National Cheese Pizza Day!

One of my fave pizzas! Some people think it's boring, but it's really not. There are a variety of different cheeses you can use as a mix or by themselves. There are so many different sauces you can have with it. Traditional tomato-based pizza sauce, Alfredo sauce, garlic-based, pesto, bbq sauce, etc. Plus, you can have different types of seasonings for it. It's pretty versatile. 

The new barbecue arrived this morning! It was ordered not too long ago at Lowe's. They had an open space for today and we took it. It wouldn't have fit in the car, the box was really heavy, and we'd have to assemble it ourselves if we hadn't asked them to do it. It was on sale, which made it roughly $100 cheaper than normal. Seems about the right time to get it. Even with the service charge of them assembling and moving it, it was still slightly cheaper than what the barbecue itself was originally. It's pretty cool looking. It can use gas or charcoal. Good if you want something quick, and good if you want something slow cooked. Best of both worlds. I think it has an added burner on the side, too. It'd be interesting if I tried to grill something on it in the future. I've never actually used a barbecue before. I've used my indoor portable grill that you put over the stove a couple of times. That's definitely not the same, though. There are a lot of interesting Pinterest barbecue recipes. I thought it was interesting that it was already assembled on the truck, and they just wheeled it over to the concrete patio in the backyard. Took them only a few minutes. They weren't very talkative, but that's ok. As long as they weren't rude. 

Got to studying more Russian on Duolingo. I decided to do something similar to what I did with learning Chinese. Every time I study, I'll use the first half of the time on reviewing stuff. Made it to level 2 for the first unit called Alphabet (doesn't actually go over the alphabet), level 1 of Basics 1, and level 1 of Phrases. The last half of the time, I'm moving on to new stuff. Currently I'm going through Basics 2. It won't be at level 1 until I get through all the sections for it first. After that, it's Phrases 2. I'm remembering a lot of the phrases. The alphabet is getting more familiar again. I mentioned that it seems mostly unique besides the Greek letters it borrowed. That's not quite correct. Some are, but a lot of it is borrowed from Roman letters. Some of them have just been flipped over. Like the backwards R (pronounced as ya) and backwards N (it's pronounced as i). Some may look the same as in English, but are pronounced differently. Like, e is actually ye. With the two dots over e, it's yo. P is actually a rolled r, and x is like a guttural ch. (Same as the sound in Hebrew and German.) There are 36 letters. Quite a bit more than English. There are sounds that we don't use. There are even 2 letters that are silent that indicate a hard or soft sound for the letters they're next to. Those ones are unique looking. I remember we spent a while on the alphabet, and probably a good chunk of that time was on figuring out how those silent letters were used and 'pronounced' with other letters. It's fascinating to me how much I remember of it. It has been a long time after all.

Read more of Choujin Gakuen or Supernatural Academy. Seemed like a fluff chapter. They thought Adam had fallen in love with the cyborg Yoshino. She's an enemy at the moment, and Oska is in love with him. She's extremely possessive of him. Depending on how tired she is, her eyes change. The most human-like eyes (like the 'angel' version of her in the pic) indicates that she's exhausted her powers and is weak. She's actually a demon. Her powers are based on her mood. Turned out Adam was doing something for the group to celebrate Christmas Eve. He put lights up on a big cherry tree near the school, made snowmen in the likeness of the group members, and gave them all presents. After finding out what he was doing, they all were very touched by it. It was rather sweet. After such an intense arc, it's probably good to have something like this. Now they're determined to make Yoshino join them. It's not really a school yet. Plus, Adam's vision of it seems more of a community center for the supernatural. The supernatural beings are shunned by society. A support system, a place to make friends, they can have sports groups, clubs, etc. Not really about learning things. Although, Hachi, the talking police dog (actually acts and stands up like a human), was learning how to draw katakana. They only have 5 or 6 members at the moment. 6 if you're counting the 'living' skull mask artifact that eats up a member's misery. That member, Sae, is in the pig outfit. Yoshino's behind Oska with her back turned. It's an interesting manga so far. The art style reminds me of other manga I've read. I like it since it's a bit of a different style than the mainstream ones. 

Finally got to looking at Alliance again. I had to change a couple of things in order to publish it to Smashwords. I'm also taking the time to edit the beginning. I've always thought the wording at the beginning was a bit awkward, but never seemed to make it flow better. I think I finally figured out how to do that for the first few pages. After the first 1/4 of it or so, it's good. Alliance 2 was even better, though. I'll continue editing it again next time. I might have to change the print version to reflect the changes. Then, I'll probably have to submit both versions again to Amazon, when I submit it to Smashwords. Then, it's onto A2's stuff. I'm wondering if I should actually read (and edit if needed) the entire series so far. It'd be interesting to read it back to back, and I might immerse myself more into it this way. If I do this, it's going to take longer to submit them to Smashwords. I guess that's ok. It'll be interesting to go over Sweet Endless Terror again, too. That one's like visiting multiple worlds. 

I finally got back to drawing. Started figuring out the best hairstyle for the Dark Healer. I'm basing it off of a list of drawn out hairstyle suggestions. I think there are 50 styles on it. I want the hairstyle to not hide his facial tattoos/paint. Mostly stay out of his eyes, too. Not too spiky, and preferably something different than what I have been doing for previous characters. I drew it out today and will probably tweak it a bit next time. Will probably start figuring out and draw those tattoos then as well. In the future, I also want to improve on my style for the other characters. I might try to start drawing full bodies at some point soon. 

Practiced my clarinet for an hour. Played the last doina in the Klezmer book, advanced Mozart pieces, and started the generalized (classical and folk tunes basically) solo book. Doinas can be difficult to play. There are 2 of them in that book. They're ad libbed and they have no tempo written down. They have suggestions for the time signatures, but it varies a lot. Even playing it as written is weird. There are a lot of fermatas, too. It's really however you make it. If I remember correctly, they didn't have either of those doinas on the CD it came with. They're the last pieces. They're also the longest ones in the book. I think I'm improving quite a bit.

For cleaning, I mainly just did the cat stuff. I'll try to do more of my bathroom tomorrow. There's a trans meeting tonight, so I'm going to try to take my walk before I eat dinner. We usually leave the house right afterwards. It won't feel the same, but at least I'll get it done. 

National Gyro Day!

This holiday was actually on Saturday. I love Gyros! The meat is usually beef, a mix of beef and lamb, or chicken. It’s makes for a great pita sandwich.

This is my wallpaper for September. It's Hibari Kyoya from Hitman Reborn. I did use it a few years ago around this time of year. I think it fits the theme of the High Holy Days the most out of all my wallpapers. With a lit. reflection of himself (it's a time of reflecting on the previous year), seeing himself (a time of introspection and thinking about how to better ourselves for the coming year), and somber expression (it's both a happy and somber/serious time). Although, that's pretty much his normal expression. 

On the regular calendar, this year the HHD start the night of September 9th and go until sunset on the 19th. They're on the same dates every year on the Jewish calendar. 1st of Tishri until the 10th. It's just that the Jewish calendar is lunar. With this coming Rosh Hashanah, the year will be 5779 on our calendar. HHD begins with Rosh Hashanah or our New Year, and ends with Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. 

The month-long holidays for September are: National Biscuit Month, National Chicken Month, National Honey Month, National Potato Month, National Rice Month, National Cheese Month, National Piano Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. I love all those food related ones! Interesting that it's National Honey Month, considering we have quite a bit of it for Rosh Hashanah. It symbolizes a sweet new year, along with apples and other sweets. 

I upgraded my phone to an iPhone X on Sunday. I wasn’t sure if it was doable yet. I had (still have, but not using now) an iPhone 5c. The 4th anniversary of it was several days ago. (According to facebook.) Doesn’t seem like that long. It was my first smart phone ever. I had a flip-phone before that. I can’t imagine life without a smart phone now. It’s amazing! Like a mini powerful computer. 

My old iPhone had just 16 gb of storage. They don’t make them that small anymore. The new one has 64 gb. So much! Nice, but not sure if I’ll ever fill it up. That’s probably a good thing. The screen on the new one takes up most of the phone, which is quite different compared to the other one. It’s a much bigger phone, too. The keyboard seems bigger and more spread out, which is better. It doesn’t have that lag if I type quickly, as well. It runs faster in general. It also has a much better and fancier camera. I can tinker more with that. I love taking pics, so that’s nice. 

There are few downsides that I’m noticing. If you don’t have wireless earbuds/headphones, you can’t plug the earbuds (it comes with) in and charge it at the same time. They share a port (I think that’s the right word..). However, the battery life is much better than my previous phone. That one wasn’t too bad until just a few months ago. 

Going out of home and looking at apps that are open, closing them out, and going back to home is not as intuitive to me on the new one. Before, you just pressed the home button. Pressing it 2 times for going to the open apps, and one for going back to home. If you wanted to close apps you just flicked them away with your finger. In this one, you drag things up a little and pause with your finger to get to apps that are open. Drag your finger straight up, and you go back to home if in an app or from the lock screen. For closing out apps, you have to press the ‘cards’ for a bit, then you tap the minuses that show up. Maybe I’m just not used to that. I liked the home button. 

Some of my old apps aren’t working well on the new phone. MyColitis won’t even open. They’re all up to date, but I know some of them aren’t compatible with newer phones. So, I’ll have to replace some of them like the MyColitis app. Sad. 

I'm still really amazed by it. It has augmented reality, so that will be fun in the future. The visuals and sound are much better, too. Opening it by just showing my face is interesting. It was annoying at first, but I am getting used to it. 

I was recently harassed by another guy. I mentioned this on fb, but not here. He was rather tall, and it seemed like he was with his wife and kids. This was at the same Safeway as the last 'incident'. The first one was roughly a month ago. Two guys went up to me and hassled me in the parking garage. This time the guy stopped me in the store and was really loud about it. With both incidents they talked about how much they loved my hair, wanted it, and liked how bouncy it was. The most recent one added that it was so 'wild'. I stopped listening to him at one point, smiled, murmured a thank you, and quickly walked to where I was going. First, no one should be treated like this. It was kind of implied that they thought I was a woman, which adds a special layer to it when you're not. Second, why are they so fixated on my hair? Do they want to rip it off my scalp? What's the point? It's not a normal thing for me. So, it's also got me thinking that they're picking up on something that I changed recently. With the first incident, my hair was the same state it's been for a while. With this second one, I have been taking much better care of my hair. That shouldn't mean that I should be subjected to that, though. Why was I harassed by 2 guys before that? Weird vibes I'm sending out maybe? 

I have been trying to be healthier overall lately. I've been showering more often, too. Unless I want my skin issues to act up, I can't take one everyday or go without for a while. The perfect amount of time is every other day. My skin is much more healthy looking and feeling this way. I think my eczema was starting to really come back with a vengeance before I went back to doing it more often. I also have a weird genetic 'disease' that acts up, and my skin's super sensitive. Wahoo! In order to have healthy skin, I have to be balanced and do it on a more regular basis. The best time to wash my hair is once every 3 days. That's a while in between. Most of the time, it's not in sync with my regular showers. If I wait for longer in between, like I was doing, it gets severely damaged, increases in volume, there's a lot more dandruff, and it becomes frizzy. It develops a layer of lighter hair on top that's brittle and dry, too. If it's every day (or every other), it gets super dry and frizzy, as well. With doing it as often as I'm supposed to, it keeps its style, is nice and soft, tamer, smells nice, and more.

I've also been trying to keep track of my exercise throughout the day on MyFitnessPal lately. I'm amazed by how many calories I burn just on big laundry days. Yesterday, I burned 1228 calories. Most of my calorie intake for the day. Only about 300 left. This was taking into account how often I went up/down stairs, minutes cooking, taking in the garbage bin, what's involved with my big laundry days (moving clothes around, running up/down stairs with them, taking my bed linens apart and putting them back on, etc.), playing my clarinet for an hour, doing my other cleaning, etc. It adds up. 

I've started doing sit-ups again. Haven't done them in a few years. It was pretty much as soon as I first felt the colitis symptoms. I'm starting with 5 in the morning and 5 at night. I'll add 5 to both each week, like before. The most I had gotten to before was 95 each. It was kind of disappointing that I wasn't able to make it to 100 each. It'll be interesting to beat that. I think it's best to start small with it, like last time. That way I can ease into doing a lot more. 

I also want to get back into walking regularly. Haven't gotten to it yet this week, since I've been distracted every time. I'm determined to get to it tomorrow. I hope to increase those walks over time, too. Right now, I'll do one 2-mile walk after dinner. Maybe if I can keep it up for a month (every single day), I'll add another 2-mile walk after breakfast. There was a brief time that I managed to do 3 of those. One in the morning, one after snack, one after dinner. Each time there was a different atmosphere outside. The night one is supposed to be around sunset to motivate me. At least, it was at first. The morning one was close to the sun rising. Maybe I'll work my way up to more than 3 of them. However, that might take up too big of a chunk of the day. I might add in running up/down stairs in consecutive sets, as well. Starting with 3 sets of 3. (Go up/down 3 times, rest, 3 times again, etc.) I didn't do that before. All this might make me lose weight even quicker. That's ok. I'm most likely not at the norm weight range yet. Might be close. I'll be physically more fit, which would be good. I won't be caring about how much I'm losing, unless I clearly am skinnier than I should be. It's not about weight loss for me. 

Finished the HelloChinese course. Started Duolingo's Russian course yesterday. I took Russian in college and loved it. Some of it is coming back to me. I don't like that Duolingo doesn't really go over the alphabet. I guess they just expect people to pick it up from the exercises. I looked at a wiki article on the alphabet, and that alone brought back memories. It's overwhelming to see when you haven't gone over it for so long. I now have a Russian keyboard on my phone so I could write out the sentences on Duolingo. That's been interesting to look at. Some of the letters are borrowed from Greek, however most seem to be unique. I remember feeling like Russian as a whole was truly more like a puzzle than the other languages I've studied. Should be interesting to go through their course.

Finished Anjaan on Netflix recently. They ended it on too much of a cliffhanger. I hope Netflix gets the rest of it. Went back to watching Hinterland. It's a Welsh detective series. I remember watching a couple of episodes in the past, but when I went back to it Netflix said that I only watched the first episode. Watched half of the 2nd one yesterday, and it looked familiar. That's ok. It'll get me oriented again with it. Each episode is roughly 90 minutes long. Longer than most shows I watch. There are only 13 episodes in total, though. 

Finished watching Isekai Shokudou or Restaurant to Another World. It was pretty good. The food looked amazing! Better than food in real life. The animation was high quality, too. The fantasy side to it was quite interesting. Their dragons seemed different than most. It was interesting how much they focused on them. Essentially, 2 dragons guard the restaurant in the other world as if it were one of their treasures. The darkness-based dragon became a waitress in order to watch over it directly. (The fire one tries to watch over it from afar, although she does order a lot of curry for takeout.) She was curious at first, since she lives in space. Humans would die when she was around, hence the reason she decided to isolate herself. Like the other dragons, she can transform and appear elf-like. When the dragons normally do this, they prefer to be naked. They can make clothes seemingly out of thin air. She was forced to do this during her first visit right away. She tends to speak telepathically, but was working on physically speaking through her mouth. This scared the customers at first. They seem more like aliens than dragons. Apparently, the chef's great grandmother was a warrior elf in the other world. She suddenly was trapped in our world, and decided to make it her own. She opened a restaurant to welcome people from the other side. Not sure how or why she didn't go back to that world after that. So, the chef has some connection to it. He doesn't have any special powers. He seems to only know that his grandfather and father were the previous chefs. He's just kept it going. After his father passed away, it was mainly just him keeping it going. Then, a demon and that dragon showed up to help and became waitresses. Still don't know how that door to the restaurant from the other world came about. It'd be interesting if there was another season.