The Eights
8 Favorite TV shows (I have a bad, bad television addiction....I'm only listing my favorite shows that are currently on TV. I'd have a much bigger list if I included those that have been cancelled.) In no particular order....
1. How I Met Your Mother (The funniest half hour sitcom since Friends. Seriously.)
2. Heroes
3. Project Runway/Top Chef (I couldn't pick! It's basically the same show but one has fashion and the other has food.)
4. Grey's Anatomy
5. Pushing Daises
6. Ugly Betty
7. Chuck
8. Eli Stone
8 Favorite Restaurants... (I'm not going with fast food type establishments....)
1. Mimi's Cafe
2. Cheesecake Factory
3. Fidel's (Mexican restaurant in Solana Beach, CA)
4. Olive Garden
5. Roy's
6. pretty much any Thai restaurant that makes good pad thai
7. California Pizza Kitchen
8. P.F. Changs
8 things that happened yesterday...
1. I slept in late (as usual), had very strange and vivid dreams (which has been happening to me A LOT lately), and got my requisite nine hours of sleep. Yes, sometimes it's nice to be unemployed.
2. I made my almost daily trek to Wal-Mart to purchase a few items including more chapstick and a first aid kit for our emergency preparedness bucket. Every Sunday, a sister in my Relief Society gets up to talk about emergency preparedness, food storage, 72 hour kits and natural disasters and the like and I've suddenly found myself on a huge emergency planning kick. The other day I bought powdered milk. For some reason, it felt really urgent that I have instant milk on hand. That and 5 boxes of Cinnamon Life cereal.
3. I made (from scratch) pizza dough and garlic tomato sauce to create a delicious homemade pizza with pepperoni and fresh pineapple (David and my preferred version of Hawaiian pizza). I love my pizza stone. We eat pizza almost once a week because pizza dough is so quick and easy to make (minus the hour it needs to rise) and you can pile anything and everything on top of it. Pizza is seriously the most awesome food ever.
4. I tried on my new Halloween costume. David approved.
5. I went to the Post Office to FINALLY mail a cute little onesie with pumpkins on it that I bought almost two months ago for my new niece. I hope she can get some use out of it before pumpkin wearing season is over or she gets too big. (Knowing my sister's children, her month old is probably already in 6 month clothing.)
6. Only four months after my wedding, I finally stamped and addressed about half of the billion thank you cards I need to send. These cards have been haunting me for months now and I've been slowly writing them at a pace of about one a week. I really want to be the type of person who writes nice thank you cards and expresses her sincere gratitude, but I've found the task to be very difficult. Normally, I would do things like this when bored in class or riding the bus home, but since I have all the time in the world and absolutely nothing to do but sit on my butt, I've found that I simply don't have the time to be bored enough to actually write my thank yous. But I'm very proud that at least some people will be getting them. Four months later. I hope they still remember me.
7. I played Super Mario Brothers 3. The only video game system we ever had as a child was the first version of Nintendo and Super Mario 3 was my absolute favorite game. You can download classic Nintendo games to your Wii console and ever since buying Super Mario 3, I've been on a quest to beat the game, which I never achieved as a child. The best part about having this game on the Wii is that you can save the game to return to it later (which wasn't an option with the old Nintendo system) and I've been playing this game for almost a month now. I'm one fortress away from the castle in World 7 (there are only 8 worlds) and it's killing me! I've lost about 20 lives just trying to beat the dang fortress but soon I will prevail!
8. I washed dishes. Both yesterday's dinner dishes and the dishes from the night before. Normally, I ignore the dishes after dinner and wash them in the morning but last night I was uncharacteristically productive and did them already. I wonder what I'll do with all my extra time today. Maybe I'll actually fold the laundry.
8 things to look forward to..
1. Moving to Korea with David. Though we don't have our official orders yet, we've been "selected" for a spot in Korea so barring any unforeseen complications, we'll be living in Korea in about ten months time. I really looking forward to exploring all of Asia. Good things David speaks Korean and Chinese...
2. Meeting my new niece in person. David is hoping to attend language training in Ogden, Utah next year (around March/April and Conference weekend) and I'm hoping that I can spend a few days in Utah with him, hit a few temples (David's only experience with Utah was at the MTC) and visit my sister in Provo. I'd really love to go back to the Salt Lake temple. It's absolutely breathtaking inside.
3. Having my parents come visit us in Hawaii. They're still looking for a good time to come but I'd love to have some visitors! And we'll possibly go to Maui for a few days which should be fun.
4. Attending a two year old's Superhero themed birthday party on Saturday. David and I have approximately two couple friends, both of whom have two children apiece. We've been invited to the birthday party of one of the kids (their daughter had a Peter Pan themed birthday party two weeks ago) and because David and I were losers and didn't dress up for that one, I've spent a lot of time putting together my costume. I haven't dressed up for a party and/or Halloween in probably 5-6 years and I'm actually REALLY excited about getting all gussied up. I'm going as Catwoman. It seemed appropriate. David is still undecided.
5. Finally starting my new job and earning some money. My bank account has been dry for quite some time now. I don't like it.
6. Buying a FoodSaver. This might relate back to that whole food storage kick I've been on recently, but for the last few months, I have been positively lusting after a FoodSaver. And in this month's book of coupons, Costco had a $35 off coupon for the aforementioned FoodSaver. I can't wait for it to be mine! That, and the blender/food processor I've been eyeing as well.
7. Les Miserables. A local theater in Honolulu is currently putting on a production of Les Miserables this month and I convinced David that we need to go. Les Mis is my favorite musical, which I've loved ever since my parents took my whole family to see it in Los Angeles when I was eight. I've also saw it in London on my post high school graduation trip. Even though this isn't a big Broadway production, I'm still so excited to go. We got a pair of good seats and David has never been to a live play, musical, and/or opera in his life. I hope he loves it as much as I do because I love the theater. Plus, it'll be my first opportunity to wear my new black dress from Banana Republic.
8. Having babies. No, I'm not announcing anything and no, I don't want babies RIGHT now. I'd still like to get used to this whole married thing first and wait at least another year. But, for the first time since reaching puberty, I'm truly getting excited about the prospect of starting a family. Just don't tell my parents. They're grandbaby hungry.
8 things I love about Fall.. (Disclaimer: Fall does not exist in Hawaii. Neither does winter, spring, or summer. They only have one season and it's called hot and sunny. Sometimes its hot, humid and rainy. But it's generally always hot. This list is what I love about fall and what I am missing tremendously right now....with a few exceptions.)
1. The changing colors of the leaves. I never fully appreciated the fall transformation until I moved to Virginia and experienced my first fall explosion. The colors were just so breathtaking, the leaves so vivid, and the foliage so dense that it was almost a sensory overload. I hope to experience another East Coast fall again soon.
2. Halloween candy. Aside from Easter (and Mini Cadbury Eggs), Halloween has my favorite holiday specific candy in the form of candy corn pumpkins. I love those little corn syrup balls of goodness. In the shape of a pumpkin! What's not to love!?!?!
3. Cooler weather. Again, this doesn't apply to Hawaii, but I love the subtle shift from summer to fall and especially the day when you realize that summer and fall are no longer flirting with each other and it's finally fall's time to shine. And then it's just cold enough to require a sweater, but not so frigid to mandate a heavy coat. Sure, it only stays that way for about two weeks but for those two weeks, it's pure bliss.
4. Fall clothing. I love sweaters and scarves and boots and cute little hats. I love wearing layers.
5. Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving meal represents the pinnacle of comfort food in my mind. There is nothing better than a big hunk of turkey, smothered in gravy and mashed potatoes, stuffing and apple pie. This Thanksgiving will mark the fourth one that I have been unable to be with family. But it is David and my first Thanksgiving together. It's seems a little pointless to cook a whole turkey for David and I. But then again, I do love leftovers....
6. The beginning. For some reason, fall has always felt like the beginning of the new year. Perhaps it's because for the last 20 years of my life, I've lived on an academic schedule that marks September as the beginning or because it's the start of a new television season (and I love my television, see above) but fall just feels like the right time to begin life again after the lazy, hazy days of summer.
7. A return to the earth. I know fall is generally harvest time but having neither lived on a farm or having actually grown anything worth harvesting, I have no true concept of the harvest bounty. But everytime I see pumpkins, Indian corn, and odd-shaped gourds in the grocery store, I feel like I'm being transported back to an earlier time when the majority of people still tilled the earth and had a deeper connection to their land. I gain a sense of what it must be like to live a life scheduled not by schools, entertainment, and a calendar, but by the land and the moon and stars. Fall just feels like the most natural season of them all. And having lived in or near large cities my whole life, I love that fall brings me a little bit closer to the country.
8. Fall foods. While Thanksgiving highlights most of them, I love the various foods that come of season during falls. I love pumpkin spiced treats like cookies and cake, apples and apple pies and grapes.
8 things on my wishlist... (Please pay attention David....I know you read this blog)
1. FoodSaver
2. blender/food processor
3. sewing machine
4. cake decorating kit/kitchen appliances and gadgets
5. every Disney/Pixar movie we don't already currently own
6. A romantic night out with my wonderful husband.
7. Pretty pretty purses and shoes.
8. A trip home to see my family.
Six Quirks
1. I hardly ever drink a tall glass of milk on its own. I can only drink plain milk with breakfast food and/or desserts. That's the only time milk seems like an appropriate drink. I love chocolate milk and would drink that all day long.
2. I cannot eat eggs of any variety unless I have some sort of bread to eat them with. I finally figured out that while I love a good omelet or scrambled eggs, the texture of eggs slightly bothers me and toast, bagels, English muffins, etc. mitigates the texture.
3. I don't know when or why I started this, but I always shave my right leg first. I can never start with the left leg. It feels wrong somehow.
4. David has this quirk where he'll only use a black pen. If he's handed a blue pen to sign a receipt with or something at a store, he'll pull his black pen out of his pocket to sign with that instead. I love pens--black ink preferably too--but what I can't stand are pencils. The only time I use pencils is when I'm doing math....which could explain my aversion to them. I really hate math. David, on the other hand, loooves math.
5. I'm a gum-aholic. I love to chew gum....any kind of gum. For some reason, I've been really enjoying Juicy Fruit and Orbit's raspberry mint and bubblemint flavors. But I'm a chain chewer. And I can never just chew one piece of gum at a time. I'll put in one piece but it never feels like a big enough wad to really enjoy, so I'll stick another piece in. And then I'll only chew it for about 5 minutes before I spit it out and put in another two pieces. I often go through a pack of gum per day. I just finished my last pack. I think I need to pick up some more.
6. I worked at the Gap for two years and I still feel the need to fold my clothing the way I was taught there. My shirts all get board folded (when I'm not being terribly lazy) and I fold and stack my pants just like the denim wall at the Gap. I'm suddenly feeling the need to re-fold my very disorganized drawer of shirts.
Since I stole these tags, I don't know if I'm obligated to pass it on to others, but interested people, please feel free to steal from me too. I love reading other people's responses. Thanks for reading!
