Ice Cream Overload

Yesterday I had work. I just made waffle bowls and cones. I was having anxiety for the first part of my day, so I was eager to get out of there.

I walked around the mall and went to Deseret Book just to look around. I also went to Farr’s Fresh ice cream and got a crazy concoction of flavors that were bizarre. I couldn't decide, so I got all the flavors I was interested in. The problem is that I got too much ice cream. The soft serve machines were kind of runny yesterday. I even got my hands sticky by trying to get samples. In the end I ended up getting grapefruit, lemon, caramel apple, and two other flavors that I have blanked out at the moment. I'll never try that again because it was really weird. Not all my crazy concoctions backfire on me, but that one sure did. I really do need to keep in mind how flavors work together.

I also ate out at a local Osaka Japanese Grill for lunch before work. I had rice, veggies, and a beef and meat combination. I was trying to eat healthy, something I sabotaged when I ate the ice cream after work. I also got a pretzel with cheese sauce after I ate ice cream. I spent way too much on food yesterday and now I regret that. It really was a waste of money. I only worked for an hour, so I could have waited until I got home. I don't think I'll ever do that again.

Today I was at the mall for most of the day looking around stores. I just hung out and went a bunch of random places including Michael's Craft Store, Best Buy, and Halloween Town which open every Halloween. I prefer Zurchers for my Halloween stuff, but Halloween Town can be nice to look at even if it is overpriced. I was around the mall for hours. I was waiting for my check to come, but the owner was late tonight and he still wasn't there by the time the bank closed, so I'll just get my check tomorrow. This means I am broke with only $15 to my name until Monday, which sucks. The owner never is that late, so I was and still am a little irritated. It's really uncomfortable having nothing to spend. Now I'm regretting buying two protein bars for lunch today. I was really hungry, and they were great, but that's just less money until Monday, oh well...

Anyway, I should have something else written soon. I just had to mention this stuff tonight. I have work tomorrow, so I'll probably have a lot to say tomorrow. I'm not really enjoying my job right now.

The Flowers at Temple Square

Yesterday mom, dad and I went up to Salt Lake City to go see a Tabernacle Choir concert featuring Brian Stokes Mitchel and the Utah Symphony. It was part of the celebration of the 150th celebration of the Golden Spike. I don't know much about that to be honest.

Mom was in the concert, because she is in the choir, but dad and I had some free time and walked around the City Creek Center and ate some dinner. I went to kneader's and he went to Costa Vida which was nearby. I got a chicken pesto panini that came with Parmesan chips. I also got a fruit tart, which was amazing, and a little package of macarons, which to be honest didn't impress me much. They must have been cheap macarons. We didn't see very many shops, but we did get to look around the Microsoft store. That was a store I chose. I saw this huge $4000 surface screen that was 28 inches long. I'm pretty sure it is meant for art, architecture and other careers having to do with design. I've never seen one in person until yesterday, so it was cool finally getting to play around with that. It reminds me of a huge tablet. I can see why it is great for design.

I got to walk around Temple square a bit and take pictures of some of the flowers. I'd like to come back sometime and get even more pictures. My time was limited, so I couldn't get them all.

Here is a random picture I took when dad and I were walking around the Conference Center to pass time.

The concert was enjoyable. Dad and I gotin our seats and hour and a half early at 6:30pm because that is when they open the doors to the Conference Center. We were actually first in line at door 9. I fell asleep in my chair for a while after I sat down. It really si better to get seats earler, because you get better seats in your assigned section. Because of my nap I didn't have to waste much of my already low phone battery thankfully.

We got home around 10:30pm I think. It might have been later. I just played games for the rest of the night before I went to sleep.

The Eight Ounce Discount

Someday I should take a picture of the cleaning list Trevor has for me at work. I go down that list of things every week. I have 3 days to finish the list, but honestly, I can do them in one two hour shift. I am usually pretty thorough with the things I have to do as I don't feel any time pressure. I usually try and space the tasks out over the week. There are other people that do some cleaning when I'm not there, so I don't usually have to worry about certain things not being done. One of the obvious ones is sweeping. I usually save sweeping for Friday because doing it at the end of the week just makes more sense to me.

I've actually started wearing the plastic gloves we use for the various food tasks when I am cleaning. At first it was just for the window cleaning with Windex, but lately my hands have been getting dry. The water we use to clean the dishes mixed with the soap we use to clean our hands has been the culprit I think. That is two kinds of soap and some bleach water. You can put two and one together and see I am probably smart for wearing gloves. We use Kirkland dish soap to clean the dishes, and bleach water for the sanitizing. I'm not sure what hand soap we use, but it is pink and I think I hate it.

Anyway, after work I walked around and listened to music. I missed the bus i was going to take, so I went back inside the mall and just kept listening to music until the next one came. I went to the store and got a bread bowl and some cheddar broccoli soup for dinner. I had to wait for the bakery and deli to put more soup out because they were out when i got there. I thought about getting some canned soup, but more often than not the sodium count discourages me. I try to avoid high sodium food if I can.

When I was going through the checkout with my food I noticed the price was a little funny. The soup is something like $5 for 16 ounces and the bread bowl was $1.50. I noticed that the amount said $4.21. I thought I had just been given a discount, but had a feeling that I was wrong. Now this is where I had a choice. I could have just gone with it when I looked at my receipt and saw that they charged me for an 8oz soup and not a 16oz soup. I could have walked away knowing they made a $2.50 mistake. I turned around the told the cashier about the mistake instead. She called the manager and I payed the rest and felt good about it. I am glad I chose to do the honest thing. I would have felt like a thief if I hadn't.

I put my stuff in the cart and waited for my ride to come. I got a call from mom before and she told me to call Laura for a ride since she forgot she had the car and couldn't come get me. Laura had just drove past the store on her way home from getting a pizza. I had to wait for a few minutes. Mom ended up coming back instead which I don't mind. I don't really care who I get a ride from. So when I got home I had soup in a bread bowl and the rest had pizza. Laura cut my bread bowl open for me since she has worked in a few bakeries.

I have just been watching chemistry videos on YouTube ever since. It has been a pretty good day today. I am pretty sure I am very thankful for my conscience today.

The Dreaded Presintation

Today was the big day, the day of the presentation my group and I did about carbs, whole food and processed food. My part was about whole food. I talked about natural food like fruits and veggies. Each of us covered a part of the presentation. The first part was about starchy carbs, the second was about fruits and veggies, the third was about processed foods, and the last part before the quiz was me about hole (natural foods). We actually came to school early today and made sure we had everything together before class. I am glad that this thing is done now. I am feeling a lot more relaxed now that I don't have to worry about this. I'm going to finish my English paper today now that I am done with my presentation. I'm going to finish it tomorrow for sure.

I went out to eat after class. Today I decided I'd rather have a good meal than continue to not spend. I was starving.

I know it's abrupt, but I'm going to end here, this is a stressful time of year. I don't want to pressure myself into writing.

Busy Rollin

I had stress management class today and we talked about experiences where we got to show ourselves compassion. I haven’t written mine yet, but I’m going to soon and when I do I’ll let you read it. We had snacks in class. I know Ritz Handy snacks aren’t the most healthy things in the world, but they were a fun change of pace. I originally brought some chocolate granola and sweet potato crackers from home to snack on, but I’m glad I ate a couple of those. The day started out pretty fun. Nothing much happened before school, I just got ready for my shift that was tonight.

I really need to see the French tutor soon because I am really starting to struggle a lot in French. I’m sure and hour with him would solve all of that. Sadly i forgot to ask about that today after class and I headed straight for the mall without even thinking about it. I don’t really know why, but for some reason even though I had snacks in my backpack already I chose to go buy a Subway club. It was alright, but I think when i cut fast food next week I’m going to not miss Subway so much. I prefer Firehouse subs to Subway any day. My only issue is that they are expensive so I don’t eat there often.

I cancelled the hair appointment I made yesterday at Aveda and scheduled one at my regular hair salon with my regular stylist. My next cut is just going to be preparation for me growing out my hair. Oh, and I also got this cookie as well when I was at R.C Willey a bit earlier.

It was kind of cool because it was that periwinkle color but underneath there was actually a layer of light purple icing as well. I got that right before work.

I only had to sample for half of the time today. The other two and a half hours I rolled and helped clean up. I truly felt like part of the team. We ere busy preparing for LDS General Conference. I guess a lot of people buy cinnamon rolls around this time. It was a fun evening and i am glad things went well. I got a mixture of creme brulee ice cream and butter pecan ice cream for my shift meal from Coldstone after work. When mom and dad picked me up we also went to Cafe Rio and i got a bean, cheese, rice and chicken burrito. I didn’t really finish it, but I’m going to tomorrow.

Hard Hair Decision

The main struggle of the day was my hair. I haven’t been able to decide whether or not I want to cut it. I thought about cutting it and I thought about growing it out. I was really stressed about it today. I’m glad I only had French today at school because I needed to do some deep introspection. I’ve found out the answer, but first I’ll tell you a bit about what I did today.

Well in a non complicated nutshell I chose to skip the gym today and went to Cafe Rio while I was walking around town. I got an enchilada style steak burrito.  How I managed to eat the whole thing I’ll never know.

Oh, and earlier in the day I got an oatmeal with banana and honey with a coconut berry blast smoothie at Jamba Juice. So today has been great for food. I went to the local health food store where mom works and hung out there for an hour with her after she got back after her lunch break. She helped me pick out a protein powder for later. When she got off we went home.


Well anyway, my hair was a hard decision. After asking people and introspecting a lot I’ve decided to grow my hair out. I posted a bunch of photos and asked people what they thought. That helped, but the thing that really helped me decide was when I realized that I’ve been sub consciously picturing myself with long hair in my day dreams. Usually I only picture myself as the person I want to be so I knew the conclusion of long hair was a true one. When I picture myself with short hair if feels off. I’m going to do everything in my power to grow long hair.  I’m going to pull every skill and piece if knowledge I have to do it. I used to have long hair, so I’m no novice. Anyway. Here are some cool avatars I made when I was still deciding. 

Here are the longer ones I made after I decided I waned long hair.

I am stress free now and happy with my decision!

Powdered Sugar Regret

Today I learned never to just put powdered sugar on a pancake. It is just weird. My church had our monthly fourth Sunday munch and mingle. This month we had breakfast. There was pancakes with syrup, strawberries and whipped cream. There was also hash browns as well. I don’t know what was in those hash browns, but I think it was more than just hash browns. I swear there was chocolate chips in them. They were pretty good, but it was kind of weird in my opinion. I had plenty of that plus some what I think was pink orange juice, but I might be way off there. It was some kind of Sunny-D concoction that was interesting and mysterious. I forgot to look at the bottle properly.

In church we talked about tithing and doing what God thinks is best for us rather than what we think is best. It was all about trusting in his decisions for us and not trying to do everything the way we think is best. Stuff like that, it’s hard to explain. Gospel Doctrine class was packed today, it usually isn’t. It brought me back to 9 years ago when I started attending the singles ward at my LDS church. That class used to be packed to breaking point back then. It was rather popular.

After church I took a nap and watched this documentary about high class british nannies. I don’t think I could do what they do. There is so much involved in being a high class Norland Nanny. They get educated at Norland College and often take care of high class people. Here is the video!

I think if I was going to be something like that I’d rather be a high class maid. I am rather good at cleaning despite my bad vision.

We had soup for the third night in a  row, so I’m kind of sick of it now. Minestrone is great, just not three days in  a row.Laura brought me some cookies and a sucker from my cousin’s wedding. I do feel kind of bad for not being able to go because of work yesterday, but it was for the best that I didn’t even try.

Anyway, I’m a bit nervous for this next week as I just know French is going to just get more intense as is English. I think our next paper is a research paper so I’m feeling absolute dread. With luck it won’t be as hard as I think it will.

A demain! (see you tomorrow)

Best Lunch Ever

Saturday started out all gloomy and wet outside. I absolutely hate wet cold weather. I feel a bit abandoned by summer now. It seemed like it didn’t even say goodbye at all. I feel like this next six months might be rough when it comes to weather, but I hope I am wrong.

Mom and the rest went to my cousin Cherry’s wedding today. I haven’t seen her for a while, but I know she lost a TON of weight and that is awesome. I feel a bit bad for not being able to go but I couldn’t get my shift off today. I could have risked it and went, but I don’t like the idea of being in the car for an hour and being somewhere for a couple of hours and then being in the ar for another hour. Especially when it’s with all my family members. That just doesn’t seem fun at all for me. So I stayed home, hung out with the dog, and practiced some French on Duolingo. It wasn’t too bad to be honest, but I did dread going out in the weather.

Lucky for me the weather decided to clear up right when I left and by the time I got on the bus the sun had peaked out of the clouds and it was a little warmer. When I got to the mall I got a three omelet egg, some amazing salad and falafel with some really great dipping sauce. Galilee is a middle eastern themed place to eat and I am a big fan of it. Everything I’ve had so far has been great.

So today was another sample shift and it started out bad, but I felt better about it by the time it was over. I still don’t want to be stuck on only the sample shift at work, but it looks like I’ll be stuck with only this for a while. I don’t know why Ran won’t schedule me on a regular non-sample shift. I have begun to dislike working at Cinnabon so much that I am actually trying to find another job. Oh, and I can’t forget to mention how I let off some steam about everything in a prior post earlier so read that if you can. ((If it’s not up on here yet check back later cause I posted it to my original blog on another site first.))

I have begun to switch things up when sampling. Instead of always sampling the regular cinnamon rolls I try to also sometimes put some of the cinnamon caramel frosting, or the caramel cream cheese frosting. Also sometimes, but not often I sample sweeties, or cinnasticks. I always make sure to microwave everything so no one gets a cold product.

I got off around 8:30pm and a half and hour before I usually start cleaning up and help everyone else clean up as well. I love cleaning, so this helps me get in a better mood when I am feeling tired and grumpy. Tonight was really nice because I got to help in the lobby and I got to help clean up the back room. I miss the days when I just cleaned the place a lot. Well, anyway I survived tonight and after I was picked up I just relaxed at home and practiced more French. I’ve also been catching up on the latest Pretty Cure anime series. I had soup for the 2nd day in a row today. I really hope we have something new tomorrow, but I won’t get my hopes up.

Awesome Salad

Today was mom’s birthday and we had the best chef salads ever. Mine had Lettuce, tomatoes, yellow and orange bell peppers, cucumbers, broccoli, cheese, egg, ham, chicken, almonds, walnuts, radishes, carrots, and ranch. I think the only thing that was missing was purple cabbage and jicama.

We also had Toffee and chocolate Tillamook ice cream along with four kinds of Coconut Bliss ice cream instead of cake.  It was great and we all had fun watching the Olympics together.

Looking For a New Printer

Dad refuses to buy another printer and so I’m just going to do it for him. Our printer really sucks you see. I’m pretty sure it’s lost the ability to print out anything red. I don’t know why he refuses to give up on that lost cause, but I think it’s a male thing. This is the case for him anyway. I notice that he hates getting help fixing things. Here is a picture of the printer.

Check out our Stone Age phone too! Another thing I’m going to make sure to get rid of someday. I get that we aren’t super financially stable, but these things are important.

So yesterday I went printer hunting. I just stuck with R.C. Willey and Best Buy yesterday, but I will probably check out other places soon though. I want to get a 4 in 1 HP or Canon one I’m pretty sure. I am trying to get a laser printer this time. I will get photos of the printers I like soon. I should have done it yesterday, but I was lazy. Can’t do it today because of work. Well actually, maybe I’ll do it after work. I don’t work as late today.

Another thing I looked for at Best Buy was laptops and keyboards. The family computer has a pretty atrocious keyboard. I am not buying a laptop anytime soon however. I want to make sure I have a good headset first before anything.  I haven’t had one in forever and it’s been inconvenient.

There is the keyboard. You practically have to pound the keys.

Yesterday was blazing hot, but eventually by the time I was done window shopping it was cloudy and later it rained. There was a rainbow and I did get a panorama!

Anyway, I missed watching the men’s gymnastics tonight and am kind of bummed about that. I am pretty sure that they’ll upload it to YouTube. At least that is what I’m hoping. The men haven’t been doing great, but I still love watching them.

I nearly forgot to mention that I got dinner at the store tonight. I got Mac & cheese and this broccoli salad stuff that kind of tastes like coleslaw.

I Just Want Everything In the Store

Nothing much happened today. I just stayed home for most of it except for a brief trip to the store. I couldn’t decide what to get for a while. Laura, Bunny and I went together. Laura got lemon cookies, some cereal, and some ice cream. I thought about getting a chocolate cherry cashew KIND bar, but later settled on ambrosia. I have been craving ambrosia for a few days and I decided  to just go for it. I just got a small personal container. I was happy to see that i over estimated the cost. The charge by weight. I think it’s $4 a pound or something like that. It only cost me $1.80 and this made me really happy.

I really need to get more snacks. I should also do a picture post of things I love the most at the store. In case some of my visually impaired friends have found this blog I will include descriptions of everything as well. Sometimes I just feel like I want to buy everything in the store. Of course, even if I was rich I wouldn’t really do that. Well, if I did perhaps not any of the unhealthy stuff. I am trying to lose weight so I don’t want to sabotage my progress. I am going to do another weight loss update around September first.

Tonight’s dinner was my least favorite thing in the world. I hate beef and rice. mom made a great effort to make ti taste good, but no amount of seasoning can save the churches beef chunks. My church helps people with food if they need it but some of the stuff they have to give isn’t all that great. It was edible, but I think I’ll stay away from it for good this time. Rice with other things is great, but I just hate the beef mainly. One thing I ate a lot of today was spaghetti squash. I love that stuff so much. Anyway, I’ll get some pictures of the food we get. right now we are getting help from church because we have been a bit financially. I love being LDS, even if people do have a lot of misconceptions about us.

I am proud of the women’s gymnastics team, they are great so far at these Olympics.  I will give my thoughts on them when they are done with everything though. For tonight I’ll just leave it at this.

I Love Breadsticks

There is this really nice Italian place in the mall food court that makes amazing pizza, pasta, Stromboli, and bread sticks. They are pretty basic where their food choices are concerned, but it’s always worth it. Basically that is all they serve, spaghetti, Alfredo, pizza, Stromboli, bread sticks and drinks. They are great at stuffed pizza. It’s basically pizza crust stuffed with sauce, meat and cheese. That is what I had for lunch today along with the bread sticks which could easily beat Olive Garden’s into the ground. The place is called Villa Italian Kitchen. They are probably the only fast food place I know of that has Sobe Lifewater to drink. Not in a bottle, but from a drink machine. I love that stuff so much.

I had to go to school today to get sone documentation proving i saw the school psychologist yesterday. I really hope that all this stuff I’m doing will help me get the pell grant. I hate doing all this paper work, but hopefully in the end it’ll be worth it. I just have to prove that I won’t fail or drop out if any of my classes again. It’s been 3 years since I last had to withdraw with the help of the school psychologist. Man that was a good amount of stress I was under back then. I was dealing with my friend Ronnie who was recovering from a drug addiction and I had feelings for Ronnie at the time. He kept on trying to kick me out of his life over and over and then came back. He ended up cleaning up and got married eventually. I honestly still feel the after effects of him abandoning me several times. I really don’t blame him for pushing me away back then, he was going through so much. We are still good friends and haven’t had any hard times with each other so far as our friendship goes since he got together with Renee. those two are great for each other. I ginuinely believe they are soulmates.

Another thing I did was return that library book that I forgot I already owned a copy of. I got some French and English grammar books to help me with my upcoming French class. I had to ride the bus to the mall, to the library, then back to the mall and back to school again once the Student health services office had the document ready for me. I was exhausted earlier when I got home.. I chose to get a ride from Dad instead of ride the bus some more. I had dad pick me up from walmart. today was fun because i got to go to the library, but I can’t wait until alll this school stuff is done with. I just want to enjoy my classes. I don’t mind homework even though it’s hard sometimes.

I did get a bit of sun today when I was walking to the bus stops, but thankfully I didn’t get burned today. I took a nap earlier and have been watching the Olympics since I got home. It’s sad that the men’s gymnastics did so poorly tonight. I haven’t watched it yet because it’s on later tonight, but I saw some stuff on the news. Probably the last thing I did tonight before this was go to the store. Mom didn’t feel like cooking so we went and picked up some yogurt, apple juice and some sandwiches. I also had some fancy cheese that was in the fridge. Our local store has a lot of cool cheeses and I haven’t tried nearly as many as I want to. So I had sweet potatoes, a tuna sandwich, yogurt and cheese for dinner. Some of you might find that beyond weird, but it’s what I was stuck with tonight. I’m just grateful I wasn’t stuck eating a bowl of only sweet potatoes.

Anyway, I’ll post pictures of my books and stuff tomorrow. I’m so tired now I don’t feel like uploading photos right now. I’m glad I got to do stuff today.

Mac & Cheese and WHAT?!

Okay, so I am not fond of boxed Mac and cheese to begin with. I’ll admit right now that if I’d know that Laura would make hamburgers later I wouldn’t have touched the stuff. I’ll eat Mac & cheese if it is available when I’m hungry, but I prefer the home made stuff. Today mom got the idea of making Mac & cheese soup with hot dogs and green beans. Yeah, you read that right GREEN BEANS! I don’t mind the nice ones from Costco that come in a frozen bag, but I think canned green beans are gross. Hot dogs are also something I don’t like much to be honest. I’m more of a brotwurst kind of person. I love all the spices and the creativity. Mom is a great cook and she loves to experiment sometimes. I feel like this one was a flop today. That might just be me. I think I would have disliked it less if she had put peas in it instead. You might think that is weird, but I grew up with that when we had boxed Mac & cheese. I’ve even had it with hot dogs, but I prefer it without. In my opinion hot dogs belong on a grill and then between a bun. It’s just weird to me to put them in a soup or whatever. I wish if gotten a picture of it all. By the way, I ate around the green beans.  I also got the taste from it all out of my mouth with apple juice and a banana coconut Popsicle. Life is good.

I have been watching the olympics tonight. I love gymnastics, running and water sports. I’m glad team USA has won a few medals already. To be honest I’m happy when other people win as well. Probably because I have friends all over the world. Anyway, I’m not watching right now. I’m actually using the 5-0 police radio app to listen to the Chicago police scanner. It’s sad they have to deal with so much, but they do their job well in my opinion. I am an optimist and believe there are a lot of good police officers. I actually feel like we take them for granted sometimes.

Just for Today

I am not attending my home ward for church, but today the stake that my home ward is in had a BBQ and a pool party. Laura made cookies and we brought some to the BBQ. I was kind of surprised there weren't more cookies to be honest. I think there were more last year. Tons of people came and we had hot dogs and sloppy joes along with chips, salad and watermelon. Someone did bring white chocolate rice krispy treats. I think I liked those better than the cookies. There was also ice cream, but I didn't feel like any. I am going back off sugar like I've said before soon. I was going to start again a couple of days ago, but don't feel like now is the time. Just for today I let myself go completely crazy food wise.

The pool party was fun. I didn't stay in the pool for long. I was more interested in the cold sprinklers. they did have quite a variety of them. I love splash pads, they are fun. Here is a very short video of the pool. The splash pad with the sprinklers is at the beginning.

Anyway, I had the day off work today. I started playing Talos Principal a little bit today and have just been relaxing. the game is cool and it is a puzzle game with some elements that would seem familiar to someone who has played the Portal games. I'm only a little way through it, but I love it so far. Actually something that happened in the game made me want to write today. I know I haven't for a while. The scene is sort of hard to explain, at least now, but it had to do with someone realizing the importance of recording experiences.

For some reason when I went to the park earlier I was in kind of a cranky mood. I just get that way on occasion, I don't know why. I suppose it's because I've been kind of bad about my eating habits today. I really don't know. I'm glad tomorrow is fast Sunday. I'll be able to give my body a reset.

A Bit of Thrift Store Luck

Natalie had a violin lesson today and I took the opportunity to go with her and Laura to the music store. I ditched them soon after of course and they knew I was going to do this. I decided to go walking down the street to the mall. I actually wasn’t there for long because I wanted to go back and walk down the street to do other things. I made a brief stop to Good earth and got some B-UP protein bars. I got one cinnamon roll one and one caramel vanilla one. I meant to get a sugar cookie one but this guy came out of nowhere and just decided he wanted all of them. It was really weird, but I am happy with the ones I got. Mom used to work at Good Earth, but she quit after about 13 years. She had the put up with a horrible manager during her last few years but she was recently fired. Mom is actually thinking of going back because we need the money and she thinks it’ll be better again. I don’t know how I fell about that and don’t really trust or like most of the employees anymore.

I headed north down the street I was on and decided to make a stop at Walgreens to just look around. I’m thinking of buying a new razor because the one I use right now really sucks. I also might buy hair dye there the next time I do my hair. I usually get it at Sally's Beauty Supply which I also visited today, but I’m not sure yet. I’m not even sure what color I want to do yet to be honest.

In the end I ended up at a local thrift store down the street. I have gotten quite good at finding stuff I like on the racks. There are so many random things to look through it takes a lot of patience. I love looking through everything because there are some pretty funny things on the racks sometimes. Some are just too flamboyant for me to believe anyone would wear them. I always get a good laugh from it all. Today I struck a bit of good luck where finding stuff I like is concerned. Of course, some of it didn’t fit as that usually happens every time I go there. I managed to find two shirts I like, but am not going to do photos today. You will see them eventually, I guarantee that. One is black and white and one is yellow with a colorful design. I am happy with what I found and can’t wait to go there again in a few weeks. I wanted some real food after being there for probably an hour and a half looking at everything so I went to Cafe Rio and got a half beef and half chicken salad. i LOVE Cafe Rio. tortilla, rice, beans, lettuce, salsa, meat, chips, dressing, etc. the whole thing tastes super good. I called mom and she came and got me from there because I really did not want to ride the bus again.

The rest of the day really isn’t important. I’ll just leave it at this. If I pressure myself to write too many details I burn myself out and lose my motivation to write.🙂

Diamond Rose

I was hit with inspiration yesterday and felt like creating a poem about Cara (Darik's wife). She really is someone you would expect to read about in some pretty song or poem. She is beautiful inside and out. I showed this poem to her and both she and Darik loved it.

Anyway, so today I just made a brief trip to the mall and took the bus to Macey's grocery store to pick up an application and get a chocolate vanilla ice cream cone. Later Laura made chicken and cheese enchiladas. She also made lemon bars, but they aren't done quite yet. I'm planning on filling out the applications I got today and also finishing the ones online. I'll turn the ones that have physical copies in on Monday.

Reset

Happy New Year! I'm hoping this will be a great year.

Last night the family had a fondue and frying party. We had two kinds of cheese fondue and some chocolate fondue. The two cheese ones were Swiss and pimento cheese. We dipped fruit and angel food cake in the chocolate one. The cheese one we used for crackers and other stuff like chips. We fried quite a few things in oil, it was fun. Some examples are tempura (broccoli dipped in batter and then fried), pigs in a blanket which are little wieners wrapped in dough and then fried, cheese cubes wrapped in dough and then fried, we fried raw meat, fruit, and I even dipped a piece of banana in batter and fried it.

We had veggies like snap peas, cherry tomatoes and broccoli, fruit like pineapple, apples, oranges and bananas. There was chips, crackers, avocado dip, olive dip, mustard and ketchup for some of the fried things. We had Apple juice and Martinellis sparkling juice for the drinks. I actually got some pictures and a video.

The weather over the past few days has been bitter cold and windy. The snow came down hard and stuck. It's been in the single digits at night and the family and I have been more than happy to stay inside. The wind actually blew our shutters off of our house, I didn't even know we had any. Thankfully no windows were broken and we didn't lose any roofing this time.

We took down our tree and Linda and Justin have been packing their things and are going to go home with Jax and Violet soon. It has been fun even though we all got sick during the holidays. Jax definitely got it the worst. He wasn't over everything until yesterday. He was vomiting for 4 days and in pain for another because of acid reflux and other problems. He wasn't keeping fluids down. I'm glad he is okay and everyone is through that stuff including me.

I've been watching Zeldathon, for the past six days I've been watching people play all the Legend of Zelda games on the funforfreedom twitch.tv channel. They are doing it for charity. I donated $5 and got to have my comments read aloud over the air. The whole thing is crazy and fun and a lot of stuff happens on it. They dance, sing, dress up, they have a wheel they spin and they do different things like foam sword fighting, funny chants, girls slapping boys, duct tape leg waxing, hair shaving, and so much more. I can't even explain how many things go on. There are a lot of people involved and it happens every six months. They go all night and all day non stop. This time I think it is 9 days, it's so amazing. One of my favorite YouTubers SuperMCgamer arranges all of it. Zeldathon has been happening for 5 years. If you see this post before the 3rd you should make a stop to either Zeldathon.net or twitch.tv/funforfreedom and check it out.

Anyway, the family has been just playing Pandemic again and yesterday they were playing banana grams. I haven't been playing because I've been doing my own thing, but we've all had fun over the holidays. It looks like the winter storm is going to clear up and the snow might even melt soon. It really does feel like a new year and I'm excited to find out what it has in store for me. I don't have school again until May, so it'll be interesting to see what I do with my time.

I think this is good enough for now.

Christmas Shenanigans

Merry Christmas everyone! Or Merry Individually Designated Holiday!

I suppose I should start with Christmas Eve. No need for me to over explain it. We all woke up to surprise snow! This was the first official snow of the season. No one was expecting it because it's been so unchariceristically warm. We've had rain and hail, but nothing more than that. I'll be honest, nothing much happened on Christmas eve. I was down here in the basement for most of the day playing iphone games like Bejeweled, Twodots, Flow Free, Tetris Blitz, and others.

I napped for a few hours, hung around with family just doing random stuff. I spent some time watching SuperMCGamer's let's play of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time on Youtube. In the evening we cooked dinner and wrapped presents. Well, other people besides me wrapped presents. We had a ham, potatoes, salad, carrots, and fruit salad. It was fun watching people make the dinner. I'm not much of a cook, but mom and Laura are, so it's always really interesting seeing them make everything. Sadly I didn't get pictures of most of the food. Even though nothing really exciting happened today besides the snow it was still a great day just because the family was together.

Usually we play the present game, but this year we didn't do it so we could do stocking stuffers. What you do for the present game is you buy a bunch of cheap presents and you all pick a number. You sit in a circle and roll some dice. If you roll a 7 or 11 you can pick a present. Once you roll one you can either pick a present for steal one someone has already opened. This is really fun and sometimes hilarious. Playing the present game has always been one of my favorite traditions. 

Anyway, so I was up for most of the night. I know I at least got 4 hours of sleep, but I knew I wouldn't fall asleep again so I just succumbed to my vampire / night owl ways and watched youtube videos all night.

I came out of my dungeon at about 8am. I knew everyone would take a long time to get things started, but I was feeling uncharacteristically impatient anyway. Basically we didn't get to opening presents until around 10:30pm. It took a while for everyone to get together, especially Tim, who had to drive in the snow. All my nieces and nephew were glued to the living room. Even I was parked in front of the fire watching Fate/Stary Night Unlimited Bladeworks episode 10 on my phone via Chrunchyroll.com. Everyone else was listening to Christmas music and just going about their business. My mom was in the kitchen making apple skeebers. They are pancake balls filled with apple sauce and you dip them in maple syrup. We make them every year as a tradition on Christmas morning.

As anticipated everyone than happy to open the presents when we were all gathered together. We usually take turns opening our presents and don't open them all at once. Here are the ones I got. I didn't pay moth attention to what other people got because I was feeling a bit burned out by all the social interaction.

I needed new boots so bad.

Random rainbow headband, just one of many I want.

A jewelry holder.

Fuzzy posters and foam boards.

GLITTER

THE THING I WANTED TO MOST. MY STAR NECKLACE!

GREEN YARN, Linda is going to make me something. :)

some new bangle bracelets!

A star hole punch

RAINBOW SOCKS1

A SCARF AND A MATCHING HAT

FUNKY NAIL POLISH

A LARGE WOODEN BOX

SPRY GUM AND CINNAMON TOOTHPASTE

STENCIL BRISHES

SMALLER WOODEN BOX WITH FLOWER HAIR PINS INSIDE.

PAINTING STENCILS

Here is the video version.

I did my best to hold on through all the excitement, but all the noises, and people, and other things happening I was way over stimulated and burned out. I took all my stuff downstairs and took pictures and a video. I went back and forth from upstairs to downstais a few times getting something to eat. My mom, besides making the apple skeebers made eggs, bacon, sausage, and toast. I wasn't terribly hungry, but I enjoyed it a lot. After I ate I took my plate back upstairs and ten headed back down and fell asleep watching another Ocarina of Time let's play video by SuperMCgamer on youtube. I am on #19 as of now.

I'm not sure how long I slept, but nothing much else happened tonight. Well, after I woke up I found out that Justin caught the flu. Later in the night a couple of hours ago Linda and Jax also caught the flu. There have been a lot of sick people around, so I'm not terribly surprised. I think everyone except for me, Natalie and Kayla have caught it. Anyway, I was doing my usual internet shenanigans, music, reddit, facebook, stumbleupon, watching anime, etc. My family was upstairs playing scrabble and other games and I just didn't feel like joining in later in the night. I ate some chocolate peppermint creams that Linda gave the family for Christmas, as well as some of my mom's toffee, some Nut Thins, and I drank some sparkling peach stuff. Here are some photos.

Anyway, if I forgot to write about anything here I'll add it tomorrow, I am so exhausted by all the excitement. Such is the fate of nearly every introvert like me. We are all pretty much glad it's over, even though it was fun.