Up and at it

Watching: Stuart play Dead Space II

Check it out! I'm in a fantastic mood and actually FEEL like blogging for a second day in a row.

Yesterday's was due to an epiphany and today is because I woke up feeling pretty damn good about myself.

On my list of short-term goals was for me to do a minimum of 20 situps each morning and not to sleep any more than 8hrs. I achieved both of those. I eventually want to start doing more situps, but for now it's painful doing 20 because it hurts my lower back. I think I should buy some sort of pad for those.

I even had an apple for breakfast before going off to do my taxes. I left a little too early so I stopped by Fresh & Easy and got some flavored hummus I'd been meaning to get as well as some mini bagels. Charles, my tax guy, noted how I look like I've lost weight. God I love it when people say that! We discussed that and what we did to get where we are (because he said he'd lost some weight too). I had a feeling of confidence. Charles is pretty easy to talk to and I enjoyed the conversation.

Stuart and I went to the gym last night for the first time. There was no one there. :D I did about 45mins of cardio (I wanted to do an hour but I accidentally hit stop and didn't know what time I left off at) and did a few leg exercise machines. I'm a little sad that they don't have the crunch 'table' that we had at the school gym where you basically lay down on a bench and do sit ups but there's a bar part to keep your feet down). There's a crunch machine where you sit in it like a chair and I guess are supposed to pull the arm levers down and the leg levers up as if in a crunch, but I don't like it as much. I read The Spark while I was briskly walking. :D Productive day.

Putting one foot in front of the other

Reading: The Spark

I want to start off by saying I bought The Spark (a book). I feel so accomplished to be reading for leisure!

I'll move on to say that in the last month, the month I've been waiting for the gym to open, I've gained 2 pounds. I'm a little disappointed but because of The Spark, I've written down my goals; Long-term, middle and short. My long-term goal, of course, is to lose weight - specifically to get down to at least 130lbs and maintain it. My mid-term goal in relation to that is more specific. There are 22 weeks until the fourth of July weekend which is when the Anime Expo is (a convention that I go to every year). I've never dressed up before because all anime characters a) skinny as heck and b) have far larger breasts than myself. However, a crazy thought got into my head this week; I want to dress up as LeeLo from The Fifth Element. 'But in order to do that you can't have a hanging gut!' I reminded myself. There's no way I can look that good for a costume that shows some of my stomach. But I counted it out today and 22 weeks is plenty of time! So my crazy thought isn't so crazy after all. I was thinking it was an obsurd goal that was a long shot but finding out the reality of those numbers,... I can really do this! Now, I have no idea if being 130lbs is going to get me a flat stomach, but if anything, by following this plan I'll be 130lbs by July, and that makes me incredibly excited and eager to jump on this plan. I have a lump in my throat typing this out.

In a personality test I took last year the most frequent trait that revealed itself was my want to inspire and help others. The Spark says over and over how easy it is to inspire someone by working on yourself. It sounds selfish, but if you show others your progress, it's not selfish - it should be motivating.

So I'm finally starting the chapter of my life where I'm excited and hopeful - no, sure of myself - that I can lose this weight. And I already feel a sense of confidence and happiness just SAYING it. Imagine how I'll feel when I achieve it.

Little Miss Kitchen!

Watching: Teen Mom 2

I found a chicken alfredo lasagna recipe on allrecipes.com and shared it with Chantal. She was eager to make it and made me eager to as well. I love alfredo sauce and I've never made lasagna before. She promised it wasn't hard. It actually wasn't but it took quite a few dishes. I hate washing dishes, haha. I had a few problems (because I used too big of a pan and didn't have enough ingredients to fill it) but it came out good!

Here's the recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Lasagna-Alfredo/Detail.aspx

I messed up and bought only one jar of sauce, put the layer of chicken/alfredo with the spinach/ricotta. Since the pan was bigger and there wasn't enough ingredients so that means there wasn't enough cheeeessseee!!! Cheese is necessary.

Zodiac makeup entry

Watching: American Dad

I entered a contest on Gaia in a makeup guild I joined recently. The contest was to put on makeup that portrays our zodiac sign. Here's my half ass entry (there are 9 prizes, only 8 entries including mine and it ends this month).

A slew of wonderful news

Watching: Teen Mom 2, Mean Girls

Exciting things are happening!

Last night I got the result of a Kickstarter project I backed last year. I received The Word Project book, full of interesting words with equally interesting art from Polly who is skilled at Bricolage.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Word-Project-Odd-Obscure-Words-Illustrated/175777099125208

I also got a surprise. A necklace I ordered mid-last year that I ended up cancelling because the seller didn't contact me for over 2 months who then apologized (because she was absent due to being in the hospital) and said she'd send me a necklace free of charge. Of course since it was mid-2010 when all this went down, I'd forgotten. And so here is what I've got now.

The seller is Sneaky Fetus. Awesome stuff from an awesome name. :P

I had a doctor appointment this morning and we decided to taper myself off of my 'crazy pills' within the next two months. There is a 40% chance that I'll slip back into the depression that caused me to seek medicated aid, but my mother has always said I'm a lucky girl so I'm setting my sights high. I'd rather not be dependent on a drug for all my life, but of course if I do go back to being depressed then I'll be content being on drugs all my life. If my brain is broken and I have the tools to fix it and enjoy my life and allow others to enjoy me as well, then I shall.

Back to positive: The gym officially opened yesterday! Stuart and I are going to get our keys and photo taken and take a look around! I'm hoping we can start going together.

Had lunch with Chantal at the Old Spaghetti Factory and got a free coffee mug with a coupon I had from FaceBook and enjoyed some yummy yummy food. :D

Shooting backwards: I met up with an old high school friend Adam and met his beautiful wife. It was odd how fast her and I just started talking. It was a little awkward for me because I'm not very good at talking to strangers and I hadn't shared any conversation before this, but I quickly got passed that and I have a feeling they might be a nice couple to some sort of double dating. I don't have too many friends and out of those even less are in relationships so we haven't done much double dating. This might be a nice shift, right? Either double date or not, I'd really like to hang out with those two again. We had dinner at Denny's and went to BI (didn't get to do much dancing because we got there early and the dancing started later).

OH! And here's a new, fabulous photo of Stuart and I. My love. <3

Coastal Scents - I heart you

Watching/Listening to: Nothing (gasp)

So I'll do a little review on the new makeup I got. Firstly, I LOVE the gel liner I got! I have yet to use the white yet because we all know I love lining my eyes with black. I have had a liner brush since I got the cream liner from Merle Norman YEARS ago and of course it is dried out and doesn't work like it should anymore, which is why I ordered it from Coastal Scents. It goes on so smooth, it's absolute black and a little dab goes a LONG way. I HIGHLY recommend this product if you're looking for something very dark to line your eyes with. And because it requires a thin liner brush, you can apply and thick or thin as you want, unlike cream or regular pencil liners that only allow you the option of how thick the point is (and the point always gets flattened out after a few uses).

True Black Gel Liner $6.95

I also ordered the dual end eyeshadow pencil that they were out of stock on my last order; Mystery Wand. It is a white and black. The black has a bit of white glitter in it. I haven't used this or the other pencil as eyeshadow, I've used this black one as a liner and the cream one I have for the inside corner of my eyes. I haven't used the white on this yet but using the black as a liner is alright but I find it's best paired with the gel liner for the corners of the eye (so you can get a clean line instead of that jagged one due to my eye blinking).

Dual End Eyeshadow Pencil $2.95

Because I was trying to get their deal of buy $25 get $5 off, I stocked up on some sample eyeshadows. All samples were $0.95 Here we go:

Apricot Mist - I don't see me using this often, but it looks like it will be a nice accent color.

Fairy Wings - I LOVE this. It makes a nice light accent color and I found myself using it as the main top color the last few days because it's light, doesn't take away focus on the main colors and is still a pretty addition.

Vampin' Red - It does NOT look like the photo. It's more of a black with lots of red glitter. I haven't used it yet but you know me and my black.

Odyssey - I haven't used it yet but it's pretty light. Like a natural color I might use just under my eyebrows.

Key Lime - Haven't used it and I don't really like the color green (and I think it's not right to wear green if you have green eyes) but I figured I'd get it to try green for once (despite having a pallet that has green in it).

I'd like to point out that these sample pots for less than $1 is quite a lot! I don't know what the size actually is, but here's a photo. Compare with my hand (reminder: my hands are a little smaller than most people). Of course it doesn't come full, not even half full, maybe a quarter full. But for powder that you're only going to use a little of, $0.95 is great. I haven't tried any wet, I'd like to try some powder wet at some point.

And here's a photo of some of the stuff I used today:

I used the pencil liner and used the gel liner to smooth out the corners, I used a red to line on top of that (which came from the pallet from my last order and honestly didn't go to well with the rest of it, but oh well), above that a pinkish color (also from the pallet), on top the Fairy Wings, the glittery corners is Hysteric from Sugarpill, some mascara (I like the lash blast fusion I have) and some eyebrow powder (I have a Paula Dorf 2 +1 powder and wax thingy).

Art = Love

Watching: American Dad

I just HAD to come and blog about this right now. First of all, yesterday I was asking people in a Gaia art forum yesterday if they knew any artists who could draw Stryker for me. One had asked for a picture of her, I told her it was in my profile. I came back online today to find an GLORIOUS picture of ME riding Stryker! That's so cool! I've never had anyone draw ME me, only my avatar!!! The artists on Gaia are so amazing. Here is it:

And THEN, the same day (today) Krys spent hours creating a Sim version of me on her Sims2. And it looks FANTASTIC. The boobs are of course not my size, but Sims2 limits the options you have for body types:

Check that shit out, I have an Igor Spectre shirt on! And the decor of the room is pretty cool! I was completely overjoyed today. Wonderful surprises! SQUEEE!!!

OH! AND I got my Mighty Wallet yesterday...

http://www.dynomighty.com/product_detail.php?Mix-Tape-Mighty-Wallet%C2%AE&d=mighty-wallets+DY-507

and my shipment of makeup from Coastal Scents came in. I got quite a few sample sizes for less than $1.00 each (and it looks like quite a bit for a sample), some lip gloss, the shadow pencil I wanted that they were out of last time I ordered (it's white and black) and two gel liners (which I'm hoping work the way I want them to). Wow what a great Wednesday.

Bars, bags and Sim addiction

Watching: History Channel (Nosradamus: 500 Years Later)

Firstly, I'd like to give a shout out to my peeps; Chantal, Joy, Kevin and Nigga Ray. On Saturday we did a Redlands bar crawl. Started out at Romano's (tried Dirty Bird but I could barely move there were so many people). Bethany was with us and Kevin's cousin Amir was also there. Started off great when a very short drunk woman began chatting with us, assumed Chantal and Amir were dating, Amir corrected her saying that they were engaged to marry in 2 months. I'm sure the conversation got better, but I missed the rest. We had some pizza and more drinks then made our way to the Falconer. Was there for... 15mins?

Moved on to Chucks Nuts for the gals to piss then on to The Underground (we ended up not making it to the Vault). They were having karaoke!!!!! Drank more, sang 'Hot Blooded' because I was pretty drunk and couldn't hold a real note for nothing. Good times.

On to something more current: today! I went to see Candy Glendening (of Candied Fabrics) to discuss the laptop/messenger bag I have commissioned her to do. It's going to cost almost $200 but I've reminded myself that not only is this a laptop bag that is cushioned to protect my laptop, but it has the ability to act like a purse and school bag at the same time. Also, we all know I love to wear/own thing that represent me and that I like to support handmade arts/crafts. One of the strongest convincers is that the quality of the material is great. It is a sturdy bag and it is going to be gorgeous and it is going to be me. And yet it's still a lot. I will get over it. Once I sent that first email letting Candy know that I was ready to have a bag made, I had committed to giving up my money.

On another note, I'm addicted to Sims3 (like I knew I would be). We know the story of me being upset by my aging Sim self and now I have another story to share.

I created a Sim Chantal. My goal with her was to find a rich man with a nice house, marry him, move in and have children. I moved her into the cheapest house and she began gardening in the backyard which eventually allowed her to quit her business job because 1. the bills are cheap 2. she can sell/eat what she grows 3. she has the ability to go out to eat for free at any time. So Sim Chanie found a guy, spent a lot of time with him and then one day I noticed it said he had a wife! He didn't have one before so during the time Parker and Chantal were considered in her relationship bar to be 'romantic interest,' Parker had gone off and gotten married to Holly! I was pretty pissed. (I finally went online to look up how to make a sim date/engage, so on to the next step). Parker came to Chantal's house, she romanced him until 'ask Parker to leave Holly' came up, his response was 'I guess you're right, it's not really working out for us.' Then they agreed to go steady. When Chantal proposed to Parker the next day, she was given the option to move. The default was for Parker to come live in her dinky place. Instead, I chose to move his parents out into Chantal's house, and move Chantal in with Parker (and 2 other people who already lived there). So yes, in only 2 days Sim Chantal ruined people's lives. HAHA! IRL Chantal says I made her a homewrecker... but whatever.

On a final note, I'm super excited to finally get a book from on of the Kickstarter projects I backed; The Word Project. Of course, photos will be posted when it arrives.

Sim seeps into RL

Watching: 16 & Pregnant

I've been playing Sims 3 and like many others, the first family you make is your own. I haven't figured out how to get pets, if possible (besides goldfish), but it's Stuart and I. I started us off at young adult and was having fun with their daily life. Stuart got into a job of politics. Nichole started off there, quit to pursue a writing career, wrote a book then took a part time job at a bookstore while working on another book. I then went off and started a journalism job... but then something devastating happened. I got caught up in creating the perfect little life (which is what Sims is for, living out your dreams) for us that our birthday came and we became old whiteheads. :( I saw 'myself' age past 50, I had white hair and walked slowly. But what hurt the most is that I was unmarried and without child. I think this has unlocked a hidden fear; to grow old before marrying and having a child. I didn't want to HAVE a baby at that age (I'm sure a Sim can, but because it's a reflection of my perfect life, I wouldn't want to have a baby at that age), so I adopted. I called the adoption agency, said I wanted a baby boy... and they brought me a little black baby. Definitely not what I expected nor what I wanted.

So that's my little upset. Yes, it's a pretend game but I put my real self and Stuart into it. We were living together for 'years' as bf/gf and were now grey. That's crazy. That's something I hope that won't happen. Nah, I know it won't happen because I won't let it happen.