It's certainly been awhile, hasn't it?

In an effort to catch you up on my life:


> Work.  Still there, still working at my "temp" position with my old job. Our work computers though are absolute crap, so I've been working from home almost every day since it's faster on my laptop. They had a wireless connection set up in the office so I can work on my laptop there, but why should I drive 25 miles to sit in an office using my own laptop? It makes much more sense for me to just do it from home. So I do.

> Work party.  We had a dinner/bowling night with the office to celebrate the work my best friend and I have done - hooray! It was fun getting to be with all of them again, most of the employees work out of office, on location, or from home so it's rare to get a majority of us together in one room. Even though I whine a lot about my job, I really do love the people I work with (as people, anyway. Perhaps not so much as co-workers).  They're fun and interesting. I laughed because one of my bosses was trash talking me since he knows I'm a big bowler (I am not good though).

> Bowling. I BEAT MY BOSS AT BOWLING. That's all.

> Valentine's Day. I got to spend it on a hot 2.5 hour date...with my dentist.  If you're a longtime reader of my blog (do you exist anymore? I hope so!), you know my teeth are...uhh...not well. Let's just say that I know all the dental vernacular because I have to get so much work done there all the time. And so I got to spend my VDay getting shot up with novocaine, having cavities filled and a crown put on one of my teeth.  SO MUCH FUN. EXCEPT NOT AT ALL. The novocaine wore off halfway through, right as they were drilling out my cavity, so that was super awesome.  And they gave me a double dosage of shots, so I was numb for literally the entire rest of the day. I knew it was going to be a bad day when they tilted my chair up and handed me an entire BAG of Advil with the sympathetic look and instructions of "proooobably best to take one of these now...and for the rest of the day...or week. Whatever!"

> Dentist, continued. Best part? I have another appointment tomorrow morning for more work. AND THEN I get to have one MORE!  Ain't life grand?

> Hanging with Friends. Anyone else sucked into that damn game? I was on it for awhile, and stopped playing for over a month. And then one night I was with a bunch of my friends, and they asked me to play just one game with them...which has morphed into a month-long battle of literally 12 separate games. I had a massive 20 game undefeated streak going until my brother's girlfriend upended it. So far I'm still 34-5, so...there's that. I hate this game. (but if you want to play, play me! username: bellaashley19)

> Smashburger. Why did no one tell me about this place earlier!? DUDE. So much better than Five Guys! Still can't dethrone In N Out to me, but it's pretty darn delicious.  I mean, they have Haagen-Dazs milkshakes!

> Reading. Still out of hand, but still keeping to my book blog! That's actually the reason I've been so absent from here. It's quite...different...to run a niche blog than just a personal one. There's real schedules and upkeep and it's like...damn.  I love it though, so I'm definitely going to keep at it - I just need to time manage better.  I have a lot of thoughts about this though, so I'll probably expand it to a post of its own at a later date.

> Crying. I don't know what I was thinking this week: first I read The Fault In Our Stars, the new novel by John Green. And if you haven't heard about it, you need to. Click that link, read the synopsis. I'm reviewing it on Friday, and let me just tell you: uncontrollable sobbing occurred. Some whimpering. It was ugly (but sexy) and that book is possibly one of the best I've read in my life.  And then I ran across Toy Story 3 on TV this morning, and for some God awful reason decided to watch it. I don't think there will ever be a time I'm not full on weeping at the end. AND THEN this evening I watched the Glee episode, and I just...ugh. UGH. Those first 15 minutes killed me.  KILLED ME.

> Family. I found out I have another Uncle. And he was in town and I met him, and it turns out he has a whole mess of kids, too.  And some of his kids have kids!  So in the 2-ish weeks I've been gone from here, I've inherited ~15 more relatives. That's life as a Filipino!

> Family, part 2. I finally got to meet two of my nephews!  To be fair, I didn't even know one existed, so it's not like I was eagerly waiting to meet him. But still! Little toddler Jacob, who is turning 3 next month and is possibly the most well-behaved child I've had the pleasure of being in the same room with.  And his little baby brother Caleb, who when I met him was exactly 1 WEEK old (and that explains why I didn't know he existed).  I have never been around such a newly-born baby before and it freaked me out. He's so tiny!

> Motherhood. Being around Jacob and Caleb made me realize though that I reeaaallly have no mothering instinct in me. Sure, they're sweet and fun and precious, but after an hour with them, I was super glad to hand over the reigns to my cousins again. This girl might just have been born without a biological clock.

> Fast Food. On a [stupid, stupid] whim, I decided to make February a No-Fast-Food February. It was literally like...a thought I had while driving, and I made the stupid mistake of mentioning this thought to my brother a few of our friends. Suddenly, I'm sticking to it and they're watching me and keeping me on track!  Surprisingly, it's been a lot easier than I thought it would. My only worry was work, because I never have enough time to pack my own lunch so anytime I'd be at the office, I'd buy. We finally worked out that Fast Food equaled any food place that has a drive-thru, i.e. McDonalds, In N Out (sob!), Jack in the Box, a few Mexican places, Popeye's, Sonic, etc.  I had to break it once due to extenuating circumstance (I'm not getting into it), but otherwise, I think my wallet has been thankful.

> Soda. Without details, both my parents are Type-II Diabetic, and have been for awhile. My father's has gotten a bit worse, and he was given strict orders to give up soda: namely, Coke. Now, my dad grew up in the Philippines, and you know how much they covet their Coke (well...maybe you don't. But trust, they do).  He has literally been drinking Coke since he was 4 years old, so this has been a crazy battle for him. He claims it's even harder to give up than smoking (he smoked for 17 years). It's weird to see him not having soda, but I'm proud that he's doing it.

> Soda, for me. As a side effect of dad not allowed to have soda, it's not in the house anymore. And so that means I've basically had to give it up, too, because I refuse to suffer the wrath if I ever bring soda into the house.  And I have to say...it's been weird to me. I've never thought I was too addicted to it, but turns out that I probably was more than I like to admit. But it's fine to give it up, I just have to make sure I don't substitute it for something as bad.

> Naked. I can't stand Dev, and I am not really a fan of Enrique Iglesias. But has anybody heard their song together, Naked?  I AM OBSESSED.

> Diet. I dunno how February turned into the Weird Diet Month, but between the no fast food and no soda, it's been a very strange month, eating-wise. I don't think it's really had any effect on my weight or my mood, but it can't have hurt, right?

> Injury. Can we just look at this photo of my hand from a week or so ago?  Do you see that red line on the top of my palm? And you can't really see it, but there's another red mark right in one of the lines.

Yeahhh...I'm almost ashamed to tell you how that happened. I uh...bought a new bottle of nail polish. And it wouldn't open, and that was the injury sustained from that little space between the brush top and the bottle as I twisted like a madman to get it open. It's weird, right?! It was basically a burn, and even though it's small, trust me when I say it hurt. Plus, that's my right hand! I do everything with my right hand!

> Nails. I've been sapped for time and motivation in terms of my nails, so nothing fancy.

Left: Valentine's Day Nails!  OPI - An Affair In Red Square, glitter polish is OPI - A Sparkle Yule Love

(Ulta Exclusive Holiday 2011 line).

Right: Current nails! OPI - I Have A Herring Problem (Holland Collection 2012)

So, that's pretty much my life right now.  How are you doing?

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Music Monday

because this was pretty much my heart's song in 2001. I had a simple 14-year-old heart.

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Somehow there's a lot of sports in this post. Also, a Ten on Tuesday!

Last monday, despite my very public dislike of basketball, I found myself at a Clippers game.

Truthfully, it wasn't terrible. I mean, I like sports and going to any sporting event is always fun. My brother's been a Clippers fan for over a decade (before all this "Chris Paul turned around the team" bullshit), and it was awesome to see him so excited about the team and seeing everyone. We were fairly high up (top section), but in the front row so it was actually pretty good. It figures that the one game I'd be at is the one with Blake Griffin's "Dunk of the Year" on Kendrick Perkins. But hooray for the Clippers beating the Thunder! I had no idea OKC is first in the league, because they were not playing like it.

That monday also kicked off my week-long break from work. I don't know why every job doesn't allow a week off after a few weeks; I felt so much better and refreshed heading into work this morning! I didn't do too much during my off time; mostly read, a lot of sleep, some seeing friends but not too much. It figures that the new layout code I was about to launch would not be compatible with the threaded commenting feature Blogger is now offering, so I've also been working like a madwoman reworking all of it for this blog and my book blog - I think I'm giving up and just going to customise the shit out of a Template layout. I want those threaded comments, man!

Anyway. I'm back at work this week but will probably take advantage of my working-at-home status towards the end since I'd quite like to not waste gas going all the way into the Pacific Beach office.

Onto the Tuesday questions!

PS. OH WAIT, one last thing! Though I cannot stand either the Patriots or Eli Manning, I have to admit the Super Bowl was a moderately entertaining game. Boo for no more football :(

Hosted by Chelsea!

1. How do you feel about Groundhog’s Day?
Do people normally have feelings about Groundhog's Day? I had no idea. It's just another day, although I do notice an increase in groundhog-related tweets that day. I suppose that makes sense.

2. What color are your fingernails right now? (Bonus points if you include a picture.)
A shimmery brown! Zoya's Cheryl.

Sun glare FTL.

3. Do you like riddles?
I do! I'm terrible at solving most of them though. I really like word puzzles, but if it's riddles that just make me go in circles, I give up pretty easily.

4. When you were 10, how old did you think “old” was? At your current age, how old do you think “old” is?
When I was 10, I thought 20 was old. A fact that disturbs me now, but I was 10! Now at 24 (2 months shy of my 25th birthday!) I tend to think 60s is old.

5. Do you wish on stars?
I do. Not often, but if I'm feeling particularly astronomical or my-fate-is-in-your-hands-y, I'll do it.

6. Do you recycle?
I try to! We do at home (cans v. plastic v. paper v. waste), but we don't at the office - which makes me angry since my office uses SO SO SO much paper.

7. On a scale from 1-10, how good of a cook are you?
Hmmm...I'd probably put myself at the 6.5 - 7 scale. Definitely not bad, but nothing to write home about. I always want to try to improve, but it's time and energy and I've yet to really put it as a priority.

8. Do you color your hair? Professionally or at home?
Never. I donate my hair almost every time I get it cut, and you aren't allowed to donate dyed hair. Plus, mine is naturally black with brown and red streaks/chunks, which I actually like.

9. On a scale from 1-10, how do you rate your manners?
Ohhh dear. I would think I'm a 9 since I'll occasionally forget to say 'thank you' if something is done for me while I'm not giving it my attention, but I try to be a perfect 10! I say all my please and thank yous, and I always try to be pleasant and considerate. People like to give me shit when I say "pardon?" if I need something repeated.

Wait, cursing isn't considered bad manners, right? I mean, I don't do it at people. Because if it does count well...we'll just slide my butt down to the 7 on the scale.

10. Who are the last 5 people you have texted?
1. Brother
2. Alexis (co-worker; I brought them cupcakes and needed to know flavor requests!)
3. Kathy (best friend & co-worker; no explanation needed)
4. Amanda (brother's gf/my friend)
5. Enzo (co-worker)

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