Slacker

Hey! I've been a major slacker since...well...a while ago. My fancy phone has been the primary culprit considering I spend significantly less time on the Internet when I'm at home. I really only blog from home, and now there are days when I don't open my laptop at all. Enough of my making excuses, but I really do aspire (fun word!) to write in here more frequently. I enjoy it. It looks like I better download a Blogger app. Yep, I just said that.

So, I'm going to say random bullets about my cruise:
-The population was mainly comprised of senior citizens (love it!) and rednecks (amused by it!).
-It doesn't get much better than watching toothless karaoke.
-I held an alligator!
-Spinning out in a boat is an incredibly exhilarating feeling.
-Cottage cheese is good.
-Tanning on a beach and seeing snow in a 36-hour period isn't normal.
-Consider getting a second opinion when asking someone the time; the bus will leave without you.
-Hold onto your balloon hat when you go to the top of the boat, even when docked.
-Kayaking through mangroves is like something out of a movie.
-Cruises re-program how often you think you need to eat.

All in all, I had a blast on the cruise! I have one observation that I noticed on the last cruise, and then reconfirmed this cruise: Time seems like it's passing slowly for the first day or two -- like, you really think you have all the time in the world -- and then it just speeds up and you feel like it all happened in the blink of an eye. I need to go on a 4352342-day cruise next time.

This week was a pretty stressful one since it was mass email week AND I was already backlogged. I survived it, but it definitely wasn't easy. I performed on Thursday night, so that was fun. I played Conducted Rap, Sounds Like A Song, Foreign-Dubbed Soap Opera, Sit Stand Lean Oscar, Dating Game, and Musical Styles. It was a pretty big crowd for a Thursday night, so that was cool. Yippee!

Oh man! Guess what! One of my friends (MV) gave me a baseball "To Drew" from John Smoltz! I literally couldn't believe it. I am sooooo ready for the season to begin.

Well, I've been taking it easy this weekend. I was so delirious by yesterday evening that I was barely functioning. I seriously reached into the oven without a mitt on my hand. That's not a metaphor; that's the truth. Thankfully I caught myself before I grabbed the tray, but I think that speaks for itself. I'm hoping next week will be slightly more relaxed, but you never know!

It's time to read a little bit and sleep for another 10 or 12 hours. I started to feel like I could be getting sick, but I'm thinking it was just the stress from the workweek.

Happy weekend, all!

P.S. I won a trophy and medal on the cruise -- gotta keep representin' for the Dotson household. There was some kind of brain teaser trivia and I pretty much dominated. I guess that makes me a total nerd, but I have a trophy and medal to prove it.

Coincidence

Sometimes I read entirely too much into coincidences. I have no idea why I even felt the need to say that because I'm not going to explain what I mean by that. Vague, I know. Moving right along...

A friend treated me to a nice night out on the town, and we hadn't hung out in a while, so I was glad to spend time with her! First we went out to eat at Cheeseburger in Paradise. Given the nastiness of the weather today, I figured it would be nice to escape to the tropics, despite watching the rain through the window. We enjoyed catching up and talking about life, which is always a crowd-pleaser in my book. Then we headed to Cafe Intermezzo where we grabbed some hot chocolate and continued our discussion! I also opened a sweet gift from her - a HUGE bag of Haribo gummy bears AND a gift card to the movies. I need to start getting up-to-speed with current movies so that I can use it wisely! Anyway, I considered tonight my birthday celebration for the most part, and it was time well-spent; it got me thinking.

I got some donations today! I am really appreciative, and the team is sitting at $12,100. I'm hoping to bring home some bacon on my birthday, so I've got high hopes for that! Let's celebrate!

Making that text a hyperlink made me think about the fact that I'm getting kind of good at HTML stuff. I dabble in it at work and have been using it some here and there for different fundraising things, and I actually like it. Basically it's like a brainteaser of sorts, so maybe I should look into learning more... DORK!

I haven't done too much that's noteworthy today... or yesterday. I got enrolled in ANOTHER study that I'll do on Thursday, so I have to start keeping a food journal tomorrow. I hope I don't forget. I don't have a printer, so I'm going to keep track in a gangsterfied way until I can get it printed.

Umm, that's about it. I am feeling motivated in many senses of the word!

Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo

Greeeeeeeeeeeeeetings. Today is 12-21, which is a palindrome. Therefore, I also used a palindrome to title this post. DORK!

Well, what a weekend! I worked at the theatre on Friday and Saturday nights. I did pre-show suggestions both nights, and also ran the camera on Saturday night. It didn't feel much like work, so that's cool. I also got to laugh a lot in the process, so volunteering was surprisingly fun. I was out pretty late both nights... Friday night I got home around 1, and Saturday it was more like 2. WILD CHILD!

Saturday I got up and exercised, then went shopping and knocked out pretty much everything you can imagine. It was relatively painless, which I didn't expect the weekend before Christmas. It's amazing how efficiently you can shop the closer you get to the deadline. I mean, the lines may be long and what not, but there's no longer time to debate, compare, pick and choose.

Sunday I got up and ran 3 miles (you heard me) and then went to lunch with a friend. We went to J. Christopher's and I had the spinach and bacon skillet. It made my mouth water! I could eat another right now. I debated getting the pancakes, but restaurant pancakes often don't do it for me. They are too...solid and calculated. I can't wait to eat some homemade pancakes this week!

Last night we had a theatre holiday party, and it was a lot of fun. I brought apple tart for dessert and my white elephant gift was a bottle of Bailey's. I ended up getting a tumbler... too bad the Bailey's already belonged to someone else at that point. There was so much delicious food to eat, including one of my favorites... buffalo chicken dip!

That brings me to a very important point. Back in September, I ranked my top three foods as Mexican, pancakes, and grilled cheese. However, I have an amendment to make. I'm officially replacing grilled cheese with buffalo chicken dip in my all-time top three favorite foods. Buffalo chicken dip is just sooooo savory.

Well, it's time to go to bed around 8:30 p.m. because I stayed up too late last night. Tomorrow is my last day in the office this week. YEAAAAAAH BUDDY! GET IT CRUNK! I'm seriously so excited about it. Plus, I'm going to lunch with my old boss, so that's always fun!

Earthquake

So, I was just sitting here in bed and felt like I was shaking. I thought my legs were twitching, but it seemed like I was tremoring all over. Then, I looked at a glass of water sitting by my bed and it was sloshing. I honestly have no clue what's going on, but it's kind of freaky. It seems to have stopped, but it was intermittently shaking for several minutes. I texted my sister to see if her house is shaking since she's so nearby. She hasn't responded; hopefully her house hasn't collapsed already in the quake.

I don't think all of the coffee in the world could have helped me make it through the work day. After being completely and utterly lazy for the last three weeks, returning to work was an extreme challenge. Thankfully one of my coworkers brought me a bag of gummy bears, so that was the only lifeline I had going for me today.

THE BRAVES ARE WINNING. Sorry, I needed to get that out there before they sabatoge themselves.

Tomorrow is 09.09.09. I'm not sure why that kind of excites me - I guess because I'm a dork.

I didn't exercise today, which is kind of lame, but I was just so exhausted by the time I got home from work. Plus, I couldn't sleep last night - I was trying to get to sleep early like it was the first day of school or something, so of course I was just tossing and turning. I definitely plan to exercise tomorrow because I need to maintain this habit from the get-go.

Well, I'm sure tomorrow will be an improvement; returning from any vacation tends to be tough.

I have seriously taken two hours to finish this. That's why it's all over the place. I am just writing one thought at a time and then trying to resume 15 minutes later.... GOOD NIGHT!

Tuuuuesday

So, I went to the library on Saturday and had a great time. I got five new books and have already finished two of them. I got a book by Ellen DeGeneres, one by Steve Martin, two books of essays and a book called Torture the Artist that a friend recommended. So far I've read the Ellen book and one book of essays and enjoyed both. I was so excited when I was leaving the library. I wanted to clone myself several times so one of me could start reading each of the books. That's probably one of the least dorky thoughts that's ever crossed my mind.

Yesterday I worked from home for half of the day and then had a doctor's appointment. They 'medicated' me once I got there and I was really expecting it to be a somewhat enjoyable experience. I got Xanaxed, but it really didn't seem to be doing what it should be. If it did, I probably wouldn't have yelled a profanity at the top of my lungs during the appointment. It sucked pretty badly, but I took a nap when I got home, went to improv, and then started drinking beer.

I go to physical therapy again tonight, so we'll see how that goes. My rib(?) is feeling so much better than it was last week. I hope I get to bask in the heating pad again; that was fun! Wooohooo! It hasn't ached all day...knock on wood.

Anyways, what an exciting Tuesday. Gotta love it!