Food and thoughts

I have added sitemeter to my blog! It was not that hard, but I still had a moment of frustration because I was trying to imitate Grumpator and my meter is located on a different part of my page. I felt tech smart for that moment when I saw the logo. I really just need to have more patience with computers.

I work in a restaurant. I have access to free soda and fatty foods. I also get up really early and rarely eat something right away. This has lead to my pants just being a bit tight... today. I only drank the soda for a little bit. My bane lately is hot chocolate. I have been drinking that every other day. Today was a big food day. I ate a great meal with family which included the bro and grandparents (just arrived from out of town). My enjoyment of fruit has been growing so my plate was mostly fruit salad and plain salad, but I do love salad dressing. I had a bit of potato, some corn beef, and cabbage. There was apparently a deal on corn beef. My mother is very excited. I then went to a work party where I had pizza, a potato skin, and a tiny Dr. Pepper. I then had some delicious cake and cheese. Yummmm, cheese. Delicious fatty cheese. I had feta cheese on my salad as well.

I work in a restaurant. I do not believe I will ever be a server again. I sometimes enjoy the work but I'm starting to get that feeling of dreading even thinking of work because I get so down and disappointed. I also feel that serving is boring and I'm just done with it. I still might be a delivery driver in the future because it is usually only a few hours at a time. The best is the independence. Driving all by yourself and only having to deal with co-workers and management in small chunks.

On to funnier times, there was a geek mixer at Changing Hands Bookstore. It was interesting and a bit awkward. I truly got the picture that geeks are not usually good looking or socially skilled. I left during the trivia part. It started out with a guy auction that did not do that well. There was awkward mingling and then Love connection. There were two different girls and two different "games". I feel just a tad bad for bachelor #1 because the announcer always went to him first. This gives #3 much more time to think of a response, and now that I think back, #3 won both time. The organizers should have remembered the old show and mixed it up. Number 1, 3, then 2, and then craziness. After I left, there was a girl auction which I wish I had been part of. The reason I even know about the girl auction is that the one gentleman I bid on found me on Facebook. This could be interesting but he is very young.

I cannot write about my Mangrid too much here because I realized that this a public blog connected to my Facebook account and searchable with my handle. So... details will have to be told in person but my gird is up to 1.5 guys. I do not know if I have time for a full four.

I was just pondering the difference of my blogs with some of the others I read. My blog is always about my personal life and what I'm thinking. Others are much better about putting information out there that is useful and not seemingly directly connected to them. It is. They would not blog about something they do not find interesting, but their use of I is much less. I might try to write in the style once in a while, but this is my style. I do not find it wrong. Just interesting to note and think about the differences.

Oh, my writing has not been going well this week. I like the idea of being a writer but do not know if I have enough self discipline to work at home. I plan on entering a writing contest. No plans on winning but if I do want to be a writer, I need to start getting used to rejection. Hmmm, maybe dating a lot will also help out.

Four Man Plan

I do not know if everyone knows that I'm kinda dating this new guy. He could be just a friend because we are seeing where it will lead, and so far that has equaled no touching. He is recently (like really recently) divorced and we are both awkward when it comes to this whole dating thing. He has taught me that I'm ready for dating. I do not think we will end up dating but he is very sweet.

This has lead me to actual message guys on OkCupid where they have not contacted me back but I have only started recently so I will have patience. I also was telling my stories to people. A very cool chick mention the "Four Man Plan". I looked it up on youtube and it was pretty dang hilarious. I'm now going to try it out. I feel a bit weird doing dating with rules, but they are fun ideas. The rules are basically go out with guys who ask you and give them at least two dates. There is also definitions for how much each man is worth like 1/4,1/2, 1 and so on. In the four man grid, one man is equal to four parts. The quarters are men that you just get their phone numbers and it is early. Half is someone that gets past date 2. I made my own little grid and will try this out. I put the grid on my fridge.

I will keep everyone posted. If you know anyone that you want to hook me up with, just tell me.

Reading List rock

I stole this from Grumpator. BBC said that they believe people would only have read 6 out of the 10o books listed below. Technically they include series of books so there are quite a few more book than 100 but there are 100 enteries.
I noticed a lot of Jane Austin and that will pump up my numbers since I went through a Jane Austen phase.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - yes
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - No (I have tried and tried. I can't do it. I won't do it!)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - yes
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - No (Again, I tried the first book. Blah. And the movies engrage me.)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - yes
6 The Bible – no ( Again I tried. I felt since it influenced so many people I should read it. I got bored in Genesis)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - yes
8 1984 - George Orwell - 1/2 (I hate you Orwell. I tried to read this book but started to get a sneaky suspicion half way. I got grupmy and put it down)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - No
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - yes
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - yes
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - no
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller – no
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - I have read Hamlet, Othello, Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado about Nothing, and one other.
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier -no
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - yes
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks - no
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - yes (Only because I had a 3 hour waiting session at an airport. It was a painful read)
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - No
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot- no
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - no
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - Yes
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens- no
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - no
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - yes
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - no
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - No
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck -Yes
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - yes
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - no
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - no
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens - no
33 The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - 1/2 (I might have read them all but it was a long time ago. I remember reading the first 3 at least. I'm unsure abou the rest)
34 Emma - Jane Austen - yes
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen - yes (My favorite of Jane Austin!)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe -yes
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - No
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres- No
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden - no
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne - Yes
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell - Yes
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - No (Started it but got through only 4 chapters)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - no
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving - no
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - No
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - yes
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy - No
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood - Yes (Love it!)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - yes
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan - no
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel - No
52 Dune - Frank Herbert- yes
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - No
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - yes
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth - no
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon - No
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - yes
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - Yes (Very similiar to the movie)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon - No
50 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - No
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - yes
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - no
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt - no
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - yes
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - No
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac - no
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy - no
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding - no
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie - no
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville - no (Own it but have not tried yet)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - No
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker - yes
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - yes
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson - No
75 Ulysses - James Joyce - no
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath - no
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome - No
78 Germinal - Emile Zola - no
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - No
80 Possession - AS Byatt- no
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - yes
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell - No
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker - no
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro - no
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert - no
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry - no
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White - yes
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom - no
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - yes but not all
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton - No
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - no
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupe - yes
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks - No
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams - No
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole - yes (only because a friend and I were doing a book club. I detest this book)
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute - No
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas - no
98 Hamlet – Shakespeare – yes
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - yes
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - no

My total was 33 but I read 7 of these books in school. I'm actually interested in reading most of these though maybe not "THe Five People you meet in Heaven).

Writing Goals and more

I'm a procrastinator. I have trouble doing things unless I have a deadline or some structure. One of the reasons I am in a symphony. I rarely practice and I always desire to practice more, yet it never seems to happen. When the symphony is going on, I play at least once a week. I'm actually practicing as well. Not much, but more than zero. This fact makes me happy.

I joined my writing class so I would have structure and deadlines. I do know myself well, but I'm still not writing. I have now developed this rule that states that I need to write at least 30 minutes a day. This means I write anything but poem and short stories. But hey, the goal is to write and maybe if I get in the habit, I will write other things. I have so SO much free time at work that I end up writing for more than 30 minutes easy.

For Lent, I gave up my reflection. This is because I look at myself too much in mirrors and shiny things. I can look at mirrors to do make up and check my teeth. Basically, I can check out my appearance for work to make sure I look presentable. I have since been amazed by how much I try to check myself out. It could be a reaction because I have told myself no, but sadly I believe I may be a bit vain. Just looked up the word vain. I'm not excessively proud but still very proud. I have been checking out my shadow and trying to convince myself that peripheral vision does not count. Funny and sad.

I play on Twitter more. Also, I will be writing more here so I won't have to write my stories. Oh right, if you see grammar errors, please tell me so I can improve my writing skills.
Ciao!