National Egg Nog Day!

Mood:

This was actually yesterday, but I love it so why not celebrate again? I love it even though it's associated with a holiday I don't celebrate.It's good with a little nutmeg on top. I've never had the 'traditional' one with alcohol. Probably will never be able to in the future either. That's ok, it's awesome without anyways.Haven't had it in a long time...

Also, to people who celebrate it, hope you had a good and merry Christmas. I don't celebrate it, but I wish all the best to my friends and family who do.To me it's just another day. Although we, like a lot of other Jews, usually go out to a Chinese buffet for it. Sometimes going to the movie theater is another 'tradition' during this time. Sometimes to people who don't celebrate Christmas seeing all the decorations, hearing the music, etc. everywhere you go for like 2 months can get really annoying. It was almost like Christmas exploded this morning on all the morning 'news' shows. At least, that'll all be over soon.

I stayed up later than I should have Monday night.I was watching a documentary about a sushi chef in Japan. It was slow moving at first, and then I couldn't stop watching it. It didn't help that there were no ads during it. It went pretty late, and then I got sucked into looking at my email and other messages. By the time I realized it, it was already close to 1am. That's not good. I've been trying to go to bed early and get up early. It threw me off most of the following day...I was able to go to bed much earlier last night, and it felt much better. I just have to watch out for stuff like that.

Started watching the 2nd season of Doctors. It was another one that I wasn't expecting them to continue. The main character is kind of similar to House. Only he's very sweet and understanding with patients. He challenges his coworkers all the time. He solves the more difficult cases, as well. He can manipulate people very easily. It's a pretty good show, not outstanding but good.

In Tokyo Ravens, it was kind of a fluff episode. Kon wasn't able to make herself invisible, so she was trying to find ways to follow and make sure nothing happens to Harutora. Kon's his familiar, who's a fox spirit. She's usually always with him, but hiding herself most of the time. (Apparently, if she's visible for too long, it tires him out.) She ended up causing a big stir at school and people thought, since they only saw the varsity jacket on her that had a tiger design, she was a tiger. Eventually, one of the teachers helped her get her invisibility back. But, the person who inadvertently started the whole thing, had an earful. She was in the middle of a spell, and Kon had knocked into her, causing her to lose her ability to go invisible. Kon had tried to hide herself by wearing Harutora's jacket. The jacket was ruined, and he was pissed. I love Kon, but right now she just seems really cute and like she's comic relief. Hopefully, she'll get stronger. 

Wrote more of the 4th story to my nightmare anthology. More twists to it that I wasn't expecting. If this part had actually been a part of the nightmare it's based on, it would have made a lot more sense.Maybe I'm subconsciously trying to make sense out of it. Interesting. I know I'm close to the end of this one. I think next time I'll end it. 

Played my clarinet. Did some Mozart and some of the 'advanced' solo tunes. Wasn't too bad. Sounding better and better. 

Drew more of Shadow in detail from my project. Might have gotten his hair down, finally. Also, continued the drawing meme from before. Did the 2 other parts to the 'happy' section. Not sure if I'm entirely happy with the results, but they're not bad. Next is the sad section. I hate to draw her being sad, though. She's usually so happy and bouncy looking. But, she does have a difficult past, and she's hiding some dark secrets. So, she had to have some sadness. And, a character who is never sad, can be disturbing as well. 

日本語

Today's kanji were: 童, 農, and 波. When 童 is by itself, it's pronounced as わらべ (warabe). In compounds, it's usually pronounced as どう (dou). It means: juvenile, child. Usually it's an archaic word for child. (Normally, child is 子供 or こども (kodomo).) 農 is pronounced as のう (nou). It means: farming, agriculture. When 波 is seen by itself, it's usually pronounced as なみ (nami). It's only pronounced as は (ha) in compounds. It means: wave. 波形 or なみがた (namigata) or はけい (hakei): wavy form, ripply shape; (はけい only) waveform. 波線 or はせん (hasen): wavy line. 波動 or はどう (hadou): wave motion, undulation, surge. 波長 or はちょう (hachou): wavelength. 津波 or つなみ (tsunami): tsunami, tidal wave. 

Re

Mood:

Or: Hot. By Jane Zhang. Basically about 'hot' and passionate love. Great dance song, too. I'm a bit new to Cpop, but discovering some artists and songs through Lastfm. To me, they have a different and interesting feel. I was already a bit into S.H.E, but that was basically it for Cpop artists. Her voice is amazing, and hearing the language in song form is interesting and beautiful. (Although, I find it an interesting language to begin with.)

I've been slowly getting back into things. I feel much better than I did last week.Managed to do a full day of my sit-ups yesterday, and did my morning ones for today (hopefully will get to the evening ones). I'm doing 60 sit-ups twice a day this week. I think I had gotten up to 95 twice a day before I was sick. Thought this would be a good amount to ease into it again. It would probably be bad if after not doing it for so long, doing 95 twice a day again right away. Hope to get back to walking tomorrow. Hopefully, I can finally get into walking twice a day, as well. I had been trying to make it a habit before, but never quite got into it.If I can do it, I'll be doing 4 miles a day instead of 2. 

Watched the finale of Ando Lloyd. It was an amazing show.The main actor is extremely talented, and somewhat of a legend in Japan. He was amazing again. Able to go from a robotic/serious like personality to a goofball genius professor. The professor had very distinctive mannerisms too. The lead actress was also pretty good. Very convincing. The actress who played the role of his sister was awesome, too. The character has a split personality, and that's very difficult to do well, too. She sometimes would snap into an evil cold-hearted psycho killer. Her normal personality was nice, sweet, loved people, etc. She was also a genius professor. (She was on a similar level, if not even brighter than her brother.) She had an interesting way of switching, as well. Hiccuping a lot when her 'nice' side tried to win over her 'evil' one. Almost fainting when she switched to 'evil'. I liked Suppli, as well. The actress who plays her has been getting better and better with each show I've seen her in. She hasn't been acting for long, and she is in a lot of ads over there. Lots of other amazing actors, too. It had a really bizarre, yet nice ending. Made you wonder long after it ended. It almost looked like there'd be a possibility of a 2nd season. I hope so.The plot was very intricate, unique, and fascinating. Each episode seemed to go by in a minute, it was that awesome. 

Log Horizon has been getting more and more interesting. They go into a lot of detail, but do it in a good way. The round table of guilds are visiting the People of the Land or NPCs (non-player characters) in the game. They seem to be changing a great deal along with the 'Adventurers'. The Adventurers have made great advances in technology. And, the NPCs are worried that there will be a war between them, or they'll be left behind. They also want to learn from them. Very interesting how they built the dynamic with the NPCs. They're all curious of the outsiders, too. Not sure what to make of them. They used to just give out quests, but now they don't have to, and are unsure of what to do. The inexperienced Adventurers went to a camp to train, which was Shiroe's idea. (Kind of like summer camp for kids.) One of the 'trials' during it is to clear a dungeon. The main group wasn't able to do it, and almost died. When many anime are finishing up the season, this one is apparently not even halfway through. Nice.

Wrote more of the 4th story from my nightmare anthology. Again, it seems to be going in an interesting direction. I never really know how things will end up until I'm close to the end. I know I'm nearing the end of this one, at least. Can't believe I'll be moving onto the 5th one soon! Yay!

Played my clarinet for an hour yesterday, and normal amount of time today. It felt really good to play for that hour. I had planned before I got sick to play during the weekend for that amount of time. Before that, I rarely played during the weekend...I feel like I improved a lot more with just that. I used to play an hour a day when I was in junior high (maybe even in elementary school. Started when I was 10) until, I think, a year or 2 into college. I remember that they would tell us in junior high to practice for 20 minutes. I used to laugh at that. Still do, because that's really nothing. (My norm now during the week is 30 minutes. I won't go less than that.) I played some jazz and klezmer today. 

日本語

Today's kanji was: 等. When pronounced as とう (tou): (suf, counter) class, order, rank; (suf) etc., and the like; (pref) equal. As ら (ra): (suf) pluralizing suffix (often humble, derogatory, or familiar), and others, and the like, and followers; or so (rough indicator of direction, location, amount, etc.); (after the stem of an adjective) nominalizing suffix. As など (nado): (suf, particle) (usually in kana instead of kanji) etc., and the like, and so forth; (indicating an approximate quote or vague suggestion) or something; (lessening the significance or value of the previous word) the likes of. As 等しい or ひと.しい (hito.shii): equal, similar, like, equivalent.

Translated some more of a You Maga article. Found out that it uses a word that's pretty rare. But, I do know that sometimes they use words that are only common in things like newspapers or magazines. I think they're called something like asahi words, based on the famous newspaper. Makes it more exciting, then.

Read an article on Asahi's website in Japanese. It was about a figure skater who didn't rank high enough in the national championships to advance to the Olympics. He had hoped that he had recovered enough from injuring his leg, but he wasn't up to par yet. It was sad. He said he couldn't find the words to express how he felt. He had won a bronze medal for Japan in the 2010 Olympics. One of the few medals that they've won in his category. So, it surprised a lot of people.

On a forum, I starting talking in Japanese with someone. Apparently, I blew their mind and they just said 'epic' at one point. I don't think they were using actual Japanese words. But, they weren't writing in kana, and sometimes it's hard to read romaji (basically transliterated in Latin letter form. It's literally 'Roman Letters' in Japanese) and know what they're talking about. Especially if they use the 'shortened' form with the lines over the letters. But, I checked it later, and I was right about them not using real words, or words written incorrectly even using that form. I had written back to them in kana/kanji, and maybe that's why they said 'epic' afterwards. They were surprised at how much I actually know. 

Youtube faves:

Fran's, from Hitman Reborn, funny moments (he's funny in most of his scenes. I love this character, and he didn't have much screen time.):

Hilarious scene from Hitman Reborn with Tsuna and Spanner (I also love Spanner. Maybe more so than Tsuna, although he's a good character too. I also love Spanner's assistant, a small mosca which is a kind of robot. It's also featured):

Tsuna doing his 'hiis' (didn't realize how many times he did it, and it was more than this. It only shows a snippet of the series. The show has a lot more episodes):

Arashi no Ouji

Mood:

Or, Storm Prince. This is one of Belphegor's character songs, from Hitman Reborn. It's sung by the voice actor. The voice actors for this show were amazing. And, they can all sing pretty well in character. Each character had their own vocal quirk and/or laugh. I haven't heard too many shows be into it that much. Bel's laugh is 'ushishishi', Mukuro's is 'kufufu', Squalo yells whenever he enters a room saying something similar to 'Voooi!'; just as examples. Bel is apart of Varia, the Vongola's elite independent assassination squad. He's a genius prince from an unknown country, and is the youngest member. (I think when Fran joins them in the future, he becomes the second youngest.) He uses storm attributes. His nickname is Prince the Ripper. He presumably killed his twin brother (he later finds out his brother survived, but is soon killed off by Xanxus, Varia's boss), along with his entire family, when he was 8 years old. He joined Varia right after, because he was bored. He becomes euphoric whenever he sees his own blood, reminding him of the time he stabbed his brother. Pretty twisted character. But, that also makes him interesting. 

I'm feeling a lot better than I was.I still have a stuffy nose that I can't seem to clear, sometimes it still gets very runny, occasionally have coughing fits, stomach is a bit better, things taste much better, etc. So, there's light at the end of the tunnel...Just wish it would leave me quicker. I read that some people take about 2 weeks to fully recover from a cold. That's a long time.Longer than I thought. I seem to be recovering much quicker than what's normal or 'average'. Yay!

Even though I'm still at the tail end of coming out of this, I tried to start up my sit-ups again this morning. I'm going back down to 60 twice a day, to go easy on myself. Managed to do it!Hopefully, I can do it tonight. I hate not doing all my exercise stuff, so I'm itching to get back to it all.

It snowed early this morning. We don't get snow that often, but sometimes it's enough to be hazardous. This storm seemed to be over pretty quickly, and most of it is gone now. We might have gotten 1-2 inches at most. 

On Wednesday, I started watching the 2nd season of Toshi Densetsu no Onna or Urban Legends Woman. I didn't think they'd make a second season, and kind of took it off my radar. When I was looking not too long ago for new ones to add to my 'to watch' list, I saw that they did. I really like this series, so I'm happy I can continue it. Still has the same quirky characters. I almost forgot about them, even though it had only been a little over a year. This one was about an urban legend near the base of Mt. Fuji. Apparently, there's a legend about a creature similar to Nessie, called Mossy at a lake nearby. There's also one about a hidden village where people who couldn't bring themselves to commit suicide in the forest made their own place. They felt like society failed them, and made their own village in spite of that. This legend might actually be true, according to what happened to Otonashi and Katsura when they were lost in the forest. The 'villagers' may have helped direct them to the crime scene and helped them get out, by leaving large stones as a trail. The Mossy one is most likely not real. But, she still has hope that it is. She apparently worked in America after the first season ended. She became very popular over there, and then decided to go back to Japan. It started with her coming back. She's still treated somewhat like a celebrity. They made a special unit for her called UIU or Unscientific incident Investigation Unit. There's a new techie now, too. She seems interesting. Katsura has a new boss in the forensics department. She seems to want to be exactly like Otonashi, but isn't very good at pulling it off. 

Wrote more of the 4th short story to my nightmare anthology. It's becoming longer than I expected. But, that's ok. It still won't be very long. I've actually added some stuff that happened, or based on what happened to me, in real life. So, there's some truth to this one...Makes it more scary and believable, I guess? Still haven't been playing my clarinet. Again, hard to do if you can't breathe too well.

I'm making my first pot roast in the slow cooker or crock pot for dinner. (Thought it'd be nice for Shabbat dinner.) It kind of came in a little kit. The package had a smaller package for the meat, a bag full of vegetables (potatoes, carrots, a giant half of an onion, and celery), and a separate spice pack. They had instructions on the back. Basically, throw it all in with a little water. I'm doing it on the high setting for 6 hours. It smells so good already!I looked at it recently, and it seemed to be slowly falling apart and making its own sauce or juices. This looks like it'll turn out awesome!

I'm also trying to get back into drawing. Managed to get back to my 'project' for drawing all my characters next to each other. Have most of the main character, Shadow, outlined pretty well. Plus, Junko's arm over him. My previous drawing of Max is really helping with anatomy. He's a skeleton demon, so it's kind of like he's the bare-bones base for it.I also started another meme. I wanted something simple so I'm not bombarded by the other project, and give up from being too frustrated. This one is an 'exaggerated' expression meme. It showcases a wide range of expressions. Things like not just happy, but up to ecstatic. Or, tipsy to drunk. Another is mildly annoyed to royally pissed off. Sounds like it's great practice. I'm using Junko for this one. I haven't used too many of my female original characters for these. Got to show some love to them too.Plus, I hated the old design for her. I did the first one where it's the light end of happy. I like her new design, and I came up with it rather quickly. 

日本語

I studied 2 kanji for today: 湯 and 登. The first one is most often pronounced as ゆ (yu). It means: hot water; hot bath, hot spring; molten iron. It tends to be pronounced occasionally as とう (tou) in compounds. 銭湯 or せんとう (sentou): bath-house, public bath. For the other one, when pronounced as 登る or のぼ.る (nobo.ru): to ascend, go up, climb; to go to (the capital); to advance (in price); to swim up (a river), sail up; to come up (on the agenda). As 登り or のぼ.り (nobo.ri): ascent, climbing, ascending (path), climb; northward (towards Tokyo). In compounds it might be pronounced as とう (tou) or と (to).

National Maple Syrup Day!

Mood:

I love maple syrup, but only in small amounts. A little goes a long way.Canada is the largest producer of it, responsible for 75% of the world's supply. Vermont makes the most in the US, generating about 5.5% of the world's supply. It's graded according to Canada or US scales based on its density and translucency. In Canada, syrups must be 66% sugar and be made exclusively from maple sap to qualify as maple syrup. In the US, a syrup must be made almost entirely from maple sap to be labeled as 'maple'.

I've been sick since last Friday.I remember in my last post on Thursday that I was feeling somewhat sick. Apparently, that was just the start of it.It got much worse the next day. There were times where my nose was totally closed. Like it was so inflamed, the nostrils closed in on themselves.I've never had that happen...I have a small nose to begin with, just like my mom did. I couldn't breathe through it. (It sometimes made a bubbly noise.) Other times, it was hard to make it stop running. Had massive headaches, stomach did somersaults almost the entire time (still getting it occasionally), coughing so hard I felt like I was hacking up a lung (still getting this especially while trying to sleep), things taste funny, and other weird stuff. I had to sleep in a lot. Slept most of Friday, which helped a bit. At least I finally feel like I'm coming out of it. I rarely get sick. Especially this sick. 

Managed to get some writing done for the 4th story in my nightmare anthology. In fact, I seemed to be more on a roll. Kept coming up with ideas, and didn't really hit a 'wall' with it like I have been. Decided not to play my clarinet while I was sick, since I couldn't breathe through my nose. Kind of hard to play if you can't breathe...

Found a lot of cool new songs. So, that was a positive thing, too. Some were Jpop, some Cpop (I don't have much Cpop, so this was interesting), some Hitman Reborn character songs, and more. So, you can look forward to hearing them soon! 

When I felt the sickest, I played some of Fate. Haven't done that in a long time. It's a dungeon game. You pick either a female or male adventurer, and a dog or cat companion. This time I chose the female one with a cat. The village people give you quests to complete in the dungeons. Like kill this 'amount' of blobs, or find my item, or kill the boss of this level in the dungeon, etc. As you gain money, exp, mana, skills, etc. you can get better equipment. I love battling with swords, so I try to get the strongest ones, there's also certain armor according to if you like to use magic or not, gloves, jewelry, plus other accessories. Also, a lot of magic scrolls to learn from. You can get gems to socket onto an item to make it more powerful/have special abilities. You can fish as well. If you feed it to your pet or yourself, it or you will turn into one of the monsters for a certain amount of time. Also, sometimes the fish have special items in them. You earn certain levels of renown, too. I think I might have gotten to 'The Hero' this time. Just before that I think my title was 'The Tolerated'. It's really fun, but can get tiring, since it's just going through levels of a dungeon. I think there are 50 levels to the dungeon. I've never finished it. Wonder if I ever will. I think the furthest I might have gone is like level 30. At level 10 (I think), it's so deep into the dungeon that they start showing lava pools and fire. I wonder what that last level looks like. Maybe you end up on the other side of the world.

I decided not to go to group tonight. I'm finally feeling better, and am a little restless. So, I don't know if I'd be able to sit through it.I like the people there, though. (And, I love being there.) The next one is on New Year's Eve. Not sure how many people will be going. Since it's the 5th Tuesday, we usually have a potluck and watch a movie. Maybe it should turn into a New Year's Eve party or something. We could still have a potluck and watch movies until the countdown. Just an idea...We'll see. Maybe they'll bring up something similar tonight.

National Cocoa Day!

Mood:

I love cocoa!This is apparently related to the beverage hot cocoa or hot chocolate. In America, we usually use these terms interchangeably. But, technically hot chocolate is made from heated water or milk with melted chocolate pieces, while hot cocoa is made from cocoa powder and heated water or milk. Either way, it's good! I usually like some with marshmallows. We've got hot chocolate with tiny ones. Guess I can have some more later.

I'm feeling pretty sick today.Almost like I have a cold. My nose is running, sinuses are full, have a huge headache on both sides of my head, etc. I was finally feeling normal for about a week. That weird stuff that I had before that week seems to have gone away, at least.I've been having tea, mandarin oranges, took an antihistamine, and took my usual vitamin. So, hopefully that'll help. I have felt slightly better since this morning at least. I just need to take it easy on myself. I probably should be in bed...But, I get restless when I do, even if I'm very sick. 

Last weekend, was bone chilling cold. Record low temps for the area. Despite this, we went to a Japanese buffet for the first time Saturday night. Apparently, it's very popular. We had to wait a while in the waiting room. The door was constantly opening and closing, bringing in the cold air. Even with coats, gloves, scarves, lots of people, etc. it was really cold in there. Eventually, we were able to get a table. It's a very big place. Tons of sushi, a salad bar, various kinds of meats, soups, appetizers, desserts, etc. I don't think I got to everything, there was so much stuff there. There weren't too many specifically Japanese things. That was mainly the sushi and miso soup. (Which I didn't have either of...) There was a lot of general Asian stuff. Mostly from China and Korea. But, it was mostly very good all around.They had a huge chocolate fountain. The only things I didn't like were 3 desserts and the iced tea was a bit odd.

The next night we went to a movie theater to watch Gravity in 3D. (The theater is actually maybe 5 minutes away from the buffet.) I think I might have only seen one other movie in 3D when I was little, but can't remember what it was. My contacts were messing with me most of the time.But, it was still fun to see. I'm not sure if I was 'thrilled' about the movie. A lot of it didn't seem realistic. But, it did have cool effects and imagery. The whole thing might have been a dream, she could have died the time she was hurling through space by herself at the beginning, several things might be able to explain away the unrealistic stuff. And, it ended kind of abruptly. So, I have a mixed opinion about the whole thing. 

In the Interviewer, it's becoming more and more funny. Kind of an off beat/eccentric/campy sort of humor. It's apparently getting pretty raunchy, too. Kind of surprised me a bit. I'm really liking this show. And, the main actor has improvised a lot of stuff for the character. I respect him even more now. 

In Naruto Shippuden, it was an emotional episode. I'm about 3 episodes behind. Itachi is an amazing character. He took most of his secrets to the grave. He had to be reanimated and work together with his younger brother, Sasuke, in order to come clean about them. He put Kabuto in a mind loop, and was able to get him to release his reanimation jutsu. This also meant that Itachi had to 'die' again. So, Itachi essentially ended the war. There's a lot fewer enemies to fight. I think Tobi might be the last one...They still haven't revealed much on who he really is. They've hinted that it might be Obito though. Looks like things are only getting more interesting.

Wrote more of the 4th short story to my nightmare anthology. Haven't really gotten to the 'scary' stuff yet in this one. But, there are hints that things might not be right or they're unsettling. Then again, I haven't gotten to the actual nightmare yet. I have to set it up a bit. 

Played my clarinet. Did some tunes from my advanced solo book. Stumbled a bit this time, but that might be because I haven't been keeping up with playing everyday for the last week. It's been off and on. Hopefully, I can stay on track with it now. I sounded pretty good this time overall, even with the occasional stumble.

日本語

Studied more compounds for: 度. The general meanings for this one are: (counter) degrees, occurrence, time, strength of alcohol. 度量衡 or どりょうこう (doryoukou): weights and measures. 度合い or どあい (doai): degree, extent. 温度 or おんど (ondo): temperature. 感度 or かんど (kando): sensitivity, reception (e.g. radio and television), severity (quake). 湿度 or しつど (shitsudo): level of humidity. 態度 or たいど (taido): attitude, manner, behavior. 丁度 or ちょうど (choudo): (this is usually written in kana, instead of the kanji form) just, right, exactly. 調度 or ちょうど (choudo): supplies, furniture, fixtures. 程度 or ていど (teido): degree, amount, grade, standard, (suf) of the order of (following a number). 年度 or ねんど (nendo): fiscal year; academic year, school year. 

8th Day of Hanukkah!

Mood:

Today's the last day of Hanukkah! Crazy! It went by so fast. Got to have some latkes during our Thanksgiving meal. So, at least I got to have some of those. I was thinking of playing dreidel, but never got to it.Maybe later, or next year. Even our hostess wanted to play at least one round of it, but it had gotten too late. Everyone was tired after playing Trivial Pursuit. The candles are always nice to look at.

I've been feeling sick the last couple of weeks, and it's starting to bother me. I rarely actually get sick. Lately I've been lightheaded, stomach hurts, nose is stuffed up and occasionally feels like I got a bunch of water up there (like when you're swimming and some of it goes up your nose...), weird mucus-like stuff going down my throat, things (like pills) stick to the back of my throat, every so often I get this weird semi-hard ball-shaped thing that makes its way up my throat and propels itself out (there's blood mixed in, and it's not like I threw up), and other weird things. I'm more curious about it and slightly annoyed, than scared.But, seeing blood is probably not a good thing. I was just recently assigned to a new doctor, so I'll see what she says.

This is my wallpaper for December. It's Bel and Fran from Hitman Reborn. Thought it looked kind of fun. Fran is hilarious. Even the way he speaks is funny. I used to not really care for Bel, but as the series progressed, I learned to really like him too. His laugh can be annoying, though. In the anime, Fran didn't show up until towards the end. (He's from the future, and is future Bel's partner in Varia.) Fran is Mammon's replacement, and apparently he has to wear the large hat to symbolize this...He's constantly being stabbed through it. (Most of the time by Bel, who uses knives. But, when Mukuro sees him, he stabs him with his trident.) I'm very curious about him, since they really didn't reveal much. His former teacher was Mukuro, so he's also an illusionist.

My spice calendar features vanilla this month. Vanilla's flavor is awesome, but comes at least second to chocolate, to me. Vanilla's one of the most sought after flavors around the world. It originated in Mexico, but is now grown around the world. Madagascar produces the majority of it. There are 3 different types of vanilla: Mexican, Bourbon, and Tahitian. It also mentions the history of it, wine pairings, and simple recipes. 

My Jewish calendar features 3 menorahs this month. The main one is made out of copper, maker is unknown, from the Netherlands; c. 1900. Another is made out of brass, maker is unknown, from Eastern Europe (that's a large area...); 1800-1850. The last one is made out of brass, maker is unknown, from the Netherlands or Germany; 1880-1930. Cool to see some older versions of menorahs. Interesting designs, too.

The month-long holidays are: National Egg Nog Month. Didn't see much more than that. I love egg nog, though. I rarely have it. It's good with a little nutmeg on top. 

I recently got a new nail polish thing. It's like a 2-in-1 nail polish. There's a solid really dark purple, almost black one; and kind of a dark teal colored confetti for the other one. Put together, they call this line 'Moon Candy'. Mine is called 'Orbit'. It looks pretty cool, but I think I have to do it at least one more time to get it right. Some nails had more confetti than others.Plus, there's not quite enough to tell right away. But, it's a lot better than the previous glitter-like nail polish that I've had. Cool effect, too. 

On Tuesday night we had group, and met a couple more people. Had an interesting discussion. Then, we went to Shari's like usual. I got a berry muffin. It was pretty good, but there were huge holes.Some of them had nothing, they were like air pockets. Some were half filled with berries. 

Started the 4th short story of my nightmare anthology. This one's based on one of my longest dreams. The first time I had it was just before graduating high school. Not sure why I had it, really. But, it's very memorable.

Last Saturday, we went out to Red Lobster for lunch. I love to order their 4-course meal deal. Mainly because it's a really good deal, and there's so much food, I can at least make a couple of lunches out of the leftovers. The deal is: a soup, a salad, an entree, and a dessert. There aren't many options for any of these categories. The only soup I can eat is their spicy chicken tortilla soup. I don't eat pork or shellfish products (for religious reasons), which is what the other ones use. I'm technically not supposed to have spicy food either, for health reasons, but I figure if it's not really spicy I can get by with a little bit of it.Anyways, they were out of it. Our waiter was kind of odd about it and told me I couldn't replace it with anything. So, I settled on getting the clam chowder, and gave it to my dad. Felt very weird. Dad filled out a survey and wrote to the people in charge of the restaurant about it. We apparently got a free dinner out of it. (I was going to write a complaint as well, but she got to it first, and it made sense since the person in charge emailed her back after the survey. They went on from there, and seemed a logical way to do it.)

I got my faves for the rest of it. The Caesar salad, Cajun chicken linguine, and a brownie. The salad was good. The linguine was good, but a bit spicier than usual. Usually it's just a slight bite, not really spicy. Has a kick, I guess. But, this time it was like they dumped the spices in without caring how it'd taste.Like I said before, it still ended up tasting good, just weird. The brownie is always super hot and moist. It comes with a scoop of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup on it. It's all really good, but the brownie takes a while to cool. The Cheddar Bay biscuits are always good, too. Next time, I might make even more leftovers out of it. The linguine is still very filling even though I eat about a third of it each time. 

I've gotten back to being more strict about how much I eat. I'm trying to keep my calories around a certain range. I did this kind of thing recently, and found out how little I can have before I feel horrible the next day. My stomach is still shrinking, and it's amazing how little can fill it up. I figured that eating half of things might still be too much depending on what I'm eating. In some cases, I'll end up eating too little.So, I'm kind of thinking that things cost a certain amount of calories, and I can't eat too much over or I'll be in the 'red'. If I think like this, it seems to work for me so far. I also don't want to eat too little and have more calories than I should left. Can't survive too well like that.Depending on how many times I'll eat in a day, is how much calories I'll have for each. Kind of like another mind game for me.I've decided my range for a day is about 1500-1800 calories a day. Not too bad. I don't want to go over 1800, or under 1500. I still can eat a semi-reasonable amount of things. Just have to be more aware. (With this way of thinking, I should be able to make about 6 meals out of that Red Lobster thing.)