March Recap Leads to April Resolution: Knowledge

So I like super slacked on updating at the end of the month like I was supposed to. Sorry, but it happens a lot that I don't feel like writing anything because I don't know what to write. Let's jump right back into March, shall we?


March 31st 2011:

Wow, being creative was a little bit hard. While I really tried to create awesome things of art or words, it turns out that to me being creative is baking. I baked a lot of cookies, like sugar cookies with chocolate chips and snicker doodles. In the beginning of the month, I decided to cut my hair IN HALF length wise, freeing myself of boob-length hair and the lack of fun things to do with it when you don't have a handmaiden to help you do your hair.

In honor of Mardi Gras (Kristy's "cultural heritage holiday") me, Kristy and Carol went to Harry's Whole Foods to seek out a king cake to devour.. sadly, the cakes there were really sad looking so we decided instead to raid the pastry items (12 little cakes for $10!!) and get dinner from the awesome assortment of things they have to offer. Once we got home we decided to have a Fancee Partee with our little cakes, sandwiches and sparkling juice. That meant dressing up in snazzy jammies, donning hats and posing for photographs before we could inhale our food and watch A Midsummer's Night Dream.. because we were fucking fancy, dammit!

we're kind of awesome like that...

I also decided to bake for St Patrick's day and went really crazy with it.. Last year I made Irish Carbomb Cupcakes and they went over really well so I decided to give them another shot and see if I could make them better. They did turn out better, but now I have plans for NEXT year to make them the most wonderful chocolatey-Guinnessy cupcakes in the world. In addition to my beer/chocolate combination of delight, for my roommate that doesn't drink I decided to make  Green Velvet Cupcakes. Sadly they didn't rise to the occasion so I mutilated them into cake balls with no coating of frosting or white chocolate ganache. Next time they will be wonderful and cute, dammit.

Don't you want a bite?

That was really about all I got done creativity wise, which didn't help me maintain February's resolution of being healthy. Surprisingly, by the end of the month I was actually down to just below 150 pounds, go me!


April is going to be all about Knowledge and learning new things, be they random bits of trivia or just how to do something new. Hopefully this will get me in gear to start studying for SATs or ACTs or whatever it is I will have to take to get into culinary school... hopefully.

March Resolution: Creativity

I used to be an arty kid. I would doodle and design and sing and dance and did theater. Not any more. I'm lucky when I sing in the car with someone else and when I get an idea about something.

Time to change that.

By the end of this month I want to have filled my life with the fun of being creative again. I'm not putting a daily requirement on this, as I know for a fact that you just can't make yourself feel creative. I want to do something at least every week, even if it's just writing a crap ton of haiku like I did the other day.

Time to seize the joie de vivre once more!

February Resolution: Be Healthy Recap

So passes the shortest month of the year. It was a good month, full of snow and ice and frozen yogurt and holey shoes and lots and lots of breathing.

The goal of February was to be healthy. I think I did pretty well. There were days that were harder than others, especially when it came to walking. For the first part of the month my car was still broken so in order to get to work I had to walk... but once the car got fixed, back I slipped into my laziness spiral of sleeping in until I had to get up. Drinking water was a bit easier, since I carried a 20 ounce bottle with me just about everywhere I went. There were some days where I drank a lot more than others, but from what I hear that's pretty normal. Plus, I would have probably died if I had drank 80 ounces every day, since that seems to be the most I could drink.

There was a pattern to my drinking that I started to notice after the first week. I would drink very little for one day, maybe 20 ounces if not less, and then the next day I would drink between 40 and 80 ounces. My constant seems to be 20 ounces a day, which isn't bad considering that I used to drink maybe 20 ounces in a WEEK before this month.

Sadly, I never made it to the gym with my roommates to rock out the treadmill or any of the classes that they took. I'll keep trying, though, since the gym they joined has an awesome rate of like $10 a month for a year.. and the visitor pass is $5. We'll see how that pans out.

On February 2nd I weighed 154.8 pounds, but on February 4th I went down to 152.4 pounds. By the 16th (after a weekend of eating horrible for you food and Valentines chocolate and not enough water) I was back up to 154.3. But by the 23rd I was down to my lowest yet at 150.2 pounds. And finally, as of the writing of this, I'm sitting at 151.4 pounds.

I have a goal for how much weight I would love to lose in this year, and by looking at what I did in 28 days without even really changing anything other than water intake and walking a bit more, I have confidence that I'll be able to reach it by next February.



The numbers:

Total Water Intake: 770 ounces = 5.8 gallons
Total (known) Miles Walked: 11
Total Weight Lost: 3.5 pounds

February Resolution: Be Healthy

I love food. A lot. Like... more than I should. I like reading about food, looking at pictures of food, watching people make food, listening to people talk about food... yeah. I'm addicted to food.

So here begins the start of what will probably be the hardest month for me to follow: being healthy. And by "being healthy" I mean not eating whatever I feel like, when I like. It's gonna be hard, I'm surrounded by food at work so I snack off and on all day, telling myself that it's okay because I'll work it off or that it's "quality control". And once I get home I find myself wandering the kitchen, peering in the fridge and our various food hiders. Out of boredom, usually. If I actually ate when I was hungry, I would probably only eat one or two times a day. But I don't, I eat when I'm bored. Which is bad, from what I hear.

It won't be easy, there will be many days that I want to scream "fuck you, I'm gonna be fat and happy!" and eat a bag of cookies or something.. and then I'll feel bad. Because I get eaters remorse when I'm trying to be better about things.

To start off the month, instead of jumping straight into some crazy diet or something, I'm going back to the basics: drinking enough water and exercise.

Right now, the exercise is easier than drinking water. For the last couple of weeks I've been walking to work because my car is messed up. According to le Google Maps, from my house to my place of employment it is a whopping 0.8 miles if I take one way and 0.9 miles if I go another. So, round trip, I can get between 1.6 and 1.8 miles of walking in. Which isn't bad at all, really, considering that normally the only time I walk anywhere is around the mall, at a con or at a LARP event. In addition to walking to work (I'm not even going to mention actually working, since it's a given being that I'm a waitress in a place with 2 levels) I have started to dance on Wednesday's again with Jodi. Right now it isn't much, we're still trying to come up with the actual routine, but once we have that ironed out, it'll turn into a really good workout.

Drinking water, on the other hand, is harder for me because I like flavour. I know, why not just get the little packet things that you add to water bottles? Because those things are crap for you, being made of Splenda if they're low calorie or just tasting horrible. Plus, I'm addicted to coffee. But I've found a way to get a couple of ounces into my system, so we'll start there. Actually, I've done really good on drinking water today, I'm on my third bottle of 16 ounces.. so, I've had 48 ounces of water all told today. [Edit: After actually measuring my water bottle I found that it holds 20 ounces of water, so I actually drank about 50 for the day!] And like 8 ounces of coffee, and the same for soda. It's been a really good water day.

So, here's to being healthy!

January Resolution: Happiness Recap

Here's a recap of all of the things that have brought me happiness this month. This is how things are written in my daily planner...

1. Having Jodi as my best friend
2. Being lazy & fat with good music
3. Food, pretend tattoos and silly kittens
4. .75$ movies
5. Greek yogurt
6. -
7. "Reliving New Year's Eve" party
8. Shrimp tempura rolls & Menchie's
9. Fluffy bed
10. Sailor Dalecks! (The Picture)
11. "I told you to make a list!" -Katra Tsikalas, Admin (I play-tested a game)
12. I worked!
13. -
14. Spartacus!
15. A: "I hate bending over after an orgy." F: "Me too." (Cathe misheard a conversation)
16. Donating money for sick kids
17. Sushi Bites & Beacuase (The Video)
18. -
19. FREE CHOCOLATE! OMNOMNOM
20. DHU as Daphne Addams
21. I didn't walk home
22. Music
23. Chow Baby Grill
24. Rolling 5 20s as Rayleigh
25. -
26. Jodi & Rachael time
27. -
28. -
29. Never Have I Ever
30. Jodi Time!
31. I decided what phone to get. (The Phone)

February is going to be "Be Healthy" month.
We'll see how it goes.

Just a Few Things (with links!)

Weather Update:

So, the snow has finally melted. The leaves have finally dried out, which makes me happy because they crunch when I walk on them now instead of being soggy, slippery things. It's still cold, but at least it isn't snowing.

To express what it was like living in the Atlanta area, I share with you a couple of videos. I didn't make these, my BFF Jodi showed them to me, but it sums it up pretty nicely.

This is what it was like in the beginning: It's Snowing in Atlanta?! Yay!
And this is what it was like a week later: It's colder than a midget in a refridgerator

And that's all I've gotta say about that.

In other news, due to either time or the cold as balls weather, my car started to act up. It makes a Sound that hasn't been identified yet. I'm hoping to be able to take it somewhere this week to get it looked at. All I hope is that it's something simple that won't cost me an arm and a leg, as I only have 2 of each and I need them both. But, that means that I'm walking to work until it gets fixed, which means exercise.

An acquaintance of mine from the nerdy LARP world has started a blog, so you should check it out. Meet Adam Jones . He writes some amusing things that make me laugh, but I'm kind of simple so his humor might be too classy for you to get. Oh, and he writes haiku sometimes about things that are questionable.

I have 3 cuts on my right hand from work. They hurt, a lot, because they are all in areas that come into contact with things, like my pockets and writing instruments. But at least I didn't loose a finger, that would suck even more.

Yesterday, or the day before yesterday, I was tricked back into playing A Witch's Tale for the DS. I had gotten stuck in a castle back in October and had quit.. and then I got distracted and forgot about playing the game. I showed someone where I was stuck, he got me unstuck, and then I got sucked back in. I am still stuck. The boss that I was supposed to fight didn't show up, which is lame because that means I missed a step somewhere in the level. Boo-hiss.

And that's about it. I mean, I could fill you in on the tiny detail things that I've been up to, but I don't know you well enough to share some of those. :D

Snow! I'm pretty sure that crap is evil.

It snowed on Sunday the 9th. At first, it was pretty... the crisply white snow coating the lawn, street, rooftops, tree branches.. it looked like something off of a greeting card.We were all excited by the prospect of a Snow Day.

Look at the pretty snow! Let's drink hot chocolate!

Five days later, Thursday the 13th, the city is still mostly snowed in. Our cul de sac is under probably 3 inches of snow and ice on the roads with probably about 4 to 6 inches in the yards. It's the ice that keeps you from being able to drive anywhere though.

The tiny black parts are the road. The rest is DEATH.

Like... this morning I thought I would drive to work instead of walk the almost mile like I did yesterday. Apparently, I thought wrong. I got out of the driveway well enough but the moment I hit the street and tried to turn, I was stuck in a patch of ice. The wheels were turning.. but they were turning on ice, so my ass was stuck in the middle of the street. With the help of Frank and Cathe I was able to get my car from the middle to the side of the street. Hopefully nobody hits my car. That would suck and I would cry.

After getting the car back to safety I called my boss back (she had called while I was trying to move the car) and then I called the co-worker that I was going to be working with. She had had the same idea of trying to drive instead of walk and had gotten stuck in her street as well. Now, while my walk takes 15 minutes in good weather and about 20 in the snow, her walk is an hour in the snow. So, there was no way that we were going to make it to the cafe to open in the next hour and a half.. which leaves me not working again today.

Good thing I managed to get in that 10 AM - 2 PM shift yesterday. Hopefully tomorrow will see me at work for about the same amount of time. My co-worker is just going to walk without waiting to hear from our boss what time she would like us to come in, since it doesn't really matter and we got like 15 customers yesterday that were within walking distance of us.

The sidewalk has become an icy deathtrap. But the snow is still pretty!

But, on the plus side of this snowedinness.. is that a word? I've gotten my laundry washed, if not put away yet, and yesterday Cathe and Frank got the couch that was in the garage into the upstairs living room, which gives us more seating that isn't the floor. I might bundle up and trek out to my car to retrieve my sewing machine from the trunk and make some little things with scraps of fabric I have laying around my room. I'm thinking something like this: Coffee Mug Cozy Thing. It's simple sewing, being a rectangle, and I have the supplies and the time to do it. So, we'll see if I manage to be creative and/or productive today.

At the very least, I'll put away my clean laundry and make my bed.

Oh, and my roommate Mish just tried to leave for work. She just got stuck in the same place I did.

Evil fucking ice.