just saying

I forgot to mention that RJ and I will be visiting Joe in Korea next month! I can't freakin' wait! I haven't had any big chunks of time off since Christmas last year, and it'll be nice to not have to think about work. I haven't done much research as far as what I want to see when I'm there, I'm just excited to eat all the different food. 

It's been pretty quiet here. I've been meaning to post, but I just can't seem to find the time. I'm making the time in between bites of my sandwich.

I feel like right now my life revolves around work. I had been doing things on the weekends, but now I'm just spent. I need some time to myself to regroup.

For whatever reason, I can't seem to compose in Vox right now. I can enter a subject, type out tags, but I can't type anything for content, so I'm giving this a try.

I haven't been cooking or baking very much lately. Still doing my weekly gig as a volunteer baker at the hospice, which has been going well. I hate to make mistakes there because it means that they won't be able to sell anything, so I'm very conscious of making sure things turn out well. So far, everything has been well-received (even the mistakes), and I'm learning valuable lessons.

My new thing lately is making ice cream. I don't eat much of it, but now that it's warmer, I prefer making ice cream over baking something. I've only made three batches, so I'm still learning what to do and what not to do. The
first batch of ice cream I made was chocolate, and that turned out okay. When I melted the chocolate, some of it seized, so even though the finished product was still tasty, the texture could have been better. The second
batch of ice cream was strawberry, and that was better than the chocolate, but I should've cut the strawberries smaller or pureed them because they were frozen in the ice cream. The latest batch is French Vanilla and the taste is perfect and the texture is heavenly!

Because I'm using less fat and sugar, I know making ice cream will be an ongoing experiment. I think I'll try making lavender vanilla next.

I had planned on working during the weekend, but I just couldn't do it. I've been working entirely too much and I recognize that we have deadlines to meet, but I really just needed a day off. My place has been a hot mess, so I spent Saturday cleaning the kitchen, washing dishes, and organizing my cabinets. 

I haven't really journaled at all since the beginning of last month. Work has gotten crazy and now, in addition to getting our stuff done in an impossible time frame, we've been asked to help another department with their work so that they can finish within the impossible time frame. If we can deliver this next big release by the date that we've etched in stone, we have been told by anyone who matters that the company will fail.

So we begrudgingly work longer and longer hours, and some have martyred themselves by working over the weekends. Not me. I'd rather work longer M-F and have the weekends for me. As much as we've been working, it hasn't been too bad. Yet.

Just a quick update this time. Jenn is on her way here for the weekend. I'm taking a half day today and the whole day tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. We don't have any concrete plans except for checking out a few movies during the film festival this weekend. Our movie line up for the weekend so far includes: 500 Days of Summer, Eleven Minutes, Serbis, Summer, 24 City, and Ghajini.

Next weekend, I'll be heading to Chicagoland for my brother's baby shower (we got what we wanted, a bunch of us are meeting for dinner) and for Easter brunch. My mom and Joe are heading to Oregon for Easter to spend it with Bud, Lisa, and the kids. We found out last week in the most roundabout way that Bud and Lisa are officially separated and have been living apart. Um, thanks for telling us. It saddens and upsets my mom so much that she can't talk about it without crying. Which is strange, she doesn't really like Lisa.

My good friend Jacolyn found a job after being laid off in December. The job is in Minneapolis though, so she's moving in 2 weeks. I'm happy for her, but I'm also bummed about it. I'm definitely going to miss her.

Not even sleep. I've been lacking sleep lately, and I totally crashed yesterday. I left work 45 minutes early yesterday because I just couldn't hold my head up anymore. I promptly went home, changed into my PJs and took a 3-hour nap. One would assume that this screwed up my sleep schedule. It didn't. I went to bed at midnight, as usual.

Normally, a 3-hour nap would be of epic proportions and would guarantee a bed time of 2:00 AM. This tells me that I really was just that tired. I feel better today and got up on time for change.

February was all sorts of busy and fun. JP came to visit with Joanna, and I took time off to hang out with them. We ended up going to Wollersheim Winery while they were in town, even though I'm not really a big wine drinker. But then I realized it's because I haven't found many that I liked. Yay for delicious wine!

March is shaping up for an insane work schedule. We need to have all our English documents done by the end of this month to send our for translations in the beginning of April. The apps aren't locked down yet. I hate working with unfinished apps. I hate doing re-work, which will also cost more to re-translate any changes. It's all kinds of suck, which is why I think I'm so worn down.

I also took on a side project for a friend of a friend to edit a chapter of a book being published later this year. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and I'm being credited as either an editor or a contributor. Of course, it didn't pay anything, but at least I will get a copy of a book as a thank you.

I also signed up to volunteer at the local hospice. I've gone through the orientations and I can start after I get the results read from my second TB test, which will be this Friday. I'm not sure what I'll be doing yet, but I specifically signed up to work as a baker in the kitchen. I figure this will be good experience for me since I'd like to open my own bakery some day. Some parts of the orientation was hard and there were mulitple times that I wanted to cry (I didn't). Because of that though, I questioned how ready I am to be in that environment. I figure I would be okay being in the kitchen and not dealing with patients directly. I know I'm not ready for that now. I would eventually like to bring in Lucretia for pet therapy for the patients, but like I said, I'm not ready.

I was also roped into throwing a baby shower for my brother and sister-in-law. This was all sorts of drama, which is why I didn't want to do it in the first place. I'm still bitter about the wedding shower I threw for them because that was SO much drama and BS. I'm not bitter I threw them a shower, I'm bitter over the drama and BS. Anyway, the baby shower was shaping up to be a drama-ladened event, and then my SIL's mom decided to just throw her own. But because of her time frame, we won't be able to have all of our family come to the one we would have, so now I don't think there will be one after all. Which I'm perfectly okay with, I just hope my brother still isn't expecting one from us.

Show us who you're spending time with today. 

lucretia & moi

Today was my "all about me" day, so it was just me and the kitty.

What brings out your competitive nature?

Just about anything, but it's not consistent when the competitive spirit strikes. Playing games (board games, video games, card games, etc.), school, work, trivia at the bar, and even smack talking can get the competitive juices flowing.

Honking, tailgating, excessive lane changing... There are so many things that can drive you crazy when you're behind the wheel. So tell us: what's your driving pet peeve?

Lately, it's when people drive way below the speed limit. If there's a slow lane, move the hell over! If not, keep up the pace!