Blogaday Twerteen (Twelve + Thirteen, duh): "Waddle waddle waddle."

I totally forgot to post yesterday. Oops. This is what I would have posted:

 Did you know that any photo can be artsy if you turn it into black and white and mess with the settings?  I saw this squeaky puppet BB toy lying in the middle of the living room just like this the other night, so I snapped a pic. 

Do you remember...Krazy Eyez Killa?

Those squeaky orange balls may be the most beloved things in this house.

Hahahahahaha. Love.

Anyway, I've been working out again. The fact that it is ungodly warm and humid outside unless it is between the hours of 2am and 7am means that I have had to make do with what I can do in my living room. I do just about 20 minutes of low-impact cardio, then stretch and work on flexibility for a good long time, then do some spot toning for the last bit. Nothing major, but just enough to feel like I get my body moving every day. 

Strangely enough, the thing I'm most concerned with these days is regaining some flexibility. On Saturday, I decided on a whim to see if I could do a bridge (probably one of the most elementary gymnastics moves there is):

Result: Yes, I did it...but I'm pretty sure I blacked out from the pain and woke up with a glass of whisky in my hand. So I've decided my goal for the month of June is to be able to do a backbend/walkover again. We'll see if I meet my goal! (I may be blogging from the emergency room in roughly 30 days.)

Anyway. Since jumping back onto the exercise wagon, this is how I've been walking around:

Oh, and this is me doing some cardio:

Blogaday Eleven: "Sunday Funday!"

1. Bela's habit of binge-eating his breakfast and then throwing it up five minutes later is fairly irritating. Especially when I don't catch it and I only figure out it happened because later in the afternoon, BB will throw up Bela's throw up. And then I will have to clean it up. And then I will nearly throw up. Or I will catch it in time and clean it up. And then the soggy cat food chunks mixed with the bile will seep  through the many layers of paper towels and will touch my hand skin. And then I will nearly throw up.

2. I finally decided to put the variety of workout DVDs my sister sent me many, many weeks ago to use this morning. Fifteen to twenty minutes in and I was feeling good. By " feeling good" I mean "panting and ready to vomit." And then the workout instructor was all, "All right, we're almost done with the warm-up!" Goddamnit!! But then I made myself work through the next ten minutes of intense cardio and then the guy was like, "Great job! We're at the end of the first set." AND THEN HE TALKED ABOUT DOING TWO MORE SETS. Eff that. No, just kidding. I went through the warm-up and TWO sets before calling it quits and crawling to my coffee maker. I figure if I can keep up with the two sets for maybe three to five days, I'll be able to work my way up through the entire workout (+ third set, plus some 6 minute ab nonsense, then cool down) in a couple of weeks.

3. I've been thinking a lot lately. About jobs and careers and yada yada. The realization I had yesterday? That I think I'm just built to be self-employed. Period. Clearly, my dislike for interacting with a vast majority of the human population (at least in terms of employment) lends itself to that. I enjoy teaching - for the most part - and I actually think I'm good at it. But do I want to invest another 3 years of money and time to get a stupid third degree just to be eligible for the job pool? NO. The problem is that, besides teaching and occasionally blowing on the devil stick, the only things I enjoy doing and am skilled at are roasting trays of vegetables and writing poop stories. Or writing about twice-recycled animal puke. Or writing about my ridiculously bad taste for television. Or judging conservatrons on Facebook. Or maintaining an impressively high success rate at predicting which home the people choose on HGTV House Hunters. Or making things that involve being artsy fartsy. Now I just have to figure out how to make those particular life skills financially profitable. 

4. Our kitchen garbage can has been past max capacity for over three days. I'm glad I finally took it out today. I think there were things growing in there that were probably two days away from growing legs and attacking me in the middle of the night.

5. One of the few things that I enjoy about having Schmoobliebottombuns gone for an extended period of time? Bridezillas marathons on WE! These betches be craaazy.

Yesterday morning I woke up to BB sleeping next to my head. Belly up and upside down on Schmoobs' pillow. Heartsplosion!

Blogaday Ten: "Already over it."

In other news, I am beginning to eat everything in sight with much ferocity. I imagine the Monthly Confirmation is about a week away. BURP.

Blogaday Nine: "I really wish I was making this up."

What's worse, a proclaimed Christian not knowing Jesus' most basic biography, or the fact that she was making "Jew jokes" before? Or the fact that she posted this on Facebook for everyone to see?! AAAACK.

Blogaday Eight: "Last minute post."

Happy Birfday to my older (emphasis on OLD...har) brother!

Now, on to some pictures:

Libation.

Spinach and gorgonzola with pears, walnuts, grapes and dates. 

Pork CHOMP.

The waiter came by at this point and tried to take my plate away. I told him I wasn't done yet. 

Poisoncake. The berries make it healthy.

My lovely dinner dates. Jen (left) is the proud new momma of a Shiba Inu puppy named Kiko and Becky just go engaged three days ago!

I told Jen to not buy me anything, but of course she didn't listen. Flowers and a bottle of wine from Jen. They also got me a giftcard to Central Market and Star*ucks. So nice!

I woke up to an epic battle this morning:

Did you know...

...that on your 29th + 730 days Birthday dinner with two girlfriends and two martinis, you will go home and try to upload pictures, but while growing increasingly furstrated at your memory card reader for five minutes because it just won't read any info you'll finally realize that it's because you've been trying to force the card in backwards? Anyway. Time to shower and apply wrinkle cream now. Pictures tomorrow I hope.

Blogaday Seven: "Happy 2nd Anniversary Of My 29th Birthday To Me!"

So all I was planning on posting yesterday was a pic I snapped while I was Facebooking yesterday morning, because: 

1) I have recently become consumed with the idea that, with my rapidly increasing old age, I need to start actually spending more than my usual allotted ten minutes on hair (comb + ponytail) and makeup (powder + mascara + chapstick) in order to maintain some semblance of youthful attractiveness. Next stop: Botox! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

2) I was totally going to the bathroom.

Guess what was happening underneath this picture? Daffodils and rainbows were coming out my butt, that's what. At least according to Schmoobliebutt  Schmoobliebuns  Schmoobliedoos  Schmoobles. Did I just cross the line? Whatever. Anyway, see, here is my problem with wearing makeup: in the above picture, I am wearing THREE different shades and layers of eyeshadow, eyeliner and mascara. Can you see any of it? NO. I mean, you would be able to tell a slight difference if I were to do a side-by-side, but at the end of the day, any more eye makeup than this and I look like a prostitution whore. So I like the enhanced natural look that increased eye makeup gives me, but do I want to spend fifteen minutes doing it every morning for such a subtle improvement? Meh. But I'm totally vain, so I guess I'll try. And don't even get me started on the hair. 

Also: Even when having a BM I look annoyed.

But then the tornado warnings started coming in as the sun was setting and instead of hunkering down in the bathtub with the Beebla and my iPhone like a good little South expat, I decided to stand by our entire wall of glass windows and snap pictures instead. Both our bathtubs have glass doors anyway, so it's not like that would have been much safer. Also: I'm not a total dumb dumb - any potential tornadoes were forecast to pass by us just a few miles West. 

On the horizon is Hwy 30 - a bridge across the big lake that leads West to Dallas. You can see the ginormous black storm cloud coming in from that direction carrying all the potential tornado activity. 

Getting more purple...

Do you know how many pictures I snapped trying to catch a lightning strike in the lens?! A BILLION. 

999,999,999,990 unsuccessful pictures later...

I love this. Bela was planted at the window, keeping an eye on the incoming storm and ready to lay the smackdown if needed. That's a good President of the Finer Things Club!

This was a pic one of my students posted on her Facebook. This is what hail looks like in Texas. WTF!

Gettin' darker...

The lightning was crack-a-lackin'!

I actually snapped this JUST as a huge lightning strike hit off camera, so everything was illuminated.

This is what it normally would have looked like...

...GOTCHA!

Oh. And then the power, cable and internet started going in and out, so I decided it would be a great idea  to pour a nip of whiskey and set up shop with the laptop camera.

Also: My descent into madness has clearly begun.

Blogaday Six: "And your little dog, too!"

Tornado warning for Dallas county and surrounding areas, heading East. Meaning heading towards MEEE!! Pardon the shortness of this post, as I am busy taking shelter. By "taking shelter" I mean "taking a million pictures out the window in hopes of catching a lightning strike on camera." Oh, and updating my Facebook status.

Will do a longer post tomorrow (maybe) if I'm not busy singing and dancing along with some munchkins in the Lollipop Guild.

Blogaday Five: "What, that isn't the Superman theme?"

Curse you, John Williams, and your affinity for perfect fifth intervals!

You know, before recording and posting a moronic video of myself in the morning, I really should take a shower and maybe put some makeup on or something. But clearly I have no vanity. And by "no vanity," I mean "no shame."

By the way, this is what greeted me upon waking up this morning. Hahaha. The question is, how long had they been watching me?

Hey, Happy LOST Finale-versary to one and all! One year ago, I was in Chicago with Schmoobs, Dev and Vanessa affixing Dharma beer labels to many beer bottles and purchasing Kleenex tissues in bulk quantities in preparation. So awesome. 

Cooking update later.

UPDATE: Cooking in progress!

On tonight's agenda. Maybe this will help counteract the potato chips I ate for breakfast? 

Not pictured: Halibut. Also not pictured: a cocktail, most likely.

It's not that easy being green.

This is not relevant to dinner, but I thought it worth noting since I bought this freak of a plantain at the same time I bought all that other produce at the grocery store yesterday. I know it's not easy to tell how huge it is without any perspective...

...but LOOK AT IT COMPARED TO THAT HEAD OF CABBAGE!!! Hahahaha...just kidding. That's totally a brussels sprout.

Due to lack of foresight, I now find myself with my one giant bowl and both of my two baking pans in the dishwasher and I need all three of these items before I can commence with dinner preparations. So in the meantime I think I'll fix myself a beverage.

UPDATE PART 2:

It's cocktail tiiiiime! Whisky, club soda and sweetened lime juice. Is that anything? I don't know. It's pretty tasty.

Guh. Chopping, chopping and more chopping.

About halfway through. This bowl is filling up fast...

Max capacity! Danger, Will Robinson! Tossing this load is going to prove to be an intimidating feat.

Alright, after shot. You didn't need to see what happened amidst the mixing action. A few brave soldiers fell overboard.

Shiny happy veggies holding haaaa-aaaaands!

All that's left of the original crew.

And now they are gone, too. That's a phatty fillet of halibut sitting on the bed of fennel fronds and kale leaves on the side. Ready for some oven lovin'.

I do love a good macro shot. Even of uncooked fish. Don't you want to just slap it? ...Just me? Ok.

UPDATE PART 3:

Done.

Caramelization, betches. With a side of charring, but I like it that way.

Is it normal for fish to get bigger after it's baked? Because I swear this fillet of halibut came out even bigger than going in. How many people am I cooking for again? Oh, that's right. ONE. I think I know what I'm going to be eating for the rest of the week.

Et finis. Ready for my dinner and a show! The show? Real Housewives of New Jersey. Nice.

Oh, and dessert. CHOMP.