ten degrees off from becoming snow. I would rather have snow (watch me regret this in about a month!). Snow, to me, is much cozier than rain. And so pretty!

The other problem I have with the current weather is that it rained for almost 48 hours. Straight. I do not appreciate that, weather.

My cooking is terrible.

At this very moment, I am making what I will now call “Pantry Chili.” I’m sure this isn’t a novel concept, but I will explain it to you anyway. A few weeks ago I decided to make chili, but not from scratch. Instead I grabbed all of the “chili-relatable” cans I could find in the pantry and throw them in a pot on the stove. The result?

Delicious chili. I threw in some Mexican-style black beans, canned chili, extra black beans, and some seasoning and VOILA! chili. Tonight is the “scrounge up all you can for dinner because we have no food and grocery day is tomorrow” kind of night, so I thought pantry chili would be a win.

So far … no dice. My chili has these things in it: 2 cans of chili (with beans), 1 can of condensed vegetable soup, 2 celery sticks, and 2 chopped up baby carrots. Why? Because I’m trying to eat more vegetables.

The carrots and celery are still hard as nails (note to self: precook raw vegetables) after about a half hour of stewing. It sort of tastes good, but I think I’ve achieved “soup” status rather than chili. Ah, well. I think it’s edible. It may or may not have vitamins in it. Therefore, success.

My Hand gives soup chili two thumbs up. Wait, no. Just one.

I aspire to be the Barefoot Contessa. Only then will I know I have reached the epitome of culinary success.

So you may think, “No cable?! But how do you live?”

Quite easily, actually. I guess I am not the TV addict I used to be in high school. Back when I lived in the Apartment Village, I realized one day that I had gone a solid two weeks for not watching a single ounce of cable TV (yes, I weigh the length of time that I watch TV in ounces). College must have trained me out of watching TV, especially movies, which I was bad at watching anyway.

I will say that last year, I spent a lot of time watching WE tv’s Wedding Sunday with my roommates. And I will admit that while I was sick with the stomach flu over winter break, I watched about 24 hours (off and on) of HGTV. I love HGTV, you don’t even understand.

At any rate, when it came to moving into a new apartment, I was more than hesitant to pay upwards of $80/month on Bridezilla and House Hunters International. I mean, of course I love watching Irish men hunt for that perfect Hungarian getaway condo, and of course I would pay to watch mean women waddle around in wedding dresses yelling at people. But I just couldn’t justify it.

So we got an Xbox 360 with Kinect (and Netflix instant watch!) instead. And might I say, we are quite content. I personally love Dance Central, and to save myself the embarrassment of showing you how it works myself, I’ll let Ellen do it.

Let me preface this by telling a short story about Cincinnati radio.

We have two classic rock stations. One plays John Cougar Mellencamp, Bob Seger, and Boston exclusively (if you like any of those musicians, just listen to them every day for your entire life and you will change your mind). The other plays motown and, sometimes, if you’re lucky, The Doors (although recently they’ve gotten much better). WEBN used to be hard rock and nothing but awesome, but now all they play is Godsmack and Nickelback (no comment necessary).

For a couple of years, we had a station called 94.9 The Sound (if you listen to 92.3 in Indy the recorded announcer that says the station’s name is the same guy they had for The Sound). It was basically Indy’s WTTS. Alternative and classics. It was a great station until, one day, Cincinnati turned on its radios and 94.9 became white noise. Moved to HD radio. I don’t know what HD radio is but I’m pretty sure you have to pay for it.

Now, commuting in the early mornings, I’m subjected to morning talk radio. I do get a kick out of Smiley’s morning show, but mostly I listen to Paul Mendenhall because he plays mostly music and doesn’t try to bore us with celebrity news. He’s gotten me into Amos Lee and The Head and the Heart and Fitz and the Tantrums. It’s just a lovely station for everyone who’s sick of hearing Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” and T Pain’s abhorrent excuse for a song, “The Best Love song she ever heard in her liiiiiifeee.”

Did I mention their free streaming smart phone app?