template hell

So I haven't blogged in a while, and it hasn't really been on purpose, but it kind of has been. I've been wanting to start a new blog for a long time now and I finally got a domain that I liked and that was also available. Now that I've gotten the perfect name for my new blog, I'm in search of a new template. The Cutest Blog on the Block is great and all, but just not what I'm looking for. There are tons of templates on other sites that are more "me", but they're all adapted from Wordpress and therefore screws up when you use them on Blogger. Blah! Soon, soon I will have the perfect template and then I will reveal my new blog to the masses! Well, maybe not masses, but at least to the people I know who follow my random postings.

Anyone know any web designers that wouldn't mind helping a girl out by tweaking some templates???

hello? is it me you're looking for?

I have been searching non-stop for the past week or so. What have I been looking for, you ask? Let's see....

1) A new apartment
My sweet deal of an apartment is coming to an end. The original plan was for me to live in my amazing apartment until they tore it down for condos. There was no definite timeline as to when this development would start, so my rent has been below market price. The floor isn't finished and some of the lights don't work, but it was a good trade off for the low rent I'm paying. Unfortunately for me, the plan has now changed and condos will not be going up any time in the next five years. Therefore, my landlord is now looking to renovate my place and start charging market rent, which I cannot afford. Bah. I am now looking into room share options on Craigslist. I'm looking for December 1st so probably have better luck after the 1st as a lot of postings are still searching for November 1st tenants.

2) A kick-ass internship
Next week is intersession week at GBC and that means there will only be another seven weeks of school after that for this term. I've been told that where your career goes post-school depends greatly on where you do your internship. I will be sending out resumes and filling out applications like mad once I get back from Cuba. I will also be shamelessly asking friends and family for any and all connections they may have to the event planning world.

3) Volunteer opportunities
Volunteer opportunities are all over the place, however they are not always in fields I'm interested in nor are they always taking place when I'm available. I'm signing up to volunteer at as many events as my schedule will allow. Upcoming events for me include Nightwood Theatre's 4x4 Festival and the Mary Lynn Higgins Youth Fund 4th Annual Pub Night and Silent Auction.

So if you know of any amazing people looking for a roommate or have any connections to event planners that are looking for interns and/or volunteers, drop me a line.

Thank you in advance for your assistance in my never-ending search!


Feeling: a little overwhelmed

Listening to: kids screaming from the daycare across the street or cats being skinned alive, I can't really tell which.

a new countdown

My 30 Days have been down with for a couple of weeks now and it feels great. I've hit the "couldn't care less about you" phase and from past experience, this phase should last for a couple of years. The couldn't-care-less phase doesn't mean that I really don't care. I just don't care about what you had for dinner, what you're doing, who you're seeing, etc. I do care in the sense that I wouldn't want you to get hit by a car or catch H1N1. It's a sublime phase to be in. It allows me to focus on other things such as my new countdown: 10 more days until Cuba!

One of the assignments in the 30 Days was to research weight loss/get healthy plans, decide which would be best for you, and start following through on one. Seeing that I was planning on heading down to Cuba, I figured it wouldn't hurt to actually do that assignment. I didn't bother researching anything; every girl knows how to lose weight in a healthy way, we've been reading about it in women's magazines since we were thirteen.

My current weight is 130 lbs and that's probably not going to change in the next two days. My goal is to be at 120 lbs because 1) my doctor told me I should lose a few pounds to be at optimal health and 2) I would like to lose 10 lbs. I suppose I should say that I would rather lose inches than weight. I've started with small changes that will eventually get there.

I could go on and on with reasons as to why it'll be hard for me to get to my target weight, but let's be honest, I'm not at my goal weight because I'm lazy and I LOVE food. It doesn't help that the cold weather makes me feel like baking more either. Last week I baked three batches of brownies, two batches of cupcakes, and a batch of cookies. Thank god I work in a restaurant and have co-workers to feed my creations to. I am now eating the apple crisp fresh out of the oven. Okay, now on to the list that apparently appears in every blog I write...

Things I'm doing and have done to reach my target of 120 lbs:

1) Increase physical activity

I am now playing volleyball on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. I love volleyball. Yesterday was the third game day in a row that I didn't get hit in the face with a ball. Amazing! What's not amazing? How ridiculously sore I am all the time. It's totally my fault though because I never stretch properly.

2) Eat less crap

I could cut out junk food completely and be a miserable bitch. For the sake of my friendships and mental health, I've opted to just eat less crap. Stop snacking on bread and fries at work and only buy single portion bags of chips and treats if I'm really craving. Eat more fruits and veggies.

3) Eat at home more

I don't have a deep fryer so eating at home helps with list item #2. Since I live on my own, my fridge isn't all that well stocked. I buy things in smaller portions so I can't just reach into the fridge and pour cream into my sauces because I only have cream in the fridge when I know I'm going to use it (mostly for baking and chocolate making). The portion of protein on my plate is smaller than one you would find eating out and the veggie portion is much larger. It also helps me save on money therefore allowing me to go to Cuba!

4) Drink more water
Zero calories, zero grams of sugar, zero grams of sodium. Takes up lots of room in your stomach. Perfect.

5) Sleep

I have a problem with reading in bed and then looking at the clock to discover that it's 3 a.m. I'm trying to get to bed earlier so I have more energy to do the things listed above. I'm way more likely to skip volleyball and grab junk food when I'm tired.

I am super excited to pack my vacation suit case. Must buy sun screen!!

Screw you frost warning!!

Feeling: annoyed at Blogger for the random spacing between the paragraphs of this blog.

pink

I put a pink streak in the back of my hair after a couple years of solid black locks. I now remember a few things about having pink hair.

1) It's a pain in the ass to maintain
Pink washes out of my hair so quickly that it turns a strange orange shade before I know it. It looks great the next day after a fresh dye job, but I should be dying my hair once a week or so to maintain it. I just can't really be bothered. I will live with the strange orange shades.

2) Sometimes I look stupid
Usually when I'm carrying my hot pink gym bag, listening to my iPod that's in a pink carrying case, and when I'm wearing a pink top. Yes, I do all those things at the same time. I realize that I'm doing all those things at the same time, but I'm not buying another gym bag nor am I buying another iPod case, and some times I just want to wear that pink top. Oh, and it's raining today so I'm giving my eyes a break from contacts and opting to wear glasses today. I just looked in the mirror and realized that I'm wearing my dark pink/red glasses. I am now reaching for my copper pair of glasses.

3) People have weird reactions
Little girls tend to stare; I think mostly because they're attracted to hot pink as a colour. Some older people will give me disapproving looks (surprisingly, my mother has not said a word about it) when I'm on the streetcar. I last noticed this when I was sitting behind four punk rockers that were loud and obviously hadn't bathed themselves in recent days. I hope that old woman was able to distinguish me from them. Other times people will pause and have to think for a moment, as if asking themselves, "did I really just see pink hair or am I going nuts?" I like to let them think that they're going nuts.

wy and the never ending butt dials

If I had to guess, I would say that I get three to five butt dials per week. Now given what a butt dial is, I know that my friends don't mean to do this, but it annoys the crap out of me!! Sometimes I will have seven missed calls from the same person because they keep jarring their phone around just so that it ends up dialing my number over and over and over and OVER again.

I believe the frequency that I get these calls is because of my initials making me the last entry in most people's phones. Does this happen to my brothers too? I doubt it happens as much to Peter as P lands in the middle of the alphabet. Maybe Andy gets lots of butt dials too because he's at the top and at the bottom of the alphabet. Bah. So irritating.

I don't know which I find more annoying. 1) Being butt dialed repeatedly for fifteen minutes or 2) being butt dialed and then being left a three minute message of nothing but either a cell phone being jostled around in a handbag or a message of someone else's random conversation. Sometimes the conversations are funny and entertaining, but that's super rare. Use the key lock on your cell phones people!!!!

Mood: slightly agitated

Listening to: Virgin Radio 99.9

morning observations

I am currently* on a GO train heading to school from Mississauga. I was visiting family yesterday, hence the rare morning commute to school today. I figured that since it will take 30 minutes to get to Union Station, I might as well utilize the mobile capabilities of my laptop and blog about some things I noticed on the bus and the train. Note that it is a rather dreary rainy morning today.

1) People are inconsiderate
When I got on the bus in the morning, I noticed there were three or four people sitting in the front half of the bus that had their bags and other miscellaneous items on the seat beside them. Not really a big deal until we got to a bus stop that had about ten passengers boarding the bus. The aforementioned riders made no attempt to move their belongings to free up seats until they were asked to by a new passenger. Most of the bags were moved and all was dandy except for this one girl. She rolled her eyes at the person asking her to move her stuff and then moved her book bag and umbrella begrudgingly. WTF? Did your mother not teach you any manners? Were you raised by wolves? Did you pay for two seats? The fact that she was so dim as to put a wet umbrella on a dry seat is another matter.

2) Big man & a little umbrella
I am carrying a smaller travel umbrella today because I didn’t want to haul around a golf umbrella with me yesterday when there was only a risk of showers. However, today’s forecast definitely called for rain so if I were at home, I would have most definitely toted my golf umbrella with me and probably my rain boots too. Now, I am all of 5’2” and a compact travel umbrella almost does the job of keeping me dry, but my feet and pant legs still get a bit of a splashing depending on how hard it is raining. If you are the slightest bit taller than 5’2”, why the heck do you even OWN a compact travel umbrella? There was a man waiting on the train platform who was probably around the 5’10” mark. His umbrella was smaller than mine and he was more than just splashed from the chest down. Now maybe I’m making a sweeping generalization with the next statement, but most people do not enjoy going to work in damp clothing.

3) Going to high school in the suburbs is not fun
On my way to the bus stop, I saw a bunch of teens standing in the rain at a random street corner. I didn’t know why they were all congregated there until a school bus pulled up and they all hopped on. I have always lived very close to my schools. My first elementary school is across the street from the home that my parents still live in and I’ve never lived farther than three blocks or so of any other school until I got to college so taking a school bus to school is actually a foreign activity for me. Then I saw another teen being dropped off at the school bus stop after the bus pulled away. You need a ride to the school bus stop? How far do you live from your school? He then hopped back into his mom’s car and asked to be dropped at the next stop to catch up with the bus.

I hope that these observations are rare. I really don’t want to have to do a morning commute ever in my future.

*typed on the Go train and later uploaded while not paying attention in class

other people's food quirks

I am home sick for the first part of the day so I figure I can fill in some of my waking time with a blog. I will be returning to bed to hibernate until I have to work at 6 o'clock. Hopefully the extra rest will have whatever it is that I have to pass over relatively quickly.

To go along with my previous post about my food quirks, I've decided to blog about the food quirks I've noticed in some of my beloved friends and families. Instead of naming names, I will just number the quirks and you can guess who the quirk belongs to.

1) Tomatoes in various forms
I have a friend who does not eat raw tomatoes, but eats bruschetta, salsa, tomato sauce, and ketchup. I understand that raw tomatoes are very different from tomato sauce and ketchup, but the tomatoes in bruschetta are raw too.

2) Stop touching!!
Another friend habitually separates her food so the items on her plate are not touching. I believe this is due to her having a mild case of OCD. Ideally, she would like her food served on separate plates thus ensuring that nothing would touch. She pushes the meat, the starch, and the veg away from each other so there's a small defined space between all the items on her plate.

3) Why aren't you touching?!?!
The same friend also wants ALL of her food touching, if it's meant to be touching i.e. pad thai. If a dish should be mixed thoroughly and it's not, she will take a minute to stir all of her food together.

4) Smaller pieces, please!
Another friend has the compulsion to cut up her food into little pieces all at once, much like a parent would do for a small child at the beginning of a meal. She does thing when dining in the company of people who know her well and have come to expect this. She has told me that she does not do this when she is out eating with people she doesn't know very well and when she's out at a fancier restaurant.

5) Guinness and girly drinks
I have a male friend that used to drink pints upon pints of Guinness. To give you an idea of this man's physical size, he could probably kill me with two or three good swings. I actually started drinking Guinness because this friend insisted that it was so delicious and I eventually forced myself to like it. While he would be drinking a pint of Guinness, I would sometimes order a girly cocktail. He would then take a sip of it and steal it from me claiming it as his own. He would never order himself a girly drink, but would happily rip them out of my girly hands.

6) Starch, veg, then meat
I have a friend that would eat all of the starch, then all of the veg, and then start working on the meat. I always found it odd because he is the only person I know that eats that way. Most people I know, regardless of their other food quirks, would eat things somewhat evenly. I don't know if he still eats his meals like this, but I always thought it was weird.

These are all of the quirks I can think of right now. Time to head back to bed.