One of my fave pies!
(This was last Thursday, but I love this pie so much!) We recently had some. There was far too much meringue and barely any lemon part. Tasted kind of weird that way.
I like when it's pretty much equal amounts of both. Friday was National Rum Day. I love when it's used for cooking things. Like, a bread pudding. I can't drink it as it normally is. Can't drink alcohol in general, because of my meds. But, when the alcohol is cooked off of those drinks, it can make an amazing dish.
I blew the shofar on Thursday and today. I usually sound really bad trying to get a long note out of it. But, this year I've been spot on. It's kind of eerie and cool to hear.
Friday afternoon, I 'attended' services online at OneShul. They base everything on eastern time. So, I have to plan for it to be 3 hours before the time they say it'll be.
Like, for this service, they have it at 8pm EST. So, over here it'll 5pm. Seems a bit early, but nice to at least have the chance to go to some form of service Friday night.
The service part was very nice. Although, I don't like how short that part is.
It's like the basics of the basics. Then, the discussion topic this time was on what makes a person Jewish. The one leading it, I could tell right away, was a convert. Converts are cool, and I treat them like other fellow Jews. But, some (not all) seem to get overzealous or fanatic about everything. Sometimes that fascinates me, and other times I find it a little weird and on the scary side. He was kind of like that. I don't think he knew what it really meant, or at least I don't think he articulated whatever he was saying very well.
He did bring up the topic of messianic 'Jews' as well, warning others about them. Which was good. People do need to be mindful of that. Still, the whole thing was interesting and engaging. He kept saying my name wrong. It's really not that hard. It's a common one.
I think he was also in a weird state, because he was helping the creator of PunkTorah (the organization behind OneShul) with upcoming High Holy Days or Days of Awe services. He himself is leading a couple of them. The creator of it has become an officially ordained rabbi recently, too. So, that's really cool. I think I've attended one or two of his services, and that was almost a year ago. I think I liked his way of doing things the best so far. Supposedly, OneShul is planning to have 10 services during the Days of Awe. (The Days of Awe are for 10 days starting from Rosh Hashanah and ending with Yom Kippur. They don't have services everyday though.) That's crazy!
Pretty cool, though. I'll probably be mostly going to our local synagogue's services. The guest rabbi this time for Yom Kippur said that we could pick the topic for his little 'speech'. Then, whatever topic we'd like to discuss and study during the Torah study. There's also a yoga thing during part of the day. Sounds like this rabbi is more into engaging everyone. I like that. Should be very interesting.
We're also thinking about making Mom's honey cake that she used to make every Rosh Hashanah. It's very good, and I kind of miss it. It's kind of got a more complex flavor compared to other honey cakes that I've tried. It uses coffee grinds, chocolate chips, honey, orange rind, and other things. Kind of unique with just those mixed together. Also, it'll make it feel even more special.
We eat things like honey cakes, honey and apples, teiglach (honey/nugget kind of candy), to wish for a happy and sweet new year. Rosh Hashanah literally means 'Head of the Year', and is our New Year. It felt very weird without Mom last year. Hopefully, it'll feel a bit better this time.
It'll be nice to see the people that only attend this congregation's services during the Days of Awe each year. After I attended the services online, we went to the Olive Garden. I decided to try something from their 'light' section in their menu. Got the Venetian Apricot Chicken. The chicken was in an apricot and peachy tasting wine sauce. Very good stuff.
There was also asparagus with kind of a chunky tomato sauce. Those were good, and still crisp. And, there was broccoli as well. Nothing on them, but they soaked up the sauce pretty well. Still crisp as well. Everything tasted really good. Had their salad and bread sticks with it. Plus some iced tea. We ran out of Splenda, and asked for more. Our waiter came back with a fistful of them, and stuffed them in with the other sweeteners and sugars. That was kind of surprising. I still halved everything, even though I ordered from the light section. I figured I had them put cheese on that entree, then on my salad which also had a dressing on it, and I had bread sticks. If I had everything, it would amount to quite a bit of calories. Made a really nice brunch the next day, too.
I've kept up with my fitness stuff pretty well this week. Only missed one walk. And, this was the first week that I decided to do 2 of my 2-mile walks a day. Kept up my 60 sit-ups twice a day for the week. Tomorrow, will be the start of the week for 65 sit-ups twice a day. I'm already breaking into a sweat with the 60. Wonder how 65 of them each time will do.
This coming week looks like it'll be another crazy one. Might be going to 2 support groups. One of them breaks off halfway to make smaller groups, and has an ally one. And, Friday is my 2-hour intake/interview with a new counseling center. That'll be a long time. But, they say it's to get a better idea of who you are, and who might be best to be paired up with. The other place I went to only had a form to fill out and a short 5 minute call.
Sounds like this new place really takes you seriously as a patient, and not like a number. It'll be great for me, then.Found a new game, called Eternal Saga, that was put out by the same people behind Crystal Saga. A lot of things are similar, but it has a different story line, better pets, mounts, etc. They're still adding new things to this one. They let the players from Crystal Saga become beta testers for this one. I was one of them. So, it really is new, and we get special rewards and such. Kind of wish the wardrobe for the girls had a bit more variety. Kind of cute that my main pet looks like a teddy bear. He's extremely strong though. So, a ferocious teddy bear...
My mount is a paper airplane (it glows, and looks like it leaves a trail of 'dust'), which is kind of funny to glide on when going from place to place. I'm a female warrior in this one. I don't know why, but in games like these I love to be a warrior type.
Maybe because I can really get into the fight. My character level is up to 46 already, and I barely play it. Haven't seen too many people get passed 50 yet. Should be interesting. Nice to play to let off some steam. Also, have 3 friends on there now, but they haven't really talked to me. First time really being apart of a guild too. We're called 'Dream Tales'. Someone wanted to 'meditate' with me before I logged out last time. He wasn't on my friends list, so that was interesting. Through meditating you gain wisdom and experience. Also there's going to be a 'lovers' system soon. Not sure if he was going in that direction...(Logged off when I started to get bored just sitting there, and he didn't say anything.
) Don't really want one on there. You can send them flowers, marry them, go on special quests, etc. It's not available yet, though. Practiced my kanji on the site, JapaneseClass. Got most of them correct, including the new ones that popped up. Dropped Danganronpa. I usually love gruesome/horror anime, but it started to seem senseless. When it gets to that point, I feel like its lost me. So, I might find an old anime to replace it. It'll be new to me, though.
Tsubasa Chronicle is getting interesting. For a while, I was getting kind of bored of it. But, they changed it up. Found a new manga for Fridays, and it's very intriguing. I'll get to that at some point. The new dramas, which I'll eventually introduce, have all been great. I updated my 'Current Drama' list on the side, and if anyone is interested in them sooner they can look them up that way. The only new one (that I haven't gone over yet) that has an actual official English translation, besides Doubles (that's the way it is for the Japanese title anyways), is 'Kamo, Kyoto e Iku' as 'Bitter Sweet Home Kyoto'. I'm not sure if I like that translation.
It goes along with the story, but not really a translation of the original title. That would be more like: 'Kamo, Goes to Kyoto'. Kamo is the main character's name. Youtube:
Another Pandora Hearts Halloween-themed amv (This one might be better than the one from a previous post):
