Due Dates

So today...I had on of those experiences that you never really want to have happen to you...on either side of the situation. I got asked when I was due! I know I have a belly, but not that big. Come on! Guess that means I should definitely be making sure that I get 30 mins of exercise every day. Ouch. I think the poor little old lady had me confused with the girl who worked there before me; she did leave because she was pregnant. I was a little offended - more stunned to be on this end of this horribly awkward situation; however, I wasn't that upset. No tears, no panic attacks...nothing.

Sainted Shakespeare

I didn't get much reading, besides the most recent issue of Glamour, done this weekend. I attempted Emma some more on the bus, but that was just making me car sick. I had to switch to the lighter reading of Glamour.

I did get a ton of books and a few movies at Half Price Books. I also spent so much, that I got a free calender and some coupons! YES!!!!!!!!!!!

Some movies I'm just going to say that you have to see are: St. Trinian's and The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged by the Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Health Care, oh, Health Care

Is there anything more annoying than staying on hold with the doctor's office. I just want to set up an appointment and I have to get a run around from a lady who doesn't sound very healthy. Either that, or she smokes a pack every 10 mins! The music they usually choose for the hold line also sucks. I think I am listening to easy listening 101. It's really bad. Oi.

Now playing phone tag. Swapped from one lady to the next...with a bit of easy listening thrown in the middle.

Yearly appointments are so fun to try and schedule.

And yes...that was just my rant on health care for the day. Oh wait, I now get to head back to work :D

Oi - Bridg!

I haven't actually read anything this week. I am about mid-way through Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding. I forgot how absolutely amazing that book is - wait, no I didn't. All the funny parts are just as funny the next time around.

Last night I went to yoga again. It had been a whole month and my entire body is just killing me. Ouch. My shoulders are throbbing and last night my thighs were literally twitching.

I am 4.5

I honestly watched I am Number 4 way too many times. I watched both Thor and I am Number 4 on Friday while it snowed and snowed outside. Then my sister called to come over and she didn't want to watch anything but I am Number 4. So I gave in. She woke up on Saturday and wanted to watch it again. I can't blame her, the guy who does play number 4 is a really hot Brit.

I am Number 4 is about a guy who is an alien. He has 9 siblings (I am guessing that they are siblings since John (Number 4) says "9 of us kids" after talking about the death of his parents) that have special legacies that can stop these bad aliens. I think the main bad alien was the guy who played the dog man on Dark Angel...he had the same voice and the way he sniffed the air was very similar. Anyways, these bad aliens are killing off these kids in order. It starts with the death of Number 3. This sends John and his protector, Henri, scurrying to another place - Paradise, OH. Here, John discovers Sam and Sarah. They help him along the way in Paradise, OH. Love, butt kicking, and some pretty weird aliens makes for a pretty interesting show. I really liked the presence of Megan Follows (Anne of Green Gables) as the cashier. It was AWESOME to see her in the movie.

I also watched Thor. I figured I would give it an equal opportunity to prove it's suckiness. I actually fell asleep during the first part of it. I really perked up when Jeremy Renner showed up; however, he wasn't mentioned in the credits. It was a lot of just awkward weirdness and the guy who played Thor was just kind of petulant. It just wasn't that great of a movie...and they take the rainbow highway. Oi.

Chop

Wow- I haven't really been up this late in a while. I got so into watching Chopped tonight! I love that show. My mom also tried to make bread with teff flour and it was really kind of good. It was spongy/crunchy but really good.

Anyways, my health isn't going to be going so hot is I keep inhaling food as I did today. OMG! I just couldn't stop putting food in my mouth. I am not sure why - stress or just this FREEZING cold. It has not been this cold in a while. I am not used to it. I spent most of the last winter in France and that was nothing. In February, it was down right Spring time! I have kept up with my morning walks though. Today I only made it around the block - the negative temperature was really getting to me.

As far as relationships, I am having a lot of fun with one of my friends from church. She is the one and only person in my book club and its fun to go shopping and out to eat with her. And for men...well, my mom has hung a picture of the guy she wants to marry me off to on our fridge. Right there. Can't miss. Now I have to look at him and his family every time I bust into my parents fridge. Oi.

I started looking up the Madison Media Institute. They have the classes I'd like to take at the Madison area. I've really started looking into movie/film editing. That seems to encompass all the things I really enjoy. I'm a little worried about it, but then again, it could be a perfect fit. I know someone who knows someone who owns an editing place in Chicago. I wonder if I could use this connection to maybe job shadow for a day and see if it is really something I'd like to pursue.

Well - I am off to my bed now!

Dear John, I have a Secret Garden

I am currently on hold with the eye doctor. I have to get my diagnosis code so I can get refunded for my glasses I bought. Not that a whole whopping $38 is gonna put me under, but I'm sure I could find something nice at Marshals that I just had to have.

I haven't written the last few nights because it has just been crazy. Snow storms and freezing weather. Last night I didn't write because I had just gone straight home from work. My contact started freaking out the last 30 minutes of work and my one eye was just watering like crazy. Not to mention, it was well below freezing last night. I just wanted to stay in my tropical apartment and finish listening to Dear John by Nicholas Sparks.

I really like the book. I had already seen the movie (part of the reason I checked out the book) and really like it. I was a little confused at several parts - I thought it said he was born in 1971 but then he says he's like 23 around the year 2000. That and a letter Savannah wrote to John - she is writing this letter 2 nights before he leaves and yet she mentions in the letter his proposal that he made the night before he left. Oh well, this confusion might also stem from not listening closely enough.

I also finished The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I enjoyed this book a lot. I liked the power the earth seemed to have over two/three little children. Dickin was always out and about, so he new about nature and its draw. On the other hand Mary and Collin had no clue about the outdoors really. Mary only new the climate of India and Colin hated being out of doors. The more and more they grew to love nature and would watch and tend to the garden, the more they themselves began to sprout up into healthy and more respectable children. I am not sure why the movie always has Mary ending up with Collin in the end, but I always wanted her to marry Dickin. In my mind, she will. :D

Yesterday, I started this dastardly thing of getting up early and going for a half hour walk. It is nice and refreshing to get up and go out in the morning. I walk and listen to my audiobooks. It makes for a nice little morning routine...so far. I'm thinking about pushing myself to try Jazzercise; alas, the only time I could really make it would be 5:30am and I am so not a morning person!

Best. Night. EVER!

I watched Take Me Home Tonight last nigh with a few of my friends. It was great. I could have gone with out some of the stuff his stupid, creepy friend did, but otherwise it was pretty good. The movie is about a guy who just got out of MIT and can't decide what he wants to do - so he works at Sun Coast video. His sister's boyfriend has an annual party and he decides to go and get his high school crush. The night is one crazy trip as he fakes a career as a banker and his best friend goes a little crazy after losing his job. It was a good movie and the soundtrack rocks. My friends and I jumped around and danced all crazy to the closing song. It was a good close to a day of shopping and pigging on Red Robin. Not to mention a night of Topher Grace was just what we needed. He's SO ADORABLE!!!!!!

Whatcha Eating

As I sit here scarfing down a few pieces of pizza - I contemplate nutrition and the two books I've just had shipped to me on nutrition. It'll be very interesting to read. I am very interested in why cheap/affordable food is the stuff that will kill you and the stuff that is good for you - good luck getting it without taking your whole arm and leg.

You'd be surprised about how many things get knocked off the eligible eating list when just looking at aspartame and MSG, not to mention high fructose corn syrup. My "organic" yogurt I buy has "natural flavors" listed as an ingredient and that is one of the few names aspartame can be listed by if it is under a certain percentage. I was surprised my OMEGA 3 SUPPLEMENT has aspartame in it. Fake sugars and "flavor enhancers" (that only really make your brain happy, not your tongue) have taken over the food system. I won't even being to talk about the hormones in out meat and milk. They say it hasn't been shown to cause significant changes, but I can tell you from experience that it does. Every time I have moved to Europe (where they don't use hormones), my breasts have shrunk a bit, when I come back to the states, they go up a cup size. I am now up to a DD. If I live in Europe again and move back to the states, I'm going to have to get organic meat! I really can't believe some of the things the FDA is doing - oh wait, there huge payout seems about right.

Shrimp Fried Rice - in a bag

I tried one of these "meal in a bag" deals from Aldis the other night. It was REALLY good. The meal was shrimp fried rice and it fed me and my family (a total of 6). The package came with a bag of shrimp that I cooked in a little olive oil. After about 3 minutes, the shrimp were done and I added the bag of rice and vegetables. It says it takes about 8 minutes, I just cooked in until all the rice broke off the large chunk. Then I added about half of the sauce in the bag. It said to add sauce to taste and it was a bit on the sour side - so I only added half. The best part of the whole deal - it only took about 15 minutes to make the whole meal!

Score for domestic diva me! :D

Hardy Har har....whoa!

I am writing this on my POS/sorry excuse for a computer. This is probably going to take me thrice the amount of time it would if I did this normally.

I downloaded a bunch of books the other day. Alas, when I went to transfer them to my Zune, it gave me the same stupid error message it has more and more frequently decided to give me. This is usually corrected by deleting all the books and the entire program - only to re-download everything again and transfer. I got lucky tonight. I decided to retry transferring the books before deleting them. THEY WORKED. I'm going to work on the Millenium series once I finish with Far From the Madding Crowd. I really love that book. Tom Hardy is amazing with the English language (probably why I picked this book up in France and couldn't put it down). The man is a genius, although his wording and rhetoric can sometimes just leave you scratching your head.

This leads me to another Thomas Hardy. I watched Warrior last night. It was amazing. I cried. I wished I could date Tom Hardy. I drank some more wine. The movie is about two brothers that end up in the Sparta MMA (mixed martial arts) competition. They share a great hate for their recovered/recovering alcoholic father but they haven't seen each other since the younger brother, Tommy (Thomas Hardy), fled with his mother. Brendan, his brother (Joel Edgerton) had chosen to stay behind with his father so he could stay with his girlfriend, whom eventually became his wife. He has two daughters and works as a teacher. A financial strain leaves the family desperate and he returns to fighting. Such a wonderful family drama played out in the cage.

Toussus

So today, I worked 11.75 hours (7:45am until 8:30pm)! Yikes. My boss broke though, he let me go over my 40 hours. I think he saw the stack of things that needed to get done (that would lighten the amount of work he has to do tonight...and he preferred that to his working until midnight).

Anyways, I love hearing from people you haven't thought of in a while. I got an email from my neighbor in France today. I miss her and her family a lot. They were so sweet and super nice to me. She sent my a picture of their new home - wow is it BEAUTIFUL. She filled me in on all the gossip of Toussus-le-Noble. The apartments across the street are finished and there is a library in the lower half of the building. I wish I could have seen that.

Gorgeous - No?

My health isn't doing so well. I have been stress eating like mad. I need to stop it. That, and biting my nails. I don't know if it is going to get any better this whole month of January.

Dream Dream Dream

I am tired, I don't feel well, my great grandma died, and I worked 11 hours again today.

Last night, I had a dream that I went to visit my great grandma - I wasn't surprised to find out that she had died this morning. It is interesting how many people report having dreams about people the night they day.

Might I also comment on the ubiquitous text message. My dad texted me the news that my grandma died. I read it and then had to go all day greeting people and trying to smile. Can't they just wait until the next face to face meeting - or call over the phone. Not that the time my mom called me at work with my grandpa's heart attack was any better. I really just rather not have to deal with that information while I have to continue smiling and pretending like I care to all the people coming in and out of the office.

Kick that Bucket

So this testy Tuesday just has me testy. I worked from 7am to 7pm today - stupid new software. I can't wait until this weekend! My entire body aches from being so tense the whole day. I think this needs some easy listening, a good book, a hot bath, some tea, and a long nights sleep.

This year, I did do resolutions a little bit differently. I wrote things I wanted to do/accomplish. For Example:

*Go to a Packers and a Brewers Game
*Vacation in Budapest
*Build Self-Confidence
*Do something just for me everyday
*Break bad habits
*Cross more things off my bucket list

So on an so forth....

It's a little bit of a break from what I am used to, but I like it.