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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Mondays are too difficult to really think. Have some photos of food, wine, work and Comic-con 2011. (It's never too late.)

I've been sorting and organising my hard drive and ran across some photos that never got put up on the blog...not that I meant to ever put them up, but they seem worthy now, I suppose.

Because all I do is whine about work, I thought I'd show you the space I currently work in.  That monitor in front? I set up that whole thing by myself (and broke a nail in the process), CPU and internet and hooking it up to the network included.

Friends and I went wine tasting. If you're in San Diego, I recommend going to The Wine Encounter in Hillcrest!  Thursdays you can do a 5 pre-selected wine tasting for $8!

I also HIGHLY recommend R-Gang Eatery in Hillcrest. Does this sandwich not look DELICIOUS?! It was my own food and I'm jealous of my past self for having it!  We went here for my mom's birthday lunch and oh heavens I am counting the days until I can go back.  For the inquiring minds, it's their Turkey Sandy: roasted turkey, brie, tomato, spinach, sun dried tomato pesto, and basil aioli with rosemary garlic fries. My mouth watered just typing all that.

Current nails. How different do they look in flash and no flash?! Safe to say they're normally somewhere in the middle (also, the no-flash one is suuuuper blurry. Sorry!).  Apologies for the tip wear, they're about 5 days old now.  It's L'Oreal - Jet Set to Paris from their new line. (The glitter overlay is China Glaze - Fairy Dust!)

And I stumbled upon a few of my Comic-con 2011 pictures that I know I meant to put up but never did.  Enjoy how old these are now!

FilmDistrict Signing, where people from Drive and Don't Be Afraid of the Dark were there. That's Ron Perlman, Carey Mulligan (girlcrush<3) and Nicolas Winding Refn (director) there. Hilarious to talk to. Ron was gruff and awesome, Carey was quiet and sweet and a bit tired, and Nicolas was druuuuuuunk.  At the other end of the table was Guy Pearce who was scruffy and charming and held up the line chatting with me.

Zach Levi (from Chuck). This was the last day of Comic-con and we were at Nerd HQ with him.

Yeah I look horrible (I was sick and tired and it was raining and I'd just spent a good 80 hours at Comic-con stuff), but the story behind this is that right as it was my turn to go up and have my 20 second chat and photo with him (I was going to tell him how much my mom loves him!), some bitch girl screams from the street how much she loves him and he changed her life and gave her the strength to really follow her dreams. UH--EXCUSE ME GIRL, YOU'RE INTERRUPTING MY ZACH TIME. I'm totally giving her the stink eye here. (But he did have his arm around my back sothere'salwaysthat)

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Coke, Sprite, Shock Top, Vodka Cran, Sangria, Gold Tequila, Water, Margaritas, Jameson, Jack Daniels

And that was my Labor Day weekend in a list of drinks I consumed.  It was fun, and stressful, and hectic, and heartbreaking, and a bit drunk.  Or a lot drunk.

Who really knows.

Ten on Tuesday!  Link up here!

1. What temperature do you keep your thermostat on during the day?

I think the house is set to 78*

2. What temperature do you keep your thermostat on at night?
I think the house is set at 72*

3. In a canister of mixed nuts, do you pick out certain varieties and leave the others?

I don't eat any nuts actually, so this canister would not be with me.

4. What is your favorite kind of M&M?

Despite what I just said, I love peanut M&Ms.  Delicious!

5. How do you buy books? (Amazon, bookstore, new, used, electronic, etc)

Usually Barnes and Noble, in-store only.  I rarely purchase books online.  With Borders going out of business, I've purchased a ridiculous amount of books lately (enough where I'm looking for a second bookshelf. Seriously. I haven't seen my desk in 4 months).  But I also do not purchase hardcover books, so if something comes out and I'm impatient, I'll download a PDF file or something from the internet to read on my iPad.

6. How do you like your eggs cooked?

Scrambled or overhard.  Depending what I'm eating it with.  With lots of pepper and hot sauce (Cholula!)

7. Can you whistle?

I can!  Not too well, but I can.

8. What common word do you always misspell?

I found out that I've tragically been misspelling melancholy wrong my entire life.  I'm not sure that's 'common,' but it's enough to make me sad.

9. Are you afraid of flying?

Not at all!  I love it!

10. How often do you go shopping?

Too often now that I'll be unemployed in a week!  I grocery shop maybe once every two weeks (the perks of living with your parents), and even then it's nothing major -- as for shopping for fun, I'll maybe go out and browse once a week, but I really only buy something once a month, if that.  And even then it might be like a $4 bracelet from H&M (not that I bought that on Sunday...Imeanwhat?).

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Fill-in-the-Blank Friday!

I've missed doing these blanks, so I'm glad to be back with it!  I hope everyone has some fun weekend plans, I've got a friend's birthday celebration and an almost-goodbye dinner for a best friend departing to Russia in a few weeks.  Aside from that, hopefully I'll have time to really figure out my computer and get a new resume file going since the last was lost in my old computer (RIP Dell).

Link here!

(and holy cow that drink looks DE-LISH)

1.   My go to outfit for a dress-up occasion like a wedding is a simple, just-below-the-knee dress with cute heels and a cardigan.  At least, that's what I wore to my friend's wedding a few weeks ago.

2.  This week has been EXPENSIVE.  I had to buy a new computer (my first Mac!), pay for my 100k tune-up with my car, and the subsequent repairs. Also my costume/materials for a friend's birthday celebration.

3.  When it's dinnertime and I'm feeling lazy I'll usually eat scrambled eggs and toast; or a quickly made sandwich.

4.  My favorite pair of shoes is my grey Ugg cardy boots.  Hate all you want on UGGs, they're comfortable, warm and cute.

5.  A random item that I own that is completely unnecessary, but that I could never part with is a Ziggy comic that's about reading.  It's sweet and completely my outlook on life.  One day I'll scan it and post on the blog.

6.  My favorite person is  Julie Andrews.  This is discounting people I know in real life, right?  Ken Jennings and Daria are close seconds (and thirds?)

7.  If I were going to write my own blank it would say …ummm…let's go with: In the summer, I miss ___________ the most about winter.

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Food-centric blanks and weekend plans!

Because I like to keep with themes and today's Fill-in-the-Blank from Lauren is about all things yummy, let's tell the weekend plans by way of...food!  Saturday I think I may try to hit up the Fanfest for the San Diego Chargers, which inevitably means stadium/game food! Fries, a hot dog, possibly a frozen lemonade (odd how I don't like lemonade, but love frozen lemonade...). No beer for me though!  Sunday I am hoping to head down to Imperial Beach to see the Sandcastle Competition.  Because it's the beach, in San Diego that means one thing: mexican food! You can't say no to a good California burrito or carne asada fries or street tacos after a fun day ocean-side.  At night I'm planning to see Toy Story 3 with my mom, and since we don't eat theatre popcorn, we tend to sneak in our own snacks of crackers and M&Ms.

Oh dear...after all this food talk, I'm hungry now! Thank goodness I've got several days of tennis-playing and walking/running planned to offset it all.  Happy weekend, everyone!

1.  Today for breakfast I ate cocoa krispies cereal. Normally it's Honey Bunches of Oats (the Honey Roasted kind), but I ran out yesterday and forgot to pick up more. And I also ran out of raspberry vanilla granola to mix with my yogurt, so I had to resort to the backup of the backup breakfast haha.

2.  My go to/never fail recipe is a simple pasta with a simple red sauce. You can't go wrong.

3.  Something I eat that other people think is weird is frozen mocha drinks with brown (honey) boba. (For those who don't know, boba are little tapioca balls that typically go in milk-based tea drinks. There can be different flavors, but I think the most common is brown.)  People get grossed out at the idea of coffee+boba, but...I dunno, I like it.

4.  My worst cooking disaster ever was...actually, I don't think I've had one. I sadly don't cook too often, so disasters have been kept to a minimum. Unless you count that time my roommate dropped a part of her napkin down into the burner and neglected to remove it or tell me. That was a terrifying surprise when it caught on fire while I was boiling a pot of water--and of course, I was turned away so I didn't even notice it until the flames had reached all the way up to the microwave above it.

5.  If I could only eat one flavor of ice cream the rest of my life it would be coconut macadamia nut (from Lappert's).  It's yummy and gorgeous and unique and so sweet that I wouldn't have it all too often and it would remain a fancy treat.

6.  One food I hate and avoid at all costs is pickles and mushrooms. I don't eat a lot of foods (really, I don't), but mushrooms and pickles are the worst. I literally want to vomit every time I smell a pickle, and the sight of mushrooms makes me gag.

7.  What is your favorite meal?  Breakfast, lunch, or dinner? Proooobably dinner. Well...I probably love breakfast foods the most, but I enjoy dinner time since it's so variable. It can be early, normal, late; be a business dinner, family dinner, catching up with friends and it lasts for hours dinner; super quick bite to eat while sitting in the living room, at the table after we're all home from work, super fancy, black tie...it's just so versatile!

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Lots of food talk.

My lovelies, I hope you have wonderful weekends! I am looking forward to a weekend of relaxation and no plans. I may go to the local fair that's in town with the family, which will be fun. The real question is, should I try the deep fried klondike bar?!  And before you say it, HELLZ NO I am not eating the deep friend butter.  This body isn't quite a temple, but it is still sensible.

 

And now I leave you with a food-centric Fill-in-the-Blank Friday! 

 

1.  If I could choose my last meal it would be    margherita pizza, raspberry ice tea and bruschetta.

2.  My favorite person to share a meal with is   my brother_   because    he tells funny stories and doesn't make fun of me for not eating so many things.  He's learned to accept my pickiness by now .

3.  The best meal I've ever had was     my mom's homemade meatballs in a fresh Panera made baguette with fresh provolone cheese and marinara sauce.  SO YUMMY.

4.  The one food that makes me feel instantly better when I'm having a bad day is    cinnamon sugar toast.  My mom used to make it in Belgium for us as dessert and it's just an instant happy to my heart .

5.  My absolute specialty in the kitchen is     anything baking, though mostly cupcakes and cookies. I make a bomb sugar cookie and can frost a cupcake like no other .

6.  The city that has the best food is    Naples, Italy (the origin of pizza!)    and my favorite restaurant there is     I unfortunately do not remember the names of any places we went, but trust that if you go in anywhere, you'll probably like it 

7.  My favorite healthy snack is    low fat Vanilla yogurt with cherry granola .

8.  In my opinion the nationality which has the best food is    Italian  .

9.  If I could learn to cook anything in the world (and be really good at it!) I'd choose    fried rice.  I already know how to sort of make it, but it's never really perfect.  It's so basic, but can go so wrong!

10.  The most outrageous dessert I've ever had was    a brownie at Mimi's Cafe.  It says it's a brownie, but it is literally the size of a brick, with two huge scoops of vanilla ice cream on top and drizzled with chocolate sauce.  It's just incredibly excessive and unnecessary.  Plus, it has the consistency of a firm cake.  It's just....awkward  .

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Best of '09 Blog Challenge: New Food

Best of 2009 Blog Challenge, Day 12: New Food

If you know me, you know I don't eat anything. I'm perhaps the most picky eater in the entire world. It's much easier for me to name the foods I do eat, because the list of food I don't eat is way too long. That said, it's a tough thing for me to find a food that I do eat, making this blog entry difficult.

The only thing I can think of that I added to my short food repertoire this year is gyros.

I have to say that I've only ever had Greek food from Daphne's Greek Cafe, so this is of course based on crummy chain americanized versions. But anyway, i go to lunch with a friend often whenever I'm back in Orange County. She works during the week, so it's always during her break; thus limiting our time and the distance in which we can go. As it happens, a super stellar pizza place is perfectly within distance, but when I used to go to lunch with her at least 3 times a week, we couldn't keep going to the same place (well, I could, but she didn't want to). So, Daphne's Greek Cafe is in the same complex, and that's where it began. I have to say, it was pretty yummy. It's lucky that all the things in the gyro are things I eat (pitabread, seasoned beef, lettuce, a small bit of onions, and a sauce), and it happens I find it to be quite yummy.

So, yeah, I guess that's my "New Food" of this year...not because it stood out as amazing from the rest, but mostly because it's the only new thing I eat this entire year haha.

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