Now, if I can figure out how to manage to squeeze it in in the middle of a 60-80 hour work week, I’ll get back to you!

Stumbleupon – go here to check it out.  This web service has revolutionized the way I surf the web.  I have found things using this service that I never would have found on my own using a typical search engine.  To get started, you choose a list of topics that interest you, and then the website uses those topics to find sites tagged by other users that you might be interested in.  I downloaded the toolbar so that I can find sites and give instant feedback on whether those sites interest me with the click of a button.  The toolbar also organizes your “likes” into your bookmarks, eliminating the need to also bookmark the sites you like.

Others like this: Reddit, Digg, Delicious, an article about discovery search engines.

Pinterest – tag photos on the web and put them on pinboards that you create yourself.  I love how quickly I can go back through items I’ve tagged, since everything is organized in a user-friendly format and posts are represented with captioned photos.

What do you use?

The first thing that makes a great burrito is a great foundation:
1. Buy a good, authentic brand of tortilla. I tend to buy Ole quite often – they make both flour tortillas and corn tortillas that are fantastic.

2. Heat the tortilla properly. An old technique that I learned from the Mexican side of my family involves getting the tortilla crispy by cooking it flat in an ungreased frying pan or directly on the burner. Takes a little practice, and your fingers might get a little singed in the process, but it makes a fantastic crispy tortilla.
For making soft tortillas, I never liked using the microwave until I found this technique: dampen a paper towel, then lay over the tortilla on a plate and zap for 30-45 seconds. This gives you a warm, pliable, soft tortilla that is perfect for wrapping burritos. If you don’t use the moist paper towel the tortilla tends to get chewy.

3. Don’t overstuff. A good rule to follow is to only fill about a quarter of the center of the tortilla. This way you get a good wrap and you don’t get fillings oozing and falling out all over the place.

4. Wrap well. Fold up a flap about a third to halfway up the tortilla, then fold across in thirds. The top can be tucked in if you wish, or you could just dig in.

Now some great fillings:

Breakfast – brown some chorizo, drain the fat, and fry with some beaten eggs; season with salt, pepper, and cumin; add some chili powder if you can handle it. Tomatoes, onions, and peppers would be good additions as well.

Snack – cut up an avocado, mash with salt and pepper (or other seasonings) to taste. Add lime, tomato, and/or grilled onions if you have time.

Healthy Dinner – heat black beans and corn in a saucepan on the stove – if not already seasoned, add cumin, garlic, and chili powder (alternatively, you could drain the corn and saute it until caramelized with some salt, pepper, and cumin); cook 1 cup of brown rice with 2 cups of water, season with two chicken boullion cubes and one beef boullion cube / or taco seasoning (reduced salt would be healthier, of course), cumin, garlic, and turmeric (I usually guestimate – perhaps a couple tsp of each) – you can add tomatoes, peppers, and onions if you wish. Grill, boil, or bake 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (we like to get the preseasoned stuff in chili lime; seasoning with cumin, chili powder, garlic etc would be a good alternative; Grillado makes some great marinades – I like the Mojo and Chipotle versions), cut into 1-2 inch strips or cube. Add veggies, salsa / pico de gallo, guac, cheese and sour cream (or plain yogurt) as you wish.

Fatty dinner – season 1lb raw ground beef with taco seasoning / seasonings as above, add veggies as you wish. Boil in 1 cup of water until beef is cooked and the sauce is thickened. Here is an actual recipe.

There are lots and lots of resources on how to accomplish the beach wave look out there, like this one.  One technique I have used often is similar to the one mentioned in the article, except I would just run a shine serum through freshly washed hair and put my hair up in two “Leia buns.” The source for this technique escapes me presently.  This method works best if you wash and wrap either the night before or early in the morning when you don’t have anything going on until later.  I will admit to enjoying bouncing around the house on a Saturday morning doing housework and looking like a cartoon character from time to time.

My absolute favorite method for achieving beach waves in just-a-step-above-doing-nothing fashion is easy, quick, and doesn’t take hours to dry like the multiple bun method or the old fashion rag curl/wet braids to bed methods.  Ready for it?  Okay, here it is:

1. Wash your hair.

2. Comb thoroughly.

3. Massage shine serum or styling lotion into hair from roots to tips.

4. Take sections of hair (I usually use 1 inch sections) and twist, starting at the root and working to the tips.  Make sure to twist tightly.  Hold the twist for a few seconds, then release.  Repeat until your entire head looks like dreadlock heaven.

5.  Don’t touch it again until it’s dry.  At this point you may spray or tousle as you see fit.

Simple, quick, took one styling  product and no machinery.

Eyeshadow primer.  I’ve been using this particular primer (Too-Faced Shadow Insurance) for a couple of years now, and I love it.  I swipe some on in the morning before putting on eyeshadow, and it really does stay put all day.  I have had mixed results with foundation and eyelash primer, but this stuff has found a place in my makeup bag forever.

I thought it would be too obvious to list my laptop (an HP tablet) or my phone (a Droid Eris) as things that make my life easier, because they make most people’s lives easier and most people are aware of such technologies.  This little guy, however, might be a little less known keeper of the sanity. It’s a quick dock, which is a lovely device that you can plug all your desktop computer-type devices, such as a monitor, mouse, external hard drive, etc into.  Once you dock it to your laptop, you’ve got a computer that pulls double duty both as a super portable laptop and a roomy desktop.  I like it because my tablet is really small (12.5″ screen), and at home when I have to spend long hours on the computer studying or when I want to use it for entertainment I can hook it up to my 19″ monitor and optical mouse in one swift motion, but it’s the same light-weight fully functional computer I take everywhere with me so I don’t have to worry about transferring data back and forth between machines.

This is actually my fourth coffee-making apparatus, which draws much laughter and scorn from my non-caffienated partner.  It happens to be the one I use the most currently, however, because of my love for espresso coupled with my early mornings.  While I purchased an espresso maker a while back to curb my Starbucks habit, that machine was really loud and non-conducive to a happy home environment with a guy who keeps “normal people hours” and doesn’t have to wake with the birds like myself.

I’ve found that no matter what one does in life, being successful at what you do involves finding the right balance. You need to be able to take care of your obligations to job, family, home, etc as well as find time to take care of yourself and relax.  Unfortunately, this means that you cannot put full effort into every little thing that needs to be done, or if you’re an ambitious psuedo-perfectionist like myself, every little thing that you *think* needs to be done.

For me, the first big step in working towards balance was figuring out what absolutely needed to be taken care of, and paring everything down to the basics.  For example, I have a mountain of dirty laundry that needs to be done, and if I don’t get to it all this weekend, I won’t have any time to get to it until next weekend.  On a daily basis, however, all I need is a clean shirt and a clean pair of pants or skirt (and undergarments) to get me through the day.  Some days it comes down to spritzing down a garment with some wrinkle releaser and throwing it in the dryer with a dryer sheet for thirty minutes while I shower in the morning.  We have a mountain of mail sitting on the table in the foyer, but all that I really need to deal with  are the three or four bills that come in every month-most of the rest of it is going to end up in a box and get shredded at some point.

What I’m talking about is survivalist living.  I’m not going to preach smooth-sailing happy homemaking (not that I’m against it by any means).  I’m talking about surviving a gritty, harried lifestyle with too many work hours and too few leisure hours with sanity (and hopefully pocketbook) intact.

I cannot count how many times this little guy has saved my butt.  I’m at a phase in my career/training where I am expected to look and dress professionally every day in spite of the 11+hour days that I often work.  On top of that, I have to study for a few hours when I come home at night.  Doesn’t leave much time for laundry, or at least completing loads of laundry.  I love that I can spritz this on clothes and either iron them, hang them in the steamy bathroom while I’m in the shower, or throw them in the dryer depending on the level of wrinklage that the item has managed to attain.  I’m a believer!  It will never substitute for a good starch ironing, but will get you presentable for at least the day.

Some sort of dry shampoo.  I’ve tried a few, and most work reasonably well.  Naturally, on a grad student budget, I’m a little squeamish about shelling out $20-25 a bottle for a higher end dry shampoo that will only last me a couple of weeks, but I will say they are a very lovely commodity that I plan on having on hand often in the future.  Check out this list of top dry shampoos. I like the Oscar Blandi dry shampoo the best – mostly because it has a fresh citrus scent.  Honestly, though, I think the $3 a pop Psssst brand from the drugstore works just as well – it’s just not packaged as pretty or scented as well. An even cheaper option that I learned in middle school from a prep-school cheerleader is to use baby powder or talc (which is what dry shampoo is in the first place) on greasy unwashed locks – this method is a little trickier to pull off than the point-and-shoot sprays, and requires a dedicated hairbrush for the purpose of application, but it’s cheap, quick, and will do in a pinch!

I love the stepwise methods this book uses to approach the task of getting organized.  Now if I could just get myself together and follow the plan!  I’ve definitely skimmed the book and used lots of the pointers and methods within to direct some of my own organizing forays, and been pleased with the results.  Plus the book is relatively inexpensive, and I’ve seen it just about everywhere.

I know it seems rather obvious that a coffee drinker would use travel mugs, but this my friends is not just any travel mug.  This is travel mug perfection.  Note the little flip tab that creates a nice seal over the only hole in the lid?  That is the secret.  You can fill one of these guys up with a warm (not hot) beverage, flip the tab closed, and turn it upside down – you won’t spill a drop.  Now, of course I didn’t think I’d need to worry about turning a beverage holder upside down without spilling anything until I was investing in sippy cups, but there is a very good reason I now insist on only using this style of travel mug.  I am a klutz, and even when I do everything in my power to avoid klutzy disasters, they find me.  Case in point: My first year in medical school-nay, first semester in medical school-I carried cheap coffee tumblers of the sort you can pick up at the drugstore for a couple bucks apiece.  You know the type – has a little slider on the lid that you pushed closed and a little vent hole on the other side, doesn’t seal at all, and the lid itself doesn’t seal too well either.  On my way into the Anatomy lab one day, I set my bookbag on a table outside the lab with the mug in one of the side drink pockets. Very. Carefully.  I set it straight upright against a wall square in the middle of the table where it wouldn’t get knocked to the floor, and then forgot about it.  Well, it was a busy day in the lab and a few hours later I walked out into the hallway to find my bookbag lying flat on its back where it had been knocked over onto the table, swimming in a pool of cold coffee.  Not only did the bag get wet, but so did all the books and papers inside of it, as well as the books and papers belonging to several of my classmates whose belongings happened to be nearby.  Needless to say I was irritated, and a little embarrassed that I caused the soggy demise of many a carefully scribed set of lecture notes. Thus my quest began to find the best, most leak-proof travel mug I could, and the pictured mug is a prime example of such a mug.  The only downside to this mug that I’ve found is that it’s not 100% leak-proof – you have to leave the lid open to vent when the coffee is really hot, and you can’t get coffee in the threads that the lid screws into, but if you close the lid once the coffee has cooled to drinking temp or wipe out the wet threads, leak-proofness returns full force. Also,while Starbucks routinely has this style mug, it is not the only company that makes these.  I also own a Thermos brand  travel mug with a similar design that I’m quite happy with.