It Started with a Journal

1) Howard Overman, who created and writes Misfits, is one of my favorite writers for Merlin. I was worried that with the success of Misfits, he would stop writing for Merlin, but he's said he will write for S4. Woohoo!

2) So many good things coming in April. HBO's Game of Thrones premiere. City of Fallen Angels. Hmm that might be all. But both those things are so exciting it's like having 10 things!

3) This weekend I am going to make homemade Pop Tarts, from Flour, with strawberry filling. Only thing is making the pate brisee, which is easy enough, but then you have to wait for it to chill and I'm an instant gratification sort of person. Also, my kitchen is not ideal for making pastry, because of the limited counter space. Oh my kingdom for counter space!

4) The Snickers Kudos bar I just ate was really good, and it was only 100 calories. That means I can eat 10 of them, right?

5) I am one episode away from finishing Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I've enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, and am bummed that they never got a third season. I mean... even Roswell got a (terrible) third season and that went off the rails in S2. I guess the ratings for T:TSCC must've been really bad ... or bad enough for what I am assuming was a fairly expensive show to make. It's too bad.

6) I've made my own balsamic vinaigrette to take to work when I get salads. I just don't like their salad dressings. I feel kind of lame taking my bottle to the cafe, but oh well.

7) With Swag Bucks, Bing Rewards, and the Living Social deal, I now have $40 in Amazon g.c.s! I think what I'm going to do is build up my Amazon credit this way, and eventually I'll have enough to buy an eReader. I don't need one immediately, and I can just slowly build up to one.

8) So... I used to hate Swiss cheese. It was flavorless and pointless to me. But I guess as I've gotten older my palate has changed, because now I find myself wanting to put Swiss cheese in my sandwiches and burgers. Gruyere is still my fave cheese, though! Jade recently found a gruyere-cheddar melange at Trader Joe's that is AWESOME.

9) I'm still loving my Keurig. Favorite flavor: Tully's Kona blend. I don't even know why I bother trying any others, because that one is heads above the next best.

10) I'm going to be better this year about taking more vacation time during the year so I can spread it out, rather than lumping it all up at the end. With carry-over vacation, I have 8 weeks this year. I don't plan to use it all, but I need to use at least 4 weeks. Anyway, I'd like to go somewhere in the U.S. where I've never spent significant time (nixed: most of California, NYC, Boston, Washington D.C., D.C.-area Virginia and Maryland, Las Vegas, Hawaii). Any suggestions? Where do you think I should go and why? I'm looking for ideas!

Happy day-before-U.S.-T-Day!

I am so tired. Up late last night and then had to wake up early, bleh. And why was I up late? Playing WoW. That's right, I've gone back to the dark side. S. is constantly raiding and they were looking for a healer and I still have friends in the guild, so why not? I'm just going to take it far less seriously this time and also accept no positions of responsibility. That's really what ruined it for me last time. Another thing that's kind of fun is that I'm a disc priest now. :D I've never healed with a full disc spec, usually I went holy or holy/disc. It's taking some getting used to, but I actually like it. It's not THAT different from holy, though disc is less useful as a direct raid healer (it's more of a damage mitigator). Very good single target healer though (so good for MT, though possibly not as good as a holy pally, damn their plate-wearing hides). The biggest thing I'll have to get used to is that meters mean exactly squat for me now. So much of my usefulness comes in the form of, as I said, mitigation, so until meters start counting absorption rates I'll always be lowest on the healing meters. I'm fine w/ that as long as the guild realizes that, but it seems unlikely. People are and always will be obsessed with meters. Still, I'm having to think about my gear very differently than I did before. I used to stack spirit like crazy and now I wouldn't spit on it if it were on fire.

When my mom was here visiting she mentioned that she thought my hair was too dry. I was like, really? I mean, it's not brittle or anything, but it certainly isn't all satiny and silky like those models in shampoo commercials. She was like, yes, sometimes what I'll do is put olive oil in my hair, leave it on for 15-20 minutes, then shampoo and rinse like normal. So last night I tried it, thinking my hair was going to be awesome. It wasn't. It was the opposite of awesome. It was greasy and disgusting, even after shampooing. I knew there was something wrong when I was blow drying it and it still looked wet even way after it would normally have been dry... and that's because it WAS dry, it was just greasy! Ugh. Luckily after washing it again this morning my hair's back to normal. Though that could be because I made sure to use Big (by Lush), which is really good about removing oily deposits. I should probably use that less than I do because using it constantly is probably very harsh on my hair, which is probably what made my mom make the remark about my hair being dry in the first place.

My car's still in the shop. With the Thanksgiving break coming up it's probably not going to be done until mid to late next week. Sigh. I really, really miss my car. It's even less now that I miss the luxuries as it is that I miss something that's MINE, that has all my little knick knack stuff in it, that I don't have to think of as temporary, etc. One good piece of news (though, only relatively -- it's not as good as, say, not having been rear ended in the first place)... early on, I insisted that I wanted brand-new OEM parts (as in, genuine Lexus parts. They hit a car that had that, and were not going to get away with replacing with generic parts). Everything was agreed to except the bumper, in which they wanted to use a reconditioned part (but which was a Lexus part) rather than a new one. After the whole nightmare with the rental (oh yeah, I need to share the letter I wrote), I really didn't want to have to fight with Farmers about the stupid bumper, and yet I felt aggrieved. I mean, the accident was their fault, the difference between a new bumper and the reconditioned one was $150, and on a $6,000+ repair you want to quibble about $150?! Screw you. The auto body shop (which has been great) said that what they could do was to order the reconditioned part, try to find something wrong with it, and then say that they couldn't use it because of XYZ reason. Since I was/am sick of dealing with all this crap I said that was fine, because a bumper is a bumper, not an engine. Anyway, apparently the reconditioned part came and there *was* something wrong with it, like the tabs didn't fit my car or something, so the auto body shop ordered a brand-new OEM one for me like I had originally wanted. So HA, stupid insurance company.

I finally had my blood tested again, and while my cholesterol wasn't good, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting, either. Yay for that. I can't remember the specific numbers for each thing, but basically my LDL was a bit elevated, but my HDL was OK so that helped a bit. What's not so good is that apparently my thyroid was up again. This happened last year and when I got retested it was back down to normal... now it's up and I'm going to be tested again in 3 months and if it's still up my doctor's going to refer me to an endocrinologist. :/ Why is my body doing this to me, why. But speaking of my doctor, apparently she was selected by Seattle magazine as one of the 2009 doctors of the year! Coolness. Now I have to give a shout out to romanticalgirl for referring me to her. :D

I've been playing Professor Layton and the Curious Village on my DS. I loves me some puzzles! Some of them drive me inSANE though.

Going to have a very quiet Thanksgiving (as I do every year ... I hate flying so I can't imagine flying home for the holiday when I'm going to be going again in December). It's just going to be me, my cousin, and her 6-month-old baby. She didn't want to travel with him, so her husband/daughters are going to his family gathering w/o them. We're ordering one of those prepared meals from Whole Foods, which was (imho) hideously expensive, but neither of us could face the thought of cooking a big Tday meal just for the two of us.

Finally, I snagged a plane ticket for my December vacation for like, the best price ever. Seriously the best price I've ever paid to travel to SoCal -- $59/one way for a nonstop flight on Alaska. Usually it's more than double that. Of course, I'll have Talis with me so that's not all I'll have to pay. His flight in the cargo hold costs $100/one way, which is seriously highway robbery since it's not like he gets any special treatment and is basically treated like a piece of luggage. Grrrr airlines. Still, it's cheaper than boarding him or shipping him off separately.

Oh -- because I said I'd post this. The letter I wrote to Enterprise/the story of how they wronged me. It's really super long though, so if you're not interested in reading a bunch of ranting/complaining, do not click. ( Bad, Enterprise! Bad! )