happy new year's eve

i feel like i should be doing a year-in-review post, but i'm not. i'll save that for the eve of my birthday. it will mix well with the list wrap-up.

i'm off work today, as i'll be working at an event tomorrow. i slept in and still was up by 8:30. by 9:30 i had laundry started and apples thawing on the stove. by 10:30 i had a french/dutch apple pie in the oven and a muffuletta melding in the fridge. by 11:30 the family calendars were all bound, the living room was mostly cleaned and i was ready to get in the shower. now it's 12:15 and the third load of laundry just buzzed that it was done. i do love productive mornings away from the office.

in case you're curious, the apple pie has a crumbly topping (making it dutch) and a layer of cream cheese in the bottom (making it french). it also has some caramel in there. and it's made in a spring form pan so it's a deep dish apple pie. i'm pretty excited to slice it up and see how it tastes. :)

on why holidays are awesome

i like that the last time i posted, i said it was the first time i'd neglected to post in about 6 weeks. and then i was silent for 6 days. :)

i don't know about you, but Christmas spirit was hard for me to find this year. not that i was all Bah Humbug about the season, but it never quite sunk in that is was Christmas and i should be all excited. sure, i felt Christmasy when i was helping put my sister's tree up. and i felt Christmasy when i was putting up my own decorations. but yeah, that faded fairly quickly. and while i knew it was coming, it was hard to believe it was actually here.

but here it was. and i'm at my parents' house, along with all of my siblings. and we've shared a couple of meals. and we've played a bunch of games. and we've laughed. and we've laughed. and we've laughed.

there's something fabulous about hearing people laugh like they haven't got a care in the world. like all the stress of life has completely faded away and all that matters is that the colored bars on guitar hero are coming way too fast to keep up with. or that they drew two red beans in a row. (side note: if you've not played bohnanza, you're missing out on a fabulous card games.) or that you've just gotten Christmas tree needles up your nose as you search for the elusive third pickle.

in the end, i don't think it matters what holiday it is. i'll take any holiday that gives me time for family fabulousity.

especially when it includes my niece wearing Christmas pajamas with her sparkly jack-o-lantern socks. :)

wow ...

yesterday was the first day about 6 weeks that i haven't posted. crazy.

i'm having some folks over for a cookie exchange today, and the preparation for the hoopla has been low-key so far. i started the toffee on friday night; it was all finished & bagged by early afternoon yesterday. i made small batches of two cookies for us to munch on while we chat. neither one came out as expected, but they both taste pretty good. i may run out for icing this morning to make the shortbread a little more festive, but past that the baking is done. i just need to do some last-minute clean up, and i'm ready to go.

i'd like to run to jo-ann's this morning, too. i need some wire & beads to finish up one of the Christmas presents. and then i've got a good chunk of work i need to do on the computer for the other ones. i should check for boxes & wrapping paper, too ...

did you realize Christmas is only five days away? eep!

SUGAR!

i'm pretty sure i ate more sugar today than i have all month put together. my friend kathy is a baking wizard, and she brought us a mound of treats. it was all absolutely delightful, and i don't even feel a bit of guilt. c'mon ... it's Christmas!

thursday's good things

focusing on the positive, the following is a list of good things that happened today:

- got an unexpected encouraging note from an old friend whom i love dearly.

- learned that more people i know will be at saturday's holiday shindig.

- my homemade butter toffee was well received.

- free lunch AND dinner.

- phone call (for the second night in a row) with lynn.

- watched about 20 minutes of the movie Elf. (did you hear that?)

- going to bed early. :)

fitness: end of week 2

did you see mike's blog? where he was dreading getting on the scale this week, but then he found out he'd lost 4 pounds? my story is kinda like that ...

this past week was less than healthy. i really thought i did okay over pizzafest weekend. i only had a piece or two each time. and then a piece late sunday night. and three pieces (plus the leftover fried appetizer) for dinner on monday. and a piece for lunch tuesday, and a piece (the last piece) for dinner last night ... yeah, i did a pre-weigh in last night and was pretty mad at myself. but then you've heard that you always weigh the least first thing in the morning, right? i don't know how that happens, but it seems that you weigh more as the day goes on. anyway, when i weighed in this morning, i'd lost .6 pounds this week. sad (i mean, it's not even a full pound), but i'll take it. :)

now if only i had some eggs in the house to make a yummy breakfast ...

wireless internet

let me start by saying that my daddy rocks.

a few weeks ago he gave me his spare wireless router. i wasn't able to get it to work properly, so he came up tonight to see what was going on. as it turns out, it wasn't just that i didn't know what i was doing (although it's true that i certainly didn't know what i was doing). he ended up having to reset the router to the factory defaults and then tweak all the settings so it would work properly. so now i have wireless service in the house. yay! this means i can connect my wii to the internet. and i can look at purchasing a roku player so i can stream netflix movies to my tv. these are both excellent.

but not as excellent as my daddy. for, as i said, he rocks.

need for sleep

so last night i came home from my parents' house and started a load of laundry. i wasn't sure what i wanted to wear to today's meeting at work, so i wanted to make sure i had several options clean. as the load washed, i started playing with an idea i have for some Christmas presents. the crafting was going well, so i tossed in a second load. and then i went ahead and stayed up to dry it, too. at 2 in the morning, i was finally crawling into bed. my alarm was set for 6:20, and i knew i had to get up the first time it went off. yeah ... i snoozed it three times before i was even awake enough to realize i was snoozing it. oops. :)

so i'm on my way to bed now. it's not quite midnight, and i don't need to be up quite as early tomorrow. my stomach's feeling a little questionable ... but hopefully i can sleep that off.

candy cane pie

have you tried baker's square's candy cane pie? it's got a chocolate crust, a layer of chocolate truffle goodness, a layer of peppermint silk, another layer of chocolate truffle goodness, and a layer of whipped cream. it is the best pie they make. tonight i ate a piece of candy cane pie. and it was delicious. but i can honestly say, i didn't want a second piece. and when my mom asked if i wanted to take a piece home with me for tomorrow? it didn't bother me at all to say no. it was really, really good. but not good enough to jeopardize wednesday's weigh in. :)

speaking of which, i need to go grocery shopping so i don't end up eating nothing but leftover pizza for the next three days.

pizza fest

well, the pizza fest turned out well. i had a couple of pieces of thin crust last night - veggies, no meat. and tonight i had one piece of stuffed pizza with spinach. not too shabby. :) and they were both quite tasty.

now if you'll excuse me, i have an appletini waiting for me as we toast beth's 30th birthday. :)

friday morning

alright, day one without a specified topic. let the random rambling begin. :)

today will be a bit of a balancing act. i can only be in the office for 7 hours - this is a good thing. but of course i have no copy for an ad that in previous weeks has taken me several hours to do. and the ad has to be approved before i leave today. and then there are those sampling flyers for circulation that i haven't started, yet. those also need to be approved before i leave. and printed. and cut. this could be interesting.

in the end, however, i'll be enjoying some tasty pizza in honor of beth's birthday. and that's never bad. :)

i'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. i think i'm going downtown tomorrow night for more pizza (yeah, a pizza-fest in the midst of trying to eat healthy. these next two days will be a good test of my resolve.) it's been quite some time since i've been to giordano's, so that will be fun. if there's time between sleeping & going downtown, i think i might head to the steelyard for the railcats' yard sale. i hear they've got some sweet stuff for sale, and i have a coupon in my e-mail for 10% off. i do love my coupons.

i started alicia's Christmas present last night. the felt isn't working with me the way i remember it doing last time. it was starting to get frustrating, so i stopped. i've got two weeks ... plenty of time, right?

two weeks until Christmas! crazy.

in memory of maxine

what are you doing today? find a way to sneak in a random act of kindness in memory of Maxine Urbanczyk. buy someone a cup of coffee, compliment your co-workers, clean the snow off your neighbor's car ... just do something.


print this card and leave it behind, if you can. share your experience and learn Maxine's story at this web site.

pass on the love.

future

i was once bitten by a ...

bug named NaBloPoMo. i decided i should blog every day in november, and i decided i should encourage others to do the same. through the power of group brainstorming, we ended up with a container full of topics and more than a dozen participants willing to play along.

i have posted to this blog every day since november 1. some times, multiple times a day.

tomorrow will be the last of the remaining NaBlo topics. i'll miss it when it's over.

unless you want to suggest a topic or two? i'll keep picking if the topics keep coming.

fitness: end of week 1

this week reminded me that i dislike my scale. it's a digital deal that's also supposed to measure body fat - although that part has never worked. when i step onto it the weight bounces around a bunch and then it errors and turns off. it usually takes two or three tries before it settles on a weight. because of that i also tend to distrust it a little. but i weighed myself twice this morning and got the same number both times. i'm down about 5 pounds. yay. :)

my movie theater

i think it would be absolutely awesome to own a movie theater. it's part of my Nonsensical List of Life Goals. i want an old theater. one with lots of character. and i want to play movies that i love ... because you should love them, too. i could do johnny depp movies on fridays. and show friends episodes on tuesdays. saturday night could be old horror movies. and of course there would be holiday-themed extravaganzas. i think alan alda night would be monday because everyone could use a little alan alda after a monday at work. we'd start with an episode or two of M*A*S*H and then show one of his films. i could rent the place out for private parties. and really, so long as i don't charge admission i don't need to get any kind of licensing to show the movies/shows.

this would make me unbelievably happy.

thoughts on God and shopping

i really think God has a fabulous sense of humor. after all the drama with the jeans that should fit but don't? the jeans that i bought didn't get put into the bag of clothes that the sales clerk gave me. so tomorrow i get to go back & hope they believe me when i say i paid for them but didn't take them home. :)

fitness: weekend 1

i was fairly lax with my foods this weekend. saturday night was game night, and i enjoyed way more spinich dip than i should have. on the flip side, i didn't eat nearly as many sweets as i wanted to ... so it could have been worse. :)

i went clothes shopping yesterday, and i think i solved the mystery of the jeans. i took two pairs into the dressing room with me. one was the size i was currently wearing, the other was the next size up. again, the size i was currently wearing simply would not fit. so i compared them to the ones i had worn into the store - they're about 4" smaller in the waist! granted, the pair i wore into the store is about a year old, and they may have stretched with me some. but 4"? i really don't think that's possible. i'm thinking they changed the way they size their jeans. how cruel.

clog: pepper jack

cheese+log = clog.

last night was game night, and our theme was "summer in december." our lovely hosts provided the fixin's for sandwiches, including some cajun turkey breast and pepper jack cheese. i do love me some pepper jack cheese.

when i was work at mickey d's, we sold a spanish omelette bagel sandwich. it had a piece of sausage, an egg with peppers & onions, and a piece of pepper jack cheese. that was one tasty sandwich.

how to survive a tragedy

tragedy ... or events that border on tragedy ... leave me numb. i don't have a survival technique for them. unless walking around like a zombie until the numbness fades counts. in that case, i guess: be a zombie. sometimes all i can do is let the situation take its time and toll on me until it's past.

favorite school memories

my senior year of high school, my friend marisa and i were tutors during homeroom. we hung out in the guidance counselors' office and if no one came down for help, we got to chat or help with office stuff. at Christmastime the door to the office had been decorated with paper wreaths, stockings and holly. when we came back from Christmas break, one of the counselors asked us to take the door down. being the obedient li'l tutors that we were, we quickly did, indeed, take the door down. granted, she probably meant we should take the decorations off the door ... but that's not what she said. and the pins in the hinges came out quite easily. :) if i remember correctly, we put the door back up (and probably removed the decorations) before we left for our first class.

my junior year of high school, i parked my car in the back of the building. i had a silver plymouth reliant, and so did my friend natalie. i came out to my car one day and was quite humored d to see that someone had tied up the inside of natalie's car with yarn. it was looped from door handle to door handle, around the rear view mirror, through the head rests, etc. and then i realize it was my car.

there was the dance in sixth grade when kevin & i danced.

in elementary school i was part of the Challenges Unlimited class. there were maybe 8-10 of us, and we got to skip some regular class time each week to meet and do other projects. i don't remember any one particular time ... but i remember really enjoying the class and the teacher.

ooooo! first grade! there was this super-cute boy in my class named Timmy. and all the girls liked him. and he & i knew each other from church. and when we did our class program for our parents, he wanted to square dance with me, not the cute girls. that pretty much rocked.

i went to school with erin one day our senior year. i don't remember why i went ... but i was there during homeroom and maybe part of her first class?

fitness: day 4

today was a little carb-heavy. in general everything i ate was healthy ... except for the chips at lunch. i look at the salsa and think, that can't be bad! it's just vegetables! but the vehicle to get those vegetables into my mouth? stupid, tasty deep-fried tortilla chips.

and now it's 11:30 and my stomach's starting to get hungry. if i eat now, i need to stay up for a couple more hours to give my body a chance to digest it & use the calories. i think i'll just go to bed slightly hungry instead. maybe drink a glass of water first. yes, that sounds smarter.

and i've decided against the ice cream dessert for tomorrow. there are already at least four desserts being taken ... and i don't need to make something i don't want to eat. i'm thinking maybe some fresh vegetables or a pasta salad or a veggie pizza?

t minus 50

as of tomorrow morning, i'll have 50 days until my 31st birthday. 50 days to complete my list of goals.

goals that need some work:

- blog 260 times. i'm on track to succeed with this one. you'll get sick of me, yet. ;)

- blog the tasting of a variety of cheeses. i need to remember that i didn't specify "gourmet cheeses" for good reason. i can easily post about both feta and chedda'.

- take a trip by myself. this is going to be tricky to fit in.

- eat pizza in 10 different towns/cities. i'll be hitting chicago next weekend, so i only need one more city/town.

- make a muffuletta. the plan is to make one for new year's eve. there will be a big group of people to enjoy it, so i don't have to try & pare down the recipe.

- journal my 30th year. it's in process.

- attempt a traveling journal. i think NaBloPoMo counts for this. we had a specific topic; we all shared our ideas on it; we're all living in various places. but i'd still like to do one that gets mailed around. i'm stuck on a theme for it, though.

- finish a quilt for myself. i really don't see this happening unless i take something with me for my weekend alone. how efficient would that be? :)

- customize the recycled table in the living room. hmmm ...

- work on the california photo book. this was written vaguely on purpose. i don't have any intention of finishing the california book. but i want to go through the photos i took & pare them down. get them labeled with locations & dates. maybe start envisioning the page layouts.

ugh. that's a third of the goals! some of them are on track, but others ... yikes.

settling

you have to watch at least the first half of the clip. or, at least, you have to if you want to hear how it relates to the topic. if you keep watching after that, you'll get a decent ikea reference, too. :)

i wonder if i could have posted friends youtube videos for every topic ...

(what's the deal with the widescreen youtube format? that doesn't fit nicely on my page.)

fitness: day 3

i ran out the door without eating breakfast this morning. bad move. i knew it was a bad move when i made. but i wanted to get to work as early as possible. of course, since i didn't go to bed until about 1:30 this morning ... "as early as possible" ended up being 9:15. but whatever. the point of this story is that i skipped breakfast. well, mostly at least. i did eat a couple of tablespoons of peanutbutter directly out of the jar as i was assembling my lunch. so that's better than nothing i suppose.

but anyway, about two hours into my day i was hungry. so i made the best vending machine decision i could: i bought a bag of mini pretzels. did you know that one bag of mini pretzels is three carb servings? three. how crazy is that?

i was glad when lunchtime rolled around and i got some real food in my system. and despite joe's best efforts, i didn't eat any potato chips or chocolate chip cookies. so there.

and learning that the new office refrigerator has an ice maker? fabulous. i do drink more water when it's cold. and speaking of water, i'm going to go curl up with a glass now. and maybe head to bed early. getting enough sleep is probably important to that whole health thing, right?

punctuation

favorite: the ellipse. ( ... )

least favorite: multiples (???? or !!!!!!!)

fitness: day 2

i weighed in this morning. i figure the catchy sound of Weigh-In Wednesdays might remind me to do it on a weekly basis. i don't weigh as much as i feared i might. but for those of you who knew me three years ago when i lost about 50 pounds, i've gained all of that back. plus 2.6 more. that officially puts me at the heaviest i've ever been. i don't quite understand it - i mean, i'm still wearing a smaller size than before i lost & regained the weight. but i guess it comes back in different places & whatever, right? anyway, my plan is to make a cute li'l graph showing how this month affects my weight. since i don't weigh in again until next wednesday, i'm planning to procrastinate on making the actual graph.

today at work i snacked on dry-roasted sunflower seeds instead of doritos. and i had freshly steamed veggies with my lunch. i made fish tacos tonight, and i used the not-quite-empty oreo package as my garbage bowl. so those are out of the question now.

at this exact moment, i'm not hungry at all, but i still wish i had a box of cheez-its or something in the house. it's all emotional, but i still want it.

and i realized this afternoon that i've committed myself to a pizza fest next weekend. friday is beth's birthday dinner at sanfratello's, and saturday i'm going to giordano's with my bunco gals. hmmm. do you think if i eat really healthy until then i'll feel like i earned it? :)

and i was planning to take an ice cream dessert to game night this saturday, but maybe i should think of something healthier. healthy & summery. the theme is "summer in december" ... any ideas?

summer vacation

summer of 2009 consisted of a lot of baseball games,



my first visit to the porter county fair,




a couple of amazing road trips,


and a total of almost 2500 photos taken.

fitness blogging

so here's my plan. in the mornings, i'll blog on the remaining NaBloPoMo topics. in the evenings, i'll blog about any & all attempts to be healthier. i figure if my evening plans are to eat dinner & then blog about being healthier ... chances are i'll be a bit inspired to not eat an entire bag of potato chips as i sit in front of the tv. seems smart, right?

my biggest healthy decision (relating to physical health, at least) was saying no to those little peanutbutter cups. they were basic reese's peanutbutter cups. i passed on them because they were milk chocolate, not dark chocolate. i definitely prefer my chocolate dark. this led me to decide to give up milk chocolate all together this month. granted, i can simply use dark chocolate in my own baking (i usually do anyway), but it kept me from buying a snickers bar around 3:30 this afternoon. so that has to count for something.

in terms of emotional health, i left the office at lunch today. i needed to run to the bank & pay my rent. to my surprise, it was GORGEOUS out! 57 degrees and so sunny. i drove to the bank with my sunroof open, jonathan coulton playing loudly ... amazing what 15 minutes in the sun can do for a girl's disposition!

the color blue & world peace

i doubt that a single color can encourage world peace. a bright blue sky makes me feel peaceful, but it may simply make others happy that they have a clear day to shoot at each other. more people leave their homes on a blue, sunny day ... but that just puts more people on the road to honk & shake their fists at each other. and a lot of people find the blue of the ocean to be peaceful, but that only lasts until there's a shark attack.

perhaps the color blue would contribute to world peace if everyone in the world was the same color blue. but that doesn't speak to the color of blue so much as to our inability to see past color in general. and i'm pretty sure our variety of skin pigmentation has something to do with climate where we live ... so having one consistent color is going to screw up someone, somewhere. we'll be fighting over whatever land has the climate best suited for blue skin. and, frankly, we'd just find some other reason to judge each other.

hmmm. perhaps i don't doubt the color blue so much as i doubt our ability to attain world peace. we're a restless people, quite often not looking beyond our needs and desires. perhaps someone could whip up a big batch of soylent blue to fix those attributes and see where that lands us ...