Day 4

I always get confused and thing "Create Blog" means "create a blog post in your blog that already exists" but it really means "MAEK NEW BLOG NAO PLZ."

I was going to go see my friends' band play a show tonight but like nobody is going so I am not going to go either. I've been to like 325907235 of their shows so they will not be sad if I miss one lol. Instead I am going to stay in and watch a movie and figure out where on earth my HRA reimbursement check from September went.

My parents got their power back at 9:30 yesterday morning, and their cable/internet back around 6pm today. Yay!

I have a job interview Monday. Yes, I do already have a job, but I don't really like it and if I'm going to leave I know I should have something else lined up before I do. So we'll see!

Day 3

My parents got their power back at 9:30am! Hurray. My dad has been cutting wood all day from all the trees that fell. There are still many without power though so if anyone is even reading this freakin thing then please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

One of my old classmates wasn't sure if she was going to be able to have her wedding this weekend because of all of this, but fortunately she was able to get a back up plan so the wedding is on. I am really happy for her :)

My job has been really boring and stuff lately. I've been applying for other things. Truthfully it would be of no surprise to me if I got fired or laid off before the end of this year. Which would suck but that's how it is. Oh well.

Day 2

It's not midnight yet, whew! I just remembered to post something.

Anyway I am not sure what TO post. Well my parents are up in CT and got hit really bad by that snowstorm, they haven't had power for over 4 days. They had to drive 50 miles to buy a generator because everywhere is sold out, and even the place they went to was selling out as they shopped. Insane!! I am thankful they were able to buy it though.

I have a lot on my mind, but as I've said this is not where I get personal with my inner workings and such. Plus I'm not sure how to verbalize some of it anyway lol

I have to pee.

Day 1

Oh right, it's NaBloPoMo time!

Well right now I am at work and should probably be, ya know, working. But there is not really much for me to be doing. Also I haven't eaten breakfast yet, I should do that.

I just bought tickets for a Tampa Bay Lightning game that is next Wednesday. A friend of mine is coming in from out of town and may come with me, and I got the tickets for super cheap so if she ends up not being able to come I can probably find someone else or if all else fails just resell one or both. Probably both since it's a Wednesday night and I'd be playing hooky from one of my church commitments to go to the game, lol. I really want to go to the game vs. the Penguins just because we played them last year in the playoffs and it was a fun series... but this game is vs. the Flyers. I will have to buy the Penguins tickets next time I get paid.

I dressed up as a die for Halloween but everyone thought I was a dalmation. Oh well. :)

it's that time again, almost

I'm gonna try NaBloPoMo again! :D

Day 6 - F.......

You can fill the rest of that in if you want. It's the word that came to mind when I realized I lost Nablo.

Oh, I guess "Fail" would work. Because I failed.

I was going to write about fire but I forgot to write at all yesterday so screw this.

Day 5 - Eggs

How do you like your eggs? I like mine:

~Scrambled with cheddar cheese
~Poached on toast
~Sunny side up

Now let me tell you about sunny side up eggs. It is interesting to watch me eat eggs. Whenever I'm at Denny's or such, I get a meal with hash browns, bacon, SSU eggs, and toast. I eat bacon first, then hash browns, then I cut the whites off the eggs and eat them. Then I run the yolks on my plate, eat the non-runny pieces, then I dip my toast in the rest and eat it that way. It's a bit of a process, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Last year the morning after Thanksgiving I had some eggs that were scrambled w/cheese, onions, and peppers, and they were pretty much the best eggs I've ever had.

When I was in college, we went on the Big Break trip w/CCC every year, and we always had like 15907325 eggs scrambled with a ton of cheese. And about a million pancakes. It was good times :)

Omelets are also awesome.

Day 4 - Death

Wow what a topic I chose for today.

I react very oddly to death. If you knew me in real life, you would realize I'm a huge cry baby about absolutely everything. I do not think I have ever truly cried over someone dying. I cry over people dying in movies but not when someone I actually know dies. I cried for 2 days when a friend of mine attempted suicide and it didn't even work, but if it had worked I probably wouldn't have cried at all. Obviously I am still sad but the whole crying thing just doesn't really happen. I guess because death is so final that there's nothing I can do about it. Whereas other stuff I cry about I still have to deal with in every day life. Like, "Suzie killed herself" is much more final than "Suzie tried to kill herself." (My friend's name is not Suzie, I just picked a fake name to protect identity and such.)

This past year I have had three friends of mine pass on. They weren't all current friends, but they certainly were part of my life and mattered to me. One wasn't really a surprise because he had a terminal illness, although he was the youngest. Wow, I don't mean to discredit his death by saying it wasn't a surprise. See what I mean? I am retarded about this aspect of life. ("Life's not fair, and neither is death, but that's life!" - Mr. Belding) I don't know, I think something is wrong with me for just being like "oh, okay" but that's just how I am and I wish I knew how to, like, grieve properly.

Rest in Peace - TB, SS, RE

Day 3 - Cartoons

I honestly am not a big cartoon watcher anymore... there just aren't any good ones anymore! But here are some of the cartoons I have enjoyed in my history. I am not going to write details about them unless they're super exciting, but here is a list:

Heathcliff
Duck Tales/Talespin/Darkwing Duck, all of which I barely remember but they were on around 3pm to 4:30pm when I was in like 2nd grade
Garfield, of course
Tiny Toons
Muppet Babies
David the Gnome
The Adventures of Little Koala/Noozles - NOBODY remembers these
Maya the Bee
Littl' Bits
That one show that was on every Sunday on Nickelodeon at 2pm I think where they told some sort of fairy tale but it was clearly done by a Japanese company and probably the same people who did Littl' Bits. I forgot the name of it but I occasionally get the theme song stuck in my head... "where life is a fantasy, and every story ends so happily!"
Doug/Rugrats/Ren & Stimpy/Rocko - the original Nicktoons! The former 3 of which premiered on August 13th-ish, 1991. I don't know why I remember this.
Ahh! Real Monsters
Catdog was ok.
DARIA!!!! :D Daria + Trent = OTP.
The Powerpuff Girls
Fairly Oddparents
Happy Tree Friends, lol
I sorta liked Johnny Bravo
I've seen a few episodes of Venture Bros
INVADER ZIM, which I was severely late to the game for.
Futurama and Family Guy... the Simpsons moreso when I was younger.

I'm sure I left off like 5 zillion but this is a pretty extensive list.

OH I totally forgot about the Flintstones and the Jetsons. Fail!

Day 2 - Birthdays

I clearly do not remember all 27 of my birthdays, because who has room in their brain for all that. But here are some that I do remember:

4: OK, to say I remember this is a lie. But there's photographic evidence of it, and I remember the pictures. I know that my preschool class was invited as well as a couple of neighbor kids. We played Pin the Tail on the Donkey. And that's where the memory ends.

6: I had my birthday party at the Burger King off exit 8 (this is how my 6-year-old mind described locations) because it had a play area. I don't remember most of the guests, but I do remember that the boy I was in ~luv~ with was there and this was the day I learned what it meant for someone in your own grade to be older than you. His birthday was in March and mine was in September so he was trying to explain that he was older than me and I was like "no you're not, we're both 6! we're the same age!" Once I got that all straightened out, my next question was "if Meghan is older than me, then why am I taller than her? She should be taller than me because she's older!" Ah, being 6.

7: My party was at El Torito! This was a Mexican restaurant that was also off exit 8, and closed a couple of years later to the dismay of Danburians everywhere. (Or, well, perhaps just in Danbury.) The main thing I remember about this was that my mom got a little hungry while baking my cupcakes and ended up with some food poisoning. Don't eat raw eggs, kids!

8: Hahahaha. Check this out... I got in trouble for talking back so my dad sent me to my room! At my own birthday party!!! And then when he finally let me out, everyone was chanting "Traci! Traci!" and I did not like that so I tried to run back up to my room lol.

13: This was the year I decided to have my first boy-girl party and then no boys came. I think this was also the year that one of my friends played a prank on me by dipping her napkin in some salsa, and then going into the bathroom and trying to show me that she got her period. I will be nice and not identify this individual. (This may have been at my 14th birthday, though.) This was also the year that Erin screamed every 5 seconds because she felt like it, and my parents were not happy. But most importantly, this was the year that I received a stereo for my birthday (with a CD PLAYER!!!) and my friend Rachel kept playing the Macarena song and rewinding it and playing it again like 15 times.

14: I think I tried to do a boy-girl party again but have the girls sleep over. Again, no boys came. Dang, I was a loser lol. The more I think about it, the more I think this was the year of the salsa prank. IDK. So it was late at night and I don't know if USA still does their "Up All Night" thing where they show an, um, adult film but of course it is highly edited. So a couple people wanted to watch South Park (this was the first year it was on!) and everyone else was trying to watch the ~bad~ movie and I was like YOU GUYS NO. MY PARENTS WILL KILL US. So finally I did probably the most uncool thing that 14-year-old Traci managed to do: I turned off the tv and told everyone that if we cannot decide what to watch, we are not going to watch anything. I think a lot of people thought I was lame after that. TOO BAD. It was still a fun party though.

19: A bunch of my college friends threw me a surprise party! I had never had one before, and I had absolutely no idea it was coming. It was in my friend's dorm room. My friend Matt planned it and what happened was, he had some pictures that my friend Angela had from some Campus Crusade event so we were looking at them while he took me to the campus food area and bought me a smoothie because smoothies were my favorite thing ever at that time. So then Angela was like hey come bring me my pictures. And I was like why can't she just come down here and get them, because she insisted that we had to go up to her room. And so we got there and of course everyone was in there and yelled "surprise". It was so much fun! Also there was a group of 6 of us that lived in my hall in our dorm, and we all went out for each other's birthdays - actually I guess my birthday started that tradition. So we all went to Bennigans and it was a great time. We even found a stray cat that we wanted to take, but of course you can't have pets in the dorms.

21: This was actually not very exciting. The actual day of my 21st birthday, I was in Jacksonville evacuating from a hurricane. I had Sangria!... flavored soda :( Yes, my 21st birthday meal was a burrito at the now defunct Southwest Burritos. But I celebrated when I got back. Dinner and drinks with one group of friends at Bennigans - my first legal beverage was a Malibu Breeze. And then dessert with another group at Fridays.

I do not actually remember anything about my 23rd or 24th birthdays. LOL.

25: IHOP and bowling. Just an amazing group of people and a lot of fun times. Despite having the least words, this was my favorite birthday ever.

I just had my 27th and I went to Splitsville w/some of my girl friends, and shared my birthday with Julie a few days later (hers is a few days after mine so she let me invite some friends to her party). So now to plan my 28th... :)

Day 1 - Albums

I have decided that to keep things interesting for the month of Nablovember, I am going to write about something starting with a different letter of the alphabet every day. While there are only 26 letters to cover in a 30-day month, I figure I'll just break for Thanksgiving weekend, and there will be my 4 days of non-alphabet.

Today I am going to tell you about albums I really like. I'm going to try to cover as much time-wise as I possibly can.

"Jagged Little Pill" by Alanis Morissette
This was the first album I bought all by myself with my own money. I was 11 years old and I bought it at a record store in Rhode Island while on vacation. It was on cassette tape. For those of you who are too young to know what that is... (just kidding). Once I discovered CD's, I was saddened that my cassette tape lacked the "Your House" hidden track. (Of course, a couple years later, I discovered Napster... ah, being 14.) I did buy the follow-up to this, "Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie", but I found it to not be as good as JLP and quite frankly her music went downhill from there anyway.

"(What's The Story) Morning Glory" by Oasis
When I was in 7th grade, thanks to my at-the-time best friend I got really into the band Oasis. Who doesn't love the Gallagher brothers - their hijinks, their banter, and - oh yeah - their music. I've listened to several of their albums and while there are many great ones, this one is their most solid and probably most classic Oasis. "Wonderwall" is overplayed on the radio to this day, after ~15 years. Let's not forget other great songs like "Some Might Say", the eccentric "She's Electric", the epic "Champagne Supernova", the Noel-led "Don't Look Back In Anger" (which I will pwn you on in Rock Band any day of the week), and the title track. Some great B-sides came out of this album too, particularly "Talk Tonight". I stopped paying attention to Oasis once they started juggling their lineup constantly... last I checked Liam isn't even in the band anymore? What the crap.

I still haven't finished this post and I started it like 4 hours ago lol. I am at work so, ya know, doing my job and all.

"Radiance" by Athenaeum / "Whatever album 'Everything You Want' was on" by Vertical Horizon
These are the 2 albums that bring me back to High School, going to Radio 104's various shows and festivals. Though I never did get to see VH, which was Goldfinger's fault for encouraging the throwing of mud during a very rainy Earth Day concert. Stupid Hartford, CT cops. Anyway, both of these bands, despite continuing to make music, kinda fell off the planet after these CD's that originally had put them on the map. But they were what shaped my concept of "alternative music" and really defined the style of music I chose to listen to between 1998 and 2001. Also, VH's version of "Gray Sky Morning" (the original - bet ya didn't know that!) is FAR better than the cover done by that one country singer whose name I cannot think of. As far as Athenaeum goes, Mark Kano had a really unique voice and there were a lot of great harmonies and melodies in the songs on that CD. I still listen to both albums when I can.

"Relient K" by... well, Relient K!
This album changed my LIFE, y'all. And honestly, it's pretty much their worst album. But on June 25, 2000 (yes I remember the date shut up), they performed a song about Marilyn Manson eating someone's girlfriend... and I was in ~luv~. Relient K has ever since been my favorite band. Not even my love for Oasis was able to last an entire decade. This album spawned classics such as the aforementioned "My Girlfriend", "Marty McFly", and their amazing rendition of the Charles In Charge theme song (check out Matt Thiessen on solo guitar... he's the bomb!). They went on to reflect their faith on a more serious note in "Softer To Me" and "Wake Up Call." They have clearly matured both musically and lyrically in the last 10 years.

"Turn The Radio Off" by Reel Big Fish / "Keasbey Nights" by Catch 22
It is these two albums' fault that I like Ska. That's all I have to say about that!

"Proof The Youth Are Revolting (Live!)" by Five Iron Frenzy
Consequently, it is the previous two albums' fault that I absolutely love this album. Not only ska, but ska for Jesus! If Five Iron Frenzy had a greatest hits album (at least up to 2001), it would be this. But forget all the amazing songs - my favorite part of this CD is the hidden track of outtakes that can be found at 7:37 of Track 18. People yell at me when they're playing because I am reciting them along with the band members. But seriously... the songs are made of win and awesome.

"Deja Entendu" by Brand New
Brand New tries to reinvent themself with every album they put out. This album is their best incarnation, with "The Devil and God..." following in a close second. I think that despite their order of release, if "Your Favorite Weapon" and "The Devil and God..." had a baby, it would be Deja. I don't really know how to explain how good this album is... it's just really, really good.

"Cities" by Anberlin
It was a long time before I became an Anberlin fan. I'd seen them live and was unimpressed. I downloaded their first two albums and was unimpressed. But for some reason, some time in 2005, I gave their albums another chance and pretty much didn't stop playing them for all of the rest of the year. So you can imagine how excited I was to hear they were releasing a third album in February of 2007. And of course I shelled out the extra bucks for the Deluxe edition with three extra songs. Every track was amazing. I think "Unwinding Cable Car" is the best song they've ever written. (Though my personal favorite song of theirs was the closing track of their previous album.) The other thing that makes this album awesome is that starting with their next album, they were signed to a major record label. We all know what happens when great bands sign to major record labels :(

"Beneath Medicine Tree" - Copeland
I wish I had discovered Copeland sooner, as they broke up this past spring. I believe this was their first album; and unlike many bands, it was also their best. Not to say their other albums aren't great, but this one is the most great! My favorite song would have to be "When Paula Sparks."

Well I hope you liked this list because it took me 4 hours to write =P

It's almost that time again...

NaBloPoMo is about to start!! I am excited and determined to win the month this year. I did not do so well last year, lol. My life isn't always very exciting!

Remember how I said I had a terrible summer? The thing that made it bad, has been resolved. So life is going much better now :)

My job is what it is. Sometimes we're super busy, sometimes we spend all our time on Facebook because there's nothing else to do. But it is a job and I am grateful to have it.

Bacon

In stark contrast to the post 2 below this one, today is International Bacon Day and I am going to go buy one of those microwaveable bacon packs (maybe even two) and eat at least one. So YEAH.

My summer was really bad, I don't want to talk about it.

Oh, right, I was supposed to update this :)

OK so about me keeping my job!!! :D What happened was that they didn't actually talk to the Tucson people before assuming they could just hire our replacements, and they didn't have room for more people, but we found an office that was still in Tampa and had room to take us. So we moved offices and kept our jobs. Except my other coworker is now transferring to a different department, so gjghsjkdfg. Oh well.

I have done a terrible job of eating well and gained all the weight back. Also my PMDD (if I ever mentioned that) is not going well lately! Please pray about all of these things.

That's about it for now. Happy Memorial day!

The end :)

Please disregard anything I said in my previous post about eating bacon. The closer I got to Thursday night, the stronger I felt God's call to Just Say No! (Bacon could be a drug, ok!? =P)

I officially broke my fast at 8:34am this morning with a bottle of Propel water, Berry flavored. I'm really proud of myself for doing it, just on a "you CAN do this for 21 whole days" level. But I'm also really excited about things that God did during this time:

-I get to keep my job! (Did I write about this yet?)
-I really do think that God purposely broke my computer, lol.
-I have decided that I am in a good place to start tithing.

And on a personal level, I lost 6 pounds. When you consider what I weigh, it doesn't seem like a lot since I still have a long way to go, but if you think of it as "Wow, that's over 10% of your total goal" it sounds a lot better haha. I would have liked to have lost one more pound just so I can say I'm below a certain number instead of just being on that number, but I really plan to continue eating a lot of the foods that I ate on this fast and drinking a lot of water, so I think I can get there :)

If I didn't already talk about the job thing, I'll do it in another post. My computer SHOULD be back in action by Wednesday, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Computer still broken!

I've gone through all kinds of different computer parts and the motherboard is the only one left, so my dad bought a new one and it was the wrong size! AHHH! Frustrating.

I am going to pause my fast tomorrow night for a couple of hours because the Bible study I go to normally has free dinner, and tomorrow's choice of food is pancakes and bacon. NOTHING can separate me from free bacon, and that is my own choice. I know I'm capable of not eating it, but I'm choosing to eat it anyway. So I accept responsibility for this.

On a completely opposite note from free bacon, I've lost about 5 lbs, so that's kinda cool. I'm honestly going to keep up this style of eating as long as possible. Yes, I will reintroduce things like chicken, CHEESE!!!!!, and butter into my life, but I'll also eat turkey bacon instead of real bacon, keep with the whole grains, and use substantially less butter and cheese in my pasta - a sprinkle of cheese and a dime-size of butter should add a sufficient amount of flavor instead of a heaping spoonful, plus I can still add spices and garlic and mushrooms (oh my!). Also, quinoa is awesome. And I love beans. And rice. (Minute Rice brown rice cups are my favorite.) I've started to enjoy cooking a lot more.

In the best news of all, I get to keep my job! Long story but it worked out for the best. I still don't fully believe it so I haven't started jumping up and down yet, but it's great news of course.

Hopefully the next time I post will be from my own computer!!! =P

Halfway point!

Shh, I'm at work! Don't tell!

My home computer is broken. Like, really really broken. So I haven't had a chance to get on here at all during my fast. The lack of computer has been good for me, haha.

I am officially halfway through the Daniel Fast. I haven't officially caved, though I did mistakenly assume that the brown sauce on Chinese food was just oil and soy sauce. Um, not. I think God will forgive me, since my heart was in the right place. I mean, do you know how hard it is to skip over egg foo young and crab legs at a Chinese food buffet!?!?!? CRAB LEGS. DUDE. Crab legs.

I've found so many different ways to cook things with various spices. I'm trying to acclimate my mouth to varying amounts of cayenne pepper. I even made my own gazpacho!

I'm not doing as well on the Bible reading or walking as I should, but I am working on that.

The job search is going surprisingly well... more on that at a later date, I'm going to go take my lunch break now :)

First couple days of the Daniel Fast

OK, so I was supposed to do a better job of:

-blogging this
-walking during this
-reading my Bible during this

But at least it's only the second day. The good news is at least I'm following the food/drink part correctly. I even came up with a yummy smoothie: 1 banana, some raspberries, some mandarin oranges, and a little bit of unsweetened soymilk. YUM! The raspberries are strong enough to drown out the bananas, so that is awesome. I will need to buy a lot more bananas because I plan on making a lot of smoothies :) I need other types of fruits too!

Yesterday was kinda rough, my body was all WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME and I had a headache for some reason which wasn't due to dehydration since I drank plenty of water. Oh well!

Who loses on day 1?

Apparently I do! I forgot to blog yesterday. Way to kick April off, self. I thought about it at work, but then I was like "I really shouldn't blog at work", so I didn't do it. So here I am now, blogging at work... :\ lol

So tomorrow is going to be my major shopping day for the DF. I already have lots of beans and other vegetables and whole wheat pasta and flour. I need to buy more herbs and other veggies and tahini to make hummus and I really want to see if I can find caffeine free cocoa powder. I Googled and I guess the caffeine is found in the outermost part of the cocoa bean, so if I can find some that was made from beans without that part, then that's good! If not, I will live. It's not a priority! I have been really tired this week so the no caffeine thing is going to kill me!! Oh well.

I am baking cookies for Easter and everyone better eat all of them because I won't be able to have them for 3 weeks afterwards, haha.

In other news, I have a job interview on Monday! Keep your fingers crossed :)

Preview of coming attractions...

As you have likely noticed, I don't use this blog. EVAR. Except for NaBloPoMo in November. However, Nablo actually runs year round with monthly blogrolls. So I decided to join up for April. Why?

I AM GOING TO DO THE DANIEL FAST!!!!

I have been wanting to do it for a while, and I really had to think about when I should do it, and I chose my start date as the day after Easter, because a)I know I'm going to be eating some FOOD on Easter and b)I think that having the ultimate reminder of Jesus's sacrifice for us is a good way to start my fast.

Another factor in the timing is that I just found out that I am going to be laid off from my job on May 14th, so one of my goals is to use this time to pray especially for my job situation, whatever God wants to bring me!

I want this to really cleanse me in so many ways. I don't eat that badly but there are certainly areas I could use some improvement on. While I am on the fast I want to make it a goal to go on a 30-minute walk each day. I can certainly spend that walk praying as well. I want this to be good for my physical AND spiritual health!

I have been looking up recipes for weeks so I think I am prepared here. I think my toughest challenge will be the elimination of cheese. I do love me some parmesan cheese on my pasta... man that'll be tough! But I am sure that it will be worth it.

So I am going to blog my journey (and a few days before/after since Nablo encompasses an entire month). This will include feelings, frustrations, recipes, and anything God might be doing!

I'll kick start with something I ate last night... I took a can of black beans, rinsed/drained them, and sauteed them in the following: soy sauce, peanut oil, onion powder, cayenne pepper, ground cinnamon, and a sprinkle of Tang mix. Obviously that last one isn't Daniel Fast friendly but I plan to mix in a few mandarin oranges next time. Anyway, it tasted really good! I think it would go well with brown rice or quinoa.

If anyone else is doing a Daniel Fast (as if anyone reads this) I encourage you to check out thosewhohunger.blogspot.com - GREAT resource!!

This post is long enough :)