OI-SHEE!

Another weekend passed... lots of food, friends & fun!

Friday night, Jen (aka Beni), Jonathan, Rosemary, Anika and I had a traditional sukiyaki dinner at Rosemary's house. Basically, Sukiyaki is a Japanese family-style dinner that is cooked at the table - Similar to teppanyaki, but without the show. It consists of tons of fresh veggies and thinly sliced beef. It's all cooked in the same skillet with some water, little bit of oil, and soy sauce and you eat straight from the pan. It's one of the prettiest meals you could eat, considering the presentation style. To top it off, it was Oi-Shee!! (Delicious)

Anika likes sukiyaki so much that she was literally shoveling the food into her mouth. Well, Rosemary didn't notice how long the noodles were, and Anika wasn't chewing. Needless to say, she started to gag on the noodle, and without skipping a beat, everything that she had previously eaten, ended up in her lap. She didn't even get upset. Rosemary pulled her high chair away from the table to clean her up and Anika was so apathetic to the fact that she just regurgitated her dinner, and was so into eating it, that she kept eating more. It was AWESOME. If any other people were there, they may not have found it so funny, but the way she just acted like nothing ever happened - had all three of us rolling on the floor.

The Dieters (Rosemary, Steve & Anika) have four - count them - FOUR cats. Now, if you know anything about me, you probably know that I've always been quite the ailurophobe. Rosemary did NOT and STILL does NOT know that I am an ailurophobe or that I might be slightly allergic to cats. I have been doing better though. I've really been working on it - especially since Mike got Fozzie - the cat that I - yes, ME - named... Well, Jonathan has not been around cats very much. The kid had NO FEAR. As the pictures prove, I'm pretty sure I can predict a cat sometime in his future... The picture above is Jonathan snuggling with Tiger on the couch and in the picture on the right, he is giving Machan a kiss.

Saturday brought me to the Leary's house where Reagan greeted me with a great big hug, smile and screaming "KEEEEEEEEETEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" at the top of her lungs. :) What more could I ask for?? Josh cooked up some Swedish meatballs... Britt, Ryan & Gabe came over and we all had a nice dinner together and then Gabe went to a sleepover, Reagan went to bed, and we had adult time by the fire pit. All in all, it was a great time. Brittney also brought be some interesting news which I can't explain at this time, but it may mean change is on the horizon for me. We'll have to see how the next few weeks play out. As you can imagine, change - even for the better - creates a fair amount of anxiety in me. Possibly the culprit of this cold that I'm fighting off.... (I'm determined NOT to get sick!)

This weekend also brought my first official Yoga experience. Paige is beginning her Yoga teacher training and I told her I would only participate in her classes if she first gave me "private" lessons. I have to say... I have done pilates for a year and a half now at home to the Windsor Pilates DVD, and I do enjoy it. However, I never realized how completely INTENSE yoga really is when you are doing it correctly! Pilates is intense in it's own right, but yoga was a totally different ball game. I quite enjoyed it, though, I must admit. I like the whole meditation/relaxation aspect of it also. I'm hoping it will improve my inner chakra... and perhaps a couple of other things in the process ;)

Here's to an anxiety-free week. HA!

OH! and P.S. They played my most favorite song at church this weekend. I was CONVINCED that was a sign that this week is going to be great :) Hope I'm right!

TGIF

Oh how happy I am that it's Friday! It hasn't been a particularly bad or annoying week - it has just been busy, and well, there was a full moon and that always seems to add length and intensity to any week! All week I have been meaning to do a post, and I'm just now getting around to it. I hope that this weekend is as fun as last weekend ended up being - completely unexpectedly, I might add! Come last Friday, I was thinking I was going to have a boring, mopey weekend, because frankly, that's how I was feeling myself! But Friday afternoon as I was leaving the parking lot at work, Rosemary called and asked if I would meet them at the parking lot of Benihana, rather than their house so that Steve could spend more time with Anika before they go out since he had been on a business trip all week. I agreed, then realized that she wasn't asking me to pick Anika up from the parking lot, she was inviting me to have dinner with them! That was kind of a nice invitation, although I started feeling as though I should probably call her and ask if she wanted me to just come later so they could have family time when Jen calls me and says that she and Jonathan would be joining us also! How fun! Wait... not just one, but TWO 2-year olds at Benihana?? I thought, 'oh this should be interesting... I know how Jonathan is at dinner time - ESPECIALLY when his mom is around!' And would you know? The kids totally behaved and we had a blast. After dinner I went back to Steve & Rosemary's and they went out and I put Anika to bed.


Saturday morning I decided that I would take advantage of the AM Cinema @ AMC - only $5, people! I went and saw the movie 27 Dresses. Heather's review was completely accurate - totally predictable, but cute nonetheless. When I got out of the theater, I checked my messages and there was one from Mike inviting me out to San Felipe's for his birthday. I made a phone call to Paige for emergency wingman services and she willingly agreed to help me out. So I hung out with Jonathan in the evening and endured a TTT (terrible two tantrum) and made my way to Felipe's when Jen got home.


I felt like I was going to throw up all day - gotta love the nerves - but everything worked out splendidly and we all had a blast! We ran into people we knew and it ended up being a really great night... despite my friend Kassidy stealing my cab at the end of the night!

All in all, the weekend was a success...

Mom celebrated her birthday on Wednesday and Heather's birthday is this weekend! (Happy Birthday, Heather!) Phew - January is a busy birthday month in my calendar!

Tonight we're having a sukiyaki dinner at Rosemary's which I'm pretty psyched about! Other than that, should be a pretty chill weekend...

Eat, Pray, Love

Here's the thing. I was at Target a few nights ago picking up a few household neccessities. That's right - I had officially waited too long to replenish my paper products and was resorting to using napkins for everything - and I mean EVERYTHING. Hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. And frankly, I kept forgetting to put Kleenex and toilet paper on my shopping lists. SO not the point. Anyway... I am always lured into the book section of Target. I'm not sure why, because it's not like they carry a vast array of items to choose from, nor is it different from week to week. Nonetheless, I find myself drawn in everytime I enter the store. Part of me gets excited by the ginormous selection of Rachael Ray books - I think they have them all - and everytime I think, "wow, not even B&N has this wonderful a selection of RR." I have all but two of them, if you were wondering. I'm missing Just In Time, which is her latest, and one of the original ones that has escaped me at the moment. The other part of me gets excited by the pretty brightly colored books - marketing genius! Like I say - I'm lured in EVERY SINGLE TIME.

I've been seeing a particular book all over the end caps in every Target location that I've been to recently. (I like to visit Targets all over the Valley because if I don't, I feel I might be missing out I guess.) The book Eat, Pray, Love has caught my eye several times, and I think I picked it up and read the passage on the back at least three times and thought "I should not spend money on a book right now, I should go to the library" and put it back on the shelf. But for some reason this book screams my name each time. So Monday night, I decided that it must be some sort of sign. Not realizing how this book would scruitinize my time, I picked it up off the shelf, took it to the register and bought it. I got home, put away the paper products in their respective homes, took out my contacts, changed into my jammies, sat in my easy chair, and began reading my new book. Before I knew it, it was 11:30, I was holding my eyelids up because I didn't want to put my book down. Low and behold I convinced myself that I would NOT get up in the morning if I did not put that book down immediately - and even then, it's a crapshoot with me! (SO not a morning person...except on the weekends, when I inevitably wake up at 6am bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Pisses me RIGHT off... Murphy's Law, I suppose?)

I have become engrossed with this book, and will be done by the end of weekend, no doubt. First of all - don't let the title intimidate you. Yes, I believe in God, but you don't have to be spiritual to appreciate what this author has gone through. After falling completely in love with this book, I have found that Oprah's Book Club apparantly shares in my fondness. Check out the site. There is even a section that allows you to read the first few pages. That's all I ask.

More to come... I'm off to my chair to indulge in some quality EPL time!

Mission Statement

Well... After a week filled with lots of thoughts about where I am, where I want to be, and the general cycle of life all around me I have vowed to myself that I will really start LIVING each day. For several months now, I've just kind of been "getting by." I think in large part, the reasoning for that is because I became paralyzed with fear. No, I'm not a scaredy cat - but sometimes the "what if's" in life out do the living part. I tend to let that happen during certain times in my life. In the past week, I have made a lot of committments (to myself AND to others) to better my life. I really need to hold myself accountable... something that I excel at in the business world with my day-to-day job, but something I'm not so great at in my personal life.

Commitment #1: I have made a pact with my "Crazy Sister" - her term - to communicate in SOME form when I am having a 'day'. She agreed to do the same. Meaning is two-fold... a) we are letting someone else know that we are having a difficult time and b) we are acknowledging with ourselves the way we are feeling.

Commitment #2: Do my laundry regularly - from start to finish. If you know me, you know I hate hate HATE laundry. I don't know why, but I always have.

Commitment #3: Revisit my mission statment that I wrote last year in my 7 Habits class and think of tangible ways to live my mission and recognize areas of my life that I am not living it.

Along with commitment #3, and a little bit of commitment #1, I also feel that it's only fair that I share my personal mission statement, since I'm on this whole accoutability kick. So - here it is:

• I am committed to living and loving authentically.
• I intend to pursue continual personal growth to foster a better understanding of myself and the world around me.
• I will enthusiastically serve my family and friends, enlisting love, compassion and understanding as my guides.
• I will always nurture my relationship with, and continue to increase my knowledge of God on intellectual, emotional and spiritual levels.
• I will practice forgiveness of others and of myself so that I may live without regret.
• I will continue to be inspired by others in hopes that one day I might inspire.

Here's to a new week!

A New Year, A New Me

Ok so maybe not really a NEW me, but perhaps a slightly revised version of Me. I never understood the lure of the newfangled, seemingly "technologically advanced", ridiculously millennial concept of the BLOG... But I have to say... after spending Saturday with my good friend Heather - who, incidentally, started HER first blog last week - and questioning every little detail about it, I got hooked on the idea. Uh oh. Am I going to be spending hours on end blogging?? I am pretty sure I always poked fun at those who blogged, and also thought, "what's the point? I'm certainly not going to post my feelings just so anyone on the web can read them! That's insane!" Well... insanity... here I come, or, rather - AM...

I live alone and much of my time is spent talking to myself, so why not spew a few of the thoughts that run through my head on any given day in a structured setting for people to read? Perhaps this new hobby might even prove to be therapeutic. Who knows!

I think 2008 is going to be an exciting year. I don't know why other than - I can just feel it.