6 posts tagged “food”
Well, I'm awake, at least.
Coming home from work tonight, I immediately curled up on the couch with Evan and proceeded to fall asleep. I woke up a couple of hours later and fell asleep again about ten minutes thereafter. And then woke up at around 10:30. I tried to go to bed but ended up watching TV with Evan in there and decided I was wide awake. After puttering around the internet and finding nothing too absorbing, I settled onto the couch with my book. Evan went to bed, and after I finished it (12:30?) I decided to try sleeping myself. Couch + TV + fuzzy Kimiko blanket usually = instant-sleep mode. Not tonight, however, so I decided to try to sleep in the bedroom and listen to The Dark Tower II: Drawing of the Three (picked it up for seven bucks on sale at work on super-discount day) on my iPod. Of course, I got caught up in the story and was still awake by the time that I got to the end of the last track that I had imported. Still wide awake.
So I got up and came out here and started importing the next CD, which should be finishing shortly. I hope that by the time I would reach the end of listening to it, I will be well asleep. For now I have nothing else to do so I figured a short entry might be in order, at least maybe to get myself to stop mentally rambling long enough to get to sleep.
We're having some nasty weather tonight, but we shouldn't have to go out tomorrow for any reason, so it should be all right out there again by the time Evan heads to work on Monday. I'm off until Tuesday, which is yay, though not really; I'm only getting three days this coming week. With luck the budget will go up for the week after that, but I can't say that I'm not in the process of looking for something else. I can't really afford to stay there if it's going to continue like this until the second quarter--Evan's loans are coming in and I think mine are too. And we were already kind of just skittering by. Add the fact that he's really desperate to get out of where he's working right now (not that I blame him--it kind of sucks, and by kind of I mean a lot), and you get a bit of a sticky situation. With any luck we'll improve on all that as soon as possible.
I'm kind of hungry but I really don't want to grab anything to eat this late at night. Though the last of the leftovers I brought home from dinner with one of my co-workers is still incredibly tasty-smelling. Yay cheesefries from Outback--I think I probably brought half my plate's worth home with me, though Evan took care of most of it.
With any luck I'll manage to get an actual interesting entry up here soon; I signed up for an interesting little project on a website I frequent and I'm hoping to at least put on a good show, so to speak. It's not likely, I suppose, that too many folks would be interested in my ramblings, but a girl can dream, right?
So more bookwenchery from me in the next couple days, given that I've already devoured a whole new book since this morning. But not now; the Gunslinger calls.
It's nonfiction, and the author chronicles her journey through three nations as she recovers from divorce and an unsatisfying life.
The book really struck a lot of familiar chords with me, not because I'm unsatisfied with where I am, exactly, but just because I could understand where she was coming from. I admire the fact that as she chronicles her spiritual development, there's an acknowledgment that there is more than one path to God, and that "Thou art God" (Stranger in a Strange Land) isn't all so far from the truth, in the end. I remember identifying with that statement when I read it in Heinlein, and this only reinforced my feelings, that the divine is everywhere and you don't necessarily have to be on the Bible-thumping, revival-tent-inhabiting path to be doing it "right." Try to tell my family that. Ha.
Anyway. I've always been kind of afraid of stepping out there, as Liz does, and I really admired that, as well. She simply goes out into the world and does exactly what she wants to do. Perhaps that's a bit self-indulgent; in fact it quite likely is. But I think it's a chance that most of us would take if we had the opportunity. If someone said: pick three countries and spend a year visiting each of them equally, and here's the financial backing to do it--wouldn't you?
Of course, upon proposing that to myself, I have to wonder where I would go. I have a history at being incredibly terrible at languages, but then again they say that immersion is the best way to fix that problem. Liz picked Italy because she wanted to learn the language. For similar reasons, I would choose Japan. Perhaps I could even turn those three years of college Japanese into something resembling fluency! Also, silly as it might seem, I'd like to see what the effect of Japanese food would be on my body. I could certainly stand to lose a few and would probably feel quite awkward among all the smaller folk. Combine that with my picky tastes and I might actually be getting somewhere in that department.
My second "country" would be somewhere in Europe, because I know a couple of folks in the region who I would dearly love to visit. Ideally, I would divide my time between several countries, including Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, and Germany, so...yeah. Those four months would be hectic, but awesome. And more than likely I'd probably put back on all the potential weight lost in Japan, given the insane amounts of stuff I would want to try. Oh, well.
Finally, I think I'd mosey on up to the UK and spend a blissful four months in Scotland and Wales, with the occasional side trip to England (theater!) and Ireland (why not?). There I would visit all the lovely historical sites and absorb the accents. I could probably just sit around and listen to people talk for the whole time and go home completely happy.
So, yeah. Not exactly the great spiritual journey that Liz took, but I think I'd go home feeling satisfied, at least, that I got to go and live in the world, if only for a year.
Where would you go?
What do you like to make or order for brunch?
Usually for me, brunch is a breakfast-for-lunch kind of thing. With my mom, it was usually bacon and muffins, with icy cold milk to drink. When I make it for me and Evan (like I did this morning), it's my cinnamon-brown sugar pancakes and bacon, sometimes with eggs, usually scrambled, sometimes an omelet instead. Still with milk.
That was seriously tasty food this morning. Yum.
Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Morning person, beyond a shadow of a doubt. I can stay up late, from time to time, but it's a real effort. Unless I've done that, though, mornings are one of the easiest things in the world for me. When I was in junior high and high school, I perfected the art of sleeping as absolutely late as I could (which was usually five-thirtyish, given how early school started back then) and then getting ready and being up and out the door in five to ten minutes. This involved taking showers the night before, but I figure that way you go to bed clean, which is good.
In college, I would do much the same, though I added enough allowance to get up and check my regular battery of sites before heading out the door. So if I had an 8:30 class, I'd want to be out the door at 8:20 or so. I could get up at 8 no problem and make it in time 99% of the time. So, yeah. The instant my alarm goes off and I open my eyes, I'm wide awake.
My mom is just about the exact opposite. To get out the door by 6am, she would get up at 4:30, make herself several cups of tea, shower, and finally drag herself out barely on time. I don't know if it was because of her being this way, or just genetics that I was lucky and am able to wake up as quickly as I have to. Even now, we leave at 8:30, but I get up at 7:30 to be able to get on here, write my morning entry, and generally give Evan enough time to do more or less the same. I could sleep in later but it wouldn't give me the time I like to check websites and whatnot.
In other subjects, the drive down yesterday was fairly uneventful, though it rained pretty much the whole way. In fact, it just started raining again. Here's hoping it'll stop by noon, ugh. The wedding is at one, and we need to be there by 12:30, so as long as we can get out the door without getting soaked, I'll be happy. Of course I'll have my camera on hand to take plenty of pictures, hee.
Last night I had a very odd dining experience. We went to this place called K&W Cafeteria, which was dinner like I'd never had it before. It was very much like going through the lunch line at school or something, and very awkward for me. I was utterly self-conscious and 'please' and 'thank-you'ing all the staff to death. Once you collected your foods, you got a receipt for your party then went into the dining area. You unloaded your various plates and bowls and etcetera onto the table, and took the trays to a preordained dropping point. It was very, very strange, but the food was actually pretty decent. There were a lot of older people there, but I guess I can understand why.
The guy that my mother-in-law is marrying is nice enough, though he's a bit of the demonstrative sort. They seem to enjoy each others' company, though, which is a step in the right direction, eh? The ceremony's not any big thing, but it will be in the church where I'd have had mine had we still lived here, and there's a lunch after at the country club, and dinner later tonight at some Italian restaurant. Wish me luck with all the various family that I have yet to meet--Evan owes me big time in payback after what some of mine put him through when they first met him!
I suppose that's about all for now. The rain's already lighter but not stopping as far as I can tell.
Ta~
For the last month or three, even before most of the town knew what was being built, all of us who work at my store have been keeping an eye on the IHOP that would be opening in our shopping center. Lately, we knew the day was close at hand, because not only did the inside look finished, but there were many cars in the parking lot and people inside, but the lot had been roped off and they'd put big signs up after the first couple of days saying, "NOT OPEN - Training in Progress.' I can't even imagine how many people must have tried to go there, thinking, "Hey, there are cars in the lot and people inside, they must be open!" We're fairly close to a highway, so it's not entirely illogical to believe that people traveling through would realize it was a new restaurant. On Monday I even heard some parents and their kids talking about going there after they bought their books, so I mentioned that it wasn't open yet while I rang them up.
Monday night, however, Evan and I noticed that no one was inside, even though they usually were at that hour. Come yesterday morning, the signs were gone, the rope blocking the parking lot was gone, and there were actual customers inside. Yay! So Evan and I knew where we were going for dinner.
Yesterday at work was really nice, as I got taken off register (for once) and got to work on a project that theyw ere in the middle of completing. It made the time go really really fast even though the guy who ended up on register was a complete slacker--more than I am! I still got stuck up there a little bit when he had to leave early, but hey. It was still a much better day than normal. I finished the day not nearly as exhausted as usual and my feet didn't hurt at all, which is an absolute rarity. Then I had the opportunity to sit outside as the sun set on a lovely almost-Fall day which was perfectly warm until the clouds started rolling in and the sun went down. The cold front also brought in wind, of course, so I was kind of cold for the last little bit of it.
But then there were pancakes and all was well. I didn't have anything fancy, but it was still really good. Being that I've never been to an IHOP before, I was surprised to discover how extensive the menu was. I suppose only offering breakfast food would be kind of silly, since it's not all that terribly complicated. If nothing else, we'll be going back just to try other stuff on the menu.
The book I finished last night was Shadow of the Hegemon, having finished Stranger in a Strange Land earlier in the day. Both were good, though overall I can tell that the Heinlein is dated a bit. The characterization of the subservient-ish women to the dominating male character (not the protagonist) seemed very old-fashioned while the author still aimed for a futuristic world, technologically speaking. I found myself amused by some of the correlations between that and the Card, which I'm sure were completely un-related but interesting nonetheless.
I had mixed thoughts about the book's opinion on polyamory, given that it seemed to imply that complete and full sharing was necessary, and none of this doing things in degrees as I tend to do, given my situation, but it was a different time, of course, and I can't imagine that the topic was quite popular. It was the sixties, though, so anything's possible.
Not sure what I'll read next, but it'll probably be the next Bean story, which is, I think, Shadow of the Giant. We don't have the next Ender book, Xenocide, in stock at the moment, and I don't want to move past it and go to the next one and then have to backtrack.
I suppose that's enough of an entry about so little, eh? Today and tomorrow and then my little mini-vacation. Laundry tonight (hopefully).
What time period would you have lived in, if you could have lived at any time?
I actually am fairly content with the time period I was born into. If anything, I'd be more interested in changing the location of my birth, yet I don't know what society I would rather live in. I think I'm way too into modern conveniences and technological perks to be able to consider giving them up. I also like having my books readily available and not withheld from me because I'm a woman, and I like having an education. So I probably wouldn't change anything, honestly.
Last night I finally got to catch up in my RP, and also managed to get in a bit of a drinking contest with N. Even after seven shots of vodka (the only thing we had in the house besides some wine), I was still only tipsy/mildly drunk, though I blame that on the fact that I had an absolutely huge (and totally satisfying) dinner at Bob Evans last night. Turkey Bacon Cheddar melt and mashed potatoes, go. So much love for my favorite sandwich ever. I finally toddled off for bed at 2 or so this morning, so I'm not really rested just yet. Probably I'll have a nap before I go to work.
Yesterday, I was rolling around the idea that my best friend and I proposed first last Christmas. We're both wrapping addicts, and actually fairly good at it. My paper skills are pretty good, and she's really quite amazing with fabric ribbon and making bows with it. We actually had quite a few people tell us last year that they would pay to have someone take care of their present wrapping for them. We're quite seriously thinking about capitalizing on that, though there are a lot of factors to figure out.
Do we charge by the hour, by the present, by the present and by the present's size, by the ornateness of the ribbon, offer package deals? How much of a discount do we give if they supply the ribbon and paper, and then what if we have to add our own materials to make something work? I strongly suspect that it's a little bit of everything, which is going to make it even more complicated to figure out. But J is really good at figuring out complicated things, so I think we'll be able to work it out no problem.
Also, we're going to have to figure out how to split things for supplies/gas/personal pay (I'm thinking 40 percent for each of us, and twenty percent to supplies/gas right now), and will people trust us to hold onto their stuff and do it, or are they going to want us to come to their homes? Will there be a difference in charge for that? If we're going to do it at our own space, we'll have to come up with some sort of carbon-copy inventory that everyone signs at the outset so we don't get accused of taking things.
We'll need a lot of supplies, but I can get some stuff from work at a discount as it's leftover from the Christmas in July sale--everything is already three dollars or less, but I can get it at another twenty or thirty percent off, which is pretty good. We'll need to do a lot of sample wrapping and take pictures for a portfolio and/or a website, and consider how much we'll want to advertise. We could always get a table at the mall for a couple days to help get our name out there and do some on-the-spot wraps and distribute business cards. So yeah, it's a lot to think about. But we both know that we're really good at it, and I think it's entirely possible that it could make for a lot of extra money at a time that we could really use it.
I'm really excited. Anyone have any additional comments/suggestions/ideas? Anything is welcome.
