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I don’t know if it’s because I started watching Office Space last night or what, but today really threw me for a loop. Just a lot of unexpected stuff, mostly work-related, most of it disappointing. Nothing scary or anything like that, just… disappointing.

Today went by much slower than my Mondays usually go, which also did not help.

I hate when I can’t post about the things I want to post about.

Instead, here are five things I am thankful for today:

1. Figuring out how to make the mantel above our not-really-a-fireplace look better. One would assume there’d be more articles online about how to decorate a mantel (not for the holidays!) but one would be wrong. Most of them were the weird old lady-type mantels that I wish I could describe but I can’t, and the ones that weren’t were mostly holiday themed. I’m good at holiday decorating I think, but the normal day-to-day interior decorating, not so much. But I am learning.
2. Michael Connelly books. I read Echo Park first, and then The Closers, and now I’m on Chasing the Dime. He’s an author I know virtually nothing about but I’m finding his books incredibly enjoyable.
3. The knowledge that my mom is making a quilt for Daniel and I as a wedding gift (with colors we like instead of colors she likes!), and my dad is making me a hope chest as a (really, really belated) graduation present. I like that my parents are so handy.
4. Friends that don’t give me too much crap for watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy at least once a month. Because I do. And I am not ashamed.
5. Netflix. We just finished Season 1 Disc 1 of Dexter, and even though I still think Dexter is pretty doofy-looking (I kept lamenting this every time he was on screen, much to Daniel’s chagrin - I can’t get over it, he looks so stupid half the time), I like the show a lot. The opening sequence squicks me out a bit but his sister is pretty funny and I like Angel Batista. Don’t tell me what happens with the Ice Truck Killer! We should be getting the next disc soon.

Was your Monday okay or was it inexplicably crap like mine?

Just saw this on the Mint blog:

Under a new federal loan repayment plan based on a model developed by the Project, students with federal loans are guaranteed that their monthly student loan payments won’t exceed a certain percentage of their income (15% of discretionary income, which is classified as everything over 150% of the federal poverty level). This legislation, signed into law a year ago, takes effect in July 2009 and applies to all federal student loans, past or present.

I don’t know about you, but I certainly hope that this is true. I won’t tell you the exact dollar amount I spend on my student loans every month, but it is around 22% of my total monthly take-home pay, which is not entirely insignificant. Using some hazy math (good heavens I am bad at math) I estimate that this would bring my payment down by 43%.

I haven’t consolidated my loans. I have two, a personal one through my bank and whatever the normal one is, Stafford? I chose not to consolidate when I graduated because the interest rates were so high at the time. I looked up the current interest rates here and it looks like mine is 4.21% right now. I think when I got it it was around 7 or 8, but I know people who have them at 2 or 3, so I was holding out. Since they’re not consolidated, this means I have two payments each month and they’re pretty hefty. (See above, re: 22% of take-home pay). In comparison, I spend less money per month on my half of rent. Not a whole lot less, but less.

The other reason I haven’t consolidated (or called to lower my rates) is because I want to pay it off. It seems counterintuitive to me to continue attempting to lower your rates so you end up paying a piddly $90 a month on a loan worth tens of thousands of dollars. You’ll be paying it off until you’re 97 years old. Ew.

What’s the balance here?

I did get a letter once saying one of my loans lowered my monthly payment by about 20%. Since I could afford it and I wanted to pay it off, I adjusted this online so it was back up to where it was before. I’m thinking now that I should have left it, continued to pay the same amount I was before, and specified that the extra be applied to the principal instead of the interest. I’m kind of kicking myself for that now. Was adjusting it back up a stupid thing to do?

I really wish I understood this kind of stuff better. Are any of my readers financial whizzes who want to recommend to me a course of action? Does the “22% of monthly take-home pay” sound totally outrageous to you? I have a 401k and health/life insurance, but I do eventually want to be able to buy a house and right now it seems really daunting. Am I insane for wanting to pay off my loans quickly?

After Kerri responded to my tweet asking which design blogs I read, I thought it would be appropriate to post them so everyone can enjoy. Behold!

I visit Design*Sponge a LOT. They have a nice mix of furniture, food, stationery, pillows, everything. Everything designy.

The first “house” blog I really got into is Making It Lovely. Nicole is SO sweet and her house is adorable. The older archives are more house-related but I love it all. Don’t miss the large dragon mural! (Also, Nicole and her husband are having a baby and I can’t WAIT to see what the nursery ends up looking like!)

Everyone cites Apartment Therapy as a big inspiration, but I find their site too obnoxious to browse. I hate their archiving method (you used to only be able to see one page before you hit the “archives”
which only gave you post titles. Now I think it’s better, but might only be five pages?) and I hate the giant square ads before the comments. They post questions but don’t answer them or offer suggestions before they open it up to the commenters. It’s okay, it’s just not for me.

I used to visit This Young House off and on, but in the last couple of weeks I’ve gotten totally obsessed with it. Just ask Daniel, heh. They offer a consulting service where you can send in photos of your house, or room, or whatever, and for a fee they will create a color palette and research items you should buy for your room. They have fantastic taste and their readers have great before-and-afters. I emailed the couple to ask them to post a “rugs 101″ because I am a total dunce about rugs (Why would you cover up hardwood with something pretending to be carpet? What size do you need for a given room? How do you pick a pattern?) and Sherry posted it the next day! I’m forever grateful.

Decor8 is good for visuals. I tend to save their images to my computer so I can look at them later. I think they offer deals a lot, like “20% off X store for all readers of this blog!” so that’s nice. One of the girls that writes for Decor8 also has a personal blog called Haus Maus where she talks about getting a place in Germany and decorating it.

I stumbled on Coveiter this morning and had a field day.

How About Orange has some nice visuals too.

I tend to not read Martha Stewart websites (even though I secretly love her stuff) because there’s too much going on with the rest of the site and not enough article. I always feel like I’ll click into something that looks like it’ll have helpful info, and it’ll be two paragraphs and three bullet points of common sense and then NINE ZILLION ADS and PROMOS and OTHER THINGS TO LOOK AT. Her ideas are great, but I tire of her sites easily.

Occasionally, I’ll stumble on other house blogs and read all the archives and then forget what the sites were called, so there are definitely more out there that I’m just not remembering. Do you have any other sites you want to share? I’m always up for other things to read!