Anyway, after a brief break I started up my workout routine again only this time in the high intensity. Eh, yeah, needless to say my body is very tired. But it feels so good to be back to exercising. That’s about all I have to say about that.

But WOT! Oh WOT! Sweet has once again graced us with a wonderful cover, although at least you can tell who’s who unlike most works. Except his ever changing vision of bodybuilding Rand. But there is a comment over on Dragonmount that I just love to pieces!

Well, none of the characters look like the love child of Fabio and Timothy Dalton, posing for a romance novel. That’s a start. Also it doesn’t appear that any of the characters are in the middle of busting out The Robot on the dance floor. That’s good. He seems to have grown the characters from hobbit to normal human size, also an improvement. No impossible arm angles that remind me of things I drew in 4th grade.

I think secretly Darryl K. Sweet is a true genius artist. How does the man manage to create art, from scratch, that perfectly captures the awkwardness of a live photo shoot featuring models that have absolutely no idea how to look good for the camera? I would have to go through a lot of trouble finding people off the street, dressing them in funny clothes, and telling them to pose for me in some strange scene, in order to perfectly capture that “I have no idea what to do with my hands, eyes or face” look. Sweet can just draw it up freehand. I mean check out the Ben Kingsley/Captain Picard looking guy guarding the back of the line. I can almost hear the artistic director on the photo shoot telling him “Ok, we need this to be a candid shot, do NOT look at the camera!”. I can almost see in real motion Mr. Kingsley-Picard trying his damnedest not to look at the camera, and failing.

I never would have thought to make the Tower of Ghenjei out of that blue river rock I have on my back porch, but it looks pretty classy. I like how the roots of all three of the prominent trees in the background look like the legs of overweight women straddling camels headed in the same direction. And evidently Thom lately finds himself opting for a gleeman’s cloak with a European cut.

CK

I am very, very excited about this next book. But I swear on the baby Jesus there better not be a Moiraine cliffhanger. I do not even know what I would do.

Even so the mild fear I had that More Workouts would be just a rehash of the original has been banished. There is no doubt in my mind that I will now be doing more intense sessions than previously. My legs muscles weep at the thought but in the long run it is for the best.

Like eating more fruit is for the best. I like fruit. I even like veggies. Getting myself to eat more of them is a bit of a challenge. But I bought a bunch of bananas on Saturday and if I don’t eat them soon they’ll go bad so, at least that’ll be however many servings taken care of over the next few days.

I’m still on a low meat intake diet. OK that makes it sound fancy but basically as I told Kate ages ago, I try to avoid meat aside from seafood. And since I live in the desert it isn’t like I encounter seafood dishes that often. This basically means fast food is out of the question which sucks because McDonald’s has some damn good cheap cheeseburgers. But the longer I go without the easier it gets. Or so I tell myself. It also saves me money (not eating fast food, that is) and that is always a good thing.

The reason I think this is due to two factors: 1) Caraline was purchased in December of 2006, which would be my first Christmas since my grandmother’s passing and 2) Due to inheritance from said passing I was able to justify Caraline’s price.

Of course the acquisition of the other five dolls can be explained by my collector’s gene. If I had the funds I’d probably end up with more than one DSLR. As Niklas says, I’m like a magpie: always attracted to the shiny.

The doll hobby is a way of escape for me. I don’t want to think about what I have lost and even now as I’m typing about it I’m trying not to think too hard. I get so sad and bitter when I think about her death; when I see others with their grandmothers I get angry and jealous because it isn’t fair. I know, I know, life’s not fair, but since when are emotions logical? At some point my avoidance might cause me to crack like an egg.

I’m on the verge of tears (and god knows I hate crying) so I’ll probably just end this entry here and go do what I do best and lurk on DoA.

Hug your grandmas.

I finished the 30 Day Challenge on EA Active and am now starting another 30 Day Challenge. The rather cheap resistance band that came with it started to snap so I got a resistance tube but it’s a little awkward with the Wii Remote and stuff, so I think I’ll just have to buy a new resistance band.

My eating habits haven’t been real bad lately but they haven’t been real good either. I am still not drinking enough water. I think I might need to start keeping track of my water intake, start treating it as medicine or something to force myself to drink it. This Friday I plan to go shopping for food. I’ve set aside $50 for it with the plan to actually buy some damn fruit. And maybe some cottage cheese, although I only like that in small doses. I probably just had a craving today which is why I thought of it. I am torn on whether or not I should get some Slim Fast. The thing is, I really do not like eating breakfast these days. I figure a liquid meal might be easier to handle, and well, the chocolate shakes taste pretty damn good. But I hate buying diet food because then I always feel like people are like “mmmhmm, someone is trying to lose weight”. Which ok is sometimes true but they don’t need to know that!

OH MY GOD.

The easy workout makes you sweat! The next day I decided I should buy some workout clothes.

The difference, to me, between Wii Fit and EA Active is how with Active you go from one activity to the other, whereas with Fit you pick and choose what you want to do which detracts from the overall effect of the workout. It also allows the user to go easy on themselves. Lord knows left to my devices I would not have chosen to do three running drills in one session.

Tomorrow will be my day of rest (today should have been, but I didn’t feel like it) and I think I’ll pop in Wii Fit and do some yoga. See, Fit does have some benefits over Active, namely the yoga, balance games, and weight/BMI measuring.

The next part of my plan is to buy some fruit and force myself to eat it everyday. I like fruit, and I like water, I just can’t seem to eat it as much as I should.

At any rate! I have not been good to myself this past year, like at all. And I’m kind of tired of me being bad to me.

I want to grow my hair out, so I am being much nicer to it. I am back to using Garner Fructis shampoo and conditioner and my hair loooooooooooves it. Oh my lord do I love this stuff. It makes my hair all soft and fluffy and that makes me smile and giddy. Which is kind of sad. I haven’t used it in awhile and I couldn’t recall which version I had been using before, so I just picked the one for dry/damaged hair since I don’t need more volume, and the only other kind the store had was for hair that had been colored, which mine has not. So through process of elimination, dry/damaged it was! Fluffy hair.

Then there is my face. I need some new cleanser because the kind I’ve been using seems to not really work anymore…I probably had some hormonal shift or something. Anyway, I’m getting new product in sometime soon and I will let you know how that goes! Glee.

Then there is food! My biggest issue is buying food at work for lunch. When I stopped doing that for two weeks in December I went down a pant size. Clearly, the food at work is not good for the stomach. But I get so hungry ;-;

So now I am forcing myself to make a sandwich the night before work, as well as eating something for breakfast. This will help me save money, too! But I am also thinking I need a food journal because if I have to write down everything I put in my mouth, I will be less likely to snack.

Two weeks later at work, my ear starts to hurt. It felt like the inner ear was swelling up, although it wasn’t nearly as bad as the past Sunday. Even so, I wanted to kill my ear.

Mother was of no help, she didn’t even have any old wives tales to give me for a cure. She did suggest it might be swimmers ear from getting water in my ear from the shower.

So far, ear has not been in pain for awhile. I hope this time it lasts. I do think my mother’s wild guess about swimmers ear might have actually been correct.

Darkfriend Boy

• Ryne – Mmmm, Darkfriend. I liked him in the books and in the concept art, but not so much in the final artwork. I was so disappointed. Not hot at all.

Lulu, baby

• Lulu – One of my favorite Final Fantasy characters ever. Fave from FFX that is for sure. So much better than Yuna.

Warrick

• Warrick Brown – From CSI (although I cheated and used an image from a Janet Jackson video -whoo, the 90s!). He is all buff and green eyed, and well, it’s the simple things in life.

Lara Croft

• Lara Croft – I like her from the movies Angelina Jolie did. In fact, this is the role that made me fall in love with Angie. Awwww. Anyway, she is awesome.

American History X

• Derek Vinyard – From American History X, yeah…. Ok so it might seem a little non-kosher. Just a little. But Edward Norton was hottness in this role, and well, I guess his macho act worked on me.

In other news, I think I have made enough on Amazon for them to send me money (the minimum is $10 and holy fuck I spelled minimum right?!). I have about $12 in there. Ok that doesn’t sound like a lot, but it could buy a doll thing or a manga or go to the Elnore fund. *looks at Zen evilly* The Elnore fund.

Um. Yeah. Someone was murdered at the school in my old dorm. Freaky shit. Freakier because no one made sure the students knew! The U of A really needs to step up on getting the news out. Although the reporters got the info fast enough.

Back to birthday. My dad is coming down the weekend after, whatever day that is. I should get a calendar. Anyway, so that’s when I’ll get cake. I don’t like seeming greedy, because I’m not really except for chocolate, but harassing Niklas over being late sending my gift is so easy and fun. I just can’t stop myself! He gets all defensive. Kate and Jan would just be like “yeah”. Well, Kate already sent the gift. I just accidentally opened it early. Anyway, I normally don’t care because the whole of September is my birthday month! But…Niklas being late is just too much of a target for me to not take a shot at.

Random post this is. Jan has taught me well.

We had to talk about the value of such personality tests and if they are useful in helping people find love or jobs, etc, and was it of any use for people to know what kind of personality they had. I basically said any self-help that could be gained from such tests would have to be done with a professional, since self-administered tests are highly inaccurate – people like to lie to themselves. And, honestly, only a doctor with a degree (like that guy on Law&Order ) can really help someone with mental issues. Taking a quiz online and buying a book at Borders just ain’t going to cut it.

I said all that and got 19/20 on the paper. Yay!

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